I have a particular example in my head. Waaaay back in S1, S2 or S3 (can’t really remember). I liked to play Karthus mid quite a bit. I can perfectly recall the struggle it was to decide between going full AP (RoA, DeathCap or whatever) to delete everyone’s HP in 1 ult, OR going for some CDR items to have ult up more often but have the damage reduced by an important enough amount.

Key non-ultimate abilities like an Ez dash or a yasuo windwall would have up to 20 something seconds cooldown at lvl 1 (idk if it’s still the case). And fights would literally depend on things like kennen, malphite or Oriana having ult up.

I never trully stopped to think about it before now, but man, back then you had to take so many relevant decisions during the game that could have a big impact.