Anyone else feel some reworks are just removing the champs we once loved instead of bettering them?
Hey guys. Been playing this game for 5 yrs now and I'd like to talk about the direction Riot is taking with all these champion changes. A little bit about me first. According to my name, I am a Zyra main. I started playing her a few months after she was released and fell in love. I've continued to play her after she got chain nerfed, during the time I was reported for picking such a trash champion, and after her slight rework. I started ranked after playing normals for about a year and got to gold. The seasons after, I've gotten to plat and then just sat there because I hate ranked. I like trying out new strategies and weird things in normals and prefer mages over other types of champions.
This past year in particular, I've noticed that Riot has put a lot of effort into changing already existing champions. I understand why reworks are being done but I'm not happy with how Riot is going about it. I'd like reworks to preserve a champion's identity. I'd like reworks to be healthier. Not frustrating or awkward to play or play against. Not completely changing a champion's playstyle. Not shoving them into a role they were not meant for. I feel that Riot, in an effort to make gameplay seem more "fair" has forgotten about all these things.
I gravitated towards this game because I found a few mages that I loved to play. Then one of them got reworked. Then another and another, until I'm sitting here today wondering if I should actually just be a one trick Zyra because I found that I'm no longer enjoying the other champions I used to. I'm not even that happy with Zyra.
I'll go over a few reworked champions that I played in the past before their reworks. Unfortunately, I cannot cover everyone because I don't have enough experience with every champ. Please note these are my opinions regarding a champion, not fact.
Literally the first champ I bought. Because bird is the word. Played her until I was 30 and she remained my go to mid champion until her most recent change. Anivia's playstyle has changed completely. She once had choices. She could be aggressive or passive. Her aggression was gated by her high mana costs and players had to be careful when to blow her slow moving Q. Anivia could be passive and afk farm with her ult, but was once again gated by mana. In Anivia's current state, she is a defensive champion. A reactive champion. She must wait for the enemy laner to engage if they are too mobile for her Q or blow her entire kit to poke. Riot has claimed that standing back and afking farming is unhealthy, but that is what Anivia has become unless someone decides to fight her. The most unhealthy part of Anivia was her old ER combo, which presented no counterplay unless you were 
. So, Riot now makes her wait 1.5 sec. In my opinion, this seems like a sloppy change that is not only frustrating to play, but also incredibly awkward. In order to apply her full E damage, Anivia must once again wait to be engaged upon. On a completely unrelated note, her tooltips are now incredibly vague.
Current Status: Healthier than previously but at the cost of frustration and a large change in playstyle.
tldr Anivia is now a defensive farm bot when she could previously play both aggressively and passively while gated by high mana costs.
Zyra has had her ups and downs, but I find her in a pretty odd state at the moment. Why is a large amount of her power based on rng? I didn't come here to play hearthstone. The hardest part about Zyra is her plant placement, but Riot increased her seedling cd and made a portion of it automatic. Why? Should players not be rewarded for good positioning and placement? Her current status makes her oppressive in bot lane and a sitting duck to mobile midlaners because the passive seedling decided it wanted some water from the river.
Current Status: I guess stronger than before but frustrating to play and play against due to pure rng that no one wanted.
tldr Give Zyra more direct control over her plant diarrhea.
is a support now? Riot tried to overload his kit but then had to nerf him to oblivion (ha). Shield and more voidlings were good ideas, but Malzahar becomes difficult to balance with both. His damage is difficult to gauge due to the number of moving pets. The largest complaint about Malzahar was that his ult rendered him an immobile target. The shield was devised to assist in this situation (kudos to Riot for attempting to preserve his ult playstyle), but it became a sort of catch all ability that is not interactive. Number nerfs accordingly followed. Additionally, Riot attempted to mesh both AP and AD playstyles of Malzahar, removing a form of uniqueness only he had and therefore failing to preserve his identity.
Current Status: Zyra 2.0.
tldr Worse that pre-rework due to nerfs and kit overload. Not healthy.
The fun part about Cass was landing your poison and being rewarded with machine gun spamming. Riot said this made her laning unhealthy but in the mage update, they kept it and made it easier. There was some talk about whether she should be mainly based around her poison, but ultimately the answer was no. The "grounded" addition to miasma has some merit, but her W is awkward to use because it has a minimum range. Due to both its cast time and the speed of mobility spells, its uses are very limited in lane. Also why does she have so much sustain when she is supposed to be a dps mage?
Current status: Weaker than she was previously. Hit and run playstyle has become more direct. Miasma is frustrating to use in lane.
tldr Reward for landing poison becomes less obvious and W has very limited uses.
Why was he even changed? When I read the announcement about this, I was genuinely surprised. Riot claims Shen was not interactive enough. Do his changes make him more exciting? His interaction level remains pretty much the same to me, just with a bunch of new abilities.
Current Status: Similar health status in game at the cost of massive change in laning playstyle.
tldr Don't fix what isn't broken.
Thanks for reading! I'd like to hear what other people think of the changes made to champions that they like.
