Boards›Gameplay

The Azir Rework: A Opinion

Good Dragan··25 votes·2,909 views

Saw this on reddit. As a 200 k azir main I could not agree more.

After playing on the PBE I feel as Azir has lost all his identity as a unique champion. Almost every single highlight you see of Azir just won't be possible once this update goes live.

Azir completely lost ability to poke safety, the Q range is laughable considering champions like Xerath, Vel koz and Ziggs exist. The slightly higher early game damage and lower CD do not even come close to making up for the nerf to the range.

Azirs new W is also less effective as the command range and deactivation ranges are nerfed, again weakening his ranges. The steriod is nice but you need items and levels to make use of it. Also the hit to his wave clear is upsetting, azir is going to be even more vulnerable to champions that can clear faster or any poke champion or assassin. It just means more time spent autoing minions instead of being productive in lane. Overall weaker W. Already been nerfed again from 70 to 60.

Azirs new E is nothing compared to the old E. The slow dash speed combined with drastically less Q range make shuffles unviable and combined with the Ult nerf, just downright stupid to attempt because of the amount of danger you put yourself in to shuffle. The shield is 1.5 seconds which will be over by the time azir slowly dashes to the location. Champions will hold the trigger for half a second and then just blow him up. Shield needs to be longer. Overall nerf to escape, and a nerf to shuffle.

The new Ult is a joke at this point. Overtime the Ult has been gutted patch over patch and I thought it couldn't get any worst. Now it doesn't block any dashes apart from initial cast. So many champions have multiple dashes and blinks etc, this wall is just useless. I'd take the wall doing zero damage and still block dashes over what it is now.

Overall he lost what made Azir, Azir. Now he feels like a weaker version of Cassiopeia. Azir has no niche to fill in the game anymore and there is no reason to play him as other champions do the same things but better. I really hope this is reverted this just is so sad seeing azir nerfed like this. No more competitive and soloQ play for this emperor.

22 Comments

Chembaron Yamada23 votes

They had to take stuff away from him, he just had too many strengths on release and that was the reason they had to keep him weak.

He had the range of an artillery mage, the zoning of a control mage, the mobility of a high range diver ala Camille, the initiation potential of a Vanguard with his shuffle, the magic dps of a battle mage and so on.

This stuff was what made Azir Azir, but it was simply too much. Something had to go. And there were 2 approaches. Cutting his range and make his playstyle more like a battle mage, or cutting his safety (shield and mobility) and keep his range while making him more vulnerable for dives.

The actual goal of this rework is not to make him balanced immediately. They want to change his kit in that way that they are able to buff him in a balanced state, without him being the alpha and omega of the rift again.

IxtaliKing5 votes

While I agree, I must say they could have at least committed fully to whichever direction they chose. The current iteration on pbe is just a shitter of what we have on live with less range. They need to give his E the knock up and revert his ult back to its previous functionality.

Posui Gart7 votes

Azir completely lost ability to poke safety, the Q range is laughable considering champions like Xerath, Vel koz and Ziggs exist.

Not every mage should be able to poke safely

Overall weaker W

Unless you stack soldiers instead of clearing the lane with single soldier and Q

The slow dash speed combined with drastically less Q range make shuffles unviable and combined with the Ult nerf, just downright stupid to attempt because of the amount of danger you put yourself in to shuffle.

Shuffle-R combo shouild not be "always the right thing to do". New E is better when you need that shield right here and now. You are not supposed to have that shield for the whole teamfight.

many champions have multiple dashes and blinks etc, this wall is just useless

Can't disagree with this, but the wall already was weak earlier against anything that has a blink instead of dash.

AirKingNeo5 votes

Azir is losing his overcomplexity for more standard and hard numbers.

It's called fixing an overloaded kit. You remove it's stupidity so it can be buffed.

