The Concise Ryze

Masteries (7/0/23)

UTILITY

The focus of this Masteries setup is the Strength of Spirit mastery. This is made for Ryze and gives a ridiculous amount of sustain throughout the game. It's like having a regrowth pendant early and when you hit 4000 mana mid-game, you'll be getting an extra 40HP/5.

Since we're going that far down the utility tree, we pick up Mastermind. I also grab Intelligence for CDR because I'd rather use my glyphs for 200 mana than use them on CDR to get the 10% spell pen with 9 points in the offense tree. Most people don't buy a ton of magic resist and a few points of pen is outweighed by the extra damage from the mana.

The other masteries are all good things for Ryze: you get an extra 200 mana, 2% move speed, 20% buff duration, 3% vamp, and 5% XP. BAM.

OFFENSE

I have seven points left and take four points in the first row to make last hitting easier at early levels. Until you get your Tear, Ryze doesn't have enough mana to farm with it. The extra 5 damage helps a lot. With ignite on cooldown, you have an extra 10 on your auto.

I take 3% more CDR and then only need one glyph to reach the cap.

Runes (for 7/0/23 Masteries)

9x Greater Mark of Insight - best in slot

3x Greater Quintessence of Swiftness - Ryze's range is short, so speed is important for proper positioning

1x Greater Glyph of Celerity - 1% CDR@18 matches with 9% from masteries, 10% from ranking , and 20% from to reach the cap.

8x Greater Glyph of Knowledge - mana

9x Greater Seal of Knowledge - more mana

TOTAL BENEFITS: 8.5 magic pen, +4.5% movement speed, 1% CDR at level 18, 393 mana at level 18

Skill Sequence (R, Q, W, E)

Take Rune Prison first. You can't spam Overload at level one and you'd go OOM using it. Rune Prison has the most utility for an early team fight or gank.

Take one rank in Overload at level two and then one in Spell Flux at level three. Now at level three, you can burst combo ( >>>auto> ) your opponent for a large, instant chunk of damage. Casting two spells between overloads makes it come up a half-second after the first one. There are not many champs who can trade with you at this point.

Take two more ranks in and then your ult, Desperate Power. Rank up first for the damage and CDR. Rank up second for the snare duration.

Summoner Spells (Ignite, Flash)

Flash - best summoner in game. Ryze needs an escape. It's also a great offensive spell to get in range for W + combo when enemies think they are safe. Always take this.

Teleport - This guide is written from the perspective of a magic damage carry going mid lane, but Ryze can hold his own in top lane as well. I take Teleport and Flash when going top.

Ignite - Take when going mid. If you think you can kill your opponent, drop it. If you don't expect to kill enemy mid, you may want to use it early to get the extra five damage on your auto for last hitting during the first few levels.

Items

STARTING:

I start boots + 3 pots against most mids to avoid harass and early ganks. If you are not worried about harassment from your lane opponent or the enemy jungler, staring with a Sapphire Crystal will boost your early damage and possibly get you a Tear earlier.

FIRST BACK:

Your first priority as Ryze is to rush a Tear of the Goddess. Note that you can only gain one stack every three seconds, so casting spells more often won't fill the Tear. It takes 250 casts x 3 seconds or at minimum, 750 seconds (12 min 30 sec) to fill the Tear. More often it takes about 20 minutes.

EARLY GOALS:

Your early goals should be to get a Catalyst the Protector and Glacial Shroud. The catalyst gives nice early lane sustain and the shroud has a ton of CDR. After picking up both, Ryze is fearsome.

CORE BUILD:

Your core build is extremely cheap (Tear, Merc, Banshee, FH = 7685 gold). You can get this 20 minutes in if you are fed and 30 minutes in if you're having a rough game. It's hard to keep a good Ryze down. By this time you'll be closing in on 4000 mana and will start to hit very hard.

END GAME:

After you have your four core items, you should start to invest in Sight Wards. You can never have enough vision and Ryze can usually afford to pitch in a bit extra. Most games I can afford to keep a slot open for wards well into late game. If necessary, grab an Oracle's Elixir

If there is another magic damage dealer, Will of the Ancients is a fantastic item for both of you.

If you are getting focused in team fights, Guardian Angel is a good buy.

After building a fifth item, turn your into an Archangel's Staff.

If you are extremely fed and just can't spend all that gold on wards and oracles, save up for a Rabadon's Deathcap. You'll have 256 AP after getting + ; the puts you over 500 AP. Go kill everything.

Combos

Early burst:
>>>auto>

Level Six burst:
>>>>>

Sustained damage:
>>>>>>>>>> ...

This is your sustained damage combo for doing drake or baron. At points you will have to wait a half second on Q. Make sure you wait and keep alternating it. Ryze's passive, Arcane Mastery and the short cooldown on are the reason he can dish out so much damage. If you do something like
>>>>, then you'll be standing around for a few seconds not really doing anything.

Team fights: improvise

You'll want to try to mimic the sustained combo as best you can, but you'll have to think on your feet and improvise. If you can burst down a target, do it. If you can hit 3-5 enemies, lead with
>(while Q is in flight)>> to maximize damage.

Tips

Smart Casting - Ryze has great sustained spam, but you can't be as effective if you are left clicking between every spell cast.

Tower Damage - Ryze builds a lot of armor so he's good at tanking tower damage; however, he doesn't build AD or much AP and thus does little damage to towers compared to other carries.

Desperate Power - The AOE damage on Ryze's ult is filtered by the magic resist of the direct target. So if you spam on a group of enemies, try to hit the one with the least MR.