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A Detailed Guide to Xerath Mid
Build Guide By ColossalAiur
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31,302
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Comments
4
7
31,302
Views
16
Comments
Xerath Build Guide By ColossalAiur
31,302
Views
16
Comments
Xerath Build Guide By ColossalAiur
x
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Xerath Guide
A Detailed Guide to Xerath Mid
How do you feel about getting Scrying Orb as your trinket? It gives good vision for your ult.
Well, it does give you good vision on your ult, but here is the thing: in solo queue, people don't buy wards, people don't place wards down, and people put wards on super bad positions. Xerath does not have super good kill potential, and killing people purely by your ult is not a reliable way to go. What I would do is to pressure mid as hard as I can, poke them back home and get that turret as soon as I can. To do this I have to make sure the side rivers are clear and I'm safe. So I personally prefer a totem, even though I have tried orb and it gains me a kill sometimes, I still think that totem is a reliable choice. (I even start buying sightstone now. Unbelievable right? That's how useless your support will be in the game)
Nice guide overall. One thing I'd really like is more matchups, as well as how to specifically beat tough ap assassins like Kat, Fizz and Talon since I lose lane 80% of the time against them while winning lane 90% of the time against mages. Also, I'm wondering if Frozen Heart is a viable item, since 100 armor, 400 mana, 20% cdr and the aura are all pretty useful for me.
Hi,
Thank you for reading my guide!
I'm still working on the other parts of the guide and I will come back to match-ups once I got some time. The general rule is that when you are fighting against any mid melee assassin, try to abuse your range advantage early, force your enemy to pop up ability to dodge your skill shots so that they will push the lane harder, then freeze your lane near your tower. Get as much farm as you can so that when you come back you have enough mana sustain to keep you safe in lane. When your enemy reaches lv6,keep your distance and try to farm with your Q and W. Be patient with your pokes and do not get too close. Do not follow roam if your route is not secured since no one is going to save you if you get caught half way. Now you see the reason I get mana regen runes: it is pretty safe if you have high mana regen and you can just sit back and poke without risking yourself to get close to the minions. In one word, early farm denial and positioning is the key.
About Frozen heart, yes it provides you good stats, but they are all defensive. As AP mid with absurdly long range your main goal is to stack AP, CDR and magic pen, and the defensive stats only come into play in very late game when your enemy team focus you. Also it does not provide any mana regen, which is actually not that optimal for Xerath. I would say if you have trouble against assassins in mid and thinking about buying pure defensive items, there might be something wrong with your positioning. Maybe playing a little bit safer in lane and land more pokes will help you out.
Okay, there are things that I love about your guide as well as things that I hate. I'll start with the negative.
1. I really dislike hybrid penetration runes for Xerath, the basic attacks are so minimal in damage that I think it's a mistake to try and work a little more of their damage in and sacrifice a bit of magic pen as you lose .25 magic pen for each Hybrid pen you take over straight magic pen runes. Sure this only amounts to 1.25 less magic pen for a boost of 4.5 armor pen, but honestly, the only time I'm basic attacking is when I'm last hitting, my spells are on cd, and/or I need to pop my passive for some mana. Using Q in the mid game will clear an entire minion wave, minus the siege minion, sometimes it as well if you have enough AP build up. Basic attacks aren't very useful, and their damage is so minor that it's actually harmful to build runes around them. Also your Arcane Blade Mastery will make it so that you're doing as much if not more bonus magic damage with your basic attacks anyway, making magic pen more beneficial.
2. I don't particularly like building CDR through Glyphs, granted I take Lucidity Boots, with Void Staff and Liandry's for my Mpen paired with my straight mpen marks and 5% CDR from the sorcery mastery, rather than take sorc shoes. This let's me hit the CDR cap, while allowing me to take a full set of AP glyphs, be it either flat or a mix of flat and scaling. (~11AP from Flat/~20 from 4flat and 5 scaling, on top of the 3 quints which are usually flat giving another ~15 AP) This setup gives you around 26 extra AP starting allowing you to completely punish your enemy laner with poke early on.
3. I'm also not sure how I feel about mana regen seals, I'll have to try them out to tell you one way or another. I would typically take health/armor seals.
