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Does the "Scorch" rune look like a joke to anyone else?

DrCyanide··73 votes·14,222 views

You can only pick one of these three if you're in the Sorcery path as a primary.

https://i.imgur.com/dkBPq5F.png?noredirect

Waterwalking looks good for early roams and fighting around Dragons or Barons. Gathering Storm looks good if you have a champion that can stall out the game.

Scorch is... what?

  • It doesn't seem strong early game, dealing less than 10 damage after MR is factored in and only being usable every 20 seconds.
  • It doesn't seem very tempting after 30 minutes either, since Gathering Storm will have given you a total of 80 AP by that point, meaning every spell with >50% scaling will deal more damage than if you had Scorch

The only scenario where it seems better than the others is it's before 30 minutes and you can only land 1 spell on an enemy every 20 seconds or so. At 20 minutes you're looking at a 12 or 13 second cooldown on the effect, which will do about 28 magic damage.

Am I just missing something? Or is there literally no reason to take this rune?

Edit: did some math below, and this is the TLDR from that Edit 2: Khristophoros pointed out that minions deal 40% reduced damage to champions, so I've got to rework that part of the math

A single Caster minion auto attack at level 1 deals 10.8 3.3 more damage. A single Caster minion auto attack at 30 minutes deals 11.9 less damage. Caster Minions continue to get AD as the game goes on, so they'll outscale the rune again

I don't think I can take a rune that on average deals less damage than a stray caster minion auto seriously. It's better than I initially thought compared to a minion, but it's still not great. 2 caster minion autos at 30 minutes still do more damage.

64 Comments

ChiTenshi28 votes

I would say it's missing a ratio or they misspelled true damage.

The other runes providing flat stats which in turn make your abilities stronger makes Scorch pretty much useless, and regardless of the damage hitting multiple champions or not, Scorch will still deal less damage.

DrCyanide8 votes

It does feel like it's missing something, doesn't it? Hopefully a Rioter will clarify what's up.

Terozu1 votes

They said the runes arent final.

DrCyanide1 votes

I understand that, which is why Inspiration has a "Coming Soon!" Keystone. It just seems odd to be willing to put a "Coming Soon" there and not here as well. My impression was that most of the other Runes were pretty close to what would go live.

Terozu1 votes

Because they havnt thought of one for that. They know they want this one to be a poke tool, they just dont know how yet.

DrCyanide2 votes

They've thought of it, they're just not sure if it. It's currently called Looter. https://boards.na.leagueoflegends.com/en/c/gameplay-balance/LcQ9gOKy-final-inspiration-keystone-revealed-looter?comment=0002

The Last Ballad1 votes

They hadn't done the testing required when they made the site, so it was excluded.

DrCyanide1 votes

But that circles back around to Scorch, doesn't it? What made it seem like a good option, on par with the other Runes, in testing?

Velzard of Koz1 votes

On PBE that Coming Soon rune is already implemented as Kleptomancy with just outdated temporary icon. So yeah, Scorch has either typo or they actually though this is fine and will just need tweaking.

chipndip18 votes

Can we take a sec to appreciate how many people just clicked "Idk/Show me the poll" instead of yes/no?

DrCyanide7 votes

There's a reason I always include it. I'd rather have accurate indication of what people think on a subject than force people to vote into one category or another just to see the results.

Fairyfleur5 votes

At least this is only a numbers problem; hopefully they buff it.

DrCyanide10 votes

It's a numbers problem because there's nothing else to the Rune at this point. Take away the numbers from the other two and you still have the same concept, the identity of the Rune, shinning thought.

Scorch at best is "every so often, do extra poke damage", which is fine but very bland. It doesn't change how you play the game, you'd only pick it on poke oriented champions. Having a "super poke" effect that's only limited by a timer feels like a bad design.

50000000000000002 votes

Something like "If you deal damage to an opponent, they take extra damage 2 seconds after unless they also deal damage to you." on cooldown?

Strong for poke, but useless in an all-in. Would this be problematic?

BobaFlautist3 votes

The fact that it's on ability hit means it's potentially strong on aoe abilities with low ratuos- I could see it being useful for like morg w harass or soraka e or Sona Q.

But it does look underwhelming.

DrCyanide2 votes

I'm assuming it acts like Ludens, where it picks one target to apply the damage to and doesn't apply to all at once. If you're right that it applies to all targets then this is a bit more useful, but still kinda iffy.

BobaFlautist2 votes

Its numbers are pretty unexciting.

It does say "Your next spell hit sets champions" on fire" which implies aoe to me as it doesn't explicitly limit the number of procs - but some of the others have had sloppy wording that has later been clarified to be not literally true.

Depending on how it's treated as a source of damage it's also possible it could let you use it to cheat out a hit for new Thunderlord's or "Phase Rush" (stormraider's) or give you an extra spellthief's proc.

Again, the numbers fail to excite, but it's just another little source of damage you can stack on top of others if your ratios aren't great.

