Goodbye Azir, we will miss you

Fasmodey·Jul 9, 2015·142 votes·24,682 views

Shurima's Legacy ( Passive )

No longer grants Will of the Emperor (attack speed boost)

Arise! ( W )

Passive: Gains 10/20/30/40/50% attack speed.

Active: Azir summons a Sand Soldier for 9 seconds. When Azir attacks an enemy in a soldier's range, the soldier attacks instead of Azir, dealing 50/60/70/80/90 (+0.6 AP) magic damage to enemies in a line. If multiple soldiers strike the same target, each soldier after the first deals 25% damage. Soldiers attack even if Azir himself isn't in basic attack range.

Azir can store up to 2 Sand Soldiers at a time. A new soldier becomes available every 12/12/11/10/9 seconds. Moving too far away from soldiers deactivates them. Sand Soldiers expire twice as fast when near an enemy turret.

Shifting Sands ( E )

No longer knocks up enemies or grants shield

**Conquering Sands (Q) **

damage lowered to 55/75/95/115/135 from 65/85/105/125/145

Another nerf in today's pbe patch.

379 Comments

SatedCancerJul 9, 201537 votes

sounds fake lol, looks like an entire gutting of him.

FasmodeyJul 9, 201538 votes

http://www.surrenderat20.net/2015/07/78-pbe-update.html

Remlap1223Jul 9, 201538 votes

I think I'm going to be sick.

EkkoFrofflesJul 9, 201510 votes

Make that two of us. I was literally just about to start mastering Azir, too.

Ariel the CruelJul 9, 201516 votes

So.... they say his poke is a problem. . . They first test is to . . . Lower his DPS. Destroy Bruiser Azir. And leave the poke untouched.

Please pass the bucket.

RiotRiot BaconhawkJul 9, 201545 votes

PBE

*Edit: I don't work in Gameplay but I simply put this here as a reminder that the changes are not yet final and to keep that in mind.

SolaxoJul 9, 201532 votes

[{quoted}](name=Riot Baconhawk,realm=NA,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=JAtFQuLh,comment-id=000200000001,timestamp=2015-07-09T17:45:52.838+0000)

PBE

The whole point of PBE is to give feedback, isn't it? :P

ModX2WxlqZ7U5Jul 9, 20158 votes

Yah but you guys are acting like it's completely over and done. PBE is a TESTING GROUND for stuff. instead of being so fatalistic, try giving your feedback more constructively, and maybe they'll listen :P

Ad InfinitumJul 9, 201520 votes

{quoted}

Yah but you guys are acting like it's completely over and done. PBE is a TESTING GROUND for stuff. instead of being so fatalistic, try giving your feedback more constructively, and maybe they'll listen :P

See other times they said they'd "listen". Cass Veigar

umbraˉJul 9, 201596 votes

[{quoted}](name=Riot Baconhawk,realm=NA,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=JAtFQuLh,comment-id=000200000001,timestamp=2015-07-09T17:45:52.838+0000)

PBE

We all know you guys don't listen to feedback.

See: Ahri splash art. Veigar nerf. Zed nerf. Cass rework (which got nothing but pure negative feedback) Then it got pushed to live anyways and Stashu was pretty much never seen again. Morde rework.

And so much more.

Malzahard ModeJul 9, 20156 votes

Ahri splash: Is fine, people just didnt like a drastic change (part of life get used it) Veigar change: Instant untelegraphable stun is pretty toxic to the game, you know when annie has a stun up. Also veigar is more fun to play now since his kit requires you to think rather then mindlessly press qwer. Zed nerf: he needed to be nerfed, get your freelo elsewhere. Cass: I'm not the biggest fan of it, but i've grown accustomed to it.

Lee Sin changes that got removed almost instantly from community backlash.

Also another Rioter said they would be trying several different nerf strategies to him this patch testing cycle and they were starting with an extreme.

