Coming back as someone who mained her during her first 1-2 years of release... I personally think she's way more fun now.

I liked her concept a lot upon release, I didn't have a great early skirmisher in my jungle roster, so she filled that niche nicely.

However, I eventually stuck to my bigger mains, because eventually she just felt like she had the feast or famine nature of being an assassin, without actually being an assassin. But she also lacked the utility of other early skirmishers like a Lee or Xin, that still make them relevant even if they fall behind. In a lot of ways to me it felt like playing a worse Graves.

I think this hyperscaling identity suits her thematically and gameplay-wise so much more. I get that when you main a champ it's annoying when riot messes with it, I experienced this with Kayn and Shyvana. So I can get why people are annoyed that she was changed, when it wasn't super necessary for her to change. But I think this gives her a much stronger identity/role to fill in.

Sure, it's a bit of a mish mosh of Yi and Viego, but honestly by mid-game I didn't feel she played much differently than she did pre-rework anyways, except now she's just an absolute monster late game on top of that, and has a more guaranteed path to success. Rather than the more grey area she existed in before (in my opinion).

Just dropped 21 kills in my first game with her in high emerald/low diamond (after a shitty early game of being invaded with no rotation from my team), and I ended up outscaling a Yone and a full crit Tryndamere. I managed to base defend a 1v3 at nexus turrets while enemy team had baron, because it was late game and my wave clear was insane at that point.

The AP changes also allowed me to build Zhonya's which saved multiple fights. I maxed E after 3 points in Q, and that felt really good, secured probably 3 different double kills with an E bait alone.

Now, I know I'm biased because I typically play champs who scale and sacrifice their early game, i.e. Kayn or Shyvana, but even so, in the late game I haven't felt that powerful on a champ in a loong time.

Yes, she's super weak early now. But I do believe they've successfully made her a late game monster, and to me it just fits her so well. It's also nice actually being able to play half the game as her true form.