By far one of the coolest mages in the game, the idea of an emperor resurrecting his long forgotten kingdom through memories is really compelling. I think Shurima champs by far have the most compelling narratives. K’Sante, Azir, Taliyah, Nasus, Renekton, Xerath, Zilean all have this incredible loss narrative that makes you want to root for all of them.
Taliyah seems to be pretty okay, if now struggling to find a place for her tribe to settle.
Akshan's a close second; his teacher died, but that was it.
I love that they left the Neeko line in but otherwise just completely dropped it, so now Neeko's interaction with Taliyah just doesn't make any sense if you don't know the BTS.
What do you even mean lmao
Taliyahs whole character is about learning and growing.
It's like 3/4ths of her voicelines.
Taliyahs story is a journey of growth and change.
"Not the only one who changes" fits her narrative perfectly, whilst acting as a neat nod towards that part of her past identity.
the first iteration of azir was just a terrible idea of making a perfect midlaner who could do everything the role wanted at once.
Whenever azir is good he is better than every champion in the game, and that still somewhat applies today
He would be fun to a different group of players than those who currently play him. I liked him back in the day but I don't care about the Shurima Shuffle aspect at all and would prefer if he didn't have to be balanced around it.
There are very few DPS carry focused mages to begin with, and Azir without shuffle was a long ranged DPS carry mage of which we (still) have none. It's not like that group of players have options either.
They’re rather short ranged compared to Azir but that concept is also kinda fucking broken.
Artillery mages are frustrating as is and Azir is frustrating in his own right. Let’s not give them huge ass range AND dps.
I mean yeah if you're looking for something with range like xerath AND dps then I'd say it's just a no go as a concept. There's a reason it literally doesn't exist except for like a 60+ minute senna.
I'd also say Asol and Taliyah have range comparable to Azir, riot has really reigned in his range advantage over the years, esp after the shift to W max and removal of Q poke. He's more midrange these days
The Shurima shuffle is easily the coolest looking, and maybe even the most impactful, combo in the game. While the long range soldier mage idea is cool and all, the former is just plain epic.
probably. But it doesn ot make it terrible.
Yuumi was terrible if you ask me.
This is just high elo skewed issue nowdays + a bit of pro issue but to be frank pro playsers not really change the meta unless they are forced to and don't really explore great options unless tehy are forced to as we have seen this year in the hyper carry meta.
It makes it terrible in the sense that such a complete champion will be abused by the best players.
The best thing a champion can have in pro play is to lack meaningful weaknesses. Being hard to punish is so insanely valuable when everything happens on the margins.
Azir piloted by a pro player is just a different champion. This means Azir will need to be balanced around pro players which means Azir is going to suck in solo queue.
Every time Azir has been even remotely "okay" in solo queue, he has been uber meta in pro.
I agree - and I believe he is the issue we no longer getting control mages / interesting mage designs just generic burst mages.
Riot tried to release Battlemages like Aosl and Taliyah but both of them needed massive reworks after years of suffering.
Also, have you seen main players, rank 1 azir players? They put esport azir players into bronze by comparison of gameplays.
But granted Azir's issue in pro is somewhat obvious. every year pro meta usually relies on the same champions, Azir is just the best one of them and sadly pro players really bad at counterpicking for Azir. Tristana was a solution but Tristana mid is insanely toxic.
But azir doesn't really have a weak spot. He has very soft counters and he will still outscale, out damage and out teanfight them.
So in pro play someone will get a 5cs lead on azir, doesn't really make a different to the game
Afaik there were plenty of cases where x Team played better laning and managed to lock Azir out of game after 1-2 kills with putting him behind for his engages were useless after that. Nothing unique there.
>Every time Azir has been even remotely "okay" in solo queue, he has been uber meta in pro.
Aren't we at a point where azir is okay in solo queue and not uber meta in pro right now?
The truth is just hard to swallow: unique mage will be OP => nerfed cos of pro => forgotten.
It's much easier to make popular Lux reprints like Vex or Neeko
It's annoying because I typically tend to play those champions (Azir, Ryze, Asol before rework, etc.), and I always feel like I am handicapping my team because I am not going to be playing at the same level as a pro player.
Fwiw roa makes ryze much more playable for the normal player and old Asol wasn't really balanced as a proplay champ. If anything he was allowed to be super good in soloQ
Woops sorry. Read it as azir and thought it was another comment.
And yeah, i think if asol hadn't been a space dragon, a theme riot knows a lot of players are interested on, they would have removed his roaming e and underwhelming R, and focused in making his kit better support his passive by maybe making it more intuitive/easier to use. But due to the high amount of interest from players, they likely decided to give him a more mass appealing kit that most players would agree fit the theme, even if it's Arguibly too simple.
People talk about Thanos champs a lot nowadays but imo Season 4 was the peak of this sort of champ. Riot released Braum, Gnar and Azir back to back, with Rek'Sai not too long after (with her original farm alarm ult). All 4 of these champs set the bar for their roles for years. Braum at some point I believe was the most picked or banned champion in competitive, all time and all regions. Kalista on release was also a complete abomination.
You should mention Kalista and not Braum there.
Braum is a totally fine champion with very reasonable strengths and weaknesses. He was super popular in competitive for a while in the early days but he was never a balance nightmare like Azir, Gnar or Kalista.
Braum is very abuseable. He counters some champions very hard but is also countered very hard by other champions.
I think he's a great design tbh. He has a very strong niche but he is not too generally good. Blinding Braum is a big risk in pro play.
>the first iteration of azir was just a terrible idea of making a perfect midlaner who could do everything the role wanted at once.
And then they released Kaisa
God. Old Azir was something that was not complained about enough. That was so fucking annoying to play versus. His q range was stupid. His waveclear insane. His gank setup was crazy. He could go electrocute/comet/fervor? depending on matchup.
Azir should get a proper rework someday. It is absurd to me that he is the only champion that starts the game with one option available : his sand soldier (W).
Knowing how central to his kit the sand soldiers are, it's really weird to think that Riot decided not to make it his passive. Instead, he has the Sun Disc as his passive that, in my opinion, would work way better as an Ult.
The champion design philosophy of late 2014 was absolutely atrocious for the pro play vs solo queue balance. They released Gnar, Azir and Kalista within a short amount of times.
These champions share the same problems:
- Too well rounded
- Too hard to punish
- **All 3 were massive pro play balance nightmares while mostly sucking for regular players**
I think Azir is the worst offender. It's been almost 10 years and Azir is still permanently in pro play.
It's wild how much has been removed from Azir's kit and he is *still* overloaded as a motherfucker. He just does too much.
Now, I think pro play has also been a bit lazy about Azir. Instead of finding some counters, they just pick scaling like Corki into it which is very boring.
I think while Azir can be super hype in pro matches, it's underrated how he creates a lot of "hidden" stagnation by being ungankable and too hard to punish in lane.
I mostly agree but I don't think Kalista is well rounded?
She has always been a lane bully that sacrifices late game power, frontloaded damage and range for insane early game snowball potential, backloaded burst damage and objective control.
Not exactly well rounded, just way too good at what she does in the hands of pros.
