[2019] Zirene gives insight into Riot Champion Design: "CertainlyT has told me verbatim that it is not his job to balance the game"

This was intentional, you know. We knew we were almost certainly going to need to pull out all those buffs and more since we predicted her release balance state to be long term overpowered (est 55% winrate), though we definitely underestimated how bad players would be at her in the first few games. At the end of the day it's important that the game be balanced for now rather than for 3 months down the line, and those "absurd buffs" got her from 32% winrate to 38% winrate when they were micropatched in

Yes, the number one concern the balance team had throughout all of her development was that we would need to crush her for pro until people got much better at playing WITH her (click the damn lantern)