A request for Azir @ Riot

Hello! To start this off I want to say this is not a complaint post. I just wanted to give my opinion on Azir, can take it or leave it, but I wanted to say it either way and have my voice heard.

I have been an Azir player since he was released. I loved the champion from day one and played him a lot throughout that season. Since then I will say he's probably had once of the worst player experiences on any champion however. Pretty much weekly bug fixes (the one where his ult didn't work on people close to you, the one where his soldiers would randomly stop attacking, the one where his soldiers appeared to auto attack in place forever but not hit anything to name a few...) accompanied by an immediate set of heavy nerfs right after those bug fixes about a year later has not made Azir fun to play.

It went straight from being buggy the entire time to some of the most extreme nerfs I've ever seen to a single champion. This made it especially difficult because it felt like you were relearning the champion on a monthly basis. During the first round of nerfs I made a couple of posts asking about what direction Azir was being taken in and they never got answered. So I thought I would make this post to comment on where I hope Azir is going and see if other people chime in and agree with me.

First, I want to say that Azir as he was released was probably too strong and he needed some nerfs. I'm ok with that his turret nuking on W removed and reduced time on the wall (although it could use another second back to it right now). I miss the knock up on the E since it was both an engage tool and a way for the enemy to play around an Azir that led to some really interesting moments where an enemy JG had to get in front of your soldiers to block your E escape. I'm not saying buff Azir, I just want to talk about where to emphasize his kit. Ever since his first season Azir has had a bit of an identity crisis.

Azir should not be a poke mage. Wayyyy back not long after his initial release people seemed so confused by Azir that there was a decision to add more damage to his Q and emphasize maxing that first. IMO the way Azir should be played is maximizing use of his soldiers. How you place them, keep people inside their range, and move them should mean something. You shouldn't be able to chunk your opponent just by Q'ing a soldier on top of them. Azir is supposed to zone people and deal sustained damage, and emphasizing the maxing of Q and it's damage doesn't fit that image.

Also, not having a strong attack on the Q means that it's easier to get close to Azir because you wont get just auto chunked when he does a Q on top of you, but at the same time you wouldn't want to just walk into his soldiers and stand there. The Q is supposed to just be a way to add a little bit of extra damage and slow your opponent to keep them in soldier range. In other words, changing Q to emphasize the slow and deal less damage is a way to help enemies interact with Azir while also letting balance changes focus on the soldier attacks instead of chunking people with poke damage.

The second major point I want to mention is changing Azirs passive to be completely tied to only attack speed doesn't make a lot of sense for two reasons. The first being that no matter whether it's granted via CDR or through W or anything else Azir will always reach a certain cap on it because there just aren't enough items that have both attack speed and AP (actually we're basically talking about Nashors tooth here). So, with either choice the combination is whatever attack speed you get from runes, nashors tooth, and the Azirs built in attack speed plus his W. Azir wants to build CDR anyways, so requiring attack speed (a very odd stat on a zoning mage) is a strange way to go on that one. Still not sure why this choice was made, particularly because it ties Azirs entire existence to Nashors tooth and requiring it in every game just to function.

TL;DR - In short, I would like Azir more if:

*The damage on Q was heavily reduced but emphasized the slow to keep people within soldier range, but not instantly chunk them so people can interact with Azir, but it also rewards you for good soldier placement.

*The wall should remain a short duration and the removal of the tower nuke on W was needed

*Some of the original soldier range was given back to put more focus on creating zones of control instead of just poking an enemy to death with Q

*The passive that turned CDR to attack speed was returned, since focusing on pure attack speed for a mage is an odd stat to use

*I would personally like the E knock up back, despite the fact that I understand why it was removed, however it was removed primarily because of how powerful the wall was which has now been nerfed anyways. So, this would just be my preference, I miss the play and counterplay this created.

Please focus on Azir as a sustained damage zone mage and not as a poke mage. He should have to build slightly tanky (rod of ages, rylai's etc) in case people jump on him, and should be weak to people invading his space, but should also have high moments where you place your soldiers in just the right spots to create a gauntlet of death for the enemy.

Thank you for hearing me out.