I'd like to take the time to appreciate one specific Azir nerf.

WoonStruck·May 26, 2016·6 votes·594 views

Attackspeed 50% -> 35%. Gold cost 1200 ->1100

50% attackspeed and 10% CDR on him for 1200 gold made his trading/poke so powerful if you couldn't force him out of lane early.

22 Comments

TractMay 26, 20163 votes

Couldn't agree more, as an Azir main. Like the uly movespeed it's a good way to nerf him without f**king his kit over.

FioraWillCarryMay 26, 20162 votes

Ummm....no. Azir is already overwhelmingly weak early and mid game. We don't need to trash him any further.

WoonStruckMay 26, 20164 votes

{quoted}

Ummm....no. Azir is already overwhelmingly weak early and mid game. We don't need to trash him any further.

Except he's not?

After he gets Stinger, he becomes a huge lane-bully. Nashor's+Rylai's is his core, and his mid-game is insanely strong because of it.

Do you even know what Azir does? So far, you aren't making it seem like you do.

FioraWillCarryMay 27, 20161 votes

{quoted}

Except he's not?

After he gets Stinger, he becomes a huge lane-bully. Nashor's+Rylai's is his core, and his mid-game is insanely strong because of it.

Do you even know what Azir does? So far, you aren't making it seem like you do.

I'm 500K on Azir and he's by far my most played champion. I'm sure I know more about him than you do.

WoonStruckMay 27, 20161 votes

You're also in Bronze 5. Anyone with half-way decent mechanics/game knowledge almost automatically gets above silver.

I highly doubt you're using logic (considering you haven't made a single point yet), and are speaking solely on behalf of your bias.

FioraWillCarryMay 27, 20161 votes

{quoted}

You're also in Bronze 5. Anyone with half-way decent mechanics/game knowledge almost automatically gets above silver.

I highly doubt you're using logic (considering you haven't made a single point yet), and are speaking solely on behalf of your bias.

I'll repeat it again. I know more about the champion than you do. You seem to have a serious lack of comprehension, we are not speaking about the ranked system or who's Bronze or who's Silver or any such thing. You want to talk about that, make another thread. We are talking about Azir. Please stay on topic.

WoonStruckMay 27, 20162 votes

Your rank has a lot to do with your understanding of the game. You may have more experience with the champion, but its very likely you have the wrong experience in many instances. There is such a thing as 'practicing' incorrectly. That's why it is on topic. I'm not saying your input is invalid. I'm saying you have yet to make a point that proves you actually do understand what he's capable of atm. This is especially relevant because the lower in ELO you are, the worse Azir appears to be, proving that low MMR players do not know what Azir accomplishes.

Make an actual point about Azir and I will discuss it. Currently you just look like someone defending their OP main.

FioraWillCarryMay 27, 20161 votes

{quoted}

Your rank has a lot to do with your understanding of the game. You may have more experience with the champion, but its very likely you have the wrong experience in many instances. There is such a thing as 'practicing' incorrectly. That's why it is on topic. I'm not saying your input is invalid. I'm saying you have yet to make a point that proves you actually do understand what he's capable of atm. This is especially relevant because the lower in ELO you are, the worse Azir appears to be, proving that low MMR players do not know what Azir accomplishes.

Make an actual point about Azir and I will discuss it. Currently you just look like someone defending their OP main.

But we are not talking about my understanding of the game we are talking about a specific champion. Understanding a champion is not nearly enough to climb out of Bronze. If it were enough, I'd be out already. I haven't been able to even with cheesy champs like Yi and Akali so clearly its not the champion that is my problem but like I said we are not talking about all that.

As for Azir, you want specifics ? Ok, Stinger doesn't make him anymore of a lane bully than he is without it. I don't know for others, but there are 3 reasons I like Stinger on him. For one, an early Stinger makes it very easy to farm with Auto Attacks because of the attack speed stat. Even a shitty last hitter like me can farm like a pro with it. Secondly, it gives him phenomenal wave clear. An Azir is Stinger is only bested by Yasuo when it comes pushing waves. No other champion can out shove him when he has it. And lastly because of the CDR. I start with 20% in Runes and Masteries and with 10 from Stinger, it means my Q goes on a 3.9 second cooldown at max rank which comes at level 9. What this means is that at level 9, he becomes almost a god at counter sieging.

