It's a good skill it's just not 5 free linkens, which a cursory reading of your post might suggest it is.
Yeah, probably should've clarified a bit better, but I was in a bit of a hurry at the time (and only slightly overcome by nostalgia for her). Fun is running away low health from a Lion or Lina, hitting Refraction and watching as they use their ultimate... then stare, dumbfounded as to why it didn't kill you.
Sure, certain skills can negate it or severely reduce its effectiveness, but it is a fairly unique mechanic in how extremely useful it can be in certain situations. Lanaya as a whole requires more thinking than the average hero, since you need to determine how best your shield would be used, either to attack an enemy directly or indirectly through the spill damage, where Melding would yield the best results (middle of the lane? Near their tower, but out of True Sight range where they didn't have vision two seconds ago?), predicting paths that enemies will take in order to predetermine trap placement...
A real sneaky bastardette, but fun with a bit of strategizing. Also, anti armor absolutely
wrecks squishier heroes, since you end up doing a percentage more on the attacks. Come to think of it, if the mechanics remained the same, you generally don't want to hit the heroes in lane, since reducing a creep's armor and causing spill True damage behind it yields more overall damage than attacking them directly.
Kinda like an old build for Kunkka I used to play with: 4 Battlefuries, Boots and Lothars (now Shadow Blade, I think). Stealth-run up to an enemy farming, hit the creep
next to them, and instantly deal 240% of your beefy attack damage (plus the additional damage from breaking stealth in Lothars) and watch as the enemy absolutely melts, along with their creep wave... Good times.