InTheory's Runes 2018 - "Equality" - The next step

InTheory·Feb 12, 2018·3 votes·1,190 views

Before you start: This is a giant wall of text. Here's some music to listen while reading. Enjoy!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gB3ZsZG4aeI

#Welcome It has been one year since I came up with a huge rework for what was called masteries back in the days, which was kind of “different” to what Riot has implemented throughout the years. After publishing my ideas for a mastery rework, I tried to find a new way for the outdated runes but came to the conclusion that simple stat boosts are not in any way reworkable while every other improvement would mechanically interfere with how masteries work.

After nearly one year I came back to the boards, weeks after Runes Reforged have been announced and implemented as I found out that some of my ideas were influencing Riot’s work.

However, I still miss the core idea that my (old mastery) system was based on. This idea says, runes should not be reserved for certain classes. Every champion should have access to different tools that, as a whole, reflect his personal play style. It meant, that not only damage carries should have access to damage while also they should have access to tools that are not all about damage – without losing in efficiency in any way.

After being heavily inspired by Runes Reforged, I came back to my old ideas and tried to update them to a better system – again. I took several of the current runes – both keystones and minor runes and tried to design them as equivalent versions for each section that can compete with each other in terms of power and popularity. The guideline is – also inspired by Riot – interactivity and champion interaction. Every rune should be impactful, but most of all it should be something you can actively play around. That does not work always, but can be a goal to achieve after exploration and ideation. I hope this System keeps improving step by step in the future and maybe someday it will be just good enough to be picked up by a MOBA.

Sincerely, InTheory

#Table of contents

Introduction
How runes work
Rune Pool Inspiration
Rune Pool Mettle
Rune Pool Might
Rune Pool Velocity
Rune Pool Inspiration
Rune Pool Greed
Rune Pool Resolve
Rune Pool Strategy
Thoughts
Ending lines

#Introduction ***Before you comment, please be sure to read the following passage. ***

Balance I can only balance runes based on intuition and to some degree based on math. That does not mean that I can’t do math, it means that Numbers alone are not always the number one factor to determine what is popular and preferred.

To balance a complex system like this it is absolutely necessary to playtest it a long time, which is something I obviously can’t do ever.

So don’t point the finger on numbers, they are actually the easiest thing to change. If you want to predict that some runes are way better or worse than their rivals, then just say why you feel that particular rune will not be picked or be picked above everything else (not based on numbers.

Currently, the system does not include AP or AD scalings YET. The reason for that is quite simple: A pre-game customization tool was considered to be an early to mid-game focused system with its impact on the game being outclassed by the impact of items in the mid to late-game. That has mostly been revoked by Riot when creating Keystones. My opinion on that is, that to some degree there should be scalings to prevent low damage classes from having too much access to base damage values. However, I don’t want the masteries to scale too hard. The more tools a player has to scale offensively, the faster damage increases with every step of offensive stats. Gaining 10 AD can be somewhat different when besides your ability damage also the damage from several runes and items increases.

Don’t rant The board’s gameplay subsection has a bad reputation for good. It is commonly known that people here are ranting everything they are not agreeing on. If you are not able to not rant on this topic, than stop reading here and find another post to complain about.

Language My native language is not English, but I try to constantly improve on that. After I quit boards for about 9 months, I noticed that my English in reading and writing decreased without that practice. So please be patient and don’t reduce me to bad language. However, you may hint me to passages that are not understandable and give hints on how to improve them in terms of language.

Discussion Of course you may discuss runes in general in the discussion section, but don’t just rant on Riot’s designs or mine. If you see problems occurring, try to define the exact problem before posting a solution. Please phrase your thoughts, concerns and opinions in a constructive way so we can have a proper dialogue.

#How Runes work A rune page contains 8 slots for runes, with every slot representing a thematically unique pool with 6 runes. For every rune slot you choose one of the 6 runes from the respective pool resulting in every rune page having one rune from each pool. The 8 rune slots consist of 4 primary and 4 secondary slots that cannot be varied. After filling all rune slots you may determine one of the primary runes to be your keystone, resulting in stronger or bonus effects on that particular rune as well as granting one out of 3 selectable bonus stats that are related to the pools subject. The 4 primary rune pools are Inspiration (Rule Breaking), Mettle (Tankyness), Might (Damage) and Velocity (Mobility). The 4 secondary rune pools are Altruism (Team oriented), Greed (Rewards), Resolve (Sustain) and Strategy (Vision Game).

See the full process of building your rune page below:

https://imgur.com/xQFbyUB.png https://imgur.com/Bri1PlX.png https://imgur.com/g5WmHXs.png https://imgur.com/iLqjfCH.png https://imgur.com/FAQtotR.png https://imgur.com/MEsu5Mk.png https://imgur.com/LIGIzvP.png

Problem: This rune system contains of 48 Runes, which is less than the live one. However, if you know what trees you want to go in, you only have to deal with a max of 21 different runes (12 from the primary and 9 from the secondary). In my rune system you have to commit to all 48 runes every time you make a rune page, which can lead up to cost more time especially if you adept them in champion select. Yet the live version suffers partially the same system: If you don’t play certain classes on a regular basis, you don’t get used to their favored run trees resulting in taking longer to find fitting runes as well. Alos, my rune system should aim at not bee punishing if not taking the very best option for that particular champion because there should not be only one best option.

