Change Log:
12/3/2011 Posted on MOBAFire!
12/3/2011 Made some edits based on that goon Datanksta's opinion.

Welcome one and all to AD Ezreal - It's all Pills, my very first MOBAFire guide! Why do I pick this title you ask? Simply put, if you play Ezreal correctly, it's as if he's on steriods. Case in point, please examine these scores below.



Excellent, no? Alas, these aren't my scores*, but rather a friend of mine named Billy, who has played only Ezreal for the past 4 or 5 months. Everytime I play with him, he kicks *** and carries the team. So, feeling motivated to get some less godawful "Hey, Ezreal's free, I guess I'll play him" summoners off the queue, I decided to write this guide.

*It is noteworthy that I'm not a simple spectator, but have some hands-on experience on how Ezreal can scale (I actually got my first ever pentakill with him today :D)

Now then, shall we move to pros and cons?

Pros :
- Extreme early game damage output
- Low cooldowns on Mystic Shot and Trueshot Barrage
- Built in blink
- 550 AA range, a bit larger than most AD carries
- Extremely large Mystic Shot range (1100 to be exact)
- Can kill from across the map with his ulti
- Has some ridiculous late-game potential

Cons :
- Very squishy early game
- No hard CC
- Somewhat long cooldown on his escape mechanism
- Has a few mana problems
- Requires a lot of skillshot practice

"It's all skill!" - Ezreal

Skill Priority:
R-> Q-> E -> W


Rising Spell Force(Innate Ability)
Hitting a target with any of Ezreal's abilities increases his attack speed by 10% for 6 seconds, this effect stacks up to 5 times.

This is an excellent farming and late game innate ability. Landing damage with any of Ezreal's abilities will put his DPS up by a maximum 50%. Early game, landing some easy Mystic Shots on low minions can help you farm the remainder. In late game, you'll be spamming Mystic Shot constantly, essentially giving you a permanent 50% DPS buff. However, this innate stresses the importance of landing skillshots with Ezreal.

Mystic Shot (Q) Cost: 30 / 35 / 40 / 45 / 50 mana Cooldown: 6 / 5.5 / 5 / 4.5 / 4 seconds
Ezreal fires a bolt of energy in a line that will deal 35 / 55 / 75 / 95 / 115 (+1.0 per attack damage) (+0.2 per ability power) physical damage and apply on-hit effects to the first enemy it hits. If it strikes an enemy unit, all of Ezreal's cooldowns will be reduced by 1 second.

This is the kit and kaboodle of Ezreal's entire being. Not only does this ability scales 1:1 with your AD, it lowers all cooldowns by 1 second if it hits, including this ability. So, without CDR runes taken into account, you can use this ability every 3 seconds at rank 5! Not to mention that this ability procs item effects like Phage and Sheen as well as lifesteal.

This will be your primary source of damage throughout the game, so rank it at every possiblity (excluding ulti).

Essence Flux (W) Cost: 60 / 70 / 80 / 90 / 100 mana Cooldown: 9 seconds
Ezreal fires a wave of energy in a line. Any enemy champions it passes through are dealt 80 / 130 / 180 / 230 / 280 (+0.7 per ability power) magic damage and have their attack speed slowed by 20 / 25 / 30 / 35 / 40 % 5 seconds, while any allied champions it travels through have their attack speed increased by that amount for 5 seconds.

This isn't a primary concern for early game Ezreal as it will burn through his already inadequete mana pool. With this build, there are only three instances you should use this spell:
1 : To shutdown some DPS of the enemy team's AD carry
2 : To buff teammate DPS while attacking a tower, Baron Nashor, Dragon, or enemy team.
3 : To get some damage out when chasing for a kill.

In essence (pun intended), this is a late-game team fight ability and should be ranked last.

Arcane Shift (E) Cost: 90 mana Cooldown: 19 / 17 / 15 / 13 / 11 seconds
Ezreal instantly teleports to a nearby target location and fires a homing arrow at the nearest enemy unit, dealing 75 / 125 / 175 / 225 / 275 (+0.75 per ability power) magic damage to it.

This spell has a few capabilities on the fields of justice, being used offensively or defensively. On the defensive side of things, this spell can essentially flash you over any wall to escape. On the offensive side, this spell will scale cliffs to catch up to a scurrying, low-HP champ. Use this spell wisely, however. This is the largest of Ezreal's QWE cooldowns and should be used in moments of certainty.

