Fixing Aurelion Sol (With a 3-hit passive)

Aurelion Sol suffers from many issues because of the strange niche he fills in League of Legends. He's hard to balance, however, because his damage is either oppressive or utterly inconsistent. He's hard to play because he has one of the strangest, and again, most niche power spikes in league of legends: Rylai's.

To simplify things, Rylai's does too much for Sol- but this isn't the item's fault. In short, it makes him hard to deal with from a balance perspective because the item almost literally completes his kit. Where other champions make tradeoffs for Rylais, the item has everything Sol wants and changes his play dynamic completely. Some games, this isn't necessary- but in others, it lets Sol control teamfights AND duel in ways he never could without the item. In short, Rylai's acts as a missing part of Sol's kit in the form of reliable utility. So long as this sort of interaction persists, Sol has to be balanced around it. The solution, however, isn't to remove the interaction or balance around it- but to make the interaction less relevant. Rylais should still be a nice item for Sol, but not a massive game-changer like it is.

So, what to do? A 3-hit passive on his W. Every three hits on the same target, if W is activated, gain 20% movement speed and slow the target by 20% for 3 seconds. If W is not activated, gain 20 armor and magic resist for 3 seconds and stun the target for 1 second. Effects have a separate 12/10/8 second cooldown at ranks 1/3/5 to reward W investments.

With built-in utility, Sol's power curve can be measured more cleanly- as tank and rylais-free builds become available to him, his ratios and damage can be adjusted.