Minor rework to Azir that would solve his issues and return him to glory

Azir was one of the first champions I fell in love with when I joined the game, along with Viktor. I believe the reason is because they are both positional long range mages that have tools to let them dictate the terms of battle, especially in teamfights. Making them very tactical in their combat style.

Given that I see Azir as a tactical and positional ranged mage, I would remove Shifting Sands entirely from his kit. It is out of place and really unnecessary to his core playstyle of positional tactics and high ranged damage.

Why is that? Well, just look at the kind of kit he has: Arise? Zone out enemies by placing soldiers. Conquering sands? Essential to put damage on target, and to shift what areas are zoned out. Shurima's Legacy? A positional defensive point you can fight from, further aiding the theme of a mage who fights from locations of tactical superiority. Emperor's Divide? Set up a wall to fight behind.

Notice the pattern? It's about superior positioning, zoning, crafting the battlefield to suit a superior tactical situation for yourself.

Given that, Shifting Sands is unnecessary, and actually only bloats his kit to the point where you are forced to nerf the positional aspects that really make Azir who he is.

Azir would be even more vulnerable to being dived, and it would be more difficult for him to chase or dive in with massive burst. Those losses would be very significant, but with that we would be able to revert all the nerfs that have come to the other aspects of his kit like:

1. Sand Soldiers can be given their higher range back. They can be given their higher AP ratio back.
2. His wall can get it's longer duration back.
3. You can increase his base movement speed back to what it originally was.
4. Additional damage can be returned to multiple soldiers with conquering sands, and you can unnerf it's base damage.
5. Turret can have it's attack speed increased again from cooldown reduction.

In addition, you could start to consider new changes that would fit his new playstyle: such as potentially increasing the control range of his soldiers. This might be more necessary without mobility, but it would add a lot to his zoning and poke power.

What do you replace Shifting Sands with? Well, you can actually use a new ability to address the problem of how Azir use to be too powerful all throughout the game. You do it by forcing Azir to choose early game between good poke or good damage. Late game he'll have both, but late game will also be a lot more dangerous for him to survive to use it. You start by putting the higher attack speed passive on his new E. Higher control range could be something you get passively from Q. But longer attack range on the sand soldiers could come from leveling up W. You could also rework his damage scaling so that something like his E passively increases his damage. So if you go for max poke with Q and W then you'll be lacking burst until later in the game when you can start leveling up his E. Late game you'll be able to combine both for Azir's full late game glory, but you pay the price by now being much more immobile and squishy so you will actually need that extra range and damage on your soldiers.

I recognize that a passive skill in E is not as interesting, but you could always think of up some kind of active component that is fitting for Azir's renewed focus on positional warfare. Edit: I believe the most fitting change would be to give it an active component that recalls his soldiers to his position, and then does a combination of one or all of the following: Knocks back enemies so a soldier is between each enemy and azir. If you have three soldiers and and three enemies they each get one in front of them, but if you have only one enemy then all three form a wall in from of that one. It grants azir a shield based on how many soldiers are recalled to his position. You could also possibly enable his soldiers to act as bodyblockers and skillshot blockers for the duration that the shield lasts, but if this is deemed too powerful you could remove this component without worry. This new skill would also be fitting for the fact that Azir's increased soldier attack speed and damage is linked passive with it, because not only will he need more defense if he is not going first with control and attack range, but thematically it represents a focus on the soldiers having furious and close range defense of their controller. This would fit with Azir's positional combat style more, giving him a second way to move his soldiers around for zoning purposes, and more importantly a new way to defend himself after the loss of his mobility.

So Azir's focus would be on powerful team zoning abilities, to be able to punish the enemy for trying to fight on his turf, but would lose some of his sudden initiation power in favor of a more tactical advance in concert with his team.

So, how would Azir be unique after those changes? Although being immobile and squishy like Xerath, he would not have the raw range or poke potential as Xerath, but Azir could zone out enemies better and do more sustained damage. Although being immobile and squishy like Viktor he would not have the same potential long range poke as VIktor prior to a fight or the same burst potential. Azir's damage is more sustained, and his zoning abilities are more persistent than Viktor's. Depending on what you choose to do with Azir's E, Viktor currently has better disengage in his base abilities, whereas Azir needs his ultimate to disengage but it is superior when he does it. The big advantage Azir has is that he has much much more potential for sustained damage and impact over a prolonged fight, so it makes him one of the few mages that can truly carry in terms of DPS; whereas Viktor is often out of steam after a single rotation of his abilities, so if he doesn't make a big impact in one spell rotation he is often left doing nothing until they go off their long cooldown.

With Azir being one of the first champions that sold me on this game, it saddens me to realize I don't find him as fun to play after the nerfs since his release. I believe they put themselves in a troublesome spot with Azir's design by putting unnecessary mobility on an inherently positional mage design. But I would love to see him tweaked in the way I suggested so that I can fully enjoy the unique aspects of Azir without being nerfed.