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While I love how incredibly unique the last few champions have been...

EnvyDragon··29 votes·2,972 views

...I do think that a little more work really needs to be done on them in the QoL department, and despite the fact that most of these are completely new and relatively-untested directions, they don't seem to be getting much attention. I'm mostly talking about Azir and Kalista - I will go on record saying Rek'Sai is a goddamn masterpiece but she isn't quite as experimental as the other two. It just seems to me that when these champions were launched, the designers abruptly stopped talking about them. There are still problems. They are problems I don't think have been officially addressed. They are problems that need to be fixed before these champions are healthy for the game. At the very least, we NEED to know that the Reds are aware of the issues, or at least their reasons for leaving them alone.

Azir: There have been lots of bugfixes, and I love that. I understand that he's coding-intensive. But from a mechanical/visibility standpoint, he's rough as sandpaper. He needs to be more reliable, from a quality of life standpoint - more than any other champion I find Azir's wonkyness is to blame for a lot of my errors, and it's not just a lack of experience.

W: His soldiers are the core of it all, and of course that's where most of the problems will stem from - they're the part that made him so difficult to create and so unusual to play.

-The basic attack behavior has a bit of a clunky gradient... by which I mean, there's too steep of a fall-off between "enemy is just barely within soldier range; right-click = autoattack" and "enemy is just barely out of soldier range; right-click = azir approaches to enter his own attack range". For a control mage like Azir, spacing is everything, and when you accidentally walk into the enemy champ's range because you thought your spearman was close enough... well, that's a mess. It's especially bad because the spearman's hitbox is actually longer than his basic attack range - it's a skill differential, but knowing "He can hit from X distance" often intuitively translates to "he can target from X distance", and that's a mistake that can literally get you killed.

-The "Soldier duration is ending" ceremony is NOWHERE NEAR VISIBLE ENOUGH. The dust at his feet swirls up slightly higher and thicker than usual, and there's a faint ambient "wind" effect that plays about a second before it dissipates. My brother has been trying to main Azir for about a week now and until I brought this up with him, he literally didn't know there was an indicator that soldiers are about to vanish. Why can't we get something like Udyr's stun notifier, Yasuo's dash notifier, Rek'Sai's knockup notifier, etc? Their timer runs twice as fast under tower, but there's no way to tell when they're considered "under tower" either - this makes it really, really confusing.

-It's really, really tough to tell when you're close enough to a soldier to command him. Sometimes they go into an idle stance. Sometimes they don't.

Q: Pretty well put-together compared to the rest of his kit, but:

-The targeting indicator frequently draws arrows from soldiers that have already vanished... which is especially confusing combined with the aforementioned difficulty in spotting when soldiers are dying. There have been many occasions where I tried to launch soldiers at a target only to belatedly realize that I didn't have any on hand.

E: Most of the bugs have been fixed. It still isn't reliable.

-There's no way to tell when you're in range of a given soldier to jump to him. What's worse, you can still activate E when you AREN'T in range of any soldiers... and when you do, it makes you stop walking. I have literally mistaken it for a snare before.

R: ...This is obvious.

-His ult still doesn't reliably deal damage or knockback. It has literally cost me games.

I know Riot's working hard, but a lot of these are questions I haven't seen raised at all. Can someone address them? Is anyone even aware that these are problems?

And as for the other issue...

Kalista: She ruins her support's life. Well... sometimes. My point is her interactions are needlessly invasive and could be made much better with very little work.

Oathsworn ceremony: People have been talking about this since launch and I haven't seen a single Rioter address it.

-It NEEDS TO BE OPTIONAL. It NEEDS TO BE A CONSCIOUS DECISION THE RECIPIENT MAKES. The fact that it makes you completely unable to act for several seconds needlessly provides the Kalista player with griefing potential. Rather than having it automatically apply, require the recipient to click the thrown spear. Add a string of arrows leading to it, like with Thresh lanterns or Yasuo knockup targets, to make the player want to click it. If the player doesn't want to, GIVE THEM THE ABILITY TO CONSCIOUSLY REFUSE by simply walking away.

R: The targeting indicator could be much, much better. It took the entirety of my first game laning with Kalista before I figured out how it worked... and I read her champion reveal. For most abilities in the game, you can learn the intricacies through repeated use. As Kalista's support, you rarely have that luxury when it comes to that confusing-ass ultimate.