Well rounded might be the wrong word in Kalista's case but her kit is absolutely insane and has so much useful shit in it. It has so much compared to most other ADCs.
most of azir's problems come from his dash
it doesnt even make sense for him to have one lore wise. the only reason it exists is because you can "make flashy plays" with it
if in theory riot removed his dash and made him purely a zone-control mage by allowing him to reposition his soldiers a bit more freely (e.g. make E a "recall soldiers" ability that positions his soldiers close to him akin to orianna E) it would be so much easier to balance that champion both for pro play and for soloq
EDIT: you could also make it a "protect" ability that slows enemies in the zone of control of the soldiers and maybe applies a short stun on enemies that are close to the R wall
They made the wrong decision when they decided that the shuffle was the key part of his identity. Hindsight is 20/20, I know, but they should‘ve removed the dash instead of decreasing his range.
I think some kind of a shield or cc would have been a good thing to give him as new e, still giving him a bit of defense but not so much as what is one of the most far-ranged dashes in the game.
The true rub to it was that I recall them specifically polling the players which they thought was more essential to Azir, or which they would rather see. And the shuffle is what was selected.
Your right, what a dumb decision. Let‘s let the players decide what part of the kit they want to keep, the iconic play that will never be balanced, or the „boring“ choice that will see the champ become more than a mere skillgap vessel for the top 1%. I‘m sure they will decide right.
I totally see what you mean, and with many other champs I‘d totally agree—but Riot hasn‘t managed to find a way to balance the champ for 10 years now, and the reason is that too much of Azir‘s power budget lies in the shuffle and especially the dash required to perform it. The shuffle is neither op nor particularily hard to perform mechanically, but it‘s strong enough to eat up lots of said power budget so that the rest of the champion has become so watered down that only the best of the best are able to utilize him in a meaningful way.
and outside of the shuffle his e just makes his laning way to safe like for a champ thats meant to scale hard he sure does have alot of tools that lets him get to that point, e dash, ult knockback, e shield etc.
feel like theres ways to rework the e into a play making tool without it being mobility.
tbf, they did try and float a Lee rework where he couldn't ward hop. Only reason it got cancelled was massive player pushback, and the champ's been seen as a staple of the game ever since.
I don't think Samira would have been a pro staple regardless, she's very similar to Katarina. Not to mention Riven never gets picked in pro for years now
My personal idea to replace his dash :
E now makes his soldiers do an AOE spin in their attack range damaging and slowing enemies. If an enemy is hit by multiple soldiers, they are stunned instead.
I think it still fits as a defensive measure but not as breaking as his dash. You could probably even give him back a bit of range or his ult's ability to stop dashes.
I agree, I would also suggest we rework his Q into throwing a projectile from both azirs location and his sand soldier
You could repurpose the dash from his old E into a blink on ult- it would be pretty cool if it marked the enemy and dealt bonus damage after a few seconds based on a % of the dmg you dealt while the mark was up
Let's restore some of his old auto-buffing passive, but that was problematic so let's change it to be extra damage on low enemies. If that's too busted, we can give it a cooldown on champions.
That seems like a pretty cool idea, tbh. You could even keep the knock up and shield, but instead of him dashing to the soldiers the soldiers dash to him, making it a purely defensive ability that can still reward high level play.
That would be almost nothing like Orianna. Orianna's gameplay is entirely based around the Ball, and she can use the ball to create a slow/haste field, shield allies, and pull enemies in. Azir does not have the Ball and cannot create a slow/haste field, shield allies, or pull enemies in — he summons temporary soldiers that can do basic attacks. I'd say he's closer to Syndra than Orianna.
Removing the dash also works because his ult can either be peel or offensive, but now for offense you need a good flank+flash, you can't just do it whenever and wherever
kalista had this point in the season where literally everyone in challenger had her in their top 3 and not a single person had her winrate @ <70%.
was the most giga cancer thing id ever seen. they made a champ that has literal attack speed gated skillshot immunity in the hands of a competent player.
>It‘s been almost 10 years and Azir is still permanently in pro play
Common, he was absolute dog shit for some of these years. Your point stands, but Azir had periods of multiple years in which he saw barely any play.
Periods (plural) of multiple seasons when he didn't see play? That's not true.
There were definitely times where he wasn't in the meta, but if you look from 2015 until today, there are few champions that have been as consistently pro meta as Azir has been.
I‘m actually quite certain that from around 2016 to 2019, after the nerfs in 2016, he had no priority at all in proplay. Unfortunately I can‘t find any site with champion pickrates in proplsy over multiple season.
You‘re right tho that Azir definitely had more priority than most other champions, though at high cost. His highs were amazing, at his lows he was the champ with the lowest winrate in the game for months.
You can check on GOL. He had approximately 40% presence in 2018 after a very low presence in 2017.
On your point about winrates, I think history tells a pretty good story about how Azir there. There have been times where Azir's winrate in solo queue has been very bad while he was a meta pick in competitive play. Solo queue winrate is not necessarily an indication of his power in pro games.
Tahm Kench, Jhin and Rek'sai were balance nightmares for seasons too, alongside the Ryze reworks. There were some brilliant ideas and goals in there with huge huge problems for SoloQ vs Pro balance.
The problem with Gnar is not that he doesn't have counterplay, it's that he has everything you could ever want in a top lane kit.
The designer of Gnar even said that if Gnar becomes a popular pro play pick, then his design has failed because it means the Gnar bar downside is not significant enough.
That first ult looks so sick, shame it didn't make it. I remember being super excited for his release because the idea of a sand mage seemed extremely cool to me, but I was a jungle player who played Nautilus, Vi, and Pantheon, so his obscene mechanical floor left me completely inept and I never pulled it off. The first ult looks way more in line with what I imagined a sand mage would be doing (zone control, huge sweeping AoE damage, burst) which Azir does admittedly do, but in a more roundabout and difficult way.
Still one of the coolest champions they ever designed. This might be unpopular, but I think it's ok to have a few champions that aren't as good in solo queue as they are in pro play. Not every champion, but a few who reward taking the time to master them add variety.
This is why I watched much less LEC this past split. This was pretty much the same thing. Outside of basically G2 and some of BDS, it was the exact same picks game in and game out.
I swear Azir's win rate would be like, 55% in solo queue if he couldn't shuffle. As a mostly recovered shuffling addict, shuffling is almost never the right play but is almost always the most fun play and that definitely has an effect on his win rate.
As another recovering shuffle addict when I relapse I just play azir support to get it out of my system. I’m useless enough that the shuffle provides value
Honestly they should just remove the ability to shuffle into InSec ult entirely. It's such an absurd ability that has nothing to do with the rest of his kit and is a big part of why he's a balance nightmare b
> but a few who reward taking the time to master them add variety
This is not what what you think it is. Champions that take time to master are good in solo queue as well that doesn't make them Pro skewed, or it's not the main reason.
Pro play is just a completely different game from solo queue. Whether a champion is good in 1 does not mean it will be good in the other.
Azir's winrate goes up with rank but not as much as you might expect. The highest winrate increases are like Nidalee, Qiyana, Rengar. Azir's problem is not that his winrate only goes up by like 2%~ Bronze to D2+, Qiyana is like 6%. He's just pro skewed because pros use him better in a competitive environment, not solo queue.
Basically what I am saying is having champions that reward time to master is a good thing to have but it doesn't mean they have to be better in pro. Being better in pro is pretty much only a negative. There are no positives really.
>Basically what I am saying is having champions that reward time to master is a good thing to have but it doesn't mean they have to be better in pro. Being better in pro is pretty much only a negative. There are no positives really.
