The Need For Counterplay in All Kits
So let me start this off by saying I'm salty. Straight up, but I will be trying to look at this from a more objective point of view, simply using actual recent experiences as examples, and trying to give props where deserved. That being said lets look at what I mean, and what I assume Riot means by the word "Counterplay"
Counterplay: This is what allows for strengths in a kit. You have X downside so you get Y as a strength / strong outcome. In other words things such as: travel times on skillshots, delays with ground markers on AoE abilities, global sound effects as a warning, Invis spotting range (evelynn only here), intractable entities in-game such as zac blobs, or the need of a set-up, positioning, or even just luck for max output to be achieved such as Malph, Galio, or Brand ults.
These are all things that you can interact with in different ways to gauge what to do and potentially avoid the circumstances created by abilities. Now onto the issue.
Reliability: What I mean by this is abilities that are simply too easy to land, or give no real warning to the enemy player. Things that are point click, extremely fast abilities with negligible travel time, abilities with AoE or skillshot hitboxes that are just so big they are practically unavoidable anyway.
There are times where reliability suits the situation well, such as in the cases of Tanks and Supports where it is their role to specifically have high-impact, reliable utility. Melee bruisers can even sometimes be given reliable utility or damage because of their requirement of diving into or passed a team towards a target. Vi is a perfect example of this: She has an extremely reliable ult, but it requires her to often dive teams, which means she builds tanky to survive that, or she can use it like an assassin ability and immediately die with only a chance of taking someone with her.
Reliability on high-burst/sustained damage dealers often feels extremely unfair though. So your Assassins, Burst Mages, and Marksmen whom have all too reliable 100-0ing capabilities, or an unfair mix of reliable utility and damage in their kit that causes them to be unbearable to lane against or duel with. Characters like old Fiora, and several mages where changed for reasons like this, and I feel like it should continue to the entirety of league if this sort of philosophy is to be stable and evenly distributed.
The Simple Fix: All Riot has to do is keep doing their good work on Champ Ups and new releases where they have thus far introduced actual ways to interact with older characters, but must also know there is a lot of work to be done. Another set of Mage reworks may be in order, things that involve more than just number tweaks, because the numbers mean nothing so long as the effect of abilities remain so strong with no existing counterplay.
The Salt: (Still trying to be objective here based on the above descriptions, but I honestly just hate these types of kits) This is the part you can ignore, but I'd like to introduce my own ideas for balancing a few frustrating characters I've been seeing a lot of for the very reason that they are easy/reliable at what they do, and what they do is just too strong.
Syndra: I hate her, but she's actually not too far from being balanced. -Q is fine, it has a delay -W is the biggest issue. It easily punishes people for closing in on her, when that is suppose to be her weakness. In lane it's also too easy to bully or set up ganks reliably with her Stun. It's a skillshot, yes, but it moves far too fast, and her actual cone is casted instantly. Make the cone have to charge up. It would still have a knockback, but it would scale with how long she charged, and the stun would only occur on a max W channel. -E is fine, has travel time, and you can see her carrying something. -R is the other big issue with this kit. As soon as Syndra hits 6 you now live in fear of simply entering that point click range and dying. There's no interaction with this skill other than knowing how many spheres are on the ground, but that's information for the Syndra player most of the time, because the enemy can't actually do anything to the spheres to lower the amount, you just have to run away and let her zone you just because she has her balls out (don't laugh). There needs to be something similar to Zac's blobs where you can get rid of the orbs, or make it so the ult is no longer point click, or requires setting up a marker of some sort before casting it, Similar to how Nids kit works after hitting someone with a spear. You know when you have that marker on your head to stay back or risk being deleted - telegraphing.
Cassiopeia: I'll admit I don't know much about her most recent kit changes, but there's just one thing I feel is wrong with her. -R: it's cast far too quickly. If the whole idea is that you want to make sure not to be facing her when she ults, then there should be an actual amount of time to turn around! She needs to have a slightly longer inhale sound, one that could possibly also be heard through FoW that way being bush wacked by her doesn't feel completely unfair.
Amumu: Dude needs an update Most of Amumu's kit is fine in pieces, it's the fact that they're all on the same thing that makes him so annoying to play against. The main issues with him are the Passive, Q, and R. His E is debatable. -Passive: He's a damage dealing tank I get it, but my issue with this is why is it a instantly applied flat amount, and why is it on his auto attacks when he's clearly a caster? This passive could so perfectly go with his W, and could have windows of weakness and strength based on how long he stands near them if his passive were a smaller amount that ramped up to a max based on how consistently he could cast spells on someone or have them sit in his W. -Q is actually not a huge issue on it's own, it's how it combos into his R that gets too reliable and annoying, one of the two has to change. If it were to be the Q I would have it either be more like a Naut pull, or have Amumu travel towards his target slower (which technically means a longer CC on the target overall) I would prefer to change the R though. -W is great, it's obviously there, it has a sound effect, and is simple to avoid. -E I feel is debatable because it's a pretty respectable burst ability on a character who seems to fit better purely into the tank role, and it's also an instant cast ability, but if we are following bruiser rules this should still be considered fair since he's likely to be amidst an entire team while doing this in most cases. The risk factor of this abilities close range makes it reasonable, but it's placement on the kit is questionable. -R: holy jesus please update this, change, do something to make this fair. This ult has always been either too strong or too weak because if you scale anything on it up it feels too strong due to damage and the time your stuck standing still, or it's too weak because it basically does nothing. It needs a more telegraphed activation, or your Q entrance needs to be more obvious and avoidable. I would personally suggest that it's similar to Fiddle channeling, except he can move while doing the channel portion. Make it so there's a cursed ring of symbols and such floating around Amumu with a clear sound effect that take time until it finally pops and causes the massive AoE damage dealing ult. You can afford to put such power into it because it now takes more set-up or sheer ballsiness to land.
Yasuo: Come on Riot, Come on. I honestly don't see why Riot thinks Yasuo follows their philosphy so well. His ult requires set-up sure, but it doesn't have to be just from his kit, and can be from literally any knock up in the game and then he can press R and win a fight. His Q tornado is dodgeable but does it really need to be so laoded as having critability, long ranged more reliable knock-up than Janna's own? His Q->R combo really is the cancer of his kit, and because knock-ups aren't mitigateable by tenacity you're honestly just screwed. -Q Make the tornado either more or less stagnant - possibly growing in size for a short duration, or make the travel speed of it not just outmatch Janna's own, on top of doing so much damage due to the fact that it scales as if it's an Auto Attack. -R Either make it so it only reacts with his own kit (boring) or do something that makes him the only person interacting with air born characters ala: they're basically zhonya'd in the air so they aren't taking burst damage from the rest of Yasuo's team just before he slams their already dead corpses. This way he's not also acting as the best utility on his team between this, the Q, and his Windwall which is just another load of BS half the time considering he also carries a shield based on movement... Yasuo is just one of those characters I reference early on where reliable, strong utility meets with far too much damage. He can wombo combo team wipe by himself. That's an issue. No matter how fed you get, that should not be a thing you can do so reliably.
