User blog comment:Ysana/Champion Versatility/@comment-76.246.17.68-20130128044303/@comment-70.29.47.93-20130128090528

I think it was more of a problem of her dominating at those roles. The main characters I see being nerfed for versatility are Supports, and if you think on it, it makes perfect sense. Supports usually have high base damage skills, but really shit scaling, this is so they can still contribute damage without having to build damage items. However, every so often characters are released for the support role(ie: Lulu) that have both high base damage and pretty good scaling. As a result, when Lulu used these traits to her advantage in middle and even top lane, Riot saw fit to nerf her ratios and a bit of her base damage to bring her in line. She can still work in top/mid, but it doesn't feel as dominant as it did upon release.

As for Alistar being nerfed down from his AP variant, it makes sense as well. Alistar has so much built in CC and sustain that if he were allowed to build pure damage and keep his other traits, then he could very easily go out of control. Riot doesn't seek to pigeon hole champions into specific roles, they want to make sure those champions don't get out of hand in the roles they weren't "designed" for.