Design and Playstyle: Riot's Duality

There's been a slew of champion reworks and redesigns lately, the most prominent of which are the recent Sejuani and Trundle reworks. Next up is Master Yi, and taken straight from the forums:

"Alpha Strike has lost its AP ratio... (...)" - Xypherious

Essentially, this is what AP Yi was all about. It's like taking the AP scalings off of... let's say, Zilean's Time Bomb. As such, this change destroys AP Yi as it stands, and this got me dabbing about the time when Riot said they liked alternative builds and encouraged unusual gameplay. If Yi was designed a melee AD Carry, and then AP Yi gets destroyed, where's the alternative build gone to?

This doesn't just apply to Master Yi. There's been the same things going on, most prominently with support champions. Janna lost some of her AP scaling on Zephyr, because it provided too much poke for a support champion. Fair enough, but Riot fails to recognize the fact that this also hurts, if not cripples, the less-played AP Janna, where Zephyr was a powerful and hard-hitting harassing tool.

Nami's initial design had some pretty neat AP Ratios, but during the PBE cycle, she received some AP nerfs, along with some damage nerfs. While I understand the nerfs to her base damage - if she hits like a truck build no AP, imagine it with AP - but nerfing her AP ratios alongside it makes no sense to me. The usual support pattern doesn't exactly include any heavy-hitting AP items, which essentially makes her AP ratios useless while being a support.

Now I'm not trying to tell Riot how to do their job. They have an extensive playerbase and testing platform and receive a lot of feedback, leading to 'balanced' champion releases. But I don't think that AP Ratios make too much a difference on, let's say, support champions. AP Janna is a strong AP mid champion, I'll give her that. But the only thing she has going for her, is her insanely quick waveclear with her Howling Gale allowing her to roam pretty effectively. However, her Monsoon is practically useless in team fights as support Janna mostly uses it for re-positioning enemies, and while her shields through Eye of the Storm are immense, they don't make her invulnerble.

The same goes for Galio. I can hardly remember a time when he was played as a support champion, because his Runic Skin makes for such an awesome anti-mage. However, with the tag still being 'Support', his AP ratios were toned down relentlessly. Both his Q and his E had a 0.8 AP ratio at one point, and both were toned down to what they currently are on live; with the base damages being buffed. If Riot is so concerned with supports dealing too much damage with high enough AP ratios, why make them deal high base damage? 300 base damage on a skill is more than most mages can enjoy, but 0.6 is a saddening AP figure.

You get the point after these examples. In my opinion, it should be more about AP ratios rather than base damage, because they destroy the champion's ability to be played as anything different from their initial design. AP Janna has lost next to all prowess, due to the nerfs to her Zephyr, and Riots bound to destroy AP Yi with the upcoming rework. I'm not asking for a complete revisit on Yi's redesign, but I want to spark a debate as to why champions do or don't get high or low AP ratios - and I'm referring to AP champions mostly, because Sion is bound to get the same treatment as AP Yi - and what you feel is the real approach Riot takes to alternative builds, be they fun or not.