Okay Riot, you seriously need to change your design and balance philosophy

Tldr: Newer champions are overloaded Riot (Meddler) has a dumb excuse why You're not playing the champion. The champion is playing you.

For context, here is what happened:

Player: "I was wondering if your team had considered removing Akali's stealth from towers so that she would be able to get compensation buffs somewhere instead of constantly being nerfed. A lot of Akali players seem to at least be interested in discussing something like that. Would be cool if you guys had any thoughts on her shroud. Edit: She would still retain her obscurity from champions while under turret, but turrets would be able to target and damage her while obscured for example."

Riot Meddler: "That's an ongoing discussion internally right now covering whether this is the sort of unique strength we should be preserving despite its costs or something we should remove because of its downsides, thereby as you say freeing us up to put some power elsewhere. Will update once we've got a conclusion."

Player: "Is this something you could possibly explore with Yasuo as well (considering he's the bane of low elo regardless if he's strong or not)? Sorry to be piggybacking on something about Akali, but both champs share the same situation."

Riot Meddler: "We've had that discussion regarding Yasuo and believe his unique strengths (I'm guessing you're thinking Windwall and/or the E CD?) are worth preserving."

I understand that you want to make Champions unique to play as. Pyke has an execute ulti that gives gold to the last assisting champion. Lulu has polymorph and her ult that makes people huge. Draven is Draaaaaaaaaaaaaaaven.

But. When you give a champion a mechanic that is unique to that champion alone, things can go south really badly if it's done poorly. The biggest example here being Yasuo. Now, I'm not going to go into depth about why Yasuo is a complete failure in champion design. (I can write a 10 page essay on that) I want to go into detail about why it's a bad idea to give champions mechanics that are unique to them.

Back then, in old League, programming for the game was a bit different. The champions had much simpler abilities. Usually they just did damage and had a little upside. For example: Annie's Q did damage, and refunded mana on kill. Pantheon's Q just did damage. Singed's Q led a poison trail. Teemo's Q dealt damage and applied a blind. They were simple. Easy to balance. Easy to maintain. Easy to understand.

Then things started to pick up. Fizz's Q was a dash that applied on hit effects. Varus' Q gave him a lot of range and poke. Lulu's Q was fired from both her and Pix, it also slowed. Riven's Q was cast 3 times. Each cast did damage, dashed a little, and the last dash was a knockup too.

At this point, this didn't get too crazy. They were more complex yes, but not by a large margin.

Then came Yasuo. (I'm using him as an example again, because, well, he's a really good example) Yasuo's Q was treated as a basic attack, it's CD scaled with attack speed, it could crit, it could also knock up on 3rd cast with long range, and it also applies on hit effects.

I know I'm only mentioning Q abilities, but you can compare the overall kits as well.

Annie had the following: A passive that counted up to 5 abilities, the 5th stunning the target. A Q that refunded it's mana cost on kill A W that increased her armor/MR, and had a pseudo thornmail An E that was literally an AoE damage And a summon that had sunfire and would help her fight. It also was an AoE stun if timed.

Pantheon has the following: A passive that blocks a single basic attack or turret shot after he attacks a certain number of times A Q that just does damage A W that deals damage over time, and allows him to crit low HP targets An E that stuns and deals low damage And an R that makes him teleport to a location a ways away

Singed has the following: A passive that converts mana to HP A Q that makes a poison train A W that makes an AoE slow (Or root if used correctly) An E that flung people behind him And an R, which was a flat stat booster

Teemo has the following: A passive that let's him turn invisible if he's still A Q that damages and blinds A W that gives him a small speed boost An E that makes his auto attacks a bit more damage And an R that creates a trap that deals a decent amount of damage over time

Now let's see a some more advanced examples

Fizz had* the following: (I'm using his old kit) A passive that let him walk through minions and take reduced damage from them A Q that was a dash, on hit effects, and also did damage A W that empowered his basic attacks An E that made him untargetable, and could go either a short distance, or a long distance And an R that slowed the target, knocked it up after a delay, damaged it, and could stick to champions if cast right.

Riven has the following A passive that increases her damage on her auto attacks when casting abilities A Q that can be cast 3 times, each being a dash, dealing damage, and the last being a knock up A W that was an AoE stun An E that was a dash and gave her a shield And and R that increased her AD, and could function as an execute as well.

Now let's take that to a champion like Yasuo and Irelia

Yasuo has: A passive that gives him double crit, and a shield whenever he takes a substantial amount of damage A Q that behaves like an auto attack, applies on hit effects, can crit, CD scales with attack speed, and can knock people up on the 3rd cast, with additional range A W that can block projectiles and makes his shield refresh faster An E that can be cast in rapid succession, with the each enemy you hit with it being an illegal target for a longer amount of time And an R that teleported him to a knocked up champion, increasing the knock up by a second, and gave him 50% armor penetration

Irelia has: A passive that increases her damage as she fights, increases her attack speed, and does bonus damage to shields A Q that heals her, applies on hit effects, and refreshes on kill or mark hit A W that reduces damage, gives her a passive stack, and cannot be interrupted An E that creates a blade, and can be cast a second time to create another blade, which makes a line that deals damage and stuns everyone between them And an R that creates a pseudo arena that marks any enemy champion in it so she can dash to them again, deals damage, and if you cross the arena wall you can't auto attack and are slowed.

Notice how overloaded these kits are. There's so many things going on that balancing these champions would a god awful nightmare. (Just look at Jhin!)

Riot, you need to stop one upping each champion in the mechanics department. Just give each champion a unique feel to them. Anivia can be reborn. Annie has an AoE stun with Tibbers, Pantheon can jump around the map and hit people. Enough with these convoluted kits, and even more convoluted "exceptions" for some champions. Yasuo can block projectiles, and becomes invulnerable if he's standing in the wall. Akali has invisibility to TOWERS.

You play champions because you like their play style. Not because they have a "unique strength"

Unique strengths should come from the player, not the champion.