User blog comment:LivesByProxy/For The Love Of Stealth/@comment-24420226-20160102215102

The big problem with Quinn's Q is that the nearsight effect is so disruptive and crippling to the victim. Nocturne ultimate has the cooldown of, well, an ultimate, and so he has to be very picky about when he uses it. Grave's smokescreen also has a fairly lengthy cooldown and is on a fairly telegraphed ability that you can see coming. Even if it "hits" you, you still get some time before it blinds you and you can always move out of the area of effect. Quinn's blind is an immediate effect on a skillshot that is fairly easy to hit, with a decently short cooldown and no real penalties to missing it other than not dealing the damage/blind. It's very frustrating to deal with and has little counterplay to it other than to not get hit.

The thing I've always had about vision is that it's the worst form of invisible power in the game - it's something you can't feel the effect of until you are unable to do anything about it. Not warding the river doesn't make you feel weaker as a player, until you get ganked. Not having Dragon warded doesn't feel like a mistake until you see the red text in the chat telling you so. If you do ward up, you feel pretty good about it until the enemy sweeps them up while you are not there to defend them and suddenly you are facechecking bushes against a Blitzcrank.

Or maybe none of that happens at all. It's not that vision like this is an unbalanced form of gameplay. It definitely rewards players who plan ahead and manage tasks well. The problem is most players do not feel and respond to it in this manner. Most players know that vision control is important, and one can learn good habits about it. But as a gameplay experience, on a subconcious and instictual level, most players experience it as something that punishes them for not doing something that may or may not give them an advantage.

Stealth is much the same in that most forms of stealth inherently do not indicate that stealth is occuring. Akali's feels so balanced because it's not just about knowing the area Akali is in; you see that cloud and you know that stealth is happening. You are immediately and acutely aware of the implications. You have a chance to make a proactive decision based on the situation. Rengar's ult is much the same way now too. You see the exclamation mark and you know what is going on so you can start making decisions before you are being punished. If you feel like you don't have the tools available to react fairly, it is likely that you made some other mistake or bad decision and stealth isn't the deciding factor for that outcome of gameplay. You don't need stealth to kill a marksman that is solo farming bot lane when the rest of the team is at blue buff.

Other stealth isn't like this. Twitch often just pops up next to you and starts auto attacking - unless you have been pooping pink wards behind you like bread crumbs you really have no way of knowing Twitch is stalkng you. There is no opportunity to be proactive - you can only react, only after you are already being punished. You are not really outplaying an opponent or gaining an advantage, you are just trying to cut losses. Which is not a fun experience.