4. You have no mention of Clairvoyance, don't get me wrong I understand it's a very unpopular summoner spell, but I think that it still has situations for example if you're playing against a laner with a lot of escape potential, a clairvoyance will give you sight so that you can ult and finish them off. It helps your jungler know what's going on, you can pop it on buff camps so he knows, I've used it to steal blue buff from enemy laner (meaning straight from the camp) in conjunction with my ult and provide a touch of harass. Being that it's a 5 second reveal, and it's only on a 60 second CD, that's 5x the vision, twice as often as taking blue trinket and lets you keep your free ward. I typically take Ghost, which you've mentioned, but there are moments where I take Clairvoyance instead, and it's pretty successful.
5. While rushing an Abyssal Scepter isn't a terrible idea, I would suggest noting that you should do it should really only be done against those nightmare bursty melee mid laners, who will all in and rip you to pieces.
6.I'm not sure how I feel about the idea of working in Rylai's. Sure it's 100 AP(130 with Rabadon's) and sure it's 400HP, but the whole thing is only 15% slow on all, but one of your abilities, which has a stun that often outlasts the 35% slow anyway. Not to mention if you hit the stun, you have a follow up slow of at least 60% initially anyway, which again lasts longer than the Rylai's slow. Overall I just don't see it being a beneficial item worth spending 2900 gold on when your kit outclasses the unique passive. Maybe pushing Archangel's staff a little harder in it's place would be an idea as a replacement or you could pick up that Mejai's anyway.
For the good things.
1. I like your summoner spell section, aside from what I mentioned above, Typically you see people put only the most popular spells (Ignite/Teleport) and I like the versatility that you've discussed.
2. I enjoy that you mentioned things like Mejai's and Seeker's they're a couple of hidden gems and aren't typically used because they require a lot of confidence in a game with many variables, but are still excellent items if you can get them rolling, and for very cheap as well. You're likely to build a Zhonya's in game anyway so a Seeker's is a nice little thing to have around with it's stacking AP/Armor, makes it a nice little boost, plus as you said facing an AD mid laner it's essential to have anyway.
3. I very much like that you've defended your reasonings for every part of your guide, despite me not agreeing with you on everything.
4. I like the inclusion of your pro-play video, the one you chose was an excellent reference for Xerath's potential, that was a very fun game to watch, I was watching the live stream. I would suggest adding one or two more, maybe a Bjergsen video he's played some really solid Xerath games lately and you can learn quite a bit from watching him play.
So sorry for the MASSIVE text wall there, I hope you don't mind it too much.
Cheers!
Argronar
Hi, thank you for reading my guide, and here are my responses to your points.
For negatives:
1. Hybrid Penetration runes makes a difference when you are facing melee mid laners, as I auto harass a lot on them. (to name them, akali, katarina, fizz, zed, yasuo, talon) I have made a triple kill with one yasuo ally on three guys in mid game using auto-attack as last hit (3 in a row), and on pantheon at lv16 when we are both low and I managed to stun him. If I do not have that 5 point of armor penetration, I may not be able to do it. But anyway, I am insisting that this is all about personal preferences and taking full magic penetration is OK too, it works sometimes, that's all.
2. Running CDR runes and taking magic pen boots at the same time maximizes my late game output, and that's what I really care about. I don't care about how much damage I can really do to the enemy laner when the game is early because I don't have ignite and I don't really expect my ult will kill people 1 on 1, and my primary goal is always getting enough farm and outscales people at around 15-20 minutes in the game. Again, I believe that this is just some personal choice and I have explained it clearly in my guide by saying "This is really about personal choices about whether you want to be more powerful early or poke harder late game. I prefer the late game advantage so I pick the scaling CDR runes."
3. Since I'm xerath, I rely on positioning rather than armor or health seals to stay in lane. Mana regen runes allow me to be patient in lane and poke more skills.
4. To be honest, my excellence in using Xerath is my blind shot skills, which means I can predict when you are and blindly fire Q or ult at you. But I would say taking one blue trinket should be enough to reveal the fleeing enemies. I did not really finish the summoner spells part but I did not plan to discuss Clairvoyance since giving up your second summoner spell makes you such a vulnerable target and invites ganks. The result of always running two defensive spells is that I hardly die in a game. My death is typically under 6 no matter how bad the game is, and I would only die if I have to follow my silly allies and they don't ward at all. (which is always happening in normal)
5. I think maybe you did not really read my Abyssal Scepter part since I said "The nerf of Athene's Unholy Grail brings a big problem to all mid AP mages against mid AP assassins like Akali, Katarina, Kassadin and Fizz: where can you get more magic resistance to make sure that you do not get one shot down? Sometimes you may have to turn to Abyssal Scepter for help." Which is exactly what you are talking about.
