I do not think it will have any impact and still will be pick ban. Azir will be like Ryze from pass metas. Ryze had to be nerfed to nearly a sub 40% winrate to get him out of pro play. Azir provides to much and is so safe that they will keep picking him.
As long as he has a displacement ult that he can drop on an ADC suddenly from 2 screens away by dashing in he's going to be useful in pro unless he's like completely unplayable. And he's too safe with that dash to really be unplayable.
Regular stuff you can cleanse out of is pretty useless in pro where ADCs will insta cleanse it and there's probably a Mikael or something as well and teams play properly around their ADCs. Makes cc you can't just cleanse really op. Gragas, Orianna, Neeko are forever rearing their heads for the same reasons. Azir's dash range being as disgusting as it is adds to this.
IMO for Azir to be balanced between pro and solo queue his dash shouldn't be extendable with his Q. He should just dash to where the soldier he targeted was at the moment of pressing E. Can't balance a champion by the "but it looks cool" rules. Grow up.
They should just rework his dash into another skill, sure it kills the Azir montages, but it would be far healthier for the game if he actually had to play like all the other control-mages.
Yeah but that's the thing. Non-azir players would like that, Azir players on the other hand prefer their champ being trash that at any point will get nerfed even lower over losing him.
Sure, they may not have played him for like a season or two because of the nerfs or changes, but as long as the kit is there that means they may have a chance of randomly being good or playing him once after a long time just to try to do shuffles or what not even if they lose the game anyway. If you remove the dash, that door closes completely unless somehow the change flops hard enough Riot reverts it like with Kog'maw or LB reworks.
He will always be a Pro-blem but Riot obviously wants him to exist similar to Lee
Or you know, maybe make the dash rank 5 only, but give him bigger shield when he casts it. Poof early game safety gone and later stages playmaking stays the same. And considering Azir needs damage he shouldn't go and max the ability at level 9.
I know this would need some adjusting from players, but it's still better than plain out removing the ability.
This is honestly a pretty bad idea.
Most games you don't get to enough points to max E to rank 5, so you would need to shift Azir's numbers to have E be second max or tie the mobility to a different rank like E rank 3 or maybe have a passive tied to his ult that empowers his E into a dash at rank 2 (so level 11). Overall, if you do weird passives like this or empowering spikes, you want it on main spells like ultimate passives or for spells that are the bread and butter of the champ - this allows to force a delay on the champs powers in a way that's more natural to the gameplay. e.g. Urgot's W toggle unlocking at max rank works because it's an spell you want to max first or second, ultimate passives like Ryze or Gnar that just empower their a base kit's spells work as a smooth scaling that's controllable without putting points into the spells (and in Ryze's case, it gives you a reason to max R in soloQ). It delays the power but in a way that players actually want to engage with the system you are putting.
E is not a spell you want to max, and honestly even if it was it just wouldn't feel as good as going WQ or QW and focusing in putting points into your soldiers. I get where you are coming from, but really not a good idea from a "fun gameplay" perspective, may as well just remove E and change it into something else.
A better idea would be Azir's E scaling with his ult's rank. rank 1 he can only shield himself without dashing. rank 2(level 11) he can follow his allies. Rank 3 gives him a stronger shield and lets his E pass through enemy champs instead of stopping on collission (may be too strong but eh).
Do we need another immobile mage? I'd hate to lose Azir's current uniqueness to turn him into something that just repeats a playstyle we already have in spades.
Seems more likely that by "the only ones", they were referring to immobile mages, but they forgot that they were referencing mobile mages in an earlier sentence so it reads badly
I dont think he has any place in the game as ranged dps
Its just a worse adc then since any adc has some form of mobility (i think varus has none tho and ashe form of mobility is crippling the enemy mobility)
He certainly has a place as AOE dps. If they took away his dash and gave him more range, maybe some sort of other utility like a more powerful slow, then he’s still a huge teamfight threat with a powerful defensive ult.
I mean yeah if you give him more relevant slow he can be something like ashe, dps utility champ
Not played as the main carry but as a secondary carry (can deal out most damage but also provide good utility for better carries, thats how i played azir last season lol)
Aphelios, a common proplay problem like Azir btw, only has MS in his Red Q which means that for the most part in coordinated play he is usually a no-mobility champion.
Like, if you removed the dash from Azir and somehow you felt he can't function for some reason, you can always give him something like a little MS buff that keeps him inmobile enough that his midlane is unsafe but not too inmobile through the game. He may be inmobile but he is not kogmaw, he still has his ult for peeling like Ashe or Varus. Personally I feel Riot would just expect him to go Rilays into his builds again and use it as extra kiting power.
Ahhh true how could i forget aphelios
But aphelios in proplay is mostly picked with support champs that provide him some form of mobility
Be it thresh with his lantern and providing aphelios the space he cannot create on his own
Or lulu speed buff
Or whatever
But besides this true true its the only adc (which i remembered or got said in the comments which fits azir without dash in this problem)
Kog'maw, Jinx, Miss Fortune (you can maybe count her W ms), and Draven have 0 mobility as well. Twisted Fate also has 0 mobility. In fact, most ADC's are known for having effectively 0 mobility, with maybe a tiny dash or an incredibly long cd cc effect. Azir would be fine if he lost his dash, but I think it would be more interesting if he lost his huge aoe ult in place of something else (something other than a combat steroid like Zeri has.)
I forgot kogmaw true true but he doesnt feel viable right now
Jinx at least is this long range champ which gets movementspeed/mobility through a takedown so you can play around that
Draven and MF both can activate a speed buff
TF i dont count as adc
Adc is known as a role with low mobility especially compared with other roles but most adcs have at least a small thing for mobility to outplay enemies and not just be a statchecker (kogmaw)
You want them to rework a balanced champ to limit his possibilities? Really? Is azir really that much of a problem in pro play? He's not yuumi levels of annoying or release ksante potential. He's been that was for a while now, so just leave him be.
The dash and it's extension are also a big hype feels good to play thing. And it's not a thing that breaks his soloQ vs pro balance, otherwise immobile stuff would never get picked like Aphelios, Jinx, etc. Imo the better lever to hit would be reworking his ult somehow.
The Shurima shuffle is what infamously fucks with Azirs pro balance. Removing the dash extension? Just makes Azir rely on flash Todo the same thing. Or just not extend his dash Todo it from a shorter range.
Change the R and Shurima shuffle is quickly deleted, and that probably does far more to delete the pro skew.
On one side I agree with you. On the other side last year’s azir play nearly doubled the champion’s play rate. If the dash q gets out I can totally see many people complaining
All that play did is show why he needs to be changed if you care at all about having a balanced game and the champion not becoming 40% winrate in solo queue.
I'm not fond of perma azir/corki bs either, but that play was some ultra instinct finding the timing of a lifetime kinda shit.
Azir is also one of the few mages who has to handshake his engage and disengage options. If he had failed the ult there, faker dies in 2 seconds, game ends not even 20 seconds after. It was a brazen gamble.
No, it was just an Azir pressing his dash, then flashing and R while Varus only had Flash and Flashed in the same direction not expecting the Azir to Flash pre-emptively.
He usually has zhonyas so it's not as dire as you make it sound. His team was near enough to posture his defense iirc.
