la la la la, la la la la, la la la la laa la-la

I think you'll all probably agree with me when I say that one of the reasons Awesomenauts is enjoyable, is because it allows for players to use a certain amount of creative strategy with any of the current fifteen characters. And fifteen characters may not seem like a lot, when compared to the hundreds of characters in many of the other action strategy games out there, but numbers can be deceiving. Few characters have any direct "counter", leaving it entirely up to the player to choose the strategy with which they think they'll be able to best the opposing team. I mean, let's have a few examples.

Derpl is my main, so I'm most acquainted with him. He has three different builds that I generally use.
Siege Derpl, who specializes in powerful nukes, machine gun fire, and high defensive properties.
Catling Derpl, who maxes out his auto attack, generally with at least damage and attack speed upgrades.
Trap Derpl, who ignores nuke power in favor of maxing out his traps and inhibiting enemy movement.

Coco similarly has a lot of nice builds.
Lightning Coco focuses on immediately upgrading the ball lightning, so that you're a powerful sniping force for retreating characters.
Blaze Coco, who masters the blaze trail, serves to rush in, surround the enemy with DoT/slowing particles, which will stall them enough for her slower teammates to catch up to them and inflict damage.
Turret Coco focuses only on her auto attack, and upgrades it to to high damage for hit and run turret tactics.

Even Yuri, who is generally accepted as one of the worst Awesomenauts at this point in the game, has a good amount of variety. The different mine effects allow for some different placement strategies, and the new upgrades to his aura and laser are steadily beginning to make non-mining builds viable strategies.

But Ayla... what does she have? Let's take a quick look at her attacks.
Rage. Rage is pretty much Ayla's signature move at this point in the game. It's perfect for cleaning up retreaters, and even just chasing down weaker characters. The fact that you can hit people from all angles with it means that when facing one-directional characters like Gnaw or Leon in a one on one battle, Ayla will have the definite advantage.
Third Eye. As opposed to rage, which is a life sapper over time, Third Eye serves as little more than an instrument with which you can finish off an object of your rage with, or slow them in order to begin rage. It can't really hold its own. The one exception to that however, is when you're playing with a group of heavy characters, because you can hide behind them and then shoot the third eye out for surprise damage. However, ultimately this is pointless because Coco can do that exact same thing with lightning, but in a much more effective manner.
Chain Whip. Probably the worst of Ayla's moves, this thing is literally only good for taking down turrets. When you really think about it, it's just a recolor of Leon's slash. But unlike Leon, Ayla can't cloak and surprise people with it. Besides, why would you use this to attack people anyways, when you could just Rage, and take less damage, deal damage in a higher radius, AND have boosted movement speed and lifesteal?

This is all to say, that there is only one effective way of playing Ayla. Rage people, use the third eye to finish them off, and the chain whip on turrets. Whereas people like Gnaw are bursting with different play styles, Ayla has only one. And goodness, look at all the incredibly boring tiles she has! Rubber Band Ball is hilariously useless because it makes only the slightest difference and will ALWAYS be passed up in favor of something that has more versatility. Though she has three nice moves on her chain whip, like the maximum health upgrade, critter mark, and the ion blowtorch that increases her damage when around weak players, none of those really serve to give the player strategy options. In the end, they all boil down to 'chasing down the weak with rage as long and effectively as you can.' Not one other character in the game has such little variety.

tl;dr, what needs to be done to fix these issues?

#1: Change up her auto attack. As aforementioned, her autoattack is basically a recolor of Gnaw and Leon's autoattack, but without the benefits that both of those receive from their respective abilities. Perhaps instead of what it currently is, it could act more like a ball and chain, where the player has to give some time to allow it to swing, and it is manipulable as it is extended?

#2: Drastically boost Rubber Band Ball's effect, and possibly make it increase attack speed instead of just movement speed.

These two things alone would create a satisfying amount of variety, but as long as I'm on the subject, I have some more suggestions.

#3: Replace the Fake Family Photos (which I've never seen to be useful at all) with a different object, maybe one that makes the third eye home in like Clunk's missiles.

#4: Lastly, and this may just be my opinion, but considering that the only time a person is ever using the current chain whip is against turrets, it makes Hungry Zurian utterly and completely useless. Why not replace it with something more exciting and useful?