Azir Change Suggestions
currently has one of the lowest win rates in the game, and has for several months. About 6-9 months ago, Riot put him on the "back burner" because balancing proved to be rather difficult. I have given a good deal of thought on how to balance him and now offer my ideas.
Problem 1: Azir is too weak. Problem 2: Azir is too bursty when powerful, but gets nuked when weak.
Azir seems weak, but that is actually a little more complex than meets the eye. He is extremely late-game oriented. He has THE weakest beginning game of all time. Most games with Azir never gets past mid-game, thus he never gets powerful.
My solution is to do 2 things: change sand soldier statistics and allow the Sun Disc earlier use.
Let's talk about sand soldiers. Currently, their damage is dependent on an ability power ratio and champion level; upgrading the ability simply reduces cooldown. The flat damage increases from 80 to 160. I suggest we change the damage scale from champion level to ability level and set the cooldown at 5 seconds at all levels. This takes emphasis off obtaining late game and puts it on upgrading the ability. On a side note, it also brings back the promise of many possible sand soldiers (up to 5 in this case). Also, I would set pierce effect percent at 85% at all levels rather than increasing based on champion level.
As for the Sun Disc, you have to at least wait for a turret to be taken to use. This means a whole ability requires mid-game to ever use for the first time. My suggestion is to allow him to raise a Sun Disc in the jungle near the dragon and baron pits. The exact place I suggest is still undecided, but this would allow a defensive position revolving around the other objectives.
Azir quickly crosses the threshold between getting too bursty (he's supposed to be a battle-cast mage), and getting nuked. My suggestion here is to do 3 things.
First, slightly increase the range he can use his sand soldiers from.
Second, slightly decrease his damage (if necessary).
Third, alter his E-ability. Currently, he gains a very small shield whether or not he collides with an enemy. If he does collide, he also deals a very small amount of damage. The only regular use of this collision is to set up his ultimate, but often gets nuked. Here, I suggest we take the damage off and add an additional modifier to his shield: 10% of his maximum health.
