Consensus: New W/Passive Mostly Sucks

I was reading the r/ViMains megathread about her 9.5 changes and saw that a vast majority of folks came to the same conclusion I did: that her new W reset mechanic is mostly terrible with fringe use in the jungle. I wanted to make a post to highlight my observations and speculate why it feels bad, and open up a discussion about this mechanic specifically, and what changes could be made to help it feel better.

I'll start with a list of the problems I had with it:

1) No abilities to proc the shield because I used them to lower the CD of the passive

This is the first issue I encountered--I noticed as I went through my usual skill rotation that I could indeed lower the CD of the passive twice, but that I was left without any abilities to actually proc the shield. So, to address this issue...

2) Holding an ability to proc the shield feels bad and lowers DPS

It was unintuitive to keep an E charge available at all times in order to actually have an ability to proc the shield. In the early game in particular, I noticed if I didn't use spells basically as they became available, it took much longer to clear camps, and I found myself taking MORE damage trying to proc my shield than if I just clear the camp more quickly. I can think of a particular instance while fighting the raptor camp that I had 1 E charge left that could have wiped the little guys out, but I felt compelled now to hold the E for the shield proc--I then realized...

3) Camps die as the shield proc occurs

This happened to me SO many times while clearing--I would get the 2 W procs to adequately lower the CD of my shield, and I'd held onto an E charge to be sure I could actually activate it, only to then cast E and see the camp defeated, and the shield useless.

4) Vi's lack of stickiness prevents reasonable activation during skirmishes

While I could build items like IBG or FroMal to help with this, games are pretty much already determined by the first item or two these days, and since Jungle Item + Trinity Force are more or less required first items for Vi, it's not a reasonable expectation that those items are going to be built.

5) Attack Speed doesn't fit into the Bruiser Item budget

To get more W procs, you need attack speed. The only reasonable "bruiser" item that does this is Trinity Force. Vi requires HP and resistances to survive engages, and there really are not any attack speed items besides TF that feel good to buy on her when there are other, superior options. For how difficult the shield can be to proc multiple times in a fight, and lacking any form of lifesteal or innate resistances in her kit, she is missing the survivability necessary to make building attack speed (other than TF) a reasonable option. One could argue that you can level W second to help with this, but then we run into our final issue, which is...

6) Leveling W means you don't have the CDR on your active abilities to proc the shield

Vi's entire kit is seriously working against itself: you need to cast an ability to proc the shield, and lowering the CDR requires attack speed, but leveling the ability that provides that attack speed means you often won't have an active ability to actually activate the shield, and items that provide attack speed are suboptimal.

All that being said, I will say it works ok against Dragon/Baron, because they are standing still and have enough HP to actually make the CDR significant.

If anyone has had a different experience or knows ways to get around these issues that I'm just not able to see in my few games I played with it, please let me know. I love the champ, but I'm disheartened by the seeming lack of coherence in her kit, and the disconnect between Riot and Vi players.

Possible Fixes in order of least to most desired:

Make auto-attacks proc the passive. Then you don't need to save an ability specifically for the shield.

Make W proc count as a passive proc too. I like this fix more that the previous; you could even make it so that a Denting Blows proc that lowers the CD of the passive to 0 also procs the passive. So if the passive has < 3 seconds left, it procs the shield.

Make Denting Blows her passive, and make Blast Shield her W active!! Riot, literally just do for Vi exactly what you're doing for Teemo--make Denting Blows her passive that scales over the course of the game, rather than an "ability" for which you put in points as you level. You could even add some unique mechanic with Blast Shield, like: Denting Blows proc lowers CD by 3 seconds. If Blast Shield is not on CD, increase the next activation by 50%. Or something. I dunno I literally just thought of that right now as I write this.