The new "defense" rune stat path has a health choice. This choice gives you... Less than 5 health per level?
+15-90 Health (based on level)
+15 hp at level 1. +90 hp at level 18.
Why? Why does this even exist when it's literally just a noob trap? There is NEVER any reason to pick this over armor or magic resistance. You gain LESS than FIVE health points per level.
Why have this option present at all?
JimTheSnail88 votesHey now that 90HP will save you from a Nami auto (not empowered) XD
Yara03 voteswas hoping i could get a flat AD rune so i could build it on supports to poke early like when we had the old runes.
Trollmanship47 votesRiot hates defense, what else is new? Game isn't fun I guess unless you can instagib somebody in 0.1 seconds.
VG Crows42 votesSame with cdr per level tbh. 10% at lvl 18 is like... way too late to feel the impact. I want these per level stats to cap at level 10,like it used to be. Otherwise it is just a noob trap Riot miraculously let go without thinking at all
NichtHurz2 votesBut it's kinda the same way as back in the days. You could either get 7,5% on lvl1, 5% lvl1 and 5% scaling cdr or go for 10% scaling cdr + 3 runes of your choice. This is fine, it's pretty good for a champ like Zac or scaling ap users that might prefer items with little cdr. Remember you still have transcendence, so you'll have about 15% from runes at lvl 10 and could also take the 5% in the inspiration tree.
All Day Tay Tay3 votesactually if you went full quints cdr per level it was 15% at lvl 18
NichtHurz1 votesI know, but 15% was more uncommon. 10% would leave you with no excess cdr, making full use of your runeslots. Zac was a champ that would want mostly cdr runes to get 20% from his runes.
NorthWestGuy1 votes[{quoted}](name=TrueMortal v2,realm=EUW,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=thGdEJEp,comment-id=0004,timestamp=2018-11-20T11:08:05.578+0000)
Same with cdr per level tbh. 10% at lvl 18 is like... way too late to feel the impact. I want these per level stats to cap at level 10,like it used to be. Otherwise it is just a noob trap Riot miraculously let go without thinking at all
I will say, the CDR is good in any champ that runs transcendence and plans to get 40% or more cdr with just items. Since most of those champs are AP, that 10% cdr overcaps into 20AP. Pretty nice.
Warlord Rhinark30 votesAtleast make it 180 health at level 18 (10 per level).
AT LEAST.
nelogis16 votesi don't exactly know what the reasoning behind this is, didn't the old veteran mastery give like 50hp at level 1?
Anyway chrysalis is gone, resolve HP bonus is gone, there is no way to actually gain any significant early HP from runes other than this 15HP crap.
Let me put it this way:
Old runes could have given you +122 HP at level 1 (without including HP-quints, it's 200 bonus HP with the quints). We are looking at around 362HP at level 18 with scaling HP runes (quints included) Season 8 runes gave you +65 / +80 HP at level 1 (depending on secondary rune path) +185 / +320 HP at level 18 Season 9 runes give you +15 HP at level 1 and +90 at level 18
Whats next?
Season 10 reduces your HP total by 50?
There is no reason to ever pick the HP with that 15 bonus HP you might survive another caster minion auto attack but thats it And at level 18 it's a super minion auto attack, actually I think the super minion does more than 90
Edit: It's not even that, just look at the numbers
Let's say you are playing Olaf and you pick the 5 armor instead of +15 HP
At level 1 that will bump your armor from 35 to 40 The damage multiplier goes from 0.7407 to 0.7143 That is an increase of 3.7% effective HP
Olaf HP at level 1 is 600, that bumps his effective HP up by 22 The HP rune would have been worth 20 effective HP
Whats the point?
Horrible Human3 votesIn Hearthstone they interviewed the developer about why " bad cards " exist in the game. He ultimately stated from a game design perspective that bad choices simply have to exist. I don't understand it myself... I'd rather have all options be equally beneficial to actually promote different builds.
TeCoolMage5 votesHearthstone and LoL are completely different games. In card games bad cards exist because:
If you have the strictly better card you can double down on a specific interaction or mechanic by taking the second best choice, then the third, and so on. Having some copies worse than others acts as a balance lever to ensure you’re not just running the same effect a hundred times with no downside.
