Roscoe's Rapid Rudiments: Runes and Masteries

In this latest guide, runes and masteries will be explained. As you level up, you’re notified and rewarded an extra mastery point and another spot in your rune page. It’s important that you update your mastery pages as you gain levels, because those that do have a distinct advantage over others. 

- Masteries -

Your hard earned points can be spent in any of the 56 mastery slots which are split up into 3 categories:              

Offense: For those who favor the high damage output roles like AD carry, AP mid or bruisers at top, this category is where you want to invest. The current meta (or strategy) dictates that an Attack Damage carry put their points in masteries like attack speed and attack damage, so that they can easily farm and get a leg up on their opponent. On the magic damage side, there are masteries like cooldown reduction, magic penetration, and ability power. This category is pretty straightforward, but you can choose to vary slightly with flat AP, or AP per level, meaning you play well early or prefer to scale into late game. For the most part, those who want to deal damage put 21 points in offense, and 9 in either defense or utility (21/0/9 or 21/9/0).

Defense: The defensive category is, in a nutshell, good for tanky champions like bruisers or tanks. Top lane and jungle are typically the roles that want points in defense, but that can depend on the champion. You're able to put points into masteries like armor, magic resistance health and health regeneration. Should you favor the position of the defensive bruiser, points should be put into armor and health. But while there are many hard hitters that take the top lane, there are also champions who pack a large magical punch. So if you're able to have knowledge of your lane opponent (in draft mode) you can adapt your masteries on the fly to handle either armor or magic resist. If you're a support you'll want to put a few points into armor (usually 9). This will help you to withstand hits you might take from the opposing AD carry, and your AD carry can focus on farming if he isn't taking a lot of damage. Early on, having some masteries in defense can help a jungler go a long ways. One particular mastery adds defense and reflects a small amount of damage to attacking monsters. It helps a lot when clearing camps, but I'll cover jungling in the next edition of Roscoe's Rapid Rudiments. For the most part, those who want to be able to take damage put 21 points in defense, and 9 in either defense or utility (9/21/0 or 0/21/9).

Utility: This category of masteries has, for a long while, been the focus of the support. Points in utility help grant small bonuses in movement speed, experience gain and gold income. The main difficulty when supporting is the lack of gold income, because an AD carry gets all of the farm. By putting points into those individual masteries, a support can keep up with his or her lane partner, in tandem with conventional items like a Philosopher's Stone. Utility can also be useful to any carry, ability power or attack damage focused. The increased movement speed can give the smallest advantage when chasing or escaping. One mastery allows longer retention of buffs like golem, lizard and baron. This comes in handy when you're playing a mid champion who is highly dependent on mana and is given golem (blue) buff. For the most part, those who want to  put 21 points in defense, and 9 in either defense or utility (9/21/0 or 0/21/9).

Runes: Each time you level up you gain a spot to place either a mark, glyph, seals or quintessences. From level one, you're able to buy tier one runes. Regardless of tier, runes grant buffs like increased attack damage, ability power, armor penetration, magic penetration, armor and magic resistance, and many more. Basically any stat can be given an increase through runes. Similar to masteries, an attack damage champion will want to build more attack damage, or try to counter the opponent by equipping armor or lifesteal and the sustain will help you last longer in lane. In mid lane, the choice is mirrored, either ability power or magic resistance. Of course you can always take an unconventional path and get runes that would give you increased experience gain and gold income, which would give you an advantage during the early laning phase, however at the cost of damage output. 

At levels 1, 10 and 20, tiers 1, 2 and 3 are respectively unlocked. Each tier is stronger than the other, and it's here that I give the most important advice to new summoners. Riot employs a marketing tool by selling runes in 3 tiers. For example if you buy 10 runes at level 10, (a full rune page for your level) you will have a base advantage over your opponents. However at level 20 you can buy the next tier of runes which are statistically stronger, making any previous runes obsolete. My advice to you, summoner, is to persevere, and save your precious IP and wait until level 20 when tier 3 runes are unlocked. That way you'll be able to get more than one rune at a time and have a distinct advantage over anyone else at your level with tier 2 or 1 runes.

Check back in next time for the last Roscoe's Rapid Rudiments about jungling!