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Recommended Items
Spells:
Flash
Teleport
Items
Ability Order
Arcane Mastery (PASSIVE)
Ryze Passive Ability
Threats & Synergies
Katarina
Katarina is a monster versus Ryze. Ryze's early game isn't strong enough to bully her. He isn't mobile enough to chase after her if she roams. He can't stop her from channeling her ultimate. Katarina dances circles around Ryze for most of the game.
Introduction
Passive (Old): Ryze's spellcasts reduce his cooldowns by 1 second.
Passive (New):

How does this change things? Ryze no longer deals consistent damage. His damage comes in spikes when his passive activates. When his passive triggers his damage and survivability spike briefly. This creates windows of opportunity for Ryze to become very powerful.
Q (Old): Targeted ability costing 60 mana and dealing 55/75/95/115/135 (+40% AP) (+6.5% max mana)
Q (New):

How does this change things? First and foremost--


W:

Not much has changed here. The base damage was reduced at higher levels while the AP and mana ratio were both reduced. The skill is weaker in general but still fulfills the same role. With the hugely powerful burst windows provided by

E (Old): Targeted skill dealing 50/70/90/110/130 (+35% AP) (+1% max mana) damage, reducing the target's magic resist by 12/15/18/21/24% and bouncing around hitting additional nearby targets.
E (New):

How does this change things? It changes everything. This skill is Ryze's biggest nuke and is the sole reason I consider him an AP hypercarry. The theoretical maximum damage on this skill is in the same ballpark as an ultimate skill and it has an absolutely tiny cooldown both outside and inside the window of

R (Old): Active: For 5/6/7 seconds Ryze gains some movement speed, spell vamp, and his spells deal 50% splash damage.
R (New):

How does this change things? This spell dictates Ryze's power spikes better than his items do. The increased cooldown reduction and duration on


Here is the short version of the changes:
Passive: Now Ryze occasionally gains a small mana shield and a huge burst of cooldown reduction upon casting spells.
Q: Is now a skill shot.
W: Is now slightly weaker.
E: Now deals even more maximum damage and can more reliably deal the maximum amount of damage.
R: Now provides a huge amount of passive power and is available more often in the lategame.
General: Damage from AP increased across the board. Damage from mana seems reduced. It's more optimal to build offensive than defensive.
Pros: + Scales incredibly well. + Lanes well versus melee champions. + Does a surprising amount of damage. + When you finally kill people you feel like Zeus. |
Cons:
- Middling range. - Loses lanes to most ranged champions. - Easy to burst down. - Very susceptible to crowd control. - Not very impactful early in the game. |
Ryze used to be a short range bruiser mage of sorts. His high defense and noteworthy damage made him a resilient frontline damage dealer that just so happened to launch lightning like some kind of wizard.
Now Ryze is a short range nuke with impressive scaling into the lategame. Each rank of

What does this mean? It means Ryze isn't a great bruiser any longer. He can't take a lot of punishment. It means Ryze deals incredible damage during the windows of opportunity inside of

Ryze now has a weak early game, a mediocre early game (even if you got plenty of farm), and an insane late game. Ryze is good to pick against melee champions and champions that want to farm. Ranged lane bullies, hard pushers, and roamers are probably some of the worst choices to lane against. Pick Ryze for his incredibly strong lategame power and his ability to smoothly lane against most melee champions. I believe this makes him more suited to top lane than mid lane.
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Other spells are generally unviable and should not be taken.












In order to lane successfully you'll want to focus on farming and stacking your



The secret to winning trades and fights with Ryze:





Sometimes you have to trade with the opponent in lane and even though you're not particularly strong early in the game there will be times where Ryze can dish out some damage. If you want to initiate a trade you probably want 2-4 stacks on






Additionally, I recommend timing






Team fights in close quarters will be your location of optimal power because



Your goal is to ultimately trigger



First and foremost is your shield from


Because of your lategame power it might be prudent to buy a


P.S. Ryze is more fun if you pretend you're one of those LARPer types of people and scream "LIGHTNING BOLT!" at the top of your lungs every time you fire

Now go forth and drop a toaster in the enemy team's bathtub.
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