I think Riot is putting too much emphasis on making champions unique..

..and too little emphasis on making them feel good. This is a game after all and gameplay should come first, even if it's not incredibly unique. You have over a 120 champions and counting, it's okay if some of them feel a little bit similar. Honestly, when I play a game that steals a bunch of gameplay mechanics and ideas from other games but executes them extremely well, I still have way more fun than when I play a game that's highly experimental and yet poorly executed.

While these new changes will make Skarner unique, they really don't sound all that fun and it really pigeonholes Skarner into playing only jungle. I'd rather have a buffed version of the old passive even it was pretty similar to Braum's.