-There needs to be an indicator of when you can launch. The first time I got sucked in, I tried right-clicking immediately to fire at the target, and it didn't work - so I thought, "Oh, right-clicking must not be how you fire." I didn't know there was a startup time at all. Nothing in the visual indicator suggested this to me.

-Melee champions land at the knockup point; ranged champions bounce back slightly after landing. There needs to be an indicator of where you will land after firing. This is essential.

Call me nitpicky, but what I love most about League of Legends is how polished it is. Almost every ability works exactly as you'd expect it to. When you lose, it's because YOU made a mistake, and 90% of the time it's a mistake you can learn from and avoid next time. The recent push toward unique and different champions is a good one, and it's one that will only make the game better... but for them to be acceptable, they need more polish. And while Riot's usually good at talking about this, I haven't heard a damn thing about Azir's problems since his release, not to mention Kalista's forced "acceptance" of her oath.

36 Comments

DanLikesBacon15 votes

I think that riot should be making simpler champions imo. ones that dont have 2 things on every ability and have one small complex factor. take pantheon for example. his q is just dmg and crits his w give him a stun + shield his e is aoe dmg and his ult is a dive. pantheon is really simple but he reaches a somewhat complex factor because u need to understand his passive and w properly. not saying all champs should be like him , but i dont like how the recent champions have overloaded kits whether they are balanced or not.

Edit: what im trying to say here is riot should make more champs with simple kits so they are easy to pick up , but a complex factor so that you can tell who has mastered that champion and who first timed that champ.

Kingsgrave2 votes

{quoted}

I think that riot should be making simpler champions imo. ones that dont have 2 things on every ability and have one small complex factor. take pantheon for example. his q is just dmg and crits his w give him a stun + shield his e is aoe dmg and his ult is a dive. pantheon is really simple but he reaches a somewhat complex factor because u need to understand his passive and w properly. not saying all champs should be like him , but i dont like how the recent champions have overloaded kits whether they are balanced or not.

Simpler champions are a lot harder to balance and also a lot harder to make niche and interesting. We don't need more generalists

Pantheon brings no real gameplay to the table and is mostly just a mindless spam your shit champion.

Onerios4 votes

There may be a language mix up here. You could put champions on two axis; Specialist vs Generalist, and Complex vs Simple. Specialist/Generalist gives you the amount of tasks they can perform, while complex/simple tells you more about the mechanical skill floor. To compare like for like for the moment, Annie and Syndra. Syndra is more complex then Annie, but they fall on similar spots in the specialist/generalist scale. J4 is more of a generalist then Zac, but they are both about equally complex. Lee Sin is a moderately complex generalist, while Pantheon is a fairly simple specialist.

Complex champions are fine, but it's also possible to produce simple champions that are enjoyable to play with and against, and because they are more focused its easier to balance them since you don't have to worry about secondary roles, power gating, base utility, and so on to the same extent. What you don't want is too many generalists, especially complex generalists, since their broad toolbox and wide skill band makes them a pain to balance for all skill levels of the game.

SmokingPuffin1 votes

There may be a language mix up here. You could put champions on two axis; Specialist vs Generalist, and Complex vs Simple.

This is a useful and instructive distinction.

Complex champions are fine, but it's also possible to produce simple champions that are enjoyable to play with and against, and because they are more focused its easier to balance them since you don't have to worry about secondary roles, power gating, base utility, and so on to the same extent. What you don't want is too many generalists, especially complex generalists, since their broad toolbox and wide skill band makes them a pain to balance for all skill levels of the game.

I suspect you'll find simple champions are hard to balance. Fewer levers in the kit. There also tends to be little playmaking potential in simple champions, although exceptions do exist.

Very challenging to get someone like Garen into competitive play.

Abyssphere3 votes

{quoted}

Simpler champions are a lot harder to balance and also a lot harder to make niche and interesting. We don't need more generalists

Pantheon brings no real gameplay to the table and is mostly just a mindless spam your shit champion.

That's not true at all. Look how hard they've found it to balance Yasuo.

Kingsgrave1 votes

{quoted}

That's not true at all. Look how hard they've found it to balance Yasuo.

They didnt have to just outright destroy him or rework him completely whenever he was OP unlike stuff like old Sion.