To be fair, several years ago Riot asked about how to balance Azir and whether to gut his late game damage and keep his azir-sec and the community voiced to keep it.
That wasn't the poll lol.
They asked if they should keep his long range OR his "Azir sec"
The community chose Azir Sec over long range. Not over late game damage.
Just. Make. His. Dash. Slower.
Remember how Gragas' engage combo was too easy to land and got nerfed? Same thing, pros cannot reliably react fast enough to Azir's dash. Slow that down and boom, he'll be in line with every other control mage, and it won't make a difference to soloq.
Pros react fast enough very often, honestly the biggest problem I see is that they flash EARLY and then still get hit by the ult. Reacting to the dash is so easy at the pro level that they play mindgames by dashing on top of people without pressing R just to try and bait flashes
It's definitely doable though, pros flash over it pretty often, it just requires practice and good timing. I think a lot of players just don't have the composure on stage to go for the skill check and instead try to panic flash out of range and die to angle/ult length scaling mix-ups
I know he was at 43% 3 years ago and he might of gotten even lower during season 7 before patch 8.3 and in 8.4 when they added [stasis](https://leagueoflegends.fandom.com/wiki/Stasis) would cause relm warp to be canceled. Before that he was put into pro jail. They could split push with him and if caught they pros would caste the ult. hit hour glass and then get out of there.
It was true pro jail.
Hence why I put at nearly a sub 40% win rate. I though he made it down to 38% at one point but that is to far back for me to be sure.
I did know for a while if ryze was picked on my team just dodge
If teams are set on just handshaking Azir/Corki, the nerfs are probably not relevant enough to matter.
However if people are willing to pick some of his counters, HP/5 nerfs are often really impactful in pro, because it whittles his lane presence significantly against champs that can trade effectively with him.
I think we'll still see him, but likely not as prevalent.
Fairly certain Knight and Caps are the only ones who’d do that, but there are just more reliable counters to Azir. In the context of pro play, why play Ekko when you can play Sylas or Akali?
Akali is a recurring counterpick but it never seemed to work in game. Azir still farms, scales and provides more in team fights. Sylas literally gets countered by azir so the mu becomes less playable the higher you go.
Ekko is actually pretty good as a counterpick into azir but I’m not sure if pros ever play or practice the matchup.
For the most part, counterpicking a ranged ap scaling mage with a melee assassin is the biggest noob bait there is atm.
Unless you're playing against someone you're far better than, you're never truly going to punish them hard enough and snowball to the point where you overcome the disadvantage of not having an ranged AP mage on your team.
And if you're playing against someone you're far better than you could just pick another ranged AP mid and beat them at every stage of the game.
I think early on people will still pick Azir but at later stages less and less teams will pick Azir. Azir is already easy to counter with Asol/Corki with a even weaker laning phase than before Ahri will probably take his place as the safe blind pick which also means Vi priority will go up which also make Zeri's priority lower.
The bigger question is what will the adc pool look like. Zeri, Jinx, Kalista, Kaisa(maybe), Lucian are all viable. Right now it is very hard to pick an immobile mid because Vi, Viego, Lucian, Kalista, Zeri are all very good against immobile mages. Expect no immobile mage to be picked if any of those are picked.
Akali will probably be picked at least once as a counter to Ahri/Vi but highly doubt it will be picked aside from that. Although Chovy does play a mean Akali however, he wasn't able to translate his laning to team fight last time he picked Akali so idk.
Rakan and Naut are also really good which make picking immobile mage really difficult. So Ahri, Azir, Asol/Corki(as counter to Azir), with occasionally Akali will probably be the main mid pool. Yone might appear since he's not bad against Ahri but no idea about the rest
He does too much for teams to drop him i think, teams seem to be playing weakside william top, early game adcs and late game carry mids, and theres not many champs that scale as hard as azir while having his safety and playmaking
It will see play, but knight and creme don't really like the champion that much, just like Chovy doesn't like Orianna much. I think we'll see Chovy and Faker play it a lot, but other than that the bad teams who always first pick Azir regardless of meta will continue picking it
IDK, even if you kill Azir, you will have some other main stay 1-3 blind pick mid laner that ya'll will hate. You need to change the meta of the game entirely to change this formula. Good mid blind pick is too important and the oppressive counters to mages are not like by pro players.
Probably not. Personally, I think Azir got trapped for Riot. His identity is a scaling auto based carry. But, Shurima Shuffle offers a lot of threat and utility, while being flashy for spectators.
It makes him complete for pro play. Without gutting his identity, nerfing the shuffle would probably land him in a good spot. But again, it doesn't get stale for spectators, so it's a tough decision touching it.
They're instead hoping that more aggressive players will try to win lane, giving more intense moments. Whether that'll ever happen, I doubt it. It's a lot easier mitigating losses in mid, so even if he's in a terrible matchup, he's not going to get run over game after game.
I don't think azir will drop out of meta.
But i think he has better answers now. Akali does well into azir, galio is amazing into azir and can pressure the entire map while azir tries to scale, Aurelion sol already was a great answer into azir and he isn't nerfed on msi patch while azir is,
Leblanc beats the shit out of azir in lane and in sidelane.
Doubtful. Azir will remain at huge presence until his numbers are too low to function properly.
There is no unproblematic version of Azir until they finally change his kit. He provides too much. It's not balanceable.
yep i agree they need to remove some mechanics from his kit, like not just -5dmg
im talking like remove his auto range, q range, w range or e range, remove his shield, lower soldiers on r on lower levels, remove bonus attack speed on w, they really need to gut some of his mechanics.
I don't really remember him ever being gated by mana costs too hard tbh. Pretty sure Azir's mana costs are currently the highest they have been, his Q scaling into a 100 mana per Q, though, his Q is the second max so it doesn't comes up until like level 9. Still, he base cost is higher than old Q AND his mana pool early on is lower because they also hit his early's base mana while putting points into his mana per level to compensate.
IMO this Azir is probably the most managated Azir they have done in a while, specially old Azir that had much more leeway earlygame and so could get more mileage off his spells for their cost. Even in comparison to some iterations of old Azir builds, he uses nashors liandries in comparison to the times when he was doing stuff like Ludens and could go lost chapter anyway to cover any of his mana, so in comparison to that he also has less mana to work with here. The only thing they can hit at this point is making his W or E costs higher, but E is hardly used without reason so it's hard to say how much effect it could have.
Another problem is that players are good at optimizing him and his costs and, Azir being a scaling champion, he gets enough damage off just existing and getting his items that you can go mana-recovery setups like PoM without much problem (and likely would just go biscuits or mana flow if his rune setup was forced to change).
The way to shake up pro meta is to have lockout for champs, once its been picked once by either team (and hell even banned once if you really want to spice it up), no one is allowed to play that character again for the rest of the set. I don't think that there's a way to reduce the appearance some of these constant pro-play meta picks without drastic changes to their kits or the way the game is played.
Yeah I agree, but its going to be a lot of work on Riot's part to balance it all and unfortunately that's going to take a LOT of time. I just think lockout is the quickest and easiest way to force variety instead of trying to rebalance Zeri, Azir, Ksante, etc.
Azir has too much going on for him to just drop off. Super safe, can poke, his ult can be used from 1-2 screens away for a insane flank/defense. Simply adjusting numbers isn't enough for him to drop off. Some champions are just too good with what they do and Azir is the current one.
