Sounds dangerous... I'm in!

Hello everyone, and welcome to my first guide. I've been playing ARAM for the past... Few weeks to a little over a month, daily, now, and what with swapping champions or rerolling, I've played Ezreal enough in ARAM to have experience on his strengths and weaknesses.

Being that Ezreal is as he is, known for his global ult that travels from one end of the map to the other (and never stops), his attack speed steroid that is his passive, and his blinking ability that can let him escape certain death most of the time (double this with Flash and you are not catching that sucker), he's pretty easy to play.

And yet, difficult to master.

I won't call myself an expert at him, but I'm doing fairly well with Ezreal and I adore playing him. He's the first champion I saved for, the first one I played for days on end without using anyone else. I absolutely adore his original lore (the new one is pretty stupid, in my honest opinion) and all the tiny nuances about his personality and character you get from just his in-game quotes, his official trivia, and from his "An Ancient Mystery in Runeterra" event outside of the game and in the Runeterran lore.

But enough about that.

Ezreal is also a hybrid champion. You can build him strictly AP and max out the damage output of W, E, and R, or build him strictly AD and rely simply on Q and a tiny bit of damage from R. However, the Hybrid build (both AD and AP) is usually the best, maximizing all damage outputs. This guide... Is different. While this guide is strictly AP, it's for ARAM, or the Howling Abyss.

Meaning Summoner's Rift rules? They don't apply.

Oh, I was so busy talking about this that I forgot to introduce myself! My name is Litwick, I'm a level 20 Piltover-aligned (I blame Ezreal) Summoner with the IGN stardust shower, and I'm still new to making guides, as this is my first. So, without further ado... Let's get started!

Who needs a map!?

I keep saying it, but what exactly is ARAM?

Well, I put it as "A Random *** Match" - that's essentially what it is. According to Riot, it stands for "All Random All Mid" - one lane, mid only, and five random champions versus another five. You start out with 1475 gold, and 3 skill points (since you start as a level 3 champion).

The champions it chooses from are the ones you own, and the ones that are free for the week. For example, I own 12. That means, out of 22 (including the 10 freebies each week), I have a 1/22 chance of getting Ezreal. This chance triples if my friend and girlfriend also go into queue with me - they both own Ezreal, and may or may not switch with me if they can.

Regardless, the chance is still extremely slim, and based purely on the luck of the draw (or reroll).

A reroll is... A bit odder to explain. Each ARAM, you gain points. These points go toward a reroll. Every 250 points, you get one reroll. You can only carry two rerolls, however, and these points are only earned from ARAM. Use them wisely.

A lot of Summoner's Rift, Crystal Scar, and Twisted Treeline items won't work in the Howling Abyss, the map for ARAM. That's why Rift / Scar / Treeline rules don't apply here. Expect to die... A lot.

Sadly, there's no recall, and no way to prevent death except for a healer on your team, pots, and the four health packs on the right hand side of the map. When you're dead or in base, those are your only shopping opportunities. Once you leave, you can't shop again until you're dead. Make use of your time being dead as a shopping opportunity so you can throw yourself back into the game for your team ASAP.

For straight / global ults, like Ezreal's Trueshot Barrage, Ashe's Enchanted Crystal Arrow, and Jinx's Super Mega Death Rocket!, this map is killer. Your enemy team will focus you, if they're smart. Be careful if you're being focused. With Ezreal, simply pop your Flash and, if necessary, Arcane Shift away.

That's really the basics of ARAM that I can spew off the top of my head.

You belong in a museum!

Let's start with his explaining his passive, then his skills. Hopefully this will make you understand exactly how Ezreal's skills work.

Summoner Spells: Ignite & Flash

Flash: This is explained in the explanation of E (Arcane Shift).
Ignite: Get this to help finish off a kill, or do some damage to a champ to butter them up for your R or other skills. Unless they have Cleanse, you're getting that kill.

Passive: Rising Spell Force

Hitting a target with any of Ezreal's abilities increases his own attack speed by 10%. This effect lasts for 6 seconds and stacks up to 5 times.

But what exactly does this mean? Well, if you use any abilities, you add insane attack speed to your basics. While Ezreal's hit-trade with autos is sorely lacking, this passive more than double makes up for it. Hit all five champions with R and voila - an extra 50% attack speed right there. This passive is nicknamed an attack speed steroid because it stacks. If it didn't stack... It wouldn't even be worth having, and it'd be moreso forced on you.