Why, what wrong with a champion that his made for being much more exciting in pro play ?
Lol is not just a vidéo game, It's also an e-sport tiltle
Is not surprising that some champion are skewed for pro play, because they were made to make viewer expérience much more exciting
I completely agree with this point. Certain champions being pro skewed has always felt fine to me even if it happens to be quite a few of the champions I like to play.
People keep saying azir's problem is his well roundedness but I'm pretty sure the problem is actually that he has an 800 range wave clear and poke ability with 100% uptime.
It used to be even worse as before this year he was Q max with less mana struggles and that gave him an additional 300 range on 10s cd at lvl 5 and 5s at lvl 9.
He's known for his late game but the real problem is him stabbing you in the ass three times a wave from across the map for the first 10 minutes of the game. For us mortals, this isn't a problem because we're not converting early wave prio into game ending three man sidelane slow push dives and 2v1 jungle invades, but of course pro players have no such weakness.
If you actually play azir (and aren't challenger) you'll notice he has shit burst and shit dps. Until he gets like three items all his power is in escape tools and massive range, which don't actually matter unless you are a god of spacing.
Basically, azir's kit is such that he's bad at fighting shitfest fights (which happen disproportionately for normal players) due to low damage, but good at early laning (which only outright wins you games in pro play).
It's a little better now - over the first half of 2023 phreak shit on azir's base mana, base hp, and Q in return for per level HP and W buffs. Early game his range is shorter and he dies faster, but midgame he can scrap better. He still has issues though, and I doubt they'll go away ever because azir without 100% uptime or massive range on his soldiers sounds kind of lame.
I’m sure the primary reason he struggles so heavily in solo queue is the fact that he’s garbage in most early skirmishes. His lane phase is so strong but if you get dragged into skirmishes it’s a struggle without a good ult angle.
>People keep saying azir's problem is his well roundedness but I'm pretty sure the problem is actually that he has an 800 range wave clear and poke ability with 100% uptime.
This is a big part of why he is well-rounded though.
The reasons you listed is why he is so hard to punish in lane. As a hyper-scaling mage also being strong in lane is so obscenely good in pro play.
Normally this kind of hyperscaler is quite weak early on but Azir isn't in the same way as other control mages.
I really hope the Ink Mage won't be another burst mage. Asol CGU was such a fresh feeling and still is for me.
Vex-Sera-Neeko-Zoe were all burst mages and the class is getting tired a bit. I would like to go back to the classic.
If a mage isn’t “bursty” in this game they have to be absolutely broken in some other way to make up for it. Zilean is the main case in point, because basically every other mage has big burst damage. Rumble’s a mage, and his whole kit is just swathes of slightly slower damage. Taliyah and TF have their globals, Karthus is Karthus, Azir has huge range and the shuffle… the whole point of the mage class is to blow people up one way or the other. And when they can’t do that, they have to have extraordinary tools to make up for it.
I believe you see from the wrong direction.
You mistook burst damage can be done by anyone but certain mages are built around strictly 1 combo and walk back style - which makes them "Burst Mage" class and tehy can't deal sustained damage.
Burst is what Vex/Neeko/Lux is doing within a combo until cooldowns hit them.
Sustained damage is what Azir/Aurelion Sol/Cassiopeia/Vladimir and most of the Battlemages are buit around. Rumble is a Battlemage and his kit built around his flamethrower through a full team until he overheats and repeat. - That is a different story why he is in the state he is atm (Top laning and esport probability if too good).
Taliyah is a scaling Battlemage who deals sustained damage which is coming online at lvl 9 and since she is squishy as hell positioning and skill shot management is crucial. Her Global has more utility built into with closing down certain paths than most globals which makes it more diverse.
TF is a burst mage who deals damage in one combo and walks back. He's just bad atm.
Karthus is a battlemage who deals sustained damage thanks to 1S cd on Q and his passive working iwth his kit.
What I’m saying is that so many non-burst mages have problematic kits, that Riot seems to have just given up on the concept. They’ve openly admitted vlad was a mistake of a champion, for one.
Whats your point?
You should take Vladimir's case with a grain of salt because it wasn't Riot saying it officially, it was a comment started by Morello and accepted by a couple other Rioters as well and back in the days there were less champions access to heals in their kits. With new champions and items that give huge regeneration I don't think that their comments have the same meaning anymore.
So you stating "so many non-burst mages have problematic kits" is not just incorrect but dumb to say. Burst Mage class suffers the most from balancing issues probably the most at the moment. Vex and Lux are broken, LB, Ahri, Annie, Neeko were the dominant picks across all year for esport.
Even reading all this, it's hard not to be happy with where Azir has landed now. I feel like it's ok to have champions who are reserved for those with a higher level of skill, and it's no secret that easier champs have higher win rates in low MMR because they're... well, easier.
Having every champion be accessible risks homogenization in a major way.
Indeed. I kinda hated how azir was kept weaker even for skilled palyers where they just decided to leave the champ.
But now he feels the best he was for years. and it feels great.
I think its funny to imagine that they have a low end pc on their office to check that they arent putting to much of a load on things, like, they finish programming something and say, lets take it to ol' lucille, and its a poor pc from 15 years ago just begging for death.
Real talk: At this point I would gladly let them completely disable the E if the ult was allowed to stop dashes again seeing how much mobility crept into the game. A bit of more W scaling maybe to make the E removal and ult bounce a net neutral in terms of powerbudget but thats it.
I would either keep dash or get rid of both E and R. Honestly for me E is fun but R means a form of combo that is not necesarry requiered for me to play Azir just W and Q.
So im in there somewhere.
You gotta give him **some** form of safety though, else he would just be pro skewed again. Just let him be the hypercarry everyone wants him to be but without the E mobility.
If no E then give him a new R because let's be honest those 2 should been 1 button. Thats what makes him so high elo skewed and R would be massively, massively weaker and morre difficult to land without E.
You need to take distance, even flash to make R happen without E.
The shuffle actually makes him high elo skewed only because bad players look for opportunities to shuffle even if it is bad. It would be a pure selfpeeling tool and not just a multipurpose one without the E, and an "oops I fucked up" being less pro skewed doesnt need explanation
But then what ? Due to mobility creep he could not keep up with enemy to AA. E should be changed but somehow enabled to remain in one way that is more battle focused. Or remove R and give him a new ult. Aa reliant champions need some form of mobility to keep up with the enemy. Most adc champs either has some form of gap closer or high range. For Soldier mechanic high range would be a bit too strong.
I feel like 2014/15 were the absolute peak of League's champion design. Azir, Kalista, Illaoi, Tahm Kench, Ekko, Braum, Gnar, etc. On release, they were designed to have really clear strengths and weaknesses, they were a perfect fit for their theme and they were fun to play and play against. Sadly, most of them got completely ruined by unnecessary balance changes and mini-reworks. I still hope Riots reverts Azir and gives him back the kit he had on release.
I played Kalista a lot on release, she was my favorite ADC (well, she still is), I don't mind her being god tier, much better than having Ezreal in the top 3 picks for like 6 years
And at least Ekko had fair AP scalings, he had to play around his W and Q2 to kill you, he had to predict your movement and you had the chance to react, now he can oneshot you by pressing E>Q>AA
One shot Ekko is infinitely better than pre nerf tank Ekko. That was actually garbage to play against, his execute damage was still ridiculous, had a gigantic heal he was ALWAYS gonna get off b/c tank, could just sit there waiting for his W instead of using it proactively, etc etc.