A flashier or different variation of a card’s effect that can be broken in some circumstances can be balanced around being worse in general
There are different types of players who play for different reasons, some want to use bad cards intentionally in creative ways (no, not as a self imposed handicap, but because card effects can have unexpected synergies and that can bring up unexpected advantages that the meta is not prepared for. There’s whole articles dedicated to the magic card “one with nothing” on these kinds of players and why bad cards exist)
Because it allows newer players to build up card collections of subpar but playable cards for casual play while making the best competitive cards rarer and thus worth more, maximising profits from both audiences and without actually screwing over either. Card games live off of having their cards create an economy, and having bad cards allows players to have the effects they need without paying a ton of money, while having cards worth tons of money that funds the game itself. Without bad cards, a card game is either dead, incredibly elitist and hostile, or a game unstable unicorns, uno, etc which uses a totally different system with its own advantages and disadvantages
In league there are comparable situations but they’re honestly not even close:
% penetration from new rageblade and other items not stacking well with true damage from Yi, vayne, IE, etc and vice versa, and unique Passives: you can commit to the tank buster build but you can’t get 100% ignore resistances and full % Hp dmg.
Vladimir and other health scaling champions might gain too much power from a strong HP rune bonus
Any league youtuber posting the next op thing like tank orianna jungle, but this is a team game so one form of play (play competitively to win) must be the main one or you get 10 different players pulling in different directions. In a 1v1 choose-the-opponent setting this doesn’t matter
old runes? eh there’s really nothing like this because LoL runs on skin purchases
Horrible Human7 votesThe old rune and quint system.
I mean, I wish they just unlocked all of the runes and quints for everyone. That way we could just make truly unique champions. That's what people did back then.
A Yi with ALL AD runes played differently than All Armor and Lifesteal quints.
ps. thanks for the explanation.
Draconian5652 votesTHIS. If runes/quints were so expensive, why the hell weren't they just lowered in price permanently like they were for the last week before removal?
It allowed for customization based on preference, matchup, etc. It also arguably addressed the lack of early game MR with +13 MR so laning against mages didn't feel like shaving ur hand with a cheese grater.
The thigh guy12 votesBecause. That would directly contrast this assassin meta riot is forcing down our throats.
Khristophoros11 votesIt seems just about as weak as 5 armor/6 mr to me though.
Frontline Fury30 votesIt seems just about as weak as 5 armor/6 mr to me though.
5 armor on low armor champions provides a MASSIVE boost in damage reduction. And you can apply it twice for 10 armor or 12 magic resistance.
Couple that with shield bash providing armor and magic resist on shields and some champions 
can easily get 11 bonus armor at level 1-3, champions that already have an easy time against aggressive laners.
Armor and magic resist works in % damage reduction. The lower your armor already is, the more effective each point you gain will be. That means the health will NEVER be the right choice, and the armor will NEVER be the wrong one. You'll be seeing every single player in the game with it in a day or two from now.
Meanwhile, that health bonus? That's never going to be helpful. The patch hasn't been out for a day and it already needs to be changed. It might be different if it was HEALTH PER LEVEL, but no. It's HEALTH AT LEVEL 18. +90 max HP. Or +5 armor / +6 magic resistance.
There's not even a choice there.
Z3Sleeper19 votesIt's actually not that massive if you do the math. But the resistance options are definitely stronger vs that specific damage type.
600 health with 5 armor = 630 effective health vs physical damage, 600 vs magic 600 health with 6 MR = 636 effective health vs magic damage, 600 vs physical 600 health + 15 = 615 health
It's pretty much right in the middle of both effective health values but it works against both.
For higher values though:
2000 health with 5 armor = 2100 2000 health with 6 mr = 2120 2000 health + 90 = 2090
They're actually all pretty evenly weak. Unless I'm playing a health, armor or mr scaling champion I'd definitely be taking an offensive option instead. Hell, even on a lot of those champions the offensive options look flat out better.
Champion Skin7 votesTo be fair it also work with health regen, shields and potions which does add quite a bit early game
Z3Sleeper3 votesOh that's right. Healing effects are definitely better with resistances over health (besides % health healing, which is even on both).
