Azir

I've seen him played at a high level and it's scary. Most people suck with him, but that doesn't actually mean he sucks.

He can potentially be strong, but he is VERY buggy. Alot of concepts about him are just very clunky when actually put to practice.

His lane harass, even though he has range, is very weak. His soldiers are very good at missing any kind of moving target (this applies to teamfights as well)

His soldiers have a cast time, and a cooldown. The problem with this, really, is that Azir can do NOTHING without them active. So, before he can cast anything other than his passive and ult, he must first take about 3 seconds to cast soldiers, and then use an ability. In a tight spot, you don't have that time. They must be up to do anything, and this is why other unit-controlling champs are much better.

Orianna's Ball is always up, and it's movement is on a 3 second cooldown. It doesn't have to be away from her to use abilities. Zed does not require the presence his shadow to use abilities, and it's also on a fairly short cooldown Syndra's spheres are never required to be on the field for any spell to be cast, they just give a bonus effect Wukong/Shaco's illusions and Malz/Elise's minions are only bonuses to their regular abilities

Azir's ult doesn't do as advertised. It's easy to bypass and if you dash before it's all the way up, you'll pass it (it takes like 1.5 seconds to get all the way up)

Azir's dash to a minion is very often too dangerous to use as anything other than an escape, but to escape with it, gotta cast a soldier, make it dash, then dash to it. By then, you could have ran further.

Many people say Azir blooms in the late game, which is very true. Unfortunately, he has to survive the rest of them game to get to full effectiveness. The effort to payoff just isn't there. If you want a champ of similar style, just refer to my list above. (Orianna is my personal main).

God forbid you face any kind of harass champion in lane, because you will recall so much with little counter-attack. Hopefully they will completely overhaul him, but I doubt they'll do much, but Gnar did get a complete buff after his release.

They need to buff his early to mid game as it's just too weak. He's hard to play already, and then he also needs to deal with a very late power spike. In exchange for the buff in early to mid game, they can slightly nerf his late game scaling to balance him. Here are some directions for balancing azir imo (of course I can be wrong) :

1. Slightly decrease his cooldowns in early to mid game (especially on W/E), he's too skill reliant to be able to dish out harass and escape
2. Apply on-hits for sand soldiers? Makes his core items more significantly suitable on him... for example / (Maybe too op?)
3. Swifter control on minions and attack animation when controlling minion to attack
4. Make him less squishy in (early?/) mid game (because it's suicide to fully engage in mid game with how squishy you are (and there are so many cooldowns needed to perform the risky engage)
5. More sustain
6. Maybe nerf his late game scaling on attack speed? (but pls do this after buffing azir's early to mid first)
7. If you still want him to be a late game monster, buff that CDR for AS a bit back up pls because it's really not worth (of course then you won't need that much early and mid game buffs on him. Overall, it's just very hard imo to balance this champ. The way he scales with AS makes his late game if his early to mid game is buffed seem a bit too powerful while focusing on making him an even better late game carry make him still a bit too risky to play (even riskier then yasuo, azir's engages if performed badly can be disastrous for both him and his team, while yasuo can get help with engaging quite easily and has a pretty good lv 1). Even if it's promoting the idea of 'high risk, high reward', the risk with the difficulty is too much for azir players to afford. His unique W also makes him quite hard to itemize, and usually you would need to give up a passive (obviously about here) or you would see a few stats wasted on him (hello ), which if azir could utilize, can be a very great item on him. Of course and and on him is pretty good, but what more can you get? To buy you need to be quite ahead, buying helps engaging but in turn no sustain damage, needs the scaling (yes, you need to buy 4 main items plus and you need the scaling on to reach his so-called 'power spike'). Hopefully they can somehow think of a way to balance him. {{summoner:10}} ..Pls....Save...Azir...

In a short answer Azir Is a powerful team player but he's item dependent and not knowing how to handle him during lane-ing phase will kill you for the rest of the game. Expect a low win rate because not too many are willing to learn him.
I've had lots of success with Azir. Of course in the beginning when I was first learning I lost Alot but after I watched some pro players and even read the in depth guide some of the Rioters put on the front page I finally understood how to play him. Only thing I can ask anyone is to not hate a champ you can't win with or understand. Refer to this link for any extra tips http://na.leagueoflegends.com/en/news/community/community-spotlight/azir-survival-guide Azir excels against Melee champs which makes him excellent at Top lane, his soldiers can farm, deny farm and harass all at the same time< Not something I've had crazy success with at mid against far casters His early game auto attack damage is extremely low but his Soldier's auto attacks are stronger but not enough to scare an opponent < Use that to your advantage and keep chipping and ultimately send them off lane or tackle them with E and Ignite if you got it. He does poorly against champs with a gap closer but this doesn't have to be the case, and where extra difficulty comes in to always have a spare soldier to jump away to. Trying to keep it short, think of him as a Utilitarian champ and not a Apc powerhouse. His ult is great Counter-CC and will ruin lots of complicated team fights while still getting kills from the other side of the wall and buffing teammates. If there's anything about him that Needs a buff its his auto attack damage against minions! measly 48 damage with Butcher makes it harder to last hit than any other champ I can think of. Anyway have fun!

