You get to choose to take the theme ability or to take nothing. Devotee of D'elim as example: 6 nora sandbag in BGs like: Wizards, Elfs, Meta, etc. Basically this makes the rune only good in Devotee of D'elim BGs (which are basically inexistant atm). Basically you have your two upgrade slots as it is now, and on certain runes with theme abilities you have a 3rd slot where you can choose to pick nothing for 0 nora (or 2 nora if people feel a "punishment" is needed for not running it in theme) or to pick the theme ability. Discuss. Josh753
Some runes should have their racial abilities base, others should have their racial on the upgrade trees, but I dislike a 3rd tree.
Turn that 6 nora sandbag into a boon with vinetouch pedastel. Then your greenhouses can boost them while they snipe from afar and dance around at 8~ speed, or you can turn them into tanks with treefolks blessing. Slap archer commander in there and then they got even more range. Unit about to die? Why not fuel it to give everything else +HP +damage and get a nora refund! Why do people complain about "sandbag" theme abilities when many times you can use them quite well with a little bit of thought.
Been using Illusionist and Pedestal since it first came out. Also your shenigans in anything but a D'elim BG would still not work. Which is my point...
It is an interesting thought, but adding a 3rd upgrade tree would only be used by a very small amount of runes. Also, this could lead to ability creep which was one thing we have been working on bringing into check. It is easy to see where you are coming from in terms of having a choice in racial, but not all champions have racial abilities that would work well with a system like this. In most cases champions would only have one or no ability in a 3rd upgrade. As @Cydna mentioned if it is an important racial it is on the champion's base. Keep the ideas coming.
I realize that alot of champs would not have or only have one 3rd upgrade slot (with an ability you don't need to pick if you don't want to). I think it's not a problem for the cheap racials but for the more expensive ones I think this could really help. I don't think it will cause alot of ability creep either as it more often than not means moving from base to an upgrade slot (often resulting in less abilities per champ if people decide not to take it).
It may not cause ability creep, but every exception increases the potential of it happening. Right now the abilities are capped at 8, to add another upgrade but keep the limit set at 8 we would need to reduce the number of base abilities a champ can have. This would impact more champions negatively than having the 3rd upgrade will affect things positively. Also, in the type of situation you are mentioning if we wanted there to be a choice for a racial on some champion we would likely make one of the existing upgrade trees a racial tree for that one champion or champions of that race and then have the other abilities set on base. There are other ways to address this other than adding a third upgrade. After the revamp all Draksars had Regen 1,2,3 as basically a racial upgrade tree. Things have changed for them some because of balance and player reaction, but that doesn't mean we can do this for others if a choice is needed.
In that case: would it be possible to look at some of the Delims and add the Delim ability to upgrades on a few cases?
What @Cydna said is pretty much what will happen. If Sok thinks some things need to be rearrange then he will do so when addressing themes and racials.
Sad truth, they need a big rework on Bane Shift racial, and D'elim HAS TO be released in the next expansion.
The penalties for not using a rune inside of its intended theme, are the "sandbag" effects like you so put it. Use it in the theme, or pay the penalties.
Some theme abilities are way more costly than others. Making them too sandbagged, even for other themes they might otherwise fit in and that could use said rune. Some D'elims are wizards, yet I can not run them in my wizard BG as they are 6 nora overcosted in that BG. 6 nora is alot you know. Also alot of theme abilities are still semi useful outside of theme, others absolutely aren't.
He may be a Wizard, but he is of the D'elim theme, not the Wizard theme. Sure you can use him in the Wizard theme, but your going to pay that extra price. I am not saying all runes should have this thought process. Just saying that complaints about a runes theme ability when not used in a theme are negligible. There are obviously some overlapping thematic runes that might need a look at. This may be one. I don't know. What I do know is that there is a penalty for non-theme usage. This may be my personal bias kicking in. I am not a fan of Meta at all. There is no fun in it. Synergy is fun. Just using the best of the best just to win is not fun. Yes winning is fun, and most are not a fan of losing. I however made this specific account just to have fun with said synergy. I can run around with this just using what ever the hell I want, and not worry about rank. If I go using a spider in a non spider bg. Is it right of me to complain that it is over-costed by 4? No. It is costed for its theme. Using outside of its theme is the penalty you pay.
If a champ fits in two themes, then I would have an upgrade path that allows you to select between theme abilities. Otherwise I would have theme abilities on base. I believe a third upgrade path is unnecessary for this. I would instead put this on the first upgrade path, and have the second upgrade path be used for further customization. This would make it so you can select the theme your champ will be used in earlier. Take Fallen Draksar as an example. If Boon (or boon's replacement) and Violent were on path one, you could choose between running it in a FW/SL split or in an undead deck. This is somewhat a bad example since Violent procs on all undead, so it isn't dead weight. Regeneration 1/2/3 would be removed as upgrades and would go to base, my preference is regen 2 so the SL bonus isn't useless on it.
