It's universally agreed upon that runes are used to obtain an early game advantage that can snowball a lane, therefore, runes need to be taken to address the lane opponent. Taking runes for the purpose of becoming useful much later on is a questionable choice; items are not only more flexible to the situation, it's not advisable to potentially forfeit a potential lead. That being said, later game effective runes can be taken, but only under certain circumstances. Even then, certain runes are simply not viable. Only 9 of each minor rune category can be taken, and as a result, one has to get the most mileage of each category. While one can customize a rune page to have a larger emphasis on a certain play style or stat, some combinations can reach the same effect for less. The amount of stats a single rune gives can vary from Mark, to Seal, to Glyph. Obviously, the maximum amount is the best.

This section is aimed for a derivation of Trundle's parent rune page, the basic page which when going in blind, allows for the most effectiveness. Obviously in certain circumstances there are more optimal rune pages, but those are all modified versions of the one given below. More or less, this will just be showing how certain stats belong in different rune types. Due to different stats needed in different lanes, this will be segregated by lane type.

In Top lane, Trundle will be against a single opponent. To win lane Trundle will need to impose the threat of doing more damage and taking less damage. To maximize damage through runes, one has to note Trundles primary source(s) of damage, note its scaling, and dedicate runes to that particular stat. Trundle uses mainly attack damage due to his auto attacks, and Chomp. One may question why one opts for offense at all over purely defensive stats, and it's for that fact that Trundle is somewhat of a lane bully in the top lane, and increasing damage will increase this potency, and potentially snowball a lead so it will not be needed.

Defensive stats are also necessary because taking pure offense is inefficient in terms of runes. Given a single rune type, it may be more optimal to invest in a different stat than another, as covered before. Increasing defense by a substantial amount versus increasing offense by a less than substantial amount favors the former because there is a greater stat to rune ratio.

There are two methods of damage reduction for each damage type. Increasing resistances or increasing health. The former decreases the damage dealt, while the latter makes it so more damage will be needed to accomplish the same percentage. The three stats are Health, Armor (for physical damage) and Magic Resistance (for magical damage).

There is now a divergence in seal choice, since two different stats are optimal for seals. For one, it is not viable to find a balance between the two seal choices, and this goes for any stat; unless there is a very specific checkpoint one needs to hit, there is no reason not to put all resources into the desired stat. For this reason, Trundle will be compared with all health seals and all armor seals. The comparisons can be done at any level, and there are calculations to do so, there is little purpose to. At later levels, runes lose their impact as items provide larger amounts of stats. In fact, these calculations should be done in the interval before first or second back, as singular items already provide more, and the rational function nature of effective health make runes even less useful after even first back. Moreover, runes are taken for the early game.

Since it's uncommon to have much action at level 1, since most champions are unable to do anything significant with only a single ability, level 1 is not a good place to analyze. Level 2 and 3 are more viable intervals for this purpose. While Trundle often trades better level 3 against another, these are defensive runes which are being looked at; since many champions will like to trade level 2, this is the ideal level to look at.

Trundle at level 2 has base 685 health and 29.5 armor. 9 Health seals will give 72 health, and 9 armor seals will give 9 armor. With 9 armor seals equipped, Trundle will have a total of 29.5+9=38.5 armor. Damage reduction is calculated by:


To find how much additional that is granted, we will subtract this from the amount of reduction Trundle would have had he not taken armor runes.


In order to break even with health runes, you'll have to take, before backing, the amount of health lost by not taking health runes divided by damage reduction, as that will be the point where enough damage has been dealt that the amount reduced is larger than the amount given by health seals.


Now, taking 1434.26 damage is substantial, but this is raw damage, we will have to factor the actual amount damage being taken once more. We multiply by the damage multiplier from armor to get 1434.26*0.7220=1107.25 damage, which is bit more reasonable.

Can Trundle reasonably take that much damage in lane? Trundle through his passive already gets innate sustain as the minion wave pushes, and all of his starting items provide him with health. Furthermore, health regeneration also provides this. The only issue with taking armor seals is that if the champion does not do primarily physical damage, that the armor damage reduction will be a poor investment. That being said, in top lane, most champions deal primarily physical damage, making armor seals usually the better choice.

Quints are preference because the rest of the rune types have been dedicated to specific stats. Since top lane faces a single combatant, it's often better to examine the most important stat(s) in lane and pick from those. Trundle really only does use attack damage, armor, and magic resistance, and attack damage will always be useful, whereas the other two have match ups where they will not be, making it so attack damage quints are a more consistent option.

In the bottom lane, there will always be a ranged champion that specializes in doing damage at range. As a melee champion, Trundle will not be able to approach any of the opposing champions without taking full retaliation from two champions. Trundle support is not taken to deal damage, rather for his engage and disengage, peel, and front line with low income. While the poke can be out sustained through Trundle's entire kit, runes ought to be optimized for the sake of making lane phase more healthy.

The defense stats one needs to maximize are health, armor, and magic resist. The same arguments will be applied for magic resist glyphs, but the other three types will require a bit more in depth derivation.