Azir Bot Lane

Fisk··1 votes·4,064 views

So, first of all, hello boards, Fisk here. I am a plat support/jungle player and I've been thinking about the new champ. When I say Azir bot lane, I do not mean support Azir. I mean Marksman Azir. I believe his dps, scaling, tower pushing, and wave pushing abilities all qualify him to go down to bot lane. Now, I know you all are saying, "Hold up, isn't it traditionally the AD Carry." This would be correct. However the reason behind this is because that champion type is the only one with good kiting and hyperscaling ranged (meaning safe) dps. But Azir (while ap) has, from what I can tell so far dps that can late game, emulate your ADC's even though he is ap which is pretty unique to him. Next he can push waves (have you seen the soldier wave clear late game? It's insane) and is actually very good at shoving towers down, using a combination of Arise to break the tower and harass the enemy team while threading his very high attack speed autos on top of that. I think with spell vamp, attack speed and practice Azir could actually become league of legends first (viable) bot lane AP marksman.

12 Comments

The Yetii Rider2 votes

Your soldiers can't auto towers. So...I mean, I guess if you built enough attack speed you could make up for not having an AD marskman to push towers down. But that would decrease your DPS in team fights. You just can't be good at both as an AP marskman.

Fisk2 votes

His Arise can actually take down tower. You cast it on the tower and it will take damage

Tuss1 votes

I wouldn't be surprised if they included that functionality just so he could be a more viable pusher!

GreyXpelliarmus1 votes

Too much counterplay. Basically, once you use your Q you can't do anything. The ADC most important attribute is positioning, now add positioning of soldiers. He just can't work

Fisk1 votes

All good points, but this is more about his difficulty rather than his function. I think people will master this part of his kit, using his great built in attack speed with lich bane or nashors tooth to do dps while repositioning and attack with his soldiers.

YGW Caspie1 votes

I've brought this up before about having an AP marksman instead and how you can currently do it in this meta. Think back to what Curse and their sister team were doing with double AD. Tristana is a great AD in mid (for now...) her abilities don't scale with damage items, but they scale well with levels as well as her range and she can win a lot of mid lane match ups. This gives you an AD marksman still in a team comp but instead of running an AD marksman bot you can replace it with an AP marksman.

Want to go even further? Okay, try running an AD mid like Fiora Jayce Riven Talon Yasuo Zed

Having mixed damage is important in team comps because if you don't have good sources of damage from both AD and AP then the enemy team can more efficiently itemize.

Other things that can work as an AP marksman currently besides Azir are: Kayle Lulu

Example Team Comps

Top: Lulu Jungle: Nunu Mid: Tristana Bot: Nami Kayle

Top: Gragas Jungle: JarvanIV Mid: Yasuo Bot: Zyra Azir

Fisk1 votes

I see your point however, while I agree with the fact an ap Marksman is possible, I don't think any of the ones available (i.e. lulu, kayle, or teemo) are actually good enough as marks man to be viable played bot, their dps just isn't what it needs to be. Meanwhile Azir's is.

YGW Caspie1 votes

It's not necessary to always have your marksman bring nothing but DPS, if you have DPS + Utility in the marksman role and then put a hyper-carry in another role to complete the DPS in the team comp then you still have a balanced team comp.

So for example in the first team comp I gave it has Tristana which is a strong contested hyper-carry who can do very well in the mid lane, you have Nami + Kayle + Lulu + Nunu which is a a lot of buffs and protection for her or anyone that needs it. Also Kayle's late game is not weak at all. Lulu would be a weaker late game but makes up for it with utility as long as you bring damage from other sources. Let's say I swapped Kayle and Tristana in that team comp what does it look like then? It would look like a fairly standard protection team comp with a hyper-carry but just because I swapped Kayle to bot lane means it's suddenly not viable? Even though we've seen Tristana mid be viable already, and if you want to argue that Kayle's laning phase in the bot lane would be troublesome then you can opt to do a lane swap.

Viability isn't always determined by just how good a champion is by itself. The meta can also be flexible if you're willing to accept changes in it. Most aren't willing and so most don't try but even running double bruisers bot can still work if you can find a strategy that revolves around it but who wants to put in that time when we can just follow what other people have already found success with? This doesn't mean it's not possible or that it's not viable it means that no one wants to put the time or thought into a strategy that can be successful with something off-meta.

Viable literally just means that something is capable of working successfully, and if you want to say something is competitively viable then it just raises the level at which something is capable of working successfully. You say Lulu, Kayle, Teemo couldn't be played bot successfully because their DPS just isn't what it needs to be but instead you should look at what they do bring. Teemo brings late game map control, Kayle brings respectable late game DPS and a game changing ultimate, Lulu brings mid game strength and late game utility. With that in mind you build the rest of your team comp... so if it's damage you lack then put damage in your solo lanes like Ryze top with Jayce mid for an example.

Fisk1 votes

A lot of valid points. But there is a reason for meta. Even the lowest dps adc's will still deal more damage than basically any other champion on the map. The reason kayle isn't a good marksman (this is also what makes marksmen good) is the fact that she can't really build that much attack speed (I am aware you build some but there simply isn't enough good ap attack speed items to get to the same level as a adc) and can't crit. Crit is a very strong mechanic that is only available to AD champs and adc's are the ones who can build it the best. Also, you can play anything you want in solo queue it doesn't really matter. But if you want something that will consistently do well at higher levels of play you need to reason out your picks very carefully. That is why pro-play has a smaller champion pool and a very set meta. I'm not saying those things are unplayable they just aren't great. The reason you can pick azir however is he scales very well on attack speed (and gets it from cdr), and while he can't stack crit, he can stack up his warriors which deal aoe, making him an amazing dps champion.

Fisk1 votes

I don't really have an issue with a comp lacking a regular bot lane either. Usually as long as you pick an adc that can solo lane (like trist) and pick a champ that can lane well vs and adc and support bot lane you'll most likely be fine.

Kanekì1 votes

In my opinion there is no such thing as a viable marksman. You can play Any champion in bot and can still do well. Yasuo, Riven, Rengar, Azir, Teemo, Ahri, Syndra, etc, can all go bot and do quite well.

ZXDYKioaMx1 votes

In my opinion there is no such thing as a viable marksman. You can play Any champion in bot and can still do well. Yasuo, Riven, Rengar, Azir, Teemo, Ahri, Syndra, etc, can all go bot and do quite well.

I agree with this, too many people limit themselves to what is said to be the only possible choices for a certain lane.

Think about it like this, as an ADC you build up your auto attacks, by late game you maximize your auto attack dps with eventually makes an ADCs damage skills useless because their auto attacks will do more damage because of the damage and crit while also being more reliable. There are exceptions such as skills for long range poke or mobility skills.

If you think about it take an AP ranged mid like Leblanc, build her full ADC and you have the damage of an ADC since they are essentially just their build mostly. But on top of that APs like Leblanc just have skills that are useful in some way no matter what. So you have weird ADC Leblanc who can move much better than a normal ADC.

Not saying this is the right way to go just that it is very possible to replace a role with another champion or role.

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