Regarding Lissandra's preemptive nerfs - Why this was carried out the wrong way

Two different styles of Lissandra gameplay with two different goals based on gameplay environemnt So as we know, Lissandra was granted a new passive recently (and skins woo), and as a long time Liss main I was ecstatic.

I've mained Lissandra for the last few years, and from the get go I experimented building her with a heavier focus on damage rather than survivability, and found that I could more reliably carry games wherein I opted out of the common defensive builds of roa+zhonya etc in order to function as a legitimate damage threat for my team.

Her 4 aoe spells greatly facilitated this goal and I saw great success, and felt much more skill expressive due to the tighter margins when it came to errors. I had to consistently play well and could not afford to make mistakes, but was rewarded highly for choosing the right plays, correct ability usage etc.

I understand that pro players prefer to pick her more for her utility than damage, however in soloqueue your team mates are nowhere near as reliable. That solo carry aspect of being a main aoe damage dealers is really her most valuable asset outside of pro play.

The aftershock build that is currently being used in pro play is being mirrored in soloqueue, but at a much lower success rate than an experienced lissandra main building for damage.

The aftershock build essentially makes it alot easier for players who are inexperienced on Lissandra to function, because it makes her weaknesses less abusable. Lissandra lacks sustain and defensive steroids in her kit, as well as lacking damage early thanks to her low base damages. During this low damage stage and because of that poor regen and low range, she is very susceptible to being poked out of lane or all-inned. Aftershock negates most damage in trades because it can be instantly activated and she gets extra regeneration/tank scaling from resolve. This turns many of her previous skill matchups vs assassins or champions that need to get into melee with her in general into pretty hopeless negative trades for the melee player.

It allows the lissandra player to stall for their team during a teamfight and survive longer than usual, especially against burst. This however comes at the cost of a significant portion of her damage as well as a much smaller mana pool to work with, making the lissandra player heavily reliant on her team's followup and subsequent performance during the fight.

As I stated earlier, this is the major flaw when it comes to this build in soloqueue, you are far too reliant on your team to carry under your own power. Aftershock or tank Lissandra will get outscaled damage-wise and be relegated to being a cc bot for her team as the game carries on.

Why was she nerfed? I believe that there were two reasons for Lissandra to get nerfed with the new passive:

1. The issue with the aftershock build being too reliable was aknowledged and it was released alongside the passive change in order to keep those players of the new less-punishable build from becoming oppressively strong.
2. The simple possibility of the extra damage of thralls may make Lissandra too strong in general regardless of build.

These changes however have made building her for damage and carrying unviable, as I will explain:

Lissandra's ability max for damage is q max->3 points w->e max.

This is done because of the following reasons:

• The damage from w is much more reliable versus multiple targets
• The root duration at 3 points roughly matches the time it takes for her ult to spread towards a target if you use w then ult yourself and they are near max range.
• Lissandra's e cooldown is extremely long early, making it unusable as a trading tool. It is only used to engage for all ins.
• Lissandra will blink to her e early to root at target with w the moment she enters range to hit them with it in order to lower the amount of time opponents have to react. This can guarantee kills on targets who have flash, as they do not expect the Lissandra player to root them so quickly.
• The low ratio on w (40%) while the ratio on e is rather high (60%) means that e can be allowed to scale with the ap the lissandra picks up as the game goes on. When purchasing luden's first, the ap and 20% cdr help mitigate the delay in putting points in e, allowing the lissandra to do alot more consistent damage with her all in combo using e as a gap closer.
• Lissandra can use a combination of 1 q and w to clear the wave while keeping her long e cooldown preserved for an escape.

Because of Lissandra's low base damages raw ap components are usually rushed in order to make use of the scalings on her abilities for damage, there is also a heavy focus on a minimum requirement of roughly 30% cdr . For this reason luden's is usually rushed on her, and with the season being particularly bursty, at least one hp/ap item is purchased after that. This item is either morello or liandry's. The recent buff to liandry's adding 10% extra damage was a very nice bump in power that brought Lissandra into a good spot.

Based on the ability maxes and item preferences, we now look to why this build has been impacted so much by the recent changes:

• Lower damage makes it flat out more difficult to cs and waveclear, pairing this with earlier cannon wave spawn times and Lissandra is now alot more tied up clearing waves and struggling to maintain her mana pool in the mid game.
• Ratio nerf makes the damage in an all in lackluster and encourages the Lissandra player to max e for damage in a fight instead of w, when they will likely not end up using the damage on e unless the opponent misplays.
• Addition of 6-12 mr in runes as well as the compensation mr per level for ranged champions stack on top of the damage nerfs to make it impossible for a lissandra to punish an opponent by killing them. Her low base damages and long cooldownsm make it too high/risky early game to trade with opponents in a positive manner. Lissandra really struggles into even small mr purchases like null mantle while ahead until she gets a void staff.

Another flaw that I would like to point out in the changes is that the mana cost reductions where nowhere near what were expected upon the removal of her old mana passive, resulting in a mana item becoming an absolute requirement for Lissandra. This change alone I believe would hurt the aftershock build alot, as it forces that build into utilizing a mana item instead of functioning manalessly.

I do not think the cost reductions were effective. as for the q cost change, Lissandra 10/10 rushes q max every time, resulting in a q cost reduction of only 3 mana overall (60-72 down from 75), this has seen Lissandra players become much more mana hungry than before due to how frequently she has to cast it. While the cost on w being reduced by 10 does not mean much as the cost was already negligable at 50 mana for a long cooldown.

Her e mana cost could have been normalized from 80-100 mana to 80 at all ranks, and her q lowered to be in line with other control mages such as orianna (30-50) and syndra (40-80).

In response to her damages being lowered to create space for damage in her passive, I would like to say that this too is flawed. The passive as it stands is a win-more passive. It promotes you killing a target and fills the negative space that Lissandra has between her cooldowns coming back up, giving her time to retreat after expending them, or press the attack as her thralls chase people down. Lissandra however cannot achieve this fantasy if she does not have the innate damage to kill a target or start a snowball. Lissandra players don't feel like the thralls are happening becuase of how effective they're being, more like it's just because they're in the fight and nothing else. To tackle this passive being a problem on her tankier/aftershock builds damage-wise, the base damage could be lowered and ratio increased to favor ap-focused builds.

Sadly, due to aftershock/tank players being more accustomed to dealing less damage, they do not see the nerfs as a significant hit to her effectiveness because they pick her for team-oriented purposes such as crowd control or stalling. While damage-heavy Lissandra players are unable to influence the game as they aim to by being a significant aoe damage source for their team and being able to eliminate targets.