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League of Legends: Runes guide

Everything you need to know about Runes in League of Legends.

Riot's Rune system isn't the easiest thing to master in League of Legends, but it's well worth diving into as it can drastically alter your champion's power both in and out of the laning phase.

It provides plenty of interesting and exciting choices for customising your champion, so much so that you can effectively tailor a role or individual champion to your playstyle. You can increase the bonuses they earn for killing minions, grant them extra burst damage when hitting enemy champions, and much more. It's a deep, complex system, but once you get the hang of it, you'll be setting your own Rune pages in no time.

So, if you're new to the Rune system or you're a returning player used to the old system (the dark days) it can be very easy to be perplexed by all the changes. In this guide, we've got a general overview of the Runes system so you can get a better idea of how it all functions. We've also taken a closer look at all the potential Rune combinations in the game and put together a handful of starter builds for a variety of roles to help you out.

League of Legends Runes Overview

League of Legends Runes are divided into five separate categories - or Paths - that each focus on different aspects of gameplay. They are as follows:

  • Precision - Improved attacks and sustained damage
  • Domination - Burst damage and target access
  • Sorcery - Empowered abilities and resource manipulation
  • Resolve - Durability and crowd control
  • Inspiration - Creative tools and rule bending

Within these Paths, the Runes are then further divided into two sub-categories: Keystone Runes and Lesser Runes. To create a Rune Page, players must choose one Primary Path where they can take one Keystone Rune and 3 Lesser Runes with one Secondary Path where they only take 2 Lesser Runes.

Depending on the role you’re playing, the specific champion you choose or other personal preferences, you can build a number of Rune Pages that amplify the strengths of your champion or grant them extra abilities that support their playstyle. ADCs, for example, might want to focus on the Precision path, whereas Tanks may find more use out of Runes in the Resolve path.

At first, players a given a handful of premade Rune Pages to choose from when they enter a game. As you increase your Summoner Level by playing matches, the Runes system becomes more open, allowing you to create and edit individual pages to suit your preferred playstyle.

League of Legends Runes List

Here are all the Runes currently available in each Path in League of Legends and their respective effects:

Precision

Keystone Runes

  • Press the Attack - Hitting an enemy champion with 3 consecutive basic attacks deals 40-180 bonus adaptive damage (based on level) makes them vulnerable, dealing bonus damage and causing them to take 8-12% more damage from all sources for 6s.
  • Lethal Tempo - 1.5s after damaging a champion, gain 40-110% Attack Speed (based on level) for 3s. Attacking a champion extends the effect to 6s.
  • Fleet Footwork - Attacking and moving builds Energy stacks. At 100 stacks, your next attack is Energized. Energized attacks heal you for 3-60 (+0.3 Bonus AD, +0.3 AP) and grant + 20% movement speed for 1s. Healing from minions is 20% effective for Ranged Champions.
  • Conquerer - Attacks or spells that deal damage to an enemy champion grant 2-6 Adaptive Force (based on level) for 2s (8s for melee). Stacks up to 5 times. When fully stacked, 8% of your damage is converted to True Damage and heals you for that amount.

Slot 1

  • Overheal - Excess healing on you becomes a shield.
  • Triumph - Takedowns restore 12% of your missing health and grant an additional 20 gold.
  • Presence of Mind - Enemy champion takedowns restore 20% of your maximum mana and refund 10% of your ultimate's cooldown.

Slot 2

  • Legend: Alacrity - Takedowns on enemies grant permanent Attack Speed.
  • Legend: Tenacity - Takedowns on enemies grant permanent Tenacity.
  • Legend: Bloodline - Takedowns on enemies grant permanent Lifesteal.

