There was nothing wrong with the last Runes + mastery system

Best Fiddle·Jul 16, 2018·100 votes·21,576 views

So, there's something that's been increasingly difficult to understand with the new runes vs the old. According to Riot, the ONLY reason this was even changed, was to encourage "creativity" okay? Where exactly did the old runes and masteries NOT encourage that? It was nothing BUT creative and more importantly, you were in CONTROL of a much larger system.

It was centered around letting you buy each individual rune and set points you could set in the mastery tree. Now, in Riot's eyes somehow it's more efficient, to just mush it up like a bunch of mash potatoes, and make it convenient for the simple minds.

Ironically, this reminds me a ton of what happens to Diablo 3. To reinforce what I mean, they also skewerd the old system where you could allocate points into a skill tree system, and turned it into some casual style bullshit system. Ironically losing fans.

Ironic right?

Take a look at the example below of the old runes. How does any of this look like it needed more "freedom" ?

http://i66.tinypic.com/nv7byv.png

Allocating points into specific trees, allowed the player to feel more informed of what they could accomplish. Not to mention the skill tree had actually LESS absurdity to the base damage of things like Thunder lords vs Electrocute now. http://i64.tinypic.com/904tp5.jpg

Now you have this fisher price garbage quality system, which actually is resulting in more problems in the balance department than anything the last system had. Oh and the freedom is bare none. So how did we exactly evolve?

http://i63.tinypic.com/14xi3qp.jpg

140 Comments

Zed BossJul 16, 201851 votes

I miss the old system it actually let me do whatever I wanted.

Z3SleeperJul 16, 201829 votes

I remember back when we had League of Thunderlords. Little did we know big brother Electrocute was on his way.

AmazoXJul 16, 20182 votes

{quoted}

I remember back when we had League of Thunderlords. Little did we know big brother Electrocute was on his way.

Big brother? Electrocute is weaker.

Z3SleeperJul 16, 20186 votes

TL in its strongest state: 20 second cooldown, 5s stack duration, 10 - 180 (based on level) + (30% bonus AD) + (10% AP) AoE magic damage (also had a state of 25-15s cd w/ 3s stack duration at one point but I consider the 20s at lv 1 stronger)

Current Electrocute: 50-25s cooldown, 3s stack duration, 50 - 220 (based on level) (+ 50% bonus AD) (+ 30% AP) adaptive damage

I mean, if you're considering that TL is "stronger" because it's AoE I guess I can kinda see it (not really?). But other than that there's really no reason to think that at all.

BobaFlautistJul 16, 20183 votes

It also applied on things like Morg pool or Malz e, making it better poke. It wasn't as good for all-ins, but it was super hard to avoid it.

ModCaptainMårvelousJul 16, 20183 votes

This.

TLD could be procced multiple times in lane in the span of your first back, making it obnoxious.

UpDownLeftRightABJul 17, 20186 votes

Well, you now just don't get to survive. One proc is all you need. [slayer-pantheon-thumbs]

La BelloJul 16, 201825 votes

New Rune system being bad/too disruptive at the moment does not make the old rune system good. It definitely had its flaws.

P.S: Harsh truth is its never coming back.Riot spent over a year and countless resources on Reforged. They will simply renovate current system rather than bring back old.

Phyuq YiuJul 16, 201824 votes

Problem with old runes was you could get resists and it would be harder for yasuo to oneshot you. Now you dont get that option to start with much resists and yasuo gets to easily oneshot so he buys yasuo skins.

BLACK REALM GODJul 16, 201814 votes

the reason it was changed is because you had to pay for it and it was very impactful.

level 30s going into ranked didnt have access to multiple pages of runes unless they spent rp on it. masteries werent unlocked until level 30 so you had to grind to level 30 and spend another month testing everything out. this put new players at a huge disadvantage when playing against higher levels or people who paid for their stuff in normals. remember ranked isnt the only game mode.

think of it like this - you forgot to get a keystone before or didnt have a rune page. you instantly lost lane. there were no 2 ways about it.

now you at least get a random preset page for your runes and the runes+masteries have been streamlined.

are they better/more balanced? i'd argue they were at one point. it still needs a lot of work, but it's definitely better for new players and people who arent throwing 3 and 400 dollars at their soon to be banned account.

