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Remember when Azir was a champion?

TheGorillaGuy·6/19/2018, 7:15:29 AM·3 votes·1,634 views

I am a casual player that has been playing this game sense season 4. Around the time that Braum was released. The next champion would be Gnar. I still remember logging in and seeing for the first time in my League of Legends life, a new log in screen. It had mini Gnar on it looking at his shadow that would occasionally change to a "Mega Gnar" shadow. It was honestly really cool. Gnar is a really cool fun champion with a niche role in the game, and his kit has stayed exactly the same ever sense release back in 2015. Never changed. The next string of champions, however, would not be so lucky. Yes I am referring to the next 3 champions that would come out to be a part of League of Legends. Azir, Kalista, and Rek' Sai. Riot was on a role when they made these three champions. All in a row too. One after another. Riot had successfully manufactured three unique and very fun to play champions. Azir was the emperor of Shurima and the commander of its military. kalista was the arrow of vengeance, and Rek' Sai was what merchants had to fear when wandering the Shurima desert. To this day I remember reading their lore, seeing their log in screens, everything about them was cool and amazing and unique. I remember when Azir's attack speed scaled off of cool down reduction. I remember when his ultimate's wall was impassible for 3/5/7 seconds. I remember when Azir's w could do damage to towers. I remember when Azir's q range was more than one step farther out than his w range. Then Kalista came out. kalista could, and still does, leap with every auto attack and spear throw, unless you just don't click to move. Honestly kalista is not too different from what she was. In short, they really just changed her e to be exactly like a twitch e. No longer does it infinitely stack, nope. It's only like up to 7 times or something dumb. That's really lame riot. Then Rek' Sai came out. Rek' Sai was such a good jungler and could be played as a fighter or as a tank. The rage passive with healing, burrowing and unburrowing, but most importantly, her ult allowing you to effectively move around the map if used correctly and at appropriate times. All three of the champions were solid, really fun to play, and very unique. However ,riot noticed a flaw in these champions.... They were too good. Understandably, Azir was dumb strong, and once everyone learned to play him, not just the pros, he became a problem. So they changed up his numbers a bit and everything was fine. The good Azir players were still able to play Azir well and win their games on their new favorite main champion. Kalista was left untouched for a while, but then they couldn't do anything to her accept nerf her into the ground. Rek' Sai was left untouched for a long while. Then Riot Games started programming their game not for the common player, 99% of their player population, but for the 1%, all of the pros. Azir, kalista, and Rek' Sai became a menace to the game. Their play rates and ban rates were high, and so was their win rates. Finally riot had decided That they had seen enough of Azir and Kalista and began the horrible process of nerfing them. It started with Azir no longer being able to do damage to towers with his w. You could no longer punish your lane opponent for roaming by shoving in the wave and doing massive damage to the tower. Instead they thought Ziggs should be able to do that. When the pros didn't stop playing him after that, they decided to lower his damage numbers again. AND STILL the professional League of Legends players still played Azir in the mid lane. riot decided no more small tweaking. The next patch to come out would nerd Azir's stats even further. Cutting his w damage IN HALF from levels 1-11. But that was not all. They also decided that your ult up time should no longer scale. Azir's ult originally lasted 3/5/7 seconds. Then the first number tweak on Azir made it last only 3/4/5 seconds. But this patch...this patch left it at 3 seconds at all ranks. Additionally it no longer gave allies a movement speed buff when passing through it (this was done in the first numbers adjustment). AND STILL people played Azir. Though not many, he was still a problem in challenger. That 1% area was just not okay for Riot. They decide to completely nerf Azir into the ground saying "Whoops we made an amazing champion, so we are not going to let you play him until we mess this up.". Riot then says taht they are going to rework Azir yet they didn't. instead it was just a COMPLETELY over exaggerated numbers tweak. They lowered the range on his q, his w damage was back up, slightly, though they gave his w passive a cool attack speed buff. but that. DOES NOT. MAKE UP. FOR THIS. Riot went the lowest of lows, when they changed Azir's ult to longer block enemy dashes over it once it has already been placed down. No instead it is just a knock back/up. And he is still mana hungry and none of the items that work with him come with mana. I can summarize Rek' Sai up a lot faster for you. they turned Rek' Sai into a purple Nocturne, but took away any possibility of you playing her as a tank. They even went as far as to make her VERY SMALL aoe knock up not aoe....<-----bullshit. They did not rework any champions. They completely took them out of the game. Im pretty sure that this "Azir" we are supposed to believe we are playing is just Swain's bird, but leblance is making look like the emperor of the sands so that they can take control. hence why swain no longer walks around with his bird, and is stupid strong compared to other champions like "Azir". I just want to end this post by saying this. I remember the days of three champions that once existed in the League. Where they are now, I do not know, but I hope they come back as the champions we remember them as because THESE? these are NOT champions.

4 Comments

Paroe6/19/2018, 7:25:18 AM1 votes

You uhh. May want to stop posting mobile... Giant walls of text arent very readable.

Azir as a champion is either toxic and way to strong, or very weak. he needs a rework to make him fulfill that "great leader" AP marksman thing. IMO Azirs sand soldiers need to attack when azir attacks (not instead of), and be easier to reposition. This way we can make his Q and E usable without needing sand soldiers, but let them retain their effect with them. (Also Azir has one of the best auto attack animations in the game and having a real kit so AD azir could be viable would be SO NICE).

saltran6/19/2018, 7:57:15 AM1 votes

Remember when Azir needed a little rework, they did it and solved nothing?

I will always say that they need to nerf his ability to make an aoe insec because if they let it he needs to compensate by having garbage numbers on the rest of his kit.

aw beans6/19/2018, 4:40:37 PM1 votes

Azir as a character was one I thought was AMAZING since his release. I felt he lived up to his character archetype really well, and seemed super interesting to play. Unfortunately, I am not good enough to play Azir.

Recently, I gave him another go (First time in like 2 years) and the biggest change that shocked me was how dang close he has to be to his soldiers to even attack with them. I never knew that change was made and god I hate it so much. You might as well just attack with Azir if you're going to stand so close to the enemy just to smack 'em. And the same with his Q range, you can no longer poke or harass enemies from afar (which was part of the fun of playing Azir).

I do understand that he was strong, but now he is just abysmally sad, and I hope he gets some lovin soon to bring him back to a strong state.

Also, it kinda makes sense for him to be strong, considering he is arguably one of the most difficult champions to play, it should be rewarding to succeed as him.