Hello guys! The name's Ferrovial (Level 30, Eu Nordic and East, Greece) and some of you may already know me from the paradigm shift I lead the community to, through my Teemo build. Now I am here again, with a build for one of the most underplayed characters in the game, Ezreal. But why did I decide to write a guide on Ezreal? Ezreal has been (and is) my main since level 20 (aka A Long Time Now™). Lately I saw the guides here on mobafire, and I just happen to disagree with them all. Since people seem to like the way I play some characters, I decided to share my strategy with him. Follow me on this majestic trip of ours and you will start to see success with Ezreal in no time.

Before we start take a look at this video here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tn5YZ2umScM Don't be shy, it's just a song. So long as you don't like it, just don't listen to it.

Diary:

05/09/2011 Guide Created
05/05/2011 Changed summoner spells according to Khazem's advice
07/09/2011 Added further explanation on armor penetration.

To Do:

• Many things.

Lore:
Ezreal was born with the gift of magic flowing through his veins. Ezreal, however, was also born with a much stronger sense of wanderlust. Put into school to become a skilled techmaturgist, Ezreal quickly became bored with magical studies. By the time the boy genius was eight years old, he had fully mapped out the underground tunnels of Piltover. The quality of his work was so great that the government of Piltover purchased his maps and salaried his services as Piltover's Grandmaster Explorer. This sealed the deal on Ezreal's path in life - he would eschew the arcane arts in favor of archaeology. Since then, countless of Ezreal's adventures have been written about as romanticized stories.
One of Ezreal's latest adventures, however, has brought him face-to-face with his other legacy - his latent magical power. While exploring the pyramids of Shurima Desert, Ezreal uncovered an amulet of incredible power. Aside from the sheer size of the amulet (it was made for a being easily twice Ezreal's size), it allows the wielder to control and shape magical energy - provided a source of magic is in the vicinity. This allowed Ezreal to tap into his natural talent for magic without having to put any serious effort into it - a big win for the Prodigal Explorer. The drawback is that for some unknown reason, the amulet is attuned with summoning magic. Without warning, Ezreal may find himself acting as a champion for, as he puts it, "a summoner hell-bent on resolving some irrelevant world-shattering League conflict." Still, Ezreal feels being summoned into a Field of Justice on occasion is a small price to pay.

"There's little time to study musty tomes when you're busy crawling around where the musty tomes originally came from." –- Ezreal

Quotes

Upon selection
"Time for a true display of skill!"

Movement/attacking
"Agreed!"
"Careful!"
"Got it!"
"I'll handle it!"
"It's all skill!"
"Know your environment."
"No problem!"
"No time to waste!"
"Over here!"
"Sounds dangerous... I'm in!"
"This way!"
"Time to get our hands dirty."
"Time to strike!"
"Who needs a map?!"

Taunt
"You belong in a museum!"

Joke
"Noxians... I hate those guys..."

Basic Information:

Cost: 6300 ip, 975 rp, carry, ranged, epic™

Pros

• Very effective at all stages of the game
• Very exciting and fun to play with
• Has an epic™ Ulti
• Has some of the best quotes in the entire game
• His style is unique.
• Did I mention that his style is unique?...And epic™?

Cons

• He requires more than average skill to play efficiently with him
• Focused
• His difficulty is high, for someone that is not good with skillshots
• Only optimal in certain team compositions
• His damage is player-skill reliant.

9x Greater Mark of Desolation

Armor Penetration (excitement sounds, heard from the background). No really armor penetration is the hot babe in the party. Literally, it's all you could wish for. It helps you in multiple ways. First of all, Mystic Shot is heavily dependant on armor penetration. More than that, your auto attacks, especially at the beginning of the game are greatly buffed by armor penetration. It helps you attack for more than your attack damage states, and more than that, it will help you get that first blood, or (more frequently) last hit better. Get them.

9x Greater Seal of Replenishment

Ezreal is not that mana dependent. Not if you play him as an attack damage carry. His Mystic Shot costs 30 mana at the beginning of the match, and you start with 280 mana. These seals will allow you to have all the mana regen you want to sustain harassing or even last hitting with it.

9x Greater Glyph of Scaling Cooldown Reduction

Ezreal is dependent on his skills to deliver damage, namely his Mystic Shot. Getting those runes will allow you to get the most out of cooldown reduction to allow you to get the most out your Prodigal Explorer, especially at later levels.

3x Greater Quintessence of Desolation

Have I ever told you about the importance...of armor penetration?