Vertanium2 votes

While I agree Pantheon doesn't have a lot of mechanical skill involved, you still have to judge engages and when to ult. But, have you ever played on a team with the last 5 champions, vs a team with some of the original 40? I garentee that the new champions will win. Because they go against riot's design philosophies. Braum, Naturally tanky, his W idea is why taric was nerfed to hell. AOE Knock Up with slow afterward. Kalista, High Mobility, Good single target damage, HP shred, free wards, AOE knockup. Azir, Slow, High DPS, Ult when used right makes him untouchable unless you flash. has escape and mobility. Gnar, In his mini form he will kite you for days and in mega form he is a CC filled tank both forms give him secondary passives. Rek sai, Knockup again. High burst, High sustain, Poke, Multiple passives, Tunnels grant A good gapcloser along with free movespeed while burrowed. While these champs are fun to play, they are not fun to play against and spit in the face of clarity half the time.
Id be okay if Knockups were at least counterable, or if all champions were like this. but they are not. and will most likely never will be.

Tl:DR Either all champions need to get on the new level, or the new champions need to have less overloaded kits just to make them "Interesing, Unique, or Fun"

doubleguac6 votes

Riot has been moving towards champions that have more stuff in their kits, but that stuff tends to be, individually, less powerful than the stuff you would find in older kits.

Gnar is a good example of a modern champion. He's a manaless champ with 8 abilities. He's been pretty overpowered ever since the QoL buffs he received shortly after release. He has a seriously brutal mix of single target sustained damage, AoE burst damage, and hard and soft CC. All that being said, most of his individual skills are not as strong as those you would find on older champions. Hyperactive is a watered down version of Vayne's silver bolts. His Q in mini/mega gnar are slightly less powerful (if easier to land, and resource-free) versions of Mundo's Q and Olaf's Q, respectively. Even his ult, which is very individually powerfully, can't really be compared to the "big CC" ults of olders champions. It's not available most of the time, and it's much easier to avoid and less reliably powerful than something like, say, Amumu's ult, or Sejuani's ult.

Compare Gnar to someone like Nunu. Nunu's kit is obviously limited in certain ways. He has one non-ultimate ability that deals damage to enemy champions. One of his abilities is a large attack speed steroid that he himself makes poor use of. His ultimate is incredibly situational and unreliable.

All that being said, I don't think Riot will ever release another ability as individually strong as Nunu's Q. His Q is absurdly strong, and would be considered overpowered if you stuck it on almost any other AP champion's kit. It's a point and click nuke with a low cd, high base damage, and a 1.0 AP ratio. On top of that, it applies not only a massive MS slow, but also a huge attack speed debuff. A huge portion of Nunu's total power budget is loaded into his Q, so his Q is, individually, incredibly strong.

I think there are trade-offs to both design styles. I don't think an "over-stuffed" champion like Gnar is necessarily any more frustrating to play against than a "one-note" champion like ZIlean. They're just frustrating for different reasons. If feels like Gnar has few real weaknesses, aside from a lack of sustain. On the other hand, Zilean has a lot of obvious holes in his kit, but his Q and R are both incredibly powerful, and have no real counterplay. Getting perma-kited by Mini-gnar, than CC'd and bursted by mega Gnar is frustrating, but so is having 70% of your health bar removed by a point-and-click double-bomb at level 9 by Zilean.

thePandev1 votes

''All that being said, I don't think Riot will ever release another ability as individually strong as Nunu's Q. His Q is absurdly strong, and would be considered overpowered if you stuck it on almost any other AP champion's kit. It's a point and click nuke with a low cd, high base damage, and a 1.0 AP ratio. On top of that, it applies not only a massive MS slow, but also a huge attack speed debuff. A huge portion of Nunu's total power budget is loaded into his Q, so his Q is, individually, incredibly strong.''

You mean his E right?

doubleguac1 votes

You're right, my bad. I don't play Nunu very much.

Raptamei4 votes

{quoted}

I think that riot should be making simpler champions imo.

Agreed.

It is not hard to add depth by cramming a million things into one champion.

Making a champion with lots of depth but simple abilities (Janna, etc) is much harder.

Let's not take the easy way out. Azir is a mess, Kalista is an unmitigated disaster.

