Everything You Need To Know About LoL Runes

Do you want to master the rune system in League of Legends (LoL)? You’re not alone! Runes are a fundamental element of LoL gameplay, influencing your champion’s strengths and defining your overall playstyle. However, with so many rune options, it’s easy to feel a bit overwhelmed by it all.

Fortunately, we’re here to help! This guide will explore all the runes in League, including the keystone and minor runes in the Precision, Domination, Sorcery, Resolve, and Inspiration pathways. We’ll also explain some intricacies, such as what runes are and how they work.

Note: The information in this blog is accurate as of Nov. 3, 2024, and is subject to change with future LoL game updates.

What Are Runes In LoL?

Runes are customizable elements that you can select before a LoL match, and they enhance a champion’s ability and stats. Most of these enhancements are passive effects or buffs. However, some runes may also offer unique actives for your champion. 

Ultimately, runes form part of your pre-game strategy, affecting how a champion is played and their performance in a match. There are 61 runes in LoL and they’re organized into one of five paths, each having a unique focus and offering different bonuses in League.

You can learn about each rune path in LoL below.

All LoL Rune Paths

• Precision: This rune path amplifies your champion’s auto-attacks and damage output, offering benefits like increased attack speed, critical strike bonuses, and situational healing. It’s ideal for champions who rely on consistent DPS and late-game scaling, such as ADCs and some fighters.
• Domination: This rune path is tailored for champions focused on burst damage and rapid takedowns, making it valuable for assassins and other champions who excel in swift eliminations of vulnerable targets. It also enhances vision control, serving as a great utility for roaming and jungle control.
• Sorcery: These runes are often chosen by mages or champions who rely heavily on their abilities to deal damage, enhancing spell power, cooldown reduction, and movement speed. It primarily strengthens offensive magic but supports some utility champions, too.
• Resolve: Designed for tankiness, durability, and crowd control (CC). This rune path best suits champions who need to absorb damage and protect teammates. It provides boosts to shielding, healing, and defenses, making it ideal for frontline tanks and supportive roles.
• Inspiration: This is a unique and utility-focused rune path tailored to players who want to experiment with different gameplay mechanics, including gold generation, items, and cooldowns.

Note: Runes selected during the champion selection stage are locked in and cannot be altered during the match. 

How Do LoL Runes Work?

Every rune page comprises a primary and a secondary path. The primary path offers one keystone and three minor runes, while the secondary path provides two additional minor (or “lesser”) runes. You can only select one rune for each slot in both paths.

The keystone runes define your approach to the game. They offer effects like extra damage, utility, or survivability. These are much stronger than the lesser runes and more crucial in decision-making. They often dictate your playstyle, depending on the matchup.

On the other hand, minor runes will provide smaller, conditional effects that complement the keystone rune. In addition, there are three slots for rune shards, which offer bonuses to offense, defense, or a mix of both (“flex”). These are primarily chosen for the laning phase.

What Is Rune Recommender?

Not sure which runes to pick? No problem! The Rune Recommender is a relatively new system added by Riot Games to assist players (especially beginners) in selecting suitable runes for their champions in LoL. The recommendations are also kept up-to-date for each patch.

The Rune Recommender button appears when you hover over or lock in a champion during champion selection, offering up to three sets of recommended runes and summoner spells based on the meta and your champ’s role. You can then choose which runes you want to add to your loadout.

All Precision Runes

Let’s explore all the keystone and minor runes in the Precision pathway in League.

Keystone Runes

• Press the Attack: Deals bonus adaptive damage and makes the target take increased damage from all sources after hitting them with three basic attacks. This keystone rune is great on champions like Lucian, who can quickly land three attacks.
• Lethal Tempo: Increases attack speed per stack when hitting an enemy champion. At maximum stacks, basic attacks are empowered with a bolt that deals adaptive damage based on your level and bonus attack speed, making it especially strong on champions reliant on auto-attack.
• Fleet Footwork: Grants Energy stacks whenever you move or attack. At 100 stacks, the next attack heals and boosts speed. This keystone rune is suited for champions like Caitlyn and Graves, offering mobility and healing.
• Conqueror: Each attack or ability hit grants Conqueror stacks that increase adaptive force (attack damage or ability power). At max stacks, damaging enemy champions heals you.

