The Domination rune tree is one built to be used for quick burst damage and for utility throughout a match of League of Legends. You will mostly find this rune path on assassins and a handful of junglers and ADCs. Today, we will be going over the entire rune tree and go into detail about every part that makes this rune set so deadly.

Keystones

Electrocute

The keystone you will most commonly find when players are primarily using the Domination rune path, Electrocute is a keystone that is built on stacks. Any type of damage, from basic attacks and ability attacks to even item effects and summoner spells, adds a stack. Once the third stack is added, the enemy champion is struck by lighting after a very brief delay, dealing 30-180 damage, based on level, with AD getting a 40% bonus and AP getting a 25% bonus adaptive damage.

This rune works fantastic on assassins, as the Electrocute burst after your combos will deal huge chunks of damage to your lane opponent so long as you are playing smart. A few things to also note is that if you go untargetable during the delay before the strike, the electrocute will still hit you, because the third stack would have been applied before you went untargetable. Also, the timer is a non-refreshing one, meaning that you must apply the third stack within three seconds for Electrocute to be activated. Finally, items that don’t even deal damage and even the aura from Tank Mythics can be counted as stacks.

Predator

This keystone you will mostly find on champions that rely on gap closing to function properly. With this keystone, once you buy boots, will give your movement speed a 45% burst when moving towards an enemy champion, even one that is out of your line of sight. After you ramp up your speed, the next attack or ability you deal against an enemy champion deals 40-120 bonus adaptive damage, plus 20% of your AD and 10% of your AP.

Predator is a rune that can be used well for champions that require gap closing, like Skarner and Udyr. They need to be up in your face to do anything, leaving them easily vulnerable, so the faster they can get to an enemy champion, the better the chances are that the person would not have enough time to react. However, when you do pop Predator, anyone within 1500 units will know you activated it, so be quick with your speed not only in game, but also with your mouse and keyboard to close that gap.

Dark Harvest

This keystone has seen a lot of changes since its inception. Dark Harvest works like this: every time you bring a champion down to about 50% of their max HP and you damage them, you are then granted a stack of soul. For every soul you take, you are granted a bonus in adaptive damage. This keystone would then be on a 45 second cooldown with no change in cooldown time throughout the match.

This rune can work well for champions with high burst, like Kha’Zix or even mages like Neeko. The key is to get as many stacks as possible, so poke and prod the enemy team, building up the stacks as the game progresses. One more thing to note, is that it does not trigger off certain items, like Liandry’s. However, Luden's bolts do reap a soul if they damage a low health enemy.

Hail of Blades

The final keystone in the Domination rune path, Hail of Blades is an attack speed boost. Once you auto attack an enemy champion and will take a stack away. When it is active, you will gain a 110% bonus attack speed boost and your attack speed cap will increase. It lasts for three seconds, but the duration is refreshed by attacking until all the stacks are consumed.

This works well for champions that can stack and deal fast damage in their first three attacks, like Tahm Kench and Vi. It also works well for ADCs like Kai’Sa, Vayne and even Jhin, who gains a huge AD boost.

Malice

Cheap Shot

The first of the Malice line in the Domination path, Cheap Shot deals bonus true damage for any target that is movement impaired, like with stuns, roots, silence, etc. It’s important to know that the target must be impaired to deal the bonus true damage, the attack that impairs will not deal the bonus damage. Its cooldown is also super low at only four seconds.

This rune does wonder with champions that have any CC in their kit to deal bonus damage. For example, Ashe can get tons of mileage out of Cheap Shot because of her passive's slowing shots. Items too can help active this rune, like Iceborn Gauntlet and Hextech-GLP 600.

Taste of Blood

This one is easy to understand, as this rune allows you to heal for 18-35 additional hp, with a 20% AD bonus and a 10% AP bonus. It will not trigger when you are at full health, only when you have lost a portion of HP. It restores around 0.9-1.75 health per second based on level.