Since you're essentially healing for more effective health.
HàrrowR3 votesIt's actually not that massive if you do the math. But the resistance options are definitely stronger vs that specific damage type.
600 health with 5 armor = 630 effective health vs physical damage, 600 vs magic 600 health with 6 MR = 636 effective health vs magic damage, 600 vs physical 600 health + 15 = 615 health
It's pretty much right in the middle of both effective health values but it works against both.
For higher values though:
2000 health with 5 armor = 2100 2000 health with 6 mr = 2120 2000 health + 90 = 2090
They're actually all pretty evenly weak. Unless I'm playing a health, armor or mr scaling champion I'd definitely be taking an offensive option instead. Hell, even on a lot of those champions the offensive options look flat out better.
I feel completely the opposite, i couldn't be happier with this runes as an ADC main whose favorite item is 
,those resistances and hp are pretty meh if you look at it from a tank perspective,but from an ADC perspective 90 hp and 5 armor coupled with a rune like overgrowth that usually gives me 200 hp late game + GA and Tabi + Conditioning that gives me 16 armor and 10 mr with my standard build and you're sitting on a 300 free HP and 162 armor late game with just GA Tabi,i've won a lot of games lately where i'm impossible to kill late game unless i get caught
Try killing me when i play 
Roughrider691 votesthis assumes no other armor at 2000 health. ur not going to get 100 extra effective health from 5 more armor if you already have 50
Z3Sleeper1 votesFor one, you necro'd the shit out of this.
For two, yes you are. Getting 5 armor with 2000 health is +100 effective health no matter how much armor you have.
1 armor = 1% more effective health 100 armor = 100% more effective health
2000 health with 5 armor = 2100 effective health 2000 health with 50 armor = 3000 effective health 2000 health with 55 armor = 3100 effective health (+100)
The formula is extremely simple: (1 + (Armor x 0.01)) x Health = Effective Health
Or even simpler still: Health + ((Armor)% of Health) = Effective Health
Aljonau1 votesIt's a bit late to respond and probably outdated... but I'd like to add that every champ has health regen, many have heals and shields and many build lifesteal. And for every single one of those mechanics resistances trump flat health, because all of them increase the health pool and as such the effectiveness of armor.
Khristophoros2 voteslol at saying 5 armor/6 mr gives "massive" damage reduction... what?
I looked at the gold value of these rune shards. At level 1 the armor/mr ones are obviously better. They give you ~100 gold worth of their stat.
Health shard at level 1 gives you 40 gold worth of health, and it reaches ~98 gold worth of health at level 6. So that is basically the break even point in terms of pure gold value compared to the armor/mr ones.
I will acknowledge that the armor/mr ones are way stronger at level 1 but the actual effectiveness depends on a lot of variables and ultimately we're talking about really tiny amounts of stats.
xDogMeatx1 votesHey heres a idea why not mesh the old runes system with the new ones and add in the runes tree with bonus stats too to allow us to make our own variation of a op champ instead of just placing some stats that are low. Think of a dungeon raid boss preperation before the battle u want to optimize ur build beforehand weither its lifesteal or vamp or pen or raw defense or offense plus to add to it spell vamp is a useless stat in the rift i always see its a 0% vamp if only theres a way to modify that stat or delete altogether or make a spell vamp tank like how lifesteal tank carries act yes i said adcs at full build are tanks. drain tanks mainly i wanna see a spell vamp version who can make it more different. It would at least make the stat not useless.
Evíl cookie6 voteswhy not 50hp or 10hp per level ... [zombie-brand-mindblown]
Fullmetallic1 votes[{quoted}](name=Evíl cookie,realm=EUW,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=thGdEJEp,comment-id=0005,timestamp=2018-11-20T11:52:09.224+0000)
why not 50hp or 10hp per level ... [zombie-brand-mindblown]
I dunno 50 hp seems a bit much. 900 extra HP at level 18 turns an ADC into a tank.
Flawless Fetus2 votesi think he meant 50 flat or 10 per level. 50/lvl would obviously be a mistake. Lol.
Evíl cookie2 votes"Or" not "and"
50 per level would be ridiculous.