Best FiddleJul 16, 20188 votes

[{quoted}](name=BLACK REALM GOD,realm=NA,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=lt7vH4v0,comment-id=0005,timestamp=2018-07-16T10:08:09.889+0000)

the reason it was changed is because you had to pay for it and it was very impactful.

level 30s going into ranked didnt have access to multiple pages of runes unless they spent rp on it. masteries werent unlocked until level 30 so you had to grind to level 30 and spend another month testing everything out. this put new players at a huge disadvantage when playing against higher levels or people who paid for their stuff in normals. remember ranked isnt the only game mode.

think of it like this - you forgot to get a keystone before or didnt have a rune page. you instantly lost lane. there were no 2 ways about it.

now you at least get a random preset page for your runes and the runes+masteries have been streamlined.

are they better/more balanced? i'd argue they were at one point. it still needs a lot of work, but it's definitely better for new players and people who arent throwing 3 and 400 dollars at their soon to be banned account.

If this were the case, then all they had to do was provide a way to reward at least 1 rune page with a decent set of runes to get started. I can understand grinding, because at least it gave new players the appropriate amount of time to adjust to the game and learn to adapt to system that trains them at each level. Now you don't have any of that, it's just got pancaked to the point, that we gotta pay the price in tolerating a newcomer, crying about why he gromp killed him.

BLACK REALM GODJul 16, 20183 votes

[{quoted}](name=Best Fiddle,realm=NA,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=lt7vH4v0,comment-id=00050000,timestamp=2018-07-16T10:30:43.938+0000)

If this were the case, then all they had to do was provide a way to reward at least 1 rune page with a decent set of runes to get started. I can understand grinding, because at least it gave new players the appropriate amount of time to adjust to the game and learn to adapt to system that trains them at each level. Now you don't have any of that, it's just got pancaked to the point, that we gotta pay the price in tolerating a newcomer, crying about why he gromp killed him.

riot was also looking for a way to make the game fresh and differentiate between roles. hence why runes reforged didnt just use the old mastery system. it was meant to play better overall, but not necessarily cater to every play style. i cant speak for riot but the game design motive is pretty clear. before you had 18+12 or 6+6+18. or in weird cases 12 12 6 (no keystone) and those were the only build paths. so i dont honestly think the old system gave more freedom. now you can get 4 and 2 of anything. (18 points for a keystone which means you had to be at least level 18 to even stand a chance and the 12 remaining points were scattered between the other two paths)

yes they could have rewarded rune pages, but then that defeats the entire purpose of choosing runes yourself and still prevents a new player from using their own strategy and skill to overcome their opponent. riot tried to limit the runes in the marketplace, but there were still unique runes that players were using from events and in order to use level 3 runes you had to be a certain level. they tried getting rid of level 1's and using level 2's as a way for lower level players to get used to the runes system by only charging 1 IP each, but it still didnt change the fact that players were investing their earned in game currency into a system that was essentially pay or play to win.

there's a chart somewhere that shows how much of a difference a good expensive set of runes made from a cheap set that was built piece by piece. i refuse to go look for it because the new rune system has flooded google and i dont feel like i need to show it since it's obvious that 5% lifesteal at level 1 combined with 3% from doran blade/or a machete made certain junglers able to sustain through pretty much anything. this of course affected who could and couldnt jungle. penetration was rampant because if you could deal true damage level 1 why wouldnt you? it was more about who had the better runes than it was about who knew how to build their champ. and since you couldnt change that after you joined a lobby you were stuck with being at a disadvantage from the champ select screen.

yes you had the option of changing up masteries, but you couldnt change runes. they both did the same thing with runes giving you flat stats and masteries giving you unique effects like thunderlords and windspeakers blessing. so now you get your flat stats from your combination (sorcery+___, etc.) and you get your unique effects from the runes. and it's all free. a level 1 can be just as good as a level 30 if they know what's OP. this is more "pure" from both a marketing standpoint and a gameplay standpoint if the game is to be truly competitive.

you still have to reach level 30 to play ranked. that's more than enough of an adequate gauntlet for a new player to grasp the concepts of the game. mobas arent as uncommon as they used to be and with twitch, beam, and youtube among other stream sites showcasing a ton of esports most new players of todays time have a decent understanding of the basics. they may not know the meta and if they're a casual player they'll have a hard time with the game in general, but there's more to this game than just climbing ranked ladders.

sticking a pointless grind into a free to play game based on the assumption that players wont know how to play is not only asinine, but looks shady from a business point of view. it makes it seem like you're just milking new players for RP so they dont have to grind. the lure of these types of games is the constant content and the competition. everything else is fluff to support the developers. why do you think costumes like elementalist lux cost $30?

would you rather a company rely on forcing players to skip the grinding process in order to go straight to competitive mode for their income or on their cosmetics? me personally i'd rather it be the cosmetics.

