Grasp inherently puts you between a rock and a hard place

in the old days, grasp didn't put any pressure on you to consistently keep it up, it simply allowed for better trading when trades occurred.

However, riot decided to add an infinite hp stack mechanic. Ok, that in and of itself isn't inherently bad. The problem is that they didn't sufficiently change the rune to accomodate this new asset.

The combat prerequisite is still an insane 4 seconds, meaning that most short lane trades won't allow you to even proc it that often under normal circumstances. The only way to effectively have grasp proc in trades is to combat minions and shove the wave so that you can proc grasp at the start of trades. The problem is that the infinite stack mechanic incentivizes you to proc grasp as much as humanly possible to maximize hp gain, which means it compels you to consistently hard shove the wave. However, in so doing, the enemy laner can simply back off the wave and deny you any real opportunity to stack it without losing much cs. If you decide to freeze the wave, if the enemy walks up and farms, you have to find a way to extend a trade for 4 seconds which is relatively rare because in order to freeze you're not allowed to combat the minions.

This leads to grasp feeling pretty bad to use. I think the perma hp stack is a decent mechanic worth keeping, but grasp needs to be adjusted to accomodate this change so that it doesnt compel you to consistently hard shove. It needs to be more reliably procced, but in so doing, it does need to be toned down to accomodate the fact that it would be procced more reliably.

PROPOSED CHANGES

combat prerequisite 4 seconds -------------> 2 seconds

damage 4% ------------> 2%

heal 2% ------------> 2% (I dont feel the heal needs to really be touched, if grasp needed more nerfs I would rather damage go further down to 1.5% or so)

max hp gain 5 ------------> 4

OVERALL buff (I think grasp is honestly weak compared to even the other keystones in resolve, the mini courage of the colossus one that gives resistances for simply hard CCing someone is usually way better than grasp) by a relatively small margin. Can be procced a little more reliably and allows for people taking grasp to not have to completely disregard the notion of wave management.

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EXPERIMENTAL CHANGES (Just food for thought stuff, the changes above are actual suggestions for live balancing)

These are experimental changes that are just food for thought really. I always wondered why grasp didnt have a weak first proc but then got stronger with each subsequent proc (extended fights are after all the bread and butter of most champions that take grasp).

combat prerequisite 4 seconds ------------> 2 seconds

damage 4% -------------> 1%

heal 2% -------------> 1%

max hp gain 5 ----------------> 4

when grasp is procced consecutively, it gets stronger.

2 second grasp proc (1st) = base 4 second grasp proc (2nd) = damage increased by 1%, heal increased by 1%, max hp gain increased to 5 6 second grasp proc (3rd) = damage increased by another 1%, heal increased by another 1%, max hp gain increased to 6 8 second grasp proc (4th) = damage increased by another 1%, heal increased by another 1%, max hp gain increased to 7

EASY TO LOOK AT

1st proc = base

2nd proc damage = 2% heal = 2% hp gain = 5

3rd proc damage = 3% heal = 3% hp gain = 6

4th proc damage = 4% heal = 4% hp gain = 7

Staying in combat with minions would only continuously refresh the 2 second grasp proc, in order to unlock the next level proc, you would have to hit an enemy champion and proc grasp, it would then go from 2 seconds to 4 seconds after being in combat for 2 more seconds, staying in combat with minions at this stage would simply keep the 2nd level proc up instead of allowing you to get 3rd and 4th after however many seconds in combat until you hit an enemy champion. If you exit combat, you automatically go back to 1st level proc upon reentering combat for 2 seconds.