League of Legends Pre-Season 2019: Big change comes to the Rune Gem system

Let’s take a look at the notable changes to the League of Legends support gem season 9. There are a lot of runes that have been completely reworked!

The 2019 pre-season has officially landed in League of Legends in the 8.23 ​​update yesterday. In addition to tons of changes to turrets, minions, and major objectives, many runes have received tweaks to both their stats and mechanics, giving them completely new interactions and applications.

Update details too big to absorb? No problem, because the article below will summarize the most notable changes to rune rune in the Pre-Season so you can understand them in a snap. Let’s get started…

1. Dark Gathering now works against laners

Dark Gathering’s infinite stacking mechanism is fun, but it’s no good when a powerful attack decides a fight before it even starts. Dark Gathering will be reworked into a finisher-prone super rune that can only stack in teamfights, with a cooldown reset mechanism to further increase its potential.

The new Dark Gathering will only activate on low health targets but you don’t need to just collect a soul to hit the strengthening attack. You will not be able to earn stacks from minions and monsters. Instead, damaging a champion with low health deals bonus damage and summons the enemy’s soul, permanently increasing the damage of subsequent casts. If you’re an active gank jungler, Dark Gathering’s stack rate will be nearly constant – and conversely, it’s a huge nerf against jungling youths.

Some mid lane mages are starting to try using the Dark Gathering rune instead of Electric Shock

On the other hand, this new Dark Gathering is easy to activate and stack with laners, as they have more opportunities to trade/damage enemies. And one last thing: Dark Collector’s cooldown is drastically reduced during kills, so it can still be activated multiple times in combat!

2. Quick is super strong on some champions and almost useless on others

Movement speed and adaptive power are two valuable stats in League, so every time you give Quick Boost, every champion rushes to pick it. Removing the damage conversion from movement speed helps Riot define the use of this gem more clearly: increasing mobility for champions and squads with a lot of acceleration effects.

In the 2019 Pre-Season, the Mau Le gem has been reworked with a completely new effect: Increases bonus movement speed by 8%. Instead of increasing movement speed for all champions in all situations, now only champions with a boost effect can directly benefit from the Quick Rune. Quick will be especially effective on speeding gods such as Hecarim, Rammus or Master Yi,… ; but has almost no effect on the rest of League of Legends, unless they build accelerated items.

Note: according to the latest update from Riotthe movement speed bonus from Boot items does not gain additional stats from the Quick Rune.

3. Steal: new mechanism with tons of profits

The old mechanism forced the trigger of Thief to be an attack immediately after using the ability on a champion, making the number of people using this gem count on their fingers (Ezreal, Gangplank, Viktor, …). In Pre-Season 2019, you can now activate Thief in two basic attacks consecutively immediately after using the skill.

Thief? Shot 2 hits? Come up with a new game to abuse…

This change is not only a direct buff for champions who are using Thief, but also expands the range of champions that can use this super gem. Although slightly reduced the item drop rate to compensate (This point is not clearly stated in the Update Details), activating it up to twice greatly increases the economy of the person who can activate it frequently. Most likely in the near future, Thief will return to the main gameplay of champions who used to take advantage of it but then forgot like Illaoi, Fiora or even… Riven, Lucian – who knows…

4. The Steadfast Branch drastically reduced its hegemony

The defensive ability of the runes in Consistency is designed with high stats available to compensate for tank champions when there is no rune of early game rune like in 2017 and earlier. However, rather Many Gladiators and Mages also choose this jade branch to “enjoy” that favor, especially abusing the Combo Armor + Silk Cocoon. Now that everyone has the early stats with Stat Shards, the League Council will drastically reduce the effectiveness of this rune against “non-specialist” champions.

Armor Bones: Blocks more damage but reduces duration. Move down to row 2.

Dirty: Silkworm Cocoon was created to allow damage dealers who choose Steadfast to be slightly offset in attack ability. Now that we have the Gem Stat, we won’t need the Silk Cocoon anymore.

Destruction Destruction: Reduces build-up time. Base damage reduction.

Shield Strike: New Gem: Gain extra resistance when shielded. Next attack after shield deals bonus damage.

Spread: Health gain stacks apply straight instead of a health percentage. At 120 minions and monsters, you gain more health again.

5. Removed the stats when splicing runes, replacing it with Stat Fragments

The last and most important thing you need to remember about the new rune system of the 2019 season is Stat Fragments. In the 2018 season, stats are added automatically when you combine runes. While this does make running runes a lot simpler, this stat bonus sometimes doesn’t turn out to be optimal for the champion that picks it up. For example, if a mage takes Accuracy as a primary or secondary rune, they will default to 9% bonus attack speed – which is quite a waste in this position.

For that reason, the Alliance Council decided to remove all bonus stats when combining runes. You will now be able to choose your own stats to add to champions at the start of the match through Stat Fragments. Specifically, you will choose 3 stat pieces for 3 rows, Attack, Agility and Defense among the 9 available stat pieces. These stat shards will be attached to each of your respective runes.

If you haven’t adjusted these stat pieces yet, we will install them automatically for you. But to have the most optimal table for your champion, learn and tweak them yourself.

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