@riot, how important is champion identity to you?

As in, is it more important that a champion have a healthy kit with counter play and fun for both sides, or do you sometimes listen to fans and keep kits overly simple as they are due to their identity.

Examples of recent reworks where kits have given champ amazing counter play and moments of strength like Ashe, Fiora (although overly strong numbers...great job on the kit), sion, skarners spires (again, also too strong...but love the concept of spires)

Example of kits that are mostly the same just buffed into oblivion with a gimmick attached are Darius and Garen. Darius is by and large the same cheesy champion who does what he's always done. To make him viable he was simply buffed with small changes that are hardly considered counter play. He just plays like someone you don't wanna be around a long time. Garen is quite literally the same champion of no brain point and click silence while he melts you with Spin. Incredibly unfun to play against. All garen got was an awesome idea of villain mechanic...but the mechanic only makes you strong against a single champ through insane true dmg. I feel because his kit is the same he still lacks much counter play outside of the ole boring "kite kite kite".

So my question again, are champion identities, as in who players and mains are attached to (nasus mains with infinite q bias, garen mains love point and click silence, etc) more important to you than creating healthy kits that inspire counterplay and have tons of outplay potential? Because riot has shown they are capable of making some honestly pretty amazing kits that are unique