However, what Stinger doesn't have is damage. He's not doing any more damage to champion with it. While you might argue that with more attack speed, he hits more, this is deceptive. When your enemy has their tier 2 boots, he's is not standing too long in your soldier's AA range. You will most times not get off more that 2 AA after hitting them with a Q. Rylais helps this alot, however this presents another problem, Rylais, at least for me, comes later in the game and by that time, a lot of the enemies become tanky. I've discovered the hard way over the course of many games and much trial and error that attack speed is not Azir's best stat, its magic penetration. With Nashors and Rylais alone, he still cannot chunk down tanks with even the slightest bit of MR fast enough to make any difference.

I'll stop here for now. I'm sure you will have your own points to make on what I've said so far.

WoonStruckMay 27, 20161 votes

{quoted}

But we are not talking about my understanding of the game we are talking about a specific champion. Understanding a champion is not nearly enough to climb out of Bronze. If it were enough, I'd be out already. I haven't been able to even with cheesy champs like Yi and Akali so clearly its not the champion that is my problem but like I said we are not talking about all that.

Azir is a part of this game, so the two concepts intertwine heavily. Understanding a strong champion really well is enough to climb out of bronze. The issue is that you don't understand him as well as you think. If you were to play as safe, while also being aggressive, as higher level Azirs do, you would make it to gold easily. You would stomp just about every lane and carry almost every fight. Azir is that strong, especially in unorganized environments.

As for Azir, you want specifics ? Ok, Stinger doesn't make him anymore of a lane bully than he is without it. I don't know for others, but there are 3 reasons I like Stinger on him. For one, an early Stinger makes it very easy to farm with Auto Attacks because of the attack speed stat. Even a shitty last hitter like me can farm like a pro with it. Secondly, it gives him phenomenal wave clear. An Azir is Stinger is only bested by Yasuo when it comes pushing waves. No other champion can out shove him when he has it. And lastly because of the CDR. I start with 20% in Runes and Masteries and with 10 from Stinger, it means my Q goes on a 3.9 second cooldown at max rank which comes at level 9. What this means is that at level 9, he becomes almost a god at counter sieging.

Stinger allows you to W->Q and get off at least two, often three+, autos without even utilizing a second soldier for the slow. That adds a LOT of damage compared to without, and makes procing TLD extremely consistent with any harass.

Stinger also makes your farming better than what your safety already provided, like you said, minus the safety bit.

Because of the waveclear it offers, it allows you to shove people under turret and harass them out of lane easily due to your range. His ult in combination with his W->Q->E allows him to be extremely safe while doing this.

However, what Stinger doesn't have is damage. He's not doing any more damage to champion with it. While you might argue that with more attack speed, he hits more, this is deceptive.

Good Azirs, with the old stinger, would just buy the stinger, finish Rylai's, then finish Nashors.

Considering decent Azirs use the slow on his Q to harass after stinger, you're often getting in 5-6 autos with stinger, as its often auto when they go to CS, since they can't do anything to bypass the pressure simply casting W gives, then W->Q->auto until out of range, which is often enough to put anyone under turret, where you can continue to harass them once your Q is close to coming off CD.

So yeah, it does offer damage. It offers a lot of damage in the same way that AS offers Yi or Irelia a lot of damage. And they have even less accessible damage/cc/safety than Azir.

FioraWillCarryMay 27, 20161 votes

{quoted}

Azir is a part of this game, so the two concepts intertwine heavily. Understanding a strong champion really well is enough to climb out of bronze. The issue is that you don't understand him as well as you think. If you were to play as safe, while also being aggressive, as higher level Azirs do, you would make it to gold easily. You would stomp just about every lane and carry almost every fight. Azir is that strong, especially in unorganized environments.

