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Let's Talk About Glacial Augment.

DaCurtis·4/11/2018, 8:19:23 PM·3 votes·4,173 views

https://i.imgur.com/XSqVOfb.png

Hey all! I'm a long time lover of Glacial Augment. I probably have well over 100 games using the rune, and I have a few things to say on its viability. The champion that I used while running Glacial Augment was Mordekaiser, but it's not really relevant, only maybe causing people to rush Mercs a lil' faster.

The main problem I see with the rune is that the duration is too short, or worse yet - that the rune is less effective with Mercury's Treads. People will argue that the whole point of Mercury's Treads is to mitigate crowd control, so of course it should reduce the slow; But I have to ask you, what other rune gets mitigated by 30% with 1100g? To put it in perspective, someone who rushes Merc's will shave off 0.6 seconds off the rune. 0.6! That completely demolishes the rune. The amount of extra damage you can get off in 1.4 seconds is negligible, and there is absolutely no reason to take the rune when it can be reduced to that. Why take glacial over something like electrocute, or conqueror - whose runes can't be mitigated by a single item, (or any item for that matter). Sure you can build some defense against press the attack, but you're still going to be dealing 8% more damage no matter what, there isn't an item that can reduce that to 5.6% damage. Phase Rush too. It's a very similar rune to Glacial Augment, very utility based, and if you proc Phase Rush, you will ALWAYS be reducing slows by 75%, there isn't an item that's reducing its effectiveness.

So. Solutions?

  • Glacial needs to feel consistent for the person taking it. The rune can't go from slowing someone for 2s to slowing them to 1.4s, it's absurd! That's why I would suggest the rune should be able to cut through ALL tenacity, and consistently slow people for 2 seconds no matter what. This gives the rune an identity, to lock people down. However, I still think Glacial Augment should be affected by Slow Resistance, this allows Phase Rush to still be healthy too. (besides, there isn't much slow resistance in the game anyway.)

  • However, if you wanted to keep the clarity on tenacity the same and keep it relevant to ALL forms of CC, I would recommend the simple step of merely adding .5 seconds onto the rune. This would make anyone who takes Mercury Treads reduce the duration of Glacial to 1.75s instead of 2.5s. Regardless of the Merc argument, Glacial could use the .5 seconds anyway. Personally however, I don't think this is the right choice. Anyone who takes Glacial will still have that large feeling of inconsistency with the rune whenever the enemy picks up some tenacity.

So that's it! I made this post because I really really love this rune, but I just can't deal with it being reduced to 1.4 seconds on a consistent basis, it's as if I haven't even taken a keystone. Riot, if you're reading this, I plead that you consider making it a persistent slow, because there is no other keystone that gets it effectiveness removed like Glacial Augment does.

Peace.

5 Comments

Kaìju4/11/2018, 8:49:13 PM2 votes

Maybe not perfect but I do agree GA could use some love. It seems like it would be great on more immobile champions who want the extra kite but none of them seem to get it. I would run it but I play Ashe so it's wasted. But in Cait I like it, I like it on Draven and Kai'Sa too. It feels like it has potential but it just isn't quite there. And I doubt it would completly overthrow damage options since it is purely utility.

Total Eclipse8/10/2018, 10:03:26 PM1 votes

good post. its my d5 scrub opinion that one of the two buffs suggested should go through. Nobody fears glacial augment. "Oh no, this trynd brought glacial augment. this is gonna suck!!"

                                               -Nobody, ever.
MaliceMillenium8/19/2018, 4:52:08 PM1 votes

Tabi reduces damage if you are auto based and using press the attack, bork against phase rush is dirty (75% resist vs "I'll take that ms"). Not to mention ga with a cute item called an omen is hilarious on something like an all in tank. Even if they walk out of the zone it takes time to do and you. Love ga with iceborn for that though. They try to run away they get big slow they walk to the sides they are still in a slowing zone. Honestly if you're building mercs into ga and they know what they are doing (not just using it for the passive slow) you're going to have a bad time as tenacity doesn't do jack shit against zone cc (fuck you soraka and your feet casting ass).

DW Diana8/19/2018, 5:01:39 PM1 votes

Personally I'd love to use GA, but the champions it would suite the best are those that have little way to proc it. Take Malzahar for instance. If GA could be used to proc off his Malefic Visions, that would be perfect for him. He would no longer need to build Rylais, meaning he could get Liandry's early and this would shift him from a 3 item powerspike to a 2 item powerspike. If it only worked when you used an item like Rylais but had a damage component such as a DoT, MR shred, or damage increase it would against be very viable on him. But as it stands, it's on AA and activate, neither of which he uses that much of.