TL;DR - changes are going to happen, also the part of the community voicing their dislike of a change is vastly out numbered by those who are indifferent to it and possibly to those who like it because let's face it, when a comm favorite gets changed, anyone who says they like it gets their post downvoted to oblivion.

umbraˉJul 9, 201513 votes

[{quoted}](name=The Sionce Guy,realm=NA,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=JAtFQuLh,comment-id=00020000000100010000,timestamp=2015-07-09T18:09:56.442+0000)

Ahri splash: Is fine, people just didnt like a drastic change (part of life get used it) Veigar change: Instant untelegraphable stun is pretty toxic to the game, you know when annie has a stun up. Also veigar is more fun to play now since his kit requires you to think rather then mindlessly press qwer. Zed nerf: he needed to be nerfed, get your freelo elsewhere. Cass: I'm not the biggest fan of it, but i've grown accustomed to it.

no no no no

Prof NekkoJul 9, 201536 votes

don't forget the Karma rework... Multiple threads with several hundred pages (one even hit 1000 pages) all decrying it as bad and the only response was a glorified "too bad we're changing her anyway" from Riot

Malzahard ModeJul 9, 20153 votes

If we're talking the original one, it's because riot shipped her out before she was ready, they were to focused on getting new content out and let the quality suffer, so they then went back and fixed the mistakes (namely being to strong).

With the newer changes it's because as the game changed and evolved she became very dominant in a solo role which wasn't her intended role, while this can normally be okay, she was TOO dominant in it, so they reworked her some more to make her fit better into the support role, and cut out the massive overpower spike from the solo role.

In all honesty, Riot knows far better how to keep the game balanced than the community does, while our opinions do matter and are looked at it, they aren;t going to simply stop something purely to appease us, a healthy game is what is going to keep players, sometimes that means taking a champ people love down a peg or two balance it all out

Prof NekkoJul 9, 201528 votes

actually the prime complaint, which was the one that riot chose to ignore, was that she had completely different visuals, lore, a different Q, W, and E. Only her ult remained (relatively) unchanged. She was essentially cut from the game and replaced with a new champion. She went from a short range AP bruiser with a high skill floor to: Q Q Q Q Q Q Q RQ Q Q Q Q RQ Q Q oh wait they're close use W, Q Q Q Q RQ Q Q Q Q Q Q.

Matter of fact one thing Riot said to reassure the Old Karma fanbase was that her shield bomb would still exist as an alternate burst method and that would never change... AND GUESS WHAT THEY RECENTLY REMOVED!?

XenohazJul 9, 20151 votes

Genuine curiosity question: I first started playing this game a bit before the rework, literally never saw Karma, and never looked at her description page. At one point I took a several-month break from the game, and when I came back, she was changed. What did her old kit actually consist of?

Vistha KaiJul 9, 20152 votes

Passive - Karma was gaining AP based on her missing health.

Q was a conical ability dealing damage (think Mordekaiser's E and Cho'Gath's W). Mantra version was also healing Karma and every ally caught by the ability.

W was a thread that she could use on an ally or enemy. Granted speed buff or slow respectively. Enemies that passed through the thread were dealt damage. Mantra wasn't spectacular here, only increased haste/slow %.

E was a shield she could cast on herself and allies. Possibly the biggest shield in the game with 80% AP scalling. Mantra version dealt same exact damage in AoE around the target.

R Mantra had two stacks instead of one.

Additionally Q, W and E had 6 ranks instead of 5 (like Jayce now, funny) and Mantra was available by default and had no ranks.

Prof NekkoJul 9, 20152 votes

some additonal info

her Q heal was stronger based off of missing health, so she was very effective at fighting burst champions with her thick shield.

W's damage actually had a very high ratio (Somewhere between .7 to .9 I can't remember exactly) so getting it to land on multiple enemies would HURT

Technically Janna's shield has a higher AP ratio then Karma's shield used to be, however Karma had a much larger base value on the shield so it would take a very high amount of AP before Janna's would overtake Karma's.