DrCyanide1 votes

You're making a decent case for it not being completely useless, but very, very niche. If both of those assumptions are true, then it's not as bad as I was thinking. I can imagine some niche scenarios where getting other runes to proc with 2 spells or 1 auto + 1 spell would be nice, it's just a matter of if it's worth the trade off.

BobaFlautist2 votes

I mean exactly only Sona and MAYBE Bard sounds actually a little obnoxious with those combos, depending on how "unique" is measured. If she can proc Scorch, Lightning Bolt, and 3 stacks of spellthief's all with one Q + Power Chord that's a TON of level 1 burst.

But no matter how weirdly it's coded, you're right that it's basically guaranteed niche.

Champion Skin1 votes

spellthief's has a 1.5 second cooldown when it triggers so you can't trigger all stacks at once

The Last Ballad1 votes

I thought that was for one ability, with multiple abilities procing it fine.

Like a bard combo would proc all, but not a morg w unless they sat there for 3 seconds.

I need to test this. Tested.

Bard combo(q +aa&passive) does proc all 3 stacks of spell theifs, dispite being close together(within 1 second from q to passive)

Sona's combo of q+passive boosted aa does not, but aa+q+passive boosted aa does(it also procs thunderlords this way)

The meeps aoe nor Sona's secondary bolt(the one that hits second at least) do not consume stacks even when hitting multiple champs.

Champion Skin1 votes

http://leagueoflegends.wikia.com/wiki/Frost_Queen%27s_Claim Cannot trigger Tribute more than every 1.25 seconds.

If the wiki is correct or not I don't know though either way it has downsides

If it isn't correct it is easier to proc it for the gold but if it is correct then you get more use out of the MS when getting a Tribute proc (since the MS only lasts 1 second so spreading the procs out gives more MS)

Protokai2 votes

the wiki is wrong

Velasan3 votes

As has been said it's a harass oriented keystone most likely for supports. As a support you need early in game stats, you can't wait 10+ min to start ramping up.

It also may just be for the early game lead. So, poke bot lanes in general could use it. Even like MF or Varus.

GrReaper967 votes

Yeah but 10 damage every 20 seconds is just..... sad

The Last Ballad1 votes

As a support you need early in game stats, you can't wait 10+ min to start ramping up

Which is why we have Sona, Rakan, and Janna. Supports who do exactly that. All have their laneing phase, except maybe Sona (I don't play her enough to know), weaker than most supports, and all are top tier later in the game due to how they scale(Sona with less cooldowns leading to constant spells, Rakan with his ~240% ap ratio's, 320% if you count his free shield as another ratio, on his utility meaning late game, such as with the gathering storm rune, he can be a monster if built ap, and Janna's early game was terrible before her rework, and now her e is nearly twice the cooldown and only goes back to before at lvl 9.)

It Hertz When IP1 votes

As a support, I'd rather have something that actually helps with my healing/shielding/tanking/whatever. If I just want bonus damage on abilities, there's other, better rune options.

Yosuke Apperu3 votes

It's gonna be hard to balance since you can automatically take this and arcane comet together. Maybe they forgot to add scaling to it? Or maybe they feared people would take the two together. Also electrocute and this rune. Stacking runes seems like scary business lol.

KoKoboto2 votes

Well it's obviously a lane harass keystone. In comparison Waterwalker is for roamers or if you know you're gonna be in the river a lot while Gather Storm is if you want stats and believe that the game is gonna be late.

Maybe the cool down is a too long early but I see this rune being viable for a lot of people just cause it's extra damage and good for harass.

DrCyanide6 votes

EDIT: Khristophoros pointed out that minions deal 40% reduced damage to champions, so I've got to rework that part of the math

Every champion starts out with 30 MR, so at level 1 it deals 10 magic damage * (100/(100+30 MR)) = 7.7 damage every 20 seconds. At level 18, the base MR scaling brings you to 38.5 MR, so you get 40 magic damage * (100/(100+38.5 MR)) = 28.8 damage every 8 seconds.

For comparison, Ranged minions deal 22.5 damage every auto to your 21.9 Armor, dealing 22.5 physical damage * 0.6 * (100/(100+21.9 Armor)) = ~~18.5 ~~ 11 damage. If you assume you hit level 18 at 30:00, then the caster minions deal 51 physical damage * 0.6 * (100/(100+81.4 Armor)) = 28.1 16.9 damage to you

TLDR:

A single Caster minion auto attack at level 1 deals 10.8 3.3 more damage. A single Caster minion auto attack at 30 minutes deals 11.9 less damage. Caster Minions continue to get AD as the game goes on, so they'll outscale the rune again

I don't think I can take a rune that on average deals less damage than a stray caster minion auto seriously. It's better than I initially thought compared to a minion, but it's still not great. 2 caster minion autos at 30 minutes still do more damage.

Athenes Lulu2 votes

The numbers look like they need some kind of tuning. Add a ratio or something like that and this can become the "generic go to rune when you don't know if you want to be early game or late game centric" kind of thing.