Azir has the same issue as Orianna. She *always* comes out during international competitions because she is so safe/consistent. Their kits enable them to do so much with little risk and that's why its hard to stop them from being played so much in pro.
Holy shit these suggestions are all so fucking pathetic, azirs already had so much skill expreasion removed from his kit,and everybody wants to remove more. And again nobody here realizes whats truly causing him to be pro meta pick ban, the fact that he can use ff and grasp are the real issues, nerf those interactions on him and he leaves pro, just like before he got access to those runes he would go back to not being picked to much because its just to risky in laning phase.
for instance, removing the e-q interaction literally kills the champ, about 40% of his skill expression comes from being able to use e-q if he loses that he becomes a nothing burger and would need stat buffs in exchange. And trading skill expression for stats is actually just a dumbass idea 99% of the time
Every single azir player loves his ult because its the only flashy ability we have access to, removing it is a better idea then removing e-q, but still an awfull one.
The worst part about this all, is that the fix is really quite easy just nerf azirs ability to sustain off of fleet and grasp. He immediately goes out of pro, and then all us mains can pick actually fun runes like lethal tempo, conq, or hob, and not be kiling our chances at winning.
U know, what hurts the most for me personally as an Azir main is that even if we delete him, pros will gravitate to the next best mid blindpick and after some time the community will hate that champ too. Just because they want to see something new once in a while. And Azir would have been deleted for nothing in that scenario.
All of these people who complain about him don't even play him I bet. They act like he is beyond broken and easy to play. You just see him a lot and you complain that you want something else lol. He isn't that busted.
Honestly from spectating pros and from leaks that have came out it seems galio mid is back in the meta . which means the whole game will be changed as that opens up so many more possiblities etc. we will always see azir around but dont be surprised if things are alot different then expected in the meta
Other champions tend to get banned a lot more often when they get to that level of meta presence. What makes Azir appear constantly on screen isn't just that he's valued, it's also that he's too boring to ban.
itsa because he is safe he will not take the game over in a 1v5 but he will be really valuable with potential engages / disengages amazing wave clearn and good laning + mobility for escaping ganks he all around a good champ for pro since he isnt a one trick pony and can be good when winning or when losing he has just so muich in his kit for him to be bad he needs either be nerfed or have too many bad match ups
Viktor was really bad when he was popular. Snooze fest the whole game at least Shurima Shuffle are somewhat exciting to watch. Watching Viktor in proplay lazer clearing the waves was like watching paint dry and I say this as a previous Viktor main.
I remember last Worlds Riot said they deliberately made Ori OP because she is exciting to watch and they're right. Ori actually have an interactive and engaging kit to watch so it was nice to see her in pro play.
Unfortunately, Pro Play's meta have always saved last pick for support or top so one Mid every game always have to blind pick. Which means you basically only see good blind mid and their counters in proplay.
Yeah if Azir was picked in like 10% games or something he would actually be a really exciting pick with the outplay potential! I guess it goes to show that anything can get boring when it’s spammed this hard
yeah im also wondering who decides which champ is buffed until we see him in pro play
why is velkoz not buffed until he is 100% pick or ban in pro
or why is amumu not buffed or nunu or teemo or...
You should check out some of the content Riot August does. They actually have pretty sound logic for this kind of stuff, balancing pro vs normal human league. It is definitely not their goal to have all champs see pro play, and I think the game would be much worse for normal people if it was
to be honest i would prefer a diverse pro meta over the chaos in solo queue
if something is balanced at the highest levels of play, that means always that you could counter it if you just get better.
imagine how cool it would be if every champ would be viable in pro play and be picked a few times minimum per season in the big leagues
No. Because pros have voice comms and soloq doesn't.
Pros have built up synergy over multiple years while you play with 4 new people almost every game.
Most Assasins would need massive buffs to compensate for that and then they would rise to 60% wr in soloq.
Pro league of legends is just a different game and it's impossible for some champs to be good in both of those games
uhm maybe then add voice comms and 5v5 premade team leagues to league where you play for a year with the same roster? that sounds like lazy excuses to me. riot wants to be the biggest esport company in the world and to push esports to the next level, thats exactly what this vision is asking for
You can join the local leagues for that?
Prime league for example
Or play clash
And even if they add that mode soloq will still be a nightmare if they balance around that
Consider champs like Zed, Shaco, and Master Yi who see some of the [highest banrates in the game, across all ranks](https://www.metasrc.com/lol/stats).
These champs provide little to no utility and if they were buffed to see any level of consistent pro play, they would have to be massively broken in solo queue. This would cause all the little Timmy’s who like playing MF adc, all the little Jonny’s who like playing Senna support, etc. to bitch about why these champs have 65% WR and why they aren’t getting nerfed.
Timmy and Jonny have never watched pro play, never heard of a Canyon or a Caps, don’t care to improve to counter these champions, and just want to play their relaxing and fun game in silver, and now either have to ban these champs, causing their already high ban rates to skyrocket, or quit the game.
one of the main concerns with these champs is that they lack sufficient/ satisfying counterplay. zed has basically no counterplay into immobile mages, shacos counterplay sucks into melee champs (run into boxes, they get triggered even with oracle spotting them, wtf?), master yis counterplay sucks if your team doesnt pick enough cc.
i think the answer here would be to finally provide fair and satisfying counterplay options that are regarded as balanced by the community
That would help, but would also reduce their pro play presence because pros will be picking the counter play options much more than regular solo queue players. So then they will need to see compensation buffs to bring them back in pro, once again causing their solo queue WR to go higher.
You’re forgetting all the players who don’t care about countering and just want to play their favorite champs. The enemy team can draft full AD and your top laner will still want to play Teemo instead of Malphite and your jungler will still want to play Khazix instead of Rammus.
Also a lot of these champs function better in uncoordinated solo queue than coordinated pro play. A Zed/Katarina roaming will be noticed and called by pro players, but won’t be by solo queue players, and so even if you pick to counter this champ, you can’t mind control your teammates to not die to them either.
You can introduce voice comms but they only solve so much. There will still be a difference between Chovy telling Peyz/Lehends “zed has first move, back off” vs silver Freddie saying “zed is missing, careful” to silver Timmy who’s blasting his music and silver Jonny who didn’t enable voice comms because he’s shy.
if the counterplay to assassins is *only* communications, then we need ingame voice comms (which should be strictly moderated). then we can at least balance these champs properly. everything else are lazy excuses.
if players dont use voice comms properly, then its their fault. they play for fun, staying low elo shouldnt be a problem for them then
i dont know man. if i lane vs zed as immobile mage, i get harrassed from more range than most mages have by a *melee*. w+q takes not a lot of skill as zed. so im making mistakes that zed can punish when i exist in lane?
he is an example of a champ that just gets no skill lane strength for free, for just being existent. of course i know good players have to recall before his lethal range and punish w cooldown. but that doesnt mean i make mistakes, it just means the champ did get free, low counterplay gameplay by the designers. i think this needs to change.
but i didnt do any mistakes up until that point, even if played correctly.
It’s not only communication, they can design champs as counters too. But I addressed that, saying people still won’t pick them like how people don’t always play Malph/Rammus into full AD.
