User blog comment:Deshiba/No counterplay/@comment-1330314-20140515231813/@comment-1330314-20140519144117

I actually think is one of the abilities on  that has the most counterplay and associated drawbacks. First off, it takes up an ability slot, so Vi's short on one active compared to most champions, but it's also reliant on a three-attack combo to start working, and even then its main use is to facilitate further three-strike combos. It's similar to : the effect itself is completely uncounterable (percent-health true damage literally counters every tanky stat), but the mechanic it's tied to (three autoattacks in a row) is itself so full of counterplay that it completely justifies the effect. If I were to balance Vi I'd slash the base damage and ratios on her Q and R, reduce the cooldown on her passive and E and increase the damage on her W, that way she'd have a lot less burst but way better continuous brawling potential. Because most of her power would be tied to a mechanic that invites her opponent to CC her and/or get out of her range or even burst her down, i.e. that has a lot of counterplay, she'd be a lot more manageable, including when she ults a squishy (the percent-health damage would also help, since it would hurt tanks a lot more than squishies).

Let's take a look at the math: provides 12% life steal. To be able to heal 52 health per hit, Vi would need a massive 433.3 AD. If you assume that she has up all the time (and by all the time I mean that is literally the only way she is autoattacking) that would bring the AD requirement to a more manageable 316 AD. Vi's base AD, plus Ravenous Hydra's AD, plus the 16 bonus AD from masteries, plus 42 AD from a full AD per level rune page, times the 5% increased bonus AD from masteries, brings us to a total of 253 AD. Even with all of that, you're still going to need 60 more AD from items, which means a  isn't quite going to cut it. You could always pick a, but the problem with all of this is that it makes your champion so squishy that you're going to end up getting destroyed by burst the moment you go near the enemy team. doesn't apply life steal, by the way. So all in all, you're not going to outsustain even current, unless you're ready to turn yourself into a glass cannon. Your Vi may certainly outdamage Warwick with just a Hydra (insofar as he doesn't stack Feral Flare too highly and/or doesn't follow up with ), but she'd have to sacrifice a lot to do everything he does. New Warwick just goes way beyond all this, being able to outsustain his current kit with a little under 1000 bonus health and defensive masteries.

I have the feeling that changing those champions' ultimates and shifting the power elsewhere in their kit would actually fundamentally change their playstyle. Their hard initiating potential is a core part of their identity, so you're stuck either keeping their identity but making them less good at hard initiating by dint of a less reliable ult, or changing their identity and ending up with a slightly different champion on your hands when the original wasn't really broken. My own opinion is that these ults are actually fun: it can be extremely satisfying to land a ult on the entire enemy team, and the frustration felt on the other side is usually far less than this feeling of triumph. Likewise, it can be extremely satisfying to force champions like Malph or to use their long-cooldown, teamfight-changing ultimates to run away from you instead of initiating on you later.