Damn this was big. I'll try to keep it short. EDIT: I failed.
First: KEEP HIS ABILITY TO OUTPLAY.
Second: KEEP both AP and AD scalings
Third: for the love of god don't nerf the fucking AP scalings like you do every single fucking rework (Sion and Poppy being the most recent). I like having different ways to play a certain champion, Shaco serves that purpose really well.
Yep. Yep. Yep. Couldn't agree more.
Forth: His boxes are too squishy, they get 1 shotted by EVERYTHING starting from early-mid game, make them a 1½ hit or 2 hits to break.
Fifth: Red trinket fucks AP Shaco in the ass big time, make it so that his boxes are either only disabled for 1-2 seconds and revealed, OR they're disabled but not revealed (you can see them, but can't hit them (like invisible champs revealed by red trinket). I would prefer the second option.
Have his boxes work more like Jhin's traps, being untargetable. This would shift a bit of his early jungle clear power (not much, as they would still be stackable) and make him a bit more reliable later on. He would offer more in team fights, as his W would become a delayed version of Swain's Q, offering some zone control, at the cost of a more risky early game in the jungle due to monster aggro. This would also make him more useful in mid lane, as mages wouldn't be able to one shot your boxes from afar.
Sixth: His clone doesn't have dragon buff, wtf is the point of enemies being able to see your blue/red, but not dragon buff, it literally makes no sense to leave it like that, the buff is PERMANENT...
Seventh: When you Ult+Q, enemies shouldn't see two different clouds, they should only see one, for outplay potential.
Two needed QoL buffs. I'd add even a orange puff when the clone blinks to your location.
8: Shaco is a mysterious being that nobody really knows or understand, KEEP IT THIS WAY. I swear Riot will make him a demacian or some shit if they rework him, or give him some retarded title like ''evil clown'' (they did this with the Mordekaiser rework)
Keep his lore intact. Adding a little more information is fine, as long as it doesn't touch his origins or motivations. Hell, put him as the one pulling the strings behind all the Bilgewater event, as being the reason why Thresh came out of Shadow Isles. Adding a little more to his from after we got to know him is fine. Adding a little more to his personality through interaction is good as well.
9: He needs some kind of way to deal with enemies who are TOO tanky, especially his AP side, maybe lower damage on his E and add % hp
I don't really like it. Mostly for two reasons: 1- Assassins should struggle against tanks. 2- Because I like your next idea too much. Adding both would be overkill.
10: His Q's crit is useless for AP Shaco, maybe add some AP Scaling on that, with so many ways to build MR, and it being extremely effective, it would allow Shaco to keep up with other mages in terms of damage, and not be useless until late game.
Proposed Q: Crits for 160/170/180/190/200% +(1% for each 10AP) and adding 100/120/150/180/220 + (50% AP) on top of that.
This should make both AP and AD Shaco have a similar engage pattern, while encouraging an hybrid build.
11: Shaco's boxes still don't proc any damaging passive (thunderlord's decree, liandry's, deathfire touch...) While Heimer's turrets and Zyra's plants do.
QoL change. Much needed. What I hate the most on Shaco support is that his boxes don't grant him the poke gold from neither the mastery or the support item.
A cool mechanic would be to be able to switch between yourself and the clone, confusing the heck out of the enemies, Or have your Clone throw a shyv when you do (dealing little damage or none at all, just for outplay potential)
Cool concept, but might prove to be kinda OP. Could be tested, though. Maybe make so if they switch Shaco is stuck with his clone health and vulnerability until one of them die.
As for the ''getaway'' you talked in your post, i always take Stormraider's Surge on Shaco. Try it, it's simply an amazing mastery. I lost count of how many times ive been able to get out of a sticky situation thanks to it's massive slow reduction and movement speed boost.
I love that mastery. I tend to use it when I'm confident in the lane I'm about to face or when I know I'll be able to avoid the enemy CC with it. Otherwise TLD just for making sure things stay dead.
Anyway, what are YOUR thoughts on what i wrote?
You proposed quite a lot of cool ideas. However I'd change some core things on Shaco.
I think too much of his power is stuck on unreliable skills. His abilities total base damage at level 18 is 1570. To give a base for comparassion Talon has 900. Zed is a math mess, but it's around 800. Kha'Zix has 996.
However that base damage is reduced drastically when we take into account that 760 of that is on the full five seconds of his box and another 600 is on his clone explosion, both unreliable sources of damage.
His kit needs a shift in power.
A quick suggestion that just came to my mind:
Q - Direct buff and CD nerf.
