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An Azir Main on the Nerfs

Volt Cruelerz··30 votes·4,825 views

I put the following in another thread, but figured it really should be its own thing, so I've elaborated a bit.

I came into the changes afraid Riot was going to massacre my favorite champion, and while they did indeed drop his win rate (it's now down to 38%), I hardly felt it.

There's two things with Azir that need to be understood before balance changes are talked about.

  1. You can play against Azir. It's entirely possible. But few people seem to know to even so much as wait for your Q to be on cooldown before engaging. I've seen many players outplay me handily, particularly with certain champions. I personally have a particularly hard time against Talons.
  2. There's a high skill cap on him. It's not the normal players that are the issue on him; it's those that main him that make him scary despite such a low average win rate.

I had a 70%ish win rate on him before the nerf. Now I'm at 50% (100% if you disregard the times I had people on my team afk) and to be honest, I hardly feel the nerfs. Yeah, it took the edge off his power, but fundamentally it didn't change my ability to lane bully. All it did honestly was make snowballing into hypercarry mode more difficult and less rewarding. And I'd be fine with that except he's *supposed *to be a hypercarry, *not *a lane bully. His early game should not be as strong as it is. I'm totally cool with taking off some more early game power if it means adding a bit back on later.

Honestly, I vote the following changes, all other things remaining as they are in the game at the moment. Q: Cooldown increased from 10/9/8/7/6 to 18/16.5/13.5/10/6 and damage unnerfed W: Soldier attack range now increases with W level as follows: 325/340/355/370/385/400

It gives him a clear weakness at low levels while reducing his poke. That said, if he endures, he can turn into a monster. Thoughts?

UPDATE (2/21): I've played more with him which has just furthered what I already felt. Lane bullying potential is barely scratched, but his ability to spin up in the midgame has been greatly hampered.

39 Comments

Vicarious11711 votes

Uh, 18 at rank 1 seems quite excessive, that's 18 seconds of weakness and would inhibit your farming ability slightly as well.

Honestly though I don't think both of those changes should occur at once, it's a bit too much for someone who already has a somewhat difficult early game, but I do like where you're going with them!

I'd say either buff the soldier range back up and increased the Q cooldown, so you have that early weakness but can still cs and trade with soldier attacks long enough to reach anything at all. Or keep the Q cooldowns the same but implement that increased soldier range when putting points in his W so he doesn't have to get so close to enemies to use them late game when they can blow you up more easily.

So yeah I like your ideas but I don't think putting them both in would be a good idea, his laning phase would be literal hell against almost anybody lol

Copelando2 votes

I agree, the Q CD he said is too high. It should stay the same.

Azir's soldiers should get more range as the game goes on, up to 400 range (pre nerf range).

Knight SoIaire 1 votes

i kinda agree with the q cd nerf and i think that it actualy fits

he still has his w ane e combo, but now the true weakness is that he wont jump far away it is harsh but reasonable for hypercarry of azirs magnitude

Vicarious1171 votes

The issue with the nerf is not that he cannot really escape anything anymore, which does suck a lot as an otherwise immobile mage, but then in order to farm, harass, trade or do anything in lane you now have to put yourself right in line of your opponents damage no matter who it is and the attack range on the soldiers is so small now if you pop one next to you and send it at an enemy with Q there is still a strong change you won't even be able to hit a soldier attack afterwards. Then ofc this hypercarry in late game now has to walk right into the enemy team in order to get his damage out, which ofc usually means he gets blown up in seconds.

Nerfing the W range THAT much was simply too much and has ruined him honestly, just look at his new winrate lol

Knight SoIaire 1 votes

The issue with the nerf is not that he cannot really escape anything anymore,

im not speaking about the nerf riot gave him im speaking about the q nerf OP proposed

if he gets to be a hpercarry his q cd being long is a fair weakness given his kit

Vicarious1171 votes

Oh for the W->Q->E combo? I see what you mean now, and I do agree lol

fwL7umeoQe5 votes

"Azir is extremely OP despite only having a 50%-ish win rate. Let's just completely fucking gut him and make him unplayable. There, now he has a shitty 38% win rate." Thanks riot. you fucks.

Jasiwel2 votes

I think he's at a balanced point now. I think he may still have some bugs though, but he's definitely viable and fightable in-lane.

Kilane4 votes

38% winrate....balance. What world are you in? Fantasy disney dreamland?

Jasiwel7 votes

{quoted}

38% winrate....balance. What world are you in? Fantasy disney dreamland?

It's been literally two days since the patch. Azir is the kind of champ where you get screwed if you can't micro. The Azir main in this thread even said he didn't notice that big of a difference. In other words, it's way too early to tell if those stats are significant or not. If there is anything significant in this patch change, it's the range on the soldiers. Q was never a major damage source to begin with.