Slot 3

  • Coup de Grace - Deal more damage to low health enemy champions.
  • Cut Down - Deal more damage to champions with more max health than you.
  • Last Stand - Deal more damage to champions while you are low on health.
Cover image for YouTube video

Domination

Keystone Runes

  • Electrocute - Hitting a champion with 3 separate attacks or abilities in 3s deals bonus adaptive damage.
  • Predator - Add an active effect to your boots that grants a large boost of MS and causes your next attack or ability to deal bonus adaptive damage.
  • Dark Harvest - Damaging a champion below 50% of their maximum health deals adaptive damage and harvests their souls, permanently increasing Dark Harvest’s damage by 5. This cannot happen again for 45 seconds, resetting to 1.5 seconds on champion takedown.
  • Hail of Blades - Gain 110% Attack Speed when you attack an enemy champion for up to 3 attacks. No more than 2s can elapse between attacks or this effect will end.

Slot 1

  • Cheap Shot - Deal bonus true damage to enemies with impaired movement or actions.
  • Taste of Blood - Heal when you damage an enemy champion.
  • Sudden Impact - Gain a burst of Lethality and Magic Penetration after using a dash, leap, blink. teleport, or when leaving stealth.

Slot 2

  • Zombie Ward - After killing an enemy ward, a friendly Zombie Ward is raised in its place. Damaging a champion after destroying a ward inflicts bonus magic damage.
  • Ghost Poro - When your wards expire, they leave behind a Ghost Poro, which grants vision for 60s. Nearby enemy champions scare the Ghost Poro away.
  • Eyeball Collection - Collect eyeballs for champion takedowns. Gain an adaptive bonus of 1.2 Attack Damage or 2 Ability Power, per eyeball collected.

Slot 3

  • Ravenous Hunter - Unique takedowns grant permanent healing from ability damage.
  • Ingenious Hunter - Unique takedowns grant permanent Active Item CDR (includes Trinkets).
  • Relentless Hunter - Unique champion takedowns grant permanent out of combat MS.
  • Ultimate Hunter - Your ultimate cooldown is lowered and is further reduced the first time you get a takedown on each enemy champion.

Sorcery

Keystone Runes

  • Summon Aery - Your attacks and abilities send Aery to a target, damaging enemies or shielding allies.
  • Arcane Comet - Damaging a champion with an ability hurls a damaging comet at their location.
  • Phase Rush - Hitting an enemy champion with 3 attacks or separate abilities grants a burst of MS and Slow Resistance.

Slot 1

  • Nullifying Orb - Gain a magic damage shield when taken to low health by magic damage.
  • Manaflow Band - Hitting enemy champions with a spell grants 25 maximum mana, up to 250 mana. Upon earning 250 mana, Manaflow Band restores 1% of your missing mana every 5 seconds.
  • Nimbus Cloak - Shortly after casting your Ultimate, gain a burst of decaying movement speed increase that lasts for 2.5s and allows you to pass through units.

Slot 2

  • Transcendence - Gain 10% CDR when you reach level 10. Excess CDR becomes AP or AD (Adaptive).
  • Celerity - Movement speed bonuses are 7% more effective on you and gain 1% Movement Speed.
  • Absolute Focus - While above 70% health, gain extra adaptive damage.

Slot 3

  • Scorch - Your first ability hit every 10s burns champions.
  • Waterwalking - Gain MS and AP or AD (Adaptive) in the river.
  • Gathering Storm - Gain increasing amounts of AD or AD (Adaptive) over the course of the game.

Resolve

Keystone Runes

  • Grasp of the Undying - Every 4s your next attack on a champion deals bonus magic damage, heals you, and permanently increases your health.
  • Aftershock - After immobilizing an enemy champion, gain defenses and later deal a burst of adaptive damage around you.
  • Guardian - Guard allies you cast spells on and those that are very nearby. If you or a guarded ally would take damage, you're both hasted and granted a shield. Cooldown: 70-40s

Slot 1

  • Demolish - Charge up a powerful attack against a tower while near it.
  • Font of Life - Impairing the movement of an enemy champion marks them. Your allies heal when attacking champions you've marked.
  • Shield Bash - Gain bonus armor and magic resistance while shielded. Whenever you gain a shield, your next basic attack against a champion deals bonus adaptive damage.

