Which runes do you think will break the game?

Naalith··2 votes·525 views

Just figured I'd get a little conversation going about the new runes. They are super cool overall and, even with some of their issues, I'm excited to see what happens. There are a few runes that I'm worried are super resident sleeper though, similar to Ivern where they will sit in wait for a couple weeks or months then suddenly everyone discovers they are busted and they break the game for a few months. Ivern, Ardent, Kog, Trist, and many other cases in the past show that Riot is unwilling to quickly make changes to stop a tide of freelo strategies from infesting an otherwise pretty well balanced game, and there's a few runes in particular I'm worried about. Figured I'd call a few out and give my reasoning, feel free to give feedback or comment on runes you're concerned about, I feel like everyone is talking about trading summoners and channeled flashes but a ton of stuff with even more hidden power (and reliable hidden power) are going unnoticed. I'll be going in order of the trees from left to right: Precision, Domination, Sorcery, Resolve, Inspiration. This is going to be a fairly long post so if you're not into that kinda thing... my condolences.

Lethal Tempo (gives up to 80% attack speed after 1.5 seconds in combat with champions, can break attack speed cap) - Remember how Kog'Maw's rework went? Remember how it was so insanely broken that they actually reverted most of the changes for the first time in Rito games history? This rune is going to make Kog do the same thing again, as well as Trist and Jinx and probably some other champs. What's dumb is the broken attack speed cap isn't just from the rune, if you have excess attack speed that can actually stack as well. There are Kindreds on PBE that have gotten upwards of 6 to 7 attack speed just playing normally. I feel like there is absolutely no way this can be balanced.

**Presence of Mind **(When under 60% mana, get a ton of mana after combat with champs or turrets) - I've literally seen no one use this on PBE, flying under the radar like a lot of OP stuff does at first. When runes are up again I'll probably try it, but it can actually be stupid. Because it's 60% of your MAX mana, imagine like a Kassadin with this rune just gaining back enough mana to keep teleporting, or stuff like Anivia who is balanced around her high mana costs suddenly having near infinite mana. It is in the Precision tree so I'm not sure if it's crazy enough for mages to go into it, but champs like Jayce and Gangplank (that guy who buys Dorans RING because he's so mana hungry) are gonna love it.

Dark Harvest (Get stacks by farming/killing champs, use them to deal extra damage to turrets/champs) - This one is pretty weird. It seems like no one likes Predator and everyone takes Electrocute which are the other keystones, but Dark Harvest is kind of in a middle state as far as popularity goes. However, the power this thing has on AD fighters or assassins and even some AP junglers is insane. Some champions like Evelynn usually using Electrocute could swap to this for more late game assassination power, and the cooldown is only 20 seconds. Imagine a Nasus Q on every champ to turrets every 20 seconds, or on champions, because that's what it will do late game. I feel like this will be so good simply for taking first tower.

Relentless Hunter (Bounty hunter but gives out of combat movespeed) - This one is pretty self explanatory, I'm just super scared of it. With all 5 stacks you get 48 out of combat movespeed, meaning champions who usually rely on Mobility boots can buy other boots instead. Seems straightforward enough, but for champions like Talon, Evelynn, Rengar, etc., this might break the game.

Nullifying Orb (Hexdrinker shield, 60 second cooldown) - This one is competing against the highly controversial Ultimate hat so it might not see play just because the competition is fierce, but like, you know how Hexdrinker makes it so Zed and Talon basically instantly win lane against most mages? This is that, from the start of the game and you can buy lethality instead of building items to counter. Hexdrinker is crazy but it at least is a 1300 gold delay on assassins building lethality, that could no longer be the case. Alternatively, you can stack this with Hexdrinker and it'll probably eat an entire mage combo early game, super worrying.