Plat and Diamond players on these very boards told me I should not be using Azir to climb out of Bronze. Their reasoning was that Bronze players do not know how to play to his strengths and cover his weaknesses as Azir is extremely team oriented. They are 100% right on that. At worst, your team should have at least two juggernauts so there is a beefy front line to absorb all the shit the enemy throws at you. At best you should have 3 tanky teamates, that provide peel, CC and engage. For example, Top Gnar, Jungle Amumu, Support Alistar is just about the perfect team comp for him. I don't care if we go 0-15, Azir cannot lose with such a team comp because it plays perfectly into his strengths and covers all his weaknesses. Your typical Bronze player doesn't care to know about these things. Aside from myself, I do not know a single Bronze player that knows what hard engage is and why its important. I've never met one that understands what an ADC's function is supposed to be. If you play 100 games in Bronze, only about 5 of those would actually have a team composition that's good for him and that's by sheer chance not a conscious decision. This is why Plat+ players strongly disagree on using Azir below Gold.

But fuck it, he's fun as hell to play, I just enjoy playing him too much. And I have found ways to work with the chaos of Bronze by using unconventional builds and tactics. Thing is, I cannot play him like a Diamond would play him, I have to play him to best exploit typical Bronze stupidity. A couple weeks back I manages to go on a massive win streak dotted with a couple losses here and there all the way to Bronze 3 very easily. Then I hit a wall at Bronze 3 where I discovered I didn't know how to face tanky teams. At Bronze 3 everyone was building tanky and I wasn't able to carry any further. The builds I had used to climb to B3 were not working anymore.

I had to experiment again. I tried different runes, builds, even lane tactics trying to find a way to carry vs tanky teams. All my experimenting was how I ended up back in B5. I couldn't experiment in Normals because, would you believe it, I was getting good teams that were winning before I had a chance to see if any thing I was doing was right. I had to experiment in Ranked where all the true garbage was. I had to know if what I was doing would work after my team feeds the enemy heavily. It doesn't happen in Normals for some reason. Anyways, I think I found something that works. By next week I should be back in B3 looking for B2 and hopefully Silver by year's end.

{quoted}

Stinger allows you to W->Q and get off at least two, often three+, autos without even utilizing a second soldier for the slow. That adds a LOT of damage compared to without, and makes procing TLD extremely consistent with any harass.

In my experience, I can often get two auto attacks after a Q without Stinger when I sink the spear deep. Stinger makes it easier, it is true but not necessary. Thing is, like I said, attack speed is deceptive. Most people aren't going to just stand there and let you bone them to death and his soldiers don't have that much range. Its quite easy to walk out of their range after Q-AA.

{quoted}

Stinger also makes your farming better than what your safety already provided, like you said, minus the safety bit.

Best thing about it in my opinion.

{quoted}

Because of the waveclear it offers, it allows you to shove people under turret and harass them out of lane easily due to your range. His ult in combination with his W->Q->E allows him to be extremely safe while doing this.

Can't argue with that. It's one of the reasons I love him. He's such a cheesy laner especially in Bronze. However, it's actually very easy to deal with. The one thing I've learned to fear is when a laner builds this:- item 1057 . You see, Azir's base damage is actually very poor, at least early on. You are not winning trades early game when your enemy builds that. Every single popular mid laner would out damage you by far when they build that item. Stinger, I've found doesn't help all that much. If you try bullying them or shoving aggressively under their turret, they simply force trades which they will win due to their extra MR and higher base damage. It's not until you get some AP and magic pen, do you start to win trades again. However, Stinger is still good because at least you can still farm a lot and push waves quickly and prevent sieges should the enemy team roam to your lane to start fights.

Good Azirs, with the old stinger, would just buy the stinger, finish Rylai's, then finish Nashors.

Considering decent Azirs use the slow on his Q to harass after stinger, you're often getting in 5-6 autos with stinger, as its often auto when they go to CS, since they can't do anything to bypass the pressure simply casting W gives, then W->Q->auto until out of range, which is often enough to put anyone under turret, where you can continue to harass them once your Q is close to coming off CD.

