[Balance] @Riot: Aurelion Sol Suffers From Unhealthy Design

Aurelion Sol has, exactly as predicted, completely flopped over the 'balanced' line and into 'nearly unusable' territory. 2 days of Champion.gg statistics have seen his winrate drop 8 positions and nearly 3% and the champion has become noticably harder to play, ESPECIALLY against teams that already absolutely destroyed him. The problem remains that very few people realize ANY form of CC shuts Sol down, but when they do start CCing the star dragon he flops over and dies if he can't flash away. Now with more deaths!

The problem here is that Sol was not designed to be healthy. His kit is not balanced healthily, weighing FAR too much power on one incredibly binary ability that does nothing but constant AOE damage. I love the champion and I love his playstyle, but his W DOES need to be gutted- and that power needs to go to other places in his kit. @Riot, please do not reduce or revert the W nerf. INSTEAD, rebalance the champion to make his other abilities more relevant and weaken the more binary one:

-Allow Q to be double-tapped -This is what Sol needs to make up for the immediate nerf to his Q. You've chosen to reinforce two of his weaknesses, but when they're exploited they're already absolutely awful to deal with as a player. A major problem with using the S-ranked players as a metric is that in a game where Sol's weaknesses are being correctly exploited, his score is going to be WAY too messy to earn an S; a change to Q would tighten his windows of vulnerability and allow Sol to counterplay opponents that would previously just curbstomp him with minimal effort. Putting this on Q gives Sol more options; where it is now, they're probably already in your stars if you hit it, making Sol's Q a glorified 'win more' button in duels. -Increase Passive base damage SLIGHTLY -Not a lot. Enough to make it so that the nerf described below doesn't change the base damage, but does scale worse than before. -Change W to increase Passive damage by 40% (Down from 50%) -To be a healthy champion, Sol CAN'T have this much power on one ability. A drop in his damage output from W leaves breathing room for his utility to shine through, but touching his base damage is a unique case, as much as Sol is a unique case, because it affects his ability to clear waves and secure objectives through his passive as well as affecting the final damage output of his W. The W is the problem, so tweaking its multiplier is definitely the place to start taking away power. -Decrease toggle cost of W to 20; increase maintain cost of W to 21/27/33/39/45 (up by 5 at all ranks) -The reasoning here is to create windows of power backed by serious expense on the mana front. This makes it a slight bit harder for Sol to keep it up constantly early and mid game, making his Q and ult even more important than before. -Keep core of Q constant- core does not grow with the star -Alternatively, it could be unblockable OR detonate when blocked. This seems like the fairest solution, though. There are some times that I feel like the core is almost as big as the entire Q- like when it clips a Yasuo's W that only barely appears at the edge of my screen. (We're talking some seriously massive Q-E stars) -Start Q cooldown on cast: -This rewards risky power plays by skilled Aurelion Sol players, essentially allowing Sol to deliver (or miss) a massive Q and follow up with another. This lets him chain CC an important carry/tightly packed team or make up for a miss to get himself out of hot water. Overall it rewards nurturing your Q for longer distances. Seeing as Q-E is Sol's most easily countered power play (wards and it's over before it starts) I think it's the best place to move some power. -Add 0.5s to Q cooldown at all ranks -With the above buff, this is necessary. Essentially, the minimum delay from the current Q is added onto the CD so it's no more spammable than before. It also makes double-tapping Q a tradeoff; longer cooldown for urgent use, shorter cooldown for planned, precise use. It definitely fits with Sol's identity as a zone control mage, giving him dominion over the battlefield and rewarding strategic use. -Consider increasing Q AP ratio, if Sol is lacking in damage after W nerfs. -I can't restate enough, too much power is stacked on his W/passive at the moment. -Last, but not least- copy/paste the code from Malzahar. Give Sol's E a 1 second delay before dropping stacks when he is hit, allowing him to use it in combat- but only to engage or escape. There's not a lot of power in this for experienced players, but it would definitely smooth his learning curve and make his E feel like less of a flop to new players.

@Riot Meddler This is for you. A good look at how Sol plays in specific matchups will back up a lot of my reasoning here. I really hope you take the advice and move even more power out of the W, but put it back elsewhere.