Catchup experience seems to be a divisive aspect of this game. What if it was a buff you could choose in the new runes? Then the people that like it can opt in and others that are confident they won't get behind can choose other buffs to replace it. Maybe it can be permanently set for players lower than level 30. What do you think?
DrCyanide1 votesThat sounds a lot like the current "reduce time spent dead" Runes - only useful if you plan to be losing from the start.
i cant move wtf1 votesThen what is doran shield? Only useful if you plan on losing trades? You could make that argument for any defensive option.
DrCyanide1 votesDoran's shield is an item, but more important it's temporary and reactive. Buying it doesn't consume an item slot for the rest of the game, you can sell it at any time to get something else or buy it later if things look bad.
You have to decide before the loading screen if you're going to have some multipurpose Rune, useable winning or losing, or your Rune idea that works only when losing. You can't go back and decide to swap your Rune depending on how the game's going.
i cant move wtf1 votesA rune is temporary and reactive in the context of multiple games. You don't pick one rune for every game you will ever play. You pick your runes based on the context of draft. You pick your items based on the context of how the game is playing out. It's the same thing.
coeurloyal1 votesYou wouldn't necessarily have to be planning on losing, but if you're playing a Kog'Maw/ Cassiopeia/ etc. scaling champ or get drafted into a bad matchup that rune would be indispensable because you're pretty much going to spend 60% of the game behind anyway. It would potentially negate a large chunk of the weakness of a late scaling comp. As far as runes go, this shouldn't exist. You could basically treat it as an insurance policy for snowballing champs.
i cant move wtf1 votesI agree that would be a viable and probably popular use of it. But what's inherently wrong with "insurance options"? Broadly you can categorize players into conservative and aggressive. I look at a rune like this as a big version of doran shield. You're expecting to get behind because as you point out maybe you got a bad draft or have a decidedly late game comp. Insurance is part of any game. Picking a kogmaw when you have a panth, leblanc and eve on your team is an insurance policy saying "if my early-centric team doesn't get ahead then at least we'll have a kog for damage late." This aspect is already there. You can't not have insurance options in a game like league.
coeurloyal1 votesI think from a larger picture perspective I shouldn't be saying that it would be broken yet without knowing exactly how the new masteries will unfold. It could work as one of the minor runes, but if this is one of the keystones I would distrust it heavily. Picking a late scaling champ like that is a conscious choice to play the game passively until late; anything that shortens that curve is removing an intended weakness in the champion.
If a mastery like this allowed Kog'Maw to come online at 25-30 minutes whether the other team effectively stuffs them or not makes that pick too well-rounded. If it existed as a mastery, it would either have to be too weak to impact the game heavily (though it would still be mandatory on late game champs), or it would make those champions just broken from the get-go because they aren't supposed to be able to scale reliably.
i cant move wtf1 votesThe difference between this and "reduce time dead" runes is that this doesn't incentivize dying. This incentivizes players that have sufficient game knowledge to know they have a champion or playstyle that can get behind early and might need to give up some exp to prevent dying.