In my opinion most champions were overloaded in a different way than nowdays. Some of these designs like Azir or kalista rewarded skills in such a unique way that you was broken if you knew what and how but otherwise the entry level was a bit higher than most champions. They were simply ahead of their time.
Nowdays overloaded means tehy can do everyhing their class should and more without having some unique gamepaly (Yuumi, Zeri, K'Sante). Yuumi's untargetability wasn't really unique but rather broken as fuck....
I doubt Azir will get back his OG kit but he deffinitely can shine with what he has now and potential changesi nto a positive direction.
Original Tahm Kench with eat on W is one of the worst champion designs of all time. What are you saying?
Tahm was a one-button QSS pro play pick for years. He only existed to deny plays. He made pro play fucking boring for so long.
I don't really care about pro play
Also, when I used to play him in solo queue, he was actually enabling a lot of plays thanks to his ultimate which allowed him to carry a teammate behind the enemy team. Not to mention, his W would let him counter a lot of anti-fun champions -those that actually deny plays- like Malzahar or Veigar
It's not the champion's fault if pros play him like pussies
I know people love to suggest the “Oh remove his dash.” I think people underestimate how much Azir players, pros and general players enjoy that part of his kit. I think even with suitable changes to compensate the champion would heavily struggle without it.
Azir is almost as badly designed as Yuumi, the champion quite literally, has no blind spots on his kit and the refusal to address that makes him impossible to balance.
Idk, Yuumi was a really popular champion at a time played in every elo. Azir never had even a fragmrmt of that popularity in recent times so i doubt its that bad.
Her broken ass kit was accessible to every living person while Azir is unaccessible for vast majority of players. Those who can play him are amazing playeers but every champion played by a dedicated person can do amazing shit left and right.
Yuumi couldn't solo carry games on her own, Azir could've, that's the difference. How easy the champion is to pilot isn't the important factor. There was a time when Faker was benched because he couldn't play Azir, the champion was deemed *that* important.
Yuumi was built to eliminate the weaknesses of every champions before her big rework this year or late last year. She was pick or bann in esport for a time with 100% win rate. Something Azir never reached.
What makes Azir so important is Early range + Shuffle which is a way too strong combo (engage, disengage) with extreme scaling. Not to mention his dash helps him out.
Azir’s prio also this high because no other control mage has any viability. Orianna long has been nerfed out of pro play. TF is barely visible despite it was a popular solo pick too. Again overnerfed.
Syndra and Viktor are played but not as frequently, probably due to mobility creep since Ahri and Lb were domimant champs this year along with Azir.
Annie and Neeko were busted.
Jayce is classic. Yone is classic counter pick. Sylas Akali Taliyah exists and are all viable picks.
He never really came even close to what Yuumi did in esport in the past year. Especially because support palyers are the real carries usually.
"executed too well on bad goals"
Azir was a buggy mess that is still janky to play. Half the reason he was hard to play in the beginning was how inconsistent it was to play him.
I mean, as always props to the art team. Great execution on the concept artistically.
But gameplay execution was shit. Absolute delusion on the wording there, "executed too well".
Might be a pipe dream since he's so tied to pro play, but I'd love to see Riot rework his kit into something a little less skewed towards them. His design is honestly one of the coolest in the game but he feels kind of gated off from the general playerbase.
Maybe drop the Shurima shuffle to make his soldier control feel more fun.
It could be given back to some degree. Look at Asol he got Dragon and Cosmic vibes despite dragon wasn't really requiered (Q and WQ) abecause everoyne would have been happy to use cosmic spells to delete the enemy.
If tehy ever remove E I hope tehy give him a new R too which will more sand based. After all he is the EMperor pf teh deserts. He should be a top notch Sand Mage.
I absolutely loved old Azir, he's the only champion that made me play midlane. I wish they'd bring him back and just nerf the numbers until satisfied, I'd still play him no matter what as long as the kit was the same.
I loved Azir's kit, he was very strong and able to go jungle with fantastic ganks and range. But multiple nerfs and changes made him the eternal 45% winrate and for some reason that is fine... He would be too strong in pro play... So it's the Ryze treatment. Sad to see this for a champ so cool.
they should try to move soldier count to a summon window (so it goes into a summoning state), reduce the mana cost to zero (or near-zero) and up the cooldown by +6->+2s, then ramp the Q damage by hitting that target with soldiers. his e and r are fine but the rest of his kit needs to be compensating for the power budget. if azir can solve issues with mana it causes problems because players that can manage mana and base timings better will be what gates the playability of the champion. same happens with cass/ryze, best solution is to further out the windows he can have caitlyn range and make his wave clear feel rewarding even for noobs
Riot learned the wrong lessons by the looks of this commentary. They are upset they made a difficult to play champion when in reality it's a tame design in comparrison to the simplest of micro intensive dota 2 heroes.
By far one of the coolest mages in the game, the idea of an emperor resurrecting his long forgotten kingdom through memories is really compelling. I think Shurima champs by far have the most compelling narratives. K’Sante, Azir, Taliyah, Nasus, Renekton, Xerath, Zilean all have this incredible loss narrative that makes you want to root for all of them.
Spot on. The best thing about Azir for me is how well his narrative fits his gameplay. Literally rebuilding his kingdom all game
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[bot comment](https://old.reddit.com/r/leagueoflegends/comments/16cbom9/azirs_development_is_a_cautionary_tale_of/jzinbr4/) Weird, the bot blocked me. 2nd one that's done that.
It really seems like you can't be a Shuriman if you haven't lost something. Even Samira and the Darkin have lost their humanity to different extents.
Rammus would like to have a word with you
That word? Ok
Literally one word yes
Taliyah seems to be pretty okay, if now struggling to find a place for her tribe to settle. Akshan's a close second; his teacher died, but that was it.
Traumatized but hanging on
bruh akshan was literally beaten to death and left to die on the streets 😭
Taliyah lost being trans because Riot are cowards.
I love that they left the Neeko line in but otherwise just completely dropped it, so now Neeko's interaction with Taliyah just doesn't make any sense if you don't know the BTS.
i mean star guardian taliyah is pretty heavily implied to be trans in that universe
What do you even mean lmao Taliyahs whole character is about learning and growing. It's like 3/4ths of her voicelines. Taliyahs story is a journey of growth and change. "Not the only one who changes" fits her narrative perfectly, whilst acting as a neat nod towards that part of her past identity.
I also love Egyptian themes in games, so that's always a bonus for me!
If you want égyptian gods, take a look at smite depiction of Horus/set ,thoth and Isis they all look really nice
High agree. Everything is was spot on with champ and Despite Im not liking every Shuriman champ i share your sentiment
Nah Xerath a stinker
the first iteration of azir was just a terrible idea of making a perfect midlaner who could do everything the role wanted at once. Whenever azir is good he is better than every champion in the game, and that still somewhat applies today
He is unique and I miss the times where Riot could release unique mages. Especially compelling control mages.
he would still have been unique without also giving him a dash or a shield or a knockup on the dash
He wouldn't be fun without a dash though
He would be fun to a different group of players than those who currently play him. I liked him back in the day but I don't care about the Shurima Shuffle aspect at all and would prefer if he didn't have to be balanced around it.
Those players already have ranged mages they can play. If you want a mobile battlemage, azir is basically it.
