Runes for Support builds

Question

Should I buy scaling runes or flat increase runes? I mostly play support champs and I am looking for some advice as to the best runes to buy for support champs. Should I go mag/phys defense scaling, or flat increase.

Answer 1

Currently, the meta has supports as a highly mobile (+5 mobility boots) champion designated to provide wards everywhere past the laning phase. During the laning phase, you will be harassed constantly, and will require the extra armor to negate the ADC's poke damage, so flat runes are generally much better, as runes provide much more significant stats earlier in the game.

For yellows i would reccomend Flat Defence runes for early laning defence against the opposing ADC.

For blues i would reccomenD scaling CDR(Cooldown Reduction) runes, as the CDR will help immensely later into the game.

As for reds, they would be your personal preference, as primary marks are all offensive, and offer little to no help in the current role of support. I personally use flat magic penetration for some lane harass, but past laning phase, these runes in general offer little bonus.

Answer 2

I'm a plat level jungle/support main, your runes will vary a little based off of which champion you're playing and your personal preference. For solo queue I like to run

• GP10 quints
• Flat armor reds
• GP10 yellows
• Scaling magic resist blues

A full GP10 page will allow you to start full consumable (3 greens, 1 pink, 5 pots (3 health 2 mana or 3 mana 2 health depending on champ) and, barring exceptional mistakes/mishaps, will let you stay in lane until you can afford a sightstone.

The armor reds are there because you're going to be taking a lot of physical damage and possibly taking a few minion hits as well. On some supports you can swap the reds for magic pen (ie sona), but you'll be very soft and need to keep it in mind.

As far as the yellows, a lot of players in general have disregarded gp10 yellows in favor of armor yellows for mpen/ad/ap reds. I'm not personally a fan of it and would rather the gold gen throughout the game, but this is a preference point. If you're taking armor yellows you want flat.

You should be taking scaling magic resist blues in most cases. In lane phase you will be mana gated rather than cooldown gated with your abilities and late game you're going to want the defensive stats from this slot more often than not. As a support you're usually going to be between your front line and your adc so you're going to soak up a good bit of dmg. This also depends on who you're playing, but largely holds true.