Shadowspawn and shadowstrike, while links are nonfunctional in the combat log, a new player may never actually find out what that thing is which kills him (unless they go and check the rune list). It gets bonus points for Jellebrium Mind, which is one of the more convoluted abilities in the game and has the potential to really mess things up for a newbie if they miss the regeneration clause (been there, done that). This got to get the cake for least newbie-friendly rune, although I am sure there are many contenders. Here's hoping that after the revamp, every rune has a good chance of being figured out during the game. And please fix the combat log for shadow spawned units, that's really quite important (just show a generic version of the unit if you click the link while the unit is stealthed/missing, like when you click it in the runedock).
- Savage: X clan still takes the cake...but yes there are a ton more gameplay mechanics that give little to no indication that something happened. Some ways to fix this.. 1) Visual effect indicators (darken the map briefly for shadowspawn...red aura on champion for savage clan proc etc) 2) Stop combat log from auto-scrolling (stop this from all chat windows actually...can't read back things since you get auto-pushed) 3) Tighten up ability descriptions in general
Yeah. Stealth in particular is a very "tough" ability for newbies to deal with, since it requires counters, which are not necessarily Detection. This, however, is something that comes naturally after the player learns the game more, it´s a good example of the steep learning curve, without being too complicated (I´m talking strictly about Stealth). About the champ the OP brought up, let´s just give it some time and prepare for the brighter days to arrive.
Problem I have with Stealth/Detect mechanic is that Detection counters are very commonly much less efficient in terms of pricing. Stealth units provide a unique advantage to the game which commonly provides an advantage outside of the ability itself, which is a problem. Then, there are champs which are finely balanced and then seemingly have Detection on them for free. Headshrinker, Seeker of the Circle come to mind. But I won't get into that much further.