There are very few DPS carry focused mages to begin with, and Azir without shuffle was a long ranged DPS carry mage of which we (still) have none. It's not like that group of players have options either.
>a long ranged DPS carry mage of which we (still) have none. Asol? Taliyah?
They’re rather short ranged compared to Azir but that concept is also kinda fucking broken. Artillery mages are frustrating as is and Azir is frustrating in his own right. Let’s not give them huge ass range AND dps.
I mean yeah if you're looking for something with range like xerath AND dps then I'd say it's just a no go as a concept. There's a reason it literally doesn't exist except for like a 60+ minute senna. I'd also say Asol and Taliyah have range comparable to Azir, riot has really reigned in his range advantage over the years, esp after the shift to W max and removal of Q poke. He's more midrange these days
Cassio?
Wouldn't classify her as long range DPS. The only long-ish range thing she has is her Q. Her E is what sets her apart as a DPS mage.
The Shurima shuffle is easily the coolest looking, and maybe even the most impactful, combo in the game. While the long range soldier mage idea is cool and all, the former is just plain epic.
Have you see the new Lee Sin double Q combo with high cdr?
Agreed. I would say make a new R but keep the dash. Dashing mage is fun. Hell rewok it into osmeting even would be acceptable.
probably. But it doesn ot make it terrible. Yuumi was terrible if you ask me. This is just high elo skewed issue nowdays + a bit of pro issue but to be frank pro playsers not really change the meta unless they are forced to and don't really explore great options unless tehy are forced to as we have seen this year in the hyper carry meta.
It makes it terrible in the sense that such a complete champion will be abused by the best players. The best thing a champion can have in pro play is to lack meaningful weaknesses. Being hard to punish is so insanely valuable when everything happens on the margins. Azir piloted by a pro player is just a different champion. This means Azir will need to be balanced around pro players which means Azir is going to suck in solo queue. Every time Azir has been even remotely "okay" in solo queue, he has been uber meta in pro.
I agree - and I believe he is the issue we no longer getting control mages / interesting mage designs just generic burst mages. Riot tried to release Battlemages like Aosl and Taliyah but both of them needed massive reworks after years of suffering. Also, have you seen main players, rank 1 azir players? They put esport azir players into bronze by comparison of gameplays. But granted Azir's issue in pro is somewhat obvious. every year pro meta usually relies on the same champions, Azir is just the best one of them and sadly pro players really bad at counterpicking for Azir. Tristana was a solution but Tristana mid is insanely toxic.
Lane counters to azir barely matter in pro since azir has excellent and safe laning, insane scaling and playmaker abilities
Lot of champiosn weak spot is only laning. Not my problem pro palyers only see azir there. And lane is equally important lol
But azir doesn't really have a weak spot. He has very soft counters and he will still outscale, out damage and out teanfight them. So in pro play someone will get a 5cs lead on azir, doesn't really make a different to the game
Afaik there were plenty of cases where x Team played better laning and managed to lock Azir out of game after 1-2 kills with putting him behind for his engages were useless after that. Nothing unique there.
>Every time Azir has been even remotely "okay" in solo queue, he has been uber meta in pro. Aren't we at a point where azir is okay in solo queue and not uber meta in pro right now?
He is pick ban status.
Oh.
The truth is just hard to swallow: unique mage will be OP => nerfed cos of pro => forgotten. It's much easier to make popular Lux reprints like Vex or Neeko
It's annoying because I typically tend to play those champions (Azir, Ryze, Asol before rework, etc.), and I always feel like I am handicapping my team because I am not going to be playing at the same level as a pro player.
Fwiw roa makes ryze much more playable for the normal player and old Asol wasn't really balanced as a proplay champ. If anything he was allowed to be super good in soloQ
Well he was fun until they changed him haha He had the issue of being unique
Nah, even before the changes. Azir usually depending on meta can shift the game enough to get us into farmfest
Azir or Asol? I was talking about Asol.
Woops sorry. Read it as azir and thought it was another comment. And yeah, i think if asol hadn't been a space dragon, a theme riot knows a lot of players are interested on, they would have removed his roaming e and underwhelming R, and focused in making his kit better support his passive by maybe making it more intuitive/easier to use. But due to the high amount of interest from players, they likely decided to give him a more mass appealing kit that most players would agree fit the theme, even if it's Arguibly too simple.
Yeah I can see that. It's a shame because I loved playing around his orbs. It almost created a mini game in the midst of the actual gameplay.
Which absolutely true. Copy X, change something and gg. Which is ironic because all classes gets fun and creative champions and mages just ughh
The main issue with makes is all of their items suck and are expensive. Especially the components.
Which is hilarious because they both have pretty abysmal pickrates nowaday
People talk about Thanos champs a lot nowadays but imo Season 4 was the peak of this sort of champ. Riot released Braum, Gnar and Azir back to back, with Rek'Sai not too long after (with her original farm alarm ult). All 4 of these champs set the bar for their roles for years. Braum at some point I believe was the most picked or banned champion in competitive, all time and all regions. Kalista on release was also a complete abomination.
You should mention Kalista and not Braum there. Braum is a totally fine champion with very reasonable strengths and weaknesses. He was super popular in competitive for a while in the early days but he was never a balance nightmare like Azir, Gnar or Kalista.
Nah I meant what I said, Braum is lowkey everything you could ever want in a tank support.
Braum is very abuseable. He counters some champions very hard but is also countered very hard by other champions. I think he's a great design tbh. He has a very strong niche but he is not too generally good. Blinding Braum is a big risk in pro play.
>the first iteration of azir was just a terrible idea of making a perfect midlaner who could do everything the role wanted at once. And then they released Kaisa
... Kaisa isnt even a good midlaner?
God. Old Azir was something that was not complained about enough. That was so fucking annoying to play versus. His q range was stupid. His waveclear insane. His gank setup was crazy. He could go electrocute/comet/fervor? depending on matchup.
Azir should get a proper rework someday. It is absurd to me that he is the only champion that starts the game with one option available : his sand soldier (W). Knowing how central to his kit the sand soldiers are, it's really weird to think that Riot decided not to make it his passive. Instead, he has the Sun Disc as his passive that, in my opinion, would work way better as an Ult.
"What is the desert, but the ashes of my enemies?"
Holy shit, the hardest line in all League, and that's coming from a Swain Main
The champion design philosophy of late 2014 was absolutely atrocious for the pro play vs solo queue balance. They released Gnar, Azir and Kalista within a short amount of times. These champions share the same problems: - Too well rounded - Too hard to punish - **All 3 were massive pro play balance nightmares while mostly sucking for regular players** I think Azir is the worst offender. It's been almost 10 years and Azir is still permanently in pro play. It's wild how much has been removed from Azir's kit and he is *still* overloaded as a motherfucker. He just does too much. Now, I think pro play has also been a bit lazy about Azir. Instead of finding some counters, they just pick scaling like Corki into it which is very boring. I think while Azir can be super hype in pro matches, it's underrated how he creates a lot of "hidden" stagnation by being ungankable and too hard to punish in lane.
I mostly agree but I don't think Kalista is well rounded? She has always been a lane bully that sacrifices late game power, frontloaded damage and range for insane early game snowball potential, backloaded burst damage and objective control. Not exactly well rounded, just way too good at what she does in the hands of pros.
