Rune System Quick Analysis

The new system emphasises increased AD/AP scaling or procs (dark harvest, eyeball collection, gathering storm, waterwalking, celerity etc.) and decreased sustain ability (e.g. elimination of feast and perserverance) while somewhat maintaining or even decreasing overall defensive ability, otherwise, the “new” system is similar to the old, with simple changes to names, shifts in categorisation, re-organisation of pathways, an increase in complexity (i.e. conditions) to procs, outright elimination of augmenting certain stats (e.g. lethality, health/mana regen, magic and armor penetration), decreased possibility (e.g. elimination of camping buff to stats, and of runic affinity, reduction of mastery choices), and a decrease in flexibility (e.g. point assignment to two different competing masteries and buffing stats with runes).

VERDICT: The old runes and mastery system was far more suited to the game and that this update has been a regression (fact). The current "runes", while inferior in many regards (in organisation, pathway, possibility, flexibility, cohesiveness, and categorisation) are very similar to the previous masteries despite being advertised as novel and game-changing. Furthermore, It would not be accurate to state that this update was a recombination of the old runes and masteries system; what it was, was an inferior redevelopment of the mastery system and a simple abolishment of the runes system. Over-all, the ability for in-game customisation has decreased and several properties of the game have suddenly been omitted.

Notes on changes :

• Aftershock similar to fearless with added features and conditions, hyper-buff (needs a nerf)

• Revitalized change (previous: runic armor, health/shielding boost up to 8% compared to present 5% and 10% (under a condition), however, note that windspeaker’s blessing is eliminated, significant nerf of healing-based champs (e.g. Soraka)

• Coup de grace (previously merciless), hyper-buff (may need a nerf)

• Greenfather’s gift omitted (no similar replacement, bush interactions abolished, decrease in possibility)

• Lethality, health/mana regen, critical strike, armor and magic penetration buffs eliminated (regression)

• Removal of runic affinity (buffs from epic monsters, regression, negative simplification)

• Removal of assassin (2%+ damage when no enemy champions are around)

• No suitable replacement for tier 2-3 Ferocity

• **What’s new: perfect timing (stopwatch, 120g after 6min), magical footwear (boots or 300g after 10 minutes), future’s market, demolish, unsealed spellbook, hextech flashtraption (good concepts barring free boots, demolish, and stopwatch) - progressive gold generation based on interactions (e.g. bandit) is preferred to immediate gold revenue, thus, stopwatch, after being used, should simply dissappear from the item slot (with no possibilities for upgrading, being sold, or being involved in any build paths e.g. zhonyas, GA, GS) **

• Certain runes within the same branch are not equal competitors to one another (which is evidenced by an over-use of one rune over the other two or otherwise the relatively superior utility of said rune to the other two in almost all situations)