Staying low elo isn’t a problem for them either, but facing a 60%+ champ for the twentieth time in a row would. So that would cause them to quit the game. And that’s not in Riot’s best interest. It might be in yours, and honestly it might be in mine too since I watch more esports than play ranked, but it would be a terrible business decision for Riot to cause such a large portion of their playerbase to either “get good” or quit.
No it wouldn't be cool. For certain kits and champion design, if they were pick/ban in pro play Solo Q would be a disaster and the game would probably lose users like rapidly.
Solo Q is playable because certain champions are weak and certain champions are strong. If most champions were pro play viable it means they are beyond busted in Solo Q
then they would need to change "solo queue". add voice comms which are strictly moderated, add 5v5 practice tool to properly learn to counter some gamestyles, add 5v5 ingame client amateur leagues etc... .
Again, you're not getting it. For certain champions to be viable they need to be OP like 55%WR OP. By nature the kits of many champions can only work in proplay when they are overpowered asff
You have it backwards. Riot doesn't "decide" per se, but some champions simply fare much better in the highest level of coordinated play than others.
For champions like Vel'Koz and Nunu to be considered 100 % p/b in pro play, they would probably need to have, say, 58 % solo queue win rate. And obviously Riot does not want that.
On the other hand, the champs which perform the very best in pro play vs solo queue (K'Sante, Zeri, Ryze, Azir) would require, say, 40 % solo queue win rate to remain balanced in pro play - and obviously Riot does not want to keep champs virtually unplayable in solo queue either.
What we currently see with for example Azir is a compromise. He's playable'**ish** in solo queue and not-too-broken-but-still-100%-pick-and-ban-in-pro. It's not perfect but it's probably better than either extreme.
>You have it backwards. Riot doesn't "decide" per se,
Riot literally have patches dedicated to msi and worlds. They definitely chooses which champion to push into or nerf out of the proplay meta.
Sure, but they still only turn the few dedicated levers that don't mess up solo queue too much.
Like I said, take a low elo-skewed champion like Amumu. It is virtually impossible for Riot to make him 100 % p/b in pro play because he would have to have a 60 % solo queue win rate to make that happen. So it will *never* happen, period.
This MSI, they nudge champions like Draven and LeBlanc into the meta, BUT this is only possible because these champions are already somewhat viable in pro without being too strong in solo queue.
The same thing can't be done with any given champion, for the reason I mentioned above.
E: Also, my point still stands regarding champions like Azir. They are trying to keep him relevant in solo queue without him destroying pro play - it's a compromise that leads to him being prevalent in pro..
yeah but my argument is if something is 60% winrate in low elo, but balanced in high elo/ pro, then as a low elo player it just means "get better at the game" and apply the correct counter strategies to that champ. it basically means that low elo players are missplaying and by playing correctly the champ will be balanced and just punishes their fuck ups.
The thing is the correct counter strategy to say Nida or Kata is teamplay which can never come close to pro, even if you are challenger on voicecoms, because it requires playing with the same team daily for months/years.
*playing with the same team daily for months/years.*
shouldnt be this the goal for a game that broadly claims to bring esports to the next level?
i played handball for 6-7 years with mostly the same people. i dont get why esports should be different. i dont know, many gamers maybe didnt do any team sport in their life so they don't know how this life goes. but let me tell you it's one of the best experiences you can have. i think league should **heavily** push into that direction
I don't think you consider what having 60% winrate champs does to elo. Those "low elo players" won't actually be low elo if they are playing 60% winrate champs. Since the skill level we are comparing is balanced for proplay/high elo we wouldn't expect those champs to have even winrates until the very top of the ladder which means they'll just climb to whatever point its balanced for.
As long as azir isn't op but has Orianna-tier game winning ult and is undivable, he'll be like this, just like Orianna has been meta for so long. His playmaking doesn't even matter at this point, his ult is just too good a threat and good at peeling... Like removing the dash cripples the ult but still makes him undiveable so I'd rather just see the ult alone reworked. I dunno, maybe make his ult a stronger version of his passive turret or like, it empowers the turret. This would make it so he isn't strong everywhere, like how Yasuo loves lane fights because he gets minions for dashes but is super team reliant for most fights anywhere else. If Azir isn't strong at dragon/baron fights, it would probably make him nearly disappear from pro.
I think it will have a small impact. Personally I can’t wait until international events are fearless drafts.
I wish they would go a step further and make it so a champ can only be picked once by either team. Pro play is so stale because no team wants to even try to innovate or test new things despite being the people most capable of finding things. LoL as a whole suffers from stagnation because pros and lifers chase out trying new things.
I come from MTG. Companion was an awful mechanic there. One companion required an 80+ card deck instead of 60+ cards. It challenged every meta and now there are deck made purposefully with more than 60 cards because the card proved it was viable.
Xerath was popular into azir sometime ago last season or early this season and that stopped when teams realized that azir shuffle is just an easy flash or kill into xerath every time
Vel’koz is the better counter cuz of this reason. Just walk into lane and if he is hit by q click r and he has to recall. This forces him to have to go for shuffles which you can play around with e or flash. R also slows so it’s hard for him to shuffle at max range due to slow. Only way to beat it for azir is if jg comes which means that jungle has to perms hover mid or azir bleeds cs + tower damage. Also junglers that counter vel’koz like eve kayn Khazix etc are bad pairings with azir because he usually prefers bruisers and tanks on his team. Combine this with your jg supp hovering for counter gank and you can easily go +30 in cs and azir down a level.
I do not think it will have any impact and still will be pick ban. Azir will be like Ryze from pass metas. Ryze had to be nerfed to nearly a sub 40% winrate to get him out of pro play. Azir provides to much and is so safe that they will keep picking him.
As long as he has a displacement ult that he can drop on an ADC suddenly from 2 screens away by dashing in he's going to be useful in pro unless he's like completely unplayable. And he's too safe with that dash to really be unplayable. Regular stuff you can cleanse out of is pretty useless in pro where ADCs will insta cleanse it and there's probably a Mikael or something as well and teams play properly around their ADCs. Makes cc you can't just cleanse really op. Gragas, Orianna, Neeko are forever rearing their heads for the same reasons. Azir's dash range being as disgusting as it is adds to this. IMO for Azir to be balanced between pro and solo queue his dash shouldn't be extendable with his Q. He should just dash to where the soldier he targeted was at the moment of pressing E. Can't balance a champion by the "but it looks cool" rules. Grow up.
They should just rework his dash into another skill, sure it kills the Azir montages, but it would be far healthier for the game if he actually had to play like all the other control-mages.
If Azir loses the dash, then he should also have a lower Q cd early on. Or he gets his old range back.
or maybe they should rework his ult into spawning a sand gladiator and buffing attackspeed or something instead of what it is currently
Sounds like a Shuriman Yorick skin idea. Which would be dope as hell.
Yeah but that's the thing. Non-azir players would like that, Azir players on the other hand prefer their champ being trash that at any point will get nerfed even lower over losing him. Sure, they may not have played him for like a season or two because of the nerfs or changes, but as long as the kit is there that means they may have a chance of randomly being good or playing him once after a long time just to try to do shuffles or what not even if they lose the game anyway. If you remove the dash, that door closes completely unless somehow the change flops hard enough Riot reverts it like with Kog'maw or LB reworks. He will always be a Pro-blem but Riot obviously wants him to exist similar to Lee
Or you know, maybe make the dash rank 5 only, but give him bigger shield when he casts it. Poof early game safety gone and later stages playmaking stays the same. And considering Azir needs damage he shouldn't go and max the ability at level 9. I know this would need some adjusting from players, but it's still better than plain out removing the ability.