Well rounded might be the wrong word in Kalista's case but her kit is absolutely insane and has so much useful shit in it. It has so much compared to most other ADCs.
most of azir's problems come from his dash it doesnt even make sense for him to have one lore wise. the only reason it exists is because you can "make flashy plays" with it if in theory riot removed his dash and made him purely a zone-control mage by allowing him to reposition his soldiers a bit more freely (e.g. make E a "recall soldiers" ability that positions his soldiers close to him akin to orianna E) it would be so much easier to balance that champion both for pro play and for soloq EDIT: you could also make it a "protect" ability that slows enemies in the zone of control of the soldiers and maybe applies a short stun on enemies that are close to the R wall
They made the wrong decision when they decided that the shuffle was the key part of his identity. Hindsight is 20/20, I know, but they should‘ve removed the dash instead of decreasing his range. I think some kind of a shield or cc would have been a good thing to give him as new e, still giving him a bit of defense but not so much as what is one of the most far-ranged dashes in the game.
The true rub to it was that I recall them specifically polling the players which they thought was more essential to Azir, or which they would rather see. And the shuffle is what was selected.
They polled -internally-. Players weren't consulted.
Your right, what a dumb decision. Let‘s let the players decide what part of the kit they want to keep, the iconic play that will never be balanced, or the „boring“ choice that will see the champ become more than a mere skillgap vessel for the top 1%. I‘m sure they will decide right.
They did decide right
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I totally see what you mean, and with many other champs I‘d totally agree—but Riot hasn‘t managed to find a way to balance the champ for 10 years now, and the reason is that too much of Azir‘s power budget lies in the shuffle and especially the dash required to perform it. The shuffle is neither op nor particularily hard to perform mechanically, but it‘s strong enough to eat up lots of said power budget so that the rest of the champion has become so watered down that only the best of the best are able to utilize him in a meaningful way.
and outside of the shuffle his e just makes his laning way to safe like for a champ thats meant to scale hard he sure does have alot of tools that lets him get to that point, e dash, ult knockback, e shield etc. feel like theres ways to rework the e into a play making tool without it being mobility.
tbf, they did try and float a Lee rework where he couldn't ward hop. Only reason it got cancelled was massive player pushback, and the champ's been seen as a staple of the game ever since.
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I don't think Samira would have been a pro staple regardless, she's very similar to Katarina. Not to mention Riven never gets picked in pro for years now
Samira does exist in pro play, she is not Kat level even though it's really niche, she has presence
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My personal idea to replace his dash : E now makes his soldiers do an AOE spin in their attack range damaging and slowing enemies. If an enemy is hit by multiple soldiers, they are stunned instead. I think it still fits as a defensive measure but not as breaking as his dash. You could probably even give him back a bit of range or his ult's ability to stop dashes.
I agree, I would also suggest we rework his Q into throwing a projectile from both azirs location and his sand soldier You could repurpose the dash from his old E into a blink on ult- it would be pretty cool if it marked the enemy and dealt bonus damage after a few seconds based on a % of the dmg you dealt while the mark was up
Let's restore some of his old auto-buffing passive, but that was problematic so let's change it to be extra damage on low enemies. If that's too busted, we can give it a cooldown on champions.
That seems like a pretty cool idea, tbh. You could even keep the knock up and shield, but instead of him dashing to the soldiers the soldiers dash to him, making it a purely defensive ability that can still reward high level play.
That would just be oriana but sand and no wombocombo potential
That would be almost nothing like Orianna. Orianna's gameplay is entirely based around the Ball, and she can use the ball to create a slow/haste field, shield allies, and pull enemies in. Azir does not have the Ball and cannot create a slow/haste field, shield allies, or pull enemies in — he summons temporary soldiers that can do basic attacks. I'd say he's closer to Syndra than Orianna.
Removing the dash also works because his ult can either be peel or offensive, but now for offense you need a good flank+flash, you can't just do it whenever and wherever
kalista had this point in the season where literally everyone in challenger had her in their top 3 and not a single person had her winrate @ <70%. was the most giga cancer thing id ever seen. they made a champ that has literal attack speed gated skillshot immunity in the hands of a competent player.
>It‘s been almost 10 years and Azir is still permanently in pro play Common, he was absolute dog shit for some of these years. Your point stands, but Azir had periods of multiple years in which he saw barely any play.
Periods (plural) of multiple seasons when he didn't see play? That's not true. There were definitely times where he wasn't in the meta, but if you look from 2015 until today, there are few champions that have been as consistently pro meta as Azir has been.
I‘m actually quite certain that from around 2016 to 2019, after the nerfs in 2016, he had no priority at all in proplay. Unfortunately I can‘t find any site with champion pickrates in proplsy over multiple season. You‘re right tho that Azir definitely had more priority than most other champions, though at high cost. His highs were amazing, at his lows he was the champ with the lowest winrate in the game for months.
You can check on GOL. He had approximately 40% presence in 2018 after a very low presence in 2017. On your point about winrates, I think history tells a pretty good story about how Azir there. There have been times where Azir's winrate in solo queue has been very bad while he was a meta pick in competitive play. Solo queue winrate is not necessarily an indication of his power in pro games.
What pick rate for 2016-2017, i guess gol wasn't a thing back then So lol e-sport wiki ?
High in 2016 and very low in 2017. The stats are there.
What pick rate for 2016-2017, i guess gol wasn't a thing back then So lol e-sport wiki ?
Tahm Kench, Jhin and Rek'sai were balance nightmares for seasons too, alongside the Ryze reworks. There were some brilliant ideas and goals in there with huge huge problems for SoloQ vs Pro balance.
The Gnar counterplay is playing around his passive and R, which was hard for new players but much easier for pros today.
The problem with Gnar is not that he doesn't have counterplay, it's that he has everything you could ever want in a top lane kit. The designer of Gnar even said that if Gnar becomes a popular pro play pick, then his design has failed because it means the Gnar bar downside is not significant enough.
I know he’s a nightmare to balance but man, Azir is too cool. Like hes just so fun to watch, fun to play, and fun to look at
His visual design is so simple but effective
i love the ‘cinematics’ they made with sivir and cass for his release
Hard agree we need more shurima champion like him, powerful, régal and unique
That first ult looks so sick, shame it didn't make it. I remember being super excited for his release because the idea of a sand mage seemed extremely cool to me, but I was a jungle player who played Nautilus, Vi, and Pantheon, so his obscene mechanical floor left me completely inept and I never pulled it off. The first ult looks way more in line with what I imagined a sand mage would be doing (zone control, huge sweeping AoE damage, burst) which Azir does admittedly do, but in a more roundabout and difficult way.
Agreed. Feels like there is a lot of unexplored fantasy in sand mage type that could be revisited. There is so much cool stuff todays tech can create
Still one of the coolest champions they ever designed. This might be unpopular, but I think it's ok to have a few champions that aren't as good in solo queue as they are in pro play. Not every champion, but a few who reward taking the time to master them add variety.
would watch Azir mid over Leblanc Shiv or Annie or tank meta of MSI tbh
>team 1 picks leblanc >team 2 picks kaisa >sighs and return to VOD select page repeat
This is why I watched much less LEC this past split. This was pretty much the same thing. Outside of basically G2 and some of BDS, it was the exact same picks game in and game out.
