Azir’s main ability is his soldiers, and that’s why we maximize them first. These scale both with your level and with every single point in the ability. In addition, the AP scaling (ability power scaling) increases with each point, and we get passive attack speed at the same time. Oh yes, and the mana costs go down too. 😀 As you can see, there’s no discussion here: you want to maximize your W first, everything else makes no sense. Then comes the Q, so you can reposition your soldiers more often, and finally your E.

Tips:

Before we talk about item builds, laning and the like, I’d like to give a few general tips on Azir:

• Your Q costs an extreme amount of mana and also has a high cooldown in the early game, so you want to use it mainly for repositioning and not to maximize your damage in a brief moment. So only use your Q if you can autoattack the enemy with the soldiers afterwards, or hold it for a shuffle or to escape. This is one of the biggest mistakes I see Azir players make: they use Q way too often. Since we don’t build mana items, you’re just oom (out of mana) very quickly.
• Work as much as you can with your W. The mana cost is very low, and the more soldiers you have attacking the same target, the more damage you do. It always takes some time to get used to the soldiers, as you can only attack with them if you are close enough to them. It is often better to simply place a new soldier when the old one is no longer in range. Repositioning with the Q is often useful if the opponent is using a dash, for example.
• Your E always follows the soldier closest to your mouse pointer, and you can reposition this soldier during the flight and then follow him to the target. This is important for escaping and placing your Shurima Shuffles.
• Shurima Shuffle means that you place a soldier (or they are already standing), use your E to dash to them, and then extend the dash’s range into the enemies with your Q. After that, all you have to do is to lull the enemies into your team.
• The further away you are from the soldier, the further you can dash. This is extremely useful for preparing a gank in the laning phase. You inconspicuously place a soldier in the lane and autoattack the minions while standing far behind. Once your jungler is ready, you can dash into the enemy from a long distance and shuffle them into a jungler for a successful gank.
• It’s extremely important to master this shuffle and also communicate with the jungler. Azir’s most difficult matchups are champions with high range. He can only win these by preparing ganks with the Shurima Shuffle. It is often enough to get the opponent’s flash, as your opponent then has to play much more passively.
• Even if the shuffle feels extremely good, you only want to shuffle later in the game if you’re sure it’s really worth it. There is no champion that has more consistent DPS (damage per second) in the lategame than Azir when autoattacking targets with multiple soldiers. When you shuffle, you lose a lot of uptime on your damage. So the longer the game goes on, the riskier a shuffle becomes, and the more often it’s better to just do damage.
• It is extremely important to have an overview of your opponent’s flashes when you go for shuffles. If you shuffle in and the opponent flashes it, you’ll actually have a problem as a squishy character in the middle of the opponents 😀
• You play trades against assassins in the early game as follows. When they dash into you, place a soldier and use your E for a shield while attacking continuously. Kit back a little as long as the opponent continues to run towards you. As soon as the opponent runs out of the trade, place a second soldier so that you can continue to attack. If the opponent then also runs out of range of the second soldier, place the Q behind them and you can then use the slowdown to make 1 or 2 more attacks. This is a great way to extend the trade and get in some good damage. As I’ll explain later, it’s still important to push in the Assassin here!

You may realize why Azir is so difficult. You have to pay attention to a lot of things at the same time: Matchups, your position, shuffles, flashes, and your soldiers are just a few examples of things you need to pay attention to all at once.

So don’t be afraid to ask deeper questions. Azir was possibly my best champion in my competitive career, and I’m very willing to give you more input in the comments.