Kingsgrave1 votes

{quoted}

Agreed.

It is not hard to add depth by cramming a million things into one champion.

Making a champion with lots of depth but simple abilities (Janna, etc) is much harder.

Let's not take the easy way out. Azir is a mess, Kalista is an unmitigated disaster.

Its a shame you say that because the only interesting things about Janna are her Q and her R. The rest of her kit is just thrown together lazy overly simplistic stuff.

Vertanium2 votes

what other champion can shield towers, allow her ADC to trade better, and have trade offs when using skills like janna W?

Oleandervine5 votes

I agree with Dan. Riot needs to start with simplicity and tweak and twinge from there to make interesting new champs that don't break the game. Twitch is another good example of a simple champ that is made unique and complex by his passive. CertainlyT is a mold breaking designer, that is for sure, but someone needs to fwap him with a newspaper when his champion concepts spiral out of hand and become the convoluted mess that his last few champions have become.Kalista , Gnar , and Yasuo have all been problem children since their release and the balance team STILL is having problems reigning their power in and keeping them in line. To me personally, Kalista is a bit of a design failure and a travesty in a game that doesn't really have any business putting so much emphasis on one player exacting so much control over another. The fact that she not only rips control of a player away from them with her R without so much as a ding or notice but then has also wasted her ultimate for an easily botched move is just a colossal mess to me. I HATE ABHOR LOATHE AND DESPISE Kalista's ultimate. It needs to be changed into something that never takes control of a friendly character away from their player. Surely with CertainlyT's brimming creativity, something else can be crafted to emphasize her oathsworn comraderie without subjecting her oathsworn to having their game interrupted and without making the Kalista player feel dirty for having to abuse another player like that. Digression aside, Riot has been plopping out new champions at an alarmingly fast rate, and if the excessively rushed Shurima even was any indicator, even their teams can't keep up with things. So they definitely need to slow things down and focus on fixing what is already out there instead of overloading players with new and potentially broken champions every 2 weeks.

EnvyDragon4 votes

Digression aside, Riot has been plopping out new champions at an alarmingly fast rate, and if the excessively rushed Shurima even was any indicator, even their teams can't keep up with things. So they definitely need to slow things down and focus on fixing what is already out there instead of overloading players with new and potentially broken champions every 2 weeks.

I don't think they've been "alarmingly fast" at all.

Rek'sai: Dec 11 Kalista: Nov 20 Azir: Sept 16 Gnar: Aug 14 Braum: May 12

Five champions in 7 months. It only seems "fast" because there was a shorter gap than usual between Kalista and Rek'Sai - and I suspect it's because Gnar, Azir and Kalista all had weird, experimental mechanics that needed longer on the burner. Rek'Sai was on time, the prior 3 were late.

Anyway, while I think there's something to be said about "simpler" champions with less overloaded kits Jinx the huge, huge number of available champions makes it hard to create new experiences easily. What originally drew me to League of Legends was the way that every single champion feels completely, wholly unique, to the point where (before I became jaded) every character felt like playing a completely different game. In order to keep that up, the designers have had to get more and more creative.

When a champion has too much overlap with what another existing champ does, you run into problems - I cite the release of Diana, who ended up playing very similarly to Akali - because if they have the same role and the same strengths, one of them is inevitably going to be better (meaning balance issues) and you lose out on the novelty of having a new way to play (meaning people are disappointed).

The fact is that in order to achieve that feeling of novelty, the designers really need to think outside the box. Here we have a character who transforms - how do you make him different from Nidalee, Jayce and Elise? By taking away his ability to DECIDE when he transforms. There you have a character who uses soldiers to fight by proxy - how do you make him different from Orianna, Yorick, Heimerdinger, and others? By forcing him to micromanage every single thing his soldiers do manually, putting both the power and responsibility in the player's hands.

These are exciting, new ideas, and I would love to see more of them. But since they're exciting and new, nobody can really predict how they'll turn out, or what sorts of allowances they need to make for the players to properly enjoy them.

And that's why Azir needs QoL buffs, and so does the poor soul Kalista bonds with.

Oh my god, now I'm picturing an Azir Support with Kalista. Donate now - you can help save a lane.

