An easy way to make Urgot more healthy for the game
Some months ago, Urgot got some minor buffs intended to "help out on some of his issues and get him into a better spot until we're free to do larger scale work on him". Now I think these changes have been out long enough to be able to assess whether or not they were successful, and I think to some extent they were. Playing Urgot does feel slightly less punishing now that he has better farming tools while behind (incentive to last hit with q). Urgot still has some obvious issues with his kit though, while remaining one of the lowest win rate champs in the game.
Now given that the inevitable Urgot rework is still quite a ways off (based on hearing the list of champion updates Riot's currently working on), I think it's time to consider another minor change to Urgot that would improve his counterplay, allowing Riot to buff him without making him overbearing. I think there could be considerable benefits to game health for relatively little effort, while doing a service to Urgot players.
In theory, Urgot's main combo (e to lock-on and then spam q) has decent counterplay because the e is dodgeable, justifying the subsequent lock-on. In practice though, the e particle doesn't really convey visually where it is going to land, which means that you can't really react to dodge it the same way you can a linear skillshot like Ezreal's q and whatnot. What this means is that while Urgot's e is certainly missable it's not actually dodgeable in many situations. Hitting Urgot's e is mainly a question of whether or not the Urgot player messes up rather than whether or not his opponent reacts well. The result is that Urgot's combo has unreliability without actually having satisfying counterplay.
And a lack of meaningful counterplay means no buffs, so I suggest that Riot take one simple step to make Urgot's e actually dodgeable: add a circle indicator showing where it will land (similar to the circle warning you where cho'gath's q is going to erupt). This would make it clear to Urgot's opponents what they need to do in order avoid the lock-on instantly making the existing counterplay more clear and satisfying. Obviously this change would by itself be a nerf, but the intention is that by enhancing Urgot's counterplay Riot can give themselves room to buff him elsewhere (which could take the form of simply increasing the speed of the e slightly to compensate, or increasing the reward by upping Urgot's q damage, or buffs anywhere else on his kit).
The result, I hope would be a much less frustrating Urgot to play against, but also a stronger one. This change would require relatively little effort from Riot (adding in a simple circle doesn't require any substantial new art assets or anything), and is consistent with their own design goals. After all, in a post Meddler made all the way back in November of 2013, he said he hoped to explore a "way of offering homing Acid Hunters that give both more counterplay options for an enemy and more opportunity for skilled use by the Urgot player". I think this change would achieve that goal.
TL,DR: Make Urgot's E more dodgeable to increase his counterplay so that he can be buffed elsewhere while we wait for the rework.
