Let's talk Evelynn.

I know you don't want to, but we're going to do it anyway. (And yes, I know changes to Hunter Talisman are coming and might make Evelynn a bit better, hold that thought, though!)

Who's Evelynn? Evelynn is my go-to assassin-in-the-jungle, who excels due to exerting pressure on lanes in spite of their warding habits, and whose ganks give her plenty of time to find a position and angle from which to engage. She is my most played champion Season 5 with over a hundred games and a 63% winrate, so I like to think I'm pretty decent with her. She was also the second champion I fell in love with and the one champion where everything just seemed to make sense. I hold her pretty dear.

She has four abilities: one is a low CD line-of-effect damage spell, another is a speed boost/slow cleanse. Her third ability is an ASPD boost (not sure why) but also Evelynn's nuke. Her ult has the unique property of being the only ability in the game that can damage you but cannot kill you, as it is completely reliant on %current HP damage. It has a slow and shield attached to it, though.

Evelynn presents magic damage and physical damage, with one nuke and one sustained damage option. She has a shield and % current HP damage. Unlike many assassins, Evelynn does not have gapclosers or dashes, and relies on movement speed.

How's her jungling? I run Savagery and the -2 damage mastery on Evelynn, as well as full AP Quints, AD reds, and flat armour yellows. Regardless of which jungle item I pick, taking one camp and both buffs is tricky and leaves Evelynn nearly dead. To say it mildly, her first clear is not very good. It's therefore attractive to gank in lieu of clearing the jungle, or else lag behind.

Once she gets Runeglaive, Evelynns clears are pretty good and healthy and she can make quick work of camps, including using her W to reduce travel time inbetween camps. This does cause her to run low on Mana and necessitates using her Passive to recover some─Riot has stated they want Evelynn to be gated by Mana.

What's wrong with her? She is invisible until she uses any of her abilities, gets hit, or enters the vision range of a pink ward or champion. This makes counterplay to Evelynn limited to when she's entered vision range, necessitating purchase of pink wards or oracle alteration to prevent Evelynn from simply sneaking up to you unabashed. (Oracle Alteration having limited effect.)

This is considered as unhealthy and necessitates a sharp decline in power everywhere else, because Evelynn is too oppressive otherwise.

How's her stealth compared to other junglers/champions? Shaco has a blink and stealth that lasts a few seconds, but is immediate. You can see where he stealths from even through the fog of war. (i.e. you have ample warning Shaco is ganking you)

Twitch takes 1.5 seconds (increased when in combat) to engage stealth, during which he gains a movement speed boost. It is not currently possible to tell whether Twitch is or is not sneaking up on you.

Rengar telegraphs stealth by a huge exclamation mark, which is your signal to drop a pink or run Oracles. He has a gapcloser and movement speed bonus to prevent "run away" from being valid counterplay to his stealthed approach.

All other stealths are extremely short duration and/or are limited to a very specific area and thus incomparable. Only Teemo's stealth has no specific tell and can be upheld indefinitely regardless of proximity to champions, but is limited by location.

So why should we talk Evelynn? Back in Season 5, Evelynn received a buff to her Q. At some point, Magus Enchantment was replaced by Runeglaive as well. Evelynn synergises with the Runeglaive, giving her some extra burst beside her E/on her E. This prompted Riot to nerf Q's lategame damage farther than they had buffed it (resulting in a net loss). Riot also identified problems with Evelynn's Mana sustain due to Runeglaive, and made a targeted nerf there when Evelynn had a global 50% winrate (which is problematic for champions like Azir, Yasuo and Evelynn, who have high mechanics and player skill involved). Note: I don't agree Evelynn deserves to be mentioned in the same group as Azir and Yasuo, but that is a tale for another day.

This has all meant that Evelynn must build Runeglaive, because she is balanced around Runeglaive.

Currently, Evelynn sits at a 47% winrate at the Platinum and up level, with experienced players managing just shy of 51% winrate on her. Riot has stated that Evelynn mains had the fourth highest winrate of any champion in the game in season 5. Who are the top 3? We'll maybe never know.

Worth mentioning that Lee Sin, considered by Riot difficulty ratings to be easier to play than Evelynn, does have a slightly higher winrate. The problem may not be specific to just Evelynn, but read on anyway because there's other points I'd like to raise.

This is a good time to talk Evelynn: jungling's become harder on her: she has more issues with jungle camps than before, owing to reduced AP/AD from masteries (season 5 masteries gave some AD/AP at level 1, season 6 has scaling only) as well as a targeted nerf to jungle sustainability by splitting machete up into two items.

As the new jungle items are also more expensive, Evelynn will also experience a delayed power spike, pushing her power further back. (as we all know, assassin power spike delays means they become less effective at their job)

Additionally, Season 6 has reduced the cost of pink wards to 75 Gold and removed Green Wards from the equation, which means players are likely to buy a pink ward instead of a green ward, and players are more likely to buy pink wards to counter Evelynn aggressively than before. Oracle Alteration can spot her silhouette from beyond walls and at the farthest edge of its range, but shouldn't be considered that impactful against Evelynn.

Thereby, Evelynn's strongest time, the early game, has become more difficult for Evelynn to engage in due more difficult jungling and more expensive power spike. Moreover, the pink ward is more affordable now and has little competition at the 75 Gold I-Want-Vision pricepoint, so it is more attractive to buy as well.

TL;DR, seriously where do you want to go with this? I don't even know anymore. Playing Evelynn feels abysmal right now. I see a lot of threads addressing ADCs and Graves and Yasuo (fuck that guy) and poor Kog'Maw being weak, but there are few threads about junglers. Evelynn's one of those junglers who's been hit pretty hard by the season changes, and whose core of being a strong, invisible (independent) jungler has been harmed by seasonal changes that weaken jungler's earlygames. This endangers Evelynn as a champion and I feel that Evelynn requires a buff to her early game damage in order to remain competitive with other assassins.

I am aware of Hunter's Talisman being up for maybe-buffs, but that would only fix one potential issue and not the sharp decline in early game power for Evelynn, which is when she thrives most.

Also up for consideration: retooling her kit and making her an assassin with a clear ingress/egress strategy, and an ultimate that can kill; retool her Passive around avoiding ward detection instead of permanent invisibility that costs her way too much in the power budget. I'd be willing to talk about that as well if Riot's willing to enter that discussion, though there's likely other Evelynn mains who should weigh in on that discussion as well then.