Trueshot Barrage (R) Cost: 150 mana Cooldown: 80 seconds
Ezreal channels for 1 second to fire a powerful broad energy missile that will travel in a line by the whole map and will deal 350 / 500 / 650 (+1.0 per bonus attack damage) (+0.9 per ability power) magic damage to each enemy unit they pass through. It will deal 8% less damage for each subsequent target hit, down to a minimum of 30% damage dealt.

This is the mother of all League of Legends skillshots. If you can master hitting this on enemy champs in other lanes, this will give you a significant global presence. Combined with the 1 second cooldown reduction from Mystic Shot, this ability should be used to score the final hits on enemy champions, damage an enemy team at a choke point, or clear a massive wave of minions.

However, note in the ability description where it says "It will deal 8% less damage for each subsequent target hit, down to a minimum of 30% damage dealt." These "targets" will be regarded as anyone taking damage from the missile, i.e. minions, jungle creep, and champions. Ergo, to get the maximum damage to finish and enemy champion, you must position yourself outside of the minion wave for maximum effect.

Extremely Important!

When using Ezreal's skills, you should almost always smart cast them. What is smart casting you say? Smart casting is when you cast an ability wihthout it's blue targeting reticle/range and have the ability go in the direction of your mouse.

To set abilities to smart cast, open your League of Legends options in-game and go to your Key Bindings. In there, several key bind options will be "Smart Cast Ability 1" and etc. Bind Ability 1 to Q, Ability 2 to W, and so on.

With smart-casting, your reaction time is significantly faster without that additional left-click. It may mean life or death!

Greater Quintessences of Desolation x3
A good majority of the time, playing as Ezreal will have you laning against fairly squishy carries or supports. Since Mystic Shot deals physical damage, armor penetration is an absolute must for maximum damage output.

Greater Marks of Desolation x9
Second verse, same as the first. Use these runes, and put em' in a hearse.

Greater Seals of Clarity x9
As mentioned before, Ezreal does have a few mana problems, especially if you are inefficient at landing your skillshots. This is especially true once you obtain your ulti, which has a 150 mana cost.

The break-even point for MP5 runes per level and flat MP5 runes is about at level 6, so it makes more sense to grab per level runes than flat runes. Not to mention, both are dirt cheap at only 205 IP.

Greater Glyphs of Celerity x9
These runes aren't for Mystic Shot so much as they are for Arcane Shift and Trueshot Barrage.
With 8.1% cooldown reduction at Level 18, this will shave .9 seconds off of Arcane Shift and 6.5 seconds off of Trueshot Barrage. Those are effectively free Mystic Shots!

If you feel these glyphs are insignificant, Greater Glyphs of Shielding will aid your late game survival, so you could take those instead.

Primary Summoner Spells

Exhaust
Ezreal doesn't have any solid CC, so Exhaust is usually required to chase down a fleeing opponent. Note: you should use exhaust before you Arcane Shift to catch them. You don't want to be baited too hard.

Ignite
A true damage DoT. This will usually grant you a kill if cast at the right time. Not a replacement for Mystic Shots, though. Land those skillshots!

Other Acceptable Summoner Spells

Flash
With Arcane Shift and the recent nerf to Flash, I really don't find this necessary on Ezreal. However, if you find yourself being constantly caught out of position, this will guarentee an escape when used with Arcane Shift.

Teleport
Another acceptable spell for late-game backdoors and a quick return to your lane after shopping.

Cleanse
Ezreal will, if your adversaries are competent, be focused down in the late-game. If you don't feel like building a Quicksilver Sash, this can be used to grind up all the enemy CC.

Summoner Spells you Shouldn't Take

Ghost
While Ghost has served us well as a chaser and escape tool, Ezreal doesn't need it. Combined with Trinity Force and the Swiftness Masteries, you should have sufficient movement speed to last you.

Smite
Leave it for your jungler.

Surge
While the DPS would be effective on an AD Carry, I see Surge as more of an AP DPS spell for champs like Mordekaiser or Kassadin. Besides, you already have your passive giving you 50% in the heat of battle.

Clarity
Clarity is for Buddhists, not Ezreal. While seemingly a great choice for early game sustain, I find this usually expends a valuable summoner's slot once you enter late game.

Promote
I haven't seen this in the meta-game yet, so until I find a legitimate reason to use it, refrain from choosing this spell.

