An Idea for Xerath ultimate

Papy Mougeot·Jun 3, 2014·1 votes·834 views

I have a suggestion for Xerath's ultimate.

I really want to bring back the big aoe ultimate and a lot of people share the desire of him being an aoe tank burster.

New Xerath ultimate :

ACTIVE: Xerath anchors himself to his current location for up to 10 seconds and gain 30% magic penetration. While anchored, Xerath is immune to displacement effects and gains the ability to cast Rite of the Arcane Arcane Barrage up to three times, but cannot cast his other abilities. ACTIVE: Xerath calls down a blast of arcane energy which strikes after a 0.5 second delay, dealing magic damage to enemies within a medium area.

MAGIC DAMAGE: 100 / 125 / 150(+ 30% AP) MAXIMUM SINGLE TARGET DAMAGE: 300 / 375 / 450 (+ 90% AP) The impact create an area of pure magic that burn his enemies. MAGIC DAMAGE: 8 / 10 / 12 (?) %hp magic damage over 3(?) seconds. Those area of damage stacks for 50% of the initial damage.

Rite of the Arcane can be cancelled early by moving or attacking and will automatically end once Arcane Barrage has been cast 3 times. If Rite of the Arcane ends without using a single cast of Arcane Barrage, the cooldown is reduced by 50%. Interrupting crowd control effects, with the exception of displacement effects, will interrupt Rite of the Arcane and put it on full cooldown.

I don't know how much for the range of this spell but it should be at least about 1400 range like the old "with locust" ulimate and the AOE should be like the old ultimate too.

The idea is just to reduce the impact damage because it had no counterplay (I'm talking about the old ultimate) and I want to bring back the tank burster(or tank killer) with a cool area of damage effect.

It shouldn't be an ultimate that destroy an entire team by itself but just an AOE ultimate. The numbers are probably completely unbalanced but it's to give an idea.

If you ever liked old xerath like me and don't like much the current ultimate, please leave a comment.

7 Comments

Sire HippingtonJun 3, 20141 votes

I don't like the new ult to much, but i also don't likr ur idea to be honest.
Giving him %pen and %health dmg means their is no way to counterbuilt his dmg, and it would make him yet again a tankkiller, wich they wanted to avoid as he should feel like a snipermage aiming for squishy targets, not a brute force obliterating anytarget(old xerath).

Also, the impact dmg got counterplay, it'S actually pretty easy to dodge his ult, wich is one of his biggest flaws atm. The current Ult deals to much dmg in an ideal case(3 hits), but is so hard to land that it's mostly underwhelming rather than devastating.

For me it neither gives the old Huge impact-blast feeling(wich is probably due to the small aoe and puny particles, nor does it give a bombard feeling.

I have 2 ideas in mind to improve his ult:

-Increase the aoe, slightly reduce the dmg, add a damage drop-off similar to hydra/tiamat, and improve the visuals!

With that change u would still get rewarded for direct hits, but ur chance to deal atleast some dmg would be higher aswell as the aoe-dmg in clashes

-Inrease the number of shots to 6, reduce the dmg of aditional hits by 50%(so 350% dmg if u hit all 6, compared to the urrent 300% for 3 hits)

This would allow a more meaningfull decision between focusing 1 target or spreading out the dmg, and it would atleast feel like bombarding an area with a magical artillery.

Besides that, i think Q self slow should go from 50% to 33%, so it is online with other move+charge spells like Varus' Q.

Papy MougeotJun 3, 20141 votes

"Also, the impact dmg got counterplay, it'S actually pretty easy to dodge his ult, wich is one of his biggest flaws atm" When I say the impact damage had no counterplay, I'm talking about the old one. And they allowed counterplay with the new ultimate and now it's completely a joke as it is easy to dodge it. That's why I splited the skill in 2 part. One with little counterplay but not really strong.

For the %hp magic damage area dot, it's just a suggestion. I know it could be a bad thing to put both %hp damage and %penetration (hey vayne) but yeah it's just a suggestion.

KhodexusJun 14, 20141 votes

I had a thought of my own for Xerath's ult. I think his new ult is good, but it just doesn't feel right to me. So, like the OP, I tried to brainstorm what it SHOULD feel like. And I came up with something that really will feel like an artillery barrage.

Basically, when you activate your ult, you're rooted, just like now, but after 2 seconds, Xerath automatically fires a shot wherever your cursor is aimed, with about half the blast diameter as the current shot, and significantly less damage. This shot costs a small amount of mana. After another 1.95 seconds, he fires another shot, same as the first, but it costs slightly more mana. Then another at 1.90, 1.85, etc. This caps out at one shot per 1.5/1.25/1 seconds, each one costs a bit more mana than the last, and while Xerath is channeling his ultimate, he loses all mana and health regen (so he can't just keep it going forever with enough mana regen, or by just sitting in the base). He can still be healed/given mana, but does not regen either, even through potions.

In addition, the range doesn't increase with the second and third point, instead, the longer he channels his range gradually expands, and like now, it's shown on the map/screen to friendly and enemy players alike. And additional points in the power increase the speed at which his range increases, as well as the base damage of the shots.

Finally, the ability as a whole has a cooldown that starts once you end/cancel the channel. Numbers would have to be tweaked and playtested for balance, of course, but I'm thinking relatively short, say 30/25/20 seconds.

It's practically a toggle, that allows him to just barrage enemies at range, but unlike his current ult, he doesn't gain vision where his shots land, just gets to pump out tons of shots, at the cost of his mana dwindling with increasing rapidity.

I think this would fit his theme/role very well. From a purely flavor standpoint, it's what I'd like to see, and I think the mechanics could be made to work and not be too strong or weak.

What do you think?

Papy MougeotJun 14, 20141 votes

Well, my whole point is to remove the super small sized missiles and to bring back the barrage of huge missiles with a big area of damage. You will understand that I won't support your idea. But thanks for the reply.

KhodexusJun 24, 20141 votes

Well the point of this idea is to represent a true barrage, capable of potentially hitting a much wider area than even the original ultimate did. The problem with the smaller missiles, is that it limits the reliability of the power, even with 3 shots, but if you increase the number of shots so you can get a literal barrage of arcane energy, you don't need the larger blasts. If we want a single high damage high area nuke, we need look no further than Ziggs. If we want a long range high damage sniper shot, we can go play Caitlyn, or Lux for that matter. Xerath is the artillery mage, so his ultimate, in my mind, should resemble an actual artillery barrage, not just be a weaker version of Ziggs ult that you can use 3 times.

Papy MougeotJun 24, 20141 votes

With 3 small ziggs ultimate (in damage, the area should be about the same), you can cover a much bigger area and bring the feeling of a large area of explosions. The aoe ground targeted Dot could be with arcane burn VFX and could represent the destruction of the land like an artillery would do.

KhodexusJun 25, 20141 votes

I just don't honestly feel that adds significantly to his gameplay. As I already said, I don't want his ultimate to be just like Ziggs ultimate, only smaller, or weaker, or both. I want it to be uniquely his, and to give the feel of him unleashing an actual Arcane Barrage, not just tossing out a few extra shots.