The Problem With Azir 5.3

Since the patch, Azir's win rate has steadily remained well below 50%. There are an awful lot of people who want to ignore this fact simply because the patch hasn't been out that long. But data is data, and the only thing that's changed that could be causing this mess is the absurd nerf Azir received.

Looking at the new Azir, we can see several problems that should have been immediately apparent to Riot's "balance" team. First of all, now Q does less damage at rank 5 than any other spell in your kit. W is now your main source of damage. I guess this is because Rito wants Q to be more of a repositioning move. Fine. But you can't then justify the huge mana cost and the crappy slow you might get if you even hit them. If Q is meant to be a utility move now, they need to give it something else - either a lower mana cost, or an increased slow per rank so that you can get more autos off with your soldiers and their new limited range (more on that later). That way putting points into Q actually does something for you going into mid game, and doesn't just give you smaller cooldown windows on moving your soldiers. Right now, that's all you're getting from your Q, because the damage is worthless even in late game.

Riot has said they wanted to "soften" Azir's power spikes, but all they did was castrate them. Now he doesn't have any power spikes. You hit lvl 6 and all you gain is an escape move through your ult, because at that point in the game you don't have nearly enough damage to engage anything without help from someone else on your team. Lvl 11 is a joke. At that point you have your Q maxed (pointless), and some points in your W. You still do very little damage. Lvl 16 isn't much better, and that's when Azir is supposed to hit that almighty "LATE GAME HYPERCARRY" that Rito has promised us. Nothing about Azir now represents a late game hypercarry. WIthout AP per level blues or something he has no scaling whatsoever, and is easily eliminated by just about anyone late game. God help you if your team has no understanding of how to protect you in team fights. Unfortunately, the nerfs assume that you will be building Deathcap as a core item, but let's face it, not every game are you going to be able to build this item. New Azir gets behind incredibly easily because one early kill on him (even more easy to get on him now) will set him back more or less to a point where he can't come back, and Azir has never been much of an early game killer. I have recently played games where I've gotten behind like this due basically to BS and other "oppressive" mid laners (who also scale better into late game, like, wtf, Rito, get your story straight. WHAT IS AZIR SUPPOSED TO BE NOW BESIDES GARBAGE???), and I have followed the standard procedure of playing safe and just focusing on farm only to find that it doesn't really matter. If you can't, for whatever reason, swing a Deathcap (an item you're traditionally only supposed to get if you're winning lane... Not very likely now post-nerf). Without this item you are basically useless to your team, and most of the time even with it you still can't put out the damage you need, or "Hypercarry" anything other than your ass back to the fountain because you just got your face kicked and all you could do was wall them away. Gotta love a midlaner who's got an ult that is literally only good for escape because the rest of his kit no longer supports or synergizes with it. (WHY DOES AHRI GET IT BOTH WAYS??? )

The other obvious issue is his range nerf, which seems to be everyone's big complaint - and for obvious reasons. You make a champion who's kit is entirely reliant on outranging and outzoning the opponent because you also make him one of the squishiest champs in the game, and then you nerf his range across basically his entire kit AND you gut his damage. But he has 2 more points of AD, sooo stop complaining, I guess. It is so incredibly easy now for folks to walk out of your soldiers. You're lucky if you get one auto off at all, especially since now the soldiers bug out more than they where for awhile there (again). Why would anyone want to play such a high risk, low reward champion that doesn't even work consistently? You're supposed to be doing all your damage with this move now, based on the way Riot has prioritized W's damage, but this move is unreliable and ineffective at even hitting your intended target. The gross difference between Q and W now doesn't even make sense if you think about it. A soldier standing still just stabbing you will do more damage than a soldier flying at you at a high velocity. Thanks for breaking physics and common sense, Rito.

Last thing. To all the people out there who are insisting that we're crazy and whiners and are bronze elo, etc. you guys have very little clue about how this guy actually works, so please, your opinions are really quite silly. Yes, Azir was OP pre-nerf, yes he was hard to lane against, but he certainly was by no means impossible to win against. It's not like Azir has ever had a godly win rate at any point of his existence. If anything, he's generally remained sub-50% since release. Azir, even with his shield, dash, and ultimate (by the way, Yasuo has the exact same kit, but that's ok, just nerf his health, not his entire concept, and that'll make him more balanced...) was entirely killable at all stages of the game - you just have to know his weaknesses. I'm sorry that you all never took the time to learn how to deal with him in the same way that we all took time to learn how to use him in the first place. Playing Azir has never been "freelo" for anyone, and anyone who thinks he is clearly has never spent much time learning him. If you carried a game with Azir pre-nerfs, it's probably because you practiced your ass off to learn him. Every pro who tried him when he was first released agreed he was incredibly difficult to use, and it took months for anyone to do remotely well with him. Just because he was permaban at any point doesn't mean much, it can only definitively represent the fact that people just didn't like playing against him. I don't like playing against Nidalee, but that doesn't mean we should decimate Nid's kit and make her useless. I hate when I'm against an Udyr in the JG because that guy's broken AF, but I don't think Udyr should be nerfed to smithereens. The lack of logic behind these nerfs is tremendously insulting, especially when viewed in light of the fact that the champion still doesn't even work the way he's supposed to. I paid good money for something that hasn't even worked 100% perfectly since I bought it, and now it works even worse. The nerf has just added insult to injury, and Rito's silence on the whole matter is even worse. At least give me the justifications for the extent of the nerfs, and explain to me how he's supposed to be viable now, instead of just ignoring the entire Azir community while you hype up stupid skins that no one even cares about. Shame on you all.

I understand Azir needed a nerf, but wouldn't a logical person nerf a small amount and see what the results are first instead of just gutting the whole package at once before they really know what the consequences will be? It doesn't even make sense. So please, Rito, at least respond to our concerns, because it's the least you owe us after the ridiculousness and lack of professionalism we have gone through surrounding this champ.

Source: I have studied this champion literally every day since his release because I friggin love him and wanted to succeed with him. I have watched streamers, LCS, subscribed to Skill-Capped, read guides, and checked ProBuilds daily to see what pros around the world are doing with him. I have also played him more or less daily since his release. No, I am not ranked, but I have a brain, and have been gaming my whole life. That should be enough.