ThePikol4 votes

Sad but true

sobi9994 votes

I said this in 3 of my threads already. NONE believes me! The skill cap is raised even higher due to his range and thus safety being nerfed. The biggest problem is that his whole power budget is in his late game W which without items will be useless early game. Thus early game azir will just be a farm fiesta like it wasn't bad enough. Making use of that new AS passive will require alot of mana and i can see riot wanting azir to pick and kill its targets but then again that will raise his skill-cap even further as it requires alot more planning and decision making. The Ult not blocking the dash will now be used to kill targets and not as utility. I mean his E travelling time and Q range has been nerfed and ult no longer blocks dash. Obviously now a shuffle will pose even greater threats. The point i am getting across is that, he already has such a low winrate, mainly because of his high skill-cap and riot goes and makes it even higher. I really do hope his winrate drops even further so the changes are reverted.

Jbels7 votes

{quoted}

I said this in 3 of my threads already. NONE believes me! The skill cap is raised even higher due to his range and thus safety being nerfed. The biggest problem is that his whole power budget is in his late game W which without items will be useless early game. Thus early game azir will just be a farm fiesta like it wasn't bad enough. Making use of that new AS passive will require alot of mana and i can see riot wanting azir to pick and kill its targets but then again that will raise his skill-cap even further as it requires alot more planning and decision making. The Ult not blocking the dash will now be used to kill targets and not as utility. I mean his E travelling time and Q range has been nerfed and ult no longer blocks dash. Obviously now a shuffle will pose even greater threats. The point i am getting across is that, he already has such a low winrate, mainly because of his high skill-cap and riot goes and makes it even higher. I really do hope his winrate drops even further so the changes are reverted.

It's not even a skill cap thing anymore. Skillcap implies that your skill with the champion is rewarded. With this iteration, where's the reward? This is taking an already gimped champion and strapping iron weights to his wrists and ankles

An Undead brat3 votes

I think he has mistaken skillfloor for skillcap.

Rockem Sockm4 votes

He is completely worse in every way. Riot said they would hit his range or mobility and they hit everything.

Nothing about his new kit is an improvement.

He will never be Ryze or Cass because has can only dps standing completely still.

He is now more of a sitting duck with an even worse laning phase and mana problems. His team fighting and lategame became a gimmick that takes too long to set up.

AntInatorx113 votes

You have no clue about what you're saying and from my point of view, not a genuine Azir main. Most people even whining and complaining are people who either don't know their Azir as much as they think they do and have no idea how to properly and accurately come to a hypothesis on whether or not the buffs or good, and or you don't have a PBE account to test them out yourself because like me, i thought this rework was underwhelming. Guess what? It's fantastic. So many people in Denial over the fact that he was cancer to lane against and it was boring even if he was weak. he had every tool a Mage could want so they nerfed it, in the rework they fixed his identity for his role and made him what he should have been.

Rockem Sockm1 votes

{quoted}

You have no clue about what you're saying and from my point of view, not a genuine Azir main. Most people even whining and complaining are people who either don't know their Azir as much as they think they do and have no idea how to properly and accurately come to a hypothesis on whether or not the buffs or good, and or you don't have a PBE account to test them out yourself because like me, i thought this rework was underwhelming. Guess what? It's fantastic. So many people in Denial over the fact that he was cancer to lane against and it was boring even if he was weak. he had every tool a Mage could want so they nerfed it, in the rework they fixed his identity for his role and made him what he should have been.

You haven't played it and I doubt you know shit about Azir either. You have zero concept of what these changes even do.

ArchMageM4gnus4 votes

I've just always hated how Riot re-works a character and basically says "Here, THIS is how he/she is suppose to be played. Forgot other ways you played them, or how you enjoyed playing them, THIS is whats right."

And with that, I play Azir very passively, and I do very well with him. I rarely, if ever do a flashy Shurima Shuffle. I stay behind my front line, use my range to my advantage since that IS how he can be played, and attempt to kite or all in accordingly. If I want to play an all in Mage I'll pick Kat, Diana, Fizz, etc. I rarely ever engage the mid laner, and simply play safe and attack him if he attempts an all in against me, or just over extends.

New Azir is all about spamming soldiers, getting closer to your opponent to risk an engagement, and be ready to Q and E and all in before they punish you. Horrible. Some people play like that but I don't. I might as well go back to Veig, another very good passive champ that I can simply stack until my opponent over commits to the point I can combo and ult him.