Clairvoyance
This is to be left to your support.

Revive
While you are most definitely going to die a few times, you don't need this spell. Even if you were to revive at the correct time, Ezreal doesn't have the mobility to reach a tower half-way across the map if a lone enemy champ is grinding it down.

That, and Revive is newb enough as it is.

Mastery Setup:

Offensive Tree

Summoners Wrath 1/1
Seeing as your Primary Summoner Spells should be Exhaust and Ignite, why not enhance them?

Brute Force 3/3
Free AD!

Butcher 2/2
This will definitely help out when trying to last hit minions.

Alacricity 4/4
While Ezreal will get significant DPS from Trinity Force and Rising Spell Force alone, this never hurts. Also, you need it to use Weapon Expertise.

Weapon Expertise 1/1
More of that Armor Penetration I was talking about.

Deadliness 4/4 +Lethality 1/1
Crit chance is always nice with and AD champ, but I really prefer this over Havoc. Why?

Havoc
Without masteries into account, we would normally deal this with our fully built and stacked 309 AD for every 100 attacks:

309 * 100 = 30900

If we multiply 309 by the 1.015 multipliers of Havoc we get for every 100 attacks, we get this:

309 * 1.015 * 100 = 31363.5

That's a measly extra 4.635 every attack AD. Over the course of 100 attacks, you'll only be dealing 463.5 extra damage. That may seem like a lot, but let's compare this to the crit masteries.


Deadliness + Lethality
So, with 4 out of 100 attacks (4%) dealing double damage as well as an extra 10% thanks to Lethality, we get the following equation over the course of 100 auto attacks:

(96 * 309) + (4 * 309 * 2.10) = 29664 + 2595.6 = 32259.6

Compared to no masteries, that's an extra 1350.6 damage. That's a three-fold difference from Havoc.

That, ladies and gentlemen, is why I prefer crit masteries.

Vampirism 1/3
I grab this mostly as a lead into Sunder and Executioner, but it should help with some lane sustain... though not by much.

Sunder 3/3
Sweet... sweet armor pen.

Executioner 1/1
Me gusta mucho. For one, this damage increase is greater than Havoc's by 4.5%. Secondly, this can really supplement your ulti. With your ulti dealing 989 damage to this first target when fully built, this will add an additional 60 damage, helping you pick off any stragglers in a fight.

Support Tree

Good Hands 3/3
"What a noob, taking less death time over a greater mana pool."

While I can agree that 216 bonus mana at level 18 sounds nice, I think that a lower respawn time is more important. Why?

Well, just like the bonus mana from Expanded Mind, taking Good Hands is an investment in the late game. When the respawn counter hits somehwere around 70 seconds in the late game, those 7 seconds can make a difference between a dead inhibitor and a saved one!

Improved Recall 1/1
I loathe when I get chased through the enemy jungle and am out of mana. So what do I do? I juke the everloving hell out of them and recall in an obscure area. 1 second can make a difference between life and death!

Swiftness 4/4
Combined with Trinity Force's Phage proc, this can bust your opponent's escaping chops.

Runic Affinity 1/1
Ezreal excels with the CDR and MP5 of Blue Buff and the slow from Red Buff. Having it for 20% longer is a definite benefit.

Starting Items

Doran's Blade
Doran was a smart fellow. He even left you this awesome blade to throw at enemy champions when you auto attack. The bonus HP, AD, and lifesteal is a good supplement to your starting game.

Cloth Armor + 5 pot
This is somewhat viable with Ezreal. Though not the best choice, it is sometimes a smart decision if you're expecting a lane with ridiculous AD output, like against Vayne or Caitlyn. This will build into your Wriggle's, so it doesn't interfere intensely with your build.

Boots + 3 pot
While this is viable, I don't recommend it on Ezreal. Arcane Shift should be enough for your positioning. If you are really worried about harass, your masteries will help you dodge most magic damage and you're better off with Cloth Armor + 5 pot for AD harass.

Core Build

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Mercury's Treads
So long as there are two people left in the game, someone's gonna want someone dead. In this case, most people will want YOU dead and focus you with hardcore CC. The tenacity you get from Mercury's Treads is a must-have for teamfights.

Sheen
This item is an absolute necessity on Ezreal, no exception. Your Sheen is proc'd everytime your Mystic Shot leaves Ezreal's magic gauntlet, essentially turning your Mystic Shots into enhanced, long-range crits. If the Mystic Shot hits, however, it will consume your Sheen proc, so any auto-attacks afterward are completely normal.

