Let's talk about Taliyah
Does any Champion get more punished for using their abilitys aside from cooldowns? speaking of worked ground here. Taliyah is really fun to play but you might aswell play any other midlaner and get the same results much easier.
So what needs to be changed in my opinion to make her a justified pick all around instead of niche (if you can even concider her that)?
Either nerf the damage on her Q and give her more on E so her Combo W+E has more burst
Or
if you want to keep her Q as the strongest ability atleast let me aim all 5 rocks, make it so i can press Q multible times whenever i want to shoot, let me pick directions!
Because as it is right now people can dash through your E and then just circle around you so they don't get hit by your Q, Her kit was to zone and prevent people from dashing carelessly but her E dosn't pose much of a threat to prevent people** dashing **into your face.
Her Ult is still great and a really unique ability but you can easily dash over it. and at this point, What exactly is her kit suposed to be?
a "Controll Mage"
Controll of what? When you lack damage and most of your skills pose no threat to dashing champions wich her kit was suposed to do
What are your thoughts on Taliyah? Can you concider her a niche pick or is she just a handicap that you put yourself on when playing her?
or 
or 
are extremely hard to lane against, as much as it concerns me those picks are impossible to even do anything in lane. BUT.
Taliyah has some of the highest early damage in my opinion and her kit is absolutely annoying to deal with as she controls every space in the lane: her Q forces you to run away and dodge, her W too and her E zones you away. Her damage is insane when you land the W + E combo as it is, without Q, if you can hit your Q as well enemy will always be under 15% health (vs a typical midlaner with no mr intended). She needs something, it's true, and she puts herself at risk by using her kit, true as well, but that's kind of her nature or that's kind of the price you have to pay to apply that insane damage to enemies. Her only flaws as it's for now, I'd say her passive, which is totally useless (movement speed that doesn't even scale per level) and the time the circles stays on the ground, sometimes the bad positioning you're talking about when you say she has to put herself at risk to use her kit comes from that: you want to land 5 stones --> you have to get out of circles, and sometimes your lane is so full of circles you have to bad position for it.
<3