So is Azir going to be the new Yorick?

Igotlazy·Aug 27, 2016·6 votes·1,313 views

Has Riot decided to keep him weak due to the versatility of his kit until they decide to work on him?

Edit: I mean the "keeping him bad" part is like Yorick.

25 Comments

rtbf69774614Aug 27, 20162 votes

Correct.

IgotlazyAug 27, 20163 votes

That seems really inefficient... they're basically removing a champ from the pool because they don't want to deal with him. Can't they just go up to 1 guy and be like "hey, tweak Azir a bit ok?".

Sightless66Aug 27, 20165 votes

Can't they just go up to 1 guy and be like "hey, tweak Azir a bit ok?".

Kind of, but not really. The problem with Azir is that his kit does absolutely everything, and anytime he's even slightly viable, he becomes a dominant force in high level play that doesn't give his opponents any good answers. Tweaks may bring him slightly closer to being balanced, but he's still going to be either bad or dominant until he gets some kind of actual kit change. Additionally, any time you spend working on Azir is time that you aren't spending working on someone else. If all you're doing is small tweaks that don't really fix the core problem, and you're spending time on that instead of on something more likely to work, then have you made the best use of your manhours? Probably not. Focusing on getting a kit change done is more efficient.

The reason they don't want to assign a kit change to just some random balance team member and call it a day is because the kit changes will necessitate removing something from his kit. For example, RiotGypsy proposed removing either his range or the Shurima Shuffle. Either way, they're going to piss off a lot of people who liked whatever mechanic they remove, and they need to figure out what's the best thing to take away before they pull the trigger. That's not something you just jump the gun on by assigning to some random balance team member and telling him to sort it out.

They should speed up their process on figuring out what to do with Azir, but just assigning some tweaks to someone on the balance team isn't going to be their best option.

IgotlazyAug 27, 20162 votes

I've read up on the whole situation and I agree that there's a tough choice to make on what to keep and what to remove for the sake of balance. HOWEVER, I don't support just saying "fuck it, we'll deal with it later, let's gut him in the meantime". Inaction is not a solution. Furthermore, this doesn't require a full scale kit rework like Poppy, Sion or Yorick. His main focus on controlling soldiers and being a zoning mage is there. There's just 1 aspect of his kit that's currently putting him over the top.

YurÌ on IceAug 27, 20162 votes

{quoted}

I've read up on the whole situation and I agree that there's a tough choice to make on what to keep and what to remove for the sake of balance. HOWEVER, I don't support just saying "fuck it, we'll deal with it later, let's gut him in the meantime". Inaction is not a solution. Furthermore, this doesn't require a full scale kit rework like Poppy, Sion or Yorick. His main focus on controlling soldiers and being a zoning mage is there. There's just 1 aspect of his kit that's currently putting him over the top.

none of this horsehiit spew in this thread is happening, they're just keeping him weak until after worlds so they achieve some midlane "diversity" (more like 1 week of diversity and than Lissandra/Syndra/Aurelion sol every fucking game) after worlds he's getting buffs, this rework shit is'n happening, single champ mini-updates are no longer a thing per riot's new rework/update policy, it's either only full VGU or entire class roster updates now, nothing more.

Treune81Aug 27, 20161 votes

[{quoted}](name=Miss Janna,realm=EUNE,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=BwTOB6R7,comment-id=00000000000000000000,timestamp=2016-08-27T10:52:11.151+0000)

none of this horsehiit spew in this thread is happening, they're just keeping him weak until after worlds so they achieve some midlane "diversity" (more like 1 week of diversity and than Lissandra/Syndra/Aurelion sol every fucking game) after worlds he's getting buffs, this rework shit is'n happening, single champ mini-updates are no longer a thing per riot's new rework/update policy, it's either only full VGU or entire class roster updates now, nothing more.

Riot thinks competitive has diversity.Looooooool.Only 3 champions.Vlad, Liss, Taliyah every game.Maybe Syndra.Aurelion is situational pick.As a result 3 or 4 champions.Lets we look Azir meta.Azir, Ryze, Karma, Viktor, Leblanc, Varus.5 or 6 champions.

GorillazNtheMystAug 27, 20161 votes

{quoted}

Riot thinks competitive has diversity.Looooooool.Only 3 champions.Vlad, Liss, Taliyah every game.Maybe Syndra.Aurelion is situational pick.As a result 3 or 4 champions.Lets we look Azir meta.Azir, Ryze, Karma, Viktor, Leblanc, Varus.5 or 6 champions.

Riot loves to talk out of their ass about diversity but every season is the same. They're so full of it it's nauseating.

Treune81Aug 27, 20161 votes

{quoted}

Riot loves to talk out of their ass about diversity but every season is the same. They're so full of it it's nauseating.

Yes so I don't like Riot's hypocrisy.

DrCyanideAug 27, 20162 votes

In the EU at least it's looking like Vlad, Malz, Taliyah, Kassadin, Sol, Cassiopeia, Karma.

7 champions, with the group that was picked as a counter to Azir being phased out. Azir demanded a response, and the rest of the pro Mid meta was basically "who can deal with Azir".

Treune81Aug 27, 20161 votes

{quoted}

In the EU at least it's looking like Vlad, Malz, Taliyah, Kassadin, Sol, Cassiopeia, Karma.

7 champions, with the group that was picked as a counter to Azir being phased out. Azir demanded a response, and the rest of the pro Mid meta was basically "who can deal with Azir".