6. I would surely explain Rylai's later but let me say it here: people buy Rylai's and liandry's in pairs for a reason: Rylai's slows people, which doubles the burning passive of liandry's. Also it is by far the only item that can give you more than 80 AP (except DFG, which is also viable). I also tested mana stacker and I find that buying archangel staff does not really pay you off if you do not buy rod of ages in pairs since no other items will give you huge mana to make that insight passive more efficient, and buying rod of ages is a huge waste of money on health in the mid game. As a mage, you are the one who should not buy it the most because you have the longest range and requires least tankiness.
To these 6 points you mentioned, I would say I have tried them all and they work sometimes, and your points are viable too.(Actually I have tried them all out before) My goal is to inspire people and share the unique things I have discoverd during the last 5 months playing only Xerath whenever I'm mid. As you can see, there are things that you disagree, and it's very good since it's differnce from what other people say, and I have enough confidence to bring them on the table so that people can believe and start trying them out. There is no standard guide on xerath in any aspect, and I would say preparing at least 3 run pages is not bad for him. For example, I have another rune page with only run 3 scaling cdr with 6 flat AP runes whenever I'm playing with my ranked team, since I believe that my jungler will always give me blue buff. My guide is still incomplete and I would finish it whenever I feel like.(as you can see, I have talked about every aspect of the game and they cannot be fully discussed with only 3 days of typing) So please keep an eye on my guide and probably you will see new things later.
Finally about the pro-play part, I am really happy that you like that section. I'm not a pro at all so I'm afraid that my comments on it are silly sometimes, but seems like it is a good start. I will work on that part later on.
Thank you!
ColossalAiur
1. I really dislike hybrid penetration runes for Xerath, the basic attacks are so minimal in damage that I think it's a mistake to try and work a little more of their damage in and sacrifice a bit of magic pen as you lose .25 magic pen for each Hybrid pen you take over straight magic pen runes. Sure this only amounts to 1.25 less magic pen for a boost of 4.5 armor pen, but honestly, the only time I'm basic attacking is when I'm last hitting, my spells are on cd, and/or I need to pop my passive for some mana. Using Q in the mid game will clear an entire minion wave, minus the siege minion, sometimes it as well if you have enough AP build up. Basic attacks aren't very useful, and their damage is so minor that it's actually harmful to build runes around them. Also your Arcane Blade Mastery will make it so that you're doing as much if not more bonus magic damage with your basic attacks anyway, making magic pen more beneficial.
2. I don't particularly like building CDR through Glyphs, granted I take Lucidity Boots, with Void Staff and Liandry's for my Mpen paired with my straight mpen marks and 5% CDR from the sorcery mastery, rather than take sorc shoes. This let's me hit the CDR cap, while allowing me to take a full set of AP glyphs, be it either flat or a mix of flat and scaling. (~11AP from Flat/~20 from 4flat and 5 scaling, on top of the 3 quints which are usually flat giving another ~15 AP) This setup gives you around 26 extra AP starting allowing you to completely punish your enemy laner with poke early on.
3. I'm also not sure how I feel about mana regen seals, I'll have to try them out to tell you one way or another. I would typically take health/armor seals.
4. You have no mention of Clairvoyance, don't get me wrong I understand it's a very unpopular summoner spell, but I think that it still has situations for example if you're playing against a laner with a lot of escape potential, a clairvoyance will give you sight so that you can ult and finish them off. It helps your jungler know what's going on, you can pop it on buff camps so he knows, I've used it to steal blue buff from enemy laner (meaning straight from the camp) in conjunction with my ult and provide a touch of harass. Being that it's a 5 second reveal, and it's only on a 60 second CD, that's 5x the vision, twice as often as taking blue trinket and lets you keep your free ward. I typically take Ghost, which you've mentioned, but there are moments where I take Clairvoyance instead, and it's pretty successful.
