Looks like your Talon matchup, Morellonomicon description and masteries description could use some updating.

Thanks

I created an account just so I could ask you this. Why don't you like the Battlecast skin? It is my favourite Xerath skin next to gardian of the sands.

Curious why tear isnt in any of these guides. seraphs embrace gives bout 160 ap when combined with the mana from morellonomicon. and best part is if you get tear by 5 mins you can stack it up by 20 because of xeraths insane mana sustain. Am I just missing a key detail? thanks. Great guide btw

Love this Guide! I started using this loud out and tactics and now my damage amounts are top in so many categories every game! Thank you so much!

Um... I made this guide well over a year now. I update few things on it and one not being the champion matchups. It could be a coincidence or you could of saw my guide and wrote something similar. As to ROA i have been experimenting with it and its been doing great in the current meta. But Both items seem to be good so its more about the game. I decide what to go when I see who i am facing. Helps vs a LB or a Fizz.

Hey, just scrolling through your guide when noticing that you copied the anivia match-up from my own Xerath guide. Please don't do so without mentioning me or asking permission ;)

secondly, I don't get why you take Rod of Ages over Morellonomicon

Hey guys, I am trying to have fun playing while streaming come check me out where Ill be going top/mid/jungle mostly mid so I can breakout my Xerath skills :D here is my twitch: http://www.twitch.tv/nubeytooby

Hello, thank you for commenting on my guide! All of your suggestions are pretty good. The lane match- ups are what I think of the enemy champion. I usually play well into almost all match ups as Xerath due to just playing safe but its the latter game that they effect me. As for Zed honestly all you do is build zhyonas and not die and ping when he leaves lane. For the Frost Queen Blade, they are currently nerfing it and it seems like there would be more so I am going to try it later on and see how it goes in the next patch.

Hey,

Thanks for a great, up to date Xerath guide! Short but sweet. If you want to make it a lot longer (lol)...

Just my opinion, but I think the matchups might need some changes. Personally I find Fizz and Zed are the two hardest champs to lane against, while I would group Leblanc and Diana (since their respective nerfs) as 7-9 difficulty along with champs like Ahri, Akali, Kass and Ekko. Talon I find pretty easy, at least as far as assassins go (although i'm only Silver 5 so probably haven't faced many good ones), probably a 5 or 6 in my books.

If you want to give people tips about how to play against the harder champs, I've got some ideas. It's saved me countless times to know that Zed (ult) and Talon (blink) appear directly behind you, so you know where to aim the stun when they jump on you. Also, for Zed if you can predict him jumping back to his shadow, it's an easy W or E (this also works for LB). For Talon, if you stand between your melee and ranged creeps but off to the side, you force him to choose between using rake on the wave or you, and you're still in a good position to harass him heavily with autos as he tries to CS (pre lvl 6 that is). This works early for Zed too, but is really dangerous to do after lvl 3 or 4. Like all stealth champs, Talon's ult is a lot less effective if you have an extra pink ward in inventory and drop it the second he ults. I find these two champs are the only ones that usually need a zhonya's rush, although weird midlane picks like Aatrox/Wukong/Irelia and getting camped by aggro junglers like Rengar/Khazix/Lee might warrant it as well.

For Fizz and Leblanc, the main outplay potential is to save your E for after they use playful/trickster or LB's W/W+R combo. It's too easy to dodge with those skills and if you miss it when they go aggro you're likely burning summs or dying. If you can keep range on them it's really hard for Fizz to land his ult or LB to land her chain. They are also both really easy to shove under turret early game if you get a pink ward on first back.

For Ahri I'm always thinking of when her ult is up, watching how much CDR she builds so that I can play around it. I find I can handle her pretty easily as long as I keep minions between us, and this makes a lot of Ahri's at my ELO put themselves way out of position trying to land their charm. Perfect time for an E into combo for more than 50% of her health. The nice thing about her is that all of your poke out ranges all of hers, so as long as you aren't shoved up when she has her ult, she can't usually do much to you. This is one of the few matchups where I often go ghost/flash for SS, as it really helps to kite her ult. Just beware her flash+charm combo (if she casts it right before flashing it comes at you from where she flashed to, not where she was).

