I agree with most of what you said but not what you said about tornado.
The counterplay to tornado is what you’ve played before the tornado.
I agree tornado has some problems but it sounds like you have a problem with tornado fundamentally because the nerfs you proposed change essentially nothing about tornado.
Creating a .5 second windup just slightly changes the timings.
Adding an indicator wouldn’t change anything it would make it similar to lightning does that add counter play in a different way?
Just like lightning the counterplay comes before they play tornado.