User blog comment:JmLyan/CCC5 - Alyssa, the Origin of That Which is Round/@comment-5638912-20140908005436/@comment-7481207-20140908160611

Her health is actually lower than Syndra's, and while it's level 1 value is roughly the same as hers, due to the low scaling it ends up at bottom 4 at level 18, so far from a "tanky Syndra" I'd say. Mana is similarly based on Syndra's, and although her mana costs are higher, her spells are less spammable than Alyssa's.

The item adds another source for creating orbs, which is useful for gather. The more orbs, the higher damage gather can deal. As for the no damage thing, it clearly says "While stationary", it will still deal damage while moving like any other magic orb. The orb from the item is also the only one that ever stays, all other (including orbs from the item that has been moved by gather) disappear when reaching their destination. The orb from the item also grants vision, unlike other orbs, so it somewhat substitues for the lack of other vision trinkets (it also has 50% greater cast range than vision totem).

Every individual orb doesn't deal much damage no, but the fact that she can juggle them with her Q, unleash alot of them with her W or ult and then force them to pass through enemies a second time with E adds up. Sperical Form into someone's face deals 560 for example.

Decreasing mana cost is due to it having little that scales with level otherwise, and by the way, Lucian's E got lower mana costs per level before the cost got removed entirely. The orbiting orbs being used for other abilities is like saying Akali's Essence of Shadow from her ultimate should be used by her other abilities. The orbiting orbs is a charge mechanic for her Q, just like Vel'Koz W uses a charge mechanic.

Spherical Form is an escape mostly, but damage wise encourages using it offensively. And as for long-range not getting dashes, her ranges aren't as spectacular as you make them out to be. Her longest range basic ability is outranged by Karma's Q, and that one isn't famous for its long range. Lux, who is an actual long-range mage, has ranges around 1100-1200 on all her spells.

Dash speed would most likely be rather average, not very long untargetability but neither too short window to actually use gather. Due to dash speed being unspecified on the wiki for the most part, I really can't put in a numerical value as I have nothing to compare to. The dash itself is like Nidalee's pounce: under normal conditions location targeted, but it can also target a unit (origin orb) to dash longer, like Nida can target hunted units. Being a possible global dash is an oversight, while teleport+W requires two rather high cooldowns and actually picking teleport over ignite for example, the origin orb could also be used together with recall to quickly return to lane.

Gather, as mentioned before, effectively "deletes" orbs from her items and that orb is the only one remaining on the field. This rather limits how many she can control. The reason she can use gather during her channeled ultimate is so she can redirect orbs created by it. For the record, while Lucian's ultimate isn't your typical channeled ability, he can use another ability during it for similar reasons.

Gather can be used to turn your orbs 180 degress without changing the angle of firing, as any orbs that have passed the cursor will turn back towards it. You can also quickly redirect orbs and then return to your original trajectory, although this requires smartcast as you said (which I recommened in general and is probably a must for gather whether used with the ultimate or not).

The gather CDR reset is useful, 4 seconds is longer than the duration of the ultimate, but should you score a kill in the middle of it, you can cast gather a second time (possibly on the same orbs you got the kill with before they disappear).

The ultimate's range is FAR from impressive, Lucian's ultimate which is functionally similar has 1400 range.

The origin orb interaction with Q is not very impressive I agree, but picking it up while one of your 3 orbs are midflight (preferably by dashing to it with W) allows you to effectively have 4 orbs. And it can also be useful as dropping orbs are easier then dropping Gnar's boomerang, as orbs need to hit a champion to make them return to you.