Lissandra

I certainly agree. Her popularity is EXTREMELY low. Low enough to be considered for a "check up". I hardly ever see her in a game and when I do she 'herself' is not doing very well. She provides good teamfight capabilities but is like a sailor going down with his ship. When Playing her I find that to be extremely true, I can go in and do a lot of work and do some slick "plays" but will almost certainly be bursted down to nothing because to go in and do anything, I have to sacrifice my escapes/defense abilities. I feel like Lissandra and Orianna and Zyra sort of fit a similar role, they are meant to be bursty, have high utility, be able to lock down an enemy, peel, and provide that "combo" to someones "wombo" and all together set-up/define a teamfight, I just don't feel like Lissandra other than Zhonyas has any way of making it out of said teamfight without sacrificing 2 of her BIGGEST abilities. Not to mention she, in my opinion, has the worst Passive/Innate in the entire game, it's thematically lame/lacking, near useless (goes unnoticed past your first mana item/cd item ie: Morellonomicon) and honestly sometimes baits me in games; I may have used most of my mana but I see that I can use my ult and it makes me think that I have mana to go in and after I use my ult on the enemy I have nothing to follow up with and I basically got baited lol. When I first started playing this game I fell in love with her, similar to how people fall in love with Jinx, Lissandra has a strong identity, strong personality, great lore, great visuals, great VO, interesting kit, and was overall fun and immersive to "be" when playing the game, but she is the QUEEN of wasted possibility. She feels very outdated in a way, like she doesn't fit into this game. Her tradeoffs are way to whackadoodle. Q. Pro: high dmg burst short cd with a slow and aoe shatter. Con: Short range, only applies slow to first target. W. Pro: Mid-size AOE insta-root. Con: deals low early game dmg and root length is short both early game and late game scaling. E. Pro: Gapclosing reactivating blink that deals dmg as it travels. Con: Can easily be denied, travels very slowly, especially with late game MS, easily dodgeable. R. Pro: Zhonya ability that also Heals lissandra that deals AOE dmg and slows, can be used to lockdown/stun an enemy. Con: Tooltip is confusing in regards to Healing effect, aoe is slow generating and doesn't last very long deals very low dmg, Stun isn't very long, not as original thematically anymore now that Sejuani has the same ult except hers is ranged, creates a better aoe and is a skillshot. And somehow, @Riot has not given her much thought and she was ignored for the mage update (which may be a blessing in disguise lol), I don't think a simple Passive replacement would be enough, unless it was truly beneficial to her whole kit, I feel like she needs a Heimer-level rework.

I like her as a Top Laner, as most match-ups won't have over 1k Range on their abilities. And, while I think her Damage/Numbers could use some buffs, her Utility for me is still strong enough to make her a viable choice.

It is just that instead of the Classical "I burst everyone with my huge AoE Damage from afar" she is more of AP Bruiser who goes in the middle of fights and chuncks people with her Q DPS while CC-ing them to death.

I really liked the idea of Passive Riot tested on the PBE a while ago, but I would try make it like a Rod of Ages' Passive: adding both Mana and Health. I think if they buffed her Defensive stats, she would be more capable to survive with her Ultimate or to even build more Damage to make her combos deadlier.