The new Rift Herald promotes even more snowballing and frustration.

Riot frequently uses words like "binary" and "interactive" when describing the need for balance changes, usually saying that something is changed to remove the former and promote the latter. Unfortunately, the new Rift Herald is probably about the least interactive and, without hyperbole I would say, the most binary of all objectives in League. Having seen it in action it is everything that I feared it would be...

Not interactive: What could be less interactive than a PvE/siege engine rolling down a lane and destroying minion waves and towers as if they were nothing.

Binary: Either you get it and immediately go way ahead and change the dynamic of the game in your favor, or you don't and the tide is turned against you.

But this isn't really the worst part about Rift Herald.

My biggest issue with the new Rift Herald is that it simply promotes snowballing. If you're behind in lane you are certainly not going to take the risk to go and grab the Herald, you need to farm, stay safe and try to make a play with your jungle or just hold out as long as you can in your lane. Whoever gets the lead is going to shove the other one out of lane/jungle and when they're recalling or dead you simply grab the Rift Herald. So now the team that is already slightly ahead can easily take a free tower or two. "But", you say, "You can kill the Herald as it takes your tower", sure you can... but it comes down to two choices at that point, do I...

a) Try to fight the Rift Herald at my tower with an enemy champion or two escorting it? Knowing that I'll likely die because I'm focusing the Herald or I'll lose my tower because I'm fighting a champ that is diving me under my sieged tower with a massive minion wave on me as well. I'm already behind so it's going to be hard to contest this... Or...

b) Try to encourage my team to help defend this tower against the Herald but likely giving up other lanes to do so or perhaps even Dragon.

That's not strategic decision making, that's just promoting the team that's already ahead to further snowball. Plus, quite frankly, the mechanic of snowballing is frustrating enough to deal with in League, add in a giant siege weapon that you really couldn't get because you were behind and it just feels somewhat hopeless after all of that.

League already has enough areas that promote snowballing, what about balance? What about promoting some type of way for the team that's behind to catch up? I'd really just be happy if we could curtail the runaway train that games generally turn in to.