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Let's talk Azir: Why his kit is a problem and how a possible fix could look like

Lauchmelder·9/11/2018, 5:25:18 PM·8 votes·27,030 views

Let's start off by saying that this post is NOT about Azir needing buffs. No buffs to Azir should happen until he gets changed in a way that make his kit less problematic.

Azir has a big problem and it's time to face it: His kit is impossible to balance for both proplay and SoloQ play. If he's moderately strong in the LCS he'll still be weak in SoloQ but if he's moderately strong in SoloQ he's pick or ban in proplay. Why is that?

But what is the actual problem with him that makes him so hard or even impossible to balance properly?

The answer is simple: It's his kit.

He currently holds a fairly powerful poking tool on his Q ("Conquering Sands"), his Sand Soldiers deal a lot of sustained damage once he hits 4-5 completed items, his E ("Shifting Sands") is a mobility spell that can save him from a gank OR can be used by a skilled Azir player to engage on the enemy in combination with his AoE knockback ultimate ("Emperor's Divide").

Azir either has too much damage for the tools he gets in his kit or too many tools to justify the amount of damage he deals.

Let's compare Azir to the champion with the most similar kit: Orianna

Both of those champions command an entity (Sand Soldiers for Azir, the Ball for Orianna), both of them have a tool to move said entity. Both champions have to take positioning very seriously if they want to maximize damage output and minimize damage taken.

Yet Orianna is considered (by a lot of players) as having a balanced kit. Why? Because Orianna pays for her damage by having less mobility. It's a weakness she's been given for having AoE abilities both with decent damage as well as good CC.

Azir on the other hand lacks such a weakness. If he has bad positioning or gets ganked he can use 'Shifting Sands' and 'Conquering Sands' to disengage without suffering too much. And then there's still his ultimate that he can use to peel for himself. If you put Orianna into a similar position then her chances of survival are drastically lower because the only tool she can use to escape such a situation is her W ('Command: Dissonance') for the speedboost she gains from it.

It's save to say that Orianna could be taken as the norm for power budgets for any kits similar to hers. Azirs power budget in a sense tops hers astronomically. He has higher DPS than her, better mobility than her and an ultimate he can use to peel for himself or a teammate.

But enough with the comparisons. What could be a possible fix?

This is a hot topic for Azir mains because there actually are 2 different (common) playstyles for him.

1.) The Shurima Shuffle Azir: Like the title suggests the players using this playstyle want to be aggressive, they want to take the initiative. If they see an opening for a Shuffle they'll go for it and "insec" the entire enemy team (or parts of it) into an unfavorable position. 2.) The Emperor Azir: This playstyle focuses on high DPS, offensive but supportive play. Those players rarely go for a shuffle. They'll use 'Emperor's Divide' to peel for teammates that get jumped by the enemy frontline/assassin or to create a small window of time for his team to disengage from a fight.

What can possibly be done to appease both of these factions while fixing the problems his kit causes?

To make it even possible to balance Azir he needs an ability update on his E ('Shifting Sands'). There's a lot of possible fixes to it but the one that comes up the most is removing his mobility. This makes him more vulnerable to ganks or missplays, it opens up windows to punish him.

He then needs a different ability. Azir is the Emperor of Shurima. What would a soldier do if his Emperor gets attacked in a battle? He'd jump in to protect his lord. So his new 'Shifting Sands' could be another Soldier movement ability.

Once it is cast the soldier switches from an offensive to a defensive soldier with a short duration. He'll let go of his spear, equip a shield and rush in to protect Azir. This change is permanent for the affected soldiers, they will not be able to attack any more and can't be moved by 'Conquering Sands'.

It should still grant Azir a shield like it does right now but ONLY if the Sand Soldier can get to his emperor without passing through enemy champions. If the Soldier passes through an enemy champion the enemy will be shoved to the side rendering them immobile for a very short duration (e.g. 0.25s) but taking no damage.