The following section contains detailed information about how specific runes work. Runes can be introduced by BUFFED – Effects from live have been increased or new effects have been added. NERFED – Effects from live have been decreased or removed. CHANGED – Requirements or mechanics have been changed. NEW – Effects are completely new or base on previously removed ones. [None] – A max of slight changes if any at all.

#Inspiration The first pool of runes is called Inspiration. Its subject revolves around rule breaking tools and interactions. Every Rune here should give you a new possibility of doing something you couldn’t do before with Ultimate Hat being a bit more conservative on that point.

Minion Dematerializer is a tool that helps or even empowers you to manipulate minion waves. Watchmaker grants faster access to a stopwatch and enables early turnarounds of close fights as well as special protection from tower dives. Unsealed Spellbook comes with the unique ability to swap summoner spells during the game. In Times of Need brings the ability to cast basic abilities on cooldown. Ultimate Hat offers Cooldown Reduction for ultimate spells on top of standard CDR, while Transcendence gives you the power to exceed the CDR cap without losing in terms of gold efficiency.

Inspiration is a primary rune slot that lets you determine one of its runes as Keystones. An Inspiration Keystone lets you select between 10% CDR, 10% Item CDR and 10% Summoner Spell CDR.

https://imgur.com/78pfUAm.png

(BUFFED) Minion Dematerializer You start the game with 6 x Minion Dematerializers, which can be activated to execute one Melee, Caster or Siege Minion per cast. Dematerializers can’t be used until 155 seconds into the game. Killing a minion increases all your subsequent damage against that type of minion by 3% + 1% for every execution on that minion type. Dematerializers have a 25 second cooldown. Determined as Keystone: Start the game with +6 Dematerializers and reduce the cooldown to 2 seconds.

(CHANGED) Watchmaker Your first stopwatch in the game has its price reduced by 150g. Once per game you can pay a fee of 300g to repair a broken stopwatch. Stopwatches can’t be used before 6 minutes into the game. Selling a broken Stopwatch and buying a new one does not reactivate their passive. Determined as Keystone: Stopwatches can be used at the very beginning of the game and contribute 150g towards any upgrade.

Context: “The League of Stopwatch” meme was made for good reasons as its utility was worth just so much if used correctly. One of the problems I saw with that was the rather low rivalry with other runes of the same tier. I tried to oppose that by a) removing the complete free stopwatch at the beginning of the game and b) bringing up more rivalry with other runes of the same slot. You can still start the game with a stopwatch (450g) but then have to sacrifice a starting item.

Unsealed Spellbook Every 6 minutes into the game you gain a Summoner Shard up to 2 at a time. You gain the ability to exchange one of your Summoner Spells at the expense of one Summoner Shard to another Summoner Spell you don’t have equipped yet. Newly acquired Summoner Spells will inherit any remaining cooldown of the Summoner Spell it is replacing. Changing to smite (see context below) after the game starts does not grant access to jungle exclusive items. Clarity is added to the interchangeable Summoner Spells. Determined as Keystone: Time to obtain Summoner Shards changed to “at 2 Minutes into the game and every 5 minutes thereafter”.

Context: Unsealed Spellbook was a common pick in professional play in almost every role so far. The playmaking potential and the flexibility it brings is something I wanted to retain. When deciding whether to transfer this Rune or not, I was thinking about 3 things. First, I thought about how to differentiate it as Keystone vs. Non-Keystone. Second thing that came up was the increased popularity due to the fact of gaining 15% Summoner Spell CDR which lets you spam them quite frequently without really thinking about the option of changing them. The CDR is now gone until you choose to take it as Keystone. Third is the interaction with smite, that lets you skip high cooldowns by swapping to smite and back to other summoners. Therefore I wasn’t sure if I wanted to leave Smite as an option to change after the game. This is subject of discussion.

NEW: In Times of Need When you are below 35% of your maximum health, you can cast one replication of any non-dashing basic ability that has less than 40% but more than 1 second of their total cooldown remaining. 60 seconds cooldown. The replication is 50% effective on damage and healing, 25% effective on CC duration, slow strength and shield strength and 0% effective on self-cleansing effects. Double the remaining cooldown is added on top of the total cooldown as new cooldown (min. 125% of the total cooldown). Determined as Keystone: In Times of Need can also be used when there is an allied champion within 600-units range on less than 35% of their maximum health.

Context: This rune is potentially dangerous, but I tried to design it in a way that disables the most critical points. I put Shielding and CC on a very low effectiveness to prevent abysmal shield stacking and chain-cc’ing. Damage and healing is put on 50% effectiveness because otherwise having access to a full damage or full healing ability like two times in succession can end up really frustrating. This rune should be designed to give you the edge in some close situations which is why I also added a high cooldown. That’s basically the reason I put a hard requirement to the standard version. I also completely removed self-cleansing effects because that’d be too overpowered on the few that have access on such a tool (looking at you Fizz, Gangplank and Vladimir). I also implemented the “more-than-1-second-rule” to prevent penalty when trying to use an ability off cooldown and getting the increased cooldown due to some lag. And yes, the basic idea is from boards, but I didn’t find that post again.

