Thoughts on Runes Reforged?

I just wanted to create a space to give some feedback on the runes update so far.

I feel like one thing I've noticed immediately is that there's a lot of sub-classes that got discarded in the update, or, you practically have to run 1 rune page set-up just to be even viable. Take for example tanks, or juggernauts (Nasus, Garen, Darius). In the resolve tree we get... 5 armor or MR? That's like 2%-3% damage loss max. Really underwhelming. Conditioning 100% of the time, and even then... We're forced into certain runes because others are so underwhelming, or don't have enough return value, to outweigh the ones that we practically have to take to function. I thought that there would be many keystones... but instead it's the same old stuff. One viable keystone, the rest are sub-optimal.

Next thing is that so many champs are OP, or seem that way, because damage seems to be heavily scaled up. You remove runes from the old system (Great!), but then buff damage dealers, who, on top of that, take trees which grant more damage or effects, and additionally, the trees they give grant additional attack/AP, adaptive, or attack speed, so damage can be dealt faster. The compensation for negating damage, on the other hand does not match the scale at which damage has been increased.

I feel like runes + masteries gave us more options. I used to have 5 pages just for Nasus because I could pick and choose my runes to cover up for a weakness or take advantage of a strength I could get vs another melee opponent. I could make decisions based on how I felt the game was going to go.

If I wanted to run more attack? I could. If I wanted to run scaling CDR for slower games? I could. If I wanted to run flat CDR for quicker ones, I could. If I wanted to stack armor for lane bullies at the cost of CDR and health, I could. etc.

Masteries were pretty standard, I'll give you that. They could have been expanded on.

But I mean come on. Remove runes then buff all champs with more attack with no option to resist it outside of 5 armor and 5 magic resist, at least I can sorta kinda get more with Conditioning I guess? Are you kidding me? That's just scaling us back, not forward, we have even less choices now.

When the system was first announced, I thought we'd have a lot of levels of options. 10 levels or something, with definite choices on each level so I knew what I was sacrificing for what I was clearly gaining, so I could tweak my character with major choices where, for example, not taking 15 armor or something to start with would be a MAJOR setback choice, but in return I could get some upfront CDR, or a certain bonus that was huge to make up for it, but really risky to take, including stats. Did I want to take straight stats, or did I want to take an effect that was riskier to do but might get more rewards?

Nope.

Instead we get 6 choices total. They don't really even feel like major choices outside of Precision tree. The only tree I feel has some good choices is the Precision tree. For the rest? ... You're just kinda stuck with what kinda works.

I dunno, it just seems disappointing because it was supposed to be a step forward with major choices that could change your playstyle. Instead I feel like there's only 1-2 optimal paths per champ, if that, because not going on those paths gives up so much with little benefits from the other paths, that you're just stuck with that path anyways. And even within the path, there's clear options for each class.

For example, a more definitive option would have been a level where you had to choose between +8 AD vs 12 AS, instead of granting it by just choosing the path.

Instead you get it by default, eliminating the choice.

I dunno, it just feels underwhelming.