WotA isn’t too hot an ult. It’s not bad, per se (and honestly I find this ult more fun than Angelic Armaments), it’s just not reliable enough for the amount of impact it brings.
If the enemy team has enough health to survive and/or mobility to escape after impact, can CC you out of your channel or even charge, or even has the wherewithal to simply walk away when they see you cast it (I’ve done the math, you can literally outrun this ability by walking directly away from Imperius as he begins casting it) then this ability can basically be a dud for 90% of the game. I’ve gone quite a few games where I’ve landed this ability 0 times, and it isn’t uncommon for me to land no more than 2 in a game.
For such an unreliable ability, extra CDR won’t exactly solve the problem, which is why Unrelenting Descent in no way stacks up to Brand of Solarion. This level 20 ult upgrade is basically just a trap talent, it’s never worth picking.
I’d like to see both of these issues addressed, and I have a couple ideas for how this could be done.
Further and Faster
- Increase WotA’s charge range by 1.
- Cause Unrelenting Descent to reduce the wind-up period of WotA OR increase Imperius’ movement speed while in the air.
The first change will prevent people from simply walking past WotA’s charge range so easily. Sidestepping it will still be just as effective, this will only affect people trying to straight-up outrun it.
Increasing WotA’s cast speed will help prevent it from being interrupted and dodged. Increasing Imperius’ movement speed while airborne will make it more impactful. Both of these together would almost definitely be too much, though, so only one would work.
Unstoppable
Make Imperius Unstoppable during WotA’s wind-up and charge.
WotA is very easy for enemies to interrupt as it is, even by accident. Roots and stuns can cancel this ability during the charge, completely nullifying it and putting it on its 80 second cooldown, while silences and displacements can interrupt the wind-up, putting it on a 10 second cooldown.
Giving him Unstoppable during this period would prevent that, making this ability less unreliable against CC heavy comps.
ROAD ROLLER DA!
This is the really fun one.
- Remove or reduce WotA’s flat damage amount and instead give it %-health based damage, something like 15% of the target’s max health.
- Make Unrelenting Descent deal the damage it deals to its main target in an area around the impact zone. Potentially, it could also apply CC to enemies directly under where Imperius and his target will land.
Bonus points for renaming “Unrelenting Descent” to something more fitting of this new effect. “The Host Descends,” “Heaven’s Fury,” “Thunderous Descent,” something like that.
This could make it a viable strategy to pick up a Tank and then move towards the enemy team, slamming the Tank down on their heads to deal extra damage to them.
Yes, I basically just stole this idea from Sett from LoL’s ult. And would you really not expect me to throw in a Jojo’s reference when talking about an idea I stole from a character who shares a voice actor with Dio?
Also, as a QoL change, it would be nice to see where Imperius and his target will land relative to each other. I can usually tell where they’re going to land (the target always lands directly in front of Imperius in the direction he was traveling before descending), but sometimes I misjudge the exact positions they land in and that can throw my follow-up off.