Just Because a Champion is Good at Something Doesn't Mean They're in a Good Spot

The title sounds fairly contradictory, but I feel it's correct. Not from a balance perspective, if they're good at something and that something is strong enough to get them played, while not being too strong or weak at it, then they're balanced. But I think it goes deeper then that, what are they supposed to be good at vs what they are good at.

Take Evelynn for example, shes been in an identity crisis ever since she got shoved out of the midlane with that god awful change to her ultimate. A hit-and-run style champion that is supposed to slip in and out of the shadows, stalking people and killing someone every time she tries to pop in or most likely dying in the process. And now, past the first damage item you're forced to build tank so you don't get blown up instantly and your usefulness falls off immensely if you don't snowball like a god.

So now you have a hit-and-run style assassin building pure tank aside from the first one or two damage items, Riot has expressed their discontent with Evelynn building tank before so they... Nerfed her damage and sticking power without any compensation.

I think the first question you ask yourself when designing a character is "What am I trying to achieve here?" some champions have clear cut fantasies that they execute well, Fiora with her nimble duelist, Graves with his rough and tumble adc style, Soraka with her self sacrifice, and then you have others that do it... Not so well. As I mentioned, Evelynn, someone mentioned Vayne not fulfilling her "Witch/Demon hunter fantasy" with her ultimate, where instead of unleashing their full arsenal in her final hour she just gains a bunch of invisible stats, Jarvan's ultimate is supposed to create a ring of 'impassable' (the word is laughable in that context) terrain where you man fight your enemies to the death but instead a Vayne can tumble through it.

The list goes on with such champions as Quinn, (Tag team fighter doesn't feel very tag team at all aside from you occasionally throwing your bird at them and you cursing at it when it marks the wrong target, and then Quinn just sorta goes poof when she ults.)

What it really boils down to is what I believe we should be asking is not "Is this character strong?" but instead "Is this character strong at what they're supposed to be strong at?" and then balancing from there.