Azir is fine, right guys?

Yenn·Oct 6, 2017·79 votes·4,199 views

As he approaches 55% win rate after sitting at 47% for months and pick rate quadruples.

He really needs to be hotfixed. This is only going to get worse as more people become familiar with him.

101 Comments

IP MasquerenaOct 6, 201756 votes

You guys don't cease to amuse me.

Prelease of Azir's minirework

"I'm an Azir main with xk amount of mstery points, noone will play this Azir, you destroyed him, the nerfs are too much, he isn't playable"

Postrelease of Azir's minirework

"Rito broke Azir, he's too OP now, pls nerf of give him an actual rework"

This my dears, is the reason why Riot should stop listening or trying to balance around solo que completely. Most of you guys can't understand basic balance, but hey, small minds can't think big.

General Esdeath Oct 6, 20173 votes

Hivemind

Votable JesterOct 6, 201737 votes

1: Different people 2: A lot of the people who did complain probably just thought the range reduction would destroy him. 3: I don't think Riot does balance around solo queue completely. At least a few champions are balanced around pro play.

IP MasquerenaOct 6, 20177 votes

1: Yes, I know it's different people, yet it's still the same forum, and I was refering to the community in general due to the boards having a good number of posts about it.

2: Might be, might be not. The range reduction wasn't the only thing they nerfed, but he got several buffs that people didn't even wanted to take into consideration.

3: Not entirely, but Riot themselves stated several times that they have a hard time balancing things by trying to make the balance fair for both solo que and pro play. I know I'm gonna get skinned for this, but there was one Dota player, ex-pro, who made a guide about midlane, and he shared many things that were basically only known to pros at the time, and his reason for that was simple: "You can only raise the skill level of the playerbase as a whole if you raise the skill level of the bottom players". The balance problems Riot has is because instead of balancing only around the highest skill level players, they try to balance around others as well, I think plat or high gold was their lowest solo que threshold (citation needed), and well, between you and me, we know how players at those ranks are. I don't mind the "solo que" balance, but it shouldn't be done for players lower than d2.

WhatAGeiniusOct 6, 20178 votes

The problem with that line of thinking is that the vast, vast majority of the playerbase does not play at a pro level or anywhere near it, and no matter what you do, they never will. If you never take the experience of people who aren't playing at the highest tiers of play into account, then your community is likely not going to thrive for very long.

SchàdenfreudeOct 6, 20172 votes

Actually, it's more likely that it's not the community that won't survive, but the chances of huge rank shifts within the community. This in itself won't be a problem, but yes, that would cause some people to leave. However, it's highly justified as it can almost be considered as a "meta change", forcing people to adapt. If they can't do it, then they deserve to be at a lower rank.

CowseedOct 6, 20173 votes

There may yet come a day when low stops trying to spam YouTube OPs and actually play the game using strategy and deep thought. If riot balances too heavily around low elo then it could potentially outright mess up a few things and cause severe balance issues.

SweedishGunnerOct 6, 20174 votes

Well I played quite a bit of pre-rework Azir and I must say I dislike the new Azir.

He basically bullies really hard in lane but he sucks later because of his tiny range, he usually gets melted by ADC's and can't safely DPS.

I have no idea why Rito put power back into his laning phase when it was made intentionally weak since he has a basic poke pattern with little counterplay.

I want old Azir back...

RexxieeOct 6, 20172 votes

{quoted}

Well I played quite a bit of pre-rework Azir and I must say I dislike the new Azir.

He basically bullies really hard in lane but he sucks later because of his tiny range, he usually gets melted by ADC's and can't safely DPS.

I have no idea why Rito put power back into his laning phase when it was made intentionally weak since he has a basic poke pattern with little counterplay.

I want old Azir back...

660 range with a 1k range dash that gives a shield + anti engage ult = unsafe now guys?

I guess adcs must be the riskiest champs for you then! Since most dont even have that range nor his dashes/anti engages.

