Why I think the Sejuani rework is a massive blunder

big post below, going to break up the topics like this. And I'll preface it with "this is all my opinion," of course

1. What was bad about old Sejuani -- Why she did need changes.
2. What this rework did right
3. What this rework did wrong
4. Why I ultimately think it was a failure
5. How to salvage it (from my perspective)

Why old Sejuani needed to change

I won't deny that Sejuani had a very straightforward kit -- maybe a little too simple for what Riot wants out of their champions these days. She's not a champion with complex patterns; she jumps on you, she presses W and runs around the fight, tags as many people as she can, and then presses E to slow everyone long enough for W to be up again, rinse and repeat with the occasional ult thrown in when she can hit multiple people with it. And there's not really a lot of counterplay or interaction on the enemy team's part; if you get tagged by even just a stray tick of her W's DoT, you're going to get slowed and eat a little damage and there's nothing you can do about it. Her ult was fairly difficult to avoid for just how potent it actually was, so unless you had your finger on the Flash you were probably going to get locked down, and her instant dash, like Gragas, makes it hard to play around her when she's anywhere near you unless you're mind-gaming her really well. And, you know, she has a passive that you barely notice or appreciate. Furthermore, her W and her E are used so interchangeably that you could probably combine the spells and she wouldn't change too much depending on how you implemented it, and I might argue would actually make her much healthier if you freed up a spell slot for something fresh. (If it was a stacking slow like Rammus's PBE ult vs if it was back-loaded like her new stun, which I'll get to.)

What's good about the rework

As far as things that I'm pleased about with the rework go, as few as they are, I think that it was a good idea to back-load her impact onto dedicating a little bit more to a fight; rather than just sort of running around to pop her E off on everyone she can touch, she's a little bit more deliberate. I'm not too crazy about the stack mechanic her E gives, I think it's a very overused and uninspired mechanic, but it's at least functional and gives all parties involved some idea of how close Sejuani is to popping her Permafrost. And, I guess, in concept at least, her new kit does appeal to me, but that appeal doesn't translate into the actual gameplay for a couple of reasons, which make me feel as though the rework could have been really good but ended up a disaster.

What's bad about the rework

First, I'll talk about her passive. It feels to me, as though it's a massive stat check. I'm heavily biased here because I have a preference for the sort of playstyles that reward aggression, for going in and staying in fights, and that seems like something that would be very suiting for Sejuani. Instead, you get this slightly-altered Malzahar passive, where you just get to be incredibly durable and absorb any burst that's sent your way. It doesn't really provide anything to play around, because it strictly recharges outside of combat, so it'll usually be a one-time thing in teamfights. And then, obviously the damage is just ridiculous; 10-20% HP is far too high for being purely base damage alone. In general, her damage is FAR too high for a champion who has a knock up, a slow, and two 2-second stuns, all spread out through every ability. Her W and her E, I have a lot of issues with; namely that it still feels like you could just combine these abilities and Sejuani would be immensely better off with the freed-up spell slot, because they just feel so interchangeable. Particularly frustrating is that it seems like with her E's point-click, single target nature, you were supposed to have some sort of decision making process as to who to stun, but that falls very flat on its face when Sejuani can realistically only stack up one person to full at a time (by herself). It creates this false choice, because you're not ever going to wait to stun, you're going to pop them off as soon as you can because there's no reason not to. The stun that she has, I'm not fond of, because I feel like "hard-CC lockdown tank" is not enhancing her character or giving her a unique role in the team. And then lastly, her ult; I will always vehemently disagree that Sejuani's ult needed to be changed. It was the one high moment of her kit, and I think that nerfing it to the place it is now was the wrong move. I would have been much happier with some sort of wind-up before the throw; just a telegraph, I think, would have made this spell more appropriate for its power.

I want to dedicate a paragraph to her E's melee-teammate mechanic, and why I think this was just an obscenely terrible idea, for one simple reason; it's not natural to her kit. You needed to force this interaction in in the first place, and then you needed to exclude ranged champions from being able to use it so that you could call it synergy with melee teammates. When I say "natural synergy," I mean someone like Ivern. Ivern's Q providing his team a gap-closer benefits melee champions immensely more than it does most ranged champions, but ranged allies can still use it and not feel bad because they'll still be in range to do their thing. And the same for his E; melee champions who want to jump in and maximize how many people get tagged with the shield bomb's slow will get the most mileage out of it, but it's still an incredibly good defensive tool to help peel for ranged carries. It's not this hamfisted implementation that makes him work great with melee teammates like Juggernauts or Divers; it's just a natural progression of his kit that he can still play without, and it doesn't take up too much of his power budget. Sejuani is not this; she is HUGELY hampered without one or two melee teammates to stack up on other enemies, but she is heinously overbearing when she has that team comp, to the point that it doesn't feel fair when all she has to do is stand near them, not even standing near you. It's a very large portion of her power budget, because she was very explicitly designed around needing melee teammates, but I would say that it's not synergy with melee teammates as much as it anti-synergy with ranged ones.

Why I think the rework falls flat

You didn't enhance her theme, and you didn't really expand on what was already there; you replaced her with a champion that plays a lot like Sejuani, but excels at an entirely different thing, and has completely different power curves. Getting to level 6 doesn't feel as impactful as it does now; it's gone from the strong teamfight ult to "I'm going to stunlock one person for 3.5 to 4.5 seconds." Bristle is actually LESS involved than he was before, even though you guys said you wanted to make them feel more like a duo a la Kled. Her power is distributed through her kit more, but it's done in a way that doesn't make her feel better to play against; you can't really do much against her if she has melee teammates because even if you avoid her, they still stack the stun, but if she doesn't then her job becomes incredibly hard vs a lot of champions who can juke her easily. She does far too much damage without building damage, and she's got way too much CC than should be considered acceptable. And despite all of this power that she's got, I don't feel satisfied even when I play her well.

How I'd change it

Now, this is iffy and completely subjective to what my expectations of Sejuani are/were, but I feel like I could offer my own version of this rework just as someone who's very enthusiastic about her and wants to see her better off, that sort of pulls her back to her original niche as the tank who provides an abundance of slows, and makes the choice of when to pop her E a little more of a choice, with something a little more noticeable for enemies to play around, too.

Passive - Shatter damage reduced (ideally removed). Still does the same to monsters.

W - _now a two-cast skill, where W2 can be cast within the next few seconds of activating the spell. Windup on each swing slightly upped to compensate for W2 being free-aimable. Magic damage. Slow on W2 removed. _

E - _Keep the point and click, but make it pop a slow instead of a stun on the target enemy for X-Y seconds, and apply that same slow and damage in a lingering area around them. Champions/Large Monsters who are hit by the AoE detonation will also get a stack of Permafrost applied to them. Teammates can no longer stack it. (Think of it like a stronger, ranged Iceborn proc). Possibly up the maximum number of stacks, now that W is two-cast. _

I think that this gives her more noticeable, appreciable skill expression like you aimed for; I think the 'Shatter' mechanic removes any reason you have NOT to stun immediately, but making it an AoE slow gives you a little bit more reason to assess in teamfights; do I want to slow them now to make them vulnerable while isolated, or do I want to wait until they've run into their team so I can pop it while they're in the middle of them and get stacks on them, so I can do it again. I'd like to move the % damage to her E detonation and remove Shatter entirely, but I don't know how well that would actually work. Removing the melee synergy means more power can be put into Sejuani herself, and also makes it so that she can't remove her primary counterplay by having short-range teammates.

That's all. Let me know what you think.