This first part explains a possible ability change, but what about the Shuffle? Right now there's nothing hinting at keeping it.

There's actually 2 possibilities. Both will be explained in the following paragraphs:

1.) The Shifting Sands Shuffle: Loosely based on the current Shurima Shuffle, the Shifting Sands Shuffle would work similar to the shove explained above. Once Azir uses the new 'Shifting Sands' ability and activates the ultimate 'Emperor's Divide' WHILE the Sand Soldiers rush towards Azir the ultimate will form not behind Azir himself but in a line with the last summoned Sand Soldier rushing towards him.

If this combo is not used the ultimate will stay as it is currently, starting from behind Azir moving into the direction of the cursor.

2.) The Emperor Shuffle: Azir can not use his ultimate like he can do it currently. Instead it works similar to the first possibility but on both 'Conquering Sands' and 'Shifting Sands'.

Both of those would add skill expression to Azir.

To make everything feel smoother Azir would need a buff to his 'Conquering Sands' range. It currently sits at a range of 720 (it was nerfed from 875 prior to patch 7.19). An increase of 35-40 could be reasonable but it'd need testing. This would require a compensation nerf to his soldiers which could either be achieved by reducing their duration under tower OR them gaining an HP bar when under an enemy tower.

This compensation nerf should ensure that Azir can't poke people under their own tower without counterplay to his soldiers. (Tower attack range is 775 units. the new Q range would be 755-760 units, easily enough to poke and get out of tower range before it fires a shot).

Naturally this is just one of many ideas. If anybody has a different idea on how to fix Azirs problems or a rework idea feel free to comment them below. Work on Azir is slowed right now, so a pool of ideas could be the spark someone at Riot needs.

29 Comments

InTheory9/12/2018, 1:18:34 PM6 votes

I think your missing some really important points to have your post make sense. You argue like this:

  • Azir doesn't need buffs, he's just too hard to balance for high and low elo
  • Proceed to compare Azir to Orianna coming to the conclusion that Azir is by far better then Orianna (in general)
  • Start to come up with solutions without a single word about what makes him good in pro play especially that has low viability in lower elo

My thoughts about Azir's viability in professional play:

  1. Shifting Sands

When I think off Azir in pro play I really think about these incredible playmaking situations where Azir dashes behind a group of opponents, knocking them into his own team and have them burst down immediately. Think about it as an AOE Lee Sin combo with much heavier follow up damage.

What makes a big difference between pro and regular play is the amount of setup communication and follow up. In professional play his allies will jump onto the enemy immediately so they are dead (or forced to retreat) before the can return damage on Azir and threaten him. In regular play, this immediate follow up is missing so the soloQ Azir player will much more often be killed by returned damage without his enemies taking serious damage.

  1. Conquering Sands

Azir is not too unique in being an auto attack based mage, but in that he needs his soldiers to deal his high amounts of damage. Despite maxing Q first, he still remains a 5 second cooldown on their reposition tool. If he positions them not optimally or the opponent disengages or moves away from their are of influence, Azir's damage potential will not activate. This can cause his team to fight at serious disadvantages for important seconds whereas the professional azir pleaser can communicate such an issue with his team so that they play around that better. You often see professional teams play around each other until a team finds that one engage they really wanted.

  1. Game length

Azir comes online pretty late into the game because while needing traditional mage stats he also needs attack speed to directly scale from. Professional games use to take somewhat longer so an Azir will more reliable reach a point of being viable to their team compared to SoloQ.

  1. Clearing

His soldiers can be used to clear the waves early on without too high mana costs giving him the ability to roam to side lanes or shift towards his jungler to back them up while contesting. This is especially of value for organized and professional play which has often caused champions into professional play despite being considered weak in SoloQ. Everytime Azir is "decent" he has really good waveclear giving him lane priority and lets him enable their junglers better to contest objectives, threatening opponent junglers into 2 v 1 while his opponent midlaner is forced to finish farming his wave.

