The Curious Case of Quinn and Valor

So, full disclosure: I love Quinn. I want to see her do well, and I want to play her in bot lane. I realize this is by no means a settled matter in the community, but this post is not about Quinn's role. I'm assuming she's supposed to be an ADC.

Recently, Riot accidentally shipped some changes for Quinn to the PBE that make it look as if Riot intends to nerf (or buff; opinions on that will probably vary) her so that she is less troublesome in top lane. They reduced the length of the blind on her q, increased her range, decreased the cooldown on her ult, and took away the execute damage. I don't think this is a good way to balance Quinn. Here's what they should do instead.

FIX QUINN'S BUGS AND AA ANIMATION Kha'zix notwithstanding, the buggiest champion in the game is probably either Quinn or Azir. And while that's more-or-less excusable in a champion that was released a month ago, it is not excusable in a champion that was released in early 2013. Quinn's passive sometimes fails to proc. Her blind doesn't always function properly. One player reported that when he vaulted as Blitzcrank pulled him, Blitzcrank was deleted. (This one I'm mostly okay with . . . but it should still be fixed.) It also sometimes lands you on the wrong side of your target, has a lot of strange interaction with other abilities, and you can't always proc the resulting mark. Besides this, her empowered auto animation is a different length, and even if it appears to have finished, if you cancel it, you often end up canceling the damage. It makes kiting and last-hitting extremely difficult.

Riot! These are the first things you should fix in a champion. Why are you holding out?

THEN EVALUATE HER STATUS IN TOP LANE The reason for the PBE changes, I suspect, is the occasional complaints from top laners that Quinn bullies them too hard. Once they're marked, she can proc —>q —> e —> proc, dealing a lot of burst damage without them being able to auto back. Fair complaint. But the thing is, almost any decently ranged champ will bully melee fighters in top lane like this. Vayne has already made a nuisance of herself in top lane. I've seen (not often, but still) Twitch top, which could be annoying for almost the same reason. Teemo is pretty much the same principle, but with 2X the troll (and a blind longer than Quinn's). The reason it has come to light in Quinn's case is that she has been forced to the top lane because Riot neglected her problems in bot. And it's possible that it will continue to be a problem with all these champs, even if they nerf Quinn into oblivion. Here's a suggestion. What if we had an item (or two) for top laners that increased armor/magic resist against ranged AAs? This wouldn't kill the carries' effectiveness in team fights, because they could build armor/magic pen by then. But it would reduce the squishy ranged bully problem in top lane, and we still have the bird-lady as a viable champion! Win-win-win!

MAKE QUINN PLAYABLE BOT I know. She's already playable bot. I'm just bad. Or maybe it's dumb to try to take her bot, and I'm still just bad. All very possibly true, but hear me out, anyway.

The main problem with Quinn ADC is her ult. Yes, "it's amazing if you use it right," but honestly, it's not amazing enough to spend mana on, and as often as not, it gets you killed. Think about it. What do you get? Attack speed, movement speed, and an execute. BUT You also become melee, you gain no defense, you gain no damage, either on your basic attacks or your abilities, your E is no longer an escape, and you lose your passive. (Also, you can still look around for some reason. :? )

Useful as it may be in certain, limited situations, this is a nerf. You sacrifice range and DPS, and you gain no defense. So here's what I'm suggesting. Take away the execute. That's one change I agree with. (The execute was kind of pathetic anyway.) You could also reduce the bonus movement speed somewhat. Maybe to a flat +50%. On the other hand, give Valor a passive like Wit's End: on each AA, he steals 3/4/5 armor and MR, stacking up to 8 times and lasting up to 6 seconds. Or something like that. Maybe some bonus lifesteal and magic damage thrown in there, too (to sustain and make use of the MR reduction). This could allow Valor to actually do something in team fights. In fact, it could make her pretty amazing in team fights. So to counterbalance it, you could nerf her early game damage. Instead of flat damage+50% AD, her empowered auto could just do +50/65/80/95% bonus AD (level 1/6/11/16) and no flat damage. This means her level 1 empowered AA would no longer do 75 damage! But it also means she scales harder into the late game, and she scales better with items.

Also, it'd be nice if transforming didn't cost mana, and/or if it refreshed cooldowns. But I could see how that would be asking too much.

EDIT Another possibility: Since the W active makes no sense when Valor's on the battlefield, would it be reasonable to make it a skillshot dash instead? Possibly with a mini cleanse (or maybe not)? Valor does tend to get in trouble a lot, and doesn't really have a way out of it.

I'd love to know what y'all think. I'm not a pro. I'm pre-30 and I try to be teachable. And while I think these changes would solve problems, I don't know what all the consequences of these changes would be, and while I am biased toward Quinn, I don't want her to be the new completely OP, pick-or-ban ADC.

TL;DR Instead of just changing Quinn for top laners, wouldn't it be better to fix her bugs, then take into account that almost any ranged DPS champ would cause similar problems in top lane, then make changes so Quinn is more playable bot (so Quinn players don't feel like they have to go top or doom themselves)? I think it would.