Lissandra changes, thoughts from a few EUW lissandra mains

For all that don't know the upcoming changes for Lissandra : [Context - not going to ship in 7.7]

Base Mana increased from 304 to 330. Mana growth per level increased from 50 to 55. Base Mana Regen increased from 1.1344 to 1.2. Mana Regen Growth increased from 0.08 to 0.16.

• These changes are great. and necessary if the passive gets changed.

Ring of Frost (W) mana cost changed from 50 at all ranks to 40/50/60/70/80.

• I wouldn't call this a big nerf since most of us max e second over w, unless you are versus a, melee opponent in which case you do max it second most of the time. This makes Lissandra a bit weaker, which probably should be a relief to most top lanes. This is fair in my opinion and shouldn't be changed.

Glacial Path (E) mana cost changed from 80/85/90/95/100 to 60/70/80/90/100.

-A pretty nice minor buff to Lissanda. Its always great to make your only escape/gap close tool cost less mana. this will help lissandra is weakest (Pre level 6) escape ganks and push waves

Iceborn (Passive) reworked! [Per ricklessabandon this is very experimental and rough.] "Lissandra's spell casts empower her next basic attack, converting the entirety of the attack to magic damage (1.5 second cooldown). Whenever Lissandra's abilities (or empowered attack) damages an enemy champion she permanently gains a stack of Iceborn, each increasing Lissandra's maximum mana by 3 and the damage of her empowered attack by 1."

http://i.imgur.com/FpB654D.jpg

The mana stacking mechanic is honestly a great feature for her, it will help sustain early game and get a decent mana pool for late game.

But an empowered auto attack? As cool as it sounds, many of the most experienced Lissandra players will say its a bad solution for Lissandra's current passive it does not fit into her current play style. Lissandra is Area of effect mage, an initiator, once she is in the enemy team she hasn't the time to auto attack. She couldn't utilize the mechanic anywhere outside of the lane(which would be weak early on) and 1v1 duels(which isn't her play style). She could only make use of it if she wasn't a medium ranged or built more tank stats or something like a riven animation cancel.

Instead i propose something which will make everyone happy (tell me if you agree) Keep only the mana stacking mechanic for her passive. Nerf frozen tombs damage to half of its current amount and add a passive to her ultimate "frozen tomb": inflicting crowd control on an enemy champion grants you a stack of "ice breath" that decays after 2.5 seconds (max 4 stacks) For each stack of Ice breath frozen tombs damage gets amplified by 50%.

In order to do as much damage as before you will need to at least inflict crowd control on an enemy twice, if you manage to do it 4 times you will be rewarded with 1.5 times the current damage of the ultimate, Which is difficult to do when you initiate a team fight. It also gives the team some time to react before she can get her ult off

Lets go through a couple of examples: Lissandra uses her Glacial Path badly when initiating a team fight, she was only able to catch one person with her Ring of Frost before she used her ultimate, they survive. Lissandra gets punished and dies

Lissandra is in a 1v1 situation, she catches her opponent with her Ring of Frost and Frozen shard (has 2 stacks) but decides not to use ult yet, she throws out her second Frozen shard, but misses. Her stacks decay and she looses the 1v1.

Lissandra uses her Glacial Path well on a poorly positioned team, she manages to catch all of them in her Ring of Frost and she ults herself. Her team wins the team fight because of this.

Lissandra is in a 1v1 with an opponent, The opponent knows that she has zhonyas still up and Glacial Path is on cooldown, he forces her to use it before she can come in range to use her ultimate, her stacks decay while she is in Zhonyas, and therefor cant burst the opponent down.

Lissandra gets engaged on buy her lane opponent. She manages to land all her abilities so she can achieve 4 stacks, she uses her empowered Frozen tomb and... doesn't kill her opponent because she went full ad trying to make use of this empowered auto attack, they clearly didn't read the patch notes.

this will higher the skill ceiling on Lissandra and reward good positioning timing and accuracy and punish bad positioning of the enemy team.

I would like to hear Riot Dev team's thoughts on this if possible.