More choice isn't always better: why I dislike the new runes.

Jesus is Savior·Nov 16, 2017·1 votes·361 views

I'm going to keep this brief and use a small example. I like Ultimate Hat as a secondary tree rune. Lower cooldown ults are nice.

But there are so many movespeed options in the rune trees (which other people presumably take) that I am pretty much forced to take the movespeed rune instead. Because if I can't catch someone, then a lower cooldown ult isn't very useful. This basically limits ultimate hat (for myself) to global/long range skillshots only. I can't take it on anyone else, even if I want to.

I actually feel like the old runes had more variety. They were raw stats. Even if you took the "wrong*" or "not meta" stats in the old runes, you're not going to be punished as hard as you are in the new runes.

*Note: "wrong" means taking attack speed or something instead of AD. I'm not talking about taking AP on an ADC.

"Choice" is just an illusion in these new rune trees.

2 Comments

PrometheSNov 16, 20174 votes

I don't think there are too many choices and in fact, I'd prefer the runes be a bit more generalized. The old raw stats approach had less direct impact but more theoretical options. It wasn't bad either. I think the worst part about it was just that too many runes were weak (scaling attack damage Quints lol).

A lot of the current runes are viable only on a small number of champions or roles. It's true that there is sort of an "illusion" of choice in certain cases. For example, Grasp is good for top lane but it's FAR FAR worse when jungling. You don't really get the HP stacking benefit that would come with laning. Guardian is pretty situational too. Aftershock is just automatic on any tanky champion that can use it. More strategic options keep the game interesting. For example, I recently tried Glacialwick and it was very nice for 15 minutes or so when ganking but it definitely falls off hard.