Azir Kit nerf (E) is ridiculous.

Cavemantero·Jan 10, 2016·3 votes·864 views

Would you please stop nerfing good kit designs for the sake of whining kids that can't figure out how to play against him in ranked? Now E is simply a 'dash' that has to be setup with Q first and that's with a sand soldier out. W-Q-E now I can dash...and, maybe get a shield if I hit an enemy........

Seriously, give the knockup or stun or whatever back. It is NOT that bad. If kiddies blow their flash and can't avoid it then tooooooo baaaaad.

13 Comments

xSleepyJan 10, 20164 votes

azir is a very strong champion who already gets cc on 2 out of his 4 abilities, all of them if you buy a rylai's on him (which you should). the knockup didn't add a lot in terms of fantasy or in terms of functionality for azir, but it cause his counterplay to be lacking. as a champion who's insanely strong in the lategame, it wouldn't be healthy for him to have an escape (e) a knock back (r) AND a knock up, so that if you dive him when his ult is down (normally a pretty good spot for counterplay) he has a reliable tool to deny you. He was way too strong with the knockup, but not because of the knockup. he's fine where he is

CavemanteroJan 10, 20161 votes

I disagree completely. I think it makes his kit clunky, so much so, that now there isn't as much incentive to use shifting sands in teamfight situations at all due how squishy he is. Saying its too much 'cc' I think is a cop-out considering how difficult he actually is to play, especially with his other nerfs, which I actually am fine with. Like I said, to even USE his E, it requires a combo of W then Q (90% of the time)! What other champion has that just to get off a stupid dash!? It is already difficult enough to position him and the sand soldiers in lane and now they take away the incentive to hard engage against strong players...ever!?

If they gave back the knock up at max rank I would be ok with it. There's just no incentive to position enemies in between the sand soldiers now which completely changes the aggressive nature of him which I guess was the goal?... Problem is I don't like it and its not fun to play him like a xerath or ashe or kiting style mage. Once another champion dashes away and Q is down there is no escape or disengage with E previously...it leaves him wide open which along with his squishy nature should be considered enough for counterplay. Him being 'strong' is from the new itemizaion most likely, because before it no one touched this guy and they've already nerfed him in regards to speed damge range and the original cooldown passive.

AbyssphereJan 10, 20164 votes

His kit did too many things too well so they took the knockup out of his kit and reduced his movement speed in an attempt to give him an actual weakness. If he's weak they can buff him in any number of ways but absolutely not by giving his E the knockup functionality again - it wasn't healthy for him to have that in addition to all the other tools he has.

CavemanteroJan 10, 20162 votes

WHY? I don't get why it was so OP...no one has explained that which continues to make me believe its people getting owned in lane on ranked. If that's the case they just need to change it to a pure dash ala Lissandra's E. He shouldn't have to drop a soldier and then Q it into position just to use the E like it is now. Its ridiculous and you know it. And he STILL doesn't have as many tools as Orianna Thresh and all the other staple annual pro tour champs who have powerful kits that riot refuses to nerf.

AbyssphereJan 10, 20162 votes

{quoted}

WHY? I don't get why it was so OP...no one has explained that which continues to make me believe its people getting owned in lane on ranked. If that's the case they just need to change it to a pure dash ala Lissandra's E. He shouldn't have to drop a soldier and then Q it into position just to use the E like it is now. Its ridiculous and you know it. And he STILL doesn't have as many tools as and all the other staple annual pro tour champs who have powerful kits that riot refuses to nerf.

His E could do with being less effort to use than it is but it doesn't need more functionality. It's already a dash that does damage and shields him - it does plenty, just like everything in his kit does.

His knockup got removed because his kit was (probably still is) impossible to balance between pro play and solo queue and the best way to close that gap was to remove one of his many, many tools - removing the E knockup gave regular players one less thing to worry about having to use correctly to perform well and gave pros one less tool to be impossible to counter with. The amount of safety and combo potential his E offered was inappropriate when used correctly, but was a leading cause of failure when used incorrectly as it caused noobs to take massively unnecessary risks that rarely paid off.

Azir had to get nerfed at the time and the E knockup was the perfect thing to remove because it made it actually possible to beat a well-played Azir while being a very modest nerf for people who were less skilled with him. If they didn't remove that, they would have had to do something like hit his damage and that would actually affect your average Azir player, making it even harder for non-pro players to perform well with him. I guarantee you that if he still had his E knockup and had received a different nerf instead, he would have a worse win rate right now.

I personally feel that in terms of mid lane strengths he does far more than Orianna could hope to, but Thresh is a good comparison when it comes to supports. Thing is, Thresh has been nerfed many times in the past and was popular but not pick/ban at worlds, just like Azir. Azir has been treated very similarly to Thresh.

TotalJerkJan 10, 20162 votes

I'd like to point out that you pointed out the two champions with the lowest base armors at level 1 in the game. That's certainly a weakness.

BeatzBoyFTWJan 10, 20164 votes

Azir is highly oppressive in lane with his WQ combo to poke his enemies, as that makes his zoning control really strong.
His knockup on his E was removed because it gave him too much synergy with his WQER combo, where he gets to ult back tons of enemies into his own team with little counterplay. Think of it like the old LeBlanc's silence combo, where she can QWW without having enemies to counter her back due to being Silenced.
A good Azir player can get to be extremely mobile, as currently it is highly assumed that a moderate amount of Azir mains managed to master the Shuriman Shuffle.
Azir's ult can be typically used as a "FK OFF FROM ME" whenever an enemy tries to dive on him, similar context as how Ekko's ult functions as a reset button.
You still wanna blame us for him being nerfed for complaining? Blame the pro players. They're the actual cause of him being nerfed due to be seen in many LCS games.