Kingsgrave2 votes

{quoted}

I agree with Dan. Riot needs to start with simplicity and tweak and twinge from there to make interesting new champs that don't break the game. Twitch is another good example of a simple champ that is made unique and complex by his passive. CertainlyT is a mold breaking designer, that is for sure, but someone needs to fwap him with a newspaper when his champion concepts spiral out of hand and become the convoluted mess that his last few champions have become.Kalista , Gnar , and Yasuo have all been problem children since their release and the balance team STILL is having problems reigning their power in and keeping them in line. To me personally, Kalista is a bit of a design failure and a travesty in a game that doesn't really have any business putting so much emphasis on one player exacting so much control over another. The fact that she not only rips control of a player away from them with her R without so much as a ding or notice but then has also wasted her ultimate for an easily botched move is just a colossal mess to me. I HATE ABHOR LOATHE AND DESPISE Kalista's ultimate. It needs to be changed into something that never takes control of a friendly character away from their player. Surely with CertainlyT's brimming creativity, something else can be crafted to emphasize her oathsworn comraderie without subjecting her oathsworn to having their game interrupted and without making the Kalista player feel dirty for having to abuse another player like that. Digression aside, Riot has been plopping out new champions at an alarmingly fast rate, and if the excessively rushed Shurima even was any indicator, even their teams can't keep up with things. So they definitely need to slow things down and focus on fixing what is already out there instead of overloading players with new and potentially broken champions every 2 weeks.

Gnar was made by the man who made Vi and Jinx, not CertainlyT

Junkο10 votes

Gnar was not designed by CertainlyT first of all.

The reason Yasuo is out of hand is because the balance team refuses to actually touch his actual problems (double crit chance, massive armor pen) and instead is nerfing everything else about him (for example his W interaction with E was removed, he lost like 100-200 base health, etc...)

Kalista problem is really with the fact that her Oathsworm mechanic is unhealthy. It's everything Riot said they will not do.

You can't really blame everything on CertainlyT, he didn't make Lee Sin, he didn't make Azir (his dmg is way off the charts at 40% CDR), he didn't make Rek'sai who has immense counterjungling and ganking pressure compared to most junglers. The problem is that EVERY champion designer is completely ignoring old champions when making new ones. The only one who can compete with them is Lee Sin, who is overtuned for like 4 years.

Remlap12234 votes

I like the new and interesting directions they're taking these new champions, but the problem is the fact that these new champions exist in the same game as Olaf. And Riot has shown time and time again that their old champions are expendable (Zed is cheesing mid lane? Better nerf Sona.) It's a double edged sword. You can't just nerf new champions to keep their power levels in check, you have to buff old ones so that they have a fighting chance. Champion inequality isn't as bad as it was at the end of Season 3, but holy shit that was about as rock bottom as you could get. 18% of the champs being picked 81% of the time? There's nowhere to go BUT up! If Riot stops beating Sona senseless with the nerf bat, stops reworking in the name of "counterplay" and starts reworking in the name of "healthy identity", and keeps their creative ideas from cheesing the meta (the LeBlanc/Zed/Fizz/Lee Sin mobility meta) then we can finally see some semblence of balance in the game.

To put things in perspective, Smite has a fuckton of gods with a helluva lot more mobility than Lee Sin, but they're not cheesing the game because their mobility has clear drawbacks, and when the balance team catches that an overly mobile or safe god is too powerful, they bring him down, and another god that's floundering buffed up. I think this all boils down to the fact that Riot's balance team is worthless. Why the hell is a game that doesn't make a fraction of the money League makes have balance specialists on their team, but Riot gets to close their eyes and change numbers?

Kingsgrave1 votes

{quoted}

I like the new and interesting directions they're taking these new champions, but the problem is the fact that these new champions exist in the same game as Olaf. And Riot has shown time and time again that their old champions are expendable (Zed is cheesing mid lane? Better nerf Sona.) It's a double edged sword. You can't just nerf new champions to keep their power levels in check, you have to buff old ones so that they have a fighting chance. Champion inequality isn't as bad as it was at the end of Season 3, but holy shit that was about as rock bottom as you could get. 18% of the champs being picked 81% of the time? There's nowhere to go BUT up! If Riot stops beating Sona senseless with the nerf bat, stops reworking in the name of "counterplay" and starts reworking in the name of "healthy identity", and keeps their creative ideas from cheesing the meta (the LeBlanc/Zed/Fizz/Lee Sin mobility meta) then we can finally see some semblence of balance in the game.