5. While rushing an Abyssal Scepter isn't a terrible idea, I would suggest noting that you should do it should really only be done against those nightmare bursty melee mid laners, who will all in and rip you to pieces.
6.I'm not sure how I feel about the idea of working in Rylai's. Sure it's 100 AP(130 with Rabadon's) and sure it's 400HP, but the whole thing is only 15% slow on all, but one of your abilities, which has a stun that often outlasts the 35% slow anyway. Not to mention if you hit the stun, you have a follow up slow of at least 60% initially anyway, which again lasts longer than the Rylai's slow. Overall I just don't see it being a beneficial item worth spending 2900 gold on when your kit outclasses the unique passive. Maybe pushing Archangel's staff a little harder in it's place would be an idea as a replacement or you could pick up that Mejai's anyway.
For the good things.
1. I like your summoner spell section, aside from what I mentioned above, Typically you see people put only the most popular spells (Ignite/Teleport) and I like the versatility that you've discussed.
2. I enjoy that you mentioned things like Mejai's and Seeker's they're a couple of hidden gems and aren't typically used because they require a lot of confidence in a game with many variables, but are still excellent items if you can get them rolling, and for very cheap as well. You're likely to build a Zhonya's in game anyway so a Seeker's is a nice little thing to have around with it's stacking AP/Armor, makes it a nice little boost, plus as you said facing an AD mid laner it's essential to have anyway.
3. I very much like that you've defended your reasonings for every part of your guide, despite me not agreeing with you on everything.
4. I like the inclusion of your pro-play video, the one you chose was an excellent reference for Xerath's potential, that was a very fun game to watch, I was watching the live stream. I would suggest adding one or two more, maybe a Bjergsen video he's played some really solid Xerath games lately and you can learn quite a bit from watching him play.
So sorry for the MASSIVE text wall there, I hope you don't mind it too much.
Cheers!
Argronar
You said it in your reply to me. XD I was naturally confused and asked you about it.
In my experience, Lich Bane can be a viable sixth item. It drastically increases your tower pushing ability as well as your damage. I would definitely look into it.
I read the 4.14 patch. It definitely sucks that Xerath is getting nerfed, but at least it wasn't something substantial like his scaling/base stats. Losing .25 seconds in between Rite of the Arcane shots is very unfortunate though.
I'm more sad that they flat out said they had no plans to improve Xerath. :(
Keep going strong!
~Khepri95~
I feel like the truth is Xerath needs not to be improved because he is the only champion who does not need to risk himself to poke the enemy adc or apc down in late game. His E-W-Q destroys adc in late game and his Q harassment is huge. TBH, I think he is still very strong in pro league because he scales so well into late game. However, his early game weakness makes him very easy to get countered, especially from those champions who excels at zoning people out of lane, like Syndra and Swain. I had a game that I laned against a Syndra who throws everything at me like her skills does not cost mana and their mid is always ready for anti-gank. A Swain with Ghost+ignite is also very dangerous in lane since you cannot poke him down early and he has his ult to sustain forever, and any form of extending may give you a kill if he uses ghosts and throws combo at you. Anyway, every champion needs a counter, especially for mid mage.
Good luck,
ColossalAiur
In my experience, Lich Bane can be a viable sixth item. It drastically increases your tower pushing ability as well as your damage. I would definitely look into it.
I read the 4.14 patch. It definitely sucks that Xerath is getting nerfed, but at least it wasn't something substantial like his scaling/base stats. Losing .25 seconds in between Rite of the Arcane shots is very unfortunate though.
I'm more sad that they flat out said they had no plans to improve Xerath. :(
Keep going strong!
~Khepri95~
Cool! Thanks for the replies!
1) No problem. It's just personal preference and I find blue very useful at all points in the game after 6.
2)That is a good point. I haven't seen it crop up in the guides yet so this is new to me. I would definitely say any little bit helps with CSing, but I'm broke and hybrid pen is expensive. I'll look into it.
I'm currently running full mpen marks, scaling health seals, ap glyphs and ap quints. I'm a more aggressive Xerath because in my experience, I'm usually in a position where I will need to carry for our team to win and thus I push a lot for a pre-6 or 6 kill, but I can definitely see the benefits of a more passive approach.
3) I get it now. Will have to experiment. That will definitely take the hurt off of some snowballed assasins.
