Riot Explains League Of Legends' Updated Rune System And Unveils New Runes

During the upcoming League of Legends preseason, Riot Games intends to combine the runes and masteries systems into one powerful customization element that will give players new options for their playstyles, including the ability to go into debt in the in-game shop when purchasing items.

In a recent post from Riot Fearless, the Rioter detailed how players could craft their playstyle in the new Runes Reforged update. Though the pictures they've released are likely not the final products, they certainly look a lot simpler than digging through mastery trees and runes for the optimal combination.

To begin, players will choose one of the five primary paths: Domination, Inspiration, Precision, Sorcery, and Resolve are the current tentative options. Within each path, there are a couple of slots to place your runes, the most powerful of which players will recognize as the Keystone Rune. A small stat boost will be tied to each path as well, such as increased attack speed for the Precision, the post suggests.

After filling in that primary path, you'll then choose a smaller secondary path from the five main paths. Two runes will come with this secondary path to further customize your champ. A tanky top laner might opt for a Domination and Resolve combination, while an AP support might go for a Sorcery and Inspiration mix, judging by the currently suggested names of the rune paths.

In addition to detailing how the new rune system would work, the post also talked about some of the ideas they currently have for new runes. The post mentioned that the current ideas are definitely in the work-in-progress stage, so while there's a strong chance that these might be changed before they're released, we at least have an idea of what Riot is looking to do. Check out a couple of the ideas they have in mind, and make sure you pay attention to that last one:

• Stone Skin — Gain 5 Armor, +2 per nearby enemy champion. Range: 800 units
• Fortified Mind — Gain 5 Magic Resist, +2 per nearby enemy champion. Range: 800 units
• Discipline — After 10 minutes gain 10 Armor and 10 Magic Resist, +2 of each per nearby enemy champion. Range: 800 units
• Ruined King's Tribute — Every 4 seconds in combat your next attack deals damage to nearby champions and large monsters equal to 3% of your max health and heals you for [20 -75]% of this amount based on level. Ranged Champions: Damage and healing are halved.
• The Third Path — +100 Health (permanently). -10% Damage to Champions until 10 minutes
• Intelligence — +5% Cooldown Reduction. +5% Max Cooldown Reduction. +5% Summoner Spell Cooldown Reduction. +5% Item Cooldown Reduction. +5% Runes Cooldown Reduction.
• Store Credit — You can enter debt to buy items. The amount you can borrow increases over time. Debt limit: 150 + 5/minute. Lending Fee: 50 gold per item.

The post closed out with Fearless reassuring players that they'll be looking at off-meta builds to make sure those are still possible and that every player from level 1 to level 30 will have the same number of runes in their games.