Slot 2

  • Conditioning - After 10 min, gain +9 Armor and +9 Magic Resist and increase your Armor and Magic Resist by 5%.
  • Second Wind - After taking damage from an enemy champion, heal back some missing health over time.
  • Bone Plating - After taking damage from an enemy champion, their next three spells or attacks against you deal 30-60 less damage (at levels 1-18).

Slot 3

  • Overgrowth - Gain additional permanent health when minions or monsters die near you.
  • Revitalize - Heals and shields are 5% stronger and increased by an additional 10% on low health targets.
  • Unflinching - After casting a Summoner Spell, gain Tenacity and Slow Resistance for a short duration. Additionally, gain Tenacity and Slow Resistance for each Summoner Spell on cooldown.
Cover image for YouTube video

Inspiration

Keystone Runes

  • Glacial Augment - Your first attack against an enemy champion slows them (per unit cooldown). Slowing champions with active items shoots a freeze ray at them, creating a lingering slow zone.
  • Kleptomancy - After using an ability, your next two basic attacks will grant bonus gold if used on a champion. There's a chance you'll also gain a consumable.
  • Unsealed Spellbook - While out of combat, you can swap one of your equipped summoner spells to a new, single-use summoner spell. After using the single-use summoner spell, your original summoner spell will swap back in.

Slot 1

  • Hextech Flashtraption - While Flash is on cooldown it is replaced by Hexflash. Hexflash: Channel, then blink to a new location.
  • Magical Footwear - You get free boots at 10 min but you cannot buy boots before then. Each takedown you get makes your boots come 30s sooner.
  • Perfect Timing - Gain a free Stopwatch. Stopwatch has a one time use Stasis effect.

Slot 2

  • Future’s Market - You can enter debt to buy items.
  • Minion Dematerializer - Start the game with 3 Minion Dematerializers. Killing minions with the item gives permanent bonus damage vs. that minion type.
  • Biscuit Delivery - Gain a free Biscuit every 2 min, until 6 min. Consuming or selling a biscuit permanently increases your max mana and restores health and mana.

Slot 3

  • Cosmic Insight - +5% CDR. +5% Max CDR. +5% Summoner Spell CDR. +5% Item CDR.
  • Approach Velocity - Gain bonus MS towards nearby allied champions that are movement impaired or enemy champions that you impair.
  • Time Warp Tonic - Your potions or biscuits grant 50% of their health and mana immediately and grant you increased movement speed.

More League of Legends guides

League of Legends Best Rune Builds

The preset Rune Pages available to all players are a decent way to get you started with the Rune system, but as you play League of Legends more you’ll probably want to tinker with some of the choices available to you. To get you started, we’ve put together a handful of builds considered to be some of the best options for each role.

Try these out for yourself and see what you think. Remember, you can always make a change here or there should you prefer a different Rune choice!

ADC

This ADC build is generally considered to be the best in the game. It is centered around the Fleet Footwork Keystone Rune, which gives you some safety during the laning phase with extra healing. Triumph is a strong choice in Slot 1 for more sustain, especially in team fights in the latter stages of a match, but some players prefer Overheal. The remaining two choices of the Precision Path are pretty much set in stone with Legend: Alacrity and Coup de Grace.

As for your second Path, there are a number of choices here if you want to lean towards more damage, survivability or utility. Of the three we’ve gone with the middle option. You should absolutely consider Domination, though, if your champion can take advantage of Sudden Impact with any sort of dash, leap, blink or so on.

  • Precision - Fleet Footwork, Triumph, Legend: Alacrity, Coup de Grace
  • Resolve - Bone Plating, Unflinching

Mid / AP

Understandably, it’s worth starting with the Sorcery Path for spellcasters if you’re new to the role. The Keystone is actually quite a contentious choice between Summon Aery and Arcane Comet, though the former offers more reliable damage so it gets the pick here. The next three choices are no-brainers to give you some added mana regen, cooldown reduction and a burn effect on your spells.