My conclusion:

Out of all the 4 points I made, I think it is more important to remove his ability to go for LC$ Big Plays with shifting Sands and compensate him with a tool which is more valuable for SoloQ. This has also been an approach during (one of two) during his last update attempt but Riot opted into (keep everything the same but reduce range and some numbers).

chipndip19/12/2018, 8:18:40 PM6 votes

Just. Remove. Shurima. Shuffle. Already.

It gives him way too much play-making potential. Hell, as a scaling hyper carry who has a shield and a massive wall he can build, does he even need a dash at all?

If his tools are used for defense, that's fine. However, he can make massive plays for his whole team while being a hyper carry in his own right. It's too much for one kit. Maybe let him keep the dash, but the shuffle's gotta go. He may also have to choose between his dash or his ult, while we're at it. He needs to be streamlined to his back line, ap dps, hyper carry play style if we ever want to see the end of this.

Dotrix9/14/2018, 4:28:26 PM3 votes

Any champion with a high skillcap and a steep learning curve will have the conundrum of either being too strong in the hands of good players or too weak in the hands of average players. I love playing Azir, but the only way to truly make him balanced in the hands of both skilled and unskilled players would be to dumb down his kit which I'm not a huge fan of.

Hayaishi10/4/2018, 6:39:19 PM2 votes

What if Azir's new E was usable on allies?

You could cast in on an ally, a soldier would rush towards it granting him a shield and Azir could still use it to attack( though i might need to lose the knock up) It would create really cool interactions and would enforce his identity as a control mage. It would be a really useful tool for protecting allies and controlling space around them. Also adds some strategic value because Azir has to decide whether he wants to comit all his soldiers to one side of the battle or save some to defend his allies

I Am Lord Ruler9/14/2018, 5:17:56 AM2 votes

I do not play Azir any more. The level of teamwork necessary for him to thrive in my low Elo is not really possible unless I am playing 5 man flex with my friends. Thats ok. He is a highly team dependent team fight mage. Even now, I think it is fine to say his kit has the ability to be overloaded. As much as I do love the Shurima Shuffle, it needs to go. We got the mini rework that emphasized the Shuffle. It was deemed to strong, and now we are back to where we started. I would take old Azir in his horribly nerfed condition that current Azir in his horribly nerfed condition. Old Azir had:

Higher Range Lower Q Cooldown Ult lasted more than 3 seconds Ult knocked back enemy dashes(this is still shown in Azir tips in client btw) More damage late game Soldiers didn't have multi target damage reduced against minions

New Azir has: A scaling AP shield on E Doubled passive AS with 3 soldiers out

Thats it. Riot keeps repeatedly ripping out parts of his kit. I understand the need for pro play balance, hell I love pro's. But the current state of Azir purely for the sake of Pro's is quite frankly infuriating. I love this champion, I poured out so many hours as a brand new beginner when I started LoL to learning his kit. Its saddening and frustrating to see the champion I put so much effort into trashed. He had such a high learning curve and skill ceiling that when you finally got him down, it was rewarding as hell.

Mild rant aside, I don't think we should turn his E into an Orianna-esque ability. I get the are "similar" champs but with all the gutting they have done to his kit, it would just remove more and more of his identity as one of the kings of teamfights. We all know his E has to go, unless riot is planning on changing his ultimate entirely. But of course, what can we replace it with. With Azir, we need an ability that meshes with his kit, is thematically appropriate, and does not add more to overloading his kit. Thats pretty damn hard. The absolute easiest thing that could be done his to remove his dash entirely, replace it with an old Xin Xhao W, remove the 3 soldier bonus and slap it on his E key. But, thats not quite right. I propose his new E would be to create an AoE zone that increases the Attack Speed of his soldiers by X percent. The kicker, is that if any of Azirs soldiers are in that zone, Azir could press E to blink/dash to that soldier, killing the soldier in the process. It still gives Azir some outplay potential, but leaves him more vulnerable without a shield or a soldier to defend him. Azir travels to the exact location of his soldier, giving away his would be position easily. In exchange for all of this, his 3 soldier passive would be removed.