SweedishGunnerOct 6, 20173 votes

Azir has no lifesteal or crits? What's your point? My point is that I feel he's gone in the wrong direction with too much damage early and not enough late. He's a somewhat safe champion, but his engage tools are also his escapes like most champs. I just find it way harder to deal DPS late game.

SpecterVonBarenOct 7, 20171 votes

Blame the Shuffle and all the people that said they wanted Riot to keep it.

TwinkieProOct 6, 201712 votes

Literally just laned against one as Zed. Holy shit his lane staying power is absurd. His soldiers cost so little mana he would place one in my wave and prevent me from farming. I had to play like a bitch until my Q had a low enough cooldown to actually get some of my cs. I see why assassins build Hexdrinker. I'm just gonna laugh at every thread about hex being broken simply because i feel for them now.

General Esdeath Oct 6, 201736 votes

But Hex is broken. Azir is just more broken.

Zëd LęppelinOct 6, 20175 votes

Hex really isn't.

ThefrostyvikingOct 6, 201716 votes

Hex is kinda broken against everything that relies on burst but doesn't have the base damage to break it early enough.

Which means it's kinda useless against the really high base damage and Azir style.

AirKingNeoOct 6, 20171 votes

Hexdrinker isn't broken. It's what allows assassins not to be completely outscaled by mages by 10 minutes.

General Esdeath Oct 6, 20173 votes

Yeah because a shield for 110-280 is fair for 500 extra gold after buying the components. Why doesn't item 3191 give a physical shield? Their next items both have a good ability on them.

AirKingNeoOct 6, 20171 votes

Because Assassins need to survive the early game because mages outscale them. Why should mages get a free early game pass when they outscale assassins so hard?

Oh I forget, "Mages are weak and need massive buffs" despite the entirity of high elo laughing at the Board's sever stupidity while Syndra and Orianna and TF are in almost every game.

General Esdeath Oct 7, 20171 votes

Except it's not assassin only. Aatrox Camille Darius Draven Graves Jax can all use it. They aren't assassins.

AirKingNeoOct 7, 20171 votes

You know that if any of those champions build Hexdrinker, they put themselves behind a ton.

It's a laning phase item. The upgrade sucks complete dick beyond 23 minutes or so.

I confused why the boards have a huge bias against Hexdrinker despite no one of actual rank caring about it.

General Esdeath Oct 7, 20171 votes

It's just that, a laning phase item you never need to upgrade. Once laning is over the lane bully they built it against also falls off.

AirKingNeoOct 7, 20171 votes

No? The only lane bully top lane that falls off is Teemo. In mid lane, all mages outscale assassins by a longshot.

General Esdeath Oct 8, 20171 votes

Pantheon Illaoi Renekton Rengar are also lane bullies that fall off. And not all lane bullies fall off in the same way. Some aren't good at team fighting but can still 1v1 pretty well like

AirKingNeoOct 8, 20171 votes

Pantheon doesn't fall off until 35 minutes.

Illaoi doesn't even count as champion.

Renekton doesn't fall off that much. Stoneplate exists.

Rengar isn't a laner.

RexxieeOct 6, 201711 votes

Theres a reason azir needs to stay in the gutted state until a complete rework.

Idk what riot was thinking, his Q still has 1k + range, his autos still have almost 700 range (outranges every adc mostly) he still has a 1k range dash... They reduced a bit of his w range and more than doubled his kit power, now they wonder why hes cancer again.

AtanchanOct 6, 20178 votes

{quoted}

Idk what riot was thinking, his Q still has 1k + range,

The range is centered around him, not each individual soldier. So while each soldier can travel more than 1k distance in a single cast, they can't actually hit anything much further away from Azir than what they could hit at the edge of his command range.

Teemo Did 911Oct 6, 20176 votes

azir is overpowered , and i dont know why people don't realize this , his soldiers deal more damage than annie's full combo . azir needs 3 items to 1 shot your ass back to bronze 5

Zone of EndlessOct 7, 20176 votes

55% on the enemy team

45% on your team :^)

SteelflameOct 6, 20173 votes

Yea, Azir buffs were a bit much, too much extra damage for the minor loss of range.