This is useful for assassins to keep themselves somewhat sustained in fights, especially when in combination with the Ravenous Hunter rune, but more on that and the Hunter line later.

Sudden Impact

The final piece of the Malice line, Sudden Impact is a rune that will grant you +7 lethality and +6 magic penetration when you use a dash, blink and when you exit stealth, with the cool down for this set for four seconds throughout the match.

This works well for a handful of assassins like Talon and Katarina, as their blinks and dashes can be even more lethal then what they were. Items can also count towards this, such as the Hextech Protobelt and even the Flash spell. One important thing to note is that lunges will not count towards Sudden Impact.

Tracking

Zombie Ward

We now move onto the next line in the domination rune path, tracking. First on the list is Zombie Ward! This offers you a ward in place of one you took down, granting you vision of 1100 units. For every Zombie Ward you create, you gain 1.2 bonus ad and 2 bonus ap. With the cap at 10, you can get a max of 12 additional AD and 20 additional AP.

This one is one that should be situational. This can work well for AD supports like Pyke whenever he clears out wards and for junglers as well.

Ghost Poro

Another ward-based rune to use, Ghost Poro is activated when your wards are on cool down. After standing in a bush for a second, a Ghost Poro will spawn where you stood. Like the Zombie Ward, every Ghost Poro you spawn gives you bonus AD and AP. However when you reach 10 stacks, you gain 18 bonus AD and 30 bonus AP.

Eyeball Collection

The final rune in the Tracking tree, Eyeball Collection is the one most used in the tree. With every kill you get, you gain an eyeball. With every eyeball you collect, you gain 1.2 bonus AD and 2 bonus AP. When you get the max of 10 eyeballs, you will gain an additional 6 AD and 10 AP.

This works well for champions that do well when snowballing. It’s also the easiest to stack of the three, because you must clear wards for Zombie Ward to work and you need to be mindful of making sure you plant Ghost Poros.

Hunter

Ravenous Hunter

Now we move onto the final line in the Domination path, the Hunter line, and we’re starting with Ravenous Hunter. This rune grants you 1.5% healing off of ability damage. When you kill an enemy champion, that is counted as a Bounty Hunter stack and will increase your healing by 2.5% per stack, maxing out at 14%. When you use area of effect abilities, however, the healing is reduced by a third.

This rune works very well with assassins to keep themselves sustained if they could get the stacks needed to get more healing. Without it, it becomes very difficult to keep themselves sustained in game. That’s the big flaw is that if you don’t kill, this rune can become useless, so make sure you are in a matchup where you can get kills to stack.

Ingenious Hunter

The second choice in the Hunter line, Ingenious hunter reduces the cooldown of item actives by 15% base, adding 5% per Bounty Hunter stack, adding up to 40% cooldown when you reach five stacks. The cooldown also applies to trinkets, like wards.

This works well for champions that use items to better their kit. It also works well for Champions that use the Predator rune.

Relentless Hunter

Speaking of going fast, the third choice is all about going faster, faster, faster! You get a base of 5 bonus out of combat movement speed, which stacks +8 for every Bounty Hunter stack, giving you a bonus 45 out of combat movement speed.

This works well for champions that need to close the gap fast and can get to objectives faster, like with Skarner and other champions that roam more often than staying in lane, like Talon.

Ultimate Hunter

The final part in the Hunter line is self-explanatory. You gain a 5% cooldown on your ultimate and when you reach five stacks with Bounty Hunter, it’s then at 25%. It does stack with the Ability Haste you already have built throughout the game.

This rune can work well with champions that already have a low cooldown with their ultimates, like Lux or Veigar. It also helps for those that have long cooldowns with their ultimates, like Ryze.

Conclusion

The Domination tree is best for those champions that deal huge burst damage and can be utilized throughout the map. Assassins in particular are the ones that benefit the most out of this, as their damage and utility will grow as the match goes on. It can be used with other champions, not exclusively assassins, like Syndra for example, who can combo quickly and deal fast burst. Use this rune well, good luck and see you on the Rift summoners!