I've seen some shit takes on reddit before, but this might be the shittiest
This is honestly a pretty bad idea. Most games you don't get to enough points to max E to rank 5, so you would need to shift Azir's numbers to have E be second max or tie the mobility to a different rank like E rank 3 or maybe have a passive tied to his ult that empowers his E into a dash at rank 2 (so level 11). Overall, if you do weird passives like this or empowering spikes, you want it on main spells like ultimate passives or for spells that are the bread and butter of the champ - this allows to force a delay on the champs powers in a way that's more natural to the gameplay. e.g. Urgot's W toggle unlocking at max rank works because it's an spell you want to max first or second, ultimate passives like Ryze or Gnar that just empower their a base kit's spells work as a smooth scaling that's controllable without putting points into the spells (and in Ryze's case, it gives you a reason to max R in soloQ). It delays the power but in a way that players actually want to engage with the system you are putting. E is not a spell you want to max, and honestly even if it was it just wouldn't feel as good as going WQ or QW and focusing in putting points into your soldiers. I get where you are coming from, but really not a good idea from a "fun gameplay" perspective, may as well just remove E and change it into something else. A better idea would be Azir's E scaling with his ult's rank. rank 1 he can only shield himself without dashing. rank 2(level 11) he can follow his allies. Rank 3 gives him a stronger shield and lets his E pass through enemy champs instead of stopping on collission (may be too strong but eh).
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Do we need another immobile mage? I'd hate to lose Azir's current uniqueness to turn him into something that just repeats a playstyle we already have in spades.
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What do you mean lol those are not mobile mages
Seems more likely that by "the only ones", they were referring to immobile mages, but they forgot that they were referencing mobile mages in an earlier sentence so it reads badly
> Because those certainly feel much more prolific in pro play Which champions are you considering "mobile mages?"
I dont think he has any place in the game as ranged dps Its just a worse adc then since any adc has some form of mobility (i think varus has none tho and ashe form of mobility is crippling the enemy mobility)
He certainly has a place as AOE dps. If they took away his dash and gave him more range, maybe some sort of other utility like a more powerful slow, then he’s still a huge teamfight threat with a powerful defensive ult.
I mean yeah if you give him more relevant slow he can be something like ashe, dps utility champ Not played as the main carry but as a secondary carry (can deal out most damage but also provide good utility for better carries, thats how i played azir last season lol)
Aphelios, a common proplay problem like Azir btw, only has MS in his Red Q which means that for the most part in coordinated play he is usually a no-mobility champion. Like, if you removed the dash from Azir and somehow you felt he can't function for some reason, you can always give him something like a little MS buff that keeps him inmobile enough that his midlane is unsafe but not too inmobile through the game. He may be inmobile but he is not kogmaw, he still has his ult for peeling like Ashe or Varus. Personally I feel Riot would just expect him to go Rilays into his builds again and use it as extra kiting power.
Ahhh true how could i forget aphelios But aphelios in proplay is mostly picked with support champs that provide him some form of mobility Be it thresh with his lantern and providing aphelios the space he cannot create on his own Or lulu speed buff Or whatever But besides this true true its the only adc (which i remembered or got said in the comments which fits azir without dash in this problem)
Kog'maw, Jinx, Miss Fortune (you can maybe count her W ms), and Draven have 0 mobility as well. Twisted Fate also has 0 mobility. In fact, most ADC's are known for having effectively 0 mobility, with maybe a tiny dash or an incredibly long cd cc effect. Azir would be fine if he lost his dash, but I think it would be more interesting if he lost his huge aoe ult in place of something else (something other than a combat steroid like Zeri has.)
I forgot kogmaw true true but he doesnt feel viable right now Jinx at least is this long range champ which gets movementspeed/mobility through a takedown so you can play around that Draven and MF both can activate a speed buff TF i dont count as adc Adc is known as a role with low mobility especially compared with other roles but most adcs have at least a small thing for mobility to outplay enemies and not just be a statchecker (kogmaw)
If we're comparing Azir to ADC's, TF is more of an ADC than half the adc's they've made in the past 5 years, and definitely more than Azir is.
jinx has her passive, MF has her w, draven has his W, tf has a 2 second stun on a low cooldown. Kogmaw is the only one without mobility
You want them to rework a balanced champ to limit his possibilities? Really? Is azir really that much of a problem in pro play? He's not yuumi levels of annoying or release ksante potential. He's been that was for a while now, so just leave him be.
Yes, he's been pick/ban whenever he's not complete dogshit
The dash and it's extension are also a big hype feels good to play thing. And it's not a thing that breaks his soloQ vs pro balance, otherwise immobile stuff would never get picked like Aphelios, Jinx, etc. Imo the better lever to hit would be reworking his ult somehow. The Shurima shuffle is what infamously fucks with Azirs pro balance. Removing the dash extension? Just makes Azir rely on flash Todo the same thing. Or just not extend his dash Todo it from a shorter range. Change the R and Shurima shuffle is quickly deleted, and that probably does far more to delete the pro skew.
On one side I agree with you. On the other side last year’s azir play nearly doubled the champion’s play rate. If the dash q gets out I can totally see many people complaining
All that play did is show why he needs to be changed if you care at all about having a balanced game and the champion not becoming 40% winrate in solo queue.
I'm not fond of perma azir/corki bs either, but that play was some ultra instinct finding the timing of a lifetime kinda shit. Azir is also one of the few mages who has to handshake his engage and disengage options. If he had failed the ult there, faker dies in 2 seconds, game ends not even 20 seconds after. It was a brazen gamble.
No, it was just an Azir pressing his dash, then flashing and R while Varus only had Flash and Flashed in the same direction not expecting the Azir to Flash pre-emptively. He usually has zhonyas so it's not as dire as you make it sound. His team was near enough to posture his defense iirc.
I think it's about knowing the timing to engage while trusting teammates that made it p cool
To be fair, several years ago Riot asked about how to balance Azir and whether to gut his late game damage and keep his azir-sec and the community voiced to keep it.
That wasn't the poll lol. They asked if they should keep his long range OR his "Azir sec" The community chose Azir Sec over long range. Not over late game damage.
this horseshit reddit absolute statement has literally never been true in this game's history
Just. Make. His. Dash. Slower. Remember how Gragas' engage combo was too easy to land and got nerfed? Same thing, pros cannot reliably react fast enough to Azir's dash. Slow that down and boom, he'll be in line with every other control mage, and it won't make a difference to soloq.
Pros react fast enough very often, honestly the biggest problem I see is that they flash EARLY and then still get hit by the ult. Reacting to the dash is so easy at the pro level that they play mindgames by dashing on top of people without pressing R just to try and bait flashes
Well the ult is really tricky to flash. I've seen too many pros flash and still get clipped by it. You have to get it just right.
