Azir Update Discussion

I believe the problem with Azir is his ability to burst out from such long distance due to his Q damage and maxing Q first. I think that if they move a large amount of the Q damage to his W auto attack, and make Q more about repositioning with a slightly lower CD and heavier slow or when multiple soliers hit a heavier slow than currently. It will still do some damage, but not completely delete a squishy without them having time to react to the repositioning of the soldier and not take 2 autos. This would also promote the maxing of his W first for more AS earlier and faster recharging.

The Following are all possible changes, and not meant to be all at the same time

Adding some benefit to his E shield could help his laning phase, even for less skilled Azir players, by giving it some small AP scaling or something, or percentage missing health, allowing him to survive or compete in skirmishes early a little better.

If there is more needed: I also think his ultimate should be a wall, currently, it is really more of just a knockback due to past nerfs to duration. I think it should last longer (possibly have 1 more soldier width at lvl 6, maybe 5 width at all ranks, or just leave it 4/5/6). The wall lasts only 3 seconds, which is a very short time for a 4 or 5 soldier wide wall. It is an important peel move, though I think by nerfing th duration, it no longer feels like a control mage, zoning enemies or blocking escapes. Obviously adding back some power to the wall, maybe making it last 4s/5s/6s or something like that, would require a shift of power from somewhere else.

That is why although his turret building is great, and interesting and allows you to outplay, I would rather the outplays be around your ult creating a zone you can kite around for a duration, rather than him have the ability to summon turrets. (If this power relocation was needed) Also, plenty of other champions or possible new champions could use the thematic of summoning a turret a lot more than Azirs thematic does. Heimerdinger even would make sense.

This leaves him without a passive though. These passive ideas are just examples to replace the turret or even bring some of the earlier discussed reworks into his kit optionally.

Passive 1: Possibly making his soldiers do more damage when around his ult Passive 2: Giving him like an evolution mechanic similar to khazix or even syndra. Where at rank 1/2/3 of ult you can empower 1 ability or at max rank of an ability you get a bonus.

Q - Make his Q do more damage OR slow more OR lower CD on W autos. (only 1 of those) W - Give it more damage on autos with multiple soldiers (instead of the earlier described) E - Give it a .25s Knockup when colliding with enemies OR increase shield scaling. R- Make his ult last longer and/or be larger ( the earlier increases described)

Passive 3: Clearly his early game is where he is weak, intentionally, though he may never get to his late game state, based on his early damage nerfs and such, so possibly a small laning phase passive could help. Like something utilizing multiple soliders in lane. Maybe some kind of mana refunding, or a small damage/AS steroid for each soldier in the area.

Most of all, I would rather Azir remain "Basemented" with his current power, (maybe only slight buff) than for him to be reworked to not be able to have his movement and playmaking with shurima shuffle, or for him to have his range taken away. (Described before as him being made only long range with no way to go in, or a short range battle mage built around his shuffle.) Neither of these sound good to me, simply for the feel of Azir. So I would much prefer his current state than either of these options.

Overall (TL;DR), allocate power from his Q damage to his W auto damage. Reduce CD of Q slightly to compensate and make it more of a Utility repositioning tool and slow, (still doing some damage). This promotes the maxing of W for Attack Speed and faster recharging. This should probably be the AP scaling damage. Give his ult a longer duration than 3s, possibly 4s/5s/6s or 4s/6s/8s and possibly increase the width at rank 1. (Possibly 5/6/7 or 5/6 at all ranks.) This is a decent amount of power, and if power needs to be moved from his kit to compensate, then removing his turret placing passive and giving him a new passive, possibly a passive that incorporates all the earlier discussed changes. Overall he can be balanced from where he is to have a slightly better winrate but not dominate, by moving numbers and power around.

Please Discuss if you like and Comment your Ideas and Provide Constructive Feedback.