Riot, MYMU lackluster ult direction
In the upcoming mage update i see a lot of changes to the mages i hold near and dear. The one thing commonly being changed seems to be some lackluster ults. 3 of my favorite champs are all getting ult changes and i was hoping for some clarity on what direction you're taking them. Kennen, Xerath, and Brand are those 3 champs.
Brands ult i am excited to see worked on. Often times i can cast it into a group of 3 champs under the enemy turret, they see the slow ass fireball coming and spread out, it hits one target and dies. Or goes off to a minion wave and hurts no one. How were you thinking of changing this? Scrap the whole bouncing fireball concept all together, or provide more player input for targeting? Also, his e feels weak but it his bread and butter for setting up his combo. Really curious how you guys handle that.
Kennens ult i am somewhat excited to see worked on. As a big spell-vamp kennen adc player that ult is the bread and butter. It only feels a bit lacking when i don't get stuns. Its hard to ever see individual lighting striking for damage, and sometimes i pop ult and feel like it did nothing at all if it hit targets with just 1 mark of storm. you say you're looking or higher payoff and satisfaction when a perfect ult is set up, how are you planning on achieving higher satisfaction without guaranteeing more stuns? Are you looking at his passive at all? Also, with itemization changes, how do you see kennen falling into place with his lack of mana? Would he still be able to take advantage of some of the "mana" use healing?
Xeraths ult i am not happy to see being worked on. I am rather new with xerath, only level 4 mastery. Still i have landed a few S ranked games on him and am spamming him mid recently. The ult is good, its just as good as jhins. The glaring weakness being immobility and fog of war, but power in range. "Make Rite of the Arcane feel like a meaningful crescendo for Xerath’s poke-pattern" is what your objective is here. How are you planning on doing this? Making a different but more spammable ult? also, how do you intend to make it "more fair" for people to play against his dominant range? he's a lot like sol in the fact if you get in his face hes dead. Thats a fair play-around. I liked this ult, especially after i figured out use spooky ghosts to find enemies in fog of war before casting. This one worries me most.
(P. S) Spell vamp? Spell vamp kennen is the only thing saving my life when im stuck adc. I have spellvamp quints on him and always take hextech gunblade. It's a shame Riot sees vlad as the only user of spellvamp. These changes will make spellvamp fizz harder too. Do you eventually plan on just removing this from the game and replacing it with the "use mana get health" concept?
All in all im happy with the direction Riot is taking the update. When i heard "immobile mage rework" and all these champs i love in the roster i feared you were removing parts of their kits to give them mobility instead. Very happy this wasn't the scenario.
TL;DR. Brand, kennen, and xerath (i guess) have lackluster ults being looked at in the scope of the upcoming rework. What are the plans to make these ults feel more impactful and satisfying?