Standard masteries, for attack damage carries. A little bit different, but I will summarise what you get, and why:

You get:

10 ability power at level 18. A little bit extra damage for your skills. Nice one.
2% crit chance. Nothing special here.
3% cooldown reduction. Yeah baby
15% magic penetration. A big boost of damage for all your skills save your Mystic Shot.
4% extra attack speed. Negligible but why not?
6 armor penetration. More armor penetration. Words can not describe my excitement right now.
Damage done to minions increased by 4. Good for last hitting.
Attack damage increased by 3. Moar damage. Rawr!
All damage done by your Ez increased by 4%. I am going to the toilet to ***, brb...
6 more armor and magic resistance. More defences. Enemies are now easier to handle, especially at early levels.

• Your Mystic Shot (Q) is the core of your damage, but every time you level it up, you only gain 20 more damage, so do not worry about maxing it A.S.A.P. It's actually worth noting that it applies on-hit effects.
• Your Essence Flux (W) is some nice piece o' damage, however it's secondary effect, that of the attack speed buff and debuff (buff for your allies, debuff for your enemies) of 40% at the last rank is all you want to become a strong duelist, and something more of a plain carry. This single debuff and buff, could change the outcome of a team fight. No honestly, having your melee ad carries hit 40% faster and the enemy carries hit 40% slower is bigger than I can stress. Even at it's first rank, wih 20% slow buff and debuff, it could make you a noticeable dueler and could help you prevail over other ad carries on a 1v1.
• Your Arcane Shift deals about the same damage as Essence Flux, however you only use it for defensive purposes. If you use it for offensive purposes, you need to have your head checked. No seriously now, do not charge in a team fight with this, as ezreal has a tendency to be focused. You will need this along with Flash to escape that Akali, so use this skill wise.
• Your Trueshot Barrage is your signature ability. It's a global missile that deals some hefty damage, and can be used to snipe kills, help other lanes, finish runners or I-do-not-even-know-what-else. Just one little note: It is always better to use this at the beginning of the team fight, rather than the end. IF YOU SEE THE ENEMIES LINED UP, DO IT. Even if not everyone is lined up. HAVING YOUR TEAM START A TEAM FIGHT WITH THE ENEMIES HAVING LOST ABOUT 20% OF THEIR HEALTH IS HHHHHUUUUGGGGEEEEE

I had seen it once tried it and liked it. Now I roll with those too.


Flash is all Ezreal as a boy asked Santa Klaus for. This doubled with your Arcane Shift makes you evolve (like a pokemon) from an Ezreal to an Escape Artist Ezreal. In mere seconds.



In my honest opinion your tanks/assasins/supports should get this. However this could make you a strong dueler, as it might help you win a 1v1 fight, or even survive it, or it might also help you survive in solo queue against good anticarries that your team can not stop. Overall a good spell

Now if you really do not want the above, some alternatives:


There are two things that would kill Ezreal. His Girlfriend and crowd control. His girlfriend could kill him, by hugging him until he is dead. What?!?! He doesn't have a girlfriend? Well, in that case, we still have crowd control. Words can not describe the lols you are gonna throw out, when the enemies unload all your cc's on you, whilst you activate cleanse and sing "Set me free, Set me Free, Y-E-A-H".



Now this may be the "noob" spell, but ezreal as all carries, he is squishy. New players that try him out, might find this usefull. If you are not a new player, please do not get heal. There are better alternatives.



I wouldn't recommend this, but if you really feel like you need it, or the enemy has some solid healers like Soraka or Nidalle, be sure to get it.



Do not make the mistake of saying: "WOW, Clarity, OMG NOOB". I was like that too, when I first saw that. After some fooling around with it. I noticed that it is surprisingly useful. Real story. For instance, you get to poke your lane enemy, with only a few of your mana left, and suddenly a team fight between 3 people of your team, and 3 of the enemy starts in the river. Normally you wouldn't be too useful for your team, if you were usefull at all, but thanx to Clarity you are back in action.

TL:DR
Get it. It's not like you are going to constantly have in on cooldown, but it's gonna be there for when you really need it.




Ghost is usually there to enhance the mobility of some characters. However Ezreal is already too mobile, so you had better get something else. A combination of boots and Trinity Force is making Ezreal mobile enough to need something more (you have about 420 movement speed, which for a carry is more than enough imo)/

The skill that this build is revolving around. It goes without saying that you are gonna use it heavily. Here is some interesting information about it though.