Gramps69Jul 16, 20189 votes

So why not just unlock all runes/rune slots for all players, and grant access to all 30 points in masteries right when a player starts? That way they can experiment with all possible combinations starting at level 1, and they still need to grind to level 30 before going into ranked, at which point they should be much better prepared since they've had 30 levels to experiment with runes/masteries.

If they want to spend RP on extra rune pages, they can still do that. For newer players, there are so many champions now that I doubt rito would miss out on champion sales for RP from newbies, and removing old runes eliminated the IP/BE spent on them anyways.

BLACK REALM GODJul 16, 20181 votes

{quoted}

So why not just unlock all runes/rune slots for all players, and grant access to all 30 points in masteries right when a player starts? That way they can experiment with all possible combinations starting at level 1, and they still need to grind to level 30 before going into ranked, at which point they should be much better prepared since they've had 30 levels to experiment with runes/masteries.

If they want to spend RP on extra rune pages, they can still do that. For newer players, there are so many champions now that I doubt rito would miss out on champion sales for RP from newbies, and removing old runes eliminated the IP/BE spent on them anyways.

because it was an old system that was stagnant and there's no reason to have 3 systems for something that doesnt bring in RP profits and essentially does the exact same thing. you have to remember riot at one point even cut the item builder stating that 3rd party sites/apps could be used in place of it.

the league client for what it's worth provides quite a bit of information about the game and still manages to be played on some pretty outdated hardware.

if we're being realistic here the reason the old runes and mastery system were removed is because it was bulky. thats pretty much it. once runes were set to be all but removed and the only thing left was going to be masteries they opted to enhance the mastery paths and for whatever reason decided to call the new masteries runes.

what really happened was runes were removed completely and you now had to use your rune pages for masteries. and you can't deny that it made things simpler. because it did.

and to the argument that old masteries allowed more freedom? you're lying to yourself if you think that. as stated earlier you were given 3 choices and one of those was sub optimal on almost the entire roster. in very niche situations could you get away with some form of 6 12 12. if we talk about the old keystones alone you were given the option of 3 paths cunning ferocity and resolve each with 3 or so keystones. that only allows for about 27 types of builds if you dont nitpick what you choose on the subtype. with the new runes reforged you get 20 paths alone just from combining primary and secondary. that doesnt account for unique keystone. according to the wiki because i absolutely refuse to do the math there are 59346 combinations that can be achieved with the new rune system. the old rune system didnt even come close to that. and it definitely didnt add any sort of unique gameplay.

just to put it into perspective. you were given 2-3 choices with the old mastery system and every other choice involved 5 points then 1 point. so your keystone was chosen last. a total of 9 keystones. obviously we have way more than that with the new system. you had 6 tiers of masteries. so essentially you had 1 of 2, 1 of 3, 1 of 2, 1 of 3, 1 of 2, 1 of 3. and then you'd get your remaining 12 points and either get a tier 4 or two tier 2 masteries. runes reforged doesnt have a tier system. instead it has a pick 1of 3-4 x3 and pick 1 of 3-4 x2 system which allows more flexibility alongside the keystone. and the devs dont have to try and balance a scale for triumph based on how many points you have in it and can just balance it in general since it's either a have or dont have.

Gramps69Jul 16, 20189 votes

It's probably just a matter of perspective, but I enjoyed the game more when champions were defined by their kit and build, instead of being defined and balanced entirely around a keystone.

Back before runes reforged, the masteries were more of a slight bonus. Currently, runes provide way too much to champions. I mean, back in the day you would maybe be able to tell what masteries someone took, but for the most part it didn't matter because they were just small little bonuses that each player specifically chose to make their laning/late game/etc. easier. You didn't have to play around "oh do they have electrocute up? can't go in now" "is conqueror going to proc if we fight? don't want that".

I think the new runes, especially the keystones, just provide way too much, and don't let champions' kits truly shine.

FaneseekerJul 16, 20184 votes

I too remember the hardship of starting out in lane with no runes vs someone with full runes. It was painful because they can poke and sustain so much more. Definitely more pay to win on that aspect. Though the change is not perfect but I feel it's in the right direction as the game matures.

