Here's How League of Legends' New Hail of Blades Rune Works

League of Legends has a new Keystone Rune coming to the Domination rune path that grants bonus [...]

By Tanner Dedmon

Vayne
(Photo: Riot Games)

League of Legends has a new Keystone Rune coming to the Domination rune path that grants bonus attack speed for your first couple of attacks against an enemy champion.

The Keystone Rune was first revealed days ago when Riot Games shared an extensive list of changes to marksmen champions and AD items with Hail of Blades mentioned deep in the post. No information about the rune was shared at that time aside from the fact that it'd be included in the Domination rune path, but Riot Rovient's new post on the League of Legends boards explains in detail what the new rune does starting with the tooltip below.

Hail of Blades

  • Gain 50-100% Attack Speed for the first 3 attacks made against enemy champions.
  • No more than 1.5s can elapse between attacks or this effect will end.
  • Hail of Blades allows you to temporarily exceed the attack speed limit.
  • Cooldown: 5s out of combat.

While the basic attack runes are indeed found more often in the Precision path, as the Rioter mentioned, this new Keystone Rune puts the damage bonus up front and keeps in line with Domination's burst damage tendencies. Instead of looking for more sustained damage, Riot Rovient said that this new rune should be a smart fit for marksmen who opt for short trades. Champions that can proc the rune's full effect with quick attacks such as Xin Zhao and Vayne, as well as those like Darius who can stick with enemies, are all champions mentioned who could benefit from the rune.

The window of opportunity is a small one as well with 1.5 seconds available between each attack to get the rune's full effect.

"This time pressure was designed to ensure that players fully commit and attempt to unleash all 3 enhanced basic attacks in one volley, rather than skirting around a fight and firing off each basic attack one at a time," Riot Rovient explained. "The pressure to stay committed also introduces a measure of risk/reward to the Rune: do you push for those extra few attacks and expose yourself to the danger, or do you take a more cautious approach and lose out on some of your keystone's power?"

Hail of Blades' cooldown is a low one, but it also works differently than other runes. Where Keystones like Grasp of the Undying will task players with staying in combat, Hail of Blades makes players exit combat to reset. After five seconds of neither taking damage nor dealing damage, even to minions, the effect will reset.

The new rune is now live on the PBE for testing.

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