Spank the Fox5 votesI guess it’s supposed to be equivalent in terms of gold?
5 Armor is worth 100g 5 MR is worth 108g 15-90 Health is worth 39g-234g
Problem is there’s no armor/level or mr/level rune choices like in the old system to compete, so flat is generally more beneficial since you’re guarenteed to use the benefits from the start.
The scaling runes would need to be tuned far harder to be worth the risk using them early for their paltry values.
lolipopevelynn4 votesLong story short, damage will be HIGHER next season because of less defense.
Good job riot. Smash ultimate is in a few weeks, good luck with your game surviving.
TeCoolMage3 votesSmash ultimate? Didn’t roblox kill this game years ago already?
Sire Hippington4 votesWell, it's not like 5armor or 6mr are any good either. that's 100g worth of stats that only works vs one damagetype, still pretty poor compared to the offensive options...
GigglesO1 votes[{quoted}](name=Sire Hippington,realm=EUW,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=thGdEJEp,comment-id=000f,timestamp=2018-11-20T16:18:12.859+0000)
Well, it's not like 5armor or 6mr are any good either. that's 100g worth of stats that only works vs one damagetype, still pretty poor compared to the offensive options...
The offensive options give 200g of stats too
Saezio4 votesThe offensive options give 200g of stats too
well 200= double the 100. and 15 hp is what? 35g worth of stats? that scales to a whooping 200g at level 18. meanwhile 9% att speed is insta 200g worth and 6 ad is 210g worth of stats. imagine if the AD choice gave you 2,85 AD or 4,6 AP yeah that is the equivalent of 5 armor and what if the AS was instead 4% instead of 9%? that is 100g
Socon1 votesWith 5 armour you win trades against 10 adaptive because of minion damage but hey no one uses their noggin.
Saezio1 votesWith 5 armour you win trades against 10 adaptive because of minion damage but hey no one uses their noggin.
You did not just say that... how many cs auto attacks do you need to take per trade for this to matter? And how about if you are vs an AP champ? they start with 20 AP and you start with 10 armor to mitigate the minion damage? If the 9% AS results in the enemy getting ONE extra auto in a trade and you have 10 armor how the fuck are you winning that trade? I am not even mentioning how there are items with 100 ARMOR but not 100 AD.
Ok i take 3% less minion damage GREAT. You decided to pick a single aspect to compare the 2 runes and you say that the rest of the community is wrong with no hard facts. You are also saying that the gold value system Riot has is so fucked up that 100g worth of armor is better than 200g worth of ad. IF IT WAS LIKE THAT WHY DONT EVERYONE START CLOTH 5??????????
Socon1 votesAlright, let me do you a learn buddy. Level 1 mirror match riven vs riven. One takes 10 adaptive and one takes 5 armour. They trade autos. The guy with 5 armour takes 5 more damage from the intial autos. They back off as the minion aggro is drawn. Each take the caster minion attacks, one from each. Each caster minion does 17 damage each, except to the guy with 5 more armour. Guess who won the trade?
People still do start cloth 5 against pure ad champs, eg an akali vs zed mid, or even a riven vs jayce. Its just not always optimal to start cloth 5 because a dorans item is better stats overall than a cloth armour.
Also if you're against an ap champ you'd take the +6 mr, duh.
Saezio1 votesAlright, let me do you a learn buddy. Level 1 mirror match riven vs riven. One takes 10 adaptive and one takes 5 armour. They trade autos. The guy with 5 armour takes 5 more damage from the intial autos. They back off as the minion aggro is drawn. Each take the caster minion attacks, one from each. Each caster minion does 17 damage each, except to the guy with 5 more armour. Guess who won the trade?
People still do start cloth 5 against pure ad champs, eg an akali vs zed mid, or even a riven vs jayce. Its just not always optimal to start cloth 5 because a dorans item is better stats overall than a cloth armour.
Also if you're against an ap champ you'd take the +6 mr, duh.
Well, level 1 so they trade 3 Qs and at least 3 empowered autos... So, yeah if they both for some reason decide to auto eachother one time and then back off the one with armor might win. Then replay this scenario at level 3 accounting for the extra damage on all autos Qs W and the shield on E.