Q: Mystic Shot

Ezreal fires a bolt of energy in a line that will deal physical damage and apply on-hit effects to the first enemy it hits. If it strikes an enemy unit, all of Ezreal's cooldowns will be reduced by 1 second.

Projectile Speed: 2000
Damage: 35 / 55 / 75 / 95 / 115 (+ 110% AD) (+ 40% AP)
Range: 1150
Mana Cost: 28 / 31 / 34 / 37 / 40 Mana
Cooldown: 6 / 5.5 / 5 / 4.5 / 4 seconds

By time it's at the 115 damage at Rank 5, it deals enough damage to start a 1v1 or assist in a team fight - or even lock down a kill. The range is fairly decent if aimed correctly and timed just right. However, being it is the only truly attack damage skill in the bunch, it's not worth it to stack AD items just for this. But more on the actual build later.

Mystic Shot is a colliding linear skill shot.
Mystic Shot does not apply spell effects.
Mystic Shot will apply on-hit effects as a ranged attack, including life steal, Sheen, and the reduced slow from Frozen Mallet.
Mystic Shot cannot critically strike.
Mystic Shot will not affect structures.
Mystic Shot's damage will be mitigated if the attack is dodged, parried, blocked or misses.
Spell shields will block the damage.
This ability is considered to be a projectile for Unbreakable and Wind Wall.
Mystic Shot's inbuilt cooldown reduction will also apply to itself. With maximum cooldown reduction, it will have a cooldown of 2.4 seconds, or 1.4 seconds when striking a target.

W: Essence Flux

Ezreal fires a wave of energy in a line. Any enemy champions it passes through are dealt magic damage, while any allied champions it travels through have their attack speed increased for 5 seconds.

Damage: 70 / 115 / 160 / 205 / 250 (+ 80% AP)
Attack Speed Granted: 20 / 25 / 30 / 35 / 40%
Range: 1000
Mana Cost: 50 / 60 / 70 / 80 / 90 Mana
Cooldown: 9 seconds

Honestly... I don't like this skill too much. It's useful for assisting allies, but all in all, all it really does is just give you a stack of Rising Spell Force. The skill's utterly useless otherwise, so I leave it to max out last, all the time. According to Riot, by blinking in (with Arcane Shift) the attack speed help applies to you... Except it's almost impossible to time it correctly. Don't bother trying, just thank yourself for your passive. Its high mana cost early game also makes it more of a 'last resort assistance' type thing.

Essence Flux is a pass-through linear skill shot.
Applies spell effects as an area of effect ability.
Spell vamp is reduced to one-third effectiveness.
Rylai's Crystal Scepter will apply a 15% slow.
Magic damage will be mitigated by magic shields.
Spell shields will block the damage. Allied spell shields are not affected.
This ability is considered to be a projectile for Unbreakable and Wind Wall.
Essence Flux does not affect minions or monsters it passes through in any way.

E: Arcane Shift

Ezreal instantly teleports to a nearby target location and fires a homing bolt at the nearest enemy unit within 750 range, dealing magic damage to it.

Damage: 75 / 125 / 175 / 225 / 275 (+ 75% AP)
Range: 475
Mana Cost: 90 Mana
Cooldown: 19 / 17 / 15 / 13 / 11 seconds

Aa, our blink! This is a good escape mechanism, or even a good positioning tool. The homing bolt is fairly weak, thus I really suggest using it as, almost exclusively, an escape tool. It's also why I recommend Flash as a Summoner Spell - if you screw up Arcane Shift, Flash is your back up to get you out of your mistake. Blow both and you're screwed. Cooldown Reduction, or CDR, is of the essence when it comes to this skill.

Arcane Shift is a ground targeted blink with an autotargeted projectile component.
Applies spell effects as a single target ability.
Spell vamp is fully applied.
Rylai's Crystal Scepter will apply a 35% slow.
Magic damage will be mitigated by magic shields.
Spell shields will block the damage.
This ability is considered to be a projectile for Unbreakable and Wind Wall.
Arcane Shift's cast time cannot be interrupted by anything other than Ezreal's own death. He will still suffer any crowd control effects, duration permitting, after it ends.
Arcane Shift's homing projectile can target and hit stealthed units.

R: Trueshot Barrage

After gathering energy for 1 second, Ezreal fires a powerful, broad energy missile that travels in a line across the whole map dealing magic damage to each enemy unit it passes through. It will deal 10% less damage for each subsequent target hit, down to a minimum of 30% damage dealt.

