Ground effects will dominate location based combat, but other than that they are defensive in nature. I can see them working if you build a comp around them, like amumu ult kennen ult etc.

They are really great for fights at dragon, baron and pushing towers but as of right now the game focuses more on mobility for them to see a huge use.

I think there's something about zoning, and kiting that makes the champ specific ground steroids really tasty to me, I think that maybe the ways you can apply them to the ground are also varied so there's a lot of room for you guys to explore that space and I'd just love to see what you guys can come up with if you want to explore some more ground steroids. The way noct and trundle apply the buffs are pretty basic and I think there are some more interesting ways to do that that also tie in with the kiting / zoning aspects of the buffs....just really got my mind churning.

TBH, I like utilizing them just because they are so oft overlooked unless they are blatant like Malz' pool or Maokai's ult.

Which is fine by me. It often makes a lot of these go underrated by enemies and allows you to fully exploit them. The champion of these being Jarvan's Standard. I've seen so many enemies that are willing to take two steps away just to avoid getting CC'd with Q, oblivious to the fact that they're trying to continue a duel with a teammate who's now buffed.