League of Legends Previews Damage Rune Nerfs

Some of League of Legends’ most popular damage-dealing runes, several of which fall within the Domination rune path, are being nerfed to lessen their impact on games.

Precision rune users are safe from this round of nerfs with all of the runes being changed found squarely in the Domination and Sorcery rune paths. While some of the runes are getting compensation buffs to adjust how they’re used instead of simply nerfing their power, three out of the five runes being adjusted are receiving straight-up nerfs.

Riot Maple Nectar shared a list of rune changes Friday on the League of Legends boards in a post where a player was petitioning to have the Electrocute rune renamed to the old Thunderlord’s Decree. While the name isn’t being changed to give players a throwback to the old rune from the pre-Runes Reforged system, its new form that’s being tested on the PBE makes it look a bit more like the previous version.

“I touched on it on another post, but we’re doing some short-term work to siphon out some damage from runes,” Riot Maple Nectar said. “One of the directions we’re currently testing with Electrocute is decreasing both the damage and the cd (get the proc more frequently, but with reduced payout). We’re not going quite to TL levels, but that’s a rough model we’re shooting for.”

The list below previews everything that’s now on the PBE for testing with five different runes having their damage stats and cooldowns adjusted.

Electrocute

• Damage :: 50-220 (+50%bAD)(+30%AP) >>> 30-180 (+40%bAD)(+25%AP)
• Cooldown :: 50-25 >>> 25-20

Cheap Shot

• Damage :: 15-40 >>> 8-40

Sudden Impact

• Lethality Bonus :: 10 >>> 7
• Magic Penetration Bonus :: 8 >>> 6

Celerity

• Bonus Movement Speed converted to Attack Damage :: 9.6% >>> 6%
• Bonus Movement Speed converted to Ability Power :: 16% >>> 10%

Scorch

• Damage :: 20-60 >>> 10-30
• Cooldown :: 20 >>> 10

Two of the other most-common damage runes, Aery and Arcane Comet, aren’t on the list, but that doesn’t mean that they won’t be addressed eventually.

“Notably, there’s some runes like Aery and Comet not included in this list which are cited pretty frequently, they likely also need more work in terms of gameplay that isn’t just simply some number shifts (we’re still talking about them though),” the Rioter continued.

These changes are now on the PBE for testing and aren’t guaranteed to ship to live servers in their current form as they may be further adjusted or removed entirely.