So yeah, it does offer damage. It offers a lot of damage in the same way that AS offers Yi or Irelia a lot of damage. And they have even less accessible damage/cc/safety than Azir.

The slow on Azir's Q is not that potent. I've never gotten 5-6 autos off with Stinger alone without Rylais. I've never even seen high level players do that. It's just too easy to walk out of the soldier's range. On rare occasions, I've gotten as much as 4 when I get a deep Q on them and they try to run instead of trading back but this is not common.

WoonStruckMay 27, 20161 votes

{quoted}

Plat and Diamond players on these very boards told me I should not be using Azir to climb out of Bronze. Their reasoning was that Bronze players do not know how to play to his strengths and cover his weaknesses as Azir is extremely team oriented.

That's my argument. You do not know the true strengths of Azir, implying that your 'experience' with him is not as sound as it seems. If you were truly experienced, you would know those strengths enough to at least snowball your lane and carry that way, as Azir is a very safe and simultaneously aggressive champion.

You cannot blame your team on your lack of success with Azir.

Thing is, I cannot play him like a Diamond would play him, I have to play him to best exploit typical Bronze stupidity.

Simply being in the right places at the right time and punishing what you can safely punish will get you to silver+ after exploiting stupidity no longer finds success. No matter what champion. If you hit a wall, its not because Azir is weak, its because you have an area you can grow to improve your gameplay, like how you said you don't know how to face tanky teams.

I had to experiment again. I tried different runes, builds, even lane tactics trying to find a way to carry vs tanky teams. All my experimenting was how I ended up back in B5.

If you're in Bronze and not murdering your lane as Azir, I'd focus around that first. Learn the ins and outs of each match-up. Practice perfectly farming. If you do that, you will find it a LOT easier to carry, since you will have far more gold than anyone else silver and below. You stating that your farming was bad is probably a large portion of where your issues vs tanky teams come in. You're hitting your spikes late, so you're unable to pressure and poke before engages for a significant amount.

In my experience, I can often get two auto attacks after a Q without Stinger when I sink the spear deep. Stinger makes it easier, it is true but not necessary. Thing is, like I said, attack speed is deceptive. Most people aren't going to just stand there and let you bone them to death and his soldiers don't have that much range. Its quite easy to walk out of their range after Q-AA.

Every Azir I see waits until after someone tries to move out to cast Q and go ham. Even if they back out, you have lane dominance, and should be utilizing that to solidify a gold lead and translate that to your team via ganks/objectives.

Like I said, learning lane dynamics helps a lot. In fact, I'd recommend learning someone like Irelia or Jax top lane. Both of them have many extremely dynamic patterns according to match-ups, and you have to learn powerspikes, how to punish mistakes, and most importantly, how to completely demolish the enemy laner if they do something wrong, then translate that to the rest of the map. If you fail, you get punished hard. Because of this, its very easy to learn how to adjust your lane dynamic. After you're used to going even/winning in the large majority of your matches, even against 'counters', go back to Azir. That adaptability should translate and allow you to punish anyone below gold really well.

FioraWillCarryMay 28, 20161 votes

{quoted}

That's my argument. You do not know the true strengths of Azir, implying that your 'experience' with him is not as sound as it seems. If you were truly experienced, you would know those strengths enough to at least snowball your lane and carry that way, as Azir is a very safe and simultaneously aggressive champion.

You cannot blame your team on your lack of success with Azir.

You misunderstand. They were not suggesting that I didn't know the champion. One of them specifically said he didn't doubt that I knew how to play him well, they were saying that Bronze teammates wouldn't know how to build around him, which is what he needs to really succeed. What they were trying to make me understand is that Azir is more dependent on him team that most other champs and they suggested I play Katerina instead which really means I should be playing cheesy champs like her, Xin, Yi, Jax etc. It's basically the same as what you're telling me, that I should snow ball the lane to carry, the difference is, I should be playing really snowbally champs. Azir doesn't snow ball the same way a Yi would. One of the people commenting in the thread was a Diamond Azir main and while he himself didn't say these things, he didn't disagree with what the others were telling me. You can imagine that carried a lot of weight with me.