• Its base damage at rank 5 is 115
• It gets 1 point of damage per 1 attack damage and 0.2 points of damage per 1 ability power
• It can NOT crit
• It applies on hit effects.
• If you hit someone (or something) with it, all your other cooldowns are reduced by 1 (including your ulti, Trueshot Barrage)
• It has a range of 1000
• Its mana cost is very low, starting at 30 mana at rank 1 , and scaling to 50 at rank 5.
• It deals physical damage
• Its damage gets punished by armor, so be sure to get as much armor penetration as possible
• As a skillshot, it is relatively fast

Here is a list of the on-hit effects it applies:

• Malady
• Wit's End
• Madred's Bloodrazor
• Sheen
• Phage
• Trinity Force
• Frozen Mallet
• Executioner's Calling
• Guinsoo's Rageblade
• Madred's Razors
• Sword of the Divine
• Black Cleaver
• Tiamat
• Wriggle's Lantern

Ezreal's passive, Rising Spell Force is also worth noting. For those of you that do not know how it works, it is simple. Each time Ezreal's spells hit a target, he gets one stack of his passive. His passive, increases his attack speed by 10% for 6 seconds, and can stack up to a maximum of 5 times, totaling 50% extra attack speed, which is BIG.

Now, ways to stack passive:

• His Mystic Shot (q) applies one stack every time it hits an enemy
• His Essence Flux (w) applies one stack for every ally buffed and every enemy debuffed up to a maximum of 5 stacks
• His Arcane Shift (e) applies one stack every time, provided that it hits an enemy
• His Trueshot Barrage (ulti) provides a number of stacks equal to the amount of enemies hit, up to a maximum of 5.

Nice item to start with. It's 100 health, 10 damage and some measly lifesteal, all in one package. Nothing too notable here, the 100 health are a nice boost to your early survivability, and the extra 10 damage is a nice boost to your auto attacks, as well as Mystic Shot.



Very good boots, it gives you that early cooldown reduction that is necessary to Ezreal. Cooldown reduction might mean that you win a 1v1, simply by spamming Mystic Shot more, being more difficult to gank, due to Arcane Shift having a lesser cooldown, or even having more team utility by having better uptime on your Essence Flux buff and debuff. Overall the best boots choice for Ezreal imo.



Overall the best item on Ezreal. Start building it by getting Sheen first, so that you get some extra mana to sustain you in lane. After it get Zeal so that you get some attack speed and movement speed, and finish it by building Phage which will give you some health, attack damage and a slow. Overall this item gives you a lot of benefits, listed below:

• 30 ability power and 30 attack damage (very nice boost, especially early game)
• 30% attack speed (nice)
• 15% critical strike chance (not something epic, as you do not rely on crits)
• 12% movement speed (nothing to say here, it's very nice)
• 250 health and mana
• After you use an ability you get your next auto attack to hit for 150% extra damage. Very nice synergy with Mystic Shot
• 25% chance to slow the enemy

Did I ever tell you it's the best item on Ezreal?



After Trinity Force, get a B.F. Sword and start building towards the Black Cleaver. It's benefits are HUGE, you get 55 attack damage, to boost both your auto attack damage, and your Mystic Shot, 30% extra attack speed, which synergizes well with your passive, and a on-hit effect (this means that one stack of it is applied by Mystic Shot) which allows you to shred the armor of your opponents by 15 per stack, stacking 3 times. This essentially is armor penetration (more of it, baby!). But it's unique, in the sense that, it is also shared with other members of your team. This item is 99% of the times prefered over Last Whisper.

WARNING: After you get this item your opponents will usually rest in pieces.



This is one hell of an item. This lil o' beauty gives you 60 attack damage and 15% lifesteal initially, and after you kill creeps and/or champions (that means you deliver the last hit), you get 1 attack damage and 0.25% lifesteal, capping at +40 attack damage, and +10 lifesteal, allowing this item to get you a total 100 attack damage and 25% lifesteal. These amounts are of tremmendous importance to Ezreal as 100 attack damage is really big for both your auto-attacks and your Mystic Shot, not to mention that 25% lifesteal could literally be the difference between life and death at a team fight, or allow you to refresh your hp after a team fight while clearing a creep wave.