R mantra would also have as low as a 12 second CD, making her much more potent for poke plays (ie using RE on a minion, denying a cs and blasting the enemy minion wave)

and finally: the team on the rework clearly stated that champions should NOT have 6 levels on their skills as that is confusing... Guess they ignored that with Jayce

Ariel the CruelJul 10, 20151 votes

and finally: the team on the rework clearly stated that champions should NOT have 6 levels on their skills as that is confusing... Guess they ignored that with Jayce

http://boards.na.leagueoflegends.com/en/c/gameplay-balance/8IojtJEJ-about-the-jayce-changes

Prof NekkoJul 10, 20152 votes

oh believe me you I am well aware of such things http://forums.na.leagueoflegends.com/board/showthread.php?t=3822087&page=1

OverpoweredSoapJul 9, 20153 votes

[{quoted}](name=The Sionce Guy,realm=NA,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=JAtFQuLh,comment-id=000200000001000100010000,timestamp=2015-07-09T18:30:08.558+0000)

If we're talking the original one, it's because riot shipped her out before she was ready, they were to focused on getting new content out and let the quality suffer, so they then went back and fixed the mistakes (namely being to strong).

With the newer changes it's because as the game changed and evolved she became very dominant in a solo role which wasn't her intended role, while this can normally be okay, she was TOO dominant in it, so they reworked her some more to make her fit better into the support role, and cut out the massive overpower spike from the solo role.

In all honesty, Riot knows far better how to keep the game balanced than the community does, while our opinions do matter and are looked at it, they aren;t going to simply stop something purely to appease us, a healthy game is what is going to keep players, sometimes that means taking a champ people love down a peg or two balance it all out

Karma was intended to be in both roles. So nerfing her solo most likely isn't in their plans.

I also recall Riot saying she's suppose to be like Morgana, a mage, who when she can/is needed to, can support. (Keep in mind they said this before support Morgana became a huge thing, they said this when they first showed her rework.)

They made changes to her because she wasn't getting played that often and wanted to prove her support because it was lacking compared to others. Her solo was fine.

The rework as much as I despise it with a passion made her much more healthy to play against, as long as you're not melee.

Prof NekkoJul 9, 20159 votes

just want to also rebute here that one of the primary reasons that Karma did not get much popularity from the fanbase was that

1: Her W was not that good and unwieldy 2: During her entire 2 year existance she had a grand total of TWO free weeks, people barely ever got to experiment with her before buying which is something many players prefer doing 3: She only appeared in patch notes once or twice, but only for bugs, a champion appearing in patch notes leads to exposure 4: was NEVER on sale, not even once... I think her sun goddess skin was on sale though, but then again no exposure 5: Her kit was very high skill floor and most noob players would read her passive and think that meant running about with 2 HP for "the nukes" (also fun fact: Her passive was bugged so that you could not get 100% of it's effectiveness unless you were at 0 HP: aka dead, riot never bothered to fix it)

All in all her kit could have been tweaked without utterly BUTCHERING the original kit, only the W needed a change and passive fixed.

DirkTarTarJul 10, 20155 votes

Kassadin.... nuff said

bradJul 9, 201533 votes

ricklessabandon 65 points an hour ago

yup, trying a few things out right now, and am starting with some of the extremes. should be a few different iterations over the next few days.

its almost like the things that get put on the pbe arent going to be pushed to the live servers the next day

Jeddy017Jul 9, 201527 votes

Guys I don't know how this will help,but a Rioter hopped on Reddit saying they're testing some things out with this & it will have several iterations over the next few days.

20SevenJul 9, 201518 votes

How dare you use logic! After all, we all know that every single PBE change is going live, every. single. one.

</sarcasm>

SolaxoJul 9, 201521 votes

{quoted}

How dare you use logic! After all, we all know that every single PBE change is going live, every. single. one.
</sarcasm>

well they ignored our feedback when they were changing Cass and Veigar..