Ultimate Hat Every time you cast your ultimate ability, its cooldown is reduced by 2% up to a total of 12%. Ultimate Hat stacks multiplicatively with Cooldown Reduction (30s cooldown). ***Determined as Keystone: Your ultimate starts with a 5% reduced cooldown and the gained cooldown per cast is increased to 3% up to a maximum of 20% after 5 casts. ***

Transcendence You gain 5% cooldown reduction and either 4 Ability Power or 2 bonus Attack Damage (adaptive) for every 1% cooldown reduction that exceeds the cap of 40%. ***Determined as Keystone: You gain another 5% CDR at 15 minutes into the game and your cooldown reduction cap is increased to 45%. ***

#Mettle The new defensive rune slot is called Mettle and is all about defending yourself. As mentioned in the introduction, I tried to remove the exclusiveness of most runes and rune trees (now rune pools). Mettle brings defensive tools for both squishy and natural tanky champions and playstyles, yet some of them look still quite uninteractive. The major thing I wanted to prevent is defense that scales with offensives and damage output, because that results in feast or vermin situations that are completely unfun.

Overheal leaves squishy targets with lifesteal or healing accompany more resistant to immediate burst damage. Aftershock grants defense for roles that have to dive entire teams and increases their chances to survive the mess. Celestial Body is a possibility to give low damage champions a way of being tanky without sacrificing too much. Rising Bulwark increases your tankyness in extended fights but also incorporates the case of being focused down. Unflinching is a tool for rare all-ins that are accompanied by the usage of Summoner Spells. Arcane Armor is at the moment the least interactive rune and is up for ideation.

Mettle is a primary rune slot that lets you determine one of its runes as Keystones. A Mettle Keystone lets you select between 150 flat bonus Health, 10 flat + 10% bonus armor and 10 flat + 10% bonus magic resistance.

https://imgur.com/wYt9tgh.png

Overheal Healing in excess of your maximum health is converted into a shield for an amount of up to 10 + 10% max health. The shield lasts 6 seconds and decays over 2 seconds thereafter. Shield duration is refreshed upon receiving healing or dealing or taking damage. The rate of conversion is 40% for self-healing and 300% for healing from allies. Determined as Keystone: Shield is increased to 20 + 15% max health and does not decay.

(CHANGED) Aftershock Immobilizing an enemy champion grants armor and magic resistance equal to 8-25 (based on level) + 5% of their total respective resistances for 2.5 seconds that is followed up by a shockwave centered around you that slows enemy champions hit by 20% decaying over 1.5 seconds. Resistances gained are increased by 10% per enemy champion within 1000-units range. ***Determined as Keystone: Grants also a shield equal to 5% of your maximum health per enemy champion within that range. ***

Context: It was crucial for me to not leave squishy champions with hard CC too untouchable, so I implemented the % bonus resistances and the increase per enemy champion, so that a backline does not draw too much strength from this mastery.

(CHANGED) Celestial Body You gain 150 bonus health but you deal 15 – 4% (based on level) less damage to enemy champions. For every 13 enemy minions, neutral monsters or for every champion kill or assist gain 1 stack of celestiality that increases your bonus health by 0.5% up to 30 (15%). Determined as Keystone: Bonus health from items is increased by 15%.

NEW: Rising Bulwark If 3 or more enemy champions are nearby: For every 6 seconds in combat or when being dealt 15% of your maximum health within 1 second gain a stack of Bulwark (up to 10) that increases your bonus resistances and tenacity by 3%. ***Determined as Keystone: Stacks are gained 33% faster. ***

Context: Here again it was necessary to not become undestroyable if single enemies cannot take you down fast enough, so I implemented the “minimum-enemy-champion-requirement”. I also wanted to prevent squishy champions to get too many free defensive stats just from being dealt damage becoming too strong on low health even when healed up again.

(CHANGED) Unflinching For 10 seconds after using a summoner spell (ecluding smite and such on basic abilities) you gain 3-12% (based on level) damage reduction, 20% tenacity and 20% slow resistance. Casting another Summoner Spell refreshes the duration. ***Determined as Keystone: You gain 5% Summoner Spell CDR and tenacity and slow resistance both stack up to 2 times. ***

NEW: Arcane Armor If your total armor is higher than your total magic resistance: Gain 10% of your total armor as magic resistance. If your total magic resistance is higher than your total armor: Gain 10% of your total magic resistance as armor. Determined as Keystone: transfer is increased to 15% and both occur at the same time.

Context: As stated before, this is too uninteractive from my POV. However, I wanted to give players a tool to deal with unequal damage distribution from the enemy team. Imagine the enemy team has 4 magic damage dealers and yet their Marksman deals as much physical damage than all of them together. Let’s you build against the most present damage threats without being blown up by single damage threats. This is up for discussion. If you have ideas or insights on what problems can occur with the rune itself, what is necessary to deal with the described situation or just have an idea how to redesign it (especially to make it more interactive), please post your thoughts in the comments.