DavakenJul 16, 201814 votes

The old system had plenty of problems. Not saying the new one is flawless, but the old one definitely had a lot of core design problems that made changes to it necessary.

The biggest difference between the new and old system is the way choices are made. In the old rune system, you had an almost overwhelming amount of choices, yet not a single of them felt impactful on its own. Sure, you could probaly feel the difference between a full armor rune page + a fully defensive mastery page and a fully offensive rune + mastery page, but the individual choices were barely noticeable. Let's compare:

In the new system, you pick 5 runes. That means you will have 5 choices in total in pregame for runes and masteries. Every single one of these choices can clearly be felt in-game. Versus:

In the old system you had 30 runes total, and your masteries gave you 30 points to put in the mastery trees. This means the old system had 60 individual choices, yet not a single one felt individually impactful in game, except maybe for the Keystone you picked.

Considering that you also have to choose role, champion, summoner spells and skin in the pregame, I think you could easily make the argument that the old system had too many choices that didn't feel interesting or impactful at all. Reducing them to less, more impactful choices makes for a much smoother and less confusing champ select, and also encourages new playstyles and builds. That is, at least the idea behind it.

WolfeurJul 16, 20189 votes

"You were in control", "More customization", "More options"

Proceeds to copy the runes and masteries with best winrate on op.gg

UpDownLeftRightABJul 17, 20183 votes

It's easier to copy someone else than do their own homework. I mean, they must be right. Hopefully they copied the right one.

JeikuJul 16, 20188 votes

Not to mention old runes were key on some champs that needed extra early game base stats.

toastMonkeyJul 16, 20188 votes

Politely disagree with OP.

Been playing long enough to use both systems.

Old runes were really linear and cumbersome from my experience. The majority of build and champion guides suggested a very predictable set of basic runes setups. Diversity was very minimal and there always obvious optimal calibrations.

Reworked masteries were an upgrade (and a template for the Runes Reforged project). Keystones were considered hard to balance and were likely on of the key balance nightmares for the game overall (league of Thunderlords for example).

Runes Reforged has the same general format of the reworked masteries, and the same balance nightmare of the Keystone masteries in the Keystone Runes. The real advantage is the single interface for the pre-match calibration.

Since Runes Reforged has been released, I've actually perused my pages to make changes before a match starts - instead of finding my champ-n-role-specific mastery page and generic rune page with the obvious optimal calibration.

Runes Reforged has issues - many inherited from the Keystone power balance issue. But its definitely simpler, sleeker, and easier to use as a pre-game mechanic for the game.

A treespook nestJul 16, 20187 votes

The old system definitely allowed for more diversity and freedom, but it was difficult to read for new players. :/ Pretty sure that is all.

Best FiddleJul 16, 201815 votes

[{quoted}](name=A treespook nest,realm=NA,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=lt7vH4v0,comment-id=0002,timestamp=2018-07-16T09:46:46.246+0000)

The old system definitely allowed for more diversity and freedom, but it was difficult to read for new players. :/ Pretty sure that is all.

Lots of players that started playing back in the day, figured out the mastery and runes system wasn't that hard. Now, theres this idea that somehow, new players today need to be cradled, all the while butchering the game in half is completely okay.

BumblerrJul 16, 20181 votes

I think riot was just trying to find a way to make the game more accessible. They are a company after all and reeling in more players and keeping them playing will end up making them more successful.

Yes, they dumbed the old system down, not because they think new players are stupid, but because you can get into a game a lot faster without having to look up which runes go best with whatever champ. Plus, it's kinda discouraging to look up a full rune page and realize how much time you'll have to invest to at least be at a baseline competitive level. That's also exactly why, around the same time, they made leveling pre 30 so much faster and with more rewards. It keeps players invested and doesn't feel so grindy when you get something new and shiny every few games

A game that's easier to jump into just has a higher retention rate which will keep riot profitable longer. Not saying it's cool for older players but it's what they did.

OverlordVladJul 17, 20182 votes

The problem here is a rune setup is so much more impactful most players are MORE reliant on rune setups encouraging cookie cutter builds even more. Your other point is accurate, but is something that could've easily been fixed by just giving us all runes like they do now.

SasogwaJul 16, 20186 votes

[{quoted}](name=A treespook nest,realm=NA,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=lt7vH4v0,comment-id=0002,timestamp=2018-07-16T09:46:46.246+0000)

The old system definitely allowed for more diversity and freedom, but it was difficult to read for new players. :/ Pretty sure that is all.

