League of Legends Runes Series: A Guide to Precision

Our Runes Series will be covering each of the five major trees, looking at the different runes within each and discussing how they will be best used. Our experts will be analyzing which champions, items, and mentalities will likely be most effective in using each one. If you’re looking for another tree, here are Domination, Sorcery, Resolve, and Inspiration.

Precision: Hit things harder with your autos

Overall, the Precision tree will be a great choice for DPS auto-attackers who usually build for Attack Speed and want to maximize their output. These runes will enable them to stick in fights longer, pack more of a punch, and offer even offer some utility in the form of life steal, shielding, and tenacity.

Keystone

Press the Attack

• This is the new replacement to Fervor of Battle. It works best on auto-attacking duelists, skirmishers, or marksmen.
• Champions such as Kalista, Fiora, and Yasuo synergize well with Press the Attack due to their 1v1 prowess and their kits which emphasize single-target combat.
• Items that aid in allowing champs to stick on their victims such as Frozen Mallet and Phantom Dancer make great pairings with the rune.

Lethal Tempo

• This rune synergizes very well with champs that utilize attack speed steroids and can augment their timing window bursts.
• Consider using Lethal Tempo when playing champions such as Tristana and Kog’Maw.

Fleet Footwork

• A replacement for Warlord’s Bloodlust, except the movement speed increase lasts an additional 0.25 seconds longer.
• Consider Fleet Footwork on Rapid Firecannon users such as Caitlyn or Miss Fortune since it increases the rate of Energize’s charge.

Heroism

Overheal

• This is acts the same way as Bloodthirster except it also takes into account other heals like Soraka. Overheal will be extremely useful for ADCs in general when trying to increase your HP through shields instead of Max HP, allowing you to take advantage of effects like Giant Slayer and Cut Down.

Triumph

• Helpful on committed assassins, especially ones that focus on resets that want to use a secondary tree after Domination.
• The champions that want to use Precision as their primary tree shouldn’t be taking this.
• Expect Triumph to be used with champs like Kha’Zix or Shaco.

Presence of Mind

• This is a rune for champions that need a secondary tree. It’s very niche but seems useful on champions that are very mana intensive
• Our experts are projecting champs like Kassadin and Swain to use Presence of Mind.

Legend

Legend: Alacrity

• Most champs will take the Attack Speed Legend over the Lifesteal unless the numbers are absurd enough to replace a Lifesteal item in your build.

Legend: Tenacity

• Melee skirmishers like Fiora and Yasuo can benefit a lot from this Legend but traditional ADCs should never take it.

Legend: Bloodline

• Bloodline seems to be the least useful out of the Legends. If you’re not planning on building Lifesteal into your build or don’t really benefit much from ASPD then consider taking Bloodline.
• Potential champions that come to mind are Kindred and Jhin.

Combat

Coup de Grace

• Great rune if you’re an Assassin/Ganker using Precision as a secondary tree, consider taking if you’re having trouble finishing off the final blow.

Cut Down

• This will be the go-to ADC rune slot in most games. ADCss don’t purchase any health and have low health pools so they will always be hitting the threshold against most champions to gain the extra damage.
• You might switch to Coupe de Grace if you’re against a lot of squishies and won’t have a huge health difference.

Last Stand

• This will be nice on champions like Illaoi and other fighters that have no choice but to fight and try to survive on low amounts of HP once they commit.

Secondary Trees

Precision + any path = +18% attack speed

Domination

• Precision as the main tree focuses on DPS, Domination however, is more geared towards hunting down and assassinating targets. There are a few runes that are useful for DPS style champions in Domination mainly in the top row of runes:
  • Cheapshot
  • Sudden Impact
  • Taste of Blood
• Sudden Impact offers the biggest reward if you can use it with
  • Kalista
  • Yasuo
  • Fiora

Sorcery

• This will be the go-to secondary tree if you want to increase your raw damage output. Gathering Storm and Absolute Focus are both great sources of large amounts of AD/AP. Also, you still get a utility option in Nullifying Orb against burst magic damage.

Resolve

• Resolve is the most situational and should be least used. Most of the secondary runes here require you to have a lot of Max HP or bonus resistances to gain much effectiveness out of them.

Inspiration

• If you’re going for Inspiration as your secondary tree with Precision then you’re looking for utility. Inspiration runes don’t give you long lasting effects but is extremely useful to increase your effectiveness in the early game as well as spike faster.
  • Future’s Market and Magical Footwear
    • Great for if you’re trying to bank gold and hit your 1-2 item power spike faster. Most DPS users have pretty expensive builds so this comes in handy.
  • Celestial Body/Biscuit Delivery
    • If you think you’re going to lose lane to all-ins or just need a little extra sustain.
  • Stopwatch
    • The most situational but can be game-changing as well as life-saving in the early game. If you’re an ADC against a few assassins then this gives you an early get out of jail free card as well as makes your future GA purchase have much more uptime.
      Inspiration will definitely be the most difficult secondary path to use and the least intuitive. Also, inspiration does not scale as well as other trees but provides many more tools that will prove invaluable in the early game.
• Inspiration will definitely be the most difficult secondary path to use and the least intuitive. Also, Inspiration does not scale as well as other trees but provides many more tools that will prove invaluable in the early game.

Thanks for reading! Our next Rune Series article will be on Domination so stay tuned. For more discussion or questions for our coaches about Precision, drop by our Discord. For more discussion or questions for our coaches about Resolve, drop by our Discord. To learn more about the other trees, check out Domination, Sorcery, Resolve, and Inspiration.