#Might The damage oriented rune pool is called Might and includes different tools for different playstyles to deal damage. The rune options available differ so much that there won’t be a power competition in the best case. Sadly that comes with the expense of leaving some classes or roles with low options to take because most options are somewhat tailored towards classes and/or positions.

However, leaving only one rune in total that is focused around dealing damage while giving everyone free access to it could solve two things for me: Damage on damage oriented classes is reduced resulting in less “who kills the opponent faster wins” and equalizing damage values across the boards, cutting the damage for high damage dealers while giving small amounts to low damage dealers.

Spell Blade is a tool that increases the structure taking potential for AP champions. Aery is a reliable damage tool for champions that can deal consecutive damage to an enemy. Lethal Tempo increases the damage output for basic ability based champions. Dark Harvest offers a good amount of burst for assassins that can farm up. Frost Bite is a reworked version of glacial augment that slows one target to hit combos more reliably and deals an additional amount of damage. Changed Gathering Storm is a tool that gives more power the longer a fight lasts – or a game.

Might is a primary rune slot that lets you determine one of its runes as Keystones. A Might Keystone lets you select between 20 Ability Power, 12 bonus Attack Damage and 10 On-Hit damage.

https://imgur.com/mS9EA7Q.png

NEW: Spell Blade If your AP is higher than your AD, the bonus magic damage you deal to structures is increased by 100% every 30 seconds. This cooldown can be lowered by 6 seconds for every unique cast of a basic ability within each separate cooldown. Means: Spell casters with spamable abilities do not have an advantage over other spell casters. ***Determined as Keystone: Bonus damage is increased by 200% instead. ***

Context: This is especially worthy to reduce the necessity of having at least one marksman in each team. It does not solve the damage problem from the strongest marksman at any time, but it opens up playstyles that include mages as turret destroyers.

(CHANGED) Aery Damaging an enemy champion with a basic attack, basic or ultimate spell when Aery is ready causes her to dash to the first target hit and deal 3-20 (based on level) adaptive damage after 0.5 seconds of the damage tick. Consecutive spell damage repeats her damage in 1 second intervals up to 5 times. After 5 attacks or 1.5 seconds of not attacking, Aery starts returning to you with very low movement speed that ramps up over the duration of her return. Enchanting an allied champion when Aery is ready causes her to dash to that target and shield it for a small amount for 2 seconds before returning to you. ***Determined as Keystone: Aery attacks up to 8 times, shield duration and returning speed are doubled. ***

Context: The new Aery has lost half its damage, so it is less of a harassment tool for ranged vs. melee matchups. Instead, it is now more impactful on playstyles that include dealing damage to enemies constantly. This leaves it open for marksman without giving them too much of a harassment tool while retaining the utility it provides for enchanters. Champions with damage over time effects will also benefit from it.

(NERFED) Lethal Tempo After being in combat with enemy champions for 2 seconds (4 if you are ranged) you gain 20% - 60% (based on level) bonus attack speed for 5 seconds. (30 seconds cooldown) ***Determined as Keystone: Effect triggers 1 seconds faster and attack speed cap is removed for the duration. ***

Context: I increased the burst delay on that particular window of power on purpose to delay the burst that marksmen can bring out. It is still up to discussion how the damage of this class should be designed, but I want to five melees a better window to get to them before being bursted.

(NERFED) Dark Harvest Large monsters, enemy and allied large minions and champions within 1400 units drop Soul Essence on death that can be collected within 10 seconds. Scoring the killing blow automatically picks up the essences. Collecting any Soul Essence empowers your next basic attack versus an enemy champion within 20 seconds to deal 20-40 (based on level) + 100% total essences bonus adaptive damage. Collecting 150 Soul Essences increases the time to trigger the empowered attack to 300 seconds. Soul Essence Drops: Champions: 3 – Large Minions: 2 – Large Monsters: 1 Determined as Keystone: Soul Essence drop rates doubled.

NEW: Frost Bite After being out of combat for at least 15 seconds your next basic attack against an enemy champion slows the target by 40% for 1 second. If the attacker is melee, his empowered attack deals bonus 15-125 (based on level) adaptive damage and slows for double the duration. If the attacker is ranged, he hurls a comet at the target’s location that deals 15-60 (based on level) adaptive damage to all targets in a small area. ***Determined as Keystone: Can be applied to up to 3 unique enemy champions within 12 seconds. ***

(CHANGED) Gathering Storm Every 4 seconds of being in combat with enemy champions you gain a stack of power for 10 seconds (refreshing) that grants 5 bonus AD or 8 AP (adaptive) up to 10 times. Additionally, every 6 minutes into the game you gain one stack permanently without exceeding the achievable maximum stacks. ***Determined as Keystone: Stacks are gained every 3 seconds temporarily and 5 minutes permanently up to a total of 12. ***

Context: The new Gathering Storm contains mechanics from old Fervor of Battle, a Mastery that was missed for many bruisers in the top lane. I put both together because of their “increased damage over a duration” identity and tried to balance the in-combat damage in a way that does not favor high attack speed champions over others.