Meh. I met a lot of newer players and when we talked about runes, they were just copying what they saw on guides or streamers and didn't even want to think about it. Quite sad, really.

The bigger problem for me is that "runes reforged" is just outright "masteries reforged and we give you base stats depending on your tree, no need to even think about that anymore"

DNFVixenJul 16, 20185 votes

i agree. there is a lot of marit in the old system and this system fails

ModCaptainMårvelousJul 16, 20185 votes

Take a look at the example below of the old runes. How does any of this look like it needed more "freedom" ?

Well.....

The dirty secret is that there was a right runepage. I know, I know, people are going to despise me for saying it but Runes were solved since...well, Season 3 or so. Now, of course, there's going to be that guy who tells me "But hey hang on what about my 1% crit/extremely niche page I went in 1 out of every thousand match-ups?" Sure, those existed, but by-and-large they were not common nor picked all that often. Most situations had you run the same/similar runes on most types of champs. Scaling MR, flat armor, Armor Pen/Magic Pen in most cases. Two rune pages could carry you through everything.

Same deal with masteries. Oh sure, there was always that guy who proclaimed his 10/10/9 mastery set-up was the secret op. You know what we did with that guy? We wrote him off as a lunatic because it was a bad choice. In almost all situations, you always wanted the exact same masteries depending on AP/AD Damage, Tank/Bruiser or Support.

Are runes right now perfect 100% the BEST REPLACEMENT EVER? No, they still need work and some choices/trees need a bit more flavor. However, old runes and masteries -were- a problematic system that needed more than number changes.

(Additionally, if you really left it up to me? Fuck it, get rid of all pre-game systems and just make it about in-game and nothing else.)

Automated RivenJul 17, 20183 votes

I'm in favor of the fuck it comment. Way easier balancing.

However I did have and used regularly 13 rune pages for riven. And I am fairly certain that most riven players had more then 1 rune page for her. (maybe it's just riven) but most champions would swap out mr for flat HP or scaling HP yellows depending on the matchup. You would have some mages which would also swap out cdr blues for AP blues depending on the matchup. Also there were a few things which were so similar in power that it depended on personal preference. Like scaling ad and flat ad. (Became even at level 6 and scaling was better after) neither was a bad choice but of course flat ad gave you a much better lane. But scaling on a safe laner like cait or something was super good also.

Runes may have been cracked. But the rune pages actually swapped around alot as people and the meta changed. And the difference between a subpar rune page and a cracked rune page was pretty minimal. (think taking armor seals instead of scaling HP in midlane) the scaling HP was slightly better later in the game. But armor was better early for the ranged aa harass.

Also. Taking a subpar rune page now is significantly more damaging then it used to be. So for example riven, if you take electrocute toplane your going to lose if your opposing laner isn't completely braindead. (or a squishy ranged matchup) but if you take that shit into renekton you just lose, hard. Vs taking any of the 'good runes' which into renekton is either Aftershock or grasp. Because after you proc electrocute he just kills you. If you can't 100-0 with that choice you just lose. IMHO runes are far more punishing now then they used to be.

Summonah12369Jul 16, 20184 votes

I honestly didn't understand why they had to specifically change the name and icon for IP, I understand they wanted to change how much you get. But I don't see why change the name and icon... really useless.

BLACK REALM GODJul 16, 20186 votes

{quoted}

I honestly didn't understand why they had to specifically change the name and icon for IP, I understand they wanted to change how much you get. But I don't see why change the name and icon... really useless.

it's for impact. blue essence sounds more dramatic than influence points. that's pretty much it. and the whole hextec crafting system evolved piece by piece. but if you remember it used to be harder to earn IP and BE individually. you'd get IP and that'd let you buy stuff from the shop. if you wanted champion shards in order to upgrade your mastery to level 6 or 7 you needed BE. there were a few other things, but for the most part BE wasnt used for anything other than mastery upgrades or random early champion unlocks - which required you to gamble IP that could be used for other things. so it made sense to combine them and remove some of the gambling aspect. now instead of buying champion shards you just get them when you level up. and they no longer act like a slot machine effect and instead they're a reward for playing the game. you get a random set of champ shards and if you see one you want to play you can get it at a discount. if not you can disenchant for BE which gives you access to anything BE based. but the whole reason why BE was kept over IP is plain and simple. Blue Essence sounds "cooler" and works with the crafting system. i guess too it separates the free currency from paid currency like riot points. and orange essence would have been weird on its own.

