What I meant in that it's normal that Azir trucks you if you stand in range of multiple soldiers; however, the amount of guaranteed burst he can land every 4 seconds or so with Q+right-click means that even if you take the time (or cooldowns: dashes etc.) to move out of the circles you'll eat heavy damage regardless. Depending on your champion, that's a lot of downtime in moving around for not reducing the damage taken by that much in the end.
The solution is usually to prevent Azir from attacking, eg. send someone to sit on his face (and who won't instantly die if Azir casts WEQ to get away then slow him and auto until he gets into melee again) since his aa animation makes it non-trivial for him to stutter-step. It can work pretty well during the midgame (Azir doesn't have the AP to make up for his base damage yet and that's the power peak of assassins), less so in the lategame where Azir can sometimes facetank bruisers and win a manfight. I guess the closest comparison I can find is a late game Tristana who's guaranteed one or two IE crits on her next attacks every few seconds, so her dps is very high but even if you try to play around it and kite and stuff you'll lose half your HP under 2 seconds when she gets it off.
If Azir's burst with Q and R wasn't that high I wouldn't mind the base damage on his soldiers being slightly increased to make up or it, for example. But he has high burst on a short cooldown (and 100-0 potential during cc with a good ult usage) and good sustained damage both, which I think doesn't fit him well. I'd rather see the champion focused on dps since it seemed the crux of the "different mage" vision they gave us.
Ok, I can get on board with that argument. Seems to me that the most recent changes to him (Q buff, E buff, W heavy nerf) are absolutely counterproductive there. Gotta be careful with his Q though - nerf it too hard and he literally cannot lane without getting crapped on by everything
I'm not quite sure what Riot intends to do with Azir, but right now he's ban or win, if you have him on your team. You don't even have to do that well, that ultimate and damage will eventually be overpowering for anyone to fight against.
Im not sure hes 100% pick ban right now. Hes no Gnar and champs like Lissandra and Zed have the tools you need to pick him off if necessary (I could be wrong but whatever). That being said hes probably the first champ in a while that I could see becoming S3 TF all over again off of his sheer utility in like 3 months. Need more time to see where he falls.
His damage is ridiculous, the ammount of AoE and CC he also brings is also ridiculous. He can't be shutdown as easily as he's supposed to be, and the mid game dip isn't as hard as it needs to be for him to actually be in real danger of being picked, instead of being a relatively "safe" pick.
EDIT: Let me expand on this;
According to Riot, Azir should be a mage that deals constant and extreme DPS lategame, and from far away. So far so good, however, if you look at Xerath, another mage with high damage and high range, you'll see that he has low mobility, and his combos are quite limited and take some setup.
Azir on the other hand, has constant combos, some serious CC to pack with it, Q/E/R, the basic harass combo is fast, and sets up his all-in. So if you can't kill him, you get poked, if you try to trade, you'll get all inned. From my perspective he should be quite limited in his Q, lower the base damage and add an extreme ratio to that, making it so that he's very weak early, and weak midgame, and the powerhouse that he is lategame.
If there's a squishy mage with an epic lategame, that has mobility, damage, CC, quite the decent laning phase and completely destroys mid-game teamfights with his ultimate, something's wrong. If you do get to get near him, he should almost always die, and not shrug it off and kill you instead.
I agree I guess on a conceptual level, and I personally kinda think Azir is probably sitting in the "on release Ori" level right now, which is to say completely unbeatable if you know how to play him to a competent degree. I just havent seen him used like that personally.
His midgame probably needs toning down, but what I dont understand is why his Ult has any damage on it and why it spawns behind him. He already does so much damage - his ult really doesnt need it at all given its sheer utility. Also Azir should be just as vulnerable as Cass or Yasuo to assassins that land behind him - the safety that that offers is just absurd. Imagine if Yasuos line Q started 100 units behind him or Cass ult extended to just behind her. It also mutes to some degree ganks onto him and gives him this rediculous 1v2 potential next to his turret.... its just superfluous when you look at all the things his kit already offers. He should struggle against hard assassination and anything that gets over his wall freely should kill him without intervention or massive outplay.
Makes me sad because Cass is really good right now but she competes almost directly with Azir for space in the meta as midlane hypercarry and I would love to have her see play.
Agreed, there's too many free numbers floating around, and too much CC, or effects packed with each skill that he has. It's just too much, having a Slow, Knock Back, a barrier that will divide whole teams, low CDs, etc... And a free tower on top of it.
On another topic, Cassiopeia to my eyes, seems more suited to the toplane than to the midlane, so I don't exactly see them competing. Hell, with a bit of tweaking, and a tanky jungler/support, I'd bet they're a nice combo in themselves.
Cassiopeia and Azir would be a hell of a nightmare to get to either of them.
On January 07 2015 20:18 Purge wrote: Im not sure hes 100% pick ban right now. Hes no Gnar and champs like Lissandra and Zed have the tools you need to pick him off if necessary (I could be wrong but whatever). That being said hes probably the first champ in a while that I could see becoming S3 TF all over again off of his sheer utility in like 3 months. Need more time to see where he falls.
