An Idea for a Talon Rework - Seeking Feedback

Howdy Everyone, I'm currently a University Student studying Game Design and I love League of Legends so I thought I'd try my hand at designing a rework for a Champion I feel needs one, Talon. Below, I've written out the changes I believe would help Talon as well as my reasoning for why I "made" these changes. I would appreciate any and all feedback and I look forward to potentially discussing this with you all.

Talon Rework

Mercy: Talon’s basic attacks and abilities deal 6/12/18/24% additional damage to any target that is slowed by talon. Noxian Diplomacy: Active: Talon’s next basic attack within the next 6 seconds deals bonus physical damage. NEW: Cooldown: 10/9/8/7/6 (up from 8/7/6/5/4) If the target is a champion they will also bleed for 6 seconds, granting standard sight of their location to Talon and taking additional physical damage each second for the duration. Rake: NEW: Cooldown: 12 (up from 10) Talon sends out a volley of daggers in a cone that then quickly return back to him, dealing physical damage to any enemies it passes through. (Slow removed) Cutthroat: Range: 700 NEW: Cooldown: 18/17/16/15/14 (up from 18/16/14/12/10) After a brief delay, Talon vanishes for one second then reappears at the target location. Enemies hit are slowed by 20/30/40/50/60% which decays over 3 seconds. Shadow Assault: Passive: NEW: Kills and assists refresh the cooldown of Cutthroat. Active: Talon disperses blades outwards in a 500-radius ring and gains stealth for up to 2.5 seconds while having 40% increased movement speed. When Talon emerges from stealth, the blades converge on his location. When the ring of blades expands and contracts, enemies hit receive physical damage. New: While stealthed, Cutthroat’s range is increased to 1400. (This change was made in order to prevent Talon from using his ult counter-intuitively. Whereas before Talon would ult-ghostblade and then target blink with Cutthroat, now Talon will ult and then E right away, appearing at the target location. If cutthroat had a low range during Shadow Assault, it would be very strange to ult, run up to someone, stop, E, then blink to them.)

TL;DR Talon Changes:

1. Cutthroat damage amplication redesigned into Talon’s passive, Mercy.
2. Cutthroat is now a delayed, aoe skillshot (think Aatrox’s Dark Flight) that slows for 3 seconds.
3. Skilling Shadow Assault now grants Cutthroat a cooldown reset on kill/assist.
4. Talon’s cooldowns are longer.

Goals of this update:

Give Talon more counterplay In my experiences, there isn’t much counterplay to Talon. You’re either in range of his E, an instantaneous, unavoidable gapcloser, or you aren’t. He can either go on you at will and it is very difficult to avoid his damage or you’re quite safe from him. The only real counterplay is “stay out of range.” Making Cutthroat a delayed skillshot/aoe gapcloser allows his lane opponent to react to Talon’ aggression. Talon’s opponent can either flee or prepare to fight Talon, rather than Talon always having the element of surprise. Side Note: With Talon’s increase in power (more amplified damage on Mercy), I’ve increased his cooldowns slightly to create more of a window of opportunity for his opponent. Talon poses a greater threat if he is able to hit an enemy with Cutthroat but, if he fails, he is vulnerable for a longer period of time than before.

Increase usefulness when not snowballing I either see Talons snowball extremely hard and murder everyone or not get off the ground and be useless for most of the game. By giving Cutthroat both an AOE slow and a potential for reset, Talon can feel confident that he can still make an impact on a teamfight even if he doesn’t have the strength necessary to 100 to 0 his target. He can initiate fights and make picks with his slow, rather than being purely an anti-carry with no utility.

Give Talon escape on par with popular assassins Zed, Ekko, Ahri, and Fizz all have versatile mobility moves that allow them to act both offensively and defensively. These assassins can sacrifice their offensive mobility in order to get out of sticky situations both in lane and during teamfights. Talon doesn’t have this ability (outside of using his ultimate, a skill almost mandatory for securing kills). With the current cutthroat’s single target nature, Talon cannot easily escape with it. If he is ganked, he is often dead. Talon does not have an overwhelming damage advantage compared to other assassins to merit this lack of mobility. Removing cutthroat’s requirement for a target adds a defensive/escape aspect to Talon’s kit.

Make his passive an interesting/integral part of his kit Currently, Mercy isn’t a very useful passive. When attempting to solo-assassinate targets, Mercy only grants a 10% increase in damage to ONE of Talon’s auto attacks (Cutthroat’s .25 second slow is his only reliable method of “amplifying” his auto attack damage. Assuming Talon has a high AA damage of 400 (he’s quite fed) that’s only a flat 40 increase in damage. To me, that seems very underwhelming. By moving Cutthroat’s damage amplification into Talon’s passive, Mercy becomes an integral element to Talon’s kit, rather than a strange gimmicky passive.

Emphasize Talon’s Risk/Reward Playstyle Talons always struck me a very High Risk/High Reward assassin. He all-ins extremely hard with a lot of damage, but if he isn’t very fed, he has a very difficult time surviving his assassination attempt on an enemy squishy. He may kill his target, but now he’s in the middle of the enemy team with no escape, as Shadow Assault was likely used to get to his target in the first place. Currently, Talon’s isn’t in a position to withhold his ultimate for escape during teamfights. I’m fine with Talon having to use his ult to secure kills, but he is more punished than other popular assassins for misplays. He doesn’t have a “nope” button in order to escape if things go bad. I’m fine with this, but, with his high risk playstyle, I feel Talon needs some form of reward for successful assassinations. By giving Talon a reset only on Cutthroat, Talon may dive in and kill his target and escape afterwards, if he is successful. To prevent Talon from becoming another reset machine, I’ve increased Talon’s cooldowns on Noxian Deplomacy and Rake. Talon’s reset is primarily designed as a defensive tool, but he can still ham it up and go for multiple resets, though he will have a difficult time doing so.