"For those looking for buffs to Zhonya's Hourglass, it should be clear that we aren't doing that."

Ok, normally I don't do this, but come on. If you're gonna say "lol you wanted to be viable? not happening lol zed says screw you kappa" at least give a better reason than citing the power of an active that freezes you in place and makes a prime rib out of you if your team abandons you. In a game where the only Armor+AP item viable for mages is an item that's kept intentionally weak because of a powerful active, how are you supposed to keep up with Zed or Talon, champions who have loads of armor penetration, assassination potential, and live in your lane specifically because they do your job just about as well and can 100-0 you, get out, and spam laugh as well.

Here are the solutions as I see it:

1. Buff Hourglass. As mentioned above, it's been made very clear that this is not Riot's intention and that this item is to remain sub-par because some talon player cried that their assassination was delayed by 2.5 seconds.

2. Buff AP itemization. AP itemization is pretty rough right now, compared to AD assassins. Often times a limiter to getting zhonyas is the lack of mana to keep in lane waveclearing, or a stronger need for the high combine cost on some other item. A lot of AP items leave you waiting with money in the bank hoping to finish the combine cost some time soon. If you rework AP itemization like with AD itemization, then there's a chance for more diverse options and less stress on the power of zhonya's.

3. Add another AP+Armor mage item. Right now there are multiple very strong defensive AD items, especially with almost equivalently powerful abilities. are famous for this.

However, the one thing I ask is that something is done. It's not right to have an item sit in a purposely weak state because it has a decent ability tied to it.