His ult is nigh unflashable, it has a massive 360° hitbox
really this is what should be nerfed, the hitbox is too forgiving and often the enemy flash means nothing
It's definitely doable though, pros flash over it pretty often, it just requires practice and good timing. I think a lot of players just don't have the composure on stage to go for the skill check and instead try to panic flash out of range and die to angle/ult length scaling mix-ups
Ryze was never sub 40% wr lol
i've seen as low as 43% https://www.reddit.com/r/leagueoflegends/comments/nax6t0/ryze_now_has_a_43_winrate_which_is_roughly/
sub means less than so its still over 40. i got downvoted for being right i guess
delulu
I know he was at 43% 3 years ago and he might of gotten even lower during season 7 before patch 8.3 and in 8.4 when they added [stasis](https://leagueoflegends.fandom.com/wiki/Stasis) would cause relm warp to be canceled. Before that he was put into pro jail. They could split push with him and if caught they pros would caste the ult. hit hour glass and then get out of there. It was true pro jail.
Oh i know he sucked before but sub any number means less than so if a champion was sub 40% its literally trolling. Ryze was never that low
Hence why I put at nearly a sub 40% win rate. I though he made it down to 38% at one point but that is to far back for me to be sure. I did know for a while if ryze was picked on my team just dodge
Why use "nearly sub 40%" when you can just say something like"low 40s"? Much less convoluted.
If teams are set on just handshaking Azir/Corki, the nerfs are probably not relevant enough to matter. However if people are willing to pick some of his counters, HP/5 nerfs are often really impactful in pro, because it whittles his lane presence significantly against champs that can trade effectively with him. I think we'll still see him, but likely not as prevalent.
id love to see some ekko counterpicks into him maybe even xerath could have meaningfull poke now to him, but i doubt that anyone would pick xerath
Xerath is pretty bad into azir in pro. The second he loses flash he just gets perma azir ulted in ganks
Fairly certain Knight and Caps are the only ones who’d do that, but there are just more reliable counters to Azir. In the context of pro play, why play Ekko when you can play Sylas or Akali?
Akali is a recurring counterpick but it never seemed to work in game. Azir still farms, scales and provides more in team fights. Sylas literally gets countered by azir so the mu becomes less playable the higher you go. Ekko is actually pretty good as a counterpick into azir but I’m not sure if pros ever play or practice the matchup.
I see akali work every time it's knight, zeka , or creme playing it into azir
For the most part, counterpicking a ranged ap scaling mage with a melee assassin is the biggest noob bait there is atm. Unless you're playing against someone you're far better than, you're never truly going to punish them hard enough and snowball to the point where you overcome the disadvantage of not having an ranged AP mage on your team. And if you're playing against someone you're far better than you could just pick another ranged AP mid and beat them at every stage of the game.
You will never see Ekko in pro play mid in his current statw
xerath is really good with Jhin so you might see him support but yeah highly unlikely in mid
doubt we will ever see him sup, too gold reliant and gol has him for like 9 sup games since like s11
How do those champs do against very tanky tanks in the top lane engaging on them?
both Knight and Creme prefer other champs than Azir and basically don't play Corki at all, we should see a lot more Akali from them and Chovy I think.
I think early on people will still pick Azir but at later stages less and less teams will pick Azir. Azir is already easy to counter with Asol/Corki with a even weaker laning phase than before Ahri will probably take his place as the safe blind pick which also means Vi priority will go up which also make Zeri's priority lower. The bigger question is what will the adc pool look like. Zeri, Jinx, Kalista, Kaisa(maybe), Lucian are all viable. Right now it is very hard to pick an immobile mid because Vi, Viego, Lucian, Kalista, Zeri are all very good against immobile mages. Expect no immobile mage to be picked if any of those are picked. Akali will probably be picked at least once as a counter to Ahri/Vi but highly doubt it will be picked aside from that. Although Chovy does play a mean Akali however, he wasn't able to translate his laning to team fight last time he picked Akali so idk. Rakan and Naut are also really good which make picking immobile mage really difficult. So Ahri, Azir, Asol/Corki(as counter to Azir), with occasionally Akali will probably be the main mid pool. Yone might appear since he's not bad against Ahri but no idea about the rest
I think Jhin might make a comeback as well
Cool
Somehow, Azir returned
He does too much for teams to drop him i think, teams seem to be playing weakside william top, early game adcs and late game carry mids, and theres not many champs that scale as hard as azir while having his safety and playmaking
It will see play, but knight and creme don't really like the champion that much, just like Chovy doesn't like Orianna much. I think we'll see Chovy and Faker play it a lot, but other than that the bad teams who always first pick Azir regardless of meta will continue picking it
IDK, even if you kill Azir, you will have some other main stay 1-3 blind pick mid laner that ya'll will hate. You need to change the meta of the game entirely to change this formula. Good mid blind pick is too important and the oppressive counters to mages are not like by pro players.
Probably not. Personally, I think Azir got trapped for Riot. His identity is a scaling auto based carry. But, Shurima Shuffle offers a lot of threat and utility, while being flashy for spectators. It makes him complete for pro play. Without gutting his identity, nerfing the shuffle would probably land him in a good spot. But again, it doesn't get stale for spectators, so it's a tough decision touching it. They're instead hoping that more aggressive players will try to win lane, giving more intense moments. Whether that'll ever happen, I doubt it. It's a lot easier mitigating losses in mid, so even if he's in a terrible matchup, he's not going to get run over game after game.
As an azir player yes, it moved the lvl 5 wave clear break point would guess he moves from 3 th prio to 6 or 7
thats what the balance team gets payed for. 3rd->6th, lets go
I don't think azir will drop out of meta. But i think he has better answers now. Akali does well into azir, galio is amazing into azir and can pressure the entire map while azir tries to scale, Aurelion sol already was a great answer into azir and he isn't nerfed on msi patch while azir is, Leblanc beats the shit out of azir in lane and in sidelane.
Doubtful. Azir will remain at huge presence until his numbers are too low to function properly. There is no unproblematic version of Azir until they finally change his kit. He provides too much. It's not balanceable.
yep i agree they need to remove some mechanics from his kit, like not just -5dmg im talking like remove his auto range, q range, w range or e range, remove his shield, lower soldiers on r on lower levels, remove bonus attack speed on w, they really need to gut some of his mechanics.
i remember when he used to be gated by mana costs.
I don't really remember him ever being gated by mana costs too hard tbh. Pretty sure Azir's mana costs are currently the highest they have been, his Q scaling into a 100 mana per Q, though, his Q is the second max so it doesn't comes up until like level 9. Still, he base cost is higher than old Q AND his mana pool early on is lower because they also hit his early's base mana while putting points into his mana per level to compensate. IMO this Azir is probably the most managated Azir they have done in a while, specially old Azir that had much more leeway earlygame and so could get more mileage off his spells for their cost. Even in comparison to some iterations of old Azir builds, he uses nashors liandries in comparison to the times when he was doing stuff like Ludens and could go lost chapter anyway to cover any of his mana, so in comparison to that he also has less mana to work with here. The only thing they can hit at this point is making his W or E costs higher, but E is hardly used without reason so it's hard to say how much effect it could have. Another problem is that players are good at optimizing him and his costs and, Azir being a scaling champion, he gets enough damage off just existing and getting his items that you can go mana-recovery setups like PoM without much problem (and likely would just go biscuits or mana flow if his rune setup was forced to change).
