@Rioters About Blitzcrank and in-game Feel

Blitzcrank is in a really solid spot right now in terms of power. He's got a high winrate, arguably too high, and he has some of the clearest strengths and weaknesses of all supports, in my opinion. He's got a single target extremely powerful pick tool, but lacks meaningful teamfight aside from peeling and an aoe .5 second silence, which is good for interrupts and extra damage. Overall, great champion.

But I would like to talk about something other than his power. I want to talk about what it feels like to play Blitzcrank. Most of the time, it's pretty awesome. When you land a hook, it's satisfying, especially because it often converts to a kill for your team. When you land a super difficult flash-hook, you feel like a god. When you miss it, you appropriately feel like an idiot, and you have no choice but to flash your level 5 mastery in shame.

But there's one part of Blitzcrank that just feels... wrong. His ultimate's passive is just so out of place. It hinders more than it helps, despite the not so insignificant damage it outputs. But think of Blitzcrank's playstyle. He's a pick champion, lending himself to stealth and ambush. His kit lends itself toward roaming, as well, but he can't do either as effectively as he should because of this rather silly ability.

Blitzcrank would like to be all over the map after he's established a lead for his adc, but he has a hard time roaming freely. He cannot even be bothered to pick up Mobility Boots (his recommended item) half the time, because you're always in combat! He occasionally snipes kills that he was intentionally leaving for a carry because his passive randomly decided that the 30 health Jinx really needed to get struck by lightning. He cannot set up ambushes in the jungle without first having a carry eliminate nearby camps, or else he will aggro them and give away his position. He even does this while dropping deep wards, alerting any nearby enemies of his presence when they see Wolf Camp sprinting after him!

This kind of ability is rather detrimental to his role as a support. Supports are supposed to play the map, not just kill enemy carries, and this passive hurts Blitzcrank's ability to do so. It just doesn't make sense in terms of gameplay, despite being thematically sound.

I'd like to ask you to consider dropping this passive. Blitzcrank currently has nearly a 53% winrate at higher elos. He can stand to take a slight drop in damage if it means a better gameplay experience in terms of roaming, warding, and making picks.

If you disagree with this assessment, please don't hesitate to explain why!