Baron gives such a huge game ending reward and is such an epic minion, you'd think it'd hit harder than paper.

Sure, it's supposed to be contested. But the frame for contesting is just SO SMALL that its basically impossible unless you were threatening to do it at the same time.

Like this thing dies in under 20 seconds routinely. Hell, in this game with only two items we took it down in under 20 seconds with only a shyvana, nautilus, and ekko coming in late. Sure we were gonna win this game anyway, but it still shouldn't be possible.

With this whole banner of command insta-win stuff going on, this thing needs to be much more difficult to kill and not give 10k gold lead worth of stats on a buff.

If an adc was there this thing would die in less than 10 seconds, easy.

Yes the buff is meant to be contested, but you can snatch that thing so quickly before the other team notices or has a chance to get there. Legitmately, a full team can kill the baron before a team at tier 2 middle can walk there in time. And in solo queue, not everyone is grouped up ready to contest a 20 minute baron.

The reward is out of control in pro play. The baron itself is too weak in regular play and the reward is just as strong.