Maximum Damage: 350 / 500 / 650 (+ 100% Bonus AD) (+ 90% AP)
Minimum Damage: 105 / 150 / 195 (+ 30% Bonus AD) (+ 27% AP)
Projectile Speed: 2000
Range: Global
Mana Cost: 100 Mana
Cooldown: 80

This skill is why you need CDR out the ***. With the combination of 40% CDR + Mystic Shot's passive CDR on-hit effect, you can lower the cooldown to about 60 seconds and get it back within 30, leading to ultimate spam (provided you've got the mana). However, while I said the "tiny" bit of AD goes to this skill as compared to Mystic Shot, it does 100% of all bonus AD. The tiniest smidge of bonus AD will do the trick, which is why for ARAM I recommend AP. Especially if the other team is building Armor, assuming you're going ADC instead of APC. Surprise surprise~ AP Ezreal is in their mist instead of AD! They'll have a difficult time scrambling to fix their mistake without selling everything and risking many problems as a tank.

Trueshot Barrage is a pass-through linear skill shot.
Applies spell effects as an area of effect ability.
Spell vamp is reduced to one-third effectiveness.
Rylai's Crystal Scepter will apply a 15% slow.
Magic damage will be mitigated by magic shields.
Spell shields will block the damage.
This ability is considered to be a projectile for Unbreakable and Wind Wall.
Trueshot Barrage's cast time cannot be interrupted by anything other than Ezreal's own death. He will still suffer any crowd control effects, duration permitting, after it ends.
If Ezreal is moved by knockbacks or pulls such as Rocket Grab mid-cast, the projectile will still fire from Ezreal's original position at the time of casting.
Trueshot Barrage's projectile grants sight in a small radius around its current location.

Time to get our hands dirty.

Now that we've talked about skills and cooldown reduction, as well as what ARAM is and why I'm building this guide, let's get to the important stuff!

Color Coordination:

Boots
Mana pot
Health pot
Gold Income
Ability Power item
Attack Damage item
Hybrid item

Starters

You're going to want Boots of Speed, a Nomad's Medallion, and 2 health + 2 mana pots. ARAM gives you 1475 starting gold, unlike the Rift's 475 starting gold.

Ezreal's difficult to farm with, making the Nomad's Medallion an extremely useful gold income tool. Ancient Coin is less cost heavy, but doesn't add the extra gold in per 10 seconds. That's what really racks up your gold income. Plus, it adds some mana regeneration (albeit super weak), making this a little easier to get your mana back early game. This is especially useful for ARAM, where spamming skills as much as possible is pretty much a must.

Essentials

Hopefully you follow through with this little bit of advice: try not to die until around, or at just about, 4000 gold. It's fairly easy, since you start as level 3 in ARAM and thus, can have one point in Q, one in W, and one in E. E is your escape. Use it. If you did, you grabbed two essential items right off the bat...

Lich Bane and Ionian Boots of Lucidity.

Lich Bane gives a movement speed multiplier, a passive (Spellblade), and extra mana + the AP you need? Great starting item, honestly.

Spellblade: After using an ability, your next basic attack deals bonus magic damage equal to 75% of your base AD + 50% of your Ability Power (2 second cooldown).

Ionian Boots of Lucidity offer 15% of your much needed CDR and the standard +45 Movement Speed. I don't recommend any kind of Enchantment unless using these boots on the Rift, and then it'd be Alacrity. Otherwise, Enchantments on boots are useless in ARAM, in my opinion.

After your second death, be it throwing yourself into the fray for a 'suicide' or being killed by a stupid mistake (own up - even pros can make dumb mistakes, we're all human!) then you should either have enough to get (straight up), or start building, your Trinity Force.

Yes, I said it. Trinity Force.

I know I said no AD items, but this is where that tiny smidge of AD you need comes into play. Sure, it has the same passive as Lich Bane, but it has another passive: Rage.

Rage: Basic attacks grant 20 Movement Speed for 2 seconds. Kills grant 60 Movement Speed instead. This Movement Speed bonus is halved for ranged champions.

10 Movement Speed for a basic attack, and 30 for a kill? Considering Ezreal's ranged, plus his E + Flash + 45 Move Speed from the boots... This is a perfect compliment. Not to mention the 8% Move Speed multiplier. You can get in and out of team fights quickly and help your team much, much faster than before.

While I put the Rabadon's Deathcap high into essentials, I prefer it to be more of an "optional" essential compared to Luden's Echo. Both give good burst, but the Echo gives 7% extra Move Speed + the burst. Feel free to swap the Lich Bane for the Deathcap if you prefer procing both Spellblade and Rage from the Trinity Force instead.

