ARAM needs more work.

In patch 6.12 ARAM was 'balanced' a bit to help make the game mode less one-sided. Many of the changes were great (like the changes to items, gold, and exp) But I feel that a few of the changes missed their mark and some of the most oppressive offenders in ARAM are still at large.

First, things I think still need balancing in ARAM:

• Lifesteal is stupid powerful in this mode. Healing was first nerfed, then only self-healing returned. I agree that champs whose kits are designed around healing should be able to self-heal, but Graves should not be a better tank than most actual tanks and Cait should not be at 100% HP all of the time just because they buy a single lifesteal item.

• CC is love. CC is life. Have a team that wants to engage? More CC wins. Have a team that wants to disengage? More CC wins. Many games fall into the category of 'who has more CC on their teams?' CC should be reduced on this game mode. Maybe just reduce all non-ultimate CC by 30%? IDK, but CC is such a powerful force as to make some games no fun to play on both sides.

• The bushes on this map are buggy as heck, most notably the two near the center. Skillshots sometimes vanish from sight when traveling through them, pathing acts a little funky when moving from bush to bush rapidly, and sometimes the bushes don't hide champs correctly.

Then, some things that the patch changed that are now larger problems than they where before:

• Mana Regen is in a dumb place on this map. Either you buy mana regen items and can poke or you wait and blow your mana in a single fight. Removing some of the mana from clarity was a good step, anyone who took clarity knew their team desired it beforehand and could now play around it. The removal of mana on the health shrines was a good idea but has a more negative effect on the non-poke teams who used it to keep their mana pools relevant without buying a mana regen item. Now if you face poke you can't poke without building for it and will not have enough mana for teamfights if you do poke; the poke comp was already going to buy mana regen items so the removal of mana on the health shrines was of little coincidence to them.

• Truesight is also in an even more stupid place right now. Before, if you played one of the few champs reliant on invisibility for initiations (Twitch, Rengar, Ect.) and someone bought an Oracles Extract you could focus on killing them to waste the buff forcing them to delay their build further to buy more. This was, while not great counterplay, at least some form of counterplay. Now there is no real option, the tank buys a 300 gold consumable and all stealth reliant champs are now near useless for a time. This goes double for Teemo and Shaco who have two large portions of their kit gutted by a 300 gold item.

While I understand this game mode is 'not meant to be perfectly balanced', having some disparity among champs makes ARAM feel different between individuals games (A reason I agree with the idea that ARAM should have all champs unlocked for everyone), this does not mean it cannot be better balanced for enjoyment.