JanakinJul 16, 20184 votes

And the sad part is, that no matter how worse the new system is compared to the old one, they will not revert it due to the amount of money they had to invest into it.

NY64Jul 16, 20184 votes

The new runes are honestly better. Old runes and masteries actually had less freedom than the new runes. If you were adc all you got was a bit of ad runes and only attack speed runes. If you were a tank, you only got health runes. No matter what adc you played, you would get the same runes as every other adc. No matter what tank you played, you got the same runes as every other tank.

This also applies to all the other classes and because of the fact there was only one rune setup that was the best, they might as well been bonus stats for these champions. That’s why when runes reforged came, they gave all the champions the stats they had from their old rune pages for free by putting them directly into the champion.

As for masteries, well that was even a bigger mess. In each branch one mastery was far better than the rest and the only reason you would not pick that one best mastery would be if that mastery was not good for your champ.

At least when I play an adc now with the new runes, I get to keep asking myself “Do I want to go into sorcery for more damage, or do I want inspiration to play safer?”

Gramps69Jul 16, 20185 votes

Except they didn't give those champs those stats for free-- what happened to the +9 armor I would run on all my mages? I go into lane against as Malzahar against Yasuo with 17 armor now

Akali PrimeJul 16, 20184 votes

I agree but why is everyone just now complaining about it?

KeevalroyJul 16, 20184 votes

In my defense, I've been complaining about it since preseason 6 but people are finally opening their eyes and have caught on I guess.

Let's talk about the arguments though - the most common defense I see for the new ones is "they're free," which is asinine, because let's assume that tier 1 and 2 runes were never a thing, and the old runes and masteries have all 30 slots unlocked at level 1, and instead of trying to force the systems to make sense for new players...why not create tutorials for how they work with a second, slightly more advanced tutorial showing how if you take armor yellows against a Zed, you'll last longer and because he doesn't do magic damage, MR runes are useless, or how Anivia doesn't do physical damage, so maybe taking MR blues and health yellows might be a good idea.

The second one is the lack of ability to switch them on the fly without having to pay for more pages. What if you could? And that more pages were just for convenience so you didn't have to keep switching? That solves another issue.

The third most common...is unfortunately debatable even though I strongly disagree - the idea that this new system provides "more freedom" than previous iterations. My view is that it gives the illusion of more freedom just because there are more choices...ignoring that most of those choices are ass on the champion you are playing because the keystones you're choosing between have warped the game so much and powercreeped it to shit. Yes, they feel more impactful than the old ones, and that impact has caused champions to be hotfixed because of keystones being abused, and having them balanced around their mastery choices rather than how they play...thus restricting their flexibility.

HyquiemJul 16, 20184 votes

I miss the old system, it made want to experiment. Also, double edged sword was one of THE BEST MASTERIES IN THE ENTIRE GAME! Also I miss my blue lighting bolt.

Jerry SeinfeIdJul 16, 20183 votes

how is the current system worse than masteries in the previous system?

You act like some crazy big changes happened that actually changed runes, but in realityy they just removed the rune system and "buffed" the mastery system.

-removing the runes system: good, fuck that shit. On paper it's cool, you get to give your champ a selection of stats that you completely customized yourself. In reality it was god awfull as you had to sell an arm and a leg to get any of them.

-Upgrading the mastery system Mixed feelings about this one. On one hand it's making certain playstyles better, but others impossible. The problem right now is that you have to find a setup that works well with your kit AND playstyle. This is much easier to do when everything they give you is just number changes. number changes are less exciting than actual effects tho.

Imo i wouldn't mind going back to the old masteries, old masteries and runes (if made free), staying in the current system or even removing these extra stats completely. The most important thing about it is that it should come secondary to champions.

Professor WardJul 16, 20182 votes

[{quoted}](name=Jerry SeinfeId,realm=EUW,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=lt7vH4v0,comment-id=0029,timestamp=2018-07-16T17:08:12.587+0000)

how is the current system worse than masteries in the previous system?

You act like some crazy big changes happened that actually changed runes, but in realityy they just removed the rune system and "buffed" the mastery system.

-removing the runes system: good, fuck that shit. On paper it's cool, you get to give your champ a selection of stats that you completely customized yourself. In reality it was god awfull as you had to sell an arm and a leg to get any of them.