Slot 1: Heroism

• Absorb Life: Passively restores HP when you kill enemy units. The amount of healing scales with your champion’s level.
• Triumph: Heals for a percentage of missing health and grants bonus gold on takedowns.
• Presence of Mind: Restores mana or energy upon damaging an enemy and grants a larger amount on takedowns.

Slot 2: Legend

• Legend: Alacrity: Grants permanent attack speed as you accumulate Legend stacks.
• Legend: Haste: Grants permanent ability haste as you accumulate Legend stacks.
• Legend: Bloodline: Offers permanent life steal as you accumulate Legend stacks.

Note: Legend stack progress is earned for every champion or epic monster takedown (100 points), large monster kill (25 points), and minion kill (5 points). One Legend stack is earned for every 100 points, up to 10 stacks.

Slot 3: Combat

• Coup de Grace: Deals additional damage to enemies with low health.
• Cut Down: Increases your damage against opponents who have more maximum health than you. The more health they have compared to you, the more damage they take.
• Last Stand: Boosts damage output when your health is low.

All Domination Runes

Now let’s go over the Domination pathway keystone and minor runes in LoL.

Keystone Runes

• Electrocute: Triggers extra damage when landing three attacks or abilities on an opponent within 3 seconds. This rune is ideal for champions who can execute quick, high-damage trades, like Ahri or Zed.
• Dark Harvest: Deals bonus damage to enemies under 50% HP and harvests souls, with the damage scaling over time. This rune is great for champions like Karthus or Jhin, who frequently damage low-health enemies and need late-game burst damage.
• Hail of Blades: Increases attack speed for three attacks against an enemy champion. It’s useful for champions benefiting from quick auto-attack bursts, especially those with three-hit combos (e.g., Vayne or Tristana).

Slot 1: Malice

• Cheap Shot: Deals additional true damage to crowd-controlled enemies.
• Taste of Blood: Provides healing when damaging an enemy on a 20-second cooldown.
• Sudden Impact: Grants lethality and magic penetration after using a dash or blink.

Slot 2: Tracking

Each of these runes provides vision and adaptive force (i.e., AD or AP) per stack. At max stacks, they grant additional adaptive force.

• Zombie Ward: Replaces a destroyed enemy ward with a Zombie Ward, providing vision and a stack of adaptive force when spawned.
• Ghost Poro: Summons a Ghost Poro from an expired ward, acting as a mini ward. It also grants adaptive force each time a Ghost Poro is summoned and extra stacks when it spots an enemy.
• Eyeball Collection: Grants a stack of adaptive force for each takedown (kills or assists).

Slot 3: Hunter

• Treasure Hunter: Provides gold for each unique takedown.
• Relentless Hunter: Grants out-of-combat movement speed for each unique takedown.
• Ultimate Hunter: Reduces the cooldown of your ultimate ability for each unique takedown.

All Sorcery Runes

Below, you can review all the keystone and minor runes in the Sorcery pathway in LoL.

Keystone

• Summon Aery: Sends a fox-like creature called Aery to deal extra damage after damaging enemy champions with basic attacks or abilities. If you empower or protect allies, Aery will instead shield allies. This keystone rune is ideal for champions who deal damage or provide utility and healing, like Morgana and Orianna.
• Arcane Comet: When abilities hit, they cause a comet to strike, dealing damage or reducing the remaining cooldown of the keystone rune effect (if it’s on cooldown). It’s good on poke-heavy champions who can also slow enemies like Xerath and Syndra.
• Phase Rush: Landing three attacks or abilities grants significant movement speed and slow resistance. This keystone rune is best suited for champions who engage in chasedowns.

Slot 1: Artifact

• Nullifying Orb: Provides a magic damage shield when health drops below 30%.
• Manaflow Band: Increases maximum mana and mana regeneration upon hitting enemy champions with abilities.
• Nimbus Cloak: Casting a summoner spell grants movement speed and lets you walk through units.

Slot 2: Excellence

• Transcendence: Grants ability haste (levels 5 and 8) and reduces cooldowns of basic abilities on takedowns (level 11).
• Celerity: Increases movement speed and effectiveness of speed boosts.
• Absolute Focus: Grants additional adaptive force when health is above 70%.

Slot 3: Power

• Scorch: Adds extra damage following ability hits.
• Waterwalking: Boosts movement speed and adaptive force in the river.
• Gathering Storm: Increases adaptive force progressively over the game’s duration.

