Azir: Thoughts and Discussion
Let's get into general things with Azir first:
~ Azir has a lot of fluff about him, and I am not talking about his feathers, we need to reduce/remove what he doesn't need and really focus in to what makes Azir, well, Azir; i.e. building turrets, sand soldiers, walls, and an easier to use "shurima shuffle" for ALL skill brackets and not just high elo. That last example being crucial to help balance Azir to not be trash in low elo and god tier in high elo/competitive play like he has been in the past / still is now to some degree.
~ As a very high damage hyper marksmage (he is a spell weaver, but his damage is from basic attacks because of the soldiers) he should probably not be so mobile. What I am thinking is remove a dash from the base kit and allow him to choose to dash before his ultimate on the ultimate cooldown. This allows for an easy time for low skill players to do the shurima shuffle simply by holding down R to fly for a duration or upon skill release that then releases the wall of soldiers, or just tap the R key for the wall of soldiers like how it works now; flight would be an always motion thing that follows the mouse cursor, with the dash still stopping upon hitting an enemy champion (so need to fly AROUND everyone for the high-risk and high-reward play).
~ As far as the base kit goes, we need to see what he needs and does not need, taking away the fluff that he has and really focus for his damage to be on the sustain damage of sand soldiers rather than feeling bursty at all. What I am thinking is something like remove the slow on Q, reduce the damage, and emphasize it even harder for soldier repositioning with an even bigger cooldown per rank reduction; the damage reduced will be moved to the soldiers' stab damage to have his damage over time and less upfront.
~ His shield should scale with ability power and not bonus health, this scaling never made any sense especially for a squishy mage. Instead of a dash Azir's soldiers will slow enemies on-hit while the shield still holds, so the slow is removed after the shield duration ends or the shield is broken (similar to Janna's shield mechanic). Reason for a slow here is because if Azir feels really Rylai's dependent then it makes more sense to give him some kind of persistent slow on his kit, this way it is also easier to balance on an individual champion level if it needs to be made weaker or stronger and you cannot do that as an item since it would effect all the other Rylai's users.
~ Of course aim to have a champion fun to play as and not frustrating to play against.
~ Just to really confirm something, Azir's tower building is super unique to him and something that should always stay on his kit.
EXAMPLE KIT BELOW! NUMBERS ARE VERY TENTATIVE AND ONLY THERE TO SHOWCASE A BETTER EXAMPLE OF ON-PAPER IDEAS, DO NOT TAKE NUMBERS SERIOUSLY AT ALL!
Base Attack Speed: 0.644 +2.5% [from 0.625 +1.5%; just emphasize more on his AAing sustain damage ways]
Shurima's Legacy (Passive): Static Cooldown: 180 seconds Azir places a marker above the ruins of all destroyed turrets outside the enemy base.
Disc of the Sun: Azir raises the Sun Disc from the selected marked ruins after a brief delay. The Sun Disc functions like a standard turret but gains (+15%AP) bonus attack damage. It also grants Azir any gold it earns. The Sun Disc loses health over 1 minute and loses its armor if Azir dies or moves too far away.
Conquering Sands (Q): Cooldown: 10/8.5/7/5.5/4 seconds; Cost: 40 mana; Range: 900 units Passive: Azir permanently gains 15/20/25/30/35% bonus attack speed.
Active: Azir orders all Sand Soldiers to dash to the target location, dealing 70/80/90/100/110(+40%AP) magic damage to enemies they pass through.
Arise! (W): Cooldown: 1 second; Cost: 40 mana + 1 Sand Soldier; Range: 500 units Passive: Azir stores a Sand Soldier every 10/9/8/7/6 seconds, up to a maximum of 3 [from 2] at a time.
Active: Azir summons an untargetable Sand Soldier to the target location for 9 seconds that replaces his basic attack to command the soldier to attack enemies within range, dealing 60/85/110/135/160(+60%AP) magic damage to enemies that they pierce, applying any on-hit effects Azir has.
Multiple Sand Soldiers beyond the first attacking the same target deal 25% damage.
Royal Guard (E): Cooldown: 14/13/12/11/10 seconds; Cost: 70 mana + 1 Sand Soldier Azir consumes a stored up Sand Soldier causing it to shield himself for 90/110/130/150/170(+80%AP) shield for 5 seconds and causing the attacks of Sand Soldiers to slow down struck enemies by 10/20/30/40/50% for 1.5 seconds while the shield still holds.
Emperor's Divide (R): Cooldown: 140/120/100 seconds; Cost: 100 mana Hold Down Skill Key: Azir dashes towards the mouse cursor for up to 2 seconds, stopping upon hitting an enemy champion or letting go of the skill key.
Upon Skill Key Release: Azir summons a charge of 4/5/6 soldiers in the direction that he is currently facing knocking back struck enemies and dealing 150/225/300(+70%AP) magic damage. This wall of soldiers remain in play for the next 3 seconds that stop enemy dashes on contact.
(Two big changes I did with the Sand Soldier damage:) (1. Scales with Arise! rank rather than per level so you are not getting soldier damage when maxing Q.) (2. Implement on-hit damage to soldier stabs, makes Nashor's Tooth that much better with its passive being used all the time. This is worth testing out at the very least.)
