Why Berserker's were strong and why Sorcerer's Shoes are all of a sudden better

There seems to be a lot of misconceptions about attack speed on Azir in general. The classic debate attack speed vs magic pen. If you've been following some of my posts you would of seen I posted a screenshot about a week ago using 0 attack speed what so ever in my build.

This is the image I"m referring too

http://i.imgur.com/BT2kmdP.png

Now a lot players seem to think going berserkers over sorcerer shoes gives you more damage in a prolonged team fight. In theory this is true, for every 10 auto attacks you get with berserkers greaves. You would have gotten 8 in with sorcerer shoes.

Now if your target just sat still and let you auto them 10x with beserkers greaves then yes you would do SLIGHTLY more damage than sorcerer shoes. I'm talking only a couple hundred damage difference here late game. I'm not even taking into account that every other spell is also going to be doing less damage with berserkers as well. Pretty much evening the score anyways.

This doesn't include the fact that if you ever stop autoing for just a split second or a target walks out of range before you get that 5th auto (which is where you get an extra auto over sorcerer shoes, every 5th auto), you automatically lose the advantage of having more attack speed and are just doing less damage than you should.

So if berserkers never really gave more damage than sorcerer shoes (except in rare cases), then why did they become popular in the first place and why did I promote them so heavily?

Pretty simple answer actually... Rylais.

Pre nerf Rylais had a 40% slow, this made it insanely easy to get that extra auto attack off because players would be sitting in your soldiers auto attack range for much much longer. You would constantly doing more damage in a team fight with berserkers because enemies were literally trapped in your soldiers range. This also let your team have your way with them aswell. Making you a perma CC machine. You could also auto attack a champion the split second they walk into your soldier range and get a heavy slow on them, giving you 1 or 2 more autos.

Here's the reality though with nerfed Rylais. The slow is literally halved, you're hardly ever getting that extra auto attack anymore.

Azir is actually a really strong champion right now, the only reason he's suffering so much is because no one cares to take magic pen on him and just assume that more attack speed = more damage.

If I was playing Leblanc and I took attack speed reds, quints and built berserkers greaves. My abilities would literally do shit for damage. I wouldn't be a threat to anyone. Sure Azir is a special case, his damage does scale with attack speed. But god damn are your autos ever going to tickle compared to what they SHOULD be doing.

Now, if you're not even building Rylais and still taking attack speed, then I somewhat question your judgement. Are you taking 15% AS in runes because it's easier to get thunderlords off in lane? Well news flash, if you take magic pen instead not only do those first 3 abilities do more damage, but thunderlords does more damage aswell.

We need to break free from this attack speed over magic pen trend. It's just hurting us Azir players and making our champion much weaker than he should be.

Obviously Nashor's tooth is a still a very good item on Azir, you're only trading a few AP from building it over Morello. You aren't trading the most important stat on a AP damage dealer, which is magic pen.

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EDIT: made this post on another thread but has relevance here. Discussion was why berserkers feel so much better than sorcerer shoes

Because berserkers do more than just damage to champions. They also improve your waveclear and make your autos feel more responsive.

When they nerfed Taliyah's Q damage to minions only (didn't change damage towards champions). Her winrate actually dropped a few points and players were complaining how much weaker she felt.

I remember a Rioter commented saying something along the lines of "a champions waveclear can have a big impact on making them feel stronger or weaker".

You remember when Riot nerfed Azirs soldier damage in 6.14? It would take an extra auto most of the time to clear a wave and Azir felt insanely weaker even though the damage was like -40 at most per auto. His winrate dropped around 5% from this nerf. This is also why morello "feels" better than nashors, you have that extra AP and actually notice you're doing more damage to minions which makes you feel stronger in general.

Or when Abyssal use to drop minions MR down to -20 giving you bonus damage against them. This felt like an amazing item to rush. But once they removed the magic reduction towards minions, the item all of a sudden felt much, much weaker.

Magic pen doesn't have an effect on minions, you're going to be doing the same damage to them with or without sorc boots. However with Berserkers, you clear them faster and since you can actually see this change. Your mind assumes this carries over to champions aswell.