I do want to see what he would be like with the new runes though, the new runes may fix some of these issues or at least will be shaking up balance so much as that it doesn't matter what individual champs are problematic 2 patches before everything goes to hell anyway.

CowseedOct 6, 20173 votes

I think they gave him all the damage because his damage is repetitive and they created item 3194 . It's basically like item 3076 against Fiora

SteelflameOct 7, 20171 votes

To a degree. The big difference though is Bramblevest is a 1000 gold investment while Adaptive Helm is a 2800 gold investment. Bramble also is far more "standardized" in it's ability to be used, as every game has an ADC that will almost without a doubt become a major threat, and Thorn will provide +80 armor +250 HP, a -15% AS debuff, and the thorns+grievous wounds, a fairly solid value, while Adaptive Helm only really fits on tanks, as it grants HP, CDR, regen, and the MR/anti magic DPS passive. APs can't get it, because it has absolutely no damage on it at all, and they would probably be better served getting either an Abyssal Mask (Similar MR, HP, CDR, and also grants mana, the Eternity passive, and +10% magic damage), ADCs can't consider it, and would be better served by a QSS/Maw anyway, Assassins would look at it and go "Well this grants me jack all, worthless"

The level of commitment to getting it before you even see the real benefit is massively different from Bramble into Fiora.

CowseedOct 7, 20171 votes

Well that point is true. Obviously it can't be built on everyone but when a team has two sources of AP and they are dot or similar then I opt for the adaptive help as my resistance item. If i'm playing a tank I usually get armor first more often than half the time so I don't really run into much problems with mana because I don't have high cooldowns and can't spam anything. But if I do want mana I'll get the mask or iceborn depending on the situation.

But If i'm on a champ that can build one or two tank items without losing much elsewhere then I buy the adaptive helm because the tankiness is really noticable in my opinion. the 20% reduction is equivalent to it think it's around 100mr or something like that. I say this because it's a flat reduction and doesn't use the actual damage formula. Nor sure if it's more efficent with less or more mr though. Can't think out the math at the moment.

SteelflameOct 7, 20171 votes

The impact of 20% reduction massively depends on how much MR you already have. If you have 100 MR, a 20% reduction brings you to 60% magic damage resistance, worth 50 more MR. If you have 150 MR, a 20% reduction in incoming magic damage is worth 62.5 MR. For it to be worth as much as +100 MR, I think it would take you being at 400 MR or so, but I'd need to grind the math a fair bit more as it adds a few extra steps to calculate how much it takes for a -20% modification to equal X MR than just figuring out how much that 20% modification is worth.

Therefor, it is more efficient the higher your MR already is in what it practically is granting you. No, I'm not going to type out the math, the math is messy and I don't want this post to take 2 pages or so.

AirKingNeoOct 7, 20171 votes

Balancing DPS mages around Adaptive Helm and Fiora around bruisers is why this balance team sucks so hard.

CowseedOct 7, 20171 votes

I don't think they are completely balancing him around it. I'm just assuming that they gave him an tiny bit of extra strength because teams do have the item as an option.

The Bad TouchOct 6, 20173 votes

{quoted}

As he approaches 55% win rate after sitting at 47% for months and pick rate quadruples.

He really needs to be hotfixed. This is only going to get worse as more people become familiar with him.

I haven't seen azir doing much of anything.

He's the 13th ranked mid laner at the moment. That means 12 other champs would need a nerf before him.

YennOct 6, 201716 votes

[{quoted}](name=The Bad Touch,realm=NA,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=EZ0APAnX,comment-id=000a,timestamp=2017-10-06T09:05:24.599+0000)

I haven't seen azir doing much of anything.

He's the 13th ranked mid laner at the moment. That means 12 other champs would need a nerf before him.

That's because you're Silver. You won't encounter anyone able to play him. Azir is a major problem when played by someone who isn't a monkey.

The Bad TouchOct 6, 20176 votes

{quoted}

That's because you're Silver. You won't encounter anyone able to play him. Azir is a major problem when played by someone who isn't a monkey.