All Resolve Runes

In the next section, we’ll look at the Resolve keystone and minor runes in LoL.

Keystone

• Grasp of the Undying: Basic attacks in combat deal additional damage, heal you, and permanently increase your health. This keystone rune is ideal for champions who frequently trade in the lane and seek to build tanky stats, like Dr. Mundo and Ornn.
• Aftershock: Grants armor and magic resist after immobilizing an enemy, followed by a damaging shockwave. Champions with hard lockdown abilities will benefit from Aftershock as it enhances their durability and damage.
• Guardian: Shields you and a nearby ally when taking significant damage. This keystone rune is best on champions focused on protecting and peeling for allies like Braum and Rakan.

Slot 1: Strength

• Demolish: Charges an attack against towers for extra damage.
• Font of Life: Slowing or immobilizing an enemy champion heals you and the nearest allied champion based on your level.
• Shield Bash: Increases armor and magic resistance when shielded. Your next attack also deals extra damage.

Slot 2: Resistance

• Conditioning: Boosts armor and magic resistance after 12 minutes.
• Second Wind: Regenerates health after taking damage.
• Bone Plating: Reduces damage from subsequent attacks or abilities for a short duration.

Slot 3: Vitality

• Overgrowth: Offers permanent health for minions or monsters dying nearby.
• Revitalize: Increases effectiveness of shields and heals.
• Unflinching: Grants armor and magic resistance when crowd-controlled.

All Inspiration Runes

Now, let’s look at the Inspiration keystone and minor runes in LoL.

Keystone

• Glacial Augment: After immobilizing an enemy, icy rays create zones that slow enemies and reduce their damage to allies (not including yourself). This keystone rune is ideal for champions who can easily lock down opponents because it rewards players with extra crowd control and damage reduction.
• Unsealed Spellbook: Allows swapping between summoner spells after a cooldown. It’s best suited for players who want flexibility in summoner spells or for champions who may need different spells in specific situations.
• First Strike: Initial damage to an opponent grants gold and activates a buff that increases subsequent damage. This keystone rune is good for champions with good poke or engage potential, like Xerath or Kha’Zix. It’s especially beneficial to players who often land the first hit in a fight.

Slot 1: Contraptions

• Hextech Flashtraption: Replaces normal flash with a charge-up flash when on cooldown.
• Magical Footwear: Provides free boots after 12 minutes with bonus movement speed.
• Cash Back: Receive 6% of the gold spent back when you buy a Legendary item.

Slot 2: Tomorrow 

• Triple Tonic: Grants a free Elixir of Avarice/Force/Skill after reaching level 3/6/9, respectively.
• Time Warp Tonic: Consuming a potion activates 40% of its health restoration instantly. The remaining 60% of health restoration applies normally.
• Biscuit Delivery: Gain a Biscuit every 2 minutes (until 6:00). Consuming the Biscuit will instantly restore 30 HP and permanently increase your max health by the same amount.

Slot 3: Beyond

• Cosmic Insight: Offers summoner spell haste and item haste.
• Approach Velocity: Increases movement speed towards CC’d enemies.
• Jack of All Trades: For each unique stat type gained from items, you will earn a Jack stack. Each stack provides 1 ability haste plus bonus adaptive force at 5 and 10 stacks.

Note: Some LoL runes are not usable for certain champions in some game modes. But don’t worry—they will be automatically substituted at the start of the game.

Knowledge Is Power In LoL

With our explanation of the different paths in League, we hope you feel more confident the next time you step into Summoner’s Rift. These LoL runes shape gameplay and can help you optimize your champion’s performance, whether you’re seeking sustained damage, burst potential, spell empowerment, durability, or utility. Or, if you want to start slow as a beginner player, you can always lean on the Rune Recommender. Can’t get enough League in your life? We get it! That’s why we’ve created the leading crypto esports betting platform, where gamers of all kinds can bet on their favorite LoL teams in every major tournament.

Want to learn more? Visit our League of Legends betting page to get started today and help you optimize your champion’s performance, whether you’re seeking sustained damage, burst potential, spell empowerment, durability, or utility. Or, if you want to start slow as a beginner player, you can always lean on the Rune Recommender. Can’t get enough League in your life? We get it! That’s why we’ve created the leading crypto esports betting platform, where gamers of all kinds can bet on their favorite LoL teams in every major tournament. Want to learn more? Visit our League of Legends betting page to get started today.