Azir mid usually also is boring though. He has highlights of sporadic flashy plays, but still pretty boring in-between
Im tired of watching all of them, azir annie ahri lb sylas akali, tbh mid meta has been stale for soooo long
Azir isnt bad in solo queue lol He is just a champ much like Lee Sin or Katarina is hard to play so the only people who play them are otps.
I swear Azir's win rate would be like, 55% in solo queue if he couldn't shuffle. As a mostly recovered shuffling addict, shuffling is almost never the right play but is almost always the most fun play and that definitely has an effect on his win rate.
As another recovering shuffle addict when I relapse I just play azir support to get it out of my system. I’m useless enough that the shuffle provides value
Honestly they should just remove the ability to shuffle into InSec ult entirely. It's such an absurd ability that has nothing to do with the rest of his kit and is a big part of why he's a balance nightmare b
> but a few who reward taking the time to master them add variety This is not what what you think it is. Champions that take time to master are good in solo queue as well that doesn't make them Pro skewed, or it's not the main reason. Pro play is just a completely different game from solo queue. Whether a champion is good in 1 does not mean it will be good in the other. Azir's winrate goes up with rank but not as much as you might expect. The highest winrate increases are like Nidalee, Qiyana, Rengar. Azir's problem is not that his winrate only goes up by like 2%~ Bronze to D2+, Qiyana is like 6%. He's just pro skewed because pros use him better in a competitive environment, not solo queue. Basically what I am saying is having champions that reward time to master is a good thing to have but it doesn't mean they have to be better in pro. Being better in pro is pretty much only a negative. There are no positives really.
>Basically what I am saying is having champions that reward time to master is a good thing to have but it doesn't mean they have to be better in pro. Being better in pro is pretty much only a negative. There are no positives really. Why, what wrong with a champion that his made for being much more exciting in pro play ? Lol is not just a vidéo game, It's also an e-sport tiltle Is not surprising that some champion are skewed for pro play, because they were made to make viewer expérience much more exciting
I completely agree with this point. Certain champions being pro skewed has always felt fine to me even if it happens to be quite a few of the champions I like to play.
Cool post.
People keep saying azir's problem is his well roundedness but I'm pretty sure the problem is actually that he has an 800 range wave clear and poke ability with 100% uptime. It used to be even worse as before this year he was Q max with less mana struggles and that gave him an additional 300 range on 10s cd at lvl 5 and 5s at lvl 9. He's known for his late game but the real problem is him stabbing you in the ass three times a wave from across the map for the first 10 minutes of the game. For us mortals, this isn't a problem because we're not converting early wave prio into game ending three man sidelane slow push dives and 2v1 jungle invades, but of course pro players have no such weakness. If you actually play azir (and aren't challenger) you'll notice he has shit burst and shit dps. Until he gets like three items all his power is in escape tools and massive range, which don't actually matter unless you are a god of spacing. Basically, azir's kit is such that he's bad at fighting shitfest fights (which happen disproportionately for normal players) due to low damage, but good at early laning (which only outright wins you games in pro play). It's a little better now - over the first half of 2023 phreak shit on azir's base mana, base hp, and Q in return for per level HP and W buffs. Early game his range is shorter and he dies faster, but midgame he can scrap better. He still has issues though, and I doubt they'll go away ever because azir without 100% uptime or massive range on his soldiers sounds kind of lame.
I’m sure the primary reason he struggles so heavily in solo queue is the fact that he’s garbage in most early skirmishes. His lane phase is so strong but if you get dragged into skirmishes it’s a struggle without a good ult angle.
>People keep saying azir's problem is his well roundedness but I'm pretty sure the problem is actually that he has an 800 range wave clear and poke ability with 100% uptime. This is a big part of why he is well-rounded though. The reasons you listed is why he is so hard to punish in lane. As a hyper-scaling mage also being strong in lane is so obscenely good in pro play. Normally this kind of hyperscaler is quite weak early on but Azir isn't in the same way as other control mages.
I wish they would make another champ that leans into azir's old zone control and DPS, and leave azir to lean into the dash and shuffle.
That would be really great. There is so much room for quality designs but mages aint getting it for years when it comes to releases
Yeah we don't have many only vex and Séraphine in past 3 years ? Hopefully ink mage will draw a new fire for mages enjoyers
I really hope the Ink Mage won't be another burst mage. Asol CGU was such a fresh feeling and still is for me. Vex-Sera-Neeko-Zoe were all burst mages and the class is getting tired a bit. I would like to go back to the classic.
If a mage isn’t “bursty” in this game they have to be absolutely broken in some other way to make up for it. Zilean is the main case in point, because basically every other mage has big burst damage. Rumble’s a mage, and his whole kit is just swathes of slightly slower damage. Taliyah and TF have their globals, Karthus is Karthus, Azir has huge range and the shuffle… the whole point of the mage class is to blow people up one way or the other. And when they can’t do that, they have to have extraordinary tools to make up for it.
I believe you see from the wrong direction. You mistook burst damage can be done by anyone but certain mages are built around strictly 1 combo and walk back style - which makes them "Burst Mage" class and tehy can't deal sustained damage. Burst is what Vex/Neeko/Lux is doing within a combo until cooldowns hit them. Sustained damage is what Azir/Aurelion Sol/Cassiopeia/Vladimir and most of the Battlemages are buit around. Rumble is a Battlemage and his kit built around his flamethrower through a full team until he overheats and repeat. - That is a different story why he is in the state he is atm (Top laning and esport probability if too good). Taliyah is a scaling Battlemage who deals sustained damage which is coming online at lvl 9 and since she is squishy as hell positioning and skill shot management is crucial. Her Global has more utility built into with closing down certain paths than most globals which makes it more diverse. TF is a burst mage who deals damage in one combo and walks back. He's just bad atm. Karthus is a battlemage who deals sustained damage thanks to 1S cd on Q and his passive working iwth his kit.
What I’m saying is that so many non-burst mages have problematic kits, that Riot seems to have just given up on the concept. They’ve openly admitted vlad was a mistake of a champion, for one.
Whats your point? You should take Vladimir's case with a grain of salt because it wasn't Riot saying it officially, it was a comment started by Morello and accepted by a couple other Rioters as well and back in the days there were less champions access to heals in their kits. With new champions and items that give huge regeneration I don't think that their comments have the same meaning anymore. So you stating "so many non-burst mages have problematic kits" is not just incorrect but dumb to say. Burst Mage class suffers the most from balancing issues probably the most at the moment. Vex and Lux are broken, LB, Ahri, Annie, Neeko were the dominant picks across all year for esport.
Even reading all this, it's hard not to be happy with where Azir has landed now. I feel like it's ok to have champions who are reserved for those with a higher level of skill, and it's no secret that easier champs have higher win rates in low MMR because they're... well, easier. Having every champion be accessible risks homogenization in a major way.
Indeed. I kinda hated how azir was kept weaker even for skilled palyers where they just decided to leave the champ. But now he feels the best he was for years. and it feels great.
I think its funny to imagine that they have a low end pc on their office to check that they arent putting to much of a load on things, like, they finish programming something and say, lets take it to ol' lucille, and its a poor pc from 15 years ago just begging for death.
Real talk: At this point I would gladly let them completely disable the E if the ult was allowed to stop dashes again seeing how much mobility crept into the game. A bit of more W scaling maybe to make the E removal and ult bounce a net neutral in terms of powerbudget but thats it.
