popular in top 100* There isn't a single ff IS player currently competing for a top 10 spot.( I don't even think there is a ff IS player in the top 25) There is only 2 ff IS players in the top 50, lol.
That's the thing, why not expand the meta by making thing more inefficient? I can think of several ways of reducing the threat of a champion become a superchampion without spot removing it. And yea I didn't want to mention shadowshank and Doom. The more you remind me the stronger my point gets; hammer strike is nowhere as good as ED, because there's a big difference between 10 damage + stun and ~30 LoL. You hardly see people using Hammer Strike these days, because it did become more of a strategic spell that you use when you're sure you can kill the target champion. Not many people enjoy these calculations, except for Tiny, he loves his math. Not even once.
I think making champs more inefficient is a bad idea and will cause them to just not be played in favor of champs that are. I think the reverse should be done, that sandbagged/expensive champs should be less sandbagged/expensive. Shadowshank is powerful at what he does but there is risk involved, maybe he is too strong in combination with dusk creeper but I wouldn't know I rarely use him. ED is about the same strength as hammer strike, hammer strike doesn't do as much direct damage but stuns, removes their ap, gives them -1def, and causes them to either use a 40+ nora cleanse or die the next turn. Often times you can kill a champ right after a hammer strike and bane blast/hammer strike is even better than shadowshank. People aren't using hammer strike much because there aren't many people playing IS in the higher ranks because it has been nerfed kind of hard. I think players who would be playing IS in higher ranks would be using it often, when I made my IS bg I ran it 2x and I have seen noijah(the only IS player in recent memory in top 25) do the same. Also because super champs aren't that common essence drain really isn't even needed anymore. I am not currently using it but I am playing a fw split atm, I would probably use 1 in a fw ff bg. Maybe essence drain is bad design but all I am saying is it is not op compared to what other factions currently have available. The main problem runes in fw are currently martyr and dark familiar and possibly dead fairy.
Sok + IS = clueless. Currently the worst faction in the game. I'm not sure where the bottom is for IS. Sok just keeps on nerfing. We have a few vocal players for the faction that are simply bad at balance. For those few everything is OP in IS for some odd reason, no matter what stuff in other factions look like. Then we have the horde of zelots that want to nerf IS out of existence. Unfortunetly Sok seems to be swayed by those individuals. Not sure when the situation will improve. I suggest leaving the faction. IS just has nothing to offer. Its not even worth splitting with anymore. Until something changes there just isn't any reason to play the faction.
I just dont see it. That forge hammer And yes IS seems to be in a tight spot atm, with sokobro trying to make wings work after he decimated the very essence of the sigil ability. However... Tiny did get rank 1 with IS/SL. So its not that bed apparently
IMO, the strength of IS meta leaded to a series of nerfs that destroyed most themes. The faction barely keeps with because of it's spells/equipments, mostly surprise powerturns.
The only thing we have going right now is meta deck that includes geo, speaking top tier (rank 10). Everything else is not up to that level but the next closest thing will be a dwarf deck. There's some really good runes that people will throw at me when I say this, but what they will not do is take a non geo deck to top 10, starting at rank 100. There's alot of fun and interesting decks in IS, they just are not teir 1, and even geo deck I'd say is 1.5 due to the fact that you are weighting your deck towards a single ability.