This article is brought to you by Gamer Sensei. Don’t let your ranked dreams be memes. Find your own League of Legends coach with Gamer Sensei.
In League of Legends, there’s a wide variety of options to choose from when it comes to your in-game runes.
There are five different paths, but players can sometimes feel pressured by the presence of runes. To truly use what a League champion has to offer, runes need to fit the role, the character being played, and the player’s playstyle.
Here’s what you need to know about runes for each position in League.
Top lane runes
Top lane is the most isolated position, but as such, it allows the player to be in control of the laning phase and is open to many different picks and playstyles. Players can choose to play a tank and slowly farm toward late-game sustainability or play aggressively with bruisers.
Runes for tanks
The safest picks for a top laner are true tanks such as Ornn and Maokai. These champions require slow play with steady farming through the laning phase and focus on taking the damage for the team, protecting the carries, and holding the frontline in teamfights. To fit this playstyle, top lane tanks go the best with the primary Resolve path since it focuses on giving a champion higher sustain over time and Precision secondary to ensure that you get more tenacity.
Grasp of the Undying is the core rune here, which ensures that you get more health over the entire duration of the game while also dealing a lot of damage every four seconds. Demolish will allow you to take tower plates early on quite quickly and ensure you’re able to splitpush easily in the mid game. Overgrowth will keep your health pool growing as you farm minions, making you an unkillable machine in the later stages of the game.
Triumph will grant you some health back during teamfights, which will be significant due to your maximum health pool and Tenacity will reduce crowd control duration.
Runes for bruisers
If you’re looking for a more aggressive playstyle with champions such as Renekton or Camille, the rune situation changes. This sort of playstyle requires runes that will help you deal more damage and take control of the top lane through trades and kills.
This is exactly what the Precision path will offer with its Conqueror keystone rune. A bruiser is expected to be tanky too, though, so the rest of the path will help add to your sustain as long as you’re taking down enemies at the same time.
Conqueror is the bread and butter keystone of such champions, ensuring you get stronger as the combat time grows longer. Triumph will ensure you come out healthy after those early dives while Tenacity makes sure you don’t get crowd controlled for too long. Last Stand helps you be a menace the lower your health pool is. Resolve’s Bone Plating and Overgrowth make you tankier and increase your health pool the longer the game goes.
Runes for AP and AD damage dealers
If you’re confident about giving up the sustain and rushing through top purely with damage, make sure your runes are in line with that thinking. AP champions, like Ryze and Vladimir, or AD champs, like Vayne and Lucian, that are played in the top lane call for damage burst from the beginning, poke, and overall dominance over the opponent.
AP dealers will want to go for the Sorcery path to gain more poke damage and CDR, which Inspiration will add more of as a secondary path. Movement runes help with easier roams and more sufficient movement in lane trades. If your champion relies heavily on mana, picking Manaflow Band instead of Nimbus Cloak is a good idea.
The goal with AD damage dealers is practically the same. Irelia and Fiora want the Precision path. Any of the offered keystones work with this playstyle since they focus on dealing damage. Conqueror is a good general pick since it helps increases your damage overall and has a great healing effect. Most AD champions shine with attack speed and sustain, which is what Precision and Inspiration are offering with Biscuit Delivery and Time Warp Tonic.
Mid lane runes
Mid laners are carries, meaning they’re the ones who, alongside ADCs, need to take down enemies. The mid lane is played dynamically with a lot of poke in the lane along with participation in fights for jungle objectives.
Runes for AP mid laners
From that perspective, runes need to be built for the highest burst potential, which is done with the Domination path. Along with Inspiration as the second pick, these runes give higher damage output and necessary resources for dealing with the poke damage coming from the enemy. If you don’t have a way to proc Sudden Impact, then going for Taste of Blood is a great alternative to increase your sustain.
Runes for AD mid laners
The playstyle of AD champions in the mid lane doesn’t differ much from AP champs. As such, these runes follow the same, dominant main path. But taking Precision as the secondary path generally fits this role more for easier takedowns. Champions like Talon and Zed can also profit more from the Ultimate Hunter rune so they can spam their ultimates more often.
Bot lane runes
Runes for ADCs
Just like with top laners, ADCs focus on damage output, attack speed, and lifesteal, so they also fit with the Precision path. Again, all keystones work just as good, so feel free to pick what you feel suits your champion the most, whether it’s Caitlyn, Ashe, or Jhin. For an easier laning phase, it’s recommended to pick Inspiration second for the early Biscuits, which will ensure you get to stay in lane longer.
If you’re playing with a support that will provide you with heals, it’s not a bad idea to pick Overheal instead of Triumph for a little bit more sustain.
Runes for supports
Your bot lane duo will be grateful if you pick a tanky support to protect your carry and control the fights. Runes that fit champions like Nautilus, Blitzcrank, and Leona fall under the Resolve path that strengthens supports’ engaging abilities. As a secondary path, Inspiration will provide assets for an easier laning phase.
If tankiness isn’t your forte and you’d rather go for more poke-oriented champions like Morgana or Janna, you should pick the Sorcery path. Sorcery allows you to get the most out of your poke with more damage and mana. Inspiration is a good secondary path to choose for almost any role, including this one. But if your champion excels at healing and shielding, Resolve is a good alternative. Additionally, if you’re looking to grab kills and be an aggressive support, feel free to pick Domination, too. It’s a versatile role.
Jungle runes
Taking on the role of jungler means you need to be able to quickly clear your camps and help the laners win or defend their lanes, whether you do it with the burst from damage output or sustain and crowd control from tankier champions.
Runes for jungle bruisers
Are Elise, Graves, and Rek’Sai among your favorite jungle picks? Do you like being the jungler who can carry the team as a dominant force? If yes, then these runes are for you. A dominant force calls for the Domination path, which, paired with Sorcery, makes for fast movement in the jungle and high damage for ganks.
Runes for jungle tanks
If, however, you’d rather be a force that no one can kill and will make sure the backline stays safe, Resolve is the path to go. It’ll make under-tower ganks easier and the jungler a lot tankier. Tanky junglers like Zac or Sejuani go well with Inspiration as a secondary path, receiving free boots and increasing your overall cooldown reduction.
Remember that runes are here to be customized to suit you and your champion the best. There’s no such thing as a standard rune page. But these pages present a great starting point for further variations and will help you find your own version—or they’ll simply be what you need when you autofill for a role you’re not experienced at.
Published: Sep 25, 2020 03:50 am