LoL Runes: How Important Are Bone Plating And Second Wind?
Runes are an integral part of League of Legends and heavily influence how a game is played out. While most players focus on the keystone runes, there are two choices that almost every player makes that can make or break a lane.
Runes are one of the most important parts of League of Legends. Every player has to choose their runes at the start of a game. Every rune page consists of a keystone rune and 3 secondary choices. You can also select 2 secondary runes of another rune tree.
Most players think that their keystone is the most essential rune, and while that is true to some degree, there are secondary runes that can win or lose you a laning phase. If you want to learn more about Runes in general, check out this article here.
League of Legends Runes: How Strong Are Second Wind And Bone Plating?
Both Second Wind and Bone Plating can be found in the Resistance Row of the Resolve Rune Tree.
Second Wind grants you health regeneration equal to 1.5(+2% of your missing health) for 10 seconds after you get hit. If you get hit during those 10 seconds, the duration will refresh.
Bone Plating reduces the damage you take for 1.5 seconds from a champion after getting hit by that champion. It is important to note that this does not count the damage instance that procs Bone Plating. Bone Plating will go on a 55-second cooldown even if no further damage is blocked, and it can only block damage from the champion that triggered it. It will not activate from damage dealt to a shield.
All in all, these sound like great choices, but what makes them so incredibly critical and strong? Your opponent does.
Lane matchups are incredibly significant and heavily decide the rune choices of great players. Let's say you play Ornn against a Quinn. Would you rather have Bone Plating or Second Wind?
Obviously, you would want Second Wind. Quinn could easily proc the Bone Plating and wait out its effect to attack you again, but with Second Wind you would permanently regenerate health while out of combat. Simply last hit a minion, get auto attacked and back off to heal. This is especially broken with the Doran's Shield item that also increases your regeneration after being hit.
Now what if you play Ornn against Riven. She is a fast champion that excels at small trades and wants to chip away a little health to all in you afterward. Bone Plating is crucial in this matchup as every 55 seconds you can make a free mistake and the rune doesnt allow Riven to punish it heavily.
It's very easy to cherry-pick these scenarios, though, but making a mistake with these runes can absolutely ruin your experience. If you choose to pick Bone Plating versus for example Teemo you are losing out on so much health that you could have for free. It's a huge disadvantage and can spiral into a losing game very fast.
This doesnt only apply to top lane, though. Take for example Akali, a melee Assassin from the mid-lane. She loves Second Wind as her secondary runes because mid-lane is mostly played by ranged Mages. These are ideally trying to pressure Akali out of lane and back to base without getting to farm. Having this extra bit of sustain combined with Doran's Shield allows her to survive the laning phase while losing as little health as possible to secure minions and get snowballing.
What other Runes do you think can make or break a game?
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