Hmm, wouldn't you want to save your skill shots for champs and not minions? Cause using your abilities on minions pushes the lane and leaves you open for ganks. Unless you want to roam, but Xerath isn't the best roamer.
What would you leave out when you take Liandry's/Rylai's? Void Staff because Liandry's comes with some flat mpen?
Thanks!
~Khepri95~
Can you help me find out where I said this? My guide is too long and I really cannot find it. Sorry:(
Cool! Thanks for the replies!
1) No problem. It's just personal preference and I find blue very useful at all points in the game after 6.
2)That is a good point. I haven't seen it crop up in the guides yet so this is new to me. I would definitely say any little bit helps with CSing, but I'm broke and hybrid pen is expensive. I'll look into it.
I'm currently running full mpen marks, scaling health seals, ap glyphs and ap quints. I'm a more aggressive Xerath because in my experience, I'm usually in a position where I will need to carry for our team to win and thus I push a lot for a pre-6 or 6 kill, but I can definitely see the benefits of a more passive approach.
3) I get it now. Will have to experiment. That will definitely take the hurt off of some snowballed assasins.
Hmm, wouldn't you want to save your skill shots for champs and not minions? Cause using your abilities on minions pushes the lane and leaves you open for ganks. Unless you want to roam, but Xerath isn't the best roamer.
What would you leave out when you take Liandry's/Rylai's? Void Staff because Liandry's comes with some flat mpen?
Thanks!
~Khepri95~
I meant the same thing as you do: keep your mana and try not to waste mana on minions. I'm not a native speaker and sometimes may be misleading, sorry about that:)
Seems like I need to start a sub-section under items about some viable final item builds. I will keep updating my guide as Riot is keeping an eye on Xerath and preparing to further nerf him.(take a look at patch 4.14) My poor magus :(, he's been poor enough long time ago!
1) No problem. It's just personal preference and I find blue very useful at all points in the game after 6.
2)That is a good point. I haven't seen it crop up in the guides yet so this is new to me. I would definitely say any little bit helps with CSing, but I'm broke and hybrid pen is expensive. I'll look into it.
I'm currently running full mpen marks, scaling health seals, ap glyphs and ap quints. I'm a more aggressive Xerath because in my experience, I'm usually in a position where I will need to carry for our team to win and thus I push a lot for a pre-6 or 6 kill, but I can definitely see the benefits of a more passive approach.
3) I get it now. Will have to experiment. That will definitely take the hurt off of some snowballed assasins.
Hmm, wouldn't you want to save your skill shots for champs and not minions? Cause using your abilities on minions pushes the lane and leaves you open for ganks. Unless you want to roam, but Xerath isn't the best roamer.
What would you leave out when you take Liandry's/Rylai's? Void Staff because Liandry's comes with some flat mpen?
Thanks!
~Khepri95~
Hey! Just finished reading your guide! Very informative. I was especially interested about the scaling CDR glyphs. Was always trying to find a way to get more CDR, but CDR itemization is a bit lacking for Xerath. Never considered glyphs. Thanks!
Two quick notes. You haven't mentioned when to get Rylai's/Liandry's. I would make sure to add a paragraph describing when you should get them. Also, do you intend on adding a matchups section where you go into the itemization and play patterns you should implement?
I main Xerath and I wanted to ask your opinion on a couple things.
1.) I would suggest making a note to switch to blue trinket around level 6. In my opinion, it really helps getting the vision needed to use your ult against low health fleeing targets.
2.) Why do you take hybrid pen marks? Xerath's physical damage is non-existant and would put him in range of gap closers. Wouldn't full mpen marks be better suited for Xerath?
3.) If you're against an AP assassin, would you get Abyssal Scepter first? Your guide was a little confusing on when to get that item.
Good guide! Looking forward for your reply!
~Khepri95~
Oh yeah, Rylai's/Liandry's is also important and I will talk about it also with DFG later. So many choices going on and I have to do some experiment to make sure I'm not saying wrong things.
This pair though, is pretty straight forward since the effect of these items are maximized against enemy tanks. Just look at their builds, identifies the tanks, buy this pair as your last two items and stand behind and poke before the fight starts. Your Q will burn 12 percent of their current health over time. There is tons of math to do here so I cannot really say much more but I would keep you posted.