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In Riot's "Preseason Goals" article from 5 months ago, they stated "Healing has become more prevalent in the game over the last few years, and we’d like to address a few specific problems." Over time, the amount of healing has increased. With runes reforged, things like lifesteal, spellvamp, and other sources of healing became accessible to every champion, especially since many of them could be stacked together. In their article, Riot clearly saw a problem with this, and this was their first goal:
Healing has become so common that Grievous Wounds has gone from a contextual choice meant for healing-heavy games to a viable option in most games. We're looking across runes, items, and champ kits to trim some healing where we think it's unnecessary, which should in turn reduce the necessity of Grievous Wounds options in builds.
Not only has riot not delivered on this goal, but it's gotten a lot worse since preseason began. Not only are the healing runes still strong, but now many classes have access to healing on their first item that they wouldn't have had before. Goredrinker, Eclipse, and Immortal Shieldbow are good examples of this. In addition, the "nerf" ravenous hunter got ended up being a buff. Changing it from ability vamp to omnivamp ended up in more overall healing for many auto attack based champions, so lowering its healing didn't matter much. Riot's response has been to buff grievous wounds which they did also included as a goal in their article. While they carried through with this goal, since they didn't carry through on the first one, it's introduced more problems.
Grievous wounds is more needed now in games than it ever has been. With the buffs its gotten and the increase of healing everywhere, GW is needed in too many games. Any game in which the enemy team has two or more of: Goredrinker bruisers, Shieldbow fighters, Eclipse assassins/fighters, lategame AD champions, Riftmaker bruisers, or champions that have healing-based kits may force you to build GW. Having to build GW too often is obnoxious since it gets in the way of your champion's natural build, making it not feel good or fun. In addition, the GW buffs negatively affect champions with in-built healing.
Champions like Soraka and Zac are suffering from the influx of GW since its been buffed, but their healing hasn't. GW no longer feels like an optional counter for champions like Soraka but a necessary item to build almost every game because its too int not to. If widespread healing was lowered, GW wouldn't be required every game, we'd be able to build more of what we want, and champions like Soraka or Zac could play with their kits more.
TL;DR
There are too many sources of omnivamp and general healing in the game. GW feels necessary in too many games. Champions with in-built healing who can't build omnivamp suffer.
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