Hey guys I have been playing dragons lately and was thinking about using imperator, until i looked at him. Why is a unit with no basic attack and no sand synergy, sandbagged with desert walker and costed at 96 nora with no defensive abilities and only 2 lvl 2 aoes? They should change his name to skywing shoeboxer. Thoughts please
Not having a basic attack should REALLY come with a nora cost reduction (unless you have 0 damage, since passive supports would be far too cheap then). On the other hand, since he can use one cone every turn those are more-or-less super expensive basic attacks (why do basic attacks cost zero across the board, anyway? Attack: LoL and Attack: Net at LEAST should cost a few nora...). But yeah, Desert Walker makes little sense; Dragons have no sand synergy AFAIK (Sand Dragon isn't even a dragon anymore ; _.
Because he used to have awesome sand synergy, but the good part was removed with the revamp and now he is the pile of awful you see before you.
Looking at him he's definietly not the most efficient champ, unlike say the skeezicks cannonier who is arguably the most efficient Ranged champ in the game, and the sand ability is just baggage, and dragon flight won't really help you in a sand BG as I don't believe there are any Dragons benefiting from sand. All that being said those two breathes are upgradable to level 3 AND he is an acolyte of BOTH of their alt damage types. So as it stands he could be quite tanky and dps'ey, and debuff-ey-ey. So in a sand deck he could very much lead the charge to break open the enemies defenses supported by sand units hiding around him or with sand strike to finish off those poor unfortunate souls in front of him. Think of it this way, he is like the panzer of the sand blitzkrieg being followed by the hordes of infantry ready to spill across the enemies lines once he forces his way through. Not so very far removed from the UD lava blitzkrieg of 1-2 nightmares trudging along the battlefield with magma bunnies in their burning wake replicating behind them and waiting to attack. Arguably one of the most efficient lava strategies in the game. Edit: I keep forgetting about the Varu Dragon, so yes his dragon flight and sand walker make these two two peas in a pod! A double dosing of panzer blitzkrieg-ey-ey-ey goodness breathing, debuffing, and charging into the enemies formations like Custer leading his men into the Little Bighorn!
Am I? I just pointed out that there is only ONE rune in the entire game that can benefit from both of his passives, Varu Dragon; coming out cheaper and getting sand strike, but really you'd want to use that sandbreath for a sweet double dragon double breath smorgasbord. That's just one rune that IS NOT the rune that the abilities are on. I also pointed out that given all of his abilites he can only efficiently (buzzword of the day) fulfill ONE role, and that's of a front line beater/support for ONE specific type of BG - sand. Also that he would HAVE to be supported by other champs who directly benefit from his sand passive. Also while I didn't state it that's also a BG theme that is NOT competitive post revamp or in the meta. Also those breath upgrades will make him a 100 nora cost rune, all for a guy with no basic attack and very specific ability paradigm. Edit: also I think you misinterpreted some of the sarcasm in my post, it was disguised as unabashed excitement though so I don't blame you
Yes I think a decent to heavy nora discount on ALL runes without a basic attack should be in order. Unless those runes are already under 60 nora. If they want to keep desert walker they should stick it in his upgrade path and flip his breath and acolyte abilties, make both breath level 2 attacks his base abilities and stick acid acolyte in path 1 and storm acolyte in path 2 along with some other abilities, maybe acid eater in path 1 and electricity eater in path 2. Thoughts?
Sounds cool. I really want to make an SL Acid Amp (does dragonskull stack with elemental?) and it would be great if I didn't have to pay for the electricity abilities.
Dragonskull does stack with other sources of amp (also nice in a split with UD), but it doesn't give the boosted damage to relics that amp does.
So my champion evaluation skills aren't very strong - what makes Acid Elemental so bad? Nevermind. Acid bomb with low base damage; taking Acid Amp means no Acid Greeting, costs a good deal of nora for a semitanky low damage ranged champion. If you wanted scour you'd run Neg Mage.
If you were to remove both acolytes and Desert Walker, he'd be a respectable 64 base. Though lack of a basic attack means he might still be bad.
Honestly, just dropping Sand Walker would bring him to 84. Alternating AoE damages of uncommon types with associated debuffs at 5 range; 12 damage, Dragonflight for +2Dam/Def (Does it work with breaths?), decent hp. That sounds completely playable.
