I decided to archive this guide, i'll make a serious mid lane guide for Azir, as i tried him more mid and realise that he isnt THAT bad as mid laner.

Hello!

I'm OrbitLike, and i'm here to show you my way to play Azir. I start by saying that English isnt my native language, so i'm sorry if i say something that sounds dumb and\or stupid; I decided to write a guide for Azir because after playing two or three games with him, i realised that he has so many build patterns. Something that's really rare in League of Legends, sadly.

This is a guide for top lane Azir, as i dont think he belongs in the mid lane. Long range mages like Xerath or Ziggs will just give you too many problems, and mobile assassins like Zed or Kassadin will just make it painful; Plus he just cant roam like those champions.

His zoning gamestyle, his pushing potential and his W makes him a powerful top laner in my opinion, as he can easely make a huge hole in the top side of the enemy team's base. A little bonus, his passive makes him an intresting splitpusher, as he can raise a turret, and use his skillset to easely win a 1v1.

When you play him top lane, these are the Pros and the Cons:

Pros:
-Huge zoning potential
-Good pushing power
-Works well with ganks
-Good mobility for an AP carry
-Literally melts turret with his W
-Powerful sieges
-Easy to farm with
-Crazy DPS for an AP carry
-Soldiers deal AoE damage
-Low cooldowns
-Can be a strange splitpusher, thanks to his passive.

Cons:
-Uses Mana
-Has some difficulties at securing kills without ignite
-He has to stop if you want to autoattack with his soldiers, so careful
-Easy to focus when ultimate is in cooldown
-Squishy
-Weak againts assassins
-NO SUSTAIN!

Flash is a must, it allows you do to too many things to ignore it. You can use it to escape behind walls, to pursue, to escape, to dodge skillshots. Only because you have some mobility with your W-Q-E Combo, that doesnt mean you shoudnt take Flash.

You should take Teleport 90% of times, as you are an AP champion, you dont have any form of sustain beside Will of the ancient (Weird item for Azir) and potions.

If you are dealing with champions that have strong healing (Haye Aatrox, how you doing?) then take ignite, it can make the difference between a kill or a death.

You can dare an Exhaust if your team lacks one, and you are dealing with Autoattack and\or bursty champions.

Give Q priority, as it is your main damage source, beside your soldiers autoattacks; After maxing out Q give priority to E, this because maxing your W wont improve theyr damage output, but only shorten the time they take to charge up. Give a point at your ultimate at 6\11\16 as usual.

Nothing much to say about Runes; If you dont like the standard AP carry runes you can do these changes:

1) You can swap the magic penetration reds for attack speed reds, as Azir loves attack speed; But if the enemy get an early magic resistance item you might have some problems, so do it if you plan to rush a Void staff and\or Liandry's torment.

2) You can swap the flat armor yellows for few flat health yellows, but remember that flat health runes get outscaled by armor yellows after few levels. Or get Mana regen yellows, but that's quite risky.

3) You can swap the flat magic resistance blues for few ability power blues, but other AP champions will hurt you way more, without those magic resistance runes. (Dont get CDR blues, as with this build you reach 40% CDR without any Masteries\Runes)

4) I doubt you can find something better than starting with 15AP from the quintessences, but of course, if you find something better, do it, always do it the better way.

Basically, on Azir you can go 21\9\0 or 21\0\9.

With the 21\9\0 you can have at least a bit more of resistance, and since you are playing top lane, it's better to go for that. But if you are dealing with something you counter (For example Nasus) you could go for the 21\0\9, and combo it with mana regen yellows, and turn the laning into a night mare for Nasus once you have your Chalice.

It's all about tastes and situations, but for Top lane 90% of times go for the 21\9\0, i think it's way more reliable.

Now, this is what made me want to make an Azir guide.
I already saw tons of way to build Azir: RoA\CDR Boots\Nashor's Tooth, Athene's Grail\CDR Boots\Rabadon, and so on. He has so many ways to be builded, and in this guide you can see what items i prefer on Azir.
My first three items are Athene's Grail, Berserker's Greaves and Nashor's Tooth; These are all the bonus stats you get from these three items:

Athene's Grail: 60 Ability Power, 25 Magic Resistance, 10 mana regen per 5 seconds, 20% Cooldown reduction, and few bonus mana regen from Athene's Grail unique passive (Your mana regen gets increased by 1% for every 1% of mana you are missing).