Yes I'm Silver 2. That means I'm an above average LoL player. Excuse me if I don't have the reflexes at 37 to keep up with you folks. People seem to forget that half of the player base is below silver 3. For some of us it's lack of knowledge, for others lack of motor skills. I'm perfectly capable of looking at win rates and calling BS on your claims though.

You are a Talon main. Talon has a higher win rate rate than Azir mid, and is currently the number 1 win rate Top lane..

I don't see your point.

Azir's win rate is 51-52% all the way from Bronze to Plat+. Player skill seems to have very little to do with it.

Azir is a champion you have to out-think not just pull off a fast combo playing Talon every game. Play something that can outlane him and stop trying to just kill him.

ModKnightsKemplarOct 6, 20176 votes

The point is that at plat+, we still want to have fun. People at that level can play Azir so well that he isn't fun.

I would agree with the OP that Azir is not a huge problem in silver elo. I don't see a need to insult people at that elo, of course... that really has nothing to do with it.

This is kind of a mirror to the Yasuo problem, where he stomps at low elo and high elo players say "git gud." There's a reason those people aren't game designers; just because Yasuo is trash in diamond doesn't mean that he isn't oppressive at bronze and silver. He needs better design to correct that.

Azir is the same, for the inverse reason. He's not a problem in silver, but he is in diamond. That can be solved with better design; the solution is not "git gud," just as it isn't for Yasuo. The game can (and should) be balanced for a wide range of skill levels.

So again, easy enough to "play something that can outlane him," but that assumes he picks first, right? When a champ has a 55% win rate with recent changes, it's indicative of a problem with that champ at whatever elo they're in. If it were easy or intuitive to counter Azir, he wouldn't have that win rate.

LegendmakerGXOct 7, 20172 votes

[{quoted}](name=The Bad Touch,realm=NA,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=EZ0APAnX,comment-id=000a00000000,timestamp=2017-10-06T11:25:04.906+0000)

Yes I'm Silver 2. That means I'm an above average LoL player. Excuse me if I don't have the reflexes at 37 to keep up with you folks. People seem to forget that half of the player base is below silver 3. For some of us it's lack of knowledge, for others lack of motor skills. I'm perfectly capable of looking at win rates and calling BS on your claims though.

You are a Talon main. Talon has a higher win rate rate than Azir mid, and is currently the number 1 win rate Top lane..

I don't see your point.

Azir's win rate is 51-52% all the way from Bronze to Plat+. Player skill seems to have very little to do with it.

Azir is a champion you have to out-think not just pull off a fast combo playing Talon every game. Play something that can outlane him and stop trying to just kill him.

I don't get how your comment got down voted when it's true. Yenn for some reason didn't put Azir win rate but was able to say he was on his way to 55% when that's clearly made up in his head, other champion have practically near the same play rate and higher win rate but you don't see them bitching. Difference with Azir is that he takes skills to multi task rather then the champions who are higher on the win rate chart but I guess Yenn never played Azir other then lose to them to know. Edit* Azir is sitting from a 51-52% Talon has a higher win rate probably tell the board the win rate and statistic rather then put a made up guessing number.

xJLx MCHammerOct 7, 20172 votes

{quoted}

I don't get how your comment got down voted when it's true. Yenn for some reason didn't put Azir win rate but was able to say he was on his way to 55% when that's clearly made up in his head, other champion have practically near the same play rate and higher win rate but you don't see them bitching. Difference with Azir is that he takes skills to multi task rather then the champions who are higher on the win rate chart but I guess Yenn never played Azir other then lose to them to know. Edit* Azir is sitting from a 51-52% Talon has a higher win rate probably tell the board the win rate and statistic rather then put a made up guessing number.

You are pulling your winrate from websites. Riot is pulling their numbers internally; usually, their numbers are much more accurate. If they are saying he is pushing 55% winrate, he is. Janna was showing 60% winrate on a few websites after the rework and hotfix but Riot did clarify those websites did not get the winrate correctly.

There is only one champion in mid lane that has a higher pickrate and winrate than Azir. There are 3 champions that are close in pick-rate and winrate though.