Kilane4 votes

There is barely anyone who plays him. Only 3% of people who invested in him enough to know how to micro the champ and manage his soldier.

It's not way too early to say that the nerf is way to harsh and the champ that's barely balanced as it is is not Urgot.

He lost his zoning, his laning phase wasn't that good. He relies on being a threat with zone and harass so he can farm for late game. Now he has nothing but expect other people to carry for him.

Rinky Dinky1 votes

Not really.

Did you even read what the op said?

Hyrum Graff1 votes

Remember when people said Yasuo was trash, on release? Remember when people said Gnar was trash, on release? Remember when people said Kalista was trash, on release?

Azir is like that. Bad until people master him, and then hella OP.

chumbler1 votes

[{quoted}](name=Hyrum Graff,realm=NA,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=dWQMgi1b,comment-id=00020000000000000001,timestamp=2015-02-14T08:58:52.372+0000)

Remember when people said Yasuo was trash, on release? Remember when people said Gnar was trash, on release? Remember when people said Kalista was trash, on release?

Azir is like that. Bad until people master him, and then hella OP.

To be more fair than Azir deserves, he literally didn't work half the time for several patches after his release.

Hyrum Graff1 votes

Also true, which means it's not clear whether Azir was like this because of his design or his early bugginess. But he still falls into the group of champion who was:

Comsidered OP in concept, before release. Considered trash on release because people sucked at him and didn't know how build/micro properly. Now considered OP

Kilane1 votes

People think Yasuo was trash? People are stupid.

Yasuo: I saw the wall and infinite dash lvl 1 aoe dmg as long as there are creeps, this champ is hella OP.

Gnar: Very underwhelming at first, but the first buff patch was enough. I thought he was a bit UP too.

Kalista: Uh no, who the fuck in the right mind think infinite dash Vayne pseudo tumble is UP?

Azir: All he needs is bugfix. He never needs the Q buff and he was balanced. Regardless of whoever play him, he has below average champ score in every aspect incluing winrate and KD, and CS, etc compare to many other meta AP mid.

Now he's worse than Urgot. In fact, his winrate is far worse than any other heroes in Moba history. Riot manage to breaks the record of all time worse from Dota.

That's something.

Spinning Axes1 votes

I'm sorry, but Q was a major damage source - with some builds, it did even more damage than the soldiers. It's a pretty key part of his kit, as it not only gives some powerful damage, but it also allows for movement of his soldiers, and his Q holds his only form of ranged cc, his slow.

SpongebobIsLife1 votes

you should never be building azir around his q. W always = more damage in the late game.

GorillazNtheMyst2 votes

Yes, but Ahri got supposedly nerfed "hard" as well, and her win rates didn't plummet like Azir's. In fact, she's still the number one midlaner. If it were a matter of learning to adapt to the nerfs, Ahri would have taken some kind of dip in statistics, but the reality is she didn't. Nidalee, despite her supposed "nerf," is still far more oppressive in lane than Azir. Someone mentioned somewhere on Reddit (I believe) that it's not like all of us Azir mains forgot how to play Azir overnight. We know how to use the guy, and a massive drop in success (not like Azir's win rate was ever that high to begin with) like that should indicate a greater problem having to do with the actual changes to the champion.

SpongebobIsLife1 votes

he is completely balanced. You just have to realize that he isn't an easy champion like let's say veigar or malzahar. His win rate is only low bc people in lower tiers cant play him well. It's kind of the same argument for Zed where his win rate is much lower than you would imagine, I believe it's in the 40s, but people in lower tiers cant play him to the level he needs to actually carry.

Kilane3 votes

Master+ rank winrate is 35%

Every Elo rank winrate 38%.

Balanced my ass.

Ornn Star XXX2 votes

Azir is my second most played champ this season and I was considering maining him, and was just waiting to see how bad he was gonna be nerfed. Well they more or less gutted him as most will see when he continues to have a sub 40 percent win rate. What reason is there to play him over Orianna now, who has rarely been nerfed and probably won't be touched anytime soon. Apparently Riot thinks that all Azir players are lcs level talents, because this much of a nerf is for high elo/lcs purposes. Not sure why some champs get small, cumulative nerfs while others get 2-3 big nerfs like Azir and Syndra has recently gotten; wouldn't it be smarter to work more slowly and see how the champ adjusts to one nerf at a time?

SpongebobIsLife1 votes

that's what you think, but that's never the case. Azir is still plenty strong, just isn't as face rolly in the laning phase.

Rinky Dinky2 votes

All the people saying he is unplayable make me lol

DEmperor952 votes

I disagree on the Q cooldown increase, because its damage has been reduced significantly, and is basically a reposition tool now. I agree on scaling W range as the game progresses. These are the changes I would suggest at the moment:

Conquering Sands (Q): Mana Cost reduced to 50/55/60/65/70 from 70 at all ranks Emperor's Divide (R): New: each rank of R increases soldier range by 25

The mana cost reduction on Q is to compensate a bit for his weaker early game. The range increase on ultimate ranks allows him to become just as strong as he used to be in the late-game.

