User blog comment:JmLyan/Roon, the Wielder of Relics/@comment-7709681-20151217201941/@comment-7481207-20151218155059

Directly are not, the ability cooldown are reduced by getting attack speed. The AS -> CDR passive's function is not to make attack speed a desirable stat, but to ensure it is not completely wasted when buying items that have attack speed in addition to actual desired stats.

Removing basic attacks altogether would screw him up if he ever runs out of sigils (which he probably will early on when he can only have 2) and limit sigil generation apart from kills/assists to killing multiple minions with E. This could be compensated with gaining sigils over time, but would again leave him helpless for a while when he's out of sigils. Think of him less as a champion with three different basic attacks and more a champion with three different basic attack modifiers.

Yes critical strike chance causes all abilities to deal more damage, and all interact with life steal. What I was saying was that Q will deal the most damage from an occasional crit, compared to W and E's damage being only slightly boosted. W wants a high critical strike chance more than the others so that at least 2 out of the first 3 hits crit and get you to max stacks as fast as possible. And finally E will scale poorly with crit without any substantial on-hit effects to back it up. Obviously all three abilities benefit from crit chance and lifesteal, but they do so slightly differently, which can change their effectiveness depending on your build, as well as how early in the game it is.