I dunno what this place has against small changes if they result in something with a different application.
I don't know what you mean by "this place" and "has against"; it's not like it's Rejected or removed or anything. It's just labelled as "simple", which this is pretty much a poster-child for.
There's nothing wrong with "simple", and most slightly-modified/recolored SFX are basically bound for that designation, just by their very nature (e.g. anyone can tweak a few numbers in a given SFX & come up with something different; how many of those can we afford to fill the Resource section up with?)
Similar but distinct means it would pair great with Entangling Roots on a caster or among a race with a plant theme. The silhouette and animation are different enough that they're easily distinguishable at a glance, especially if one of them affects movement speed. A great alternative to Entangling Roots's model for people who want something that's like roots but doesn't look like it's pinning the target to the ground.
I disagree. Sure it's higher up & moves a bit differently, but I think they will be easily confused for each other. However, you & GF have given me what I think is the ideal solution to that & other issues:
Oh my God, this just gave me a fabulous idea!!
You could use a Corrupted version of this spell to corrupt literal ancients and fancy yourself a Corrupted Ancients base!
Furthermore it would be nice to add different colour variations of this effect for practical manner.
Honestly, this is fantastic, and both A) provides extra utility to this resource, making it more worthwhile an upload, and B) solves my one issue of "being too similar to Entangling Roots in-game", and C) kinda makes more sense anyway! Just make it purple & have it be "(
Corrupted) Leech Seed"!
It's totally fitting & would still look great. Make it the 'primary' version but definitely still keep the green one. Consider a few others (yellow/brown? red? brown? etc). But I would
definitely consider doing that, at least. : )