If you know how to insert the icons and such, P.M me! I would love to make this guide better!

This is my first guide and I hope you enjoy it! I have been playing Xerath since he came out and I immediately dominated the game. It was the first champion I had played where I immediately felt like I knew what to do and where to be. Xerath's power and range will help keep famous mids like Ashe, Sivir, and Veigar at bay, It will also help you with the less orthodox mids like Trynd. Yes I went up against Trynd in mid, his heal and spin attack are annoying, but DO NOT be afraid to return to base to heal at all. Just because another mid forces you to play defensively doesn't mean you are bad, It happens to me all the time. Just be patient and as soon as you hit level 3 or 4 you should either have first blood or have killed the mid lane you were up against. Your range is vital as it is one of the largest, if not the largest out of all champions. Know when to strike and where to be and be comfortable with trying to predict movements with your Q.

Side Note: Do not be afraid to use locus of power when farming minions with your Q. You will eventually be able to take out all minions aside from the canon minion with a one shot Q or W,Q combo.

FACT: THIS BUILD IS EXPENSIVE! I.M.O

Pros-
Amazing Damage
Can take down multiple enemies simultaneously
Very good harass
Can lock down Opponents
Powerful mid - late game

Cons-
Targeted a lot!
Early game can be rocky if inexperienced
Locomotion can be a problem
Positioning and timing are a key factor

Trick: The forest is a great place to snipe kills at enemy towers. (W) and aim toward their tower from a nice safe distance, If you have vision great! If you do not have vision, try your best and fire away!

Tip: Your (R) has enough range as it is by itself and a large area. When combined with (W) you are now getting your Spell penetration and additional range. Have fun at the back of team fights raining down arcane missiles like a boss! You should also be perfectly safe when spamming your R near towers.

Tip: I prefer sending out (E) then spamming (R) in large group fights and 1v1's then using (W) and cleaning them up with (Q) as they run in a perfectly straight line. Everyone bunches up and it is perfect for Xerath's (Q) and (R). Line em up and fire away and after that spam barrage those three times and you are almost guaranteed a kill, let alone a double, triple, quadra, or even a pentakill.

Tip: (E) can be used to snag kills later on. At first this ability does little damage, but as the game progresses the ability does massive damage and can be used to stun.

Runes:

Greater Mark of Insight - I chose this rune because with the % penetration that you receive with Locus of Power (W) and the o.95 M.Penetration from the marks almost gurantees you an early kill which is very useful in this build as you will need a ton of money.

Greater Glyph of Focus - CDR! Major necessity! I can not tell you how frustrating it is when your Q or W are not ready for action! The faster they are up the more snipes you can achieve when an enemy tries to Back(B) by their tower. Locus of Power and then a well placed Q can help you achieve humiliating kills against the other team. Use Arcane Barrage(R) your ulti almost whenever you want. Its cooldown is very low, but watch out for your mana supply early on.

Greater Seal Of Clarity - Just as important as CDR early game and especially late. M. regen is vital to kills, which is what this guide is all about, getting kills and expanding your AP so you can start taking on 3v1's and so on. No mana = no kill. I have recently mastered the last hit auto attacking champion kill early game. Do not be afraid to chase, but also do not turret dive atleast till level 13 or later. I still do not recommend diving at all. Even with your passive you are vulnerable to a lot more things.

Greater Quintessence of Insight - Same thing as Greater Mark of Insight. Some people prefer more AP, but you will have so much AP that M. Penetration is what will get you those last hit kills.

Standard Spell Caster. I chose a .66 crit instead of cripple because if you ever do crit for any reason it will help. Some Crit is better than no crit. CDR is huge for Xerath early game so I grabbed all the CDR I could. Be sure to use that bit of extra movement speed wisely after Locus of Power and you can even out run a champion like Trynd when you have boots, because your base movement speed is raised from quickness. A little goes a long ways. Not really much to say on masteries.

Xerath should be played as a roamer.This should only be done AFTER you have taken down the mid tower, which shouldn't be to long. Use your teleport summoner spell to get to control large amounts of creep waves threatening a tower or just teleport back to mid to harass. After your mid tower is down be sure to help out your team mates at their towers. I played a game on 10/15/11 (October 15, 2011) and the game was over in 18 minutes. I had 8 kills 1 death and 2 assists, after I took down the middle tower I helped my team mates out and we took down the towers together and forced the other team to surrender! This happened all in 18 minutes! So why no boots of mobility? Because then you just wasted sorc boots + you should never get anything but sorc boots on a DPS caster.... EVER! The extra speed isn't needed as you can easily go up and down between the outside lanes rather quickly. This is how a majority of your kills will be obtained. Team fights are another way.

I have revised the items section.

