Lich's Ultimate

[Softmints]

I had an idea for Lich's ultimate...

Enshrine:
Lich channels his power into the creation of a temporary energy hub (the balls of energy nested atop towers), allowing allied heroes to teleport to him. The effect ends if Lich takes damage or is interrupted by other means.

This could give Lich a unique role in the Legion team by improving their global mobility. I have yet to give the following issues much thought:

• Could a coordinated Lich + Ally where the ally has Lightning Rod be overpowered?
• Should allied have reduced teleport time when porting to Lich (5 seconds might be too long in general).
• Should enemies be able to see pings for incoming teleports?
• What is a reasonable mana cost for this ability?
• Should an interruption stop any teleports in transit? Towers can die and the teleport still completes...
• Should Necroward Shield protect against interruption from damage?
• Should there be a "cast time" of 1-2 seconds to avoid Lightning Rod 'abuse'?

This might validate strategies like stacking Nexus to be able to port to Lich faster.

[Dracula]

This is actually extremely interesting.
A few questions/comments:
Does the energy hub also count as the portion of a tower that autoattacks? I.E. will Rage have the extra autoattack of a tower while channeling? Moves that require one to stay completely still are usually extremely risky, even if they have some major way of restricting people from interrupting it (Planet Ring comes to mind). If Rage begins channeling this alone, it'll be at least five seconds before the first help gets to him, and probably a bit longer for the entire team. If Rage is literally defenseless while channeling, the teleport waiting time should probably be shorter, at least.

Lich is not a neutral tower, so allowing enemies to see pings would not be thematically sensible or even fair.

Mana cost should probably depend upon how spammable it is. I don't know what you had in mind for a cooldown (or how this ability scales with stats/with levels), so I can't say yet.

I'd say it shouldn't interrupt teleports in transit unless the waiting time is shortened, simply because the Elves should have the opportunity to punish for poor ultimate use. If the Elves know Rage is about to Enshrine and wait for a second or two before interrupting, they'll get three kills instead of just one as the unsuspecting Legion heroes get individually focused down as they come in. On the other hand (and probably more importantly), I just have a problem with any channeling ultimate made completely useless by one instance of any damage.

Granted, Enshrine's concept might become completely useless if recent terrain changes stick - the opened paths in the forest have made the travel time from main base to enemy main base almost nothing with the help of the Sky Cradles, even for heroes who can't destroy trees. But terrain rant is a subject for a different time.

[Softmints]

My current vision of the ability is like this:

• Lich pays around 250 mana to start channelling a hub.
• The teleports can't complete if Lich drops the hub before arrival (else elves can't stop the ports, and Lich will never be ganked again).
• We'll discard the interrupt-on-damage component for now.
• We'll also assume the enemy won't see pings.
• Cooldown could be pretty short considering that Lich probably won't have opportunity or reason to use it that often anyway.

Remember that a hero can stop porting in if they figure it's not worth it anymore. Also Nexus brings the travel time down to 4.25 seconds, not 5.

I agree that Sky Cradles are much easier to port to than Lich, but Lich hiding pings could be valuable.

The tower-attack thing is interesting! Matter of balance really; if I decide to be very faithful and give the hub perfect damage too, Lich would be suddenly a dangerous tower pusher! I don't think he'll need it though.