My Balance Ideas for Kai'Sa
I don't like Riot's approach with balancing Kai'Sa where they have no idea of her problem areas and are just randomly nerfing everything else which just eventually places her into the dumbster, but is still just as problematic because the issues have never been resolved, you just made her weaker by doing the wrong things constantly.
Some of the problem areas is either her W is too reliable to land or has too much range. What I would do here is just half the range to be more similar to Jinx's W where it is still super long, but not ludicrous like what it is now and feels manage-able to play against. The reason I would not effect the reliability of the spell is because it would just make it terrible to use for the player (if the range nerf feels too bad, then maybe the cast time can be reduced slightly).
The other problem area is her invisibility making her too safe. Something that could happen is replace it with double the total movement speed during the duration instead, so it feels great for the user and not making Kai'Sa feel super safe in the process, creating more skill to play her well to deal damage and stay alive.
Another thing to make her more skillful and less of a safe pick is making her passive's 5th proc even stronger, but you remove the stacking on-hit damage. This means Kai'Sa either has to fully commit to get the proc off or learn to land her skill shots.
As a bonus and bigger changes: Have Q+W both upgrade by both bonus attack damage and ability power, BUT it is adaptive upgrades based on the greater stat. This means that Q+W ability power upgrade is different to Q+W bonus attack damage upgrade. Examples: W+AD could be double the range, vision radius, and vision lingers for a few seconds, but it no longer can deal damage (still would apply two passive procs) WHILE W+AP be pretty similar to how it is now with a slight changing factoring in a huge range nerf to the spell. ~ Q+AD would be pretty similar how it works now WHILE Q+AP would turn the skill into something like Heimerdinger's Rockets and each projectile applies a passive proc (so a focused shot would be a full proc + 1 extra), which means it becomes a skill shot and the range increased since it is now a skill shot. So rather than a direct damage buff, it helps you apply more passive procs making AD Kai'Sa about general damage and AP Kai'Sa gaining a specific play style about getting as many passive procs as possible.
RUNDOWN TIME:
Passive: On hit damage removed Proc damage increased to 10 - 60 (+50%AP) plus 15% (+4.5% per 100AP) missing health as bonus magic damage, missing health applies second.
Q: +100 Bonus AD = 12 missiles instead of 6 missiles, maximum double damage when focused on a single target +100 Ability Power = Gains twice its range and becomes 6 single target line skill shots, can fan them out or focus them or a hybrid like Heimer's rockets can do, each projectile applies a stack of her passive
These bonuses are based on adaptive stat!
W: Range massively reduced from 3000 units to 1400 units Cast time lowered slightly Shoots three projectiles from two by default Attack Damage ratio removed Damage changed to something like 90/140/190/240/290(+80%AP) magic damage (roughly about where the total AD would give and the on-hit damage of the passive without any bonus AD, on-hit passive grants more AP ratio than what the ability reads) from 20/45/70/95/120(+150%tAD)(+60%AP) magic damage
+100 Bonus AD = Damage is removed, range is double to 2800 units, still applies the three passive marks on enemy hit, vision radius is doubled, vision lingers for 3 seconds, cost (NOT COOLDOWN) refunds if hits an enemy champion. +100 ability power = Cooldown is always halved, cost is halved if it hits an enemy champion, and damage is increased by 30%.
These bonuses are based on adaptive stat!
E: +100% bonus attack speed = An additional 100% total movement speed increase for the charge up duration. The 0.5 second of invisibility is removed.
