New Inspiration Rune Concept: Moon of Durand

Hello everybody, I'm Benahor, coming up with a new rune concept for the Inspiration tree: Moon of Durand (name subject to change).

Before introducing how the rune works, and its possibilities, I want to give you some thoughs about its conception; if you're not interested, go search the big WHAT DOES IT DO.

When the new rune system was released, it had two goals: to give runes that champions needed and runes that champions could build around to amplify one or multiple of their strenghs. But the Meta being what it is, champs will eventually find their main Keystone or only a few optimal Keystones, and the system will be kind of stall again, following the balanced changes and the choices of the pros. Coming up with a new rune in these conditions becomes tricky, because it will often be heavily number based. What I'm trying to say here (TL;DR) is; I think that not a lot of players comes up with new rune ideas because its success will often come from how it "outnumbers" other runes of the same category. Here comes Inspiration tree, which is a bit less number based in my mind, and offers a place where neither damage, tankiness nor utility are the main goal. And that's where I think players have the easiest time coming up with cool ideas, because nerfing or upping these runes doesn't affect its feeling. So, when I played more and more Mordekaiser during this pre-season, and I told myself: "Damn, I hate jungling with him, and being caugh without a target to W feels terrible", an idea so cool that I had to share it, and so strange balance-wise that I couldn't see if it was OP or UP, came up. I started thinking about it for days before finally posting it;

A rune that offers a moving object, a "Moon", which orbits around your champ permanently during the game ! Here come the numerous details.

WHAT DOES IT DO ? (I'm sorry for the lack of pictures to illustrate my idea, I'll try as much as I can to use in-game counterparts to give you the right feeling about it)

First, I think it fits the Keystone category better, but if you think it doesn't, and that it's not as strong as I imagine, it could just be normal rune. Anyway, i'll talk about it as a Keystone here.

The Moon looks like a ball (think Orianna's ball) which follows a fix orbit around your champ (think Aurelion Sol's passive), and it mainly blocks enemy abilities, as if it was an ally champion. It isn't affected by CC (think Epic Monsters), and can't be auto-attacked.

That's the main use here, and it already offers a lot of skill expression: during the laning phase, both you and your opponent have to take care of where the ball is before engaging a trade; for example, you can play a support with this rune if you know you're going to lane against Ashe or Ezreal, because you can block Ashe's W and R stun, or Ezreal's Q and E projectile.

• Good uses: Against Blitz, you can block the hook. Against Ashe, the AOE damage will hit you, but not the stun.
• Bad uses: Against Bard, you offer a permanent CC on his Q. Against Jinx, the AOE damage will hit you, and the ball may be the extra hitbox that condamn you.

Here's the base of the rune. I want this to be clear, because, from now on, every new idea is a lever to add or retrieve value from the rune.

WHAT CAN WE ADD ? Here come multiple ideas that I'm going to expose about the different aspects of the ball.

• The physic of the Moon I stated earlier that the ball should be coded like a minion should act like an ally champion when an ability hits it. But the "body" of the Moon itself can interact in four different ways with the other entities of the game. It can either:

• Not interact at all with other units (think Aurelion Sol's passive, without the damage on minions)
• Soft-displace enemy units ( think old Ornn's Q)
• Hard-displace enemy units (think current Ornn's Q)
• Hard-displace all non-ally units except Epic Monster (like above + push back or toward jungle monsters too)

That's basically a scale from less to more OP. The second one can creepblock, the third and fourth ones can stop channeling (Hi Fiddle). I think the first one is best, because displacing is a really powerful mechanic.

• The HP of the Moon The Moon can either:

• Dissapear when hit by one spell, and reappear a few seconds later (think Sejuani's passive) (scale with lvl)
• Have a ward-like HP bar, and dissapear for a longer time than above when it is destroyed
• Have a unit-like HP bar, act like above (scale with lvl or/and another stat)
• Not have any HP, never dissapear (think training dummy regarding impossibility to destroy)

Scaling from worse to best, the first one is pretty terrible, I think. I prefere the third and fourth one, as they both offer different behavior toward the Moon (not wasting it earlygame in the third case, permament threat worth the Keystone category for the fourth case).

• Size and speed scaling Its size can either:

• not change as the game goes on
• grow bigger as the game goes, capped (grow at every lvl, or 6/11/16, etc ...)
• I won't propose uncapped, nobody can hold a ball this big Its speed can either:
• not change as the game goes on
• grow faster as the game goes, capped
• grow faster as the game goes, then replaced by a torus I put the extreme case here, because it can work with some other ideas (limited HP). Still pretty strong, and can't work with bigger moon.

I'm a fan of a Moon always the same size, but turning faster, with a cap.

• The Moon and the Buffs That's the first part I though of when I had the idea, with Morde ! The Moon can either:

• Not interact with ally buffs at all
• Be targeted by ally abilities without any benefit (think visually having karma shield, but not having nor shield, nor speed buff)
• Be targeted by ally abilities but only receiving shields (and heals if limited HP) (think receiving karma shield, but no speed buff)
• Be targeted by ally abilities and receiving all benefits (think receiving karma shield and speed buff) (DANGEROUS CODE-WISE)

If some people reading this play Mordekaiser, they understand how big this is: you always have something to link your W to. Hopefully, this rune has more to offer, and is just not good only on Morde (it could be bad even on him, after all: it's Inspiration tree). The fourth case is really dangerous, because it could potentially break the game everytime a new champ adds a new buff to the game (think Mordekaiser's ult everytime a new item or champ is released).

Finally, some ideas I throw without any comparison;

• You could have more Moon as the game goes (scaling with lvl, 2 Moons at lvl 11, etc ...)
• The Moon could break and be considered like an enemy unit if it has 0 HP, and you have to hit it to heal it up with your own skills, meaning it can block your spells in bad cases, but you can abuse it in some other cases, like healing yourself with Karma's RW. If you can damage it, it repairs itself after a delay.
• If the orbiting Moon is too bad or too niche, it could be instead the same Moon, but following you every 10 seconds, like Shen's passive. It then doesn't move for 10 seconds, and you and your opponents have to play around. It's a really interesting concept too, but I feel like this one is way too powerful, and I didn't think about it long enough.

I think that's already a lot to digest, and I maybe forgot some ideas, but writing this article without any note AND in english is pretty hard, so I'll let you tell me what you think about it and I will update it or do an other post if necessary after reading what you have to say. I'm not sure if I really want this rune into the game: as I say, I don't even know how OP or UP it is, but I hope that, at the very least, it will inspire Rioters and players at creating something different and new in this rune system.

( and what if Graves AA a target next to the Moon ? Does the Moon stop the bullets that touch it ? And what if Illaoi E the Moon ? Does the clone can't be AA ? And what if Varus ults the Moon; do the tentacles spread ?)

TL;DR: Imagine a training dummy that can't be AA or CC, orbiting around you.