Come to think of it, S3’s seasonal power was probably on such a tapered progression curve (& most ppl probably never saw one of the 2 desirable unique powers) that it’s the anomaly… and S4-5 don’t count at all IMO since there was no seasonal power. S6 is a blur… was there a power? So yeah, I guess we’re really talking about S1, S2, S7, and S8, but I’d say it’s probably a trend from now on. S2 iirc added several powers that more or less propelled a lot of “builds”.
Speaking of Raxx, he was also predicting S2 to be underpowered & uncompelling, and then played it & did a 180.
I did like the concept of the stone pet, they just didn’t bake it all the way. The excess stone thingies should’ve been auto-pickup, some of the powers were bloat, and the boss grind to hunt for the unique stones was just silly… game definitely isn’t/wasn’t good enough to warrant it - though you could party up for efficiency. Ugh, yeah that was an early version of “party up to get the thing you want”, I guess forgotten in the season’s overall bad reception. It was the first example of me going “yeah, no, you can keep that”.