Am i the only one who feels like azir's identity got killed ?

when his soldiers had range azir was actualy relying on their atacks for his damage ... using q to reposition and allow them to atack the most basic builds for azir relied on nashor tooth ... rylais and crd item and then azir was free to even incorporate some tankyness or utility into his builds after getting his core items

his playstyle relied on placing them well and atacking with them the most

now i find it more rewarding to forgo any atack speed in my builds ... get ludens and loads of cdr and my core damage is not coming from soldiers atacks anymore ... i use q for damage and follow up with any possible soldier atacks simply walking around to get the most of ludens and spam that q building him like any other apc with slightly bigger focus on that cdr

seriously i think that riot is destroying his identity ... making his unique mechanic inferior to a backup tool ... he feels like long ranged oriana stripped of utility