Spoofghoul2 votes

There is a niche use and that's aoe damage

Applying it to more than 1 enemy will obviously make it better then what it looks like now

That being said it doesn't look like anything special so far

I think it would be fine if it did benefit from the users cooldown reduction stat

That would make it a lot better earlier as well as a bit better in the late game

Blue Moon Wolf2 votes

I'd honestly risk the gathering storm rune personally. games don't last as long as they used to but my god, if you get stuck in a 60 minute+ game, that thing will come in handy.

RavenMagus2 votes

I feel like it's trying to replace Deathfire Touch. But the reason why Deathfire Touch is so good for many mages is that it provides really nice late-game extended damage scaling since it doesn't have a cooldown compared to Thunderlords.

So putting it back in but giving it a long cooldown is just... what?

Tyrsal1 votes

So much this. The cooldown is exactly what kills this abilitiy, even if they don't want it to have scaling since it would be too much power for a minor rune.

DeathBurst2 votes

Endstep talked about it in the Patch Chat: https://boards.na.leagueoflegends.com/en/c/developer-corner/f8hp6yG8-patch-chat-with-the-playtest-team-719?comment=0025000000010000

OyddAWqJ5r1 votes

It's better than the other 2 in my opinion.

DrCyanide3 votes

I'm very interested to know why you feel that way. What champion/lane/playstyle do you think Scorch will be more impactful?

Bladerunner77771 votes

Scorch is the best one there.......

Scorch is actually useful during laning phase unlike most gimmicky/shit runes

Khristophoros3 votes

{quoted}

Scorch is the best one there.......

Scorch is actually useful during laning phase unlike most gimmicky/shit runes

it's good for those times when you're like "man I wish that guy took 1 more hit from a minion he would have totally died"

Nyaxxy1 votes

Gathering Storm is only really impactful post 30 minutes, then it is a great rune. But, for the first 29 minutes, I believe Scorch is better, albiet looking a tad underwhelming.

Scorch and Arcane Comet have the same CD for a reason. It is to make your abilities have a bit extra umpf to them when you are poking your opponent. All those increments of damage stack and while it doesn't look like much, it will still cause them to have to back earlier than they want to, or the extra damage will lead to a kill at some point in lane. You force them back earlier, they can't build certain items, they miss CS and EXP and their tower may take damage. It's all about the small gains in the early game which can help form an advantage in lane.

Perhaps it will get slightly increased values, like 20-50 damage or something, but I disagree with adding scaling to it also

Hexs Fortune1 votes

It reminds me of first blood and will probably end up just as unnoticed if taken in a vacuum.

However, combining it with other runes that do damage on hit may make it worth.

Narsicus1 votes

Scorch seems the obvious pick if you are looking for early game advantage over the enemy team.

Waterwalking only works in river, where enemies often are not during early game.

Gathering storm doesn't do anything for the first 10 minutes and is still likely worse than Scorch until minute 20.

So if you want early game pressure on the enemy, the choice is obvious. Only Scorch offers that on this tier. It also shares a CD with the meteor keystone so getting both allows you to really focus on your early trades.

DrCyanide1 votes

Do you keep track of how many individual minion attacks land on your foe? Because that's the level of damage you're getting as an 'advantage'. If you're currently ignoring single stray autos, then you're damage with Scorch will be equally ignorable.

The early roaming power of Water Walking helps you get early kills even if you can't fully utilize it's damage at that stage in the game. I agree that Gathering Storm is primarily valuable to those who think they can stall out a fight and useless in laning phase, but with these numbers it's barely any different from Scorch in that regard.

Having the same cooldown as Arcane Comet only shows them overlapping for the same job, but one is being kept extremely weak because of it's guaranteed nature while the other is usable if tougher to land.

Narsicus1 votes

In the end it comes down to this.

Gathering Storm doesn't overly benefit you until minute 20.

Waterwalking only benefits you on a very specific portion of the map, one where enemies often are not during early game.

Scorch benefits you all the time everywhere, even early game where the other two fall short.

Yes that benefit is 'minor' but a minor benefit is better than no benefit, which makes Scorch the obvious choice for those looking for an early game edge.

You can argue that the mobility of Waterwalking makes it better, but others could equally argue that Scorch actually providing something in lane is better. Which makes it a worthwhile choice to consider, even as weak as it seems.

Revali1 votes

Personally if it applied to multiple champions from aoe spells, then it's actually good, if its only one then its gonna be a bit weak.

ModKnightsKemplar1 votes

Yeah, I completely agree, the more I think about it. This is going to get outclassed by Gathering Storm in every case. Even if there are times that Scorch might help you more, technically, Gathering Storm is always going to be a better bet at the champ select screen.

I see what they were trying to do, but I'm confused about when it's supposed to be useful.

jeanperson1 votes

Scorch is an early game useful rune, mainly for Aram since the game last rarely more then 20 min. And I dunno if it count as a distinct ability hit for electrocute purpose, I wish it would.

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