Rammus Changes
Rammus is in a strange spot right now to where there is never really a time to think "Picking him now would be a good idea," because he is a Tank that loves a meta that favors ADCs. This makes him bad in a Tank Meta and good in an attack heavy meta. However, even then he is simply not all that good since his kit is pretty limited. Meaning he basically has to be right beside his target to be successful, which is incredibly hard when his only way of engage is him running in at high speeds to his target, which is usually the ADC. He can also be blocked by another champion to entirely prevent this. So, lets try him as a peeler right? Well, he gets a little better, but he is still pretty limited at making an impact on a fight since he only can impact one target. In other words, Rammus relies on his team to deal with every other target in a fight while Rammus relies on an enemy and only one enemy coming in on his own team's priority target. Which is good and all, but is this really what Rammus was intended to be by Riot? Look at his kit. I see lots of AoE, decent engage, and a way to kill a priority target, not a bodyguard for one target.
Powerball Semi-Rework
- Now instead of stopping at the first target hit and dealing damage, Rammus now plows through targets, knocking them aside and slowing them. This can only affect a target once per cast
- Damage reduced to 50/75/100/125/150 (+50% AP) from 100/150/200/250/300 (+100% AP)
- Mana Cost changed to 50/60/70/80/90 mana from 60/65/70/75/80 mana
- Slow Amount changed to 10/20/30/40/50% from 20/25/30/35/40%
- Slow Duration reduced to 1/1.25/1.5/1.75/2 seconds from 3 seconds at all ranks
- Cool Down increased to 18/16/14/12/10 seconds from 16/14.5/13/11.5/10 seconds
- Maximum Movement Speed increased to 140/155/170/185/200% from 140% at all ranks
- Duration changed to 5/6/7/8/9 seconds from 7 seconds at all ranks
- Hard Crowd control now reduces the current duration of Powerball by 50%
This makes Rammus better at engaging into a team and him following the usual engage rules for stopping someone. Crowd control can now stop Rammus, but he can now plow through the enemy team instead of bumping their front line for a bit of damage and a slow.
Defensive Ball Curl
- Duration changed to 5/6/7/8/9 seconds from 6 seconds at all ranks
- Magic Damage returned changed to 5/10/15/20/25 (+20/22.5/25/27.5/30% armor) from 15/25/35/45/55 (+10% armor)
- Cool Down changed to 15/14.5/14/13.5/13 seconds from 14 seconds at all ranks
- Mana Cost increased to 40/45/50/55/60 mana from 40 mana at all ranks
The biggest problem with Defensive Ball Curl is it usually doesn't last long enough to make an impact in fights late game and the damage it reflects back is usually minimal past early ganks. By reducing it's base damage, but increasing it's scaling, it now has a much more healthy scaling to late game.
Puncturing Taunt
- Cool Down changed to 14/13/12/11/10 seconds from 12 seconds at all ranks
- Using this on a monster or minion refunds 90% of the mana cost and cool down and causes them to gain 35% attack speed. The damage dealt is also reduced by 50%. Using taunt on the same monster more than once within 7 seconds will cause only the mana cost refund to occur
Did you know that Puncturing Taunt could be used on monsters? Yeah, and almost for no reason. Now it does, since now you can use it to increase the attack speed of monsters to help that early clearing Rammus has by a small amount. It probably isn't a direct fix for this early clear, but I think that should be at least a small weakness to Rammus outside of his other weaknesses (extremely weak to armor reduction, single target focused, and low health gain for a Tank)
Tremors
- Range increased to 350/425/500 from 300 at all ranks
- Damage reduced to 60/120/180 (+15% AP) from 65/130/195 (+30% AP)
- Deals 5/10/15 (+15% AP) bonus damage to taunted targets
Tremors is definitely a good ultimate, but any Rammus player would notice it's extremely low range when used, especially during a gank or when killing a target in a team fight. These changes would help Rammus by adding that little bit of needed range in the early ganks and late game during a team fight without making his ultimate have too much of an impact with those rare AP Rammi.
