(Proposed) Azir Balance Changes

With the recent 5.3 patch in effect, I must say the arguments put forth by the official patch notes to re-adjusting Azir's lane bullying presence and scaling into mid/late game hyper carry status leave a rather bitter taste in my mouth.

I certainly agree Azir's burst can be a bit overwhelming during the laning phase which makes him a threat to be reckoned with if one is careless - or as is the popularity of the meta; to take squishy high damage play-making mid laners (such as assassins) or other similarly ranged zone-threat mages.

In light of the direction the community and Riot are concerned (lowering Azir's frontal burst) and instead solidying Azir as a DPS style mage, here are some proposed balance changes to create meaningful weaknesses during his laning phase as is desired.

[Current] (Q) Conquering Sands

RANGE: 875 COST: 70 Mana COOLDOWN: 10/9/8/7/6

ACTIVE: Azir orders all Sand Soldiers to rush toward the target location, dealing magic damage and slowing all enemies they pass through by 25% for 1 second. Enemies can be hit by multiple soldiers, but each soldier beyond the first will deal only 25% damage. The slow stacks additively.

MAGIC DAMAGE: 65/86/105/125/145 (+50% AP) ADDITIONAL DAMAGE: 16.25 / 21.25 / 26.25 / 31.25 / 36.25 (+ 12.5% AP)

I feel as the base damage nerf is in the right direction - and the ability power ratio is at a respectable 50%. However, being as it is the bread and butter of Azir's repositioning of his soldiers I feel a couple of adjustments can make it slightly closer to that envisioned cohesion of DPS over burst.

[Proposed] (Q) Conquering Sands

RANGE: 875 COST: 75 Mana COOLDOWN: 8/7/6/5/4

ACTIVE: Azir orders all Sand Soldiers to rush toward the target location, dealing magic damage and slowing all enemies they pass through by 25% for 1 second. Enemies can be hit by multiple soldiers, but each soldier beyond the first will deal only 20% damage. The slow stacks additively.

MAGIC DAMAGE: 60/75/90/105/120 (+50% AP) ADDITIONAL DAMAGE: 12/ 15/ 18 / 21 / 24 (+ 10% AP)

With a lowered base damage, and stacking damage for additional soldiers - the power of the Conquering Sands has been allocated in lowering its cooldown by 2 seconds at each level, with an additional 5 points of mana to cast the ability, making judicious usage of the ability to re-position Sand Soldiers of greater priority to maximizing Azir's damage and zoning potential.

[Current] (W) Arise!

RANGE: 450 COST: 40 Mana COOLDOWN: 1.5 Seconds RECHARGE TIME: 12/11/10/9/8

ACTIVE: Azir summons an untargetable Sand Soldier for 9 seconds. When Azir attacks an enemy in a soldier's range, the soldier attacks instead of Azir - dealing 50 / 55 / 60 / 65 / 70 / 75 / 80 / 85 / 90 / 95 / 100 / 110 / 120 / 130 / 140 / 150 / 160 / 170 (45 + 5 / 10 at each level) (+ 60% AP) magic damage to all enemies in a line. If multiple soldiers strike the same target, each soldier after the first deals 25% damage, and the soldiers can't attack structures.

Azir can store up to 2 Sand Soldiers at a time, but there is no hard limit on the number of Sand Soldiers that can be active on the field at once. Sand Soldiers expire twice as fast while within range of an enemy turret, and will expire instantly if Azir moves too far away.

If Azir summons a Sand Soldier directly on top of an enemy turret, the soldier will sacrifice itself to deal 50 + (10 × Azir's level) (+ 40% AP) magic damage to the turret.

Sand Soldiers have an attack range of 325.

The range nerf on Sand Soldier basic attacks from 400 feel absolutely horrible. While it relieves the pressure exerted on opposing laners from Azir's supposed lane-bully presence, it leaves much to be desired towards the mid/late game scaling and skirmish/team-fight oriented phases of the game as Azir's objective still remains to strike a backline.

On a side-note, I will agree the damage upon activation towards turrets was quite necessary, though as a QoL (Quality of Life) adjustment, I would like to see the turret hitbox for (W) Arise!'s cast be reduced so when attempting to summon a Sand Soldier around an enemy turret during aggressive maneuvers be less inclined to fail as a result of hitboxes preventing player choice through obstruction.

[Proposed] (W) Arise!

RANGE: 450 COST: 50 Mana COOLDOWN: 1 Second RECHARGE TIME: 16/14/12/10/8 Seconds

ACTIVE: Azir summons an untargetable Sand Soldier for 9 seconds. When Azir attacks an enemy in a soldier's range, the soldier attacks instead of Azir - dealing 40 / 45 / 50 / 55 / 60 / 65 / 70 / 80 / 85 / 95 / 105 / 115 / 125 / 135 / 145 / 155 / 165 / 175 (+ 50% AP) magic damage to all enemies in a line. If multiple soldiers strike the same target, each soldier after the first deals 25% damage, and the soldiers can't attack structures.

Azir can store up to 2 Sand Soldiers at a time, but there is no hard limit on the number of Sand Soldiers that can be active on the field at once. Sand Soldiers expire twice as fast while within range of an enemy turret, and will expire instantly if Azir moves too far away.

If Azir summons a Sand Soldier directly on top of an enemy turret, the soldier will sacrifice itself to deal 20 + (10 × Azir's level) (+ 50% AP) magic damage to the turret.

Sand Soldiers have an attack range of 340/355/370/385/400.

I can agree that the Sand Soldiers have an extremely oppressive laning presence vs melee champions - however, the lack of incentive to allocate points early into (W) Arise! stems mainly in that its scalings are primarily valued in levels and Ability Power from itemization making its use significantly delayed in terms of follow-up point investment.

With a slight bump in mana cost, and re-tooled scalings on both its damage and cooldowns, lowering its base and focusing more on its AP ratio (for both the normal attacks and application on turrets) - Azir's damage should be respectably curved to scale without absolute lane dominance in virtually every conceivable match up.

Most importantly is the incentive now present in allocating points towards (W) Arise! is rewarded by adjusting Sand Soldier's basic attack ranges (up to its pre-patch 5.3) value of 400. This in turn can gives agency towards the Azir player when making meaningful decisions about point usage as (Q) Conquering Sands no longer has the brute force base values to simply be spammed away to assert lane dominance, and will thus encourage more interaction as well as meaningful windows of opportunity between Azir's laner and himself to make plays or counter-play accordingly as a result of his increased recharge time if (W) Arise! remains with only 1 point allocated to it.

I look forward to hearing back from the community and hopefully Rioters as well as I believe there is still room to improve and adjust our beloved Shuriman Emperor to be the shining beacon of a high skill-ceiling mage-carry that is both fun to play as and against.