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Riot was right to nerf Azir

SkyblazeHydraX3··16 votes·1,209 views

I'm an MR6 Azir player. In terms of Mastery points Azir is second only to the champion who got me interested in the game back in Season 3, Kha'Zix. I've played Azir since he was released on PBE, through all the bugfixes, buffs, and nerfs. Now I haven't played him much recently, unfortunately, but I'd like to think I'm at least competent with him usually.

Facing someone more than just "competent" with Azir made me realize that Riot was very much in the right to nerf him into his current suboptimal position.

I had opted into Viktor, who's far from one of my best midlaners but is known for having the range to fight Azir, something most of my usual midlaners (Aurelion Sol, Ekko, Fizz, Zed, Yasuo, Ryze; you get the idea) don't exactly have. And I was completely screwed over. Once Azir got ahead of me I couldn't even farm because his soldiers would chunk me out of lane, and Azir would use the Shuriman Shuffle to all-in members of my team, get around ganks, or reposition for his ultimate. By the end of the game I was 3/11/1 and level 11 while Azir was 14/2/5 and level 15. Three guesses as to which team won the game and the first two don't count.

And that left me thinking about just how horrifying Azir was to face in genuinely competent hands before he was nerfed so badly. That's not a pretty thought, and despite my love for the champ I can really understand why Riot was been forced to take the actions they were, and have to leave him in the sorry state he currently is until they can figure out a way to fix what makes him absolutely unbearable to fight in the right (wrong?) hands.

One Rioter said in their own individual, "this is not the opinion of Riot's balance team as a whole or otherwise" opinion that Azir's Shuriman Shuffle should be removed, because the sheer amount of safety and initiation prowess it gives him is so incredibly powerful that Riot has been forced to wear down Azir's intended strengths in compensation. This is honestly something I can agree with, because it would free up a lot of his power budget to go back into his proper strengths. But honestly? I think Riot needs to do a bit more after that by reducing the damage on Azir's Q (either base or ratio) and in-turn reducing the cooldown on it, turning it into more of a repositioning and soft-CC tool for his soldiers to do their damage, rather than a long-range burst tool that also sets up for poke and zoning. Make Azir's soldiers and their positioning the key point of his damage output, as they should be.

I'd like to reiterate that I've been a fan of Azir since his release, and this isn't me hating on the champion for getting my ass kicked. But Azir has had to be nerfed into nigh-unviability in order to keep him from being completely overbearing in the pro scene, and even now in competent hands he can utterly steamroll a game. That's why I think Riot needs to remove the "Shuriman Shuffle"- which, by the by, wasn't even originally an intended part of his kit before Riot made it easier to pull off, leading to this whole mess- and after opening up his power budget, focus it more into his soldiers doing sustained damage.

6 Comments

Divewing3 votes

Q dmg has always been a problem because it makes patterns of: Poke -> Chunk -> Burst far too easy to achieve. The fact that we are still maxing Q over W (and have been since the beginning) should be enough of a clue that there is something inherently wrong with Q dealing that much damage.

It's getting exhausting saying this over and over again.....

Shrek Luigi1 votes

I like the Shurimer Shufle Q__Q

if his kit is gonna be readjusted then I'd rather they keep the shuffly control-mage aspect of his kit and try and work away from the Q-spamming artillery mage identity--there are already so many like that, and Azir's popularity relative to how good a champ he is really speaks to how many people want to play a champ like this!

I think it would be a lot more easy to reign in Azir if his repositioning stuff was separated from his poke--like if his E was turned into a telegraphed sink-into-quicksand-teleport that gives that HP-scaling shield afterward, and focused his Q and W more on short, quick dashes and also short-ranged sand-soldier slaps. Instead of tying his current E onto his giant artillery poke, that is.

I also think his passive is a bit goofy. It makes sense thematically but it doesn't do any justice to his current kit--useless in large teamfights, melts like butter if the enemy is actually determined to knock it down, OK for pushing earlier on in the game but it really makes a negligible difference.

And his Ult duration is too short.

SkyblazeHydraX31 votes

What you're suggesting is a larger scale rework. Not only would that require Azir staying in his current state longer than simply making number or under the hood changes, I'd personally question if it's really necessary.

The Shuriman Shuffle is amazing, I'll admit that. When you can use it effectively it allows flashy game-making plays that are exhilarating to watch and even more so to pull off. But that's exactly why it's a problem. With the Shuriman Shuffle it doesn't matter if you outplay or shut down Azir, he can still play the role of a powerful initiator for his team. And that's before considering the fact that the Shuriman Shuffle gives him ridiculous safety against ganks and being caught out.

Azir is more than a Q-spamming Artillery Mage. At the very least, he's intended to be more. Azir is on the opposite but same spectrum as Corki, actually. Whereas Corki is a mage-like Marksman who primarily uses auto attacks and weaves in his poke-based spells, Azir is a Marksman-like Mage who uses his spells to facilitate and position for long-ranged DPS that directly scales with his attack speed. There is no other Champion in the game who plays like Azir's intended niche, and playing him like Ziggs and Xerath is a disservice to his full potential.

In order to keep the Shuriman Shuffle, Riot would have to convert Azir into a mid-ranged Battle Mage with a greater focus on tankiness and powerful initiation tools. If you want champions like that you already have the likes of Kennen, Annie, Brand, Orianna, Lissandra; if you watch Worlds you can see that even without hard CC Vlad is an incredibly powerful initiator. That's at least six champions who can play the "mid-range initiator mage" Riot would have to turn Azir into in order to keep his Shuriman Shuffle.

With that being the alternative I'd much rather see the Shuriman Shuffle be removed in order for Azir's much more unique (and intended by design) auto-based Artillery Mage who controls the battlefield through the positioning of his soldiers and himself be preserved and emphasized.

As for his ult duration, that's one of the many things they had to nerf in order to balance him because of the Shuriman Shuffle. Removing the Shuriman Shuffle would free up just that much of his power budget, which could go into things like his passive, his ult, his damage scaling, etc. See where I'm coming from?

morris11 votes

My suggestion -- change his E entirely to either be a simple shield or a castling move that he originally had (where he switches places with his soldier). The distance he needs to be from a soldier in order to make it attack should also be lower and scale with level so he isn't a lane bully and hyper carry at the same time. Buff-wise, while most likely not the right choice, I think his tower is very redundant and deserves more buffs. Particularly, make it scale better with AP or be tankier in general. Maybe make his soldiers and wall last longer around it too.

Stars Shaper1 votes

I also played Azir a lot since release and bug fests and I can see why they wanted to nerf him so much, liking it or not Azir could make huge comebacks with few items and I say this having experienced it while I was playing Xerath which is my most played character, mastery 6 and soon to be 7 (after I get Aurelion Sol last token :3).

As Xerath is quite easy to shut him down in lane, I can make his farming so painful that I might have 2 kills and 30 CS advantage in 10-15 minutes. Yet, if I let things get into late game I have to focus him as hard as if I was the one at disadvantage, letting him 3-4 seconds free in a teamfight can melt half our team and split what needs to be split. If he ever gets to build a couple of MR items I'm screwed and Xerath is what's supposed to be his hardest counter.

Papa Slothy1 votes

they were right, but they went about it the wrong way

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