Ruined King: A League of Legends Story has a deep combat system, one you’ll need to master in order to get through some tough fights. The Lane mechanic adds an element of time and efficiency to the normal turn-based formula, along with all the other resource management, equipment, enchanting, and densely packed skill trees and runes. There’s a lot to unpack here, but you’ll need to understand all of it if you want to survive the long journey through Bilgewater.

Preparation is key

Seeing as Ruined King is an RPG, there’s a lot you can do outside of battle to make fights much easier. Other than grinding out levels and finding better gear, there are ways to prepare yourself that are unique to Ruined King.

You can initiate battles by attacking in-game and start fights on your own terms. However, what isn’t immediately clear from the way this is tutorialized in-game is how different each character’s attacks can be.

For instance, Braum’s attack is an AoE that stuns and does some damage. It also breaks down certain walls that lead to treasure, meaning there are more ways to interact with the world than just hitting enemies. Each character’s attack has its own benefits, and you can read up on them in the Dungeon section of the Abilities tab.

The other system you should be taking advantage of is Enchantment. It allows you to spruce up your favorite weapons in a variety of ways. The most simple type of Enchantment is Infusion, which allows you to boost the rarity of a weapon.

Starting with a pair of Uncommon pistols, they’ve got some pretty decent stats for Miss Fortune. Not bad for a weapon purchased from a vendor rather than found treasure. However, with a bit of Infusion…

A rarity boost drastically increases the base stats of your weapon. While there isn’t a way to increase the weapon's level, this is a surefire way to get the most out of your favorite gear and stretch it for a few more levels before you find something worth replacing it with.

There’s also Enchantment for both weapons and armor, and these allow you to put a passive effect on an item. Simply applying the Enchantment to your weapon will provide a boost, but there’s a way to improve the quality of the Enchantment.

Overflow allows you to invest more ingredients in order to get an improved result. It’s a big investment compared to the minimum amount required to initiate an enchantment, but the improved result may be worthwhile if you plan to hold onto a weapon for a while. 

Enchantments are separate from the passives some weapons come with, meaning that putting an Enchantment on a weapon/piece of armor won’t take away its unique passive. With all that in mind, stay away from heavy enchanting in the earlier stages of the game. Putting all those resources into a level 20 weapon will give you a lot more mileage than Enchanting a level 10 weapon.

Master Lane Abilities

Ruined King has more to it than a standard turn-based RPG, and it’s all linked to the Lane system. There are Instant Abilities that come out as fast as their name would suggest, as well as Ultimate Abilities that are built up by fighting. That aside, Lane Abilities are the hardest to get the hang of. 

At a basic level, Lane abilities can be placed in one of three lanes. The Power Lane is all about getting high damage in exchange for a long wait time, the Speed Lane is the opposite and prioritizes getting the ability out as fast as possible, and the Balance Lane is a midpoint. However, not all lanes are created equal.

Unless you’re trying to put yourself at a specific spot in the Lane, the Speed Lane is the way to go with utility. Healing is best served fast, and getting the ability off sooner rather than later will allow you to get more abilities out. Additionally, some upgrades give incentives to use abilities in certain lanes.

Illaoi’s heal gets an upgrade that allows it to cleanse debuffs when used in the Speed Lane, and debuffs can be lethal in Ruined King. These range from defense reductions to damage over time, and cleansing a debuff can sometimes be even more helpful than the heal. 

In other words, utility is often best used in the Speed Lane while damage-oriented abilities depend largely on how much damage you’d need to kill the target, whether or not they have a self-buff that can be cleared by a certain type of Lane attack, or the Boon/Hazard you have to play around.

Boons and Hazards are often represented by a block in the lane, but they can sometimes take up entire lanes in special encounters. Here, Braum will end up landing in the Boon after he uses an ability because he’s in the Balance Lane. Using a speed that corresponds with landing in this zone is usually smart, but not always required. 

For instance, using a healing ability at a speed that lands in an attack boost Boon doesn’t help you at all. Boons are appealing to play around and land in, but they don’t always help you out. Think about what the Boon can do for you before trying to play around it.

Additionally, some abilities manipulate where allies and enemies end up in Lane. Here, a Braum ability placed in the Speed Lane will come out before the enemy can attack and also push that enemy out of a Boon that increases its crit chance. This mechanic can be used to push enemies into Hazards as well. Small advantages like this can be the difference between winning and losing a fight.

Enemies can be seen in Lane to determine when they’re going to attack, but who they’re going to attack with their own Lane ability is shown above their heads. Miss Fortune has some self-buffs in her kit, so knowing that the topmost enemy is going to use an AoE attack can help you prepare and self-buff instead of attacking.

If there are any buffs/debuffs or abilities that aren’t clear from the standard HuD, Inspect Mode allows the player to take a closer look at every aspect of battle. This is especially helpful against bosses who have unique gimmicks you have to play around.

Ruined King: A League of Legends story has a combat system that needs to be understood in order to be utilized well. Using basic attacks and Lane abilities in whatever order you want can get you through early encounters, but challenges later on will require full mastery of Laning and everything surrounding it in order to succeed.