Initially I was not a fan of this item on Ezreal. But after toying around with some builds, and finally settled on this, I got to see that this item is very good, because you already have a nice attack speed with Trinity Force, Black Cleaver and Rising Spell Force. Now add to this 40% extra attack speed with Madred's and you should be around 2 to 2.2 attacks per second. This means that Madred's could shine at literally destroying any target, as save the punishment that your Mystic Shot delivers (which, needless to say, applies the madred's effect once) you get to hit anywhere from another 80-140 damage on your basic auto attacks. But we are not on the best part of it yet. The beauty of this extra damage, is that it is MAGIC meaning that enemies who start to build armor against you will surely develop an aneurysm once they see that you sport around with this beauty. But it's benefits do not end here. All in all, apart from the on-hit effect it offers you:

• 30 attack damage (more of it?!!?!?)
• 40% extra attack speed (like wtf?!!?!?)
• 25 armor, which although may seem negligible, it's kinda big.

Although it's just one defensive item, a lot of people argue that it's the best ad carry defensive item out there. And who am I to disagree with that? It gives you a superb effect of nullifying the effect of a hostile spell against you every 45 seconds (which literally is the difference between life and death, even by preventing a stun, or stopping that LeBlanc or Annie nuke. Save this, it provides you with even more (375 to be honest) health and mana, and 50 more magic resistance. All in all, a great defensive item.

In case you didn't get Cleanse but the enemy team is cc heavy. Actually the only worthy source of tenacity in game imo.

When to build: Early game
Why to build: Enemy team is cc heavy.
What to replace: Ionian Boots of Lucidity.




Manamune is a special item, and I will provide you with a section with additional info on that particular item.



This build may seem, and actually is promising. However to actually get to the point where you have it, you have to farm exceptionally well. Not everyone is a good farmer, knows how to farm, or has a lane enemy that allows him to do that. One solution would be to lane with a support character. Another solution would be to get wriggle's lantern. This item will allow you to have a 20% chance to hit minions for 500 bonus magic damage, and actually get the minion kill, and the gold. In reality it procs almost always, and save that, you get some other neat bonuses like some armor, lifesteal and some attack damage to make you last in the lane longer (see what I did there?). Not to mention the cool ward you get. Be sure to sell this item after you have farmed well.

When to build: Early game
Why to build: Inability to farm well.
What to replace: Nothing. Be sure to sell this item later.



This extra cool item, nearly made it in my core build. Why not? Well it's just that I wanted to specialise in attack damage items more. Now for those that would like to get this item, it offers:

• 60 attack damage. Cool. As much as Bloodthirster unfarmed.
• 75 ability power. Gives that extra punch to your Essence Flux, Arcane Shift, and Trueshot Barrage
• 20% lifesteal and spell vamp. Holy smokes. That is just 5% less lifesteal than the fully farmed Bloodthirster and 20% spell vamp to help you get the most out of your other spells, survivability wise.
• An active effect that deals 300 damage (magic) and slows the target by 50% for 3 seconds with a range of about 700 units.

Now for those of you that wonder why not get this instead of Bloodthirster is that Bloodthirster revolves around your Mystic Shot and actually empowers it more than the Hextech Gunblade does. However those of you wanting the extra ability power and the extra spellvamp, feel free to build it.

When to build: Late game
Why to build: Need some more ability power, and need some spellvamp.
What to replace: Bloodthirster.




Now there is some new fashion in higher elo games, (I am not high elo myself, just seen it) to get this item as a defensive item. Before everyone goes omg, wtf! let me tell you that I tested it and it's epic. Fully farmed this item offers you 1370 (920 + 450) more health and about 45 health per 5 seconds regenerated (30 + 15). However from the core build itself, the calculator here on mobafire tells me that you have about 2400 health. Why you would want more is beyond me (if you get this, you will wander around with about 3.7k health), I can just presume that it would allow you to not get killed even by a burst so heavy such as LeBlanc's.

When to build: Late Game
Why to build: To have some epic health points, and some good health regen, synergizing well with your lifesteal.
What to replace: Banshee's Veil

Manamune. A lot of (digital) ink has been wasted arguing about this item. While it is usefull, it's not a very good item. Think about for a minute. With Manamune whatever your mana, you get 2% of it added to your attack damage. Now this item alone gives you about 1350 when it is maxed out (350 at the beginning, 1000 after fully farmed). That is about 27 attack damage. With all your items you should be floating above the 2k mana limit. At 2k mana you should be sporting with 40 attack damage. Now you will not be exactly at 2000 mana, so you should have anywhere between 40 and 60 attack damage. But this is not a good amount of attack damage. Before you even start thinking that I am ******ed because Black Cleaver get's ya less or more, think about the mana stacking for a second. It's very unlikely that you are going to stack it fully until very, very, very late game. That means no more than about 30-40 attack damage for the greatest part of the match. This means that attack damage wise, this item is not worth it.