Failbot DeployJul 9, 20159 votes

That's not true. They totally added in the ult particle growth with AP on Veigar. Kappa

Séraphiel Jul 9, 201524 votes

why on earth would they take knock up???i can understand the removal of the shield but why the knock up????WHY!!!not sure about the timing but with the knock up gone can he still do the insec trick with his ult??

MohawkBirdJul 9, 201523 votes

Holy shit that's a lot of unnecessary nerfs. Rip Azir.

Zenthon PrimeJul 9, 201510 votes

How the hell did these even get on the PBE? I mean, how many Riot employees actually saw this and said "These are reasonable nerfs!". This is a nerf I'd expect on Poppy or Yorick if they got to 60% winrate, not a champ that caps at ~56% winrate on his mains.

Just.....no. Screw everything about these changes. I get Azir is insane in competitive, but dear god this is Olaf-tier gutting.

LetsgetcookingJul 9, 201516 votes

Nasus "Perhaps Shurima was meant to fall."

Teridax68Jul 9, 201514 votes

The change list on Surrender@20 is incorrect (it's fixed now though), Azir 's Sand Soldiers still deal the exact same base damage. He still loses his shield and knockup, which is a huge nerf, but still.

I personally wish they just shifted that attack speed onto Azir's base stats: he currently has a pitiful 0.625 (+ 1.5%) attack speed, which is absolutely horrendous for any champion, but especially bad for the game's most attack speed-dependent mage (he has terrible growth and doesn't benefit as much from attack speed items as he could if he had better base AS). 0.69 (+ 3.5%) attack speed would give him around the same bases, for example (including the same level 1 attack speed, due to how W is mandatory), and significantly improve his attack speed synergy with items. If there's too little incentive to rank up his Sand Soldiers, just have their damage scale up per level (i.e. 50 / 80 / 110 / 140 / 170 damage per attack and 50 / 95 / 140 / 185 / 230 damage to turrets). I would also have rather kept the shield on his E over his damage, the latter of which is irrelevant anyways in most situations, and perhaps made it scale with AP instead of bonus health (why does it even scale with that stat?). Azir's wall-Insec maneuver has become one of the most important expressions of his skill, and he needs his shield in order to do that without getting immediately popped.

Slamurai JackJul 9, 201511 votes

I guarantee there's going to be more changes coming in addition to these. Just have patience.

sp441Jul 9, 20159 votes

There BETTER be, because as-is, those changes make buying Nashor's Tooth a lot less enjoyable, outright forces him to max his W soon, guts his utility, makes him way more squishy, and slashes his late game damage... and he's supposed to scale strongly into the late game.

Big LincolnJul 9, 20159 votes

Doesn't he get more attack speed late game?

I don't think Riot knows what they're doing as far as making him DPS oriented but this is... a start?

E changes totally unnecessary though. Especially if he can still be stopped mid-flight

sp441Jul 9, 20159 votes

Nope, he gets right about the same thing.

Except now Nashor's Tooth is a lot less efficient on him.

Rinky DinkyJul 9, 20158 votes

lol rip azir again

Truth be told, those nerfs are no where near as bad as the first batch.

With how they changed the wording, I am assuming that Azir does not have to be in 800 range of his soldiers to command them now? If so, that a decent buff amongst the nerfs imo. You also aren't acknowledging that values are not up yet.

Edit: Holy fuck they absolutely gutted him. Look at this:

Shurima's Legacy ( Passive ) No longer grants Will of the Emperor (attack speed boost) Arise! ( W ) Passive: Gains 10/20/30/40/50% attack speed.

Azir can expend a soldier to damage an enemy turret by summoning it on top of the turret. This deals 60/80/100/120/140 (+0.4 AP) magic damage to the turret. Shifting Sands ( E ) No longer knocks up enemies or grants shield

**They nerfed the damage on his E and his W as well. ** What in the actual fuckerino

Current rank 5 Soldier deals 170 flat damage per auto. they nerfed it to 90. what the fuck

Current rank 5 E does 230 at max rank. they nerfed it to 140

Why must they always shotgun blast Azir so hard when they nerf him.