What I meant with the "what would you do against AP" I meant that the MR does not reduce the damage you take from minions.
Again saying that 100g worth of stats is equal to 200g worth of stats means the whole item system is fucked up and tanks get better stats for half the gold. Which is obviously incorrect if you check how tanky champions are doing these days. BTW how did the old runes work? Was 1 armor seal half the value of an AD mark?
Socon1 votesIn ap match ups minion damage doesn't factor in as much since they trade by poking with abilities like lux e or veigar q, so the only way you lose to minion aggro in a trade is if you're bad at the game/unaware of lane mechanics.
Old runes used to be a little under 1 ad per mark and seals used to give exactly 1 armour per seal. If you're curious glyphs would give a bit over 1 mr. Those were the 'most effective' for their categories, meaning best value in the mark/seal/glyph tiers.
Something you need to keep in mind is gold value isn't always accurate, the gold value of items and stats is relative to the champion that they go on. 3000 gold worth of ap is useless on a zed, and 3000 gold worth of AD is useless on a ryze. So, why would you take extra damage if you're not going to be using it? If you're going into a lane against a lane bully why wouldn't you take the armour? The armour will be a lot more useful to you if you don't plan on being able to kill your opponent early game.
Of course, these stats are very minor, but if you factor them into your play they can be very useful.
Acanthus4 votesSo many people have mistakenly said this that I no longer feel the desire to do anything but copy/paste a shortened previous reply of mine now.
Just so you know, mathematically, the hp per level is superior by far to the other choices in that slot. I was talking about this in another thread I started before, but no one cared.
To those that don't know, armor and mr essentially increase your effective health by 1% per 1 point. Since I'm thinking about this primarily from a solo tank/bruiser perspective. If I'm Naut, who starts with 576 hp and 35 armor, my effective hp against physical damage is about 778. If I was to add 5 armor to that, it would be an effective hp of about 806, which is a 28 hp difference. And Naut has a decently sized hp pool.
For the third row, I also have a serious problem with the hp choice vs armor or mr. For starters, the hp choice works against everything. It also increases the usefulness of your starting armor and mr. In the Naut example, it would add 20 effective hp against physical damage at level 1 with his starting armor, and it scales up. There is literally no reason to ever pick the 5 armor or 6 magic resist because you gain another 88 effective hp throughout the game against physical damage from just that before even considering level up armor or bought items. With his max level up armor the scaling hp shard actually gives him 179 effective hp against physical damage. The direct comparison would be 5 armor increasing his level 18 effective base hp by 101. While you can get more out of the stat if you're buying large pools of hp, you're obviously going to more easily get more out of the other stats unless you have a special scaling like Rammus/Malphite or if you're Cho/Sion, who can infinitely stack hp.
The defensive choices are inferior compared to offensive ones at every stage of the game though.
nGio4 votesIt's a good rune for tanks though. Anything with a heartbeat can melt through 4000 health in a second. Let's see em try to get through 4090.
Bálsagna2 votesHere is one example. Think of Ezy's build path. His bonuses would give him +18% AS before pre-season. That's completely gone. Now he just gets AD/AP and armor/health/cdr. Again, they're minimal, but this allows some changes in itemization. Perhaps, you wanted to buy a different item, but then you wouldn't be able to reach your max CDR. Boom, that's taken care of, even if it doesn't make a big impact until late game.
I like to Twitch jungle, I'll be using either AD runes x2 and then armor. Or I'll use AD/AS and then 2 armors to help clear.
In lane as a typical ADC, I'll probably swap and stack 1 AD and 1 armor and 1 MR. Maybe I'll be Cait and stack 2 AD's and 1 MR.
Will I be using the health rune? It has its uses, I do think there are better choices for the vast majority of champs, but I've been here since 2011 and even back then, buying health runes was kinda stupid as the armor stack was just better late game.
Tomoe Gozen2 votesWhy? Why does this even exist when it's literally just a noob trap?
HP is a universal defense stat because it both gives you higher resistance to AD and AP with a larger HP pool. MR or AR provides "effective health", which means damage reduction against a specific damage type.