Guardian (Use spells or be near an ally to give them a shield on taking damage, scales with max HP and gives 20% movespeed on proc) - So obviously this one is insane on tank supports, it doesn't even need to be said, but the movespeed bonus worries me. Lots of times ADCs get away simply because of the speed boost on heal and this thing can do that every 45 seconds. I'm also very concerned about tanks top lane just taking this simply to give the ADC a 500 HP shield like Locket currently does, can you imagine a Maokai and Galio just sitting there peeling Kog'Maw like they always do (which is already busted) and Kog'Maw just gets both shields, speeds up, also has a support sitting there protecting him. If non-supports take this, the current ADC hypercarry meta might be 10 times worse.

Demolish (Charge a super max HP scaling attack on turrets) - Remember how I said I'm worried about Dark Harvest because of its applications against turrets? I'll just let this video sum up why I'm scared of this one, turrets are already pretty useless as is: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4QVWeOET2ek&t=91s

Kleptomancy (Sheen proc that gives you gold, and sometimes consumables including ones removed from the game) - This one wasn't in the initial rune reveal so I feel like a lot of people don't even know it exists, it's the third Inspiration keystone. In my opinion this is the one I'm most worried about, an effect like this doesn't have a place in the game. It can give you 30 second versions of old potions like the AD and lifesteal one, the quest reward for old coin so you'll just get free skill points, 30 second version of Oracles (LOL GIT REKT AKALI AND VAYNE YOU CAN BE REVEALED AGAIN) as well as a bag of gold that gives you up to 100 gold, green wards, mana potions, etc. This is going to be so OP on a certain subset of champions like low mana cost poke supports (Sona) or even some top lane afk farmers (Gangplank, I would say Nasus but there's like 4 other crazy keystones on him) It's pretty RNG heavy too, which is just not fun for an item. You're Gangplank and you got a health or AP potion? Lul rekt. You got an AD and lifesteal potion? Good job, you get a free kill. At level 16 you have gotten 1000+ extra gold just from this passive and also have all your skill maxed out because of the old coin potion? Congratulations. This thing is just so RNG heavy and so insane on a lot of the Sheen using characters that I have no idea how it'll be balanced, Gangplank in particular just comes to my mind as being so dumb with this thing.

Approach Velocity (Get movespeed towards champions you CC or allies who are CC'd) - I think the ally part of this spell is cool, but you all know what's about to happen with the enemy part. You like Yasuo with Frozen Mallet? You like Urgot with Frozen Mallet? You like my man Gnar with Frozen Mallet? You like any champion who slows all day like Nunu and Ashe? Well now if there was ever a remote chance you could ever outrun them, you can't now. It's basically Phage speed bonus on permaslow champions, which is stupid because a lot of those champions build Phage anyways so it'll stack.

That's it for me. There's a few others that are worrying but there's been roughly 4.5 million posts about Ultimate Hat so I feel like everyone is on the same page there. If you read the whole thing, cool, if you didn't, that's cool too. I feel like most people will just read the names of the runes which is chill because then they can be aware of them when they come out in a couple weeks.

9 Comments

Ahris3 votes

The one where after 3 autos, enemy will take true damage and will take 12% more damage from all source.

Seriously, adc gets a much better version of thunderlords.

Naalith1 votes

Yeah I actually played with that one as Xayah with a Kennen support. The results were pretty gross.

Ahris5 votes

{quoted}

Yeah I actually played with that one as Xayah with a Kennen support. The results were pretty gross.

That shouldve been a rune for mages, not for adc. It really shows that riot wants to make adc the strongest role in game.

Xion The XIV1 votes

Try that on WW. And then think of combining that and Overheal on a WW. It's beyond disgusting his his Ult is considered auto attacks.