To put things in perspective, Smite has a fuckton of gods with a helluva lot more mobility than Lee Sin, but they're not cheesing the game because their mobility has clear drawbacks, and when the balance team catches that an overly mobile or safe god is too powerful, they bring him down, and another god that's floundering buffed up. I think this all boils down to the fact that Riot's balance team is worthless. Why the hell is a game that doesn't make a fraction of the money League makes have balance specialists on their team, but Riot gets to close their eyes and change numbers?

Olaf can't be buffed. He needs to be Sion level reworked.

Junkο2 votes

You can refuse Kalista spear with champs that have high base MS like Shaco(but again why the fuck would you bind one?) or flashing away. Both may still not always take you out of range though

BetaDude404 votes

If I have to waste a flash just to refuse to bind with a Kalista, there's something wrong.

Junkο1 votes

Actually what's really wrong is that even when using a Flash, you may still NOT get enough distance to get away. It purely depends on how close Kalista used the item.

Sohleks1 votes

Recently I've noticed for the Kalista bond ceremony thing her spear is thrown on the ground and someone on her team has to click it. So it is optional now.

Azir is incredibly broken power wise right now. But yeah some of his mechanics and visual indicators feel wonky I agree. Is there a max range he can make soldiers AA? It was about a screen away but I couldn't AA. Maybe it was a bug though.

EnvyDragon2 votes

{quoted}

Recently I've noticed for the Kalista bond ceremony thing her spear is thrown on the ground and someone on her team has to click it. So it is optional now.

Since when? I'm reasonably certain I've been unwillingly spearmurdered by my Kalista lanemate at least once since 4.21.

Azir is incredibly broken power wise right now. But yeah some of his mechanics and visual indicators feel wonky I agree. Is there a max range he can make soldiers AA? It was about a screen away but I couldn't AA. Maybe it was a bug though.

He's strong, but strength shouldn't come at the expense of functionality. And yes, beyond a certain distance he won't be able to control his soldiers - what that distance is, I have no idea. The fact that someone can play multiple games of Azir and not know something as simple as his control range is pretty telling, I think. He needs mechanical transparency and he needs it baaaaaad.

Neidox2 votes

When Azir gets to far away from his soldiers, they will go out of their attack stance and be in an upright idle stance. he can no longer control them until he is back in range.

EnvyDragon1 votes

But the control range and the range at which soldiers go idle often doesn't seem to be the same, or maybe soldiers just take a moment before they go idle. What I know is I frequently try to attack an enemy who's clearly in soldier range and Azir will just start moving toward them because he can't give the soldier orders.

AbodyHUN6661 votes

Actually in my last game with a Kalista the spear was optional for me too. It might not always be optional though.

EnvyDragon2 votes

{quoted}

Actually in my last game with a Kalista the spear was optional for me too. It might not always be optional though.

Really? Hmm... I do know the spear has always been clickable, just that the clicking has never mattered... Might have to get a human friend to test this with. Maybe they hotfixed it or something?

Auz the Ripper2 votes

It's somewhat optional now, You're still frozen at the start of the animation but once that's over you now have enough time to walk away before you "die" and you get bonded, canceling the whole thing

Knight SoIaire 1 votes

also riot should unveal the information wbout how broken she is ballance wise her passive is literaly made to bartely make you faster when kiting, and when you get slowed, the jump distance shortens accordingly (she is freaking taxed for that power and one guy with randuins who exists every game can delete you like zed gets deleted by zhonya) her e needs an indicator since you rely on resets
also the jumps are clunky overall (sometimes you jump without covering any distance, sometimes you just stop and dont jump )

rtbf2112795181 votes

I think the main thing with the Azir clarity issues, is his little sand lines that connects him to the soldiers. When you're in range to order them, have the sand line appear. When you're not in range, have the line disappear. With his dash, have the connecting line change from a dull sand color, to maybe a bright gold. That'd help. The timers for soldier duration would be nice as well, and obviously, his ult needs to be more reliable.

Justaco1 votes

There is definitely a burden of knowledge with Azir, but I think I can help you out with some of those.