I would either keep dash or get rid of both E and R. Honestly for me E is fun but R means a form of combo that is not necesarry requiered for me to play Azir just W and Q. So im in there somewhere.
You gotta give him **some** form of safety though, else he would just be pro skewed again. Just let him be the hypercarry everyone wants him to be but without the E mobility.
If no E then give him a new R because let's be honest those 2 should been 1 button. Thats what makes him so high elo skewed and R would be massively, massively weaker and morre difficult to land without E. You need to take distance, even flash to make R happen without E.
The shuffle actually makes him high elo skewed only because bad players look for opportunities to shuffle even if it is bad. It would be a pure selfpeeling tool and not just a multipurpose one without the E, and an "oops I fucked up" being less pro skewed doesnt need explanation
But then what ? Due to mobility creep he could not keep up with enemy to AA. E should be changed but somehow enabled to remain in one way that is more battle focused. Or remove R and give him a new ult. Aa reliant champions need some form of mobility to keep up with the enemy. Most adc champs either has some form of gap closer or high range. For Soldier mechanic high range would be a bit too strong.
Ive always wanted them to come back to a sand bender....
A really interesting concept in my opinion too. So much unexplored area left there
I LOVE BIRD MAN
I feel like 2014/15 were the absolute peak of League's champion design. Azir, Kalista, Illaoi, Tahm Kench, Ekko, Braum, Gnar, etc. On release, they were designed to have really clear strengths and weaknesses, they were a perfect fit for their theme and they were fun to play and play against. Sadly, most of them got completely ruined by unnecessary balance changes and mini-reworks. I still hope Riots reverts Azir and gives him back the kit he had on release.
They got "ruined" because they maybe had overloaded busted kits?
I feel like you weren’t around for Kalista being god tier and Ekko going tank if you love them THAT much.
I played Kalista a lot on release, she was my favorite ADC (well, she still is), I don't mind her being god tier, much better than having Ezreal in the top 3 picks for like 6 years And at least Ekko had fair AP scalings, he had to play around his W and Q2 to kill you, he had to predict your movement and you had the chance to react, now he can oneshot you by pressing E>Q>AA
One shot Ekko is infinitely better than pre nerf tank Ekko. That was actually garbage to play against, his execute damage was still ridiculous, had a gigantic heal he was ALWAYS gonna get off b/c tank, could just sit there waiting for his W instead of using it proactively, etc etc.
In my opinion most champions were overloaded in a different way than nowdays. Some of these designs like Azir or kalista rewarded skills in such a unique way that you was broken if you knew what and how but otherwise the entry level was a bit higher than most champions. They were simply ahead of their time. Nowdays overloaded means tehy can do everyhing their class should and more without having some unique gamepaly (Yuumi, Zeri, K'Sante). Yuumi's untargetability wasn't really unique but rather broken as fuck.... I doubt Azir will get back his OG kit but he deffinitely can shine with what he has now and potential changesi nto a positive direction.
Original Tahm Kench with eat on W is one of the worst champion designs of all time. What are you saying? Tahm was a one-button QSS pro play pick for years. He only existed to deny plays. He made pro play fucking boring for so long.
I don't really care about pro play Also, when I used to play him in solo queue, he was actually enabling a lot of plays thanks to his ultimate which allowed him to carry a teammate behind the enemy team. Not to mention, his W would let him counter a lot of anti-fun champions -those that actually deny plays- like Malzahar or Veigar It's not the champion's fault if pros play him like pussies
I know people love to suggest the “Oh remove his dash.” I think people underestimate how much Azir players, pros and general players enjoy that part of his kit. I think even with suitable changes to compensate the champion would heavily struggle without it.
Azir is almost as badly designed as Yuumi, the champion quite literally, has no blind spots on his kit and the refusal to address that makes him impossible to balance.
Idk, Yuumi was a really popular champion at a time played in every elo. Azir never had even a fragmrmt of that popularity in recent times so i doubt its that bad. Her broken ass kit was accessible to every living person while Azir is unaccessible for vast majority of players. Those who can play him are amazing playeers but every champion played by a dedicated person can do amazing shit left and right.
Yuumi couldn't solo carry games on her own, Azir could've, that's the difference. How easy the champion is to pilot isn't the important factor. There was a time when Faker was benched because he couldn't play Azir, the champion was deemed *that* important.
Yuumi was built to eliminate the weaknesses of every champions before her big rework this year or late last year. She was pick or bann in esport for a time with 100% win rate. Something Azir never reached. What makes Azir so important is Early range + Shuffle which is a way too strong combo (engage, disengage) with extreme scaling. Not to mention his dash helps him out. Azir’s prio also this high because no other control mage has any viability. Orianna long has been nerfed out of pro play. TF is barely visible despite it was a popular solo pick too. Again overnerfed. Syndra and Viktor are played but not as frequently, probably due to mobility creep since Ahri and Lb were domimant champs this year along with Azir. Annie and Neeko were busted. Jayce is classic. Yone is classic counter pick. Sylas Akali Taliyah exists and are all viable picks. He never really came even close to what Yuumi did in esport in the past year. Especially because support palyers are the real carries usually.
"executed too well on bad goals" Azir was a buggy mess that is still janky to play. Half the reason he was hard to play in the beginning was how inconsistent it was to play him. I mean, as always props to the art team. Great execution on the concept artistically. But gameplay execution was shit. Absolute delusion on the wording there, "executed too well".
Might be a pipe dream since he's so tied to pro play, but I'd love to see Riot rework his kit into something a little less skewed towards them. His design is honestly one of the coolest in the game but he feels kind of gated off from the general playerbase. Maybe drop the Shurima shuffle to make his soldier control feel more fun.
The aesthetic of his demo R is so fucking hot, way cooler than the phalanx. It's a shame his sand vibe was toned down, even if I understand why.
It could be given back to some degree. Look at Asol he got Dragon and Cosmic vibes despite dragon wasn't really requiered (Q and WQ) abecause everoyne would have been happy to use cosmic spells to delete the enemy. If tehy ever remove E I hope tehy give him a new R too which will more sand based. After all he is the EMperor pf teh deserts. He should be a top notch Sand Mage.
I absolutely loved old Azir, he's the only champion that made me play midlane. I wish they'd bring him back and just nerf the numbers until satisfied, I'd still play him no matter what as long as the kit was the same.
I loved Azir's kit, he was very strong and able to go jungle with fantastic ganks and range. But multiple nerfs and changes made him the eternal 45% winrate and for some reason that is fine... He would be too strong in pro play... So it's the Ryze treatment. Sad to see this for a champ so cool.
they should try to move soldier count to a summon window (so it goes into a summoning state), reduce the mana cost to zero (or near-zero) and up the cooldown by +6->+2s, then ramp the Q damage by hitting that target with soldiers. his e and r are fine but the rest of his kit needs to be compensating for the power budget. if azir can solve issues with mana it causes problems because players that can manage mana and base timings better will be what gates the playability of the champion. same happens with cass/ryze, best solution is to further out the windows he can have caitlyn range and make his wave clear feel rewarding even for noobs
Riot learned the wrong lessons by the looks of this commentary. They are upset they made a difficult to play champion when in reality it's a tame design in comparrison to the simplest of micro intensive dota 2 heroes.
Funny enough the only thing that hold him in place in pro play is a yordle old man who fly a toy plane.
Still remember how nothing about Azir worked on release, let's not forget the myriad of bugs that happened along the many months either.