League of Legends Is Replacing a Keystone Rune

Riot Games unveiled not long ago some of the changes coming to League of Legends during the next preseason period. Part of those changes included the arrival of a new rune known as "First Strike," a rune found within the Inspiration tree that looked to be an evolution of the defunct Kleptomancy Keystone Rune. In a more detailed post about First Strike's functions and its intended strengths and weaknesses, Riot said that this new Keystone Rune will be replacing Prototype: Omnistone.

First Strike, for those who missed the initial reveal, gives champions bonus damage when they're the ones who either initiate combat or retaliate within a short window of time. Its cooldown starts at 25 seconds and scales down to 15, and its full description (from the time it arrived on the PBE) can be seen below to better explain what it does.

"Damaging an enemy champion with an attack or ability before they do, or within 0.25s of the start of combat, grants 5 gold and First Strike for 3 seconds, causing your attacks or abilities to deal 12% bonus damage against all champions, and granting (100% melee / 70% Ranged) of bonus damage dealt as gold," Riot said.

Instead of existing alongside other options in the Inspiration tree, Riot said the new First Strike rune will essentially take the place of Prototype: Omnistone since the latter is being removed. The Omnistone rune is the one that periodically granted champions the use of a semi-random Keystone Rune which was a neat idea but failed to gain wide appeal and failed to take precedence over other options. Riot alluded to this state Omnistone found itself in when explaining why it was being removed and said that those who wanted variable Keystone options often picked Unsealed Spellbook instead.

"While Prototype: Omnistone was a decent option for champions who didn't really love any one particular Keystone, over time, most have discovered at least a couple that suit them best," Riot said. "And for players who want to opt out of Keystones altogether, Unsealed Spellbook provides extra access to Summoner Spells, allowing users to spend their Runes power budget in a different system entirely."

The preseason period isn't fully underway yet since we've just not started to see some of the content arrive on the test servers, so for the Omnistone advocates out there, you've still got time to make use of the Keystone Rune. For those who do have access to the PBE servers for testing, you're able to try out the new First Strike rune now.