Precision is the best choice for your second Path as it offers up some very handy extra damage and sustain.

  • Sorcery - Summon Aery, Manaflow Band, Transcendence, Scorch
  • Precision - Triumph, Coup de Grace

If you’re a little more experienced in the midlane, you can also take Domination as your primary tree, taking Electrocute, Sudden Impact, Eyeball Collection, and Ravenous Hunter for a bursty build. Your second strand should be Inspiration, with Time Warp Tonic and Biscuit Delivery as these will give you the necessary resources to deal with any poke damage.

For those of you who prefer the AD mid like Zed, then going with the Domination tree is still a good idea. We’d recommend swapping out Ravenous Hunter for Ultimate Hunter as you’ll be more heavily reliant on your Ultimate to execute enemies. Precision should be your go-to second tree, with Triumph and Coup De Grace for solid burst damage.

Top / Tank

Top laners have a pretty straightforward path to follow for one of their most optimal builds. Take the Resolve Path and choose Grasp of the Undying, Conditioning and Overgrowth that will all make you a beast over the course of a game. To even further take advantage of your position as a solo laner, Demolish is a strong choice for sieging.

The second Page is open to a lot of interpretation depending on whether you lean more towards a tank or a bruiser. For now, we’ve gone for an all-round solid tank build with the Inspiration Path to give you Magical Footwear and Approach Velocity. Precision and Domination are absolutely viable should you be going down more of a damage dealer approach.

  • Resolve - Grasp of the Undying, Demolish, Conditioning, Overgrowth
  • Inspiration - Magical Footwear, Approach Velocity

Jungle

Jungle is perhaps one of the most flexible roles to build a Rune Page for as each champion has a slightly different approach to that job. For the purposes of this page we’ll be looking at more of an assassin jungler who wants to clear camps and set up ganks in lane.

For that, then, you’ll want to focus on the Domination Path with Rune choices that emphasise and are empowered by their kill potential. As such, Electrocute is the ideal Keystone choice. As for your second Path, Precision is an obvious choice for more damage and sustain from takedowns. Zombie Ward is also a top choice for all the roaming you’ll do spotting opposing wards.

Obviously, for a more tanky jungler, the Resolve Path has more suitable options and you’ll likely want to look for something similar to the Tank Page above. Aftershock is a worthwhile consideration for the Keystone there, though, as you’ll be aiming to lock down opponents when you gank.

  • Domination - Electrocute, Cheap Shot, Zombie Ward, Ravenous Hunter
  • Precision - Triumph, Coup de Grace

Support

The best Support Page is another that can fluctuate depending on the type of Support champion you’re playing and so can be significantly different. For that reason we thought it made sense to list two optimal builds here that either emphasise their spell casting or tankiness while offsetting the gold they have to give up to their lane buddy.

If you’re going down the spellcaster Support route, Sorcery and Inspiration prove incredibly useful. Summon Aery increases your poke damage nicely, Manaflow Band will help you regen your mana, Scorch will add an extra bite to your poke, and Absolute Focus (provided you’re above 70% health) also ramps up your damage dealing further.

Biscuit Delivery and Cosmic Insight will provide the tools you need to better survive in lane.

  • Sorcery - Summon Aery, Manaflow Bind, Transcendence, Scorch
  • Inspiration - Cosmic Insight, Magical Footwear

For the tanky supports like Leona and Nautilus who like to dive in with the CC abilities, Resolve is the way to go. Aftershock provides a strong burst of damage after you land an immobilising ability, while Font of Life will give your ADC a lovely touch of health if they attack that target. Bone Plating will reduce the damage you take, and Overgrowth will slowly increase your permanent health during the laning phase.

  • Resolve - Guardian, Font of Life, Bone Plating, Overgrowth
  • Inspiration - Magical Footwear, Biscuit Delivery

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