Make Leblanc Great Again

I wanna start this off by saying that I love the new Leblanc, she is extremely fun to play. That being said I think she is in a weak spot right now and needs some buffs. Some people say that she's stronger now but this isn't true. She has a few more tools now but her damage has dropped significantly, which severely hurts her assassin play style.

I have some suggestions as what I can see could be done to make her a little stronger.

She needs some damage back on her basic abilities. Yes her damage was too fast and frustrating before the changes but now they are too weak. If I am near an out of position squishy at less than half health, I should be able to punish them for it before 1.5 seconds proc. Her w in particular feels very weak and is more useful as mobility than damage. My last game I was 3/0 in lane and got ganked by their bot lane. I was looking at the death recap and made the discovery that a 0/1 ap support ezreal did more damage with his w than I could do with mine. Keep in mind I was maxing w first this game.

I understand the need for moving damage to her passive but it took away the trade off of her w. Before you could use double distortion for a good chunk of damage, not enough to 100-0 someone unless you were really fed but you could kill a half health out of position adc reliably. This put the damage down but then your mobility was extremely predictable. It feels really bad to double distortion now and have the adc survive. Every other assassin has a way to reliably kill a poor positioned half health adc, while leblanc is left in the dust.

The other ability that feels bad to use is her ult. Her rr is cool but gimmicky; It's funny to blow a flash or ult every now and then but it's pretty obvious to experienced players. Especially if your last used ability was e or q than you don't even have the startle factor anymore because the clone disappears before any damage or cc would be applied. Perhaps if the clones for e or q would last a little bit longer after the ability was cast there would be a purpose for them but as it stands now there is no reason to use her e or q rr clone.

Staying with her ult I don't understand why her mimics do less damage than the ability itself. An ult should feel more powerful than a normal ability, especially with such a long cd. The invisibility and clone is nice but they don't really last long enough to play with or make up for the lack of damage.

If it is your intention to transition lb from a assassin to a mage then she needs more tools to survive. She is extremely squishy when compared to mages. This made sense when she could get in and out extremely quickly and dealt a huge amount of damage but now it just makes her feel extremely weak. You get 100-0 by most mage's full rotations even when ahead, and this damage comes out much faster than 1.5 s. What are your targets supposed to be if a fed adc or mage can kill you before 1.5 seconds elapses? It is extremely frustrating to dodge half of your opponents abilities but die to the other half before you can put your damage out because you're so damn squishy.

One interesting change I thought would be to give her invisibility when she activates r that breaks when she chooses her ability. This gives her ability to survive a little longer and gives her some options. You have to sacrifice the speed of your combo to trade for this invisibility. The old leblanc could survive better due to her passive that allowed you a little bit of time to think and plan. Now her invisibility is basically a non factor and her clone is so much weaker due to it's short time.

I understand the hesitation to apply buffs for fear of an azir type of effect but its the preseason. if it turns out she's too strong then you can bring her back down. Sure you can argue that she has a high skill floor but I'm a gold player. I know in reality I'm still garbage but I shouldn't have to be Bjergson to reliably do well on my favorite champion.