Specifically, his two ultimates and trait. To give a very short answer, it feels like (at least to me) that Lava wave is very close to being outright mandatory on Rag at the moment.
Sure, Sulfuras Smash is really strong. If used right, it can instantly delete most assassins and basically win a teamfight. But lava wave can win games almost by itself. Every time I take lava wave, my XP contribution shoots up to 2 or 3 times what it would otherwise be by the end of a game. Oftentime, when I check the XP bar, I can see that the only reason my team is either ahead on levels, or not game-endingly far behind, is because of that additional XP contribution. And that alone wins teamfights, perhaps better than sulfuras smash ever could.
Furthermore, beyond its mere XP benefits, it shoves out waves really hard. It can, if timed properly, allow two nearly full hp waves slam into a wall, keep, fort, etc. and severely damage it or even destroy it if it is weakened already (Unless, of course, an enemy is there to stop it or responds after the fact, which can take them away from important objectives if they are going on at the time). Furthermore, it is very potent at dealing with bruiser and siege camps, and can flat-out end longer term fights that result when a team gets one or two camps and a big wave and pushes with it, as it deletes the minions and severely damages the camps. It takes away all their push power and makes it so much harder for them to shove, especially if combined with his trait to further delete the wave.
With Lava Wave, Ragnaros has so much pushing power and anti-pushing power it’s insane.
The thing is, I don’t necessarily believe this is a bad thing. I thing, on the whole, Rag needs something like this to work since he doesn’t have much else in his kit. As a bruiser, he is sort of lacking. The heal on his Q is extremely small unless you get lucky or have a team dedicated to forcing clumps, the speed on his E is useful but it’s damage is pathetic, even if yo utalent into it. His W can hurt, but requires the enemy to either be really stupid or the Rag to be extremely good at aiming it (the meteor talent build helps alot with it). He has no CC outside of sulfuras smash (which he is unlikely to have, since lava wave is so good), and is actually not very durable. My friends and I all believe that he isn’t really a bruiser, but in fact a melee assassin with less damage. This isn’t a good thing, especially since he is labeled as a bruiser and ends up worsening the already poor matchmaking as a result of the mislabel.
Furthermore, his trait is really cool, and it can be pretty alright in certain circumstances (IE stopping a hard push as per above). What is not alright is the level 20 talent, Heroic Difficulty. I want it to be good, and useful, cuz it’s cool and flavorful. But as a talent it is so abysmally bad, especially when combined with the opportunity cost of not getting either of the other level 20 talents, all of which are far and away superior. At level 20, there is no contest. Second lava wave is objectively the best, and if you didn’t take lava wave and have somehow survived to level 20, then Submerge is almost certainly better than, of all things, a slow on the relatively small area of an ability whose sole purpose is to night instantly delete people. If you whiff smash, a slow will not does not really make up for it, and if you hit it, the slow doesn’t really matter at all.
Personally, I think lava wave is fairly powerful on it’s own. Second lava wave is too strong. His trait is good, but not really that good, and certainly not good enough to justify taking heroic difficulty. Sulfuras smash is good, but not as good as lava wave.
Lava wave can’t really be nerfed in ways that won’t utterly trash it, since it’s strength comes from instantly popping waves and dealing heavy damage to non-minions. Nerf the damage, and itll still delete waves and lose barely any power. Take away popping waves, and it becomes worthless. Up its cooldown any more and it’ll lose its usefulness cuz of how inoften it occurs and gimp any chance of ever actually using it during a fight (which can and does happen).
For me, personally, I think an ideal solution would be to move Lava wave to his trait, with the same stipulation as his current trait for it’s cooldown. His current trait would take the place of his second ultimate, but would have the effects of Heroic difficulty rolled into it, have the range of the W and E increased, and its ability to damage structures removed. Instead of having talents that improve his ultimates, he can instead opt to simply have both of them, similar to Alarak. Submerge is still good, and the 2 charges of lava wave can be changed to simply be a 60 second cooldown reduction to his trait, and nothing more.