Crits for 160/170/180/190/200% + (1% for each 10AP) physical damage, while adding 50/70/90/110/150 + (50% AP) on top of that.
This should make both AP and AD Shaco have a similar engage pattern, while encouraging an hybrid build. Maybe add a bit more of cooldown. Right now Shaco can have his Q every 6 seconds with 45% CDR. As it's damage is getting buffed maybe the cooldown could be a bit longer, forcing him to plan his engages even more carefully without taking away the Q power that we love (I still haven't forgiven Riot for the range nerf).
W - Complete overhaul.
Instead of waiting for box cooldown, make it stackable like Donger's turrets, GP's Barrels, Teemo's Shrooms, etc. Starts at 2 or 3 and increases by 1 with each point on his ult.
Increased placement range. This could go in one of three ways:
1- Increase static range. Give it about 1000 units and be done with it.
2- A bounce mechaninc sort of thing like Teemo and his mushrooms.
3- A range that's increasingly bigger according to how many boxes Shaco has stacked up to about 2000 units for max stacks (with maxed ult).
I personally like the last one, as it's one more thing for Shaco to control and balance risk/reward.
It is now untargetable just like Nid's or Cait's traps. This means that his early game will be riskier in the jungle, as it won't draw minion aggro. To balance it out, it will turn it in an important zoning tool for team fights that can't be wiped out easily.
For the stealth delay, make it be proportional to the distance that it's placed. Something in the lines of 2,5 or 3 seconds at max range, 1 second at melee.
It now deals damage over time for all untis in it's radius for it's entire duration (unchanged, 5 seconds), as well as applying fear stacks to enemies every second they stay inside to a maximum of 5. The stacks last 5 seconds. Being damaged by Shaco refreshes the duration.
Deals (100 + (20% AP) + (10% Bonus AD) + 5% of the target's current health) magic damage every second for 5 seconds. Covers a circular area with 325 units of diameter. Damage is stackable with other Jacks in the Box.
This should allow Shaco, if he wishes, to chunk a fair bit of health from tanks before a fight starts, assuming his team has the tools to keep the tank in place. The fear stacks will also stack with his next ability.
E - The fear is now here
Works the same way. Point, click, damage. At least when the target has no fear stacks.
When hitting a target that has fear stacks it will consume the stacks to fear the target. Every stack increases the duration of the fear by 0.5 seconds.
Potentially OP part that would require play test to balance:
When hitting an enemy with Fear Stacks, Shaco's shiv will multiply and bounce to nearby enemy targets (from 200 to 400 range, needs testing to find a sweet spot), dealing damage and, if the unity hit has Fear Stack, fearing them as well while dealing bonus damage. Granting him his AoE fear.
Original shiv deals 50/90/130/170/210 (unchanged) + (100% AP) + (100% Total AD). Smaller shivs deal 25/45/65/85/105 + (100% AP) + (100% bonus AD). If the enemies hit by the smaller shivs have Fear Stacks, they take up to 25/45/65/85/105 + (50% AP) aditional damage, based on the amount of Fear Stacks.
**R - Quality of life changes. Nerf to base damage. Buff to reliability **
_When using Hallucinate, Shaco is no longer targeted by previously applied pings. Having the HUD counter you is stupid. When clicking on the clone, the HUD will show the exact same as it would with the real one. Additional range for the clone to roam. Still shows no orange puff when teleporting back. We gotta be fair.
Clone is still treated as a minion by the abilities that already treat him as such (Volibear E will still frear the clone and slow Shaco, same for Darius ult). Those ideas buff Shaco already, something must be in check for the sake of balance._
Additionally, uppon Shaco's death, the clone will rage, no longer being restrained by it's inherents debuffs (deals full damage, doesn't take increased dmg anymore), as well as receiving a bonus to movement speed and will chase the enemy champion with the lowest amount of health in it's sight.
Uppon death, the clone deals 150/300/450 damage + (100% AP) to clone units
Damn that was long, might turn it in a new post all together.
Anyway, the numbers are mildly accurate, but might be changed. I balanced towards a final build with 400 AD or 600 AP. The AD build should be doing more single target damage, the AP one should be doing a bit more AoE. However, both of them should have similar playstyles. With a more reliable AoE fear, Shaco should be able to get out of bad spots more easily, without giving him any extra mobility or extra CC.
- Shac Norris, a sad AP Shaco main.
I'm jealous of your name.
or a 
. They are only annoying early game, later on they are as much of a headache as anyone in their class.
