Why Stormraider's Surge doesn't work

TL;DR Stormraider's apparently sucks no matter what and should be changed.

> Stormraider's Surge: Dealing 30% of a champion's maximum health within 2.5 seconds grants you 40% bonus movement speed and 75% slow resist for 3 seconds (10 second cooldown).

Dropped in as a Keystone with all of the mastery changes, it's currently barely seen on even niche champions. There are two major problems that are contributing to this; a niche that isn't really necessary, and the lack of impact that niche has on gameplay. As an assassin, you want to get in, kill the carry, and the either get out or use your remaining tools to stick around and help end the fight. This makes it seem perfect for assassins, but compared to Thunderlord's and the other masteries, it's like it drew the short straw. Why? Well, because assassins already have tools to assist them in staying or getting out of combat. Rengar gets resistances, Zed has fast travel, Kha'Zix gets a leap reset, Nidalee has Cougar-form, LeBlanc has fast travel, Akali has Smoke Screen, Fizz has his troll pole, and Kassadin has an almost fighter-like kit as well as League's best mobility tool. Even the more disputable or fringe ones like Nocturne, Evelynn, Master Yi, etc - anyone designed to even sometimes assassinate targets already has the means to stay in and/or get out of combat, effective or not. (With the sole exception being Talon) Any assassin designed to be played as an assassin has already been balanced around their ability to get out of or stay in combat. Stormraider's just adds another tool that may or may not be needed, but certainly isn't widely desired. What assassins do desire is damage. This is what makes Thunderlord's the widely preferred keystone because of it's increase to burst. Why bother with another mobility tool if you can ensure just your kill instead? The sole function of mobility is a weakness since it does not increase survivability or damage for champions that have little need for mobility in the first place.

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The first solution may be to simply re-balance assassins around requiring the current Surge to function. Unfortunately, not only is that difficult, it is probably impractical since several assassins depend upon their mobility to access their damage potential in the first place, and removing access to their damage would also remove access to an ideally functioning Stormraider's Surge. The next solution is to change Stormraider's. Right now it supplies a very large increase to mobility for a short time, and attempts to mitigate anything that would reduce that mobility. This effect can be reached more effectively, and that is by reworking it into a specialized Spell Shield.

> Stormraider's Surge: Dealing 30% (+5 / 10 / 15% at Levels 6, 11, and 16) of a champion's current health within 2.5 seconds grants you 50% tenacity, 50% slow resist, and a single Spell Shield, lasting 2.5 seconds. (15 second cooldown)

Now when ripping into a champion, you get rewarded with the ability to at least secure the kill, if not also your escape. By changing the nature of the damage threshold, you will get fairly rewarded for finishing off a champion who just happened to be too low for them to proc the effects. The cooldown has been increased to prevent casters from exploiting this with powerful end-game harass.

Thank you for reading this little essay (assuming you did). I hope Stormraider's gets effectively fixed no matter what they actually plan on doing with it.