Break Down Of the New League of Legends Keystone Runes

Earlier today Riot announced an entirely revamped rune system that will be coming to League of Legends in the near future, and in doing so previewed some of new options that players will have available to them. Instead of runes that simply give stats, Riot is looking to implements runes that play more like masteries, and thus make more meaningful changes in game play.

Obviously, such a new system is a huge change for League of Legends, so understanding exactly who the new runes will work is going to be a huge leg up on the opposition when they are eventually released. While we’ve only seen a few runes as it stands, there’s still a lot to talk about from those three. Let’s just say that if every rune is like the ones that we’ve seen, then the new rune system is going to be the biggest change in the history of League of Legends.

Before we get to ahead of ourselves, however, let’s take a look at the information we have available, and break down just how some of these runes will change the game.

Slide 1

The first of the new Keystone Runes that was revealed today is called Berserk. Much like its name implies, it triggers after you’ve been in combat for a few seconds, though we don’t know how long it’s duration or cooldown is. While active it grants a massive boost to attack speed that also can allow you to bypass the attack speed cap. 

Obviously, this rune is going to be incredible on a few specific auto-attack champions. The video shows it getting used on Caitlyn, who does indeed seem like an obvious candidate thanks to her own lack of steroid, but it also will definitely see use on champions like Tristana, Twitch, and, depending on what other keystone runes are available, perhaps even champions like Master Yi. It gives a 60% attack speed boost, which is comparable to some of the most powerful steroids in the game, like Rapid Fire, so it’s definitely going to help champions who take want to bring the pain do so all the more easily.

Where this Keystone rune gets even more interesting, however, is when you think about its applications with the Keystone masteries that are already available. Berserk synergies very strongly with Fervor of Battle, and will almost certainly bring that Keystone back for champions like Caitlyn and Ashe, but it also has some interesting implications for other champions. For example, if you’re trading with a Lucian with Thunderlords you’d usually want to extend the trade for as long as possible since he’ll blow much of his damage early on in the trade and a longer engage window isn’t usually preferable for Thunderlords users. If that Lucian has Berserk, however, then engaging him for longer periods of time becomes equally undesirable. It will be interesting to see what new Keystone masteries rise to prominence now that Keystone runes offer an incredible source of DPS for carries. Stormraider’s Surge Draven? We’ll just have to see!

Slide 2

On the complete opposite end of the spectrum from the ADC-centric Berserk run is the other Keystone rune that was revealed in today’s video, Perxie. Perxie, much like it’s icon indicates, adds a mini Help! Pix! to much of a champion’s kit, shielding allies when you target them and adding some damage to enemies. From what we can tell, allies who you target with spells beenfit from the shield portion of the run, while enemies need just take damage from any single-target source of yours to take the damaging portion.

This rune is far more difficult to judge than Berserk simply because it’s so reliant on it’s numbers. Berserk would still be good if it gave half of the attack speed that it does, but Perxie isn’t likely to be all that appealing if it’s values are all that low, since it doesn’t doubling down on item purcahses that you’ll already be making the same way Berserk does. The most important factor that will determine how desrable Perxie is, however, isn’t even it’s damage and shielding values, but rather what it’s cooldown is, or if it even has a cooldown. Even if the shield is rather insignificant, it will still be a incredibly powerful ability if it is activated every time you target an ally with a skill. From the video it looks as though the shield is worth about 100 hp, which is a lot of shields if you’re, for example, spamming Astral Blessing on a single target. it also doubles down on existing shields, as far as we know, which means that champions such as Lulu and Karma will get yet another tool to help keep their carries alive.

The jury is still out on Perxie, but there’s a lot of potential in the idea, and I wouldn’t be at all surprised if it ends up being too powerful in practice.

Slide 3

The final run which we got a chance to see wasn’t a Keystone rune, but was nevertheless interesting. The rune in question is called Overheal, and it does more or less what its name indicates. When a champion with Overheal gets healed, either from another champion or with their own kit, any excess health they would have been healed for is instead turned into a shield.

It was immediately noted in the video that this rune would seem desirable if your teammates were playing healing champions such as Soraka or Sona, but I’m not so sure that’s where it’s true potential lies. First off, Soraka doesn’t tend to overheal all that often except for the regeneration off of Starcall. While it might be valuable to get that healing as a shield, it will be pretty hard to exploit that in laning phase considering Soraka’s passive play pattern. Unlike Sona, any healing that Soraka does comes out of her own HP pool, so it’s not as if overhealing you is ever going to be all that valuable in the long run. Sona, on the other hand, has a much different problem exploiting Overheal, as the potency of her heal is directly tied to how much HP the target is missing. Using it on high HP targets will give them a slightly larger shield than normal, sure, but only that. Slightly. Considering how much mana Sona has to pump into her healing, that’s also unlikely to look like a desirable proposition.

That’s not to say the rune looks weak, however, as for champions that have their own sustain abilities it may well prove ridiculous. Ekko’s ultimate heals him for an absurd amount of HP if he’s stacking AP, and most of that ends up lost due to him simply not having a long enough HP bar to absorb it all. Not so anymore with Overheal! The perhaps more alarming case, however, is Vladimir, who’s going to have an absolute field day with Overheal, since it ensures that all of the excess HP he can get from Hemoplague won’t be wasted, and is handy in lane to boot. Mark my words, you’re going to see Overheal once it comes out, and for some champions it’s going to be absolutely amazing/