The Azir update makes him faster but nerfs his range

In a recent Dev Corner, Riot Wav3Break jumped onto the forums to share some insight into the process of updating Azir. For those out of the loop, Azir has somewhat of a soft reworking currently being tested on the Public Beta Environment.

For now, this post highlighted a few of Azir’s big buffs as well as two of his major nerfs.

Let’s start positive:

Azir now doubles his attack speed for five seconds after having three soldiers on the battlefield at the same time.

Additionally, Azir now moves faster (base move speed up) and his ultimate has a shorter cooldown/more soldiers at earlier levels.

And now for the negative:

Azir’s Soldier command range has been reduced by 140, meaning that he has less range than he once did.

Emperor’s Divide, his ultimate, no longer bounces enemies more than once.

All of these changes will, ideally, make a better Azir.

Wav3Break points out that playing against Azir can be very difficult, a sentiment that anyone who has laned against the big bird himself can agree with. Riot decided to keep his central identity (a summoner) and other fun mechanics like the infamous Shurima Shuffle in place during this update. In order to keep those things and feel fair, other items (like his range) had to be sacrificed.

Ideally, these changes (as well as the others currently on the PBE) should help Azir be a better, more well-rounded champion in the end. However, we will have to wait until the rework hits live before we can tell for sure.