#Velocity Velocity is the rune pool that revolves around tools to increase movement speed. Out of all rune pools I think this one is has the most variance of viable options for every class and playstyle. You will notice that (spoiler) you won’t find Hextech Flashtraption somewhere in the runes, especially not in the pool that is designed about mobility. I think gaining dashes and blinks from runes is a bad idea because they are not as obvious as having an item or just by being a champion with a fix set of abilities.

Predator grants your boots a unique active that increases your movement speed to roam and gank with extra speed. Phase Rush is a reworked version that works both for basic attackers (therefore basically everyone) or champs with high damage potential. Magical Footwear grants you you boots that are delayed in time but are free and cost less to upgrade while being slightly better than standard versions. Approach Velocity is interesting for combats but mostly unchanged outside of being buffed. Homefront Recall is the only rune that does not only grant situational movement speed, but reduces the time to recall slightly. Off-Road Runner lets you run faster in certain environment, so better play around your preferred places outside of the lane.

Velocity is a primary rune slot that lets you determine one of its runes as Keystones. A Velocity Keystone lets you select between 15 flat bonus Movement Speed, 8-25 (depending on level) BASE Movement Speed and 10% attack speed

https://imgur.com/LzPir2I.png

(CHANGED) Predator Your boots gain the active effect Predator. The active is disabled for the first 150 seconds of the game. Upon activation you begin a 3 second channel. You can move while channeling and will be interrupted if you receive damage (except minions), putting the item on a 50% cooldown. Activating Predator does not break stealth. Upon completion, grants 40% bonus movement speed for up to 15 seconds or until your next basic attack or ability. Cooldown: 150-100 (based on level) seconds. ***Determined as Keystone: Bonus movement speed is increased to 60% whenever you move towards an enemy champion within 2000 units that you had sight on within the last 1.5 seconds. ***

(CHANGED) Phase Rush Every time you basic attack an enemy champion or deal 15% of their max health within 2 seconds with basic abilities you gain 10% bonus movement speed for 3 seconds that stack up to 6 times. Basic attacks can only generate 1 stack every 1.5 seconds. Abilities can only generate 3 stacks at once. Upon reaching 8 stacks, the duration is extended to 4 seconds and cannot be refreshed further more. The effect goes on a 15 second cooldown after running out. Determined as Keystone: Upon reaching 3/6 stacks you also gain 30/60% slow resistance for the duration.

Context: It read quite often how Phase Rush was just a bad version of old Stormraider’s Surge because the requirement of basic attacking would not fit every champion equally, especially not when being in the sorcery tree. I put together 1 and 1, then implemented both requirements, rewarding playstyles that can do both at a time.

(CHANGED) Magical Footwear You cannot buy Boots of Speed, but at 15 minutes (-30 seconds per Takedown) you gain Slightly Magical Boots for free. If your inventory is full while receiving the boots, they will appear as soon as a place in the inventory is freed. Optaining the boots while having no free item slot acts as if they were in the inventory for the purpose of upgrading them with an item part that is already in the inventory. Slightly Magical Boots are identical to Boots of Speed and can be upgraded the same way. Slightly Magical Boots gain 10 bonus movement speed that is increased to 15 for their upgraded versions. Slightly Magical Boots and their upgrades sell for the same price as Boots of Speed and their upgrades. ***Determined as Keystone: Boots are already obtained at 10 Minutes and contribute 300g to the combination cost for any of their upgrades. ***

(BUFFED): Approach Velocity You gain 15% bonus movement speed when moving towards enemy or allied champions that have their movement impaired. ***Determined as Keystone: 50% of the bonus movement speed is also granted towards enemy or allied champions below 30% of their maximum health (not stacking with the bonus MS towards movement impaired champions). ***

NEW: Homefront Recall Your recall channel time is reduced by 1 second (2 if you are under 30% maximum health) and upon completion you restore 25% of your missing health and mana while gaining 25% bonus movement speed for 8 seconds. Homefront Recall’s effects do not occur while having Hand of Baron or Eye of the Herald. Determined as Keystone: Health restoration, mana restoration and bonus movement speed is increased by 1% for every destroyed enemy or allied turret, up to 47% that is increased to 50% if all enemy and allied turrets are destroyed.

NEW: Off-Road Runner You gain bonus Movement Speed when being in jungle (+4%), in the river (+6%) or while in brush (8%) that decays over 1.5 seconds after leaving that particular terrain. The value and duration of bonus movement speed from Rift Scuttler’s Speed Shrine are increased by 66.6%. Determined as Keystone: Bonus movement speed values are increased by 50% (6% jungle; 9% river; 12% brush; 100% Speed Shrine amplification)

Context: At this point I was not sure about how I should design this in terms of being in or out of combat. The current version counts for both, but that is up for discussion. If kiting enemies in the jungle or river becomes too toxic, I’d certainly vote for reducing or removing the movement speed in combat.

#Altruism By introducing the Altruism rune pool, I want to change the way people play together as a team, improve the reputation of having teammates and the overall climate in teams. Repeatedly thinking about how to help other people is something that psychologically influences people on the long run and creating a culture where supporting is considered the standard is mentally healthy and leads to overall better social interaction. Altruism is a space where you are rewarded for playing around the benefits you can grant allies and connects “helping” with “success” more than at present. The benefits from runes in this pool are exclusive for your teammates but you will also be more successful when playing around this new sort of strength well.