Doran's Ring - Good Starter item. M.Regen and 15 ability power + a health boost. All around good starter

Sorc Boots- Must have as mentioned in roaming for a Caster DPS role. The added M.Penetration will greatly help, even if they do stack magic resistance you will still hit them hard no matter what. As I keep saying A little goes a long ways toward the end. Speed bonus is obviously a must have. All around core item

Rabadon's D-Cap- Why do I want you to get this at around 21 minutes like me? Because you will now have 156-60 AP + 30% AP amplification. I always get mine around 21 minutes even if I do not have any kills. I would also like to say that once you have this kills will become a lot easier and it will help towards your late Mejai.

Void Staff- I have not really seen a guide without a void staff. Xerath is a M.Penetration character, his (W) allows you to take down opponents from a distance with a large bonus to spell penetration which is % based. Void Staff gives you 70 AP and +40% spell penetration, it is absolutely amazing.

MEJAI'S SOUL STEALER!- People have been bugging me about this. WHY THE HELL DO YOU GET A LATE MEJAI! Well the answer is simple. When are kills obtained the most? Oh right!... Late game. The fact is that this item is a lot more useful late game as it gives a massive AP boost of 160 when fully stacked AND a CDR of 15%! This item is freaking amazing! If they don't surrender and it goes into waaaay late game about and hour or more than this will prove very very useful. By the time you have all the listed items you should have 56O AP WOW! This is a good late game item! How many times have you seen a Veigar or a Leblanc get Mejai early on only to be shut down! They wasted the mejai and only have a measly 1 or 2 stacks. I have seen this a lot and have had experience with it as Veigar, In my opinion Mejai is only worth it late game! Void Staff and Rabadon's Death Cap will help you secure kills for this build and gain you stacks.

Rylai's Crystal Scepter- A good item and a great AP and health boost. 80 AP and 500 health + you get a nice spell slow. Chasing down those enemies will never be easier than with a Rylai's.

Morello's Evil Tome- Great item and great AP boost. +75AP you also get 12 M.Regen per 5 secs and a CDR of 20% Why would you not want this item? When you have this item you should have 560 AP a CDR of 40.85% AND M.Penetration of roughly 34.22 flat not including the % based items and your (W) Locus of power. These items are to help you DOMINATE the game.


All these items are made to make YOU a dominant force on the battle field. Do not cry at my guide because it is not working for you or you do not agree with all the item choices. It is just a guide I use and am very successful with. Check my recent with Xerath (Jzwh) < summoner name. Not all of them are Phenomenal but a good majority of them involve 20+ kills and very few, if any deaths. Also quite a few end very early due to me dominating. A good team is also A HUGE FACTOR!

Flash - for to get away and rarely to seal a kill. Your range alone should get you kills. Save flash for escapes mainly.

Teleport - for fast travel to a location with a large amount of minions to be farmed or to kill an enemy champ.

Ignite - meh.. not really needed. I've never been frustrated if the enemy champ gets away, they rarely do because the range on (Q) and (R) can be severely magnified.

Your main attacking spell should ALWAYS be (Q) harass with it, kill with it, stun with it, whatever you want to do with it.

Your second main damage/stun spell (E) mage chains late game as mentioned can wreck havoc among your enemies. The ability to stun and a massive amount of damage.

One of the most amazing skills in the game (W) despite being rooted in place, if done properly you can line up your (Q) or (R) as the animation is being cast. I suggest you line up a (Q) to cast and not an (R) as it is easier IMO to miss with (R) and not (Q). Magic Penetration is amazing and the range bonus is EPIC.

Your ultimate, one of the most catastrophic ultis in the game (R) is amazing comboed with (E).
Spam it in large groups or use it for an almost sure kill 1v1 it is a good zone skill if you want to scare your opponent into backing away.

Your combo should be something like this E,Q,W,R,R,R. You can switch around the order, I know I usually never use it like that exactly every time, but if the champion isn't dead by the last (R), you can always follow up with a quick (Q)

This guide like I said earlier is to give you mid and late game dominance. Early game in my opinion is the most crucial part of a game. Xerath is an excellent farmer with (Q) and he is an excellent champ for enemy champion farming. Yes you will basically be farming champions. I am going to take a guess and say that Xerath's range and his base AP ratios will be nerfed. Have fun with Xerath and experiment. Only YOU know how to play Xerath the way you want him played. If another person has a guide you like better then great! Try it out! This guide although was made fairly recently after Xerath came out is based solely on my game experience. I have watched other Xeraths and none of them compared to how I played. That was the simple truth. You may play better than me I do not know I have not seen you play, but my success with this build is amazing and I hope it will work in your favor also.

Keep your comments appropriate. I am open to criticism, but from one troll to another do not peck at simple grammar mistakes to be annoying or make comments to be contrary. First guide and I am open to opinions dealing with optional items, substitution items for late game, situationals


Thanks!

Please feel free to post any serious grammatical mistakes. I am only a high school student, I do not necessarily proof read. I should though.

-10/15/11 Edited the item section. Made it clearer instead of a massive wall of text. PLEASE TELL ME HOW TO INPUT ICONS!

Please post your Kills/ deaths/ assists! It will help greatly in the promotion of this guide! Check out my stats with Xerath and other champs. "Jzwh"

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