Before you dump Zoe (a letter to Rito)

Dear Riot,

Okay, so, I've not been playing because I am convinced that the Riot balance team is AFK during normal work hours. Now, I know people are gonna bring up that I'm bronze, and that I should get good, and blah blah blah, but this isn't about me, this is about the rumor that they're gonna just trash Zoe. If that is that case, lemme give you a thought to help deal with Zoe because I think she's not the worst champion, I just don't think they have thought of everything to deal with her yet.

Recently, the greatest complaint I've heard against her is that her W is busted because she can miss her E and Q and her W will give her 3 flashes, an Ignite, and she'll pick up an active from a minion that she happened to kill with her empowered auto. Easy fix: GIVE HER AN INITIAL CD WHEN SHE PICKS UP A SPELL. She walks over a flash? She has to wait 5/4.5/4/3.5/3 seconds before using it. Or maybe go 4/3.5/3/2.5/2. Something like that, ya know?

Her Q should only be doing extra damage if the E actually lands, ya know, like it's supposed to. But instead of her still getting a proc on it if she misses cause it turns into a trap, just make it a missed skill shot; or make it a trap. Doing both is kinda overwhelming.

Now, again, I'm sure I'll catch flak on my ELO and understanding, but I argue I may possibly understand a lil more than them:

1. Taliyah was actually considered balanced EVERYWHERE IN LEAGUE except in proplay; so they smacked her with the nerf bat.... This was a patch note. That was real life.
2. They took a niche item (Banner) decided that they needed to make it busted; then realized it was busted and removed it.
3. They removed Tracker's Knife; for what point and purpose? The only other role that actually actively makes vision and counter vision their mission is the support. The only reason they removed it was cause it wasn't doing something that Rito wanted it to do. Which everyone just translated as, "cause proplay something something darkside."
4. While I'm not against using the upper ELOs to look at balance and stuch (cause those are the players that understand the game the best) it is unrealistic to consistently use proplay as your "balanced ideal" when over half of the player base is silver/bronze; which becomes almost 3/4s the player base when you add Gold into that mix.
5. It does not seem they understand how champions can utilize the changes made to items meant for other classes. My go to example is Yas with the Marksmen items and true damage output: Yas passive doubles crit, IE double crit chance and makes a portion be true damage, and the most common keystone is Conqueror; effectively Yas builds 1 crit item (50%), IE (100% + fractional true damage), and just has to smack minions before going (to get the 4 seconds of combat with Conqueror) and BOOM you're dead by his 3rd or 4th item. Obviously he's not easy to play, but my (exceptionally simple math) stands as such.
6. To add to that, minions should not just be the thing that counts as combat for procs, especially when there are mechanics in place that already say "in combat with champions" or however they word it. But nah, that's fine, let the true damage keystone just proc off minions that you're always hitting anyways, that's fine. : ^)

Now, I would like to say this: my gripes are not meant to say that League is shit; the community already says that. I love the lore, I love the champions and kits, and I have made a ton of friends through it. I would love to see some semblance that the balance team is trying. I'm not saying I don't understand it at all, but lately it just seems like they wanna just break the game over and over and over and it's just not fun.

I hope they fix it, I hope they actually try, but as it stands I'm waiting til next season to actually start to care again.

Sincerely, Forestmane