ooh the lag sucks too but its the absolute no chance of winning against them after a few turns that sucks the most.
my opponents were all very patient actually, taking long turns was a given, them divide and conquering, me staring into the little space where there were no lavaspouts.. no chance the lag ever made them quit, they killed my shrine well before that, even on the big maps. who is gonna quit a game they cant lose anyway.
lavaspouts.. you cant get past, through or around them. no chance of getting close to their shrine which they always start splitting around anyway to fence it off.
He doesn't. I too feel we're overthinking this and consider that the loss of fire eater or any other sort of immunity/self feeding synergy makes it lose a lot of appeal on it's own, making it an easy source of damage for surge champions the same way Crystalis is, which is as good as this type of rune can get without being essentially broken. If people persist to abuse it for lag sakes then it's a non intended interaction and it must be addressed as such. Edit: Worth noting that the 'taking over half your opponent's turn' thing comes from an ability it has as well (as far as I remember). This rune has been only used for gimmick decks which are now causing harm so I sincerely don't know why this has gotten everyone thinking.
I'll come out and say it, it's just not fun gameplay at all. It's worse than the old anti ap bgs and I hated those.
But it is a concept issue. Earlier you used Maokai getting fed and becoming an unkillable tank in league as an example, but I think this is not a comparable example because Maokai being unkillable is a case of overtuned numbers, not a toxic mechanic. Maokai can be balanced by adjusting the numbers on his skills, stats, tank items or whatever, while leaving all his actual mechanics the same. An example in this game would be Sundered lands. Sundered lands feels strong because their faction bonus makes everything to tanky and all their champs feel straight up stronger than yours for the same cost. This can be fixed by a simple number adjustment. The idea of all your champs having a little extra defense is not an inherently toxic mechanic, it just needs the proper number balancing and its good. Also the chess example. In order for a player to get 3 queens, they have to slowly advance pawns across the board, giving the other player all the time in the world to see this happening and to do something about it. There's counterplay. Your opponent sees what you are trying to do and has a chance to prevent it. There is no strategy in a lavaspout deck. Your goal is to do literally the same exact thing every single game. Your opponents deck is irrelevant to you. You will deploy lava spout, the ghern, beastcaller, and use the other 26 runes to stall the game out until your opponent rage quits from the lag. The problem with lavaspout is that it's an unnecessarily frustrating mechanic in a game that is supposed to be fun. Obviously losing in anything is frustrating, but there has to be a balance in order to keep someone playing through the losses. Lavaspout working optimally is incredibly anti-fun. Even if I beat a lavaspout deck, I am done with this game for the day, because that was not in anyway fun. This game has a lot of things like this right now, which is a shame because it's so close to being great. I think it would be cool if lavaspout kept lava front, because that is the most unique piece of the lavaspout puzzle and no other champ has it. I'd rather you remove rapid growth, give it the stats of a real champ, keep fire aura and death nova, give it terraform lava and tunnel lava, and make it the mobile burrowing lava worm it looks like it is.
I'd agree that the current implementation of the Lavaspout does lack strategy (and presents a problem in several areas), but that the concept itself doesn't inherently only results in something that lacks strategy. This is especially true if one of the primary issues is "rage quits from the lag" because that's obviously not something that should be occurring. And sure, I understand it is frustrating, but I don't think the idea of a replicating champ, on its own, is frustrating. If the player doing is giving up other opportunities for advancing towards a win, it's much more reasonable (whereas right now there is no real opportunity cost, the Lavaspout really has nothing else to spend its resources/time on, and is, on its own, sufficient for a win condition in a short period of time, relative to other strategies. And the time aspect is important to too, it is what allows for counterplay. It's the difference between a 1st turn kill in MtG vs a combo that takes 20 turns to unfold. They might ultimately do the same thing, but the pace and resources invested to make it happen matters. For example, if Rapid Growth costed a sufficient amount of nora to activate each time, you can leave the other mechanics largely the same and it'd be fine. Because now you can't just Rapid Growth endlessly each turn, and any nora you spend on it will also mean you have less resources to devote to the other pieces of the deck. This also means more counterplay opportunities for the opponent because it no longer ramps more quickly than you can respond. Reducing/removing Fire Eater/Death Nova Lava would also mean that even a built-up area of Lavaspouts is not impenetrable without extreme losses, etc. The bottom line is that it wouldn't be an issue if you could actually fight it without being lucky. The reason that Lavaspout deck doesn't care what you do is because the build up is sufficiently fast/easy that it is simpler/stronger to just focus on what it is doing because it is a more efficient choice than anything else the deck could do.
The thing with Lava Front is that while it is unique to this champion, the "Tunneling guy that generates lava" already exists multiple times and Lava front isn't particularly unique when it comes down to it (in general, X-Front has superceded X-Fall anyway). Maybe there's room for more of these, and maybe this guy should be the tunnel one and the other guys do something else, but I don't think removing Rapid Growth is the only choice here. That said, it is certainly one viable adjustment and possibly the most foolproof (and I kind of do think Tunnel Lavaspout would be "cute" and I feel like I could do something interesting with fire starter). Incidentally, how do you feel Crystalis which also has Rapid Growth?
It has the potential to be broken due to surges... ST have the obelisk for fast scry and some KF runes have surges (Oaktrumper, Dryad, Wood Ele, Woodchuck, even Sapling). Tested the split in unranked and it could be good, but it is quite slow in build up early game and can be countered on some maps; the main problem is that the surge guys are not very good without the +1 SPD from full KF. Also tried to get arround the +1 SPD with Winetouch Pedestal, but it's buggy and doesn't always grant the Commander/Improve bonus (tested it with an Ice Elemental and it didn't boost one of my two Dryads on the field). P.S.: +1 for the idea to give Rapid Growth a nora cost.
Yea, I guess rage quitting from lag is a whole separate deal from game balance and not really an argument here. I agree with you when you say a replicating champ isn't inherently the problem. the problem is the deck that can be built around him, and the way lava spout is currently, he's totally useless outside a lava spout deck. I just think simply removing one of his other things leaves him with exactly the same singular purpose, but with a heavily reduced ability to fulfill that purpose. he would be absolutely garbage, so basically everything about him might as well be reworked because he's currently either cancer or worthless. totally down for a replication champ that has to like, fight or something, or somehow be involved in the conflict. right now he just sits next to shrine all game and replicates. and yea, there's a bunch of lava tunnelers, that wasn't the most unique idea, just a bandaid thought I guess. as for crystalis, honestly I have no opinion because I have never once seen in in game. just by looking at it though it seems fine, it's mostly a support thing and not a gimmick that you'd create a whole deck about. so yeah, rapid growth is not a bad concept in itself, it's just the way it interacts with current lava spout and the rest of the deck.
