User blog comment:Telaruhn/Sprig, The Brambleborn/@comment-4315699-20120217221756/@comment-4773210-20120218015939

I wanted his passive to cry out "JUNGLE GANK!" as it is rather useful in the jungle as well as in the laning phase early on, and during teamfights in brush. But it's really not going to useful for pushing and assulting the enemy's base or defending your own. I may rework this to make it more useful, making his role as a support less situational.

One of his main objectives for his Q is to place his ultimate; the other is scouting brush, which is the main reason with the lower cooldown. But in comparison to Singed's ability, it makes sense that this ability should have a higher cooldown. I also wanted to make an AP offensive option if somebody decided not to use AD items on Sprig. I may just fool around with the slow percentage and damage, or up the mana cost to make it more reasonable with a 10 second cooldown.

W is for, you guessed it, farming. Considering the chance that multiple champions can bleed from this ability, I suppose it would be acceptable to lower the damage slightly. I had also considered making this or his Q another more support-ish move, providing some sort of movement speed buff like Zilean's Time Warp, but thought that his offensive capabilites would be diminished.

His E would make people want to build him tanky, wouldn't they? I was afraid of that... I tried. I wanted it to be more desirable to place the shield on a carry being bombarded by attacks. I'll have to think about how to rework it slightly to make it less desirable to tank. Maybe I'll trash the passive portion entirely...

Wow, I never thought about his ult used for tanking turrets, I guess I overlooked that... Anyways, considering he is tailored to offensive support, tanking the turret while others go in for the kill suits such a role perfectly. That being said, he's not going to be able to move for that time, meaning incorrect placement could allow enemies to just pick him off while he's also recieving turret aggro. Sprig also wasn't meant to be tanky in the first place... but if it causes people to consider building him tanky, then I'll probably consider removing the addition of armor and magic resist mostly if not entirely to mitigate the urge to tank turrets.

Thanks for the feedback, it's really helpful :D