However, that being said, I don't doubt that climbing Bronze can done with Azir, but the idea they were trying to pound into my head was that if I spent the same effort on a true snow ball champ, I would climb out much much easier.

{quoted}

If you're in Bronze and not murdering your lane as Azir, I'd focus around that first. Learn the ins and outs of each match-up. Practice perfectly farming. If you do that, you will find it a LOT easier to carry, since you will have far more gold than anyone else silver and below. You stating that your farming was bad is probably a large portion of where your issues vs tanky teams come in. You're hitting your spikes late, so you're unable to pressure and poke before engages for a significant amount.

Actually, I've already figured out that farming was one of my main weaknesses and I have worked on it. I can win lane consistently with him, more so than any other champ I play except Kayle. Now I don't know if you ever played in Bronze or how recently you've played in a Bronze game but the #1 problem is Bronze is feeding. Every single Bronze game is going to be one team feeding excessively and most times, it's going to be your team. This is why high elo players suggested I play Katerina because if feeding is the problem then it might as well be me being the one that gets fed and Kat, Jax, Yi Xin are perfect because they are quite cheesy and can exploit this tendency to feed in Bronze far better than Azir can.

Azir unlike Kat or Xin cannot reliable get fed as fast. Azir is a late game monster where as Xin is a dive fighter with very high damage with as little as one complete item. Akali with only a Gunblade is terrifying. Azir on the other hand needs multiple stats from multiple items before he starts becoming scary and if your team is feeding horrendously, it means the enemy is going to their powerspikes a lot sooner. This is the number #1 problem with trying to use Azir in Bronze. Winning lane is not going to give you enough power by itself to shut down that 8-2 Darius mid game.

Don't mistake me though, I'm not making excuses. I'm simply saying that it's not as easy to carry with him as a cheesy champ like all the usually suspects. I'm finding ways to make him work. I recently discovered that stalling out games where my team feeds hard actually gives me an advantage with Azir, more so than with most other champs.

Here one such example of a game where I did that:-http://matchhistory.na.leagueoflegends.com/en/#match-details/NA1/2199680567/228591326?tab=overview

My team fed so hard that you might as well believe it was deliberate. They dominated us completely. Took all the dragons, most of our towers, and an early Baron. It was a lost game, no one watching would have doubted that. We had absolutely no advantages whatsoever, not a single good thing going for us. Somehow I got it into my head to stall out the game so I did nothing but counter sieging all through the mid and late game. To my great surprise, I got my full build and helped ace them, after taking a Baron and we won the game in one push. If I can repeat this every game, it will make climbing with him possible. Thing is, this takes a lot more effort than getting a bunch of kills with Kat and there is very little margin for error.

Every Azir I see waits until after someone tries to move out to cast Q and go ham. Even if they back out, you have lane dominance, and should be utilizing that to solidify a gold lead and translate that to your team via ganks/objectives.

This is the way to play him in lane. But like I said before, an early item 1057 nullifies a lot of his early bullying power.

Like I said, learning lane dynamics helps a lot. In fact, I'd recommend learning someone like Irelia or Jax top lane. Both of them have many extremely dynamic patterns according to match-ups, and you have to learn powerspikes, how to punish mistakes, and most importantly, how to completely demolish the enemy laner if they do something wrong, then translate that to the rest of the map. If you fail, you get punished hard. Because of this, its very easy to learn how to adjust your lane dynamic. After you're used to going even/winning in the large majority of your matches, even against 'counters', go back to Azir. That adaptability should translate and allow you to punish anyone below gold really well.

I do play Irelia. Jax is permabanned in Bronze. Aside from Azir, Kayle is my go to champ when I really wanna try hard and Kayle is cheesy as fuck. I win lane almost all the time with Kayle. Doesn't always mean I'm gonna win. There's always some guy running around on the enemy team more fed. Bronze life I guess.

