We’ve learned a lot about League of Legends’ upcoming changes for the 2022 preseason so far, but Riot Games still has some news pertaining to the plethora of new aspects headed to the game.
League’s new rune, First Strike, is confirmed to be in the Inspiration rune tree as a replacement for Omnistone, which “never really found its place in most players’ hearts.”
“[Omnistone’s] rules and optimizations were too complex and tinkering with it any further risked making it even harder to master,” senior game designer John “Sotere” Frank said in a recent developer’s blog. “This left us in a tough spot where we couldn’t safely buff it out of fear that it would become a standard in Pro play. 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.”
First Strike is a rune that will favor those who attack their enemy laner first. It gives five bonus gold on hit and activates “first strike” for three seconds, which causes attacks to deal 12-percent bonus damage against all champions and grants bonus damage dealt as gold. These effects are on a 25 to 15-second cooldown, based on level.
The extra damage is great when trading and skirmishing and the extra income will allow players to hit item thresholds at a much quicker rate than before. It’ll be great for any champions that have a quick rotation of spells they can get through since they can activate this rune’s effect easily—but only if they can chain them successfully.
Even though damage-based runes aren’t usually set in the Inspiration tree, Sotere said that because “starting combat is a harder decision to make than the choices most of our other damage-focused runes ask of you,” Riot is bending its own rules in this special case. The developers also hope that this rune can be used by a variety of champions and roles, which fits in with the creative style that most Inspiration runes fall into.
First Strike will get the chance to spice up the rune choices for League players when the 2022 preseason rolls around soon.
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