Tapdatgoat1 votes

Nerfing the Q by almost doubling the cooldown on Q is just extreme. I definitely agree with the idea of nerfing the CD on it and adding the scaling range on W though. I see what they want to achieve by nerfing the range on the soldiers, but it leaves him feeling kinda iffy late game. Only gotten to play two games with him since the nerf though so yet to figure out if it's just me having to adjust or if it's warranted.

Drukyul1 votes

{quoted} I see what they want to achieve by nerfing the range on the soldiers

Which is what, making his laning a bit weaker? They could have just put scaling soldier damage on W. But no, they decided to hit the range and clunkitize him instead of nerf him. I hate, hate, hate it when Riot does this. The same thing with Urgot's ultimate when it got nerfed.

f00G3MxfPP1 votes

Those changes actually make a lot of sense. I especially like the increased cooldown on his q, since his status as a lane bully (and it doesn't make sense for a hyper carry to be a lane bully) is based on q, auto, auto, omg more than half my health gone. Also gives more room for counterplay because if he goes all in on the poke (2 soldiers and q), and his q is on cooldown for a longer time, you can use that time to bully him. Unfortunately, I highly doubt it's going to be implemented. They have to make new graphics for the different ranges of the soldiers or something. If I was in charge of balance design, I certainly would not want that.

Edit: or they could just revert range nerfs and add that long cooldown q. And make the soldiers die much faster under turret. Fuck getting poked under turret.

Railios1 votes

Yeah bro they did massacre veigar.

Radnar the bold1 votes

for me Q is a great poke that helps push your enemy back so by making it longer it hurts azir. His soilder do damage but his q is the gap closer, lane pusher, and poking extreme. His recent nerfs hurt him because his q is annoying to face, but azir can die easily if your an assain and go all in. Making his q longer will make him semi broken, trust me.

Poptart Evelynn1 votes

This is actually amazingly well said and I have to agree. His early game is the issue for me.

AMYS GRAVE1 votes

I think having multiple soldiers for autos in different areas means that he will always be a lane bully and that is where his strength sould remain. Having him also become a hyper-carry was overbearing and imo was correctly handled by the balance team. - how often do i get to say that?!

Volt Cruelerz2 votes

Doing that early game is difficult because of cooldowns and mana and leaves periods of extreme vulnerability.

SpongebobIsLife2 votes

Yeah, you generally do not want to use all your soldiers at once unless you know you can get the kill. Using them to poke is suicide because then you have no soldier to E back to in the case of a gank.

Akumu1 votes

Logical balance changes like the ones you suggested dont seem to ever occur to Riot. Anyway its too late now. Expect some Azir buffs in 3 patches.

The Ellimiist1 votes

I agree id rather he be stronger late than early but id rather keep static soldier range. I mean if you were going to massively nerf Q like you suggest I would expect a flat 400 soldier range again. Any decent player is going to take the time to mess with you while Q is down anyways.

Zarxis1 votes

I think that Azir's soldiers could stand to have the extended-range functionality removed (hitting a minion within their range, but having the attack actually reach outside of their range). However, their actual range (the circle around them that defines what they can and cannot target) shouldn't have been nerfed. A mild hit to Q's damage is somewhat understandable, but Azir's cooldowns shouldn't be changed. He has to use all of his basic abilities in tandem to play well, and even when he does play well, he has plenty of counterplay (long E cooldown and his damage is limited to the location of his soldiers). If his early-game bullying is such a problem, removing the soldier attack extensions would help to solve the issue that is trying to remain near your minions while Azir is using his soldiers, and lowering the damage on his Q (perhaps lowering the base and upping the scaling on his Q and W) should be sufficient.

Azir didn't deserve to be nerfed to hell right after he received more crucial bugfixes; Riot should have given him time to adjust and given mild nerfs to his early game (if his bullying is the problem).

SpongebobIsLife1 votes

he needs the extensions, otherwise his teamfighting capabilities go waaaay down the drain.

ElectrcNINJA1 votes

My problem is the solider-dash... Before if you missed an enemy you could still hit them with a poke. Now if you miss, they just walk out before you can aa. I guess that's OK, just hit them every time, but even then he still does not enough damage for the amount of mana the dash used. Sure you can still get one stab in (instead of two) but that still is really not enough.

Now: If you land your Q, you get one AA (without C/D or Attack Speed) If you miss your Q, you might get one.

Then: If you land your Q, you get one/two AA's If you miss your Q, you still got one.

I used to play him allot he was my go-to mid, for me this Nerf hit really hard.

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