Also, I strongly believe he needs his range back. Azir is not meant to be in the thick of things, however we were to give him back his range straight away, it would not be healthy. Even now with his current range, you can still relatively safely farm with ease. As much as a hypocrite as this makes me(for saying we should not have the new E because it is to Orianna-esque) I think he really needs a tristana passive where his soldier command range grows with level. Make it tied to his ultimate level, so he is still vulnerable in lane, but "ascends" through out the game back into his untouchable team fighting god status.

In the mean time, I think there are a couple things we should look at to make Azir more bearable to play in the meantime. Some simple things to do without breaking hi I feel are to return the bounce on his Ultimate wall and return its time scaling. I can pull of the best defensive ultimate on a assassin trying to get my feathered booty, but their inevitable second dash turns all that to dust. Instead of being an impassable wall, its more a temporary inconvenience that an insurmountable obstacle.

Divewing9/12/2018, 7:18:39 PM2 votes

Azir's problem is simply that he is the perfect pro-play champion.

The type of games that pro-play are renders his counters unviable, or meta-dependent.

He is weak to Assassins and Artillery Mages, and neither of those two every stick around for a sustained period in pro-play meta.

Without borderline changing the champion entirely, this won't change.

TeCoolMage9/13/2018, 1:18:51 AM2 votes

I don’t think azir has a drastically higher power budget than orianna: She has:

  • a shield
  • better engage + follow up with her ult than azir shuffle for much less risk and effort
  • higher range
  • has a much better mid-early game
  • better burst which is better for zoning than DPS

It’s not that azir has more things, it’s that self peel and mobility are much more important for a mid laner than engage and shielding. If they were supports or top laners the champions would swap on which is unbalanced while if they were bot laners orianna would be trash tier and azir would be S tier

So I agree that azir needs changes but ultimately I don’t think it’s because he has too much in his kit compared to ori

Tbh they should’ve gone with the less mobility more range route when deciding what to change him to

I like the shield idea, what if the shielding soldier knocks back the first person to enter its aoe before disappearing

Shahamut9/21/2018, 11:08:36 PM1 votes

What if we got rid of his defensive ultimate? Let him keep his one dash, I think its fine since it trades his offense to use for the most part. Get rid of the shuffle by getting rid of his Ultimate.

Then make his ultimate a temporary buff, like other Ascended units, but have it buff his summoning temporarily in some way.

Move the double attack speed onto his ultimate, and then have active soldiers rush to Azir whenever he takes damage during the ult or something like that, sacrificing themselves to prevent some/all the damage from whatever attack. OR have them automatically Q to whoever attacked the emperor (if in range). OR just reduce Q's cooldown while the Ult remains active like nasus Q. OR make the summoning cooldown decrease. There are lots of things you can do with his ult.

Just thoughts off the top of my head, feel free to crucify them XD

ZaFishbone9/25/2018, 11:52:04 AM1 votes

He has both absolutely oppressive poke early game, and god-like teamfight potential lategame. If all the enemies are clustered together in the jg, an Azir can shred at least half of the whole enemy team's health, even without being significantly fed. Add to this that he has solid mobility and CC and you have a real problem. Something has to go. Perhaps if they take away his ability to make his soldiers dash, or if they make it so that he can't just use them to attack right after he dashed, or take away his own mobility. But Azir has, in fact, perhaps the most overloaded kit in LoL, above even the likes of yasuo, akali and zoe, and is only kept in check by being overly-nerfed.

Uperior10/18/2018, 11:17:38 PM1 votes

Oh 100% agree; the shuffle honestly needs to go.

Been thinking about ways to change Azir to be more healthy

So a few things I thought of were

Increase his W cast range slightly; to help compensate for the safety that his current shifting sands offers

Remove Shifting Sands; replace it with something similar to his old ult where he summons a shield wielding sand soldier to knock back enemies that jump on Azir (Starting with 1 soldier, and increasing to 3 as you level the ability). Something that works like Ahri Xerath or Velkoz giving him SOME level of safety without giving him mobility on top.

