User blog comment:Willbachbakal/(Champion Rework) Lee Sin, the Blind Monk/@comment-5663427-20140918144645/@comment-1330314-20140918200322

The thought process behind what I made was that Lee Sin in his current form is overloaded, but not specifically overpowered, so he doesn't need to flat-out lose power. My intent isn't to buff or nerf Lee, but rather concentrate his power into fewer domains while giving him legitimate weaknesses. If anything, I'd rather make him too strong with these changes than too weak, as it at least conveys my intent to still keep Lee Sin as an amazing and powerful champion. PrimusMobileVzla summed it up pretty well, but the Lee I want to have is a Lee who's still amazing at what he does best (epic monster stealing, ganking, contributing late-game utility), who trades off all of his less interesting power (sustain, true sight), as well as a small amount of early game dominance, in exchange for better late-game scaling on all of his coolest features.

You may not realize it, but the removal of Lee's lifesteal/spellvamp and about half of his base health regen, plus the removal of his true sight, are massive nerfs that would flip him over from one of the champions with top-tier sustain into one of the champions with the weakest sustain around (plus he doesn't get to override stealth anymore). His mobility would be justified now as he'd need to use it in order to avoid taking damage, which would stick a lot more. Switching Tempest's damage from magic to physical would make him a better assassin (assassin Lee Sin isn't entirely viable right now), but would also make him a lot easier to counter. I want assassin Lee Sin to be viable (and full-damage Lee is not an unhealthy playstyle in itself), but I mainly want to cater to Lee's current power progression, where he mainly contributes damage early and then becomes a major utility provider as he builds more like a bruiser. Lee top is a fine option, provided he has proper weaknesses and tradeoffs, which these changes should hopefully bring: with these changes, Lee would no longer be able to sustain for free, and all damage dealt to him would stick, so he'd be very easy to force out of lane. He'd also have clear moments of weakness, as his early energy costs would require him to land autoattacks whenever he can, but during that time his power output is at its lowest. He's still intended to be strong, and he'd be stronger at what he does best, but he'd no longer be good at a lot of other things (he'd still be one of the best ganking junglers, but would be terrible at sustained fighting when counterjungling and at sustaining himself in the jungle, for example), which should make space for junglers who can survive Lee Sin's early game, not because their early game is comparably scary, but because they'd get to do stuff he couldn't.