Azir's meta had more diversity.I'm looking meta right now.Taliyah, Liss, Vlad, Malzahar.Maybe Karma and Syndra.Karma and Syndra are situational picks.You mind enemy jungler etc.You can not pick Syndra against Gragas.

DrCyanideAug 27, 20161 votes

... I listed 7 meta mid picks with Azir gone, not even counting your Syndra or Liss.

Azir meta was Azir, Viktor, LeBlanc, Ryze. Toward the end a few teams started trying Varus. You had 5 picks, to the 7-9 of now.

Lord AzırSep 2, 20161 votes

{quoted}

... I listed 7 meta mid picks with Azir gone, not even counting your Syndra or Liss.

Azir meta was Azir, Viktor, LeBlanc, Ryze. Toward the end a few teams started trying Varus. You had 5 picks, to the 7-9 of now.

What stopped teams from just banning Azir and then just playing those champions anyways? The fact that he wasn't ban worthy for most teams. So they just picked something good into him. Azir wasn't seen as strong in pro play or shadowing other picks out. Teams just didn't feel he was strong enough to ban so when he did come through everyone already knew what was good into him.

Ex. Vik, Leblanc, Varus, Ryze

DrCyanideSep 2, 20161 votes

With Azir gone Viktor, Ryze, and Varus have transitioned out of the meta. That should be a hint of who was out of line.

Azir wasn't seen as permaban worthy at the pro scene, because the other counters were there and could go head to him, but he was picked or banned extremely frequently.

Lord AzırSep 2, 20161 votes

{quoted}

With Azir gone Viktor, Ryze, and Varus have transitioned out of the meta. That should be a hint of who was out of line.

Azir wasn't seen as permaban worthy at the pro scene, because the other counters were there and could go head to him, but he was picked or banned extremely frequently.

Uh Ryze fell out of meta because he was reworked, Viktor fell out because things like AurelionSol , Taliyah , have better waveclear than him and are way better at roaming. Viktor was still played for a few patches after Azir was gone. Varus was never in the meta in the first place so no idea where that came from.

Azir was also never "perma banned or picked" recently. The only mids in NA that even played him were Bjerg, Jensen and Pobelter. All other pro mid laners thought he wasn't worth the pick / ban.

Sightless66Aug 27, 20161 votes

His main focus on controlling soldiers and being a zoning mage is there. There's just 1 aspect of his kit that's currently putting him over the top.

It's easy to say that there is only one thing putting him ove the top, but you can find a lot of dissent about what that one thing actually is. There are a ton of people who like the shurima shuffle and controlling soldiers way more than they like his zoning potential, and would happily take a major range cut and have him work as a battle mage. On RiotGypsy's thread and on follow up boards posts, people were pretty evenly devided about how they wanted him to change.

That's the whole problem: there are multiple aspects that could be removed, and the task is to decide which one to remove and which segment of his playerbase to piss off. That is not a small task. Finding an alternative way to change him that does not piss off as many people is not a small task.

You want a zoning mage. Other Azir players don't. Conflict.

Risen29Sep 2, 20161 votes

{quoted}

Kind of, but not really. The problem with Azir is that his kit does absolutely everything, and anytime he's even slightly viable, he becomes a dominant force in high level play that doesn't give his opponents any good answers. Tweaks may bring him slightly closer to being balanced, but he's still going to be either bad or dominant until he gets some kind of actual kit change. Additionally, any time you spend working on Azir is time that you aren't spending working on someone else. If all you're doing is small tweaks that don't really fix the core problem, and you're spending time on that instead of on something more likely to work, then have you made the best use of your manhours? Probably not. Focusing on getting a kit change done is more efficient.

The reason they don't want to assign a kit change to just some random balance team member and call it a day is because the kit changes will necessitate removing something from his kit. For example, RiotGypsy proposed removing either his range or the Shurima Shuffle. Either way, they're going to piss off a lot of people who liked whatever mechanic they remove, and they need to figure out what's the best thing to take away before they pull the trigger. That's not something you just jump the gun on by assigning to some random balance team member and telling him to sort it out.

They should speed up their process on figuring out what to do with Azir, but just assigning some tweaks to someone on the balance team isn't going to be their best option.

They could remove Azir's dash and I'd still be happy with him. It's really not a necessary part of his kit.

However, his damage, range, and wall are defining aspects of his playstyle. Those have to stay.

If you take away his ability to get away or position himself closer for certain plays then you'd be free to up his damage because he would need to rely on his team even more.

I'd also like to see his ability to poke at a longer distance returned, even it it means having him weaker in damage early but scaling up to high damage later.

When you remove his dash, you could even replace it with an ability that either actively increases the range of his soldiers and their damage for a period of time, or acts passively to increase their damage. You could also tie the range of the soldiers themselves to their level, which would force you early on to choose between increased poke range or increased damage.

DrCyanideAug 27, 20162 votes

If there was a way to "tweak Azir a bit" and have him be OK, that would fall to the Balance Team. You see where it has gotten him so far.

The thing is, what can you do? Almost by the very nature of his kit if you give him an inch he takes a mile. You've either got to try some very odd nerf + buff combinations (like removing spell effects from soldiers but giving damage buffs) or you just keep fiddling with numbers and watch him go back and forth between useless to play and overwhelming.

Azir might have a shot after Worlds, where the Pro scene is less observable, but don't be too surprised if he ends up ignored for a year or so.

BloodyTomponAug 27, 20162 votes

Yorick wasn't ever kept weak because of the versatility of his kit. Azir will probably be kept reasonably weak in non-pro teams until after pre-season. Then they'll take away one of: range, damage, or utility.