@Riot: Balancing Heimerdinger

As a longtime player and fan of Heimerdinger, I can say right now that the professor has issues in his kit. The main problems fall within his turrets and his passive. One's too strong (turrets), and the other is hardly noticeable (passive). Let's not waste any time, and dive right in on how I think these two can be fixed!

The Turrets

A major complaint I usually hear is how "brainless" you can be to play Heimerdinger effectively. I can partly see as to why that is.
Heimer has little control over his turrets, currently. Very little. Yet, he has a ton of damage potential by simply laying them out. What they hit, besides champions, is usually not controlled, at all. This causes a lot of people to think that Heimerdinger is a mindless champion that requires no effort, which should be the last thing he is.

What, then, can be done to fix this? I believe the answer is rather simple: A target/marking system. Give Heimer complete control over his turrets. Make them 100% dependent on him (and by extension, the player).

What this means is that the turrets won't do anything unless Heimerdinger directs them to attack a specific target. In order for him to direct his turrets, he'd "mark" a target with an auto attack.
This "mark" would appear the moment Heimer begins the animation of an AA at the target (not when it hits, that'd be too long). It will last for 5 seconds before going away, and it can be refreshed during or after that time.

Once the target Heimer wants the turrets to attack is "marked", the turrets would attack the marked target when in range until the mark is gone, the target is destroyed, the turret is destroyed, or Heimer puts out another mark.

What this would cause about:

1. If an enemy is within a turret's range but is not marked, the turret will not attack it. This would force Heimer to be active in what he wants done.
2. Heimer will be forced to get within AA range to mark a target, thus causing him to take meaningful risks. (He wouldn't be able to stay safely behind his turret pool the whole time.)
3. This would stop a lot of damage potential for Heimer players who are not active in battles, thus help alleviate unfair situations for the opponent.
4. This would cause Heimer to be extremely cautious of positioning with both him and his turrets at all times (even more-so than he is now).
5. When a tower is marked, the turrets will not fire the beam, even at full charge, since it would do nothing. In order for the beams to be fired, Heimer would have to mark an enemy that the beams would normally affect.

If an enemy champion is in a turret's range but I want the turret to hit a minion, it should hit a minion. If I want my turrets that I put under towers to hit a tower, I want them to hit that tower. If I want the turrets to ignore minions and focus entirely on who/what I target, I want them to do just that (Heimy support, for example).

This is a double-edged sword that I believe would greatly help balance out Heimer. It's a major nerf in some cases, yet it's a major buff to what should be rewarded to those who know what they are doing. PS: For clarity's sake, make the beam range a 2nd line of a different color. It's currently invisible, and that's sometimes bothersome. It's also doubly more important when going into this next part.

The Passive

Currently, Heimerdinger's passive is nothing but a healing aura, one that is hardly noticeable. In short, it's really dumb, and past Riot decisions on champion updates agrees with this (Sona's auras, for example). It needs to be changed. It's only relatively useful in early game for healing pokes against his turrets. It's slightly more useful as a Heimer support, but again, that role is difficult for ADCs without the implementation of my plan on the marking system.

It's true power, in the past, was that it could heal towers. With that effect gone, the passive is useless after early game. How can we change his passive to have a similar effect to what it has now, yet have a noticeable impact? I'll give you a hint: The name of the passive would change from "Techmaturgical Repair Bots" to "Techmaturgical Shield Bots".

First, let's look at the 2nd tier towers in Summoner's Rift. They now form shields around themselves and allies close to them after being left alone for a while, growing a certain amount over time while close to the tower and deteriorating when out of the towers range.

Now, let's look at Heimer's turrets. Specifically, let's look at the ones that are apparently not doing anything either because they are not in range of a mark or Heimer has not put out a mark. Now, instead of looking at these turrets as dead weight, let's look at them as if they are in a "Defensive Mode". Their energy pool for the laser beam would still be growing, and once it is full, Heimer's passive will kick in if the laser isn't being fired. That passive is a growing shield, similar to the new 2nd tier tower.

Heimer's turret could begin growing a shield the moment the laser bar is full (albeit smaller than the one the 2nd tier tower does, by about 1/3), yet isn't being fired.
That turret can share its shield with Heimer (when he's in range of it) and anyone within Heimer's range of the current passive (to a lesser degree). The more turrets that are in this "Defensive Mode", the more shield Heimer and his allies will obtain, with 3 full shields being around the same as 2nd tier tower's full shield.
However, the moment the turrets exit "Defensive Mode" to fire their laser or lose their shield from being damaged, the shield around Heimer and his nearby allies rapidly deteriorates by the amount that turret gave, similar to how being too far away from the 2nd tier tower will cause you to start losing the shield, but on a faster scale.

What this would cause about:

1. Heimer would have more options on playing either offensively with his turrets' power or defensively with the turrets' shield. This especially helps in late game when the turrets are currently one shot in teamfights a lot of the time by still having a use for the team, even though they aren't doing damage.
2. More strategy would be available to Heimer besides "let turrets destroy things 'till they die."
3. This would give Heimer some breathing room since he has to "mark" an opposing champion before the turrets begin attacking 'em. By trading some offense, he'd be able to have the effect his passive tries to do now, but better.
4. This would make support Heimer (which currently can be a thing) into a very viable thing, with the ability to either give him and his ADC a small shield or an offensive wall that doesn't automatically fight the ADC for CS.
5. If none of the turrets are in this Defensive Mode, then Heimer's passive will not do anything. This would push players into playing more balanced to make use of the passive.
6. Just like the 2nd tier tower's shield, it doesn't regenerate immediately after being hit. It only regenerates when you aren't hit for a while.

Finally, all of this (new turret system and passive) would give Heimer much needed control than his current system of "lay down turrets, and let them do all the killing."

Let me know what you think. Hopefully this can help solve a lot of problems people have with Heimer by reducing his overall damage while giving more options for rewarding good strategy and plays.

Edit: Cleaned it up a bit.