User blog comment:JmLyan/Roon, the Wielder of Relics/@comment-7709681-20151217201941/@comment-7481207-20151218134838

His basic abilities are intended to behave similarly to basic attacks, hence them being able to crit, apply on-hit effects, two of them having total AD scalings and their cooldowns being reduced by attack speed. And while attack speed isn't necessarily bad on him (as the stats you would get does increase his basic attack damage), it is mostly there as a few items that would likely be good on him have attack speed, such as Trinity Force, Blade of the Ruined King and Statikk Shiv.

I disagree with total AD scalings being bad on assassins. Several of them do (both primary and secondary assassins), most of the time because those abilities are similar in function to basic attacks, which Roon's Q and E definitely are. The only major differences between total AD scalings and bonus AD scalings is that the former makes the ability scale linearly with levels, and makes it work with Sterak's Gage.

The critical strikes being different is to add some variety to the kit. Relic Arrow benefits most from occasional crits with high critical damage and AD, Soulseeker enjoys higher critical chances to reach max stacks faster and Ritual Blade wants crit chance combined with life steal or on-hit effects to be most effective. While the effects are similar by all increasing damage, different builds favor different abilities. (Also, is this the first time you criticize part of my kit for being too complex rather than too simple?)

The ultimate being able to hard-counter is something I do agree on, and something it can definitely stand to lose.