12 Comments
They already had plants!
Hello, bushes, anyone?
stahp
the issue with plants is that they either punish people wrongly for good play or punish people overtly for poor play. its just a snowballing mechanic that sucks.
the vision thing is questionable as the time it takes to clear out wards with it is slow and isn't as versatile as raptor buff while the act of getting caught sneaking dragon after checking wards is frustrating since the plant isn't really as easy to counter as raptor buff unless you're nocturn.
the blast cones are really just a gimmick and while they have their place as the least bad plant, if you are chased by someone who outranges you and is faster than you and get blasted into them, it will feel bad as you'll otherwise have to play literally around it and make big adjustments, whereas when you're faster than the one you're chasing but they use the plant to get away scot free, it feels bad too.
finally the health plants are: 1 unsubstantial as they don't really matter with some sustain champs, 2 reward laners for pushing out waves by offering them a mana and health boost when they roam, and 3 punish global abilities like karthus ult for making proper decision making, pushing the plant into either poor stats or too unhealthy for lanes.
in any case the plants just aren't implemented as well as they could be. changing to the plants would also shut out: monitoring both parts of your jungle with wolf and ward, tanks and split/push junglers bursting down towers and reducing damage taken in jungle with golems, increasing clear time for low damage output and tanks with the gromp buff. the only real things they preserved (barely) were: the vision control (although not as versatile), the health top off (upcoming smite and plant vs previous brambleback), and mana top off (plant but in the river and not where you may need it to ensure you can take blue buff in timely manner), while adding in a binary feel-bad zigs w.
I do like the new traits of the jungle monsters and the smite heal, but the smite buff removal and plant changes are questionable and could shut out some junglers.
ps. #MakeKarthusJungleAgain
this gif sums up the league community when riot introduced the plants. http://vignette2.wikia.nocookie.net/le-miiverse-resource/images/9/9a/Not_this_shit_again.gif/revision/latest?cb=20150402231325