Berserker's Greaves: +25% Attack speed and +65 Movement speed (With Alacrity bonus)

Nashor's Tooth: 60 Ability Power, 50% Attack speed and 20% Cooldown reduction. (The passive doesnt work with soldier's autoattacks).

So this is what you get once you finish these three items:

120 Ability Power
25% + 50% Attack speed
40% Cooldown reduction (Wich is the limit)
25 Magic Resistance
And a lot of mana regen. A lot of that.



Now, for the other 3 items, i prefer the Rylai\Rabadon or Void Staff\Zhonia combo.

Rylai is defenitely core on Azir, as it adds a good slow on every spell, and the slow applies at every soldier's autoattack.

Rabadon if enemy team doesnt stack too much magic resistance, Void staff if they dont like you and they stacking magic resistance.

Zhonia as it gives so many stats; Armor, Ability power and a strong active, a good timing with it can make useless a burst-based champ in a teamfight.

Alright, like everyone i didnt play Azir much, as he got officially released like 2 days ago, so it's too early to say what he can do or cant do. But here i'll try to talk about my experiences:



1 - A turret melter:
One of the reasons i play him 90% of times as a top laner is his ability to melt turrets; His W let him do so really fast; Abuse that, push as much as you can, when the jungler is missing, when the enemy laner is missing, and so on. You'll soon make a huge hole in theyr top side of base and they'll be barely able to react.

2 - A viable splitpusher (?):
Fast turret melting require a decent capacity to 1v1. His passive (Reviving turrets for 1 minute) allows him to actually defend himself from other duellist. Once you have Zhonia and you are fullbuild, you'll be able to keep up with any assassin and\or duellist. Of course, i dont want to say that he's the next Tryndamere at doing that, but i think he can get pretty close.

3 - Sieging comes natural:
With your passive, as said before you can revive turrets; When you are in front of the gates of enemy's base, you can easely siege the entrance by reviving the turret behind you, and setting your soldiers in front; In late-game, jumping on you in that situation can be deadly. You can keep down entire some team-compositions, like that.

4 - Baron\Dragon slayer:
With him, dealing with those two important objectives is really easy; Abuse that. You can even dare earlier barons with him, if your team has the right composition.

When you play Azir, you really, really want to estabilish your control zone, and force fights into it. It's not strange that long range mages counters you; If they can stay out of your relatively short range, you cant do your job, and you are naturally squishy, so you wont survive long trades.
Try to force these situations, like in a siege (Something that you should do almost always as Azir) or jungle fights; Big, open fights are your weak point, as you cant split your soldiers and you arent abusing your AoE damage.
Azir is basically a roadroller. He set himself toward and object, and slowy gets to it, he's not fast as other champions, but it's way harder to stop an Azir to sieging your Inib turrets.
Keep your ultimate only for defending yourself or your other carries, as it's the only hard CC you have. Deny any attempt to engage the enemy team does, and keep on sieging for objectives. He's not the kind of champion that can force teamfight, or at least not like other champion, as his W-Q-E-R combo is really risky and takes of your only disengage\defensive ability.


So the game with Azir is Siege, deal DPS damage, deal AoE damage, peel for your carries when possible and secure control zones around vital objectives like Dragon, Baron and inib towers.

In the match-up section, you might notice that, in my opinion he has a lot of counters (And it's not like in mid lane he's not full of counters). Then why i say he still is viable as top lane? Because especially those -1 and -2 are because of his early mana-problems. Once you fix them, you turn stronger. Especially when you reach 40% Cooldown reduction. He'll end up outscaling even Zed or other champs that are bigger counters to him, as he's a late-game champion.

Those two builds are for when your team has already a lot of damage, and lack someone bulky; It's not like having a real tank, but you'll still deal decent damage. Barely works, let's say it's just a "troll" build.

Well, it is. I know it's not like other guides, but i just wanted to try to write a simple one; It's just a fast and simple way you can see how i build and play Azir. As for now it's working greatly, and waiting for all the bugs being fixed, so i can rank up with him as he fit my gamestyle perfectly (I main assassins, but well, i like almost everything i suppose).

I tried to separate boring chit-chat from important informations, so here you go, OrbitLike's Azir.