There is something more beyond laning that I'm missing. I don't think it has anything to do with what champ I'm playing.

WoonStruckMay 28, 20161 votes

There is something more beyond laning that I'm missing. I don't think it has anything to do with what champ I'm playing. Would be good practice either way.

I could lane against you if you'd like. I don't claim to be perfect, but if I beat you I can probably tell you why I beat you.

If you win lane, especially in bronze, you should end up winning hard. Players in bronze often do not have a good gold stream, so once you get a lead, its very easy to build on that lead to the point where you're full build when everyone else is hitting 3 items, especially with someone that can waveclear, like Azir.

FioraWillCarryMay 29, 20161 votes

{quoted}

I could lane against you if you'd like. I don't claim to be perfect, but if I beat you I can probably tell you why I beat you.

That's cool. Add me whenever and we'll do it.

SimpumbaMay 26, 20162 votes

To bad they are destroying his ult also. If they nerf azir any more, like W damage, he's not gonna be viable, only by the best azir players

WoonStruckMay 26, 20161 votes

They aren't destroying his ult.

The MS was barely ever utilized, and few even knew about it.

3 seconds is still a huge deny during teamfights. Any more is just oppressive to melees, which is 90% of Azir's problem in the first place. His base kit already makes melees subpar, especially ones that lack mobility.

His ult then acts as a disengage AND an extended deny mechanism. He deserves the nerf in every way.

Unless you want his escape/insec ability taken away, the ult 100% deserves this hit and its completely fair.

SimpumbaMay 26, 20162 votes

{quoted}

They aren't destroying his ult.

The MS was barely ever utilized, and few even knew about it.

3 seconds is still a huge deny during teamfights. Any more is just oppressive to melees, which is 90% of Azir's problem in the first place. His base kit already makes melees subpar, especially ones that lack mobility.

His ult then acts as a disengage AND an extended deny mechanism. He deserves the nerf in every way.

Unless you want his escape/insec ability taken away, the ult 100% deserves this hit and its completely fair.

How is it not destroyed? Azir's ult is what defines him, they literally nerfed it by 4 seconds, reduced movespeed, made it so you can W turrets, AND nerfed stinger by 15%. I'm sorry but how is this fair? Zed got a nerf, but got his ultied buffed for it. Why is this? How is is fair that one of the hardest champions to master is being punished for being played well? But zeds ult is fair? The fact he can be a mile away from it, AND it lasts a long time so he can teleport back after towerdiving at 6. Sorry but this makes 0 sense.

WoonStruckMay 27, 20161 votes

His ult is not what defines him. Its his long range, safe, dps playstyle that provides massive utility via AoE slows. All his ult does is make him too safe. Why does he need long-range, no-risk, AoE DPS+Slows, and then on top of that have an escape, a disengage that doubles as a complete deny that he can keep attacking through, due to his massive range, for the next 7 seconds?

He's absurdly strong. He doesn't need all of that. Otherwise he has to lose either his long range or his escape. He's absurdly safe and one of the highest damage champs in the game.

GaleWinUnleashedMay 26, 20162 votes

Stinger change definitely makes sense. 50% attack speed for that cost, along with the fact that upgrading to Nashor's didn't change that attack speed stat at all, made Stinger a very weird item.

blfUvZ8YbuMay 26, 20161 votes

Azir hater online.

LycanoonMay 27, 20161 votes

I used to unload with stinger...now, its a whatever item that I use early on with ss for some nasty poke potential... If I up it to nashors, it only adds a portion of poke to the shiv and if someone forgot to switch out masteries, deathfire touch.

Although, it IS a nice lil tool for some heavy AP champs like teemo...

WalkingInACircleMay 27, 20161 votes

That might help, but really there are a lot of changes that he needs imo. He should probably lose his dash, get back a hard CC, return his wall duration and decrease its damage. Reduce the range on his Q (you have to remember the soldier's range is added) and I think you'll have something like the DPS mage hypercarry he's supposed to be.