Everyone loves Lissandra's new Passive, but I don't.

At 93k points, Lissandra is my third highest mastery champion. I play her almost exclusively Midlane, the best lane in the game, because I'm not good enough at duels to do top lane, and bottom lane Lissandra is an idea I'll decry as crazy until Faker shows off his mad Lissandra support skills.

Regret to report that after watching some streams, thinking about it, playing a few games on live with Lissandra, I'm not that much in love with Lissandra's new Passive idea/direction. I recognise it's probably a boon for Lissandra in the top lane, but it doesn't do much for her in the Midlane outside of a glorified last hit tool after getting Q harass down a few times.

Here's what I do like, though:

• Base stat buffs. It's everything I've asked for. Granted, her mana and regen stats are still on the low-end of things, but her passive retains a mana effect, so understandable. Lost Chapter fixes everything there.
• Mana cost rescalings. Bit iffy on the W (30 more Mana cost at rank 5 is a 60% increase), but it'll be unlikely to have much impact in-lane so that's all right with me.
• 5% AP scaling buff on Q (that was pulled when new Passive was introduced).

What I don't like:

• Empowered AA on Lissandra Passive.

The infinitely scaling mana isn't something that excites or disappoints me. Do worry it might make her too much of a scaler: she already usually builds RoA, if she builds Tear to take advantage of infinitely scaling mana she'll just rely on scaling that much more, or wind up not getting Tear and not getting a lot of mileage out of the mana.

I don't like the empowered AA on Lissandra's passive for three reasons.

One. Lissandra Mid is unlikely to AA her opponent much unless going all-in and weaving one in while all casts are on cooldown. Making it more of a niche gimmick for a top lane Lissandra to harass melees a little more: top Liss versus a tank/fighter is generally considered more annoying than mid Liss. Don't think augmenting her there is the answer. Two. Lissandra's Auto-Attack is rather slow, making it awkward to use during combat since it makes it harder for her to kite, and using it puts her closer to the enemy than she needs to be (550 range vs 725 on Q). Three. It doesn't address any of the issues plaguing Lissandra; doesn't patch a weakness or add much of a strength. Doesn't integrate itself with her gameplay.

I know there are enough who disagree with point 3 and think it opens up legendary Lissandra Lich Bane builds, but I remain unconvinced the item'd be good on her. I think there's too much competition in her build space to squeeze it in, though I don't doubt there'll be some economic way to do it anyhow.

I think it's cool Rickless is trying out things and is looking to give some love to Lissandra, our once and forever queen. I just don't think the current passive really hits the right spot for a CC-focused lockdown mage who wants to wade into the thick of battle and blanket the field in ice.

For alternates, might I propose keeping the current passive, adding the 5% bonus AP Ratio on her Q and then making it so her Q slows every target hit? That last change makes her synergise better with Liandry's, improving her status as a CC-focused mage and kiter, and it makes her Q into minion wave more economical as it gives her up to 6~7s CD reduction on her Passive rather than current 1s. (Pretty significant for her mana management.)

Possibly might make her not need a buff to the mana base stats, though those'd be welcome still. The mana regen buff'd let her deal with heavy waveclear a bit better: one of her weaknesses is that while she's perceived to have good waveclear, the reality is that she needs 3 Q casts to clear a non-cannon wave, which empties her mana bar significantly. Either that, or she throws in W and/or E, which makes her vulnerable due to the relatively long CDs on those spells and Lissandra relying on either to disengage when getting dove on. (And still costs a fair bit of mana)

Improving her waveclear too much might make her a real pain for the top lane, but as it stands she has difficulty with being shoved in Mid, which hampers her ability to make plays elsewhere on the map.

Thanks for reading, and thanks again to Rickless for taking a look at the Ice Queen and trying to improve her.