Azir does take still but the mini rework was done to make sure that the skills required drop significantly. Which Riot, using internal data, has already confirmed.

LegendmakerGXOct 7, 20172 votes

[{quoted}](name=xJLx MCHammer,realm=NA,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=EZ0APAnX,comment-id=000a0000000000010000,timestamp=2017-10-07T03:14:19.946+0000)

You are pulling your winrate from websites. Riot is pulling their numbers internally; usually, their numbers are much more accurate. If they are saying he is pushing 55% winrate, he is. Janna was showing 60% winrate on a few websites after the rework and hotfix but Riot did clarify those websites did not get the winrate correctly.

There is only one champion in mid lane that has a higher pickrate and winrate than Azir. There are 3 champions that are close in pick-rate and winrate though.

Azir does take still but the mini rework was done to make sure that the skills required drop significantly. Which Riot, using internal data, has already confirmed.

Where did you get this that his win rate is pushing to a 55%?

xJLx MCHammerOct 7, 20171 votes

{quoted}

Where did you get this that his win rate is pushing to a 55%?

riot

LegendmakerGXOct 7, 20173 votes

[{quoted}](name=xJLx MCHammer,realm=NA,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=EZ0APAnX,comment-id=000a000000000001000000000000,timestamp=2017-10-07T03:47:01.595+0000)

riot

Mind showing me the legit link? That's why I ask where did you get this.

AirKingNeoOct 7, 20171 votes

Doesn't matter what Riot says. The president could tell me that his political opponent is a terrorist in an upcoming election, but if they can't show prove why to I care? Especially if they're lost credibility.

If Riot can't prove it, and certainly their credibility is now complete shit, then it doesn't matter what they say. Just their word is meaningless; hard proof it required.

xJLx MCHammerOct 7, 20171 votes

{quoted}

Doesn't matter what Riot says. The president could tell me that his political opponent is a terrorist in an upcoming election, but if they can't show prove why to I care? Especially if they're lost credibility.

If Riot can't prove it, and certainly their credibility is now complete shit, then it doesn't matter what they say. Just their word is meaningless; hard proof it required.

Lol no If you think Riot is part of a conspiracy to make sure that Azir is Op, then go again and believe

If they wanted to nerf or buff a champion, they wouldn't need to make a fake statistics to do so.

Sheesh man! Chill out

AirKingNeoOct 7, 20171 votes

No, I said Riot is too stupid and lacks credibility for it.

Hence why Janna is broken tier.

Glory97Oct 6, 20173 votes

Ok I've played arround 25-30 games with the reworked azir here are my thoughts. -Using his 3 soldier attackspeed buff he can make a pretty strong all-in at early lvls. I think there should be slight nerfs, but because it's also very mana reliant (you all in once and you're oom), it won't be too strong once people are prepared and dont get surprised by the all in. Later on in the game the attackspeed buff isn't all that impactfull, because you don't really trigger it that often unless you defend against siege, and the 5 second timewindow is not really long unless you attack the backline (but you can't really attack the backline because any adc will still do more dps than you, and he'll focus you unless he's boosted) -His range nerf makes staying out of the range of his soldier much easier during laning phase for ranged champions, but he's still extremly oppressive against melee champions, but so are some other mages aswell, (cassio, heimer), so i think it is kind of ok. -The nerfs to his ultimate are quite remarkable. Not blocking jumps after the initial cast makes it much worse as a tool for self-peel, still i see a lot of players that don't know they can jump over the wall which makes it favorable for the azir. -His DPS against Baron is way beyond broken. this needs to be hotfixed. He can shred baron at 20 minutes in ~10 second, only needs someone to tank it.

I think his kit is ok after the rework, and the winrate is justified, because a lot of people who had given up on this champion before started picking him up again, explaining why there is such an increase in the win and playrate. I think there should be some nerfs to the bonus attackspeed of the 3 soldier buff at early ranks, and the shield should have less base scaling. His dps against Baron/Drake etc, needs to be nerfed heavily. The rest of his kit is quite ok.