An argument for old Sejuani, using Riot's pillars

long post and no TL;DR available. gonna go one-by-one on theme, unique, skillful, fun, and** fair,** and compare/contrast the old kit to new

Let's start with her** theme** and how it's expressed in-game; with the rework, Riot proposed the idea that Sejuani should be a 'leader,' and her gameplay should reflect her status as the leader of her tribe. Currently, Sejuani plays more passively than her look would suggest, because generally it's a much better idea to follow up after someone else goes in, preferably a bruiser so they can stack her E for her and give her a free stun. In addition to that, she's not really a champion who wants to stay in the thick of things; she starts the fight, and then kites backwards because her sticking power is worse post-rework. In short, I don't think she delivers on the concept of a barbarian leader, especially when she's actually quite weak in larger teamfights and excels closer to 3v3 territory. In fact, I would say it does a disservice to her theme; lore-wise, Sejuani is a leader, but she also demands strength. She is not a person who will coddle you, and she expects people to be able to carry their own weight.

Next, is Sejuani now unique? I say no; her strengths ( heavy emphasis on CC, a dash and a tank steroid), and her early-mid game focused power curve now mirrors other tanks much more than it used to. Pre-rework Sejuani existed as more of a blend between bruiser and tank, and her power-curve as a late-game teamfighting damage-tank was unique something that she really only shared with Amumu. "Well, they were TOO similar, that's why they needed changed!" you might say. Well, I might disagree on a few technicalities, but more importantly, Amumu's mini-rework accomplished all that either champ needed, by making him much less selfish than Sejuani is, by making him more able to apply and maintain a magic damage amp he is sufficiently differentiated from the more selfish choice Sejuani represents.

And then, as far as being skillful goes. I would, generously, say that she's moved sideways and not up, but I personally think it was a slight step backward. A lot of people say that old Sej was completely braindead, brainless, etc. I do not think this to be so; her skill cap was just very subtle, and it was primarily shown through her making decisions, and having to weigh an opportunity cost with her spells and the impact they could have in a fight. She has VERY impressive DPS when she sticks to someone, but this will usually come at the cost of not being able to pop her E to slow every enemy in a fight; likewise, if she decides to run through the enemy team with W on so she can cripple all of them, she's not going to be doing a lot of damage. She could use her ult to make a pick on one target, but then she gives up the chance to use it to stun five people, and if she waits for that perfect ult she gives up the chance to lock down a potentially key target. Her skill-cap came through strategy and timing rather than through mechanics, which is a common trait through many of the champions I play, so it's easy to see why I prefer this play-style. She had to actively choose between acting selfishly as a bruiser (run someone down with her W to kill them) or in the interest of her team as a tank (popping lots of slows on multiple people to keep the enemy crippled so her team can collapse on them) and that's a big reason of what drew me to her.

Post-rework, there is very little opportunity cost. The nature of her E as a single-target spell with a low cooldown per use, and a static cooldown of 10 seconds per target, means that there is no disincentive to using this spell every time you possibly can. So, instead of that 'tactical' skill, it's become mechanical; instead of "when should I use this spell," her skillcap mostly revolves how quickly she can stack up her E and keep doing that to keep stunning people in fights. (I think Riot added the melee ally stuff because they realized that otherwise, they'd need to give her a LOT more leeway to stack on multiple people herself and it would end up being too similar to old-Sej but MUCH stronger if she could stun people instead; I do not think that the ally 'requirement' was ever a starting point of her rework, but a conclusion of it.) Her ult follows the opportunity cost but in a way that doesn't really feel good to play or enjoyable to play against; she can either save it until after she's E'd someone to re-stun them and refresh her passive, or she can chuck it immediately for almost-guaranteed ranged stun, which is pretty much instant death if her team's near her. The end result is that one person is now stunned, so it doesn't really play well to feeling like you just did something great most of the time. You never really use this ult for the AOE because nothing about it is really worth bothering with, considering the negligible, delayed damage and mediocre slow on a champion who already boasts a very impressive amount of hard CC. I don't know if I can confidently say she's completely lost skill, but it's more of maybe a neutral-negative shift.

Is she fun? This is a pretty subjective thing, and a lot of people are divided on this, both people who have mained Sej for years and people who have just recently picked her up. I think it be summed up as "you either love it or you hate it" because I have yet to see any middle ground. I, obviously, lean towards the latter, for a couple reasons. Visually, I find that she lacks satisfaction. This is more important than people let on and it's a big part of why I dislike her now; her W feels far too much like a whip and not a heavy flail when it very clearly looks like a heavy weapon. The animation is too quick and snappy and needs to be weightier, with some sort of 'slam' when she brings it down on the second swing. Popping her Frostbite proc doesn't have any distinct attack for it, just a very 'meh' soundbite. In addition to that, her E just looks dumb; she throws a little tiny bola (or is it an axe?) and then it freezes the enemy? Having either her old W's enhanced auto-attack, or Bristle hitting a frozen target so that it LOOKS different than a standard auto, and therefore feels more significant, would go a long way to adding satisfaction to a kit that now sorely lacks it.