"He can hit from X distance" often intuitively translates to "he can target from X distance"

The targeting range for his soldiers is indicated by the circle surrounding them. The actual damaging range is just something you have to learn through using it.

Their timer runs twice as fast under tower, but there's no way to tell when they're considered "under tower" either

The icon above a soldiers head becomes a ! when they are considered under tower.

-It's really, really tough to tell when you're close enough to a soldier to command him. Sometimes they go into an idle stance. Sometimes they don't.

The idle stance is an indication that they cannot receive an attack command, but I agree it isn't super obvious in the heat of the moment. A useful piece of information I figured out is that the range that they can be ordered to attack is about the same as the range of his q. Try it casting a max range q then walking away, you'll see the soldier go idle almost immediately.

The targeting indicator frequently draws arrows from soldiers that have already vanished...

This sounds super annoying, but if you play him using smart cast you won't see this (or any indicator actually). Smart casting (or quick casting as they call it now) in general is a good skill to learn, so you might want to look into it.

There's no way to tell when you're in range of a given soldier to jump to him. What's worse, you can still activate E when you AREN'T in range of any soldiers... and when you do, it makes you stop walking. I have literally mistaken it for a snare before.

This one sucks, it came about after they fixed this targeting bug that made his eq super clunky. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LScdoXq7hAM

EnvyDragon1 votes

{quoted}

The targeting range for his soldiers is indicated by the circle surrounding them. The actual damaging range is just something you have to learn through using it.

...Yes, I know. That's what I said. There's a targeting range - indicated by the circle - but that range is different from the actual damaging range. I've played Azir enough to know what the damaging range is, but in the heat of a fight, that circle is much harder to see - and thus I try to make it attack the enemy, knowing he's close enough to damage but not realizing he isn't close enough to target.

The icon above a soldiers head becomes a ! when they are considered under tower.

Let me rephrase that then: it's almost impossible to tell if the soldier is going to be under tower until it is already too late. If I've Q'd a soldier into a tower's range by accident, it's probably going to just evaporate. And if by some chance I DO pull a soldier out, I can't intuitively know how long it's going to last afterward - if the duration of an effect is constant, you eventually learn how long it lasts just from pattern recognition, but with the way Azir's soldiers have varying durations and crappy lifetime indicators means it's really, really tough to figure out.

The idle stance is an indication that they cannot receive an attack command, but I agree it isn't super obvious in the heat of the moment. A useful piece of information I figured out is that the range that they can be ordered to attack is about the same as the range of his q. Try it casting a max range q then walking away, you'll see the soldier go idle almost immediately.

I'll give that a shot, but the entire point of my post was that learning little tricks like that shouldn't be as essential as it is - there's a difference between points of mastery and points of basic capabilities, and I'd consider "autoattacking" to be a basic capability.

This sounds super annoying, but if you play him using smart cast you won't see this (or any indicator actually). Smart casting (or quick casting as they call it now) in general is a good skill to learn, so you might want to look into it.

"Show targeting indicators during quick cast." It's in the options menu - it means that the ability activates when the button releases, but while the key is held, you can see the targeting indicator just as normal. It makes those clutch shots so much easier to land, and it cuts learning time for new champions down to nearly nothing.

But everyone seems to forget that that option exists, despite it being superior in almost every way, which is why Karthus's Q, Cass's Q, Zyra's W, and several other abilities I've forgotten still lack range indicators.

This one sucks, it came about after they fixed this targeting bug that made his eq super clunky. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LScdoXq7hAM

If that means we're likely to see that bug gone soon too, I'm happy... but it would still be nice to have a range indicator on this ability.

Justaco1 votes

Unfortunately I'm not sure there would be a good way to convey all the information relevant to his playstyle without making everything look super busy, which is why they have a lot of more subtle things they have. If they were to include things like soldier idle range, soldier actual damage range, soldier timer, "under tower" range (which is probably normal tower range) It would probably end up looking very cluttered or even more confusing to a new player. They could probably incorporate a clock into the icon above the soldier somehow without being too obnoxious though.

Bresn1 votes

Kalista simply isn't a solo Q champions and it's Ult is absolutely hell unless the duo are on Voice communication or made some kind of system like "Ult me when I ping on drag three times with On My Way"

Alëk1 votes

There was a massive gap in time between Braum and Gnar. I was actually kind of surprised.

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