General Support Runes

For another installment of the support blogs, I will be going over general runes that you should have handy in order to build your support pages. I will also try to explain some more uncommon rune's uses in certain situations.

Marks

Greater Mark of Armor (+0.91)

Greater Mark of Magic Penetration (+0.87)

Greater Mark of Hybrid Penetration (+0.9ARpen, +0.62Mpen)

I generally like to run armor reds on my more aggressive all in supports such as Thresh, Taric, Leona, and Alistar. Due to their heavy engage potential, they will generally need to soak up as much damage as possible so their AD can safely dish out their damage. They are also very beneficial for melee supports since they are likely to take more auto attack harass while trying  to pressure the lane.

I will generally run penetration marks on more poke heavy supports who don't need the extra resilience. Champions like Janna and Lulu can benefit greatly from the hybrid pen runes as well since their harass is a combination of auto attacks and spells. However, if the opposing lane has a heavy engage support against your poke support, you may want to consider running armor marks in the event you are locked down and bursted.

Seals

Greater Seal of Armor (+1.41)

Greater Seal of Gold (+0.25g/sec)

In about 95% of situations, I will run armor seals for supports due to how efficient they are. Between the three types of basic runes, these will grant you the greatest amount of armor possible in the early game. By granting approximately 13 armor at level 1, you will be starting off with nearly 300g in defensive stats (cloth armor is 15 armor for 300g).

In some situations where you feel confident that you will not be needing the armor, a possible alternative are gold generation seals. Generally if I run these seals I will play the lane very safely and just try to outscale the enemy support. Champions such as Soraka, and Janna are typically champions I would consider running gold generation seals on since they can both play defensively. However, if I choose to take gold seals over armor, then I will always take armor marks to make up for it.

Glyphs

Greater Glyph of (Scaling) Magic Resistance (+1.34, +2.7 at level 18)

Greater Glyph of Mana Regeneration (+0.31 mana regen/5 sec)

Glyphs are the most efficient rune slot for magic resistance which is why I often fill them into this slot. Depending on who you are laning against, you may opt to take scaling magic resistance over flat. Generally, if I am facing a duo with heavy magic damage early, such as Sona and Tristana, I will take the flat magic resistance since it can reduce a lot of their early game harass. If I were against a Graves and Janna, I would take the scaling magic resistance since it is not really needed in the early stages of the game. Generally you will want some kind of magic resistance since the AP carries will generally build magic penetration and not having any magic resistance against them in team fights can be devastating.

The other option that I sometimes seen run for supports is Mana regeneration. I feel that this would be a fairly situational choice but it can be efficient for poke heavy supports who are not laning against heavy magic damage lanes. The mana regen will allow you to poke more often so supports such as Sona and Lulu can get away with it.

Quintessences

Greater Quintessence of Gold (+1g/10 sec)

Greater Quintessence of Health (+26HP)

The most used quintessences for supports are typically the gold generation ones. Since supports will usually be the lowest gold earning champion in the game, they need some form of gold income so they can keep supplying wards and supporting items for the team. By not farming, supports need to rely on natural gold generation, items, runes, and acquiring assists in order to build their items. 

The alternative to running gold generation quints is usually to run health quintessences. The extra 78HP you gain at level one can be quite useful for more aggressive supports such as Thresh. While it may not seem like much, by having that extra health early game, you can force an engage with the opponent within the first few levels. While their support is running gold generation quints which don't benefit them at all in combat, you will be able to withstand an extra two auto attacks due to the quints which can make or break the engage.

It is quite useful to have a variety of runes on hand so you can adapt to different situations. While not having optimal runes is not the end of the world, they can give you a slight edge in the early game which can snowball your team to victory. In the end, you should go out and try to figure out what combination works best for your play style and create an optimal rune page for it. As always, thanks for reading and make sure to follow us on Twitter and Youtube to stay up to date with our content and potential contests in the future.