Ryze is changed, and his abilities stacks better with mana than ability power. In this guide I'll show you how to build Ryze to gain maximum damage, and which order you should buy your items.

I am using two kind of runes to increase his damage. Those runes are -Magic Penetration- and -Mana per lvl runes-

Magic penetration will "ignore" some of your target's magic resistance. This will allow you to deal quite some damage on your target, even though he have magic resistance items.

The other runes I chose is basically mana per lvl runes. They will give you loads of mana (especially as lvl 18), and that will increase your damage - as Ryze's abilities will deal more damage if stacking mana, than AP.

The mistake that loads of Ryze-players are doing, is to play him "old-school", aka stacking AP. Ability power will also work, but to maximize your damage as Ryze, you will have to stack mana.

I'm always starting with 1x Sapphire Crystal, 1x mana potion and 1x health potion. This will give you more damage, more mana and potions - which are needed to stay in lane without recalling every minute.

from there, I'm buying Tear of Goddess before Catalyst the Protector. The reason for this is because of it takes time to stack up Tear of Goddess, and while doing this - it allows you to harass your enemies a lot.

Oh, well.. The build is above, so I don't have to repeat the items, but I can explain why I am buying them in this order:
- The reason why I'm buying "half of the item" first before upgrading them is because of these items gives mana, and some of them helps on survivability too. You shouldn't wait too long before you upgrade -Catalyst the Protector- the -Rod of Ages-. The reason for this is because of RoA will need 20 min to stack fully up. This will increase your mana, hp and ability, which makes this staff a wonderful item.

It's not really needed to stack too much CD reduction. The CD cap is at 40%, and you will get:
9% from masteries
10% from overload
20% from Frozen Heart

This means that you will get 39% CD reduction, which is 1% from the cap. CD reduction is extremely nice for Ryze, as he gets shorter CD on his abilities, and whenever a spell is used by Ryze, the CD on the other abilities will be reduced by 1 second.

The items I chose will give you more:
- Damage
- Survivability (hp and MR)
- Mana (of course..)
- CD reduction

You may also consider switching our the last Archangel's Staff for a Deathfire Grasp instead. Deathfire Grasp will remove 30% of your target's current HP, which means it is awesome against tanks. This will basically be one more ability. You will lose some mana, but you will gain 1 "ability" (activate) which can do loads of damage.

As Ryze you should basically chose the ability - overload - whenever you can (except for lvl 6 - ulti). This ability has short CD, long range (compared to his bind), it will give you 10% CD reduction (when fully stacked) and it's your main damage ability.

Your second priority (except for ultimate which obviously is your first priority) is Rune Prison. This ability will deal damage and bind the target. It also stacks with mana.

When you become lvl 4, you should chose spell flux. Spell Flux is no longer your main damage, and does not stack with mana. BUT it reduces your target's magic resistance for 5 seconds (and it also bounces to other targets) and will allow you to deal more damage. It will also reduce the CD on your other abilities (because of Ryze's passive).


When entering a fight, it's best to use spell flux first. This is because of the reduced magic resistance. BUT your target will often try to run, and then you should use Overload-Rune prison-Spellflux-overload - etc. You should pop your ultimate when you know that you're able to spam some spells on your target. - Your ulti will make your spells do AoE damage, and it also gives you Spell Vamp (and passive mana).

I'm always using Ghost and Flash. This is because of you WILL get in trouble - Ryze is a squichy target. Use your summoner spells wisely - to survive or to kill. It's often nice to use flash to instantly get close enough to the target who's trying to escape.

Remember that it's usually better to not get a kill, than doing kamikaze (get a kill - but get killed). Of course, you should sacrifice yourself if it's for the greater goods (depending on the situation, but while playing you will notice that you have to take some chances).

Some players choses ignite / exhaust - which isn't really needed, as he got quite some damage and bind already, and need flash and ghost for survivability, and it can also be used offensive.

The masteries is a basic build (9/0/21).

In the offense tree you will get AP, CD reduction and magic penetration.

In the utility tree I chose "Good hands" (because of the spawn time was increased, and the -10% "death reduction"-time is way better than 4% hp and mana reg (of base stats). As Ryze, you're basically builded up with mana, and you will not experience mana problems (except early game, but you won't have huge mana problems). Afterwards I choose 5% extra mana (which will help a lot - thinking of the fact that you'll have thousands of mana points) and increased 5% experience gain (which truly is good early game). The other alternative is mana reg - which isn't needed.

I did choose GREED - which gives 1 gold per 10th second. It's not a lot, but it helps - and besides, Ryze isn't too much of a jungler, so 15% buff increasement isn't really worth it. After that I'm basically just speccing movement speed (which helps a bit - and it's needed to get further down in the talent tree), Flash, CD reduction and CD reduction for summoner abilities.