New League of Legends Runes Focus on Late-Game Power and Ultimates

Two new League of Legends runes were previewed recently that allow players to stack power into the late-game and use their ultimates more often.

Previewed recently in the Runes Corner on the League boards, Riot Wrekz discussed two new options from the upcoming Runes Reforged system. Both of these runes fall in the Sorcery path, but unlike many of the previous reveals, neither of these two are Keystone Runes.

The two runes that were previewed offer some significant late-game power through stat gains and cooldowns. The first is called Gathering Storm, a rune that allows players to build up damage the longer the match goes on, and the second is tentatively called Ultimore, a rune that does exactly what the name suggests.

Gathering Storm

Gathering Storm is an Adaptive rune that’d fill the final slot of the Sorcery rune path and give players late-game incentives if they can hold out long enough to scale. At different time intervals throughout the game, players gain the flat amount of AP or AD as detailed below, depending on which stat is highest already.

• Every 10 minutes gain +8 Ability Power or +6 Attack Damage, adaptive, per 10 minutes of game time that have elapsed.
  • 10:00 8 AP 6 AD
  • 20:00 24 AP 18 AD
  • 30:00 48 AP 36 AD
  • 40:00 80 AP 60 AD

Riot Wrekz discussed the trade-offs of the rune by explaining the late-game advantage as opposed to the immediate power gain.

“Beyond normal linear scaling it actually accelerates its power growth as time passes,” the Rioter said. “However, this rune doesn’t just grant its power gradually, you only get its bonus at each 10 minute interval. This makes some extremely powerful late-game spikes (30, 40, 50 minutes) particularly meaningful. The stats from Gathering Storm after 30 minutes can absolutely look scary, and we’re going to be keeping a close eye on its tuning.”

Ultimore

The second rune, Ultimore, also falls in the Sorcery path, another non-Keystone Rune that reduces players’ ultimate cooldowns the more they’re used.

• Gain 5% cooldown reduction and maximum cooldown reduction on your ultimate.
• This increases by 1.5% each time you cast your ultimate. Stacks up to 10 times.

By using an ultimate ability more often, players can gain increasing cooldown reduction on their strongest ability. No other abilities will be affected by this rune though – only the ultimate will have its max cooldown reduction increased along with the stacking reduction.

“Instead of broad power or cooldown reduction across the entire kit, this is focused purely on your champion’s ultimate,” Riot Wrekz said. “We’ve seen uses on both ends of the cooldown spectrum. Some players take this to get access to their long cooldown ultimates more often, while others use it to try and reach a point where they can use their ultimate twice in a fight. Overall, we hope it creates some creative uses and different feeling builds for you try out.”

Special Rules for Ultimore

Because of how diverse League of Legends champions’ ultimates are, special rules had to be put in place for the non-Keystone Rune. Champions that can cast their ultimate rapidly likely won’t get as much out of it, and those that have multi-cast ultimates like Ahri or Irelia won’t be fully stacking it after just a few ultimates.

For the multi-cast users, only the first press that activates the ultimate will count towards the reduction. Other champions like Kassadin who can spam their ultimate in quick succession will likely face restrictions as well.

“We will be keeping an eye on how champions with really low ult cooldowns make use of it,” Riot Wrekz said. “There are a number of tweaks we can make here if necessary to balance it across everyone.”

Jayce, Nidalee, and Elise will likely want to steer clear of this Ultimore though since it won’t help them too much. It’ll still lower their transformation cooldowns, but doing so would hardly be the best use of the rune.

What Do You Think About the Late-Game Runes?