Hail of blades is potentially very good now
Hail of blades being usable, let alone actually being good was not on my bingo card this patch. They made auto resets generate an extra stack, so voli does not waste the 2 out of 3 attacks anymore. It also does bonus damage for all 5 autos, which doesnt look like much but it is true damage. At level 1 your looking at about 20-25 damage with Q start(4 procs), and more as you get your full combo online + few more levels. Its very comparable to PTA numbers early.
A big reason of why I think this rune will be strong is that it let's you cheat your passive stack generation, similar to how dusk and dawn gives an extra stack. Anything that gets you ramped up faster is very powerful, and it gives up front damage at the same time. Builds that benefit most of this would be anything with dusk and dawn pretty much. Dusk and dawn - hullbreaker would be my first guess. I think there is a good chance this takes over lethal tempo for full AP, as the game goes on voli doesnt need the extra damage in long fights, but instead covering the big weakness of having to stack passive becomes more important.
One major downside could be that your stuck in the domination tree, but thankfully sudden impact can kind of carry the entire tree by itself, its very strong early game. Ultimate hunter gets good value on voli too. Its just the middle tier thats kind of lame. Thinking either deep wards for early scouting or just going with the ward sweeping one. This might end up being a dealbreaker, but I dont think its too bad.
I am curious if other people have tested this yet. I'm excited to try it tonight. Im hoping there are no bugs and it works with our Q and W as intended. This combined with the MMR reset and other system changes makes this feel like a fun patch for Voli, good luck on everyone's climbs
Edit: After testing Its probably still not good. A bit better than before but nothing crazy. I always thought Voli's W was an auto reset but it is not. Which means using W during hail of blades eats a stack without befitting from the attack speed. Interestingly, if you start a fight with Q it does not proc hail of blades, so if you W fast enough you can still use all 3 stacks of hail of blades afterwards. That is no different than last patch though outside of the damage though. The only real way to benefit from the Q auto attack resetting giving an extra stack, is to start the fight with a regular auto attack and then Q, which is obviously not feasible in many situations as the game goes on. I guess we will have to settle with the dusk and dawn rework and new boots to mess around with.