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Can someone tell me the point of Grasp of the Undying?

Serge THE GREAT·11/25/2018, 3:24:32 PM·1 votes·3,483 views

Here's my issue with Grasp:

The point of it is that you use it to engage in slap fights in laning phase with your opponent to give yourself some healing to sustain yourself, deal a bit of damage and to scale your HP up if you want to be a bruiser, tank or juggernaut. Sounds good right?

Problem: If you want to fill that role of being a beefy tank/fighter/juggernaut on your team what happens if you don't get to proc it? What if you go a melee top laner and your opponent is one of 40+ champions that don't need to get close to you to farm efficiently and can poke you in lane phase the entire time? You might say to me "Well, get Aftershock then!" Okay, what if I am playing as a top laner that doesn't have much hard CC to capitalize on? Maybe Malphite, or Shyvana, or Olaf, or Jarvan, etc. Or maybe I just don't like Aftershock and I enjoy the concept of scaling my HP higher than usual into late game. It's always super fun when someone counter picks you with someone like Teemo or Quinn or any of the other long range poke characters in top lane and you are just sitting there going "Well, maybe some day I'll get to proc this stupid thing" and leaving yourself with a feeling of hopelessness for daring to take a Keystone and use it for its intended feature.

See, this problem doesn't exist with any of the other Keystones. You could argue with me "Well, Dark Harvest works that way now! What if you don't bully your lane opponent into below 50% HP to proc it!" You're right, that is an issue, but I would argue that the new Dark Harvest isn't healthy game design either! And, with the old Dark Harvest you could get stacks in lane with it just by getting slightly close to the drops it provided from cannon minions so they didn't have an issue at that point. No, the issue with Grasp is that you getting the most of it is extremely dependent on you proc'ing it as much as you can in laning phase. None of the Precision Runes have an infinite scaling aspect to them, none of the Inspiration Runes do, none of the Sorcery Runes do, and the only other Rune with a mechanic like that is Dark Harvest. So if you pick Grasp of the Undying and you go melee (which was the intention of the Keystone as ranged users get a penalty for using it) then what is the point?

Another counter argument I'm sure I'll hear is "Well, don't go down the Resolve Runes path then!" but here's the thing: I don't want to play my character focused around doing damage. My joy in League mostly comes from playing as tanky characters, which is why Sion is my favorite character. His HP scales infinitely, his moves are fun and he's a balanced character. The fact that Sion twists the rules a bit and says to the other champions (except Cho'gath of course--thanks Riot) 'Hey, my HP is going to keep scaling so watch out bucko's' is fun for me. I know that Aftershock is good on Sion, but that isn't the point I am making here--just showing an example of why I like the HP scaling mechanic on Grasp of the Undying. What I am getting at here is that I don't necessarily WANT to be doing damage as a tanky character, and Grasp is supposed to let me get more HP this way but it doesn't always allow for it. If I pick a melee character with low range attacks and get counter-picked by one of the three dozen poke lane bully top laners I'm completely out of luck.

I've actually had more success lately proc'ing Grasp by doing what other people to do me (that I hate): Picking a ranged lane bully into a melee match-up. Doing something silly like Lissandra or Quinn or Gnar or something like that and poking a melee champion until I give myself something like 150 extra HP out of laning phase. Is it optimal? Oh goodness no, but at least I get the satisfaction of bending the rules a bit and giving myself that tiny bit of extra HP I wanted.

To me at least Grasp of the Undying is one of the most unsatisfying Keystones there is and I know I'm not the only one that feels that way. I have a big group of friends I play this game with and I've made my points to them and they seem to agree. It just feels gross to me playing as a tanky character and going 'Well, time to get Arcane Comet!' or 'Time to get Conqueror!' What do you folks out there think? You ever feel underwhelmed by a Keystone that only functions as advertised when you aren't being lane bullied by ranged top laners?

(Note, when I say ranged top laners I don't explicitly mean just champions like Quinn or Lissandra or Viktor. I also mean melee top laners with a lot of poke and/or disengage in their kit)

6 Comments

True Garen12/1/2018, 7:02:08 PM5 votes

The extra permanent 5 HP from Grasp procs is kind of a gimmick. In a long match, with many procs, you may get 200 HP from this. It's insignificant enough that it is not reported as part of the rune stats.

As a general rule, if you are unable to proc Grasp at least once per minute in lane, then you should be taking a different Rune page. In most cases, melee vs ranged, this Rune isn't going to help you much.

You mentioned Shyvana Top. I tried Grasp AD Shyvana Top at the start of Season 8, and didn't feel like I was getting much out of it. Ultimately, I found that it was better to take a different tree primary for her.

I agree with your observation that even champions who would normally take Aftershock, may be better off with Grasp in top lane, if they can. If you feel confident of frequent trading in your matchup.

Malphite should be able to get pretty good use from Aftershock, I think.

"You need to visualize your matchup, how much jungle assistance you're likely to get vs how much your enemy laner will get, and how much you'll be able to proc the keystone before locking this page in. However, taking this page vs Mages can be done since their mobility isn't as strong, and when combined with Second Wind and Doran's Shield, may allow you to overcome them in lane with ignite. If you're looking to constantly brawl against a matchup that has the potency to kill you, boneplate and second wind are the best choices to take in your primary tree."

The current Dark Harvest is fun to the point of being a little addictive. You might enjoy playing an especially cruel sort of Sion with that...

Socon11/25/2018, 3:58:30 PM2 votes

Tl;dr Grasp can be very strong on the right champions but is outshined by other keystones usually. Riot should focus on making it more viable on the champions they're meant for instead of allowing it to be abused by champions that it doesn't really even fit on (Gp im looking at you.)

Critmaster Garen11/25/2018, 3:38:53 PM1 votes

[{quoted}](name=Serge THE GREAT,realm=NA,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=dfb8kIsA,comment-id=,timestamp=2018-11-25T15:24:32.247+0000) Problem: If you want to fill that role of being a beefy tank/fighter/juggernaut on your team what happens if you don't get to proc it? What if you go a melee top laner and your opponent is one of 40+ champions that don't need to get close to you to farm efficiently and can poke you in lane phase the entire time?

then its 100% useless during the lane phase and you dont really get value out of the health stack mechanic either.

the thing is, this doesnt change much if you look at almost every other keystone. almost all of them require you to be able to consistently get into auto attack range of your target to get value out of them.

the melee vs. ranged problem is a massive issue that riot choses to ignore, as you can see with the new dark harvest. ranged champions usually stack it twice as fast. they must have known that from the start, since last season the same happened with klepto (which ranged champions still use more effectively despite the lower item drop chances), but they didnt bother to work a balancing factor into the rune.