The Resolve Tree Balance Problem and General Rune Debacle

Riot has been having particular trouble with the Resolve Tree and this is because the tree has to do things no other tree 100% needs to do: appeal to every type of champion in the game. The tree is there to simply offer some tankiness. General tankiness. Not just tankiness while in lane, not just tankiness through scaling, not just tankiness through shields and sustain, not just tankiness against a single foe, and not just tankiness through adversity in the midst of an entire enemy team . Riot currently has to cater to everyone through this one tree that only allows for a maximum of 4 runes to be selected among a few limited options. Some of the options have decent decision making for a lot of champions while others remain comically bad. This is because any champion will reasonably want to spec into some added defenses from time to time and riot caters to this through a very generalistic set of runes. The result, however, is a watered-down tree that gives the appearance of options but almost everyone knows what they will take based on which champion they are playing and in many cases these runes may as well be preordained.

The tree generally feels lackluster outside of the champions who can abuse it the most. Remember champions like Leona, Maokia, and Rammus at the start of the season? They were the champions best suited to the tree but other than these few champions who could outright abuse aftershock the tree just kind of felt... meh. Since then some changes were made and now every champion can go into this tree for some extra defenses to make their lives easier but because every type of champion including marksmen, divers, enchanters, wardens, assassins, juggernaughts, mages, skirmishers, duelists, initiators, disruptors, and every other archetype away and in-between may reasonably wish for some more defense it is impossible to have only 3-4 options in each row to select from while remaining balanceable for all champion types without completely pigeon-holing champions into one or possibly two specific runes that suit that champion.

Let's look at the new resolve rune: bone plating. It gives a maximum of 60-150 damage mitigated from 3 hits within a 5 second timeframe on a 45 second cooldown. It has no scaling to it and so any champion can use it equally. But simply because every champion receives equal benefit does not mean every champion is equally benefited. The rune, on its face, seems best suited for champions who generally like skirmishing every so often or for squishy champions who need a little help to survive a burst of damage. Tanky champions who rush into a team of damage dealers will, of course, receive the damage mitigation but the effect will last them for less than a second and they will still be in the middle of the enemy team.

So, tanks who want to scale and last for a long time in the thick of battle may not be the greatest benefactors of this rune but... they have other options. There are two more runes in this row of the resolve tree for them to choose from. They have demolish and font of life to choose from. But... neither of these runes offers direct tankiness to the user. Demolish is for busting towers and font of life is there to help support your team. This means an entire row of runes is sub-optimal for the champions who's entire job is to absorb damage over a longer period of time. If a champion who takes the resolve tree as their primary wants more general tankiness they will be forced to take bone plating as the other options simply do not provide any other form of personal defense.

It's not only the resolve tree that suffers from this problem though. Look at sorcery:

3 keystones total:

• arcane comet for general mages
• aery for support mages
• phase rush for trolls

I'm half joking about phase rush but look what happened to it... Riot tried to open the rune up to allow more champions to use it and it's become so bad that nobody wants it. Riot trying to allow for every champion to take these runes only makes them weak for the vast majority of champions or only viable on the champions who can use them the best.

The best argument you can make for the "options" in this tree are that you take comet for more 'potential damage' or aery for less 'guaranteed damage'. The actual playstyle differences on a mage who has no heal or shield is negligible at best and I'd say, more often than not, the exact same. Typically, the mages who pick comet are the ones who can guarantee the hit anyway so is it really a play style choice or are champions just naturally more suited to pick certain keystones? Clearly the players lack enough meaningful choices when setting up their runes but will more runes ultimately give players more options?

With this question in mind we come back to balance. Press the attack just got a change and riot think they need to pre-adjust a number of champions who benefit from these changes before they even ship. So I ask you... are these nerfs to the champions opening up more play styles or are they being balanced around a certain rune? Are champions being pigeon-holed into a set of runes originally designed to be open to everyone but balanced around the worst abusers? Are we simply being enticed and blinded by a facade of 'choices' and 'options' when the decisions have already be made?

I know many will argue about runes being balanced. How aftershock is now balanced... because it is not standing out as a main offender. How aery is now balanced... becuase it isn't abused by certain champions right now. But what happens next? We've seen aftershock where it is disgusting on some and aery where it is too generalistic. Press the attack is being opened up to more champions only to have these champions tuned specifically for this rune. Riot will inevitably need to make runes to fit more champions and likewise will surely attempt to make more champions fit more runes. But then we will see the same pattern. The nail that sticks up is the one to get hammered. But when will the nail go through the board? When will it be hammered into the wall where it can no longer move?

Are runes even the answer to the problem?