For champs like Kass, Akali and Diana, they tend to be easy to poke out of lane pre-6, as they need to get close to CS and can't harass you very well if they don't want to miss a lot of minions. I'm usually willing to miss a few CS if it means they have to back (or stubbornly stay on low HP and die). Once they get 6 you need to be much more wary, because they all have insane gap close with their low cooldown ults. Every time you walk past your edge of the river you need to be careful. If they get even a little fed they can tower dive you if you go below ~60% pretty easily, often even if you land your stun. That being said, if you're good at positioning, they should struggle to poke you much, and you can still be pretty aggro with your long range. Akali's shroud can be countered by a pink ward or even just red trinket, as you don't need to be able to click on her to hit with any of your spells.

Ekko is a pretty unique case, as his melee range is hard to punish due to his low CD double jump gap close. I find the most important thing is to dodge his Q, because the slow can set him up for an easy W stun and chunking at least half your health with his E+passive proc. The nice thing about this lane is that he HAS to play aggro or you will simply poke him down and build up a huge CS lead (or kills if he's cocky), so you can (politely) call for jungle ganks and get him that way. He is one of the champs that it is most important to have unpredictable movement in lane against, as it will make it next to impossible for him to land W stun if he can't read your movement. If you are chasing a low Ekko, MAKE SURE to avoid his shadow, because his ult can turn a 'free kill' into an insta-death. My usual approach is to run on the opposite side of it in lane, so I can follow but not be in range to get hit by the damage (with decent ping you can also E directly at his shadow when you see ult animation for a guaranteed stun). Don't chase him through jungle chokepoints if he has ult up.

This is much longer than I intended but a couple other champs I wanted to briefly mention are Velkoz and Lux. You mildly outrange them both, but they are both pretty strong against you. If Velkoz is good at Geometry he can poke you outside of your Q range, but it's fairly easy to dodge since it takes a long time to reach you. I consider these lanes a pure skill matchup (5 or 6), as you have the poke advantage but they are much burstier than you once they have ult. If you are roughly even in lane they can almost 100-0 with their full combo if they land bind or knockup on you, so you need to have dodging on your mind. What I'm still working on is learning the exact character animation for these sklls, as both of them add at least a quarter second warning before the skillshot appears.

My advice for players relatively new to Xerath (or in a hard matchup/if you are unfortunate and die early) is to adopt what Scrap Computer (Youtube) calls the push stance. After lvl 4 or 5, kill the wave as quickly as you can, and then just run backwards past river (or even under tower) and let them either tank minions or CS under turret. Only a few champs (Syndra and Viktor come to mind) can match Xerath's waveclear, so you can force them to either take a less than ideal engage on you while missing a bunch of CS (and tanking minion damage), or rob them of their ability to kill you (also keeping yourself safe from jungle ganks). This strategy does burn through your mana very quickly, but between your passive and a little discretion you should be able to push hard and keep enough mana for your combo (especially if you buy early mana regen, which is usually good regardless).

Another thing which helps against hard lanes is taking TP/flash for SS. It lets you back to buy early without missing much (or anything if you shop quick), and can make it much less painful to leave lane when you get poked down or are low on mana. It also ups your push potential (because you spend more time in lane), and allows you to surprise roaming mids with a TP countergank, or just TP ganking to get fed since you can't get fed in lane. Even if there are no good wards in the lane you want to gank, you can TP to your ult range (even on a minion behind your turret) and add some nice damage to a teammate's all-in. Barrier instead of heal or ignite can also save your life against burst champs, and might bait them into a suicidal tower dive (not being halved by ignite is why I sometimes favor barrier over heal).

Last thing is that frost queen's is super OP on Xerath. The slow/reveal makes your skillshots easy to land, and the mana regen rivals Athene's. The ghosts can also save your life by preventing people jumping on you, or at the very least making them much less likely to escape from a turret/teammate if they happen to get you. I'm not sure how good it will be after season 6 nerfs to it, but if you've never tried it on Xerath I think it's worth a couple games to see if you like it.

Sorry about the length, I meant to write 2 paragraphs but kept having more ideas lol. Hope this is at least somewhat helpful to you or anyone else that reads the comments. GLHF on the rift!