EPTWith a standard leash, even the standard runes are something like 10s slower than most junglers. I'd have been curious to see his clear times with them (not to mention that while better against Evelynn or Elise, they'd still burst the shield and force him to retreat, while Lee, J4 or Kha'Zix would have an easier time killing him).
About the current stale state of the game, there seem to be 2-3 main things dragging the games:
- too much waveclear making it hard to siege
- the huge amount of protection and counter-initiation introduced to the game in that period (from the Heal/Exhaust s4 changes to Braum's release two months ago) crowding out "real", hard initation
- the nerfs to tanky itemisation (especially armour) over the last patches, more recently compounded by the marksmen itemisation changes, make it harder to take the fight under a tower that you can't destroy in the opening stages of the fight, leading to the need to siege it and poke it down before you can engage under it.
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Hard initiation still exists, though, but with most tanky junglers, the usual initiators, out of the meta (Amumu, Sejuani, Malphite, Zac, etc.) or nerfed (less range on W means it's harder to do for Maokai), it's much harder to come by when your frontline usually consists of a bruiser/"fighter" over a tank (when Shyvana is the pinacle of the off laner initiator... ). Jarvan and Gragas are the closest we get, along with gimmicks like the Rengar Ball Delivery System©.
Another issue is that you need to get mileage out of your initiation. In general (because you commit resources and if it doesn't pay off you're losing) but also when diving towers (to really dive a tower and not just force the enemy team off as you kill its last 300 HP, you have to win the fight fast, especially with the ramp-up buff this patch).
Super safe picks (Ziggs, pre-nerf Twitch, etc.) combined with survivability (Crucible, Heal, Exhaust, popularity of Nami/Lulu/Braum (for his E against ranged damage)) easily drag fights, making these sieges undesirable. What has happened many games is a Ziggs, Twitch or Lucian getting caught, escaping with only 200-300 HP but then spamming dps on the enemy team from safety, destroying them after their initiation didn't pay off.
To make things worse, not only is it hard to get a good initiation off and follow up on it, the amount of counter-initiation (remember good 5-man Crescendo? Now you have The Box, Glacial Fissure, Satchel Charge/Hexplosive minefield) means that whoever goes in first is actually the one most likely to get jumped on after they get interrupted then cc'd themselves.
The tower and base layout already provide an advantage to the defender, do they really need the defensive kits to be stronger than the offensive ones too?
Waveclear is also preventing people from easily splitpushing because it doesn't require much attention to stop one big wave. When teams are forced to give up a tower to prevent a baron, or a baron to save an inhibitor, because of a huge built-up wave, it's more often because the defendant team screwed up than because the baiting team created that wave on purpose and sent it crashing (think Korean response to the early lane swaps: make your lone guy freeze in front of his t2, then when dragon respawns soon build a slow push with a cannon minion wave and send it crashing: either the enemy team concedes dagon, or loses [most of] a tower to the huge wave).
Ziggs' ult being spammable from across the map and never having to worry about AP (double damage to minions) is a big part of the issue (and the aforementioned "screw up, have to deal with the wave" scenario only happens to teams who don't have Ziggs), but even in general. Remember when Morgana was considered a very good pusher? Now she's bad at it and can only annoy other old champions like Orianna. And you'd never see Vel'Koz even if he was mobile just because he has no real waveclear (W having the least incentive of all his skills to max, apart from being AoE) without the stupidity of pre-rework AP Nidalee.
When you only need to split from the team for 5-6s to clear a whole side lane getting near your base, it's hard to get any progress done. Also note how current popular splitpushing "defenders" like Gragas and Lulu combine good waveclear with being really hard to kill, especially under tower, so that stuff like Tryndamere, Nidalee, Zed, Jax, Shen, etc. on top of having inferior pushing, would have trouble getting their tower unless massively ahead.
Another issue is that you need to get mileage out of your initiation. In general (because you commit resources and if it doesn't pay off you're losing) but also when diving towers (to really dive a tower and not just force the enemy team off as you kill its last 300 HP, you have to win the fight fast, especially with the ramp-up buff this patch).
Super safe picks (Ziggs, pre-nerf Twitch, etc.) combined with survivability (Crucible, Heal, Exhaust, popularity of Nami/Lulu/Braum (for his E against ranged damage)) easily drag fights, making these sieges undesirable. What has happened many games is a Ziggs, Twitch or Lucian getting caught, escaping with only 200-300 HP but then spamming dps on the enemy team from safety, destroying them after their initiation didn't pay off.
To make things worse, not only is it hard to get a good initiation off and follow up on it, the amount of counter-initiation (remember good 5-man Crescendo? Now you have The Box, Glacial Fissure, Satchel Charge/Hexplosive minefield) means that whoever goes in first is actually the one most likely to get jumped on after they get interrupted then cc'd themselves.
The tower and base layout already provide an advantage to the defender, do they really need the defensive kits to be stronger than the offensive ones too?
Waveclear is also preventing people from easily splitpushing because it doesn't require much attention to stop one big wave. When teams are forced to give up a tower to prevent a baron, or a baron to save an inhibitor, because of a huge built-up wave, it's more often because the defendant team screwed up than because the baiting team created that wave on purpose and sent it crashing (think Korean response to the early lane swaps: make your lone guy freeze in front of his t2, then when dragon respawns soon build a slow push with a cannon minion wave and send it crashing: either the enemy team concedes dagon, or loses [most of] a tower to the huge wave).
Ziggs' ult being spammable from across the map and never having to worry about AP (double damage to minions) is a big part of the issue (and the aforementioned "screw up, have to deal with the wave" scenario only happens to teams who don't have Ziggs), but even in general. Remember when Morgana was considered a very good pusher? Now she's bad at it and can only annoy other old champions like Orianna. And you'd never see Vel'Koz even if he was mobile just because he has no real waveclear (W having the least incentive of all his skills to max, apart from being AoE) without the stupidity of pre-rework AP Nidalee.
When you only need to split from the team for 5-6s to clear a whole side lane getting near your base, it's hard to get any progress done. Also note how current popular splitpushing "defenders" like Gragas and Lulu combine good waveclear with being really hard to kill, especially under tower, so that stuff like Tryndamere, Nidalee, Zed, Jax, Shen, etc. on top of having inferior pushing, would have trouble getting their tower unless massively ahead.
A parallel that amuses me is how popular double AP comps are becoming these last weeks (moreso since Gragas' rework, as before it was more Lulu being an exception in the off lane).
Last time we saw them it was in s2, and they were centered around midgame teamfighting power, AoE burst and cc, and tended to taper off because of stuff like FoN. You saw Kennen, Karthus, Morgana, Vladimir, Orianna, Gragas.
Now they're not as damage heavy, definitely not midgame nor burst oriented (Syndra picks being a notable exception), and they rely more on stalling till late game where they can dish out loads of sustained damage while spamming cc to keep people at bay. You see Ziggs, Lulu, Ryze, new Gragas, Xerath.