Lauchmelder3 votes

You can thank the other half of us (mainly r/azirmains) for asking Riot to keep the Shurima Shuffle gimmick.

Handin Out Naps2 votes

Without the shuffle he will be a boring poke mage that no one will want to play. This rework doesnt look all that amazing, but many azir players would rather keep the dash because they don't want to play shit like xerath.

TyrekGoldenspear3 votes

that no one will want to play

http://s2.quickmeme.com/img/f9/f93c76303736d0ace43ec0892996cb214c5a81ccb436355d27952794eecca144.jpg

Handin Out Naps2 votes

Yeah my bad shouldn't have said no one.

AmazoX2 votes

Dude just be happy they kept shurima shuffle, Back in 2016 august, Meddler at reddit said that when azir does get his eventual gameplay update, his kit will be adjusted in a way so shurima shuffle is kept or removed.

Sire Hippington2 votes

He had to loose some of his iconic stuff in order to keep the other. Keeping all together just doesn't work, it either has his numbers gutted or he totally dominates all and everything in high elos.

They decided to focus on his 'magical aoe dps hypercarry' with decent personal safety(a dash with shield and a get off my face ult) identity. Complaining that a massive dps hypercarry has less range tha a siegemage feels pretty absurd to me anyway.

Drynin2 votes

I actually find these changes kind of interesting. They had already been moving Azir away from hard scaling, and more into base damages, but now with his AS buff for having 3 soldiers out, lower cooldowns across the board, in exchange for reduced range and reduced AP scaling on his soldiers, the build I'd been wanting to test on him might be fairly viable now: the AP bruiser build.

So if he's going to need to be more up-close and personal (His E champ collision spawning a soldier even exemplifies this), he could easily get away with building say a Liandry's+1 more AP item/Abyssal Mask, and then building tank stats.

Of course, even the glass cannon build should still work on him. I understand Riot's feelings here as Azir's basically been strong at all points of the game while still being a late-game-hypercarry. It feels like they wanted to preserve his Late-Game-ness, which I feel they've done with the AS buff and repositioning Cooldown, but still keep him capable of being at least a threat with his Shurima Shuffle at early levels.

Honestly, I think these changes will be great for him in the long run, but I think he still suffers like most AP champs that are pure damage do during this time frame of lack of decent items since he's always been pretty restricted in his item choices to be viable (so Nashor's, Rylai's, Void Staff, and then two others, one of which likely needs to be Deathcap as last item). Maybe this will open more items up for him.

Divewing2 votes

Everything you are complaining about here is completely unfair.

Honestly, read through your post again. What you have complained about is simply that they changed him, i.e YOU WANT HIM TO STAY THE SAME.

No. That's completely asinine.

He has to give up something. They have hit his range.

His mobility is still the same with the recent dash speed revert, and his soldier dps is EVEN HIGHER THAN BEFORE AT EVERY STAGE OF THE GAME. You just have to commit for it.

Right now you have a rather conceited and entitled attitude that is crying for Azir to simply be buffed, which is not fair to anyone.

This rework opens him up to having 2 major counters; long range, and high mobility. In exchange, he will absolutely MURDER low mobility, range, and/or heavy tank compositions. His zone control will be EVEN STRONGER and more punishing, provided you TAKE THE RISK FOR IT.

You want to achieve something on Azir, you better be ready to put the work into it.

No champion should be rewarded for not taking risks, and that is exactly what you are asking for.

Stevev451 votes

Roit has had a hard on for f'ing mages for the past 3 years. What did you expect.

CaptainKrunchler1 votes

The Title of post is grammatically incorrect. I can not continue reading.

More from Gameplay

3 Refunds per season, upvote if you want 3 refunds per season.
Gameplay764 comments
7,167
votes
3 Refunds per season, upvote if you want 3 refunds per season.
Gameplay156 comments
3,510
votes
UPVOTE FOR URF
Gameplay606 comments
2,440
votes
Yes plz.
Gameplay456 comments
1,721
votes
3 Refunds per season, up vote if you want 3 refunds per season.
Gameplay114 comments
1,716
votes
When is ANYONE at riot going to address the awful new player experience?
Gameplay634 comments
1,383
votes