Azir is S5 Orianna, not TF. With his kit he's going to be top-tier midlane forever now and TF just comes and goes away all the time.
I wouldnt pick them together because they both have a primary scalar of time and levels and if you start getting behind on them you just get dumpstered because of that powertrough in the midgame. Commiting that much to the lategame is just asking to get snowballed on by Panth jungle. Also that teamcomp is going to be so squishy without a tank jungler (who still need to be figured out honestly).
I think Cass does poorly top because of how long the lane is. Thats all - shes too easy to gank if shes bullying, and too easily bullied by the bullies. Shes not Liss with claw to escape.
But back to Azir. I dont think he has too much at his disposal, mostly because almost all of the tools he brings to the table have counterplay to some degree and hes just so goddamn squishy. The last champions that I can say had too much power in their kits midlane were Karthus and TF like Azir, and in their case they had 0 counterplay with alot of their power coming from global presence, range and teamwide buffs and debuffs that didnt have appropriate ways to be reacted to. The Karthus Wall, the TF passive and Ult vision, Karthus' Q range are all examples of that. The only things that I think is probably OP on Azir by contrast is probably his midgame Q damage, his minimum E cd and the oncast utility on his ult, all of which have some degree of counterplay.
Whats probably going to happen is that he is permabanned until a priority pick forces that he be played and then Riot nerfs him. Then he becomes A tier/B+ for the rest of the season. Or he warps the metagame so hard that he gets kneecapped.
We wait and see though, Riot is pretty adamant on not touching him right now even though they think he's probably going to be a problem. And worst comes to worst, hes not a boring champion to watch anyway, at least not yet.
EDIT: I could be wrong on Cass/Azir because Cass is actually kinda strong in the midgame now. I dont think she really has a powertrough. More food for thought.
On January 07 2015 20:18 Purge wrote: Im not sure hes 100% pick ban right now. Hes no Gnar and champs like Lissandra and Zed have the tools you need to pick him off if necessary (I could be wrong but whatever). That being said hes probably the first champ in a while that I could see becoming S3 TF all over again off of his sheer utility in like 3 months. Need more time to see where he falls.
Azir is S5 Orianna, not TF. With his kit he's going to be top-tier midlane forever now and TF just comes and goes away all the time.
Yeah I did eventually correct my assessment, but he still could become that permabanned TF from season 3. Hes already being permabanned against Faker in OGN.
I think a J4 jungle, and for example a Corki as ADC, would perhaps be enough to help the two hyper scalling mages through their weak phase, and since as you said Cassiopeia gets online as Azir is dropping off temporarily, as long as they hold, it should be a scary combo.
Azir has counterplay, however that's not really a feasible counterplay. You got to dodge Q, but it's quite fast, and it slows you, which limits your options afterwards. The slow there makes no sense, on the other hand, the shield on his defensive/offensive dash, that setups his ultimate doesn't make sense to me either. That's just "fake" risk.
I don't agree that much with Cassiopeia being easy to gank top, I think she's easier to dive than to actually gank regularly. Unless I'm mistaken her Q still gives movement speed and her W is still damaging enough to just waveclear in a similar fashion to Morgana's W if the lane is that horrible.
Azir is fun to see however, I've been hoping Faker does get to play it in competitive.
On January 07 2015 22:05 JJMC wrote: I think a J4 jungle, and for example a Corki as ADC, would perhaps be enough to help the two hyper scalling mages through their weak phase, and since as you said Cassiopeia gets online as Azir is dropping off temporarily, as long as they hold, it should be a scary combo.
Azir has counterplay, however that's not really a feasible counterplay. You got to dodge Q, but it's quite fast, and it slows you, which limits your options afterwards. The slow there makes no sense, on the other hand, the shield on his defensive/offensive dash, that setups his ultimate doesn't make sense to me either. That's just "fake" risk.
I don't agree that much with Cassiopeia being easy to gank top, I think she's easier to dive than to actually gank regularly. Unless I'm mistaken her Q still gives movement speed and her W is still damaging enough to just waveclear in a similar fashion to Morgana's W if the lane is that horrible.
Azir is fun to see however, I've been hoping Faker does get to play it in competitive.
I will be shocked to see Azir ever get through to Faker, but I am waiting for the day that someone forgets to ban it. Hopefully it is before he gets nerfed into the ground. It will be like watching a train wreck, but you can't look away.
I like the concept of Azir, he's one of the champions I got the most hyped about recently. But his execution is so different from the elegant, cerebral role he should have. He's like a emperor trying to raid a village with poor defenses, everything just gets crushed and there's stuff flying all over to the sides while he's having a field day.
I do hope that he gets rebalanced without getting completely crushed too however.
I think Azir should stay as is. He's unfun to play against for now but people haven't really gotten to feel out his matchups fully. I mean Renekton was a strong bully at top lane for quite awhile before getting nerf after nerf. Worst case scenario is that Azir gets his time to shine right now and he'll get olaf'd accordingly. He can still lose lane SOMETIMES.