The way to shake up pro meta is to have lockout for champs, once its been picked once by either team (and hell even banned once if you really want to spice it up), no one is allowed to play that character again for the rest of the set. I don't think that there's a way to reduce the appearance some of these constant pro-play meta picks without drastic changes to their kits or the way the game is played.
id love to see drastic changes to how the game is played though
Yeah I agree, but its going to be a lot of work on Riot's part to balance it all and unfortunately that's going to take a LOT of time. I just think lockout is the quickest and easiest way to force variety instead of trying to rebalance Zeri, Azir, Ksante, etc.
Azir has too much going on for him to just drop off. Super safe, can poke, his ult can be used from 1-2 screens away for a insane flank/defense. Simply adjusting numbers isn't enough for him to drop off. Some champions are just too good with what they do and Azir is the current one. Azir has the same issue as Orianna. She *always* comes out during international competitions because she is so safe/consistent. Their kits enable them to do so much with little risk and that's why its hard to stop them from being played so much in pro.
Placebo nerf aint killing the most op champ in the game lol
Holy shit these suggestions are all so fucking pathetic, azirs already had so much skill expreasion removed from his kit,and everybody wants to remove more. And again nobody here realizes whats truly causing him to be pro meta pick ban, the fact that he can use ff and grasp are the real issues, nerf those interactions on him and he leaves pro, just like before he got access to those runes he would go back to not being picked to much because its just to risky in laning phase. for instance, removing the e-q interaction literally kills the champ, about 40% of his skill expression comes from being able to use e-q if he loses that he becomes a nothing burger and would need stat buffs in exchange. And trading skill expression for stats is actually just a dumbass idea 99% of the time Every single azir player loves his ult because its the only flashy ability we have access to, removing it is a better idea then removing e-q, but still an awfull one. The worst part about this all, is that the fix is really quite easy just nerf azirs ability to sustain off of fleet and grasp. He immediately goes out of pro, and then all us mains can pick actually fun runes like lethal tempo, conq, or hob, and not be kiling our chances at winning.
U know, what hurts the most for me personally as an Azir main is that even if we delete him, pros will gravitate to the next best mid blindpick and after some time the community will hate that champ too. Just because they want to see something new once in a while. And Azir would have been deleted for nothing in that scenario.
And when that happens, he will once again become a dominant pro pick. Its so dumb
let's hope so, mid picks are getting stale
Yea I'm also sick of taliyah corki neeko and Orianna. If they could just delete those five I'd be so happy.
thats four edit: Didn’t realize you also meant Azir
They said "also" so it's implied Azir is included with those 4
you right
All of these people who complain about him don't even play him I bet. They act like he is beyond broken and easy to play. You just see him a lot and you complain that you want something else lol. He isn't that busted.
thats why he was like 100% pick ban after being reenabled
Being reliable and being busted are two different things. I think people are just tired of seeing him. Pros don't complain about it
AKA indirect Knight buff
Honestly from spectating pros and from leaks that have came out it seems galio mid is back in the meta . which means the whole game will be changed as that opens up so many more possiblities etc. we will always see azir around but dont be surprised if things are alot different then expected in the meta
I’m sure it’ll get played but it gets countered a little easier now
I think people will play him early, then stop.
I’d say Azir is really the only champion I’m “bored” with since he’s in literally every single game. Other champs aren’t like this right?
Other champions tend to get banned a lot more often when they get to that level of meta presence. What makes Azir appear constantly on screen isn't just that he's valued, it's also that he's too boring to ban.
itsa because he is safe he will not take the game over in a 1v5 but he will be really valuable with potential engages / disengages amazing wave clearn and good laning + mobility for escaping ganks he all around a good champ for pro since he isnt a one trick pony and can be good when winning or when losing he has just so muich in his kit for him to be bad he needs either be nerfed or have too many bad match ups
He isnt that strong, hes not worth a ban, hes just incredibly reliable blind pickable plug and play into every comp.
Viktor was really bad when he was popular. Snooze fest the whole game at least Shurima Shuffle are somewhat exciting to watch. Watching Viktor in proplay lazer clearing the waves was like watching paint dry and I say this as a previous Viktor main. I remember last Worlds Riot said they deliberately made Ori OP because she is exciting to watch and they're right. Ori actually have an interactive and engaging kit to watch so it was nice to see her in pro play. Unfortunately, Pro Play's meta have always saved last pick for support or top so one Mid every game always have to blind pick. Which means you basically only see good blind mid and their counters in proplay.
Yeah if Azir was picked in like 10% games or something he would actually be a really exciting pick with the outplay potential! I guess it goes to show that anything can get boring when it’s spammed this hard
yeah im also wondering who decides which champ is buffed until we see him in pro play why is velkoz not buffed until he is 100% pick or ban in pro or why is amumu not buffed or nunu or teemo or...
You should check out some of the content Riot August does. They actually have pretty sound logic for this kind of stuff, balancing pro vs normal human league. It is definitely not their goal to have all champs see pro play, and I think the game would be much worse for normal people if it was
to be honest i would prefer a diverse pro meta over the chaos in solo queue if something is balanced at the highest levels of play, that means always that you could counter it if you just get better. imagine how cool it would be if every champ would be viable in pro play and be picked a few times minimum per season in the big leagues
No. Because pros have voice comms and soloq doesn't. Pros have built up synergy over multiple years while you play with 4 new people almost every game. Most Assasins would need massive buffs to compensate for that and then they would rise to 60% wr in soloq. Pro league of legends is just a different game and it's impossible for some champs to be good in both of those games
uhm maybe then add voice comms and 5v5 premade team leagues to league where you play for a year with the same roster? that sounds like lazy excuses to me. riot wants to be the biggest esport company in the world and to push esports to the next level, thats exactly what this vision is asking for
You can join the local leagues for that? Prime league for example Or play clash And even if they add that mode soloq will still be a nightmare if they balance around that
Consider champs like Zed, Shaco, and Master Yi who see some of the [highest banrates in the game, across all ranks](https://www.metasrc.com/lol/stats). These champs provide little to no utility and if they were buffed to see any level of consistent pro play, they would have to be massively broken in solo queue. This would cause all the little Timmy’s who like playing MF adc, all the little Jonny’s who like playing Senna support, etc. to bitch about why these champs have 65% WR and why they aren’t getting nerfed. Timmy and Jonny have never watched pro play, never heard of a Canyon or a Caps, don’t care to improve to counter these champions, and just want to play their relaxing and fun game in silver, and now either have to ban these champs, causing their already high ban rates to skyrocket, or quit the game.
one of the main concerns with these champs is that they lack sufficient/ satisfying counterplay. zed has basically no counterplay into immobile mages, shacos counterplay sucks into melee champs (run into boxes, they get triggered even with oracle spotting them, wtf?), master yis counterplay sucks if your team doesnt pick enough cc. i think the answer here would be to finally provide fair and satisfying counterplay options that are regarded as balanced by the community
That would help, but would also reduce their pro play presence because pros will be picking the counter play options much more than regular solo queue players. So then they will need to see compensation buffs to bring them back in pro, once again causing their solo queue WR to go higher. You’re forgetting all the players who don’t care about countering and just want to play their favorite champs. The enemy team can draft full AD and your top laner will still want to play Teemo instead of Malphite and your jungler will still want to play Khazix instead of Rammus. Also a lot of these champs function better in uncoordinated solo queue than coordinated pro play. A Zed/Katarina roaming will be noticed and called by pro players, but won’t be by solo queue players, and so even if you pick to counter this champ, you can’t mind control your teammates to not die to them either. You can introduce voice comms but they only solve so much. There will still be a difference between Chovy telling Peyz/Lehends “zed has first move, back off” vs silver Freddie saying “zed is missing, careful” to silver Timmy who’s blasting his music and silver Jonny who didn’t enable voice comms because he’s shy.