Press the Attack marks enemy champions to take more damage from your allies. Font of Life lets your allies regenerate when you CC an enemy champion. Sacrificial Lamb is a very new tool that heals allies when you die, but you have to position properly around your allies when you are about to meet death, but is powerful enough to turn around close fights. Raise Guards shields allies that you position around properly. Bond of Stone lets you take damage for your allies instead and also heals them for a portion of your own damage output. Life-Saver Potion is also a new one time consumable that you start the game with and that has the potential to rescue an ally around you.

Altruism is a secondary rune slot that can’t be determined as Keystone and does not grant bonus stats.

https://imgur.com/WGIbjBx.png

(NERFED) Press the Attack Basic attacks against enemy champions apply stacks on them for 4 seconds that disappear upon switching targets. Applying 3 stacks on an enemy champion marks them as exposed, increasing all magical and physical damage from other allied champions against that target by 10%. Cannot apply any stacks for 6 seconds after exposing an enemy champion.

(CHANGED) Font of Life Slowing or immobilizing an enemy champion marks them as vital for 4 seconds. Other allied champion’s basic attacks against that target heal them over 3 seconds. No cooldown.

NEW: Sacrificial Lamb Upon your own death restore 15% the missing health of allied champions within 450 units and increase their movement speed by 20% for 1.5 seconds.

Context: A very important thing to know about this rune is that its intention is not to promote intentional dying (unless your Karthus lol). Sacrificial Lamb is intended to be a reward for not giving up when you’re up to die but instead position around allies to get at least something out of your death. If the rune however promotes (intentional) dying as positive, it is up to be removed and replaced by a better option. Feel fro to post ways to prevent this danger from happening.

(ADAPTED) Guardian -> Raising Guards While within 175 units of an allied champion or for 4 seconds of affecting an allied champion with a unit-targeted spell raises your and their guard. If you or a guarded ally would be dealt damage by an enemy champion, both gain a shield that also scales with your bonus HP and and gain 20% bonus movement speed for 1.5 seconds. 70-40 seconds cooldown after activating the shield. Can guard several allied champions at the same time.

NEW: Bond of Stone When enchanting an allied champion, redirect 10% of the incoming damage on them as true damage to you instead and heal them for 10% of your pre-mitigated damage to enemy champions for 6 seconds (33% effectiveness on AoE damage). You can only be bind to one ally at a time.

NEW: Life-Saver Potion Start the game with one “potion of assistance” that heals an allied champion for 10% of their missing health immediately and the same amount over 6 seconds while also increasing their armor and magic resistance by 5 to 22 (depending on level) over that duration. Can be sold but does not grant gold. Cannot be used before 6 minutes into the game.

#Greed Originally, I designed runes in this pool to focus and revolve around additional gold too much. The runes did not promote playstyles but where just rewarding players to be better than their opponent, which is rewarding on its own enough. The new pool gives players the chance to set themselves goals they can play around and get rewarded upon achieving these goals.

Kleptomancy is reworked and now only drops a fix amount of gold and vision objects with a fix drop rate. Alchemist is a new rune that picks up of the power budget from old Kleptomancy, focusing around improved fighting power based on Elixirs and Potions. Demolish improves your ability to destroy turrets if your no natural turret threat and rewards you with gold from every turret that is taken. Wild Bounty rewards you for daring to counter jungle your enemy and contesting epic monsters. Bounty Hunter rewards you for shutting down fed enemies. Future’s Market somewhat works the other way around: You can go into depths at the shop, reach your power spikes faster but have to pay for that in total, so you have to make your power spikes work out financially.

Greed is a secondary rune slot that can’t be determined as Keystone and does not grant bonus stats.

https://imgur.com/vYgqPZn.png

CHANGED: Kleptomancy After using an ability your next basic attack is enchanted. Hitting an enemy champion with this attack grants 20 gold. Every 20th successful use guaranties alternating a sight ward or a control ward. Receiving a ward while having a full inventory places it on spot. 10 seconds cooldown.

Context: Live Kleptomancy offers too much in terms of power and RNG. See the Context of "Alchemist" below for more detailed information.

NEW: Alchemist Every 60 seconds after 3 minutes into the game you gain one potion alternating from item list A or B as follows: Exclusive Potions sell for 66% of the present sell values. Manaless champions will always get Health Potions.

Table A Level 1 – 11 Small Rogue Potion Travel Size Elixir of Iron Travel Size Elixir of Sorcery
Travel Size Elixir of Wrath Travel Size Oracle’s Extract

Table B Level 1 – 11 Mana Potion (if %mana < %health) Small Health Potion (if %health < %mana)

Table A Level 12 – 18 OPTIONAL Potion of Everlasting Will Elixir of Iron Elixir of Sorcery Elixir of Wrath Oracles Extract

Table B Level 12 – 18 OPTIONAL Large Mana Potion (if %mana < %health) Large Health Potion (if %health < %mana)