This Sheen should eventually be built into a Trinity Force for the bonus proc damage. When I build Trinity Force, I build it in the priority of: Sheen -> Phage -> Zeal, keeping that focus in AD. I always build Sheen after boots.

Wriggle's Lantern
While more of an early game item, I like to build this after my Sheen. Why?

Well, a free ward every three minutes can save you some 500 gold on wards from the mid-game on. The AD and lifesteal will grant you significant damage and sustain respectively. This is also built in case I have to go Cloth + 5 pot with and aggressive AD lane.
The Bloodthirster
An excellent choice for any AD carry. It provides 100 AD at max stacks and significant lifesteal for sustain. If you really feel like some badassery, stack these babies.

Force of Nature
"I'm a Force of Nature!" said the Scout.

"No you aren't," replied Ezreal. The Scout's magic damage tickles Ezreal's affeminate torso. After a short laugh, Ezreal beat the **** out of the Scout with Mystic Shot. Begging for mercy, the Scout sat in the corner of the jungle like a trapped rabbit.

Ezreal drew back his bow and let his Trueshot Barrage fly. An enemy has been slain.


Given the above scenario, Ezreal survived because he has defense. Force of Nature may seem like an odd item, but it supplements Ezreal well in the late-game. 40 HP5 + .35% of max health every second will grant you some healing if you are zoned out of lifestealing minions. The bonus 8% movement speed, when combined with Boots and Trinity Force, will make you as fast as Kenyans. 76 Magic Resistance is significant when the enemy AP carries begin to shine in their late-game.

If you really believe you don't need this, you can replace it with some damage items if you please.

Alternative/Situational Items

Infinity Edge
Used for hardcore damage output. Mystic Shot can't crit, but your auto attacks will dominate with Trinity Force's crit and your masteries.

The Black Cleaver
While Armor Penetration is nice, Armor Reduction is nicer. When coupled with your Armor Penetration runes and masteries, this will shred any existing enemy defense. This should be bought if you notice the enemy is stacking armor.

Guardian Angel
Hate it when death is at your door? Not to worry! This Jesus vest will grant you Armor, MR, and a free life to do it all over again!

Quicksilver Sash
With an active ability that removes all debuffs from a champion, this definitely helps if you find yourself tanking all sorts of CC.

Banshee's Veil
This is a very late game item to counter magic damage you may be targetted with.

In synopsis, get Force of Nature or Banshee's Veil to mitigate late game magic damage or Guardian Angel to mitigate physical damage.

Being the Nice Guy: Consumables

Over the course of the early and mid-game, you should be buying mana and health pots. However, over the course of the ENTIRE game, you should be buying wards.

Wards, wards, wards, wards. Ward Baron, ward Dragon, ward bushes, ward Blue Buff!

Wards are an essential component of League of Legends and you should get one on every recall, given you have a free slot. If you have your entire team buy just 1 ward, that's 3 minutes map control of the river. In the mid-game, when there is ideally an even balance of power between the teams, you can distinguish yourself from the other team with pertinent map control.

Early Game: Levels 1-8 : <18 minutes

You have two options at the beginning of the game. You can either go mid or go duo lane bot with someone who won't steal all your minion score. Either way, you need to keep your farm up. My CS markers at 10 minutes are 75 cs if I go mid and 60 cs if I duo bot.

But why can't Ezreal solo top? Well, I've tried it. It simply doesn't work. The current meta right now is a tanky DPS to go top. The keyword there is tanky, something Ezreal can harass, but can't finish off until mid-game. Chances are more than likely that the top lane has some significant CC that leaves you liable to a gank, like Sion's Cryptic Gaze or Cho'Gath's Rupture/Feral Scream. Simply put, the early game with Ezreal is ****. Whoever's going top will out-sustain you easily.(in lower level gameplay, usually there isn't a jungler, so this doesnt pose much of a problem for lower queues)

Now that I've established why going solo top is a bad idea, I'll explain how you manage harass and farm with Ezreal. As I said earlier, your goal is to 60-75 CS by ten minutes game time. However, you want to keep pressure on your lane by lowering enemy HP with Mystic Shot's ridiculous range of 1100. At level 1, you can swipe an entire tick of health with a well-aimed Mystic Shot.

