5

I got Level 28, but I've never used runes before. I have now some IP and can buy some Tier 3 runes.

How does the rune combiner work in League of Legends? Which Tier 3 runes should I combine? Are there any recipes to build better runes, or is combination result random?

3 Answers 3

9

Combining two runes will give you a random rune of the same tier. Combining 5 runes will give you a random rune of the next highest tier. You cannot combine 5 tier 3 runes at once (as there is no tier 4).

The rune combiner is random. It doesn't matter whether you combine marks, glyphs, seals, or quintessences -- they all work with each other, and the output can be anything.

The idea is that, generally, runes themselves are priced such that it is slightly cheaper to generate a tier 3 runeset from your old runes than by buying the tier 3 runes on their own. For instance, the level 1 +AD rune is 15 ip, while the level 2 +AD rune is 80 ip -- if you bought 5 of the level 1 runes, combined them, and wound up with a level 2 +AD rune, you would have saved yourself IP.

Unfortunately, as mentioned earlier, this process is completely random. If you have tier 1 and 2 runes, by all means, combine them to higher levels; the rune combiner is just a way to possibly recoup the IP you spent on runes you no longer find useful, but it cannot be counted on to give you what you want. You might luck out and combine 2 random runes into a +Dodge quintessence (very expensive!) -- or you might get a mana/5 Mark (with a tertiary stat, and probably not worth the IP cost of your combined runes).

It's very much a gamble, and you don't get anything exclusive from it, so use it if you need to get rid of T1 / T2 runes, and safely ignore it otherwise.

3
  • 1
    As recently brought up on a linked question, the Rune Combiner does not care if you already have 9 runes of a particular type - it will give you a 10th just as soon as it will give you a rune you have only 3 of. Jul 29, 2012 at 23:16
  • Is that confirmed or just an extrapolation of "the combiner is random?" I ask because the store prevents you from buying more than 9 of any rune, so it's reasonable to wonder if Riot also coded the combiner to respect a 9-rune cap. Could the combiner be "randomly selected from the set of runes that you don't have 9 of?" Aug 1, 2012 at 21:00
  • @EricGrunzke It prevents you from buying more than 9 at once, but it doesn't prevent you from owning more than 9. The combiner is much older than the "buy multiple runes at once" addition (which was not available initially), so it's unlikely to do such check, unless they went back and adjusted it (since there's no benefit to owning more than 9 runes, I find it feasible they may have just left it alone). Testing this is impractical, however, without some real-world investment (money -> RP or time). Aug 1, 2012 at 23:19
2

As answered by Raven it all comes down to chance. I myself found if you do this at the start when your level 1 you gain a tremendous advantage over the rest of the players until later level.

The reason for this is that the Tier 2 and Tier 3 runes have a level requirement you have to reach in order to purchase them from the shop. If you use the Rune Combiner you can get the better Tier 2 to Tier 3 runes much sooner and actually place them into your rune page. Early on just hold onto the good Tier 2's you get and use them but hold onto the ones you won't use until you save up 5 of them for making the Tier 3 runes you'll always use later on - just buy the cheapest Tier 1 runes from the shop early (duplicates don't matter, just the absolute cheapest Tier 1's in the shop) and use 5 of them to create a Tier 2 rune.

For the ones you don't see yourself using save them until you have enough to create a Tier 3. Continue doing this until you reach the level requirement to buy the Tier 3 runes straight from the shop.

By this point you should have a nice amount of Tier 3 runes that will aid you tremendously. My last tip is that you should stop using the Rune Combiner when you reach around 40% maximum completion of having every single rune with the maximum set amount.

I found if you try to go push beyond that point you waste IP because you get Tier 3 duplicates which do you no good at all.

0

This does have potential if you invest in runes before level 20 (i.e. tier 3, which is not a good idea) For example: I have currently 3 tier 2 runes that I need to get rid of. The cheapest available tier 2 runes are 80 ip, so for 160 ip I may get something for my AP carry as awesome as a greater quint of CDR or something as horrible as a greater glyph of armor.

You must log in to answer this question.

Not the answer you're looking for? Browse other questions tagged .