Context: Kleptomancy has proven to be unhealthy for the game from the perspective of many players. I see 3 main problems that I want to solve with the Kleptomancy redesign and the introduction of the “Alchemist” rune. Kleptomancy grants two things at once: a very strong early game that is pushed by combat powers from potions while also helping with a stronger mid game due to a gold and item advantage and by reaching late game builds much faster. Also the RNG factor of Kleptomancy and the extreme synergy differentials between most champions have shown to be problematic. I separated the early game strength from potions and the mid to late game gold advantage from pure gold by separating two different runes. I also decided to get rid of most (not all) RNG by giving some rules to what objects are granted in both masteries and by flattening the gold value from Kleptomancy procs by removing slacks of gold (which are just “more gold” based on RNG) and an internal cooldown for champions that can just spam certain abilities. Last but not least it is up to discussion if the lvl 12 - 18 item tables for Alchemy should be a thing as they would both grant very powerful usage in all phases of the game without a tradeoff. In my opinion they are not needed and the rune should focus on the laning power that just falls of later but I wanted to hear your thoughts on that.

(CHANGED) Demolish You generate stacks on enemy structures within 600 units, up to 6 after 4 seconds. Your next attack versus a structure with 6 stacks deals 150 (+ 20% of your maximum health) bonus physical damage. Demolish will only go on cooldown upon triggering the damage. Stacks fall off slowly if you move out of range. You gain double global and local gold from turrets (45 seconds cooldown).

NEW: Wild Bounty Killing epic monsters and large monsters from the enemy jungle grants bonus gold and experience and 5% bonus damage to all monsters for 45 seconds. Smiting them grants a 30% bonus movement speed buff that decays over 2 seconds and is doubled if the large or epic monsters is killed by smite.

NEW: Bounty Hunter You gain 50% bonus gold from killing an enemy champion that is on a killing spree. Getting an assist on such a shutdown grants the full assist value instead of a shared one (if any) without decreasing the assist gold value from other players.

(BUFFED) Future’s Market You can enter debt to buy items, up to 150g (+15g per Minute), which is displayed as negative gold in your treasury. A 50g lending fee is added on to the amount of money you owe after leaving the store. You cannot borrow money before 2:00.

Context. Future’s Market looks more like passive play than it actually is. It gives players the opportunity to commit harder once they reach certain power spikes to get more value out of them as they have to invest more money than usual to get their power spikes earlier, resulting in temporary item advantages

#Resolve Do not confuse this with the Resolve runes on live that is based around tankyness. This new Resolve pool is all about sustain, both for health and mana sustain. I tried to design it in a way that is not just increasing regeneration over time. You play around your own sustain actively most of the time.

Presence of Mind gives you enormous mana sustain in short power windows. Manaflow Band creates windows of power where you can sustain quite an amount of mana by committing to use spells on champions. Biscuit Delivery is a fallback rune that lets you regenerate resources when you need them most. Fleet Footwork grants the ability to sustain throughout trades as long as you commit to attack enemy champions. Grasp of the Undying is a very durable tool for everyone who has to be near their enemies for combating and are in risk of taking serious damage in extended fights. Endurance is an early laning phase oriented tool to sustain in uneven matchups.

Resolve is a secondary rune slot that can’t be determined as Keystone and does not grant bonus stats.

https://imgur.com/ga8BcRR.png

(CHANGED) Presence of Mind You restore mana equal to 50% of your mana expended for 7 seconds whenever you score a champion takedown or level up. Additonally, you restore 15% of your missing health over that duration after a champion takedown.

Context: The effects from live Presence of Mind is reduced while the effect from Triumph is added onto the same active that you can play around. I decided to make the missing health recovery over time because it can be very frustrating to lose a 2v2 because the enemy killed you 0.5 seconds earlier and regenerated the health before you could kill him.

(CHANGED) Manaflow Band Every 90 seconds your next 3 spells that influence any champion within 8 seconds restore 200% of their initial mana or energy cost.

Biscuit Delivery At 4, 6, 8, 10 and 12 minutes into the game receive a Total Buscuit of Everlasting Will. If the inventory is full while receiving a biscuit, the biscuit(s) will appear as soon as a place in the inventory is freed. Consume a biscuit to restore 15% of your missing health and missing mana over 15 seconds, as well as permanently increasing your maximum mana by 50. Biscuits sell for 16g. Manaless champions restore 20% missing health instead.

Fleet Footwork Moving and attacking generate Energize stacks, up to 100. When fully energized, your next basic attack against a non-structure unit restores 5-95 (based on level) health. Hitting an enemy champion doubles the healing and grants 40% bonus movement speed for 0.5 seconds.

Grasp of the Undying After 4 seconds of being in combat with an enemy champion, your next basic attack against an enemy champion deals 2% of your maximum health, restores 4% of your maximum health and grants 6 bonus health permanently. Damage, healing and health gained are reduced by 50% if you are ranged.

Endurance After taking damage from an enemy champion, your next mana costing ability heals you for 5% missing health + 100% of the mana expenditure (max. 100 + 5 per level) over 10 seconds (50% effective if you are ranged). 15 seconds cooldown.

#Strategy Last but not least there’s the rune slot called Strategy. Creating this came from my ambition as support main to have something that helps me play my vision game. At the same time I often see teammates fail to place the wards they even get for free nowadays, but that’s nothing anybody can really change. Anyway, since vision game is a team effort, everybody should have an easier time when working for it. At the end, everybody gets some specialization to the vision game for free.