(P.S the above calculations are without taking into consideration the 20 attack damage the item gives you by default)

However, this item is all about mana. It gives you about 350 just because you invested 2110g in total buying it. That means you get even more mana to use with your abilities. Not even that but the mana stacking allows you to get even more mana in the long run. One extra effect of it, is the extra 7 mana restored per 5 seconds. All in all, this item is great when it comes to mana and mana regen.


What the fact Ferrovial! You got your wall of text crit me for double of my current health points, when I did not make any useful decision based on this. Do you finally recommend this item or not?

I do recommend this. But do not take me wrong here. I recommend this only for the player who gets to play Ezreal for the first time. Without this item, your mana is more than enough to get you going in team fights, or during laning phase. However, the new player, curious as he is, spamming all of his beautiful abilities, he needs it to understand the concept of Ezreal and understand when it is really useful to use his abilities, so that when he really rids of Manamune on his main build, he doesn't mana starve, and that the change is as smooth as it can be for him.

If you finally decide to get this item, try to last hit with your q Mystic Shot. Your mana (and mana regen) is more than enough to allow you to farm minions effectively enough.

Bad items:


Case you have not understand it yet, Critical Strike Chance and Critical Damage is bad for Ezreal. Especially Infinity Edge is bad for Ezreal and is a sign of a bad player. Really, just don't buy it. Even if the in-game shop offered it for free to you, do not even think about getting it. Why you may wonder so far? It's because Ezreal's damage is heavily dependent on his Mystic Shot. However Mystic Shot does not crit. It applies on-hit effects but it doesn't crit. Period. You might argue that Infinity Edge gives you a hella lot of damage. True. However it is the other two stats it gives you, the 20% crit chance and the 250% crit damage that you can not utilize. Seriously now, they may buff your auto attack, but they are just not worth the hassle. Especially when you pay 3800g for 80 attack damage when you could pay 3000g for 100 (hint: Bloodthirster)

After ranting about how IE is a bad item on Ezreal, time for me to prove that Phantom Dancer is a just as bad item on him. First of all it offers a nice chunk of attack speed. Which you will find on other gear. Secondly it has a hefty chunk of critical strike chance on it. We already have discussed about critical strike chance on ezreal. The only think that you could use on it is the movement speed. But for 2845g it's just not worth it don't you think?

I decided to write this section to clarify some things about Armor Penetration items (on Ezreal and other characters in general.



I have grown to like this item over time. It's very very good. Let me summarize what it offers to you:

• 55 attack damage
• 30% attack speed.
• Makes your auto attacks apply a debuff on the enemy target reducing his armor by 15, stacking up to 3 times, totaling 45 armor penetration.

An item that is also known to me as the Prince of the Tank killers (do not ask about the king, you already know who he is). Let me summarize what it offers:

• 40 attack damage
• 40% armor penetration

Now please let me compare these 2 items

These items are great. They both give you some great attack damage and some great armor penetration. However, it is clear that at least without taking armor penetration in mind, considering only the other stats, the Black Cleaver takes this fight by storm, offering you an extra 15 attack damage, and some hefty 30% attack speed. I will not go any further into discussing how usefull these extra stats are in the fear of going off-topic.

Instead I will focus on the Armor penetration these beauties offer.

---

15 armor penetration per stack
3 stacks total

45 armor penetration

---

40% armor penetration.

Now without taking runes into consideration (which offer you about 25 armor penetration right at the start of a match) and masteries (which offer you another 6 armor penetration). Their sole difference (and a trap to many people imo) is the % armor penetration that Last Whisper offers.

But what does the 40% armor penetration mean? Let's see the following case studies:

• Enemy with 60 armor: 24 armor reduced.
• Enemy with 80 armor: 32 armor reduced.
• Enemy with 100 armor: 40 armor reduced.
• Enemy with 120 armor: 48 armor reduced.
• Enemy with 150 armor: 60 armor reduced.
• Enemy with 200 armor: 80 armor reduced.
• Enemy with 300 armor: 120 armor reduced.

Now you can see that the armor penetration is dependent on the amount of armour the enemy has. Now you can simply understand that the Last Whisper is becoming better if the enemy team has a lot of characters like Blitzcrank or