Pretty sure Azir nerfs will 100% happen if they decide to fix certain spell interactions that hurt him a bit right now. It says a lot that he is banned so often in high level play.
Speaking of clunky interactions. Just saw this on reddit:
On January 07 2015 22:40 ketchup wrote: Pretty sure Azir nerfs will 100% happen if they decide to fix certain spell interactions that hurt him a bit right now. It says a lot that he is banned so often in high level play.
Speaking of clunky interactions. Just saw this on reddit:
Daniel Klein posted in that thread saying that they are addressing that issue now, so they are at least working on resolving his bugs. But, yeah, it is only a matter of time before they get around to nerfing him.
On January 07 2015 22:39 Zdrastochye wrote: I think Azir should stay as is. He's unfun to play against for now but people haven't really gotten to feel out his matchups fully. I mean Renekton was a strong bully at top lane for quite awhile before getting nerf after nerf. Worst case scenario is that Azir gets his time to shine right now and he'll get olaf'd accordingly. He can still lose lane SOMETIMES.
The obvious difference being that Azir is a bully while also being good late game and having a ton of utility, and doesn't depend on snowballing lane.
On January 07 2015 22:39 Zdrastochye wrote: I think Azir should stay as is. He's unfun to play against for now but people haven't really gotten to feel out his matchups fully. I mean Renekton was a strong bully at top lane for quite awhile before getting nerf after nerf. Worst case scenario is that Azir gets his time to shine right now and he'll get olaf'd accordingly. He can still lose lane SOMETIMES.
The obvious difference being that Azir is a bully while also being good late game and having a ton of utility, and doesn't depend on snowballing lane.
I'm not trying to compare Renekton to Azir, I was merely using him as an example.
If you want a comparison to another champion I'd say pre-nerf Olaf.
I saw that they didn't nerf Reksai's AP ratio so I played her in some bot games to get a feel. Actually felt surprisingly viable for a champion with one ap ratio.
Notes: 1. The one skill (Q) is really really strong, its so spammable later that its pretty silly 1650 range 1.0 AP AOE nuke on a 4.2 second Cd is incredibly oppressive. You fire it constantly so its not too bad you just have it.
2. Her Q physical bonus damage is surprisingly strong even with no AD or runes. You can actually totally scrap with people early game or finish off a kill with this, and it utterly murders waves at all points in the game even with no AD. Also makes last hitting under turret easy if you watch the splash.
3. Her E bite is absolute shit with no AD. It scales off of her AD with no base damage and only increases 10-20% a level. It just doesn't do any damage really, and you can't skirmish long enough to get it powered up fully, and even powered up its pretty crap with just base AD. The tunnel CD only decreases by .5 seconds a level of a 20s Cd spell...lol worthless
4. With that in mind, W is much better to max second. It has a quite solid base damage and more importantly is actually really useful for CSing. Its damage and knockup range is actually significantly larger than the circle shown, and way way larger than your auto range where you would auto-unburrow. So you can burrow around minions and then unburrow to catch them on the edge from quite long range, and its on a 5 second cd so constantly. The really great thing about this is that it generates a big chunk of fury for some reason, so you get a really solid constant heal. If you ever get a chance to unburrow under 3+ minions you get like more than half a bar for some reason. This gives great lane sustain. You should be activating your unburrow manually all the time, as it has nearly double the range of the automatic one.
5. With well set up tunnels you can be very elusive and mobile, but its pretty shit for gap closing unless you know exactly where they are going.
full combo is:
burrowed Q burrowed E to them manual unburrow unburrowed QQQ unburrowed E burrowed Q
quick point blank combo from brush: burrowed Q instant manual unburrow at the same time almost unburrowed QQQ unburrowed E
feels cool, lategame you just spray stupid damage and stupid range. Solid escape with unburrow knuckup as well as burrowed E. You can just unburrow and walk away from melee as it is quite a long disable. I think I'll try her in a normal, I'll just go grab my rage shield first.
Itemization is wierd. I think I would still open Dring as its still by far most efficient even without mana passive, you can't open amp because 1 potion is not enough, flask is really bad efficiency without mana.
My general build idea is: Dring 2pot Codex Boots Dcap CDR boots Zhonyas Void Finish morellos
CDR boots because you want CDR massively but have no other options to buy it without mana, get your pen from void. Rylai or lyandries seem bad because you dont need the health with your range and the slow is poo on AOE, plus they have weak AP compared to Dcap for your fat ratio. Morellos is still your best option for CDR to hit cap, WOTA is terrible as you don't need or use the spellvamp with your built in sustain and you only get 1/3 anyway because its AOE.
So about those new 2 gates per each side it means, while enemy team sieges, you can basically walk out there, rape / nuke / burst someone if out of position and walk inside like there's no tommorow, because enemy can't follow you, lol. Seems interesting.
As for how they function: You can only pass through your OWN gate. - You can "exit" and "enter". Enemies can not pass through your gate and you can not pass through theirs For enemy gates, you can Jump, Flash, or interact with them like a normal wall. You can not see through them.
Edit : Also rumours time ! YellOwstar just posted this on his fb saying it's a new Fnatic roster :
EPT
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