Zombie Ward raises own wards where you killed the enemy’s wards. Ghost Poro leaves behind Ghost Poros in brushes you walk in that scout the area. Total Vision improves your Stealth wards and increases your Stealth Ward cap by 1. Oracle Delivery grants you oracle elixirs every few minutes that not only reveal wards but also stealthed and camouflaged champions. Spectral Ghost summons a Ghost on top of killed enemy champions that patrols the surrounding area. Ward Repair lets you repair Stealth wards once per ward to make it easier having several wards on the field with a trinket only.

Strategy is a secondary rune slot that can’t be determined as Keystone and does not grant bonus stats.

https://imgur.com/HVhI68R.png

(NERFED) Zombie Ward Scoring a takedown on an enemy ward summons a friendly Zombie Ward in its place (10 second assist timer). Every brush can only contain one Zombie Ward per team at a time. Zombie Wards grant sight over 900 units, are visible to the enemy team, have 1 health, last for 60-180 (based on level) seconds and don’t count towards your ward limit. Additionally, your own wards summon a Zombie Ward when they time-out. Zombie Wards grant 1g on death.

(BUFFED) Ghost Poro Entering a brush without already existing Ghost Poro instigates a 1.5 second channel that, upon completion, summons a Ghost Poro. You may move while channeling but must remain within the brush for the duration and you will be interrupted by damage. The Poro patrols the brush and grants sight over a 500-units area until an enemy champion enters the brush that is then pinged and granted True Sight on for 1.5 seconds while the Poro vanishes. You can have up to 2 Ghost Poros at the same time. Summoning a third one lets the oldest vanish.

NEW: Total Vision Your Ward placement range is increased to 800. You can have up to 4 Stealth Wards on the field at the same time and your Stealth Wards have one additional health point and last 30 seconds longer on all levels.

Context: Originally, I included an increased vision range, but pulled that back for the following reason. Moving around the map lets you take distance from certain brushes or areas to avoid vision that potentially include a ward. Even though knowing that there’s an enemy who has the upgraded vision would lead you to have to change your whole moving patterns because there COULD be a ward with increased vision range.

NEW: Oracle Delivery At 6 Minutes into the game and every 4 minutes thereafter you gain one Travel Size Oracle’s Elixir that grants True Sight and the ability to detect hidden units within a 500-unit detection radius for 15 seconds. The detection will ignore terrain and brush. True Sight will reveal both stealthed and invisible enemies while hidden traps are only revealed as untargetable red silhouettes. If your inventory is full, Travel Sized Oracle’s Elixir will be consumed immediately.

Context: After designing this rune I wondered how having yellow trinket and oracle’s elixir would be different to having a vision tool like Zombie Ward and red trinket. The most important thing is the ability to track down invisible champions, but enabling you to constantly clear out traps was too much in my opinion, so I decided to leave out traps in the new elixir. I think talking about design decisions in terms of invisibility and camouflage is mor appropriate than the basic design of this rune. If this turns out to be too strong as a counter, I could imagine that number fixes on the availability or duration could bring it back in line.

NEW: Spectral Ghost Scoring a takedown on an enemy champion summons a spectral ghost on that position after 5 seconds. The ghost orbits the death point in a distance of 500 units (moving through terrain) for 36-90 (based on level) seconds and grants sight in a cone in front of it. Getting sight of an enemy champion or upon being killed by such, the ghost pings the Team and grants sight on the champions for 1 second.

Ward Repair Your Stealth Wards that time out leave behind an invisible Broken Ward for another 30-60 (based on level) seconds that does not grant sight. Standing on the ward starts a 4 second channel that, upon completion, raises a Repaired Ward on that position. The Repaired Ward lasts for 30-60 (based on level) seconds, counts towards your ward limit and does not leave a Broken Ward behind.

#Thoughts after finishing the system

It’s really hard for a single person to check out if every champion has good choices within all pools especially when that person doesn’t know half the champion pool’s gameplay depths. You may come up with champions that have problems finding fitting runes per pool. With the exception of might, every champion should have at least 2 or 3 viable rune choices per slot.
What runes can turn out to be problematic if too many players on the same team use them?
Are there runes that interact negatively against each other when chosen in both teams?
How healthy is the Altruism rune slot with its respective runes? Does the interaction turn out positively?
How strong does the availability of vision improving runes lit up the map? Is that too much vision and should standard vision be nerfed according to runes (meaning more specialization)?
Do my runes turn out to be fun with?
How do players get along with my rune system? Is it too difficult to use for newbies? For veterans?
Are there possible noob traps?

#Ending lines

I give you my props if you read until this point without skipping. Thank your reading this whole wall of text (or looking at the pictures lol). If you have constructive feedbacks or questions, feel free to post these in the comments below. I marked certain points that are interesting for me to get other players opinions and thoughts on. I hope we can get the discussion rolling but I also don't want my work to be the playground for unkonstructive complains or even worse: rant.

If you want to take part in the discussion, please make sure that your comments are constructive and can’t be mistaken in their accent. Anyway, thank you for participating in the community!

InTheory's Runes 2018 - "Equality" - The next step

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