Current Direction of Items and Runes?

I don't often post on here, but I don't feel like Patch 8.4 really fixed much. The more I think about it, I feel like there's been a lot of changes that have really brought the overall quality of the game down. It never really hit me until recently, but I'm starting to think that the new rune system wasn't a good change at all. I feel like I've lost my ability to play certain champions the way that I want to. For example, I can't play assassin's the way I want to. I want to start the game with a decently high amount of AD, normally I would run 15 AD on the old rune system or 8 with like 6 Lethality, but now if I want to run domination as my primary with precision as my secondary, I have to sacrifice some of that early AD for attack speed. I never really cared about having attack speed on assassin's because I wanted to be able to just burst down as fast as possible. This wouldn't have been a problem with the old rune system because I chose what I wanted as my bonuses to my stats at the beginning of the game. Now, I don't really have control of that any more. I don't have the choice to go precision as my secondary without having to sacrifice the starting AD for increased attack speed. I know the difference is only 3 AD, but that can still be the difference between getting a kill and getting killed. Another issue I have is with the newest rune in Resolve, Bone Plating. I have faced a few people in top lane who have ran this on bruisers, and it has been completely terrible to have to face. They can run in and half health me so quickly, and I may get 100 damage off against them. The rune practically guaranteed them that they could trade with me without having to worry about taking any damage at all. How am I supposed to counter that? Go a tank? What if I pick before the enemy top laner and then they pick someone like Fiora or Camille? It doesn't even matter how tanky I get then, because they both deal damage for a percentage of max health AND true damage. I'm practically guaranteed to lose against them if they even have a decent idea of how to play them, even if I'm playing someone that I know very well. Top lane just doesn't feel fun any more. I feel like there's nothing I can do top lane. If I go straight tank during laning phase, then I can barely do anything when I start roaming and we start team fighting. If I try to go damage during laning phase, then I will die to the person I'm facing and get denied farm, and then still be able to do nothing in a team fight.

I think that covers most of my problems with the current runes, even though it kind of merged with my problems with top lane. My next problem is with the changes to AP items, especially Morellonomicon. The main reason, at least the main one I know of, that Morellonomicon was picked up by every mage mid lane is because of its ability to provide mana sustain. Good AP, good mana, good mana regen through its passive, and good cooldown reduction. I never cared about it applying grievous wounds. In the patch notes its specifically says that Morellonomicon was supposed to be an anti-healing item, but was the best mana item too. It was the best mana item purely because it gave the best mana regen, and it didn't have to do much to have the best mana regen. The only other mana item that I would ever see picked was Archangel's Staff, because there are no other mana regen items for mages. Sure, Rod of Ages helps with mana sustain, but I'd rather not have to take a bunch of damage to get my mana back. I've looked back through the items, and the only items that I see that actually have base mana regen are for supports. Supports are the only ones allowed to have mana regen now. I guess the only way for mages to have mana regen now is to either build support items or take every blue buff. I don't want to have to build Archangel's on every mage I play just because I need mana. I want to be able to have an item that actually helps me restore mana rather than having more items to increase my mana. It feels like such a bad change that I can't even really enjoy mages any more either.

I don't really step into the other roles much. I enjoy sometimes, but I rarely play it unless I have a friend playing support. Seeing as I don't play support much either, I don't really know what the state of bot lane is right now. I did just face a team that had an AP Ashe and AD Sona as their bot lane, so maybe bot lane is having problems too? I don't know, its possible they just wanted to have fun, and that's okay by me because that's the only reason I ever really played League of Legends. I started playing it in August of 2012, if I remember correctly, and I still play it today. That's because it has always been fun, until recently. I find that I'm constantly wanting to play other games instead of League because these changes have just been ruining my experience with the game. I just feel like the game is going in such a bad direction now that it won't be fun at all soon. I still try to enjoy the game, because I think back to how things used to be and I just want them to be that fun again. I know that everyone likes to bash Riot for all of these changes and act like Riot doesn't care about what the community thinks, and honestly even I feel that way sometimes, but I want to believe that Riot really cares about what the community thinks and that they are trying to balance the game in a way that the community will enjoy. I can't imagine that anyone from Riot will actually end up reading this post, but I really hope they do. If for no other reason than just to know that they still care enough to check out all of the discussion posts from the community.

I want to know what other people think too though. Maybe a lot of people feel this way, or maybe people actually think all of these changes are actually great. I don't know though, and I think it would be good to see what other people think and really get a discussion about it all going. I know I'm not a very high rank, unless Silver 4 is considered a high rank now, but I've just never cared enough to really play ranked. If you leave a comment with your opinions on the game right now, add your rank in at some point in the post too, and maybe we can see if opinions on the changes have some sort of trend, like maybe higher ranked people like the changes while lower ranked people don't. I think it would be interesting to see, and I think it could help Riot gather information too. I know Riot ultimately decides what changes do and don't happen, but maybe we can help give them feed back by doing this so that they can make the best choices for the game.

Finally, I just want to say thank you to everyone who took the time to read this post. I hope you all enjoy your day and have fun!