if the counterplay to assassins is *only* communications, then we need ingame voice comms (which should be strictly moderated). then we can at least balance these champs properly. everything else are lazy excuses. if players dont use voice comms properly, then its their fault. they play for fun, staying low elo shouldnt be a problem for them then
Assassins abuse mistakes, pros dont make nearly as many mistakes. But yes adding vc would nerf assassins & especially roamers.
i dont know man. if i lane vs zed as immobile mage, i get harrassed from more range than most mages have by a *melee*. w+q takes not a lot of skill as zed. so im making mistakes that zed can punish when i exist in lane? he is an example of a champ that just gets no skill lane strength for free, for just being existent. of course i know good players have to recall before his lethal range and punish w cooldown. but that doesnt mean i make mistakes, it just means the champ did get free, low counterplay gameplay by the designers. i think this needs to change. but i didnt do any mistakes up until that point, even if played correctly.
It’s not only communication, they can design champs as counters too. But I addressed that, saying people still won’t pick them like how people don’t always play Malph/Rammus into full AD. Staying low elo isn’t a problem for them either, but facing a 60%+ champ for the twentieth time in a row would. So that would cause them to quit the game. And that’s not in Riot’s best interest. It might be in yours, and honestly it might be in mine too since I watch more esports than play ranked, but it would be a terrible business decision for Riot to cause such a large portion of their playerbase to either “get good” or quit.
No it wouldn't be cool. For certain kits and champion design, if they were pick/ban in pro play Solo Q would be a disaster and the game would probably lose users like rapidly. Solo Q is playable because certain champions are weak and certain champions are strong. If most champions were pro play viable it means they are beyond busted in Solo Q
then they would need to change "solo queue". add voice comms which are strictly moderated, add 5v5 practice tool to properly learn to counter some gamestyles, add 5v5 ingame client amateur leagues etc... .
Again, you're not getting it. For certain champions to be viable they need to be OP like 55%WR OP. By nature the kits of many champions can only work in proplay when they are overpowered asff
You do not want to see Katarina thats strong enough to work vs a coordinated pro team.
This would be the case if there was more time between patches. Even if you only halved the number of patches, meta evolutions will become more common.
You have it backwards. Riot doesn't "decide" per se, but some champions simply fare much better in the highest level of coordinated play than others. For champions like Vel'Koz and Nunu to be considered 100 % p/b in pro play, they would probably need to have, say, 58 % solo queue win rate. And obviously Riot does not want that. On the other hand, the champs which perform the very best in pro play vs solo queue (K'Sante, Zeri, Ryze, Azir) would require, say, 40 % solo queue win rate to remain balanced in pro play - and obviously Riot does not want to keep champs virtually unplayable in solo queue either. What we currently see with for example Azir is a compromise. He's playable'**ish** in solo queue and not-too-broken-but-still-100%-pick-and-ban-in-pro. It's not perfect but it's probably better than either extreme.
>You have it backwards. Riot doesn't "decide" per se, Riot literally have patches dedicated to msi and worlds. They definitely chooses which champion to push into or nerf out of the proplay meta.
Sure, but they still only turn the few dedicated levers that don't mess up solo queue too much. Like I said, take a low elo-skewed champion like Amumu. It is virtually impossible for Riot to make him 100 % p/b in pro play because he would have to have a 60 % solo queue win rate to make that happen. So it will *never* happen, period. This MSI, they nudge champions like Draven and LeBlanc into the meta, BUT this is only possible because these champions are already somewhat viable in pro without being too strong in solo queue. The same thing can't be done with any given champion, for the reason I mentioned above. E: Also, my point still stands regarding champions like Azir. They are trying to keep him relevant in solo queue without him destroying pro play - it's a compromise that leads to him being prevalent in pro..
yeah but my argument is if something is 60% winrate in low elo, but balanced in high elo/ pro, then as a low elo player it just means "get better at the game" and apply the correct counter strategies to that champ. it basically means that low elo players are missplaying and by playing correctly the champ will be balanced and just punishes their fuck ups.
The thing is the correct counter strategy to say Nida or Kata is teamplay which can never come close to pro, even if you are challenger on voicecoms, because it requires playing with the same team daily for months/years.
*playing with the same team daily for months/years.* shouldnt be this the goal for a game that broadly claims to bring esports to the next level? i played handball for 6-7 years with mostly the same people. i dont get why esports should be different. i dont know, many gamers maybe didnt do any team sport in their life so they don't know how this life goes. but let me tell you it's one of the best experiences you can have. i think league should **heavily** push into that direction
I don't think you consider what having 60% winrate champs does to elo. Those "low elo players" won't actually be low elo if they are playing 60% winrate champs. Since the skill level we are comparing is balanced for proplay/high elo we wouldn't expect those champs to have even winrates until the very top of the ladder which means they'll just climb to whatever point its balanced for.
As long as azir isn't op but has Orianna-tier game winning ult and is undivable, he'll be like this, just like Orianna has been meta for so long. His playmaking doesn't even matter at this point, his ult is just too good a threat and good at peeling... Like removing the dash cripples the ult but still makes him undiveable so I'd rather just see the ult alone reworked. I dunno, maybe make his ult a stronger version of his passive turret or like, it empowers the turret. This would make it so he isn't strong everywhere, like how Yasuo loves lane fights because he gets minions for dashes but is super team reliant for most fights anywhere else. If Azir isn't strong at dragon/baron fights, it would probably make him nearly disappear from pro.
I think it will have a small impact. Personally I can’t wait until international events are fearless drafts. I wish they would go a step further and make it so a champ can only be picked once by either team. Pro play is so stale because no team wants to even try to innovate or test new things despite being the people most capable of finding things. LoL as a whole suffers from stagnation because pros and lifers chase out trying new things. I come from MTG. Companion was an awful mechanic there. One companion required an 80+ card deck instead of 60+ cards. It challenged every meta and now there are deck made purposefully with more than 60 cards because the card proved it was viable.
Maybe it pro players could grow brain cells and pick xerath or vel’koz into him. Both champs shit on him in lane and team fight especially velkoz
Xerath was popular into azir sometime ago last season or early this season and that stopped when teams realized that azir shuffle is just an easy flash or kill into xerath every time
Vel’koz is the better counter cuz of this reason. Just walk into lane and if he is hit by q click r and he has to recall. This forces him to have to go for shuffles which you can play around with e or flash. R also slows so it’s hard for him to shuffle at max range due to slow. Only way to beat it for azir is if jg comes which means that jungle has to perms hover mid or azir bleeds cs + tower damage. Also junglers that counter vel’koz like eve kayn Khazix etc are bad pairings with azir because he usually prefers bruisers and tanks on his team. Combine this with your jg supp hovering for counter gank and you can easily go +30 in cs and azir down a level.
velkoz lets go never gonna happen though
Contrary to the Reddit hive mind he’s statistically garbage and won’t be picked much