New ult Azir summons a sand mage to his side, shielding his emperor for a duration, and counting towards his soldier limit (Making it easier to get 3), and fully recharging his soldier count

So it takes away his full safety net of mobility and self peel, for working more with his W, while still giving him SOME level of protection without making it his ONLY reason to exist

ModWuks9/12/2018, 10:37:45 AM1 votes

Approved

Skias1/2/2019, 7:01:45 AM1 votes

I've said it so many times in this conversation. His mobility is what makes him unique, fun and not Orianna. He is far harder to play than Orianna. Orianna's ultimate is uninteresting and doesnt require her to put herself in danger to use it.

Azir is rewarded with damage because of the intense amount of skill that is required to play him optimally. His skill expression is one if the most satisfying in league of legends.

Also, when it comes to lore, maybe a mortal emperor cowers behind his soldiers, but Azir is a god emperor with an ego and tons of self confidence. He doesnt back down or hide in any of his lore. Changing him into an Orianna tower hugging Q-bot doesnt do him justice. Removing his E is like removing Lee Sin's ward dashes. You might as well just make a new champion, because Azir will cease to be the fun, challenging champion he is now.

It often sounds to me like some folks just want him to be easier to play like Orianna and that is just not who he is.

Alzon9/12/2018, 12:01:49 PM1 votes

How about the soldiers simply move slower when under an enemy tower, in addition to their current despawn timer reduction? This would grant someone hugging tower a chance to sidestep Conquering Sands.

Additionally, the soldier affected by Shifting Sands should do something for the duration of its life other than grant a shield, otherwise casting the ability essentially consumes a soldier for a shield. I think it could do one or both of two things: provide a zone of increased Movement Speed, and/or turn back into a regular sand soldier when affected by Conquering Sands. Both of these somewhat mimic Orianna and would be intuitive for any members of her playerbase picking up Azir. The movespeed increase would also be a much milder version of the escape Azir players are used to having.

The shield soldier could also have a lockout on being affected by Conquering Sands. It would need some sort of visual to accompany the end of the lockout, like a glow that starts when it is close enough to shield Azir and ends with the lockout.

I do like the idea of Emperor’s Divide consuming a soldier. It’s like a larger, more glorified version of Taliyah’s Seismic Shove, and the soldier is the cost paid for this increased utility. I’m concerned about its cast paradigm, though. Which soldier will be used? Will it work as a toggle, like Heimerdinger Upgrade!, or as a cancel of whatever ability was used last (Conquering/Shifting Sands)? The first concern also applies to Shifting Sands. Which soldier will return to Azir? Requiring him to target a soldier for these abilities sounds very muddling and a huge skill barrier, even more than current Azir. This is the biggest problem that would need to be solved.

Edit: the simplest solution would be to use the most recently spawned soldier.

Saezio9/13/2018, 7:39:00 AM1 votes

I don't know tons about azir but I feel like one solution would be to have his Q and E give eachother a 1-1,5 sec CD so he cannot link them so instantaneously. But maybe that would take too much of the fun out of his kit.

crippler389/14/2018, 4:33:56 AM1 votes

Just so I'm clear on this, are you saying you wish for Azir to exchange his dash shield for a knockup that can be used to fire off the wall, in exchange for eating a soldier?

I don't know about the giving him more CC as compensation for the lost mobility, but I do think that using his soldiers the spawn the wall would make them into an even larger 'you don't stand near these' threat, and would allow Azir to make some of those shuffle plays without putting himself at risk.

Mainly I think the shuffle is too much play making potential for someone who has as much damage as Azir does.

Perhaps reworking his ultimate, and making it so his e dragged either one or more soldiers in (I'd personally think all of them) and gave them shields to create the wall would be a good idea.

