I think more people would play Azir if he actually had more safety in his kit.
tl;dr: Add his knock up back to his E, Shifting Sands, which was removed back in patch 5.14.
Azir as a champion is a cool idea. Ranged melee attacking soldiers focused on zoning. Thing is, that is all he has for the most part. Sure he has his ult, and his tower passive, but those are very situational. Basically he is the Vayne of AP champions in away. It's all in the basic attacks.
That being said, he can be very difficult to control properly and manage mana with, especially for a beginner. You almost have to have 2 minds. One to watch Azir. And one to watch your soldiers. And then have both work together simultaneously to maximize your output. Knowing when Azir's basic attack range ends and the soldier's begins is one thing to get use to too. Practice fixes most of these issues.
But with all of this AA based mechanical zoning stuff, you kind of have a lack of anything else. More or less play the zoning game until one or teammates show up to distract your targets from your soldiers so you can actually start hitting them down. So why not add something to his E, Shifting Sands?
Lets be honest, the collision damage and shielding this ability gives you is very poor for what essentially is used to escape or to just move around the map. A whooping 80-240 point shield with no scaling and 60-180 (+40% AP) collision damage. Basically a light tap and maybe a shield strong enough for an auto or 2 if that. If I need to GTFO, don't drop me directly in front of, and well with in auto attack range of my enemy and hand me a measly 80 point shield saying "well, I hope you can handle this opponent now with enough shielding to defend you from that nasty cannon minion over there". He has to take Barrier just so he can get an actual shield when he needs it.
Everyone knows that you level this ability last, but get a point in it at level 3-4 so you can still get back to lane slightly faster. Funny thing is that this ability actually costs either 100 or 170 mana to use since you have to press at least W first. 170 mana just to move away from a fight or to preposition yourself for a flank.
#So for my idea: I would actually just give his E back its knock up from patch 5.14. For those of you unaware, Azir's E, Shifting Sands, would knock up the first champion it hit prior to the 5.14 patch which removed this aspect.
If I am going to be dumped on an enemy champion's lap with only 80 points of shielding to save me, I should get some time to actually react before that shield simply disappears the moment I take any kind of damage. The knock-up does not have to even be long. 0.75s or 1 second is long enough. Just enough time for me to either flash away or preposition so I can sidestep the next incoming ability.
is a thing.