-Upgrading the mastery system Mixed feelings about this one. On one hand it's making certain playstyles better, but others impossible. The problem right now is that you have to find a setup that works well with your kit AND playstyle. This is much easier to do when everything they give you is just number changes. number changes are less exciting than actual effects tho.

Imo i wouldn't mind going back to the old masteries, old masteries and runes (if made free), staying in the current system or even removing these extra stats completely. The most important thing about it is that it should come secondary to champions.

the net gain was higher base damage and lower base defenses, which is considered the largest problem in league of legends currently.

THE RlVER KlNGJul 16, 20183 votes

i think keystones have been the worst change riot has ever implemented and have really ruined game balance for 3 seasons now

i would not be opposed in the slightest to scrapping them entirely, and reverting runes back to what they were so long as they were free

but riot will never do that bc they hate admitting theyre wrong

2BeholdJul 17, 20183 votes

Im just going to point out old rune system was just the worst. Like i don't know about you but it took me weeks to finish a single set of meta runes. If they were free that makes a whole new problem of a ton of stuff to do for very little overall impact on the game. Masteries were the better system. the new runes just combine the two systems. They are all free, there aren't a billion choices, and as a player you actually feel a difference when you switch your runes. Im not saying new runes are perfect but in my opinion they feel better.

MadSeerJul 16, 20182 votes

I feel like a mix of the new runes reforged to replace the masteries system and keep something similar to the old runes would have been best. Also everyone would have access to all the runes and there wouldn't be any lower tier ones, that was a terrible system. The nice thing about Runes Reforged is how easy it is to modify in champ select, the not so nice thing is that it's rarely worth it since you can't really use it to give a little extra padding to your champ without sacrificing anything that could synergize with your abilities.

Radiant WukongJul 16, 20182 votes

The old system was a lot easier to have cheese builds. Like my Wukong that started the game with 24 ArPen from Marks, Quints and Cunning Tree at level 1. Malphite/Rammus that passively had 50 bonus armor from a full armor rune page alone.

Vlad/Mordekaiser starting with 12% spell vamp from Quints and 3% more from the Ferocity tree for a 15% total at level 1. Olaf/Aatrox getting 6% life steal from Quints and 2% more from the ferocity tree for a total of 8% at level 1, excluding item 1055 for 11%.

JetvaJul 16, 20182 votes

The only way the old system was going to work was to have a rune + mastery page for every single champ proper, and on top of that lane and map in mind. The current system allows you to customize every champ on the fly, without having to have twenty+ rune pages. On top of that the opening of each match is more balanced, and you actually get a good idea of what the other guy has up their sleeve even in the loading screen. I say bravo to Riot’s development team, the change was desperately needed and I only hope to see it evolve as the game continues to evolve.

VectrosJul 16, 20182 votes

Been saying it since new Runes, this system is garbage. At the very least, we should be able to select what stats we get, to bring it to be more like the old system.

Ok sure but whyJul 17, 20182 votes

I miss my 45% Bonus Critical Damage rune page

it was hidden OP and no one believed me so I could stomp every late game with ease

DrugothJul 17, 20182 votes

The best comparison I can make for this is world of warcrafts dumbing down of their talent system, it almost looks exactly the same ffs! There are only 3 choices per tier and cookie cutter builds (which were the best kind of experimentation) disappeared!

DrususJul 17, 20182 votes

I still miss my old DrMundo build I used to run that is basically "Wizard Mundo CAST!" as it focused on dealing magic damage with his infected cleaver and burning agony. Was it pretty trolly? Yes. Was it effective? Surprisingly yes. I even remember in normals I went on a 12 win streak with the build in one day. This sort of build can't be really created wholly in the new build. Partly because parts of it are pulled between either Resolve, Domination, or Sorcery. Partly because things like Vampirism, Piercing Thoughts, MPen Reds can't be picked up on creation or just don't exist anymore in the game. As the new rune system is frankly so inflexible for how you want to build a champion, its practically regimented.

Runes

9x MPen reds

9x Flat HP/Regen yellows

9x Scaling MResist blues

3x HP Regen purples.

Masteries (18 Ferocity, 12 Resolve) Tier 1: Sorcery (5x), Recovery (5x) Tier 2: Expose Weakness, Explorer Tier 3: Vampirism (5x), Runic Armor (5x) Tier 4: Battle Trance, Perseverance Tier 5: Piercing Thoughts (5x) Tier 6: Deathfire Touch