They must have changed how his soldiers work as far as mechanics go. There is no way his base damages would get shit on that hard, amongst removal his knockup+ his shield.

Séraphiel Jul 9, 20156 votes

can't really figure out why riot always goes SO HARD on azir when nerfing him (just like last time),i know he needs some nerfs and some changes to shift him more to a DPS mage but i think this is a bit much (talking about the E nerfs)

BhargoJul 9, 20156 votes

Shifting Sands ( E )

No longer knocks up enemies or grants shield

Dear god just remove the whole spell why dont ya

AnisopteraJul 9, 20156 votes

Azir does not need these nerfs at all. Constant nerfs and sub 50% win rates across most/all levels of play. Cant believe that they are contemplating these changes to potentially put on live servers. He felt very rewarding for being skilful and punishing for misplaying, now he won't be worth the effort.

Meanwhile Annie is allowed to exist with no changes.

FasmodeyJul 9, 20156 votes

Conquering Sands (Q) damage lowered to 55/75/95/115/135 from 65/85/105/125/145

Big buff.

Drunk RummateJul 9, 20156 votes

At this point I'm starting to wonder if we're being trolled. They're adding MORE nerfs?

SeekêrJul 9, 20155 votes

Removal of the shield and the knock up on the e are a buff IMO, can now dash through champs to reposition. Plus, the new rylais is pretty broken on his soldiers so he will kite extremely well.

The LovelessJul 9, 20156 votes

Nope, he still stops.

http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-0dF_EP_y5fg/VZ3aeHbU0GI/AAAAAAAAFSc/oUc7b1uZAPA/s1600/azire.jpg

megagnuraJul 9, 20155 votes

Arise I actually like the look of the changes being done to Azir w creates more build diversity now that he won't be as cooldown dependant

Shifting sands Why the hell was it necessary to completely gut this spell, the removal of the knock up takes away the potential to ~~win~~ survive several skill match ups such as Azir vs Leblanc where it is mandatory to interrupt distortion if you just want to survive the lane. Why take away the shield? It was never a huge shield since the only items with health that Azir benefitted from were item 3116 and item 3027 and since the shield scaled off of bonus health the shield never exceeded a 390 hp shield even if you bought both of these items( this includes the level 5 base damage) not to mention how difficult it is to a actually even land the spell.

Also let's not forget how risky it already is when Azir uses e offensively, it is already easy to miss with its small hit box and you as a squishy Mage in MELE range there needs to be more compensation for taking such a risk besides damage equal to 2/3 of a soldier attack TL;DR changes to w will free up build options Changes to e make it even riskier to dive anyone and less out play potential in match ups

TristyricJul 9, 20155 votes

{quoted}

Shurima's Legacy ( Passive )

No longer grants Will of the Emperor (attack speed boost)

Arise! ( W )

Passive: Gains 10/20/30/40/50% attack speed.

Active: Azir summons a Sand Soldier for 9 seconds. When Azir attacks an enemy in a soldier's range, the soldier attacks instead of Azir, dealing 50/60/70/80/90 (+0.6 AP) magic damage to enemies in a line. If multiple soldiers strike the same target, each soldier after the first deals 25% damage. Soldiers attack even if Azir himself isn't in basic attack range.

Azir can store up to 2 Sand Soldiers at a time. A new soldier becomes available every 12/12/11/10/9 seconds. Moving too far away from soldiers deactivates them. Sand Soldiers expire twice as fast when near an enemy turret.

Shifting Sands ( E )

No longer knocks up enemies or grants shield

Also his W base damage is down to 90 from 170. It means there is a damage nerf too. Absolutely Elised. May be worse.

[Context: On these changes, ricklessabandon explained: "trying a few things out right now, and am starting with some of the extremes. should be a few different iterations over the next few days."]

Did you just leave this part out so you could bitch and get some attention in the forums?