I've been having some success with him mid. I agree that his early game is very weak, so I've been focusing on just surviving and capitalizing on enemy mistakes. For this reason I use health seals over any cdr runes, along with ap quints, mpen marks, and ap glyphs. To further help the "survival" goal I usually start . Moving into mid-game, he really needs & to really be of any use. From then it's some variation of or , finishing with if the game goes that long.

What's great about Azir is he doesn't need a buttload of ap do do considerable damage, so I haven't found that is a huge priority for him. He excells in prolonged teamfights so the sustained utility damage is preferable to 100-0 bursts. Even so, with the Mpen in this build you can still chunk quite a bit from anything less than a tank with just Q>AA. His soldiers also provide amazing zone control once you have your CDR items, and with the regen provided by , you can keep at least 2 up almost indefinitely.

Definitely the hardest champ I've tried to master (ended up refunding my purchase for a week lol, though he was also severely bugged at release) but give him a chance! I guess I've been playing him as a bruiser and it seems to be working. Of course if the team is losing overall and your are delayed you're in for a rough time, but always try to make it to late game with him.

TL;DR: Build more sustainy than bursty, be patient in lane and teamfights, and you will wreck :D

wonky kits will always have low winrates no matter how good they are

Yea every now and then his skill icons don't show as on cooldown which can make for some horribly failed fights >_<

I honestly don't think Azir's in a terrible spot right now tbh. A little background knowledge before you all rage at me, but i'm plat 2 with a 66% w/r on him and around a 75% w/r in normals. The real issue i see with people playing him is just that they don't get the champion in general. People who say Azir has a weak laning phase probably just aren't using him right. He has a great laning phase and can be used to do some downright op things to someone who isn't extremely careful in lane. So guess ill share how I build him and recommend you try it and give some feedback on whether you still think hes under powered or not.

Runes: I go for Magic pen reds a mix of 4 flat armor seals and 5 scaling hp seals for that shield ability of his and 5 flat mr runes and 4 scaling mr runes so you don't get insta nuked in the lategame. (besides in the early game you should be so far back or zoning so hard you shouldn't face much harass from the enemy laner). Finally for the quints I run 5% cdr ( Very important!) and a 1.5% move speed quint. (if you have trouble with early game last hitting or harass replace with an attack speed quint. )

After that go for 21/0/9 masteries and make sure you get the 5% cdr and even going for points into attack speed is recommended.

Why would you rune and mastery like this you ask? Well that's simple the passive on azir is op just flat out. You have some of the best itemization in game with him using this combination and can make your early game just soo much easier by abusing the passives free stat bonus.

As far as itemization goes your core build is just a chalice/nashor's into a codex with some sorc shoes and bam you are dealing ridiculous dmg and have 40% cdr. As long as you don't spam your spells continuously you will never oom (if you decide to go nashor's over chalice if you went chalice you just wont oom).

When into the lategame I usually upgrade codex into a dfg because azir has a habit of getting in close, also grab a zhonyas and a deathcap

The problem is because of the "high skill cap"

That, and people have a strong disdain with Azir after their first game because they find him too confusing.

There's that, and people still don't understand him properly.

I mean, bro. His ult puts up a wall and block off the enemy. Akali and I were being chased down by a Warwick and a Trundle. We killed the troll, but the pooch was hot on us. So, I ulted since we were low health to get away. It hit WW, and Akali ulted into her shadow and STAYED THERE. She got killed by WW and complained, "Azir, WTF, why you block me in?"

My response: "Sorry, I should have mentioned how my allies can walk through my ult and gain a MS buff."

is really strong to me. Problem is the numerous bugs I found when playing him. But the route I choose is mostly, and it always gives me most damage dealt, but I cant find a way to work with him and not die from getting focused just yet. Extended fights are the best for him, and laning phase is great as long as you know how to harass properly and mind to keep an eye out for the jungler. Azir can be a DPS magic damage champ just like an ADC that way, but doesn't quite fix the problem when he doesn't have enough hp to begin with. could be a good idea, but your team has to get a good engage so that you don't really need It, good suggestion tho.