On The Issue of Mobility Creep...
Riot, to save you time (and sanity) let me tell you why Ashe and Varus aren't getting picked. It isn't because Crucible is OP, it's because they're crippled. For comparison's sake, I consider them to be "immobile" champions. For a champion to be considered "mobile" in my opinion, they must follow this criteria:
- Have a movement speed above 325
Or
- Have at least one immunity ability or movement speed steroid
Or
- Must have a leap AND/OR a form of slow/crowd control removal
Here are all the champions that are "mobile" under my criteria:
Here are the champions that are considered immobile, but have some form of viable utility to back up their immobility:
Which leaves these champions as the ones I refer to as "crippled":
Crippled champions by my definition means that if they overextend in the slightest, unless they are lucky, and have flash simultaneously, they are going to get melted. But even some of these champions are naturally tanky, and can take a little bit of punishment, so filtering out those champions, we are left with:
These are in my opinion, the least viable champions in the game. I would also say that Ashe and Varus are the worst adcs in the game, and Karthus is the worst apc in the game.
The problem isn't the fact that some champions are extremely mobile (with the exception of Jax, Nidalee, and Leblanc, but I'll digress into that after), but that these champions I consider "crippled" have a major design flaw in that they have no real defensive ability. They have what I consider "utility" but not "escape" or "immunity" or "defense".
For example, I will use a common argument to Caitlyn's "OP"ness. Caitlyn is pushing bot tower. Vi comes to gank the overextending adc, and Caitlyn uses her E to rocket away before Vi connects her Q. Caitlyn hugs tower and escapes safely.
Scenario 2. Ashe is pushing bot tower. Vi comes to gank the overextending adc, and Ashe sees Vi long before Caitlyn saw her, but has no escape ability, so tries to slow Vi as much as possible, but Vi's Q is a leap, it connects with Ashe, and she gets taken out in less than 3 seconds.
This is the reason why Ashe, and Varus aren't played bot lane. They aren't viable against junglers with strong ganks, or high mobility ADCs like Sivir, Vayne, Caitlyn, Miss Fortune, and Twitch.
I disagree with the notion of mobility creep being a widespread issue because of these reasons, however, it doesn't mean that some champions don't have an issue with this. The top 2 most banned champions, and the most banned champion in LCS are EXTREMELY mobile. Jax has the pre 4.5 Lee Sin problem of being able to leap a huge distance to allies to escape (on top of a dodge, and a stun). This is why as of right now, Jax is almost at a 90% ban rate. Leblanc's issue is the fact that her blink is so fast, you have no time to react before she finishes her combo and reduces your health from 500-10 in 2 seconds. She also gets two blinks after level 6 which is ludicrous. And finally we have Nidalee, who has a free escape on a 3.5 second cooldown. The only thing balanced about that is it's hilariously low range, otherwise, she'd be making pre-rework Kassadin's ban rate jealous.
In conclusion, Riot, the problem isn't the mobility creep necessarily, it's the fact that some champions have literally no mobility whatsoever. An easy fix? Buff the escapeless champion's movement speed. Or give them an escape option, or powerful defensive ability. Utility alone doesn't cut it. Cho'gath is tanky, so he can survive, Darius is tanky, so he can survive, Mundo is a goddamn hypertank, so he can not only survive, but heal away all damage done to him. Ashe, Cass, Karthus, Malzahar, and Varus are glass cannons. When they have no defensive options or escape options, they might as well come with free "gank me and kill me" skins. Give the squishies some escape or mobility, and they might do better.
