Roles imbalance and current meta.

I've just spent some time checking top 200 players in EUW and KR. Number one by role are jungler mains, second come AD mains, third support players, fourth top players and last come midlaners by numbers. Being last by players in top tier for a role says it obviously has the least impact, which when combined with the fact that midlane is the most played role - on theory should have the most players in top tier (the more a role is played if they are equal important, the more challengers will be from this role) means it's the most underpowered role with insufficent impact on the game.

-EXAMPLE : If 23% of total players are support mains this should ROUGHLY produce 46 challenger support mains in one server

When the most played role has the least numbers of top tier players then you know it's heavily imbalanced.

WINRATIO: some ap champions have positive winratio, but that's not due to their impact, but rather due to playing against other ap champions.

META: The more skills a champion requires to play, the more rewarding it should be, it would be totally imbalanced for a hard to play champion to provide less to the game than an easy to play champion. EXAMPLE : Malzahar requires less skills than a Cassiopeia, but still brings more to the game than her. Mid champions that should be meta are Orianna, Ahri, Cassio, Syndra, Taliyah, etc because they require more skills to play and are playmakers, not like a Malzahar's famous combo - Flash R when his team is around to finish up the kill.

Currently the most viable ap midlaners are those that are able to easy roam like Twisted Fate/ Aurelion Sol/ Kassadin and bring their team ahead and champions with utility/cc to help the team but they still have little impact themselves.

Ap champions struggle mostly due to having underpowered items versus their Ad counterparts - once an ad champion gets a hexdrinker it's hardly possible for an ap champion to do anything and just get outpressured, meanwhile zhonya/seeker guards doesnt provide much from its status for the ap champions.

However ap midlaners struggle not only vs ad midlaners, but have hard time killing a less fed adc with hexdrinker, killing a tanky support or tanky top, they also struggle with being unable to one combo kill squishy supports, unlike lethality champions like kha, talon, zed, jayce. Also no items same level Ap champion does fairly balanced vs no items same level other role. This means that to bring midlane role back AP items should be buffed.

Zhonya: Champions that build zhonya are starved from mana/if they do it early/, lack dmg and can use zhonya's active rather rarely. Needs AP buff

Sorcerrers boots should be either buffed, or hexdrinker nerfed for a more balanced lanephase.

Rabadon: Item built late game where mages struggle - they can not one combo kill someone and are quite vulnerable. Should be AP buffed so it increases AP champions playmaking possibility and fight impact based on damage dealt while doesnt improve their sustain so they still stay skills based having to avoid CC and getting brusted. (Shouldnt be cost reduced because it wont bring much to ap mages late game, but will improve their scaling which is not necessary). As rabadon is not built on utility bringer champions like Aurelion Sol for example, it will allow more variety for picks on mid and will balance utility bringing champions with damage dealers/playmakers.

Void: Currently is gold inefficient for AP and the penetration can be used only vs heavily MR built champions which sets mages back against low MR champions too much. If its ap is buffed then it will bring too much power vs both heavy MR champs and low MR champs so the AP shouldnt be buffed, but rather cost slightly reduced. Reduced cost will make it still be a choice vs either MR champs or no mr champs, not efficient vs both.

Rilay: This needs no explanation, it's obvious that its ability power brings too little for the late game, although it's still not so irrelevant item for early game after the changes - reduced AP but reduced cost too, so it stays on roughly the same AP efficiency but is only build on DPS champions like Brand/Swain that can proc its passive. Needs AP buffing + cost increasing versus passive reducing i.e. making it unstackable - to not work against the same champion for some time/cooldown.