Guide
Objective: The main focus of this build is to deal massive amount of burst damage to the enemy, and take them out before they can react. This is achieved by using Imani's Fire stance for most of the game and barely, if ever, switching to her ice stance.
Method of Success: Imani's Mana genneration in fire is pretty limited, with each of her Pyreballs giving you only 14% mana on a full charge. The use of Imani's Mana Rift talent and Acrcane Flame card help supplement her mana generation.
The Loadout Explained:
- Swift Spear III - While Imani can move in her Infernal Cannon, I feel like its to slow at base, Swift Spear lets me move faster while in it so I can avoid damage, and chase down targets a bit easier.
- Arcane Flame IV - By default Infernal Cannon only gives about 45% mana at max if you only hit a single person. I'd much rather ensure that I can get full mana with a single cast of Infernal cannon so that I can burst someone for 1000 without having to charge up a shot.
- Ancient Duty I - Just a filler card. If you would rather use something else you can replace this card.
- Pyretic Momentum IV - Imani is fairly easy to dive, as her FrostFire Glide is fairly slow. This helps speed you up so you can get away from flanks easier and repsotion easier.
- Ice In Her Veins III - 150 Health might not seam like a whole lot, but I like to use it to give myself a little healing while escaping flanks.
Talent: Mana Rift is by far the best talent for this. You may think that it's bad cause it limits your moblility and ties you to one spot on the map, but the range at which you can move without breaking the rift is surprisingly large. It also allows you to get full mana in about 2.5 seconds without shooting anything. When using this in game you can pretty much spam 2000 HP bursts at squishy targets to basically kill them, or force enemy frontliners to yeild to your tanks. Pyromania is a cool concept, and fairly fun to play, but generally isn't all that usefull. The explosion doesn't really come into play all that often, and can't be strored for when you actually want it. Pyromania also turns all your Pyreballs into area damage reguardless of if you have the explosion ready, but that won't make up for the missing damage from the more frequent bursts of 2000 damage. Splitting Ice is nearly useless as your going to be in the fire stance for most of the game.
Recommended Items:
- Red: Cauterize is an alright item and is almost never a bad choice, but there can be better champions for spreading caut. Due to Imani's burst damage, Wrecker can devastate shields with ease. Deft hands is useless and lock from purchace so its not worth considering. Bulldozer is super situational and probably not a good idea unless your focusing on Luna or preparing for a hostile Imani Dragon.
- Green: As per usual, Veteran is almost always a waste of credits. Reguvenate could be good if your healer is paying attention to you, but otherwise don't bother. Kill to heal could work, but I would sugest Life Rip over Kill to Heal due to how much burst you have.
- Yellow: With Mana Rift, despite the shockingly large range, you still want to play in a semi confined area, so Nimble probably isn't the greatest item. Master Riding could be good since it allows you to get to the point and set up your Mana Rift before the enemies get to point. Moral Boost might seam like an amazing item but is likely not as good as you would thing to how easy the dragon gets melted by a single person with bulldozer. Chronos seams good as both Infernal Cannon and Frost Bomb have huge 20 second cool downs.
- Blue: Illuminate is stuational. If a stealth champion like Skye is flanking you alot, pick up Illuminate. If your having to deal with a lot of Crowd Control comming your way, Resilience will be a good pick. Haven and Blast Shields are to help with what ever damage type is the most dangerous to you.
Idealy you would want Cauterize, Chronos, Life Rip and Haven or Blast Shields if there are no shields to shoot (Terminus/Inara/Raum are the tanks). With Cauterize, Wrecker, Haven/Blast shields and Chronos/Life Rip as your items if they do have shields.
The Match: Imani should be in the backline for most of the fight, only ever pushing up to zone the enemy after a won point fight. You also want to be playing corners or windows so you can use take cover while charging your Pyerballs. When Ulting you want to be as close to the action as you can without exposing yourself or leaving a flank route open so niether you or your dragon dies immediately. Also you maybe playing Fire, but you can still swap to Ice in order to shut down movement abilities like Ash's Shoulder charge should she be getting low. Just be sure to switch back as soon as possible. When being dived, one way you can fight off flankers is by using your FrostFire Glide to make some distence and then using Infernal Cannon in the air so your not on flat ground to be shot at, but instead forcing a third plane to be considered by your attacker. This will also make sure you have a free 1000 damage when you come out of Infernal Cannon. The other use Infernal Cannon has is picking off targets in the back of a team fight. Since it pierces targets, you can make sure nobody body-blocks your damage on you, whether intentional or not. It also make for a great charging tool for your mana when your pushing the payload and don't have time to set up a Mana Rift.