In terms of gameplay, I don't care for the fact that she has traded her DPS for unloading a very large bulk of her damage as back-loaded burst. E's passive gives me a reliance on teammates that I dislike; I would even call it binary gameplay, to vary wildly from having melee allies and being able to apply stuns to champions you haven't even touched prior, and where it's just yourself, so stacking up on ONE person is an immensely tedious process for an ultimately unsatisfying reward despite the power that the ability has. It's not all that engaging for me, and before you go "well maybe you just don't like tanks" I've actually got a respectable amount of games on a couple of them and Mastery 6&7 too -- Poppy and Nautilus being my two highest-ranked tanks. I don't like Sejuani in particular (Well, I hate all of the major tank reworks from the class update, but that's another point) because not only has she deviated massively from her original function, what we've got just doesn't ever really have a high moment or even a real powerspike. There's not really a point where you can say "I am very strong now;" you start off decent, gradually power up into mid game, and then you gradually fall off if the game stretches out. I want to feel strong; Sejuani doesn't deliver, so I can't give the rework any points here.

Is new Sejuani fair? Not really, but I won't lie and say that old Sej is a highlight of high-counterplay. You were either in range and therefore taking damage from her or you weren't. With new Sej, though, I can't say that what is now her defining feature -- her E -- is a fair mechanic. It's kind of similar to Darius (very vaguely) where you stack and then pop-off, but unlike Darius who has no dashes and more limited range (Easier to kite and disengage), it's not so much a thing you can play around unless you can just jump away from a fight, as much as it is an inevitability that you're going to get stunned. This is especially true when Sejuani's allies are brought into the equation; it's never a question of "can I avoid being stunned" as much as it is "How long can I delay being stunned?" Which usually isn't very long. I'll say this is overall a neutral shift.

So, just as an overall sum, I would say that new Sejuani is a 2/5, where old Sej strikes me as a 4 with her only lacking feature being fairness. The rework has a strong disconnect with satisfaction and doesn't connect well with her character.

And since I'm in the writing mood, I'll give suggestions for how old Sej could have been improved upon and how I think new Sej could be made to feel better/more power being shifted towards herself without massive changes.

Old:

• Shift her defensive steroid to her E, with an armor/MR gain for every champion she slows. In return, give E a much shorter window of appliance (like 2 or 3 seconds before it expires) so she has to either set up very nicely or pop a Ghost/Flash to get the most out of it, or give up the ability to get some quick bulk in favor of chasing someone down.
• Give her a condition to fulfill before either her damage or her CC 'unlocks' like Darius has with Noxian Rage. Something like amplifying her own damage against Frostbitten targets, or something that causes her abilities to slow or have W create a zoning. Either one would have sort of the same effect; if it's the former, you could make her a consistently high damage threat and very bruiser-like, but she could be given more difficulty in base sticking power unless she 'unlocks' that passive. The latter would let her function as a general tank with slightly less CC than average, but could ramp up into a serious damage threat given the opportunity. (I would prefer a ramping threat rather than a hard spike in power like Darius has; I want her to be entirely sustain-damage focused.)
• Controversial probably, but I always fancied the idea of changing her Q into a mini-Sion ult or just a charge and not a dash. Something that gives her a telegraphed but strong movement speed boost that covers a short distance to play up the fantasy it still has, where she wants to use it to crash into enemies and start hitting hard. I want Bristle to feel weighty and strong.

New:

• Lock her E's melee synergy behind Sejuani needing to stun a target before it activates, and lasting until Sejuani leaves combat. This will indirectly make her ult feel better by making it a way to immediately and instantly unlock that supportive power; "I hit my ult, now my allies can help me right now" that sort of thing, and it feels a little fairer because she can't just let Renekton full-stack you with AA-W before going into a fight.
• Unique animations for auto-attacking a frozen target to proc passive, just for visual flair.
• Split W into a 2-part spell with each part being slightly delayed for counterplay. I don't care for Sejuani being locked into the second half aiming in the same direction; I think this would encourage a more aggressive play-style to be able to navigate around people with both hits instead of the current kiting tank we have right now, and would IMO raise her skill-cap a little more by giving her more ways to use each hit.
• Give her something more to do with the AOE of her ult. Let her (not allies) get double stacks against champions who are stuck in the zone -- anything, really. It feels like a tack-on right now, so if we're going to keep it, it should at least matter in some way.

thanks for reading, let me know what you think