Roam Support1 votes

where are the new runes ? wtf

Naalith1 votes

http://na.leagueoflegends.com/en/featured/preseason-update

About halfway down the page you can build rune pages using all of the major and minor runes too. If you haven't seen them yet, prepare to h ave your mind blown, it's a pretty cool system coming out in a couple weeks.

warpenguin5551 votes

Mark my words, something like this will be meta for Nasus and he will need to be permabanned.

http://na.leagueoflegends.com/en/featured/preseason-update/8100-8128?build=12110216

The Last Ballad1 votes

Presence of Mind (When under 60% mana, get a ton of mana after combat with champs or turrets) - I've literally seen no one use this on PBE, flying under the radar like a lot of OP stuff does at first. When runes are up again I'll probably try it, but it can actually be stupid. Because it's 60% of your MAX mana, imagine like a Kassadin with this rune just gaining back enough mana to keep teleporting, or stuff like Anivia who is balanced around her high mana costs suddenly having near infinite mana. It is in the Precision tree so I'm not sure if it's crazy enough for mages to go into it, but champs like Jayce and Gangplank (that guy who buys Dorans RING because he's so mana hungry) are gonna love it.

Changed to

Presence of Mind For 5 Seconds after gaining a level-up or takedown the mana you spend on abilities is fully restored.

on the PBE. Much less broken, though can be strong on champs who like to go in as soon as they hit (level #).

Dark Harvest (Get stacks by farming/killing champs, use them to deal extra damage to turrets/champs) - This one is pretty weird. It seems like no one likes Predator and everyone takes Electrocute which are the other keystones, but Dark Harvest is kind of in a middle state as far as popularity goes. However, the power this thing has on AD fighters or assassins and even some AP junglers is insane. Some champions like Evelynn usually using Electrocute could swap to this for more late game assassination power, and the cooldown is only 20 seconds. Imagine a Nasus Q on every champ to turrets every 20 seconds, or on champions, because that's what it will do late game. I feel like this will be so good simply for taking first tower.

It will be terrifying on chain killing assassins like Katarina.

Relentless Hunter (Bounty hunter but gives out of combat movespeed) - This one is pretty self explanatory, I'm just super scared of it. With all 5 stacks you get 48 out of combat movespeed, meaning champions who usually rely on Mobility boots can buy other boots instead. Seems straightforward enough, but for champions like Talon, Evelynn, Rengar, etc., this might break the game.

I mean, everyone on your team would have to die to them at least once, so by then you should be scared of the assassin anyway.

Guardian (Use spells or be near an ally to give them a shield on taking damage, scales with max HP and gives 20% movespeed on proc) - So obviously this one is insane on tank supports, it doesn't even need to be said, but the movespeed bonus worries me. Lots of times ADCs get away simply because of the speed boost on heal and this thing can do that every 45 seconds. I'm also very concerned about tanks top lane just taking this simply to give the ADC a 500 HP shield like Locket currently does, can you imagine a Maokai and Galio just sitting there peeling Kog'Maw like they always do (which is already busted) and Kog'Maw just gets both shields, speeds up, also has a support sitting there protecting him. If non-supports take this, the current ADC hypercarry meta might be 10 times worse.

It's like a slightly better Yasuo shield that only procs when the champ is near an ally or uses a beneficial spell on them. It lasts only for 1.5 seconds.

Approach Velocity (Get movespeed towards champions you CC or allies who are CC'd) - I think the ally part of this spell is cool, but you all know what's about to happen with the enemy part. You like Yasuo with Frozen Mallet? You like Urgot with Frozen Mallet? You like my man Gnar with Frozen Mallet? You like any champion who slows all day like Nunu and Ashe? Well now if there was ever a remote chance you could ever outrun them, you can't now. It's basically Phage speed bonus on permaslow champions, which is stupid because a lot of those champions build Phage anyways so it'll stack.

Imagine Sivir with this, item 3046 and item 3022. If she is within range to attack you, she gets 12% ms and is ghosted. If she attacks you her passive gives ms, mallet slows you, and she gets even more ms for running toward you. Give her a Nami, and she can forgo the mallet even longer and get the slow from Nami's e, along with a temporary ms buff from the Nami. Don't forget her ult too.

"There is no escape" Sivir

Caitlyn could also like this, as it would allow her to use her e offensively, using it to slow you, get a free headshot, and a go towards you faster. If only the range was higher.

Quepha1 votes

the summoner spell keystone has the highest potential to break the game somehow. after that, Demolition seems the most meta-defining.

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