User blog:Willbachbakal/(Champion Rework) Caitlyn, the Sheriff of Piltover

This is a tentative rework for Caitlyn, the Sheriff of Piltover. For a long time, Cait's been prominent in the competitive scene as the premium lane bot lane bully, sacrificing late-game scaling in exchange for powerful early game poke and harass. As a marksman originally made to succeed as a mid lane, it's not surprising that Caitlyn is strong in lane, but that strength often doesn't manifest itself in the best ways, as her massive range has forced her to be underwhelming at pretty much everything else, including her autoattacking power, to the point where she's stopped being truly satisfying to play. Perhaps just as importantly, though, despite supposedly being the game's sniper marksman, her kit is pretty much antithetical to a sniper's in many ways: her passive is the opposite of one shot, one kill, her main nuke plows through multiple targets and tends to deal less damage the farther it travels, and her point-and-click ultimate offers no potential for the player to truly express their sniping skills. Caitlyn's outdated in many ways, with visuals, gameplay and even a niche that are aren't on par with Riot's modern design standards.

Overall, one of the main problems with Cait right now is that she has a bit of everything (e.g. poke, CC, mobility, DPS, burst), but doesn't have any of it in truly amazing amounts, which is why she can often be oppressive early and disappointing later on. Her abilities also don't really sync well with each other or her build: there's no real reason for her to have a dash, her Q can actually end up dealing less damage than her basic attacks, and her biggest synergy is the interaction between her traps and her ultimate, which doesn't happen that often. I think Cait deserves to keep a lot of her tools, but also needs an ability set that truly makes her function like a sniper, emphasizing precise aim and planning over just run-of-the-mill persistent autoattacking, and thereby be the absolute strongest marksman in several core respects (namely range and squishy-busting) while also having major drawbacks (e.g. overall immobility, less reliability on autoattacks, some of the worst waveclear around).

Abilities
What do you think of these changes? Do you think this would be a good sniper kit? Would it be appropriate for Caitlyn, or does she have a niche of her own? Would playing this kit interest you?