Basically all soldiers would rush towards Azir, pulling out shields, upon contact with an enemy champion they knock the enemy in the direction they are running. If you want to knock an enemy away from yourself you'd paddle star them, if you want to knock an enemy towards yourself you'd send the soldier behind them.

Once a Soldier has come into contact with an enemy, its shield is lost for X seconds. The first time a soldier comes into contact with Azir while carrying a shield, he gets a small shield that stacks with each soldier that contacts him.

Perhaps using the e would give the shielded soldiers a separate duration from what they were normally.

Problems with this idea is that it may cause too many (4-5) soldiers to appear at once, but it'd allow Azir to have peel and playmaking potential in the form of effectively a mini Alistar knock, and it'd make it so that Azir's wall is less of a massive nope area for every enemy until it goes way.

XeroKimo9/15/2018, 1:55:34 AM1 votes

If I'd make changes to azir, I'd probably try to shift his laning patterns a bit, for the most part, his playstyle in lane hasn't really changed except that his damage was no where near the times he was peaked played. That isn't to say he isn't oppressive anymore, though I haven't faced an azir in awhile so I can't say much about how oppressive he is.

The goal in the shifting of lane patterns would be a small shift in his poking patterns. While it's already optimal that you would try to get 1 or 2 autos after a Q cast I think it'd be easier to balance if say we nerf his Q and add an effect that next auto with soldiers deal bonus damage, that way if he gets too oppressive again, by poking with Q, it'd requires him to auto as well, rather just hit Q, free damage, they can't retaliate.

Something like Q:

  • Damage decreased to 60/70/80/90/100 (+20% AP) from 60/80/100/120/140 (+30% AP)
  • New Effect: Next auto with soldiers deal an additional 10/15/20/25/30 (+15% AP)

Though to be honest with current azir, I doubt that'd change much, just because his Q doesn't feel that strong of a poke tool in lane when I play him, could just be me.

In the past though I had another idea for azir, it would shift his overall playstyle to be even more for his DPS style, even in lane. It went something like.

Q:

  • Cooldown changed to 12/10.5/9/7.5/6 from 15/12.5/10/7.5/5
  • Damage reduced to 40/55/70/85/100 from 60/80/100/120/140
  • Mana cost reduced to 50 from 70
  • New effect: If a champion is hit, restores a stack of sand soldier

W:

  • Mana cost reduced to 30 from 40
  • Soldier duration reduced to 5 from 10
  • Tower penalty removed
  • Charge time increased to 7 seconds from 8/7.5/7/6.5/6
  • Damage increased to 70-160 based on level from 60-160

Overall, this change would make him have to manage his soldiers in lane, if he decided to go all in, he can pull up 3 soldiers to get his AS steroid, his poking power is reduced in lane, but lower cooldown and mana cost would be he could do it more often, but I did that intentionally as a way for azir to always have 2 soldiers in his inventory if he successfully lands an ability, that or he could just wait, which is part of soldier management. I think overall this is more potentially a nerf, both in numbers and his playstyle in lane, out of lane I doubt it'd change much

Aptest9/17/2018, 5:19:11 PM1 votes

In my memory oriana, who is also a proxy-caster, had the same issues way back when. the solution was gradual de-ranging of her ball control range. once her ranges decreased, her safety was diminished to the extent that she was balanced for several years.

Galiö9/18/2018, 6:07:37 PM1 votes

I actually never thought to compare Ori to Azir but is a nice comparisons since that is the closest related champion.

Maybe we can work our way through Orianna to find Azirs problem areas.

What of Orianna was able to set up more than one ball. (This would just be too awkward to have azir have one soldier)

What if we gave Orianna Mobility (she goes to the ball instead of the ball to her or an ally).

What if Orianna can ball can deal damage without use of additional mana resources (pulses as an AA).

What would break Orianna the most and is that what breaks Azir?

I feel as if his Mobility is the largest issue when trying to break it down through the guage of another champion but then again maybe it's the amount of soldiers... but would feel weird (as stated before) to not be able to set up soldiers.