Offensives

This is where you're going for burst damage or extra AP for purely melting faces.

This is when you want the Luden's Echo / Deathcap (depending on your choice) and the Nashor's Tooth / Void Staff / Morellonomicon.

The Tooth provides more Attack Speed while the Staff gives magic penetration! Something covered just a little in your Runes. Definitely have a Void Staff, and use either the Tooth or Morellonomicon compared to your own personal taste. I recommend either, so that's not my choice to tell you which is better.

Defensives

And this is where death comes into play. After completing most of your offensive build, you need health, armor, magic resist... Anything to keep you alive longer. Your ult is one of the strongest in the games, and since it's global, you can fire it right from your base and potentially snipe out some champions or help lock down a kill for an ally. But if you're in the fray, you're going to be targeted if the enemy team is smart.

The targeting can lead to your death pretty fast, since Ezreal's a squishy marksman / mage combo. However, hopefully these items can help you if used correctly.

I really recommend the Rylai's Crystal Scepter as your number one defensive. 400+ Health and another +100 AP? Sweet! Not to mention it's unnamed passive.

Passive: Your spell damage will slow the target's movement speed by 35% for 1.5 seconds (15% for multi-target spells, damage over time spells and spells with a cooldown time below 3 seconds).

As a second choice, I'm partial to either Athene's Unholy Grail, the Abyssal Scepter, or the Rod of Ages.

The Rod stacks every minute with extra health and mana, not to mention AP, and its passive is pretty cool.

Valor's Reward: On leveling up, restores 150 Health and 200 Mana over 8 seconds.

The Scepter ruins your enemies' magic resist within the range, making it similar to magic penetration in the sense that you can land more magic damage.

The Unholy Grail is more CDR on top of 100% Base Mana regeneration, more AP, and a tad bit of magic resist. On top of its two passives, of course.

Passive: Restores 30% of your maximum Mana on kill or assist.
Mana Font: Restores 2% of missing mana every 5 seconds (Does not stack with Chalice of Harmony.)

Again, flavor these to your will.

Recommended Six Part Build

By the end, you should've sold the Medallion to pay for your last item / have a slot for it. By now you'd be ending killing sprees, shutting down enemies, and earning gold from that. Not to mention the tower gold bonus. My recommendation is:

Ionian Boots of Lucidity > Trinity Force > Luden's Echo > Void Staff > Nashor's Tooth or Athene's Unholy Grail > Rylai's Crystal Scepter or Rod of Ages.

No time to waste!

As you should expect, Ezreal's... Not that hard. Ezreal's not perfect, but he's not the most broken. However, his skill cap is plenty high for an easy to play champion. This should've been said earlier, but I'll say it now.

PROS:
- Poking + Kiting
- High burst potential
- Global range on ult
- Escape with E

CONS:
- Difficult farming regardless of map
- Slow moving when most needed
- One of the squishiest Marskmen
- W is almost completely useless for a pretty steep early game Mana cost

Plenty of champions can out-trade him in even auto attacks, since his auto is really weak. Ezreal's Q is good for poking, seeing as in ARAM, kiting is almost useless. W works more for giving 5 seconds of bonus attack speed for your allies. E is an escape mechanism along with Flash. R is your burst + snipe.

Ezreal's definitely a fine choice for ARAM if used correctly. A few closing tips and tricks, however:

Use your W on all allies possible. Just do it. It helps them and procs your passive for a short time. Don't use it much early game.
Abuse Q as much as possible. It lowers your other cooldowns and applies on-hit affects! Useful.
R. Use it from base after revival. You can weaken enemy champs and maybe, if lucky, snipe a few of them (extreme luck required for a penta snipe).
E is for Escape! Use it as such, the homing bolt's weak.
Don't E into the fray... It's really stupid.
Use your Q to poke under turret, then E away before the turret can hit you.
Use E to get close to a health pot, to use it or steal it from the enemy. Health pots give mana and health back, so they're more useful than actual pots!
Lastly, have fun. Don't think your kill number should determine your in game attitude. Ignore kill stealers and morons, and just have fun and do your best. That's all anyone's asking of you!

I hope you enjoy this guide and remember, fellow Summoners:

Light does not equate to good, as Dark does not equate to Evil.

You choose your own path, and choose Light or Dark as you see fit.

You are your own person: own it.

See you on the bridge over the Abyss, Summoners! I hope this helped in any way!