This said, if you shoot Mystic Shot into a bush, you will hear a certain sound effect and gain a stack on your passive if it hits an enemy champion. This makes it an effective harass tool for enemies that hide in bushes and checking bushes without endangering the integrity of your face.

More often than not, if you go mid, you will be paired against an extremely squishy AP carry like Malzahar (hereafter referred to as Space Mohammad) or Annie. If you can land your skillshots 90% of the time, you'll usually deny that lane significant farm.

Well, how does one go for the kill early game? If I am bottom lane, I usually wait for my enemy to get to around 1/3 of their HP. I chill in the bush like a villian and use Arcane Shift to teleport behind them, ensuring the resulting homing missile hits them as well. I pop both Exhaust and Ignite in the process and spam Mystic Shot between each of my auto attacks. If they do escape into tower range with flash, you can usually get the killing blow in with a final Mystic Shot or let Ignite finish them off, if they're low enough.

As for mid-lane, I try to stay in front of the enemy minion wave, leaving a few caster minions between me. Inexperienced opponents tend to stick a bit behind their minion wave, even if they have 200 health left, to catch some potential minion farm. If you are certain it isn't bait for a potential gank, you should Arcane Shift behind the enemy wave, use both Exhaust and Ignite, and spam auto attacks and Mystic Shots like all of hell just broke loose. With your armor penetration and Doran's Blade, this usually spells doom to the enemy's soul.

An enemy has been slain. Bingo.

Mid-game: Levels 8-14 : 18 < t < 30 minutes

By now, you should have at least tier one boots and your Sheen fully built. You should next focus on finishing your Mercury's Treads and starting your Wriggle's Lantern for better sustain. If, by now, you realize the majority of the enemy team is building vast amounts of armor, you may want to get your Black Cleaver started before you finish your Trinity Force or Wriggle's Lantern.

For me, this brings up and interesting topic. There are cases where getting an Infinity Edge against your enemies is a better choice than a Black Cleaver. Basically, if a large portion of the enemy team has over 100 armor, you should get a Black Cleaver. Otherwise, you're better off with a Bloodthirster or an Infinity Edge. Why? Well, the break-even point between damage resulting from the item and armor points is at 100 armor. In layman's terms, unless you're focusing down opponents with more than 100 armor, don't get a Black Cleaver this early.

Continuing off my tangent, half of this phase should be spent laning and the other ganking. By now, you should definitely have a point in Essence Flux to aid in tower sieges and teamfights. Make sure to buy plenty of wards, farm like China, and snipe off stragglers with your Trueshot Barrage. If you can, make sure to grab blue/red buff from your jungle or, if you're ballsy, the enemy jungle.

Late Game: Levels 16-18 : > 30 minutes

If you've been diligent in your minion farm, you should be a fairly high level by now. Ideally, you should have your tier 2 boots, Wriggle's Lantern, Trinity Force, and at least a BF Sword. If you feel at this point that you're taking to much magic damage, pick up a Negatron Cloak before finishing your Bloodthirster.

This is the point in the game where both teams start to stack up and travel in groups. You should always be in the back of this group so you don't take the brunt of the assault if you enter an enemy-infested bush. There are maybe two instances I can think of that you would be on the front-lines.

- 1 - You are chasing down enemy stragglers after a successful team fight*
- 2 - You are flanking the enemy and poking their squishies in the back (make sure you have an escape mechanism)
*When I say "successful team fight" I mean that your team's damage output > their team's damage output

If an enemy minion wave pushes too far into your territory (which is where Teleport comes in handy) or masses to larger, you should be the person to go and pick up the farm. If you push a massive wave in enemy territory, make sure you aren't susceptible to a 4 or 5 man gank.

Otherwise, just do your best to finish off your build, stack defensive items as need be, sell your Doran's Blade if you haven't already, and stick with your teammates. Another thing to note is that you should NOT focus that tank. It's such a fundamental concept, but you see it done so often. Ezreal should be flanking with his Mystic Shots and hitting squishies, not poking tanks.

If you are fully built by this point, buy the elixirs to enhance your already awesome strength.

If you haven't noticed, I stress in this guide over and over. Late-game. Late-game. Late-game.

You are an AD Carry. Carries lift the team to victory in the very end!

Also, I'm breaking my MOBAFire virginity here. Be merciful.

If you want to reach me on LoL, my summoner name is Professor Godot.