Ryze Build Guide by JunSupport

Here it is!

@Ethix:

All of those questions are answered in the description...

I understand that I may find reference to my questions. I found little content supporting these answers in reasoning that provided me a solid explanation. I read nothing that supports the value of the descriptions aside from explanation of why the user decided to put it there rather why it's beneficial or why a more common way isn't.

The average user isn't going to study the guide in-depth, they are going to find the obvious flaws or pluses in the top section then vote it down or up (if they even look at it before voting). When I read this guide, based on my experience I found that there are several flaws in why the methods explained verses the most obvious conventional strategies with Ryze. Hence I voted it down, for lack of descriptive content. It's a good guide but its inaccurate from a content point of view in my humble opinion and experience.

@Ethix:

"from a content point of view in my humble opinion and experience. "

That just means you don't like it.
It doesn't make it inaccurate. I feel my reasoning are good enough to justify my choices, maybe you dislike it, but it works better then the norm from MY personally tested experience.

Saying it's inaccurate, ironically, makes you the inaccurate one here.

I apologize for being biased... but a vote is what having an opinion is about after all, being biased to cast a choice. I just hope that my posts were more informative than the typical "sucks" then down vote. I am really not trying to insult you or troll you but trying to tell me that I am being ironic by giving criticism doesn't really sit well for me when I am clearly trying to be respectful.

I gave my opinion, and unfortunately it wasn't in favor.

Great guide. I really feel like all of your builds are underrated. They're all great.

Don't mind him, he's going around down voting Ryze guides based on troll logic. If you want you can go down vote his Ryze guide "Ryze Reborn" but I'll leave that up to you. I don't run around giving down votes to every other guide other than mine for a certain champion but it seems this guy doesn't really care. Good day to you sir.

Very well written guide. I have a few comments though.

First of all, I don't take Tear because I find it takes a long while to obtain the 'mana per gold' that the whole item is worth (995g). I think it's much more worth it to get Sapphire Crystals. Let's do the math:

2x Sapphire Crystal = 400 mana (800g). 1x Tear = 350 mana (995g). Now, Tear has to gain 150 mana more to be 'worth' the price (compared to the crystals). The Tears effect is "4 mana per abilitiy, can't occur more than twice every 6 seconds" Let's say a minion wave takes 30 seconds (I'm exaggerating this so you see the impact) that is 20 mana gained, so it would take 7.5 minion waves to get 150 mana (bear in mind that in my example it takes 30 seconds to clear, using 2 abilties every 6 seconds). Now I'm not sure how long it takes for each minion wave to come for you to clear it, but I'm pretty sure it would take atleast 10 dedicated minutes to get the '150 mana' that only makes the item WORTH the price (same mana as you would get from the Sapphires). Now, that's 10 minutes wasted to make your item 'worth it' and it would take even LONGER if you didn't constantly clear minion waves and instead engaged in battles. I approximate around 30 minutes to make it worth it while casually killing minions and engaging in fights (prove me wrong) and thats 30 minutes you've been lacking the appropriate amount of mana for what you payed for. The 7 mp5 is totally useless once you get enough mana anyway.

I also prefer getting Mana (per level) Glyphs, seals and Quints... (magic pen marks) I know it's weird but for the game style I play it's crucial. It allows me to cast more without relying on mp5 and it also provides me with a LOT of damage at around lvl 10 (which is when I stop farming). I might get the Mana penetration Quints at some point, I still need to do calculations but it seems the Mana is much better early game. The mana pen is definitely useful mid-late game though.

This is how I play my Ryze: I start with Sapphire Crystals and get the Boots + Glacial Shroud first. The rest I just keep purchasing Sapphire Crystals with (I end up with 4). When I get enough gold to upgrade all my Sapphire Crystals to Catalysts (and eventually BV/RoA etc) then I do so, unless I really need the health then I complete a Catalyst earlier before buying 4 Sapphire Crystals. This provides me with a LOT of mana early on which is a huge advantage in terms of damage and mana pool. I manage to get double/triple kills early game like this because of the huge damage (which is complimented by my rune build) One time I solo'd a 1v3 (with luck and barely had health at the end) at level 11 when their team had the full advantage. My team was certainly impressed :)

I usually end up with: Sorcerers Boots, Glacial Shroud, Banshee's Veil, RoA, Catalyst, Catalyst

If the game takes longer I manage to upgrade the rest of the Catalysts to RoA's and the Shroud to a Heart.

I also play with a Shen that constantly saves my butt so I end up with a nice carry score of 11 / 1 / 13 :p

P.S. I rushed typing this. I will proof-read later, off to College. Nice guide btw, it gave me some nice ideas.

@Sato:

The point of buying a tear is playing for the end game.
Generally, a person can make the gold within the first 10 minutes. The game is surely to last at least another 10 minutes. So, that cost you're wondering about, is no different from one of the gold-generating items.

However, what you seem to miss is the additional 10~20~30 minutes that can occur.
During that time, I can generate 200, 300, or even 500 more mana depending on my casting. People acquire the Tear because, if the game lasts long, this is more useful.

Also, I feel that mana-regeneration makes up for that extra gold you feel the mana doesn't make up for. To me, meki pend is worth it, sapphire crystal is worth while, and the 205 upgrade cost is very inexpensive.

Lastly, Catalyst stacking is a nice idea, though it carries its own risks.
I've seen it done by one other player before, although I was stomping with Karthus, so he didn't have much chance to show off~
I plan to look into it personally when I'm done playing my interests lately.

I would definitely get Tear if that was the case. But the problem with it is that it would take more than 10 minutes to get that '150 mana' to make it 'worth the mana per gold' because of the effect. I'm going to do some tests but can you provide any evidence for it giving 150 mana within a casual 10 minutes? I'm pretty sure Manamune could easily get you the mana faster "1 mana per attack, 4 mana for abilitiy, 3 sec cooldown" as opposed to "4 mana for ability, cannot occur more than twice in a 6 second period" but that costs another 1115 gold (if I recall properly) and means it would have to gain another 558 mana to be worth paying '1115 gold'. I guess you could argue it gives benefits such as damage but I don't find that very useful, atleast the way I play Ryze.

Also, if you get Tear to upgrade it to AA late game then that's definitely useful but it's 1850g to upgrade it which could have easily gotten you another RoA if you bought a Catalyst instead of the Tear. Let's compare the benefits: RoA +630health +725mana +80ap | AA +400mana +165ap (let's say you have 4k mana at this point when you purchase this)

Now, here is my BIG point. As you can see AA gives double the AP that RoA gives but 325mana less and 630health less. Not to mention AA's effect to gain mana, I'm gonna say it gained enough mana to rival RoA's max mana. To me I would prefer the extra health, the AP like you said is a luxury 'topping' or icing on the cake :) I guess it depends on play style though.

Btw I just tried your method and rushed BV + Glacial Shroud first and it was AWESOME. I didn't even die that game and got legendary :D Then I stacked Catalysts and was undying, game ended before I could upgrade them to RoA's though.