Alternative Azir ult idea

Azir's ult, Emperor's Divide, as is, is a bit off. He shoves forth with a line of soldiers, forming a wall. Why? This doesn't really make a great "minion master" ult, as it could very easily just be any "throw up a wall" skill, no real minion thematic to it needed. It interacts with nothing else in his kit, and furthermore, combined with his E, pushes a "Minion master" mage who commands his soldiers from afar, preferring not to get his own hands dirty... into being a front line diver, intent on splitting up the enemy team, and body-checking the enemy with himself. Don't get me wrong, it is a great skill if you could discount it's many many bugs. Just... I don't feel like this fits him. He also has no "synergy" in style with Renekton/Nasus with his ult, which, while if he himself turned into a giant god-bird, it would be no better... what if he could create an "ascended" sentinel with his ult?

Which leads to the skill I thought up, Emperor's Avatar. From the point Azir is standing, Azir summons a Sand Sentinel in his image, which he then kicks back off of while forcing it to ascend by investing his power into it, bouncing himself back and thrusting the Avatar forward a short distance, granting it a larger size, range, duration, and damage, also with a sandstorm surrounding it. Commands like his other soldiers, interacting like the rest with his AAs and Qs, and he can dash to it with his E. After 5 seconds, he can reposition it with another cast of his R (to enable it to be mobile early-game fights, when his Q is still pretty long CD, without making it too mobile later on.) Just an idea for stats, it has 25% increased range and damage from normal, and last 15 seconds, like Nasus's and Renekton's ult. Both the initial "shove" and the secondary dash for his ulted soldier could have a very short mini-knockup (.25 seconds or the like). This new ult, along with a change to his E to not have a %hp based shield, would shove him more into an AP minion mage, focused on staying back, from his currently somewhat divided "half of me wants to sit back and let soldiers do the work, half of me says I should be directly in the middle of the enemy team" thing he currently has going on.

What do you think of think about this different style for Azir's ult, trading his utility for a significant damage increase and stronger thematic match?