Just a few hours ago, the League of Legends servers managed by Riot were upgraded to version 12.5. Consequently, the PBE server has also been pushed to version 12.6 with a host of new content being tested. Alongside the new skins, the changes to the runes have also garnered considerable attention from players.
Specifically, Riot Games is experimenting with completely removing the Ravenous Hunter rune, which has a strong healing effect. Instead, a new rune called Treasure Hunter has been added to League of Legends, which increases gold when you secure your first takedown of an enemy champion. This could be a powerful rune for players who favor early skirmishes and securing kills.
Without delving into the strength of the new rune, the removal of Ravenous Hunter has received a lot of support from the player base. The reason is that this rune previously provided excessive healing capabilities, making League of Legends increasingly unbalanced. Rather than utilizing tank items, many champions exploited the Ravenous Hunter rune to become “tanky” due to its strong healing.
Furthermore, the direct benefits this rune provided upon taking down enemy champions have exacerbated the snowballing issue beyond control. Essentially, increasing out-of-combat movement speed (Tireless Hunter), reducing ultimate cooldown (Ultimate Hunter), or item cooldown reduction (Ingenious Hunter) only served to supplement power. Meanwhile, the lifesteal from Ravenous Hunter made champions “tanky” even without building many defensive items.
For this reason, players have enthusiastically supported Riot’s decision to remove the Ravenous Hunter rune from League of Legends. As for the new rune, initial assessments suggest it is weaker compared to Ravenous Hunter. However, we still have 4 weeks for Riot to test and make timely adjustments to ensure it is competitive with other runes.