Mark/Dash, a good idea that ruined ARAM
A few months back I started playing LoL pretty heavily again after taking a bit of time off and I was pleasantly surprised at the general feel of the game, it seemed more balanced than it had been in recent years. While I did have several issues with lag, updates, and the occasional other reasons for downtime, I really enjoyed the game as a whole and have been excited about most of the new updates and buffs/nerfs that riot has imposed upon us lowly peasants. That was until they introduced Mark/Dash on ARAM. When I read about it, it sounded like a really good idea especially for melee champs who had problems closing the gaps and would usually take huge amounts of damage only to get in a hit or two. For a few games I really did enjoy it, I could easily spot enemies in a bush, and hunt down anyone who tried to run from me or just jump in for some AOE stuns and let my team finish the job. But then I started to realize the gravity of the error that RIOT had made. First I would like to start off with melee tanks. If you are playing as a regular AD champ like Heim or Veigar, you might as well just not. Heaven forbid you get them and have to waste a reroll because if the other team has a Jarvan, you're boned. Hell even an Ali has marked me under a tower, dashed in, killed me, and just walked away with little more than a scratch. Used to be challenging to turret dive a low hp champ and actually make a clean escape but not so much anymore. So this got old pretty quick. Next thing I noticed was the vision. A key feature in ARAM is setting up some good ambushes, this can drastically affect the outcome of the game and make the enemy team think twice about moving in on the middle ground. But no, now they have an easy way to check bushes and not just at a close range but a huge distance away. Couple that with the average game running about 4 people on each team with Mark, there is no longer a need to worry about an ambush. That just took away one of the key elements of ARAM.
Anyways there are several more issues with this setup, but as I feel like I am just ranting now I will wrap things up. The Mark/Dash idea is good, it allows melee champs to actually engage, chase, and join team fights before losing all their hp to a mage. However it needs a few tweaks. Firstly, take the vision away from it. If you shoot into a bush and it hits a target, you can still dash to the target but who knows what you will find in there? One low hp champ or a whole team? Second up the cooldown. There is no reason to have a low CD on something that like this, unless you remove the damage. 50 may not seem like a lot but get hit by 4 or 5 continuously and you are looking at some serious damage. The range could maybe use a small nerf but if the other ones are implemented then I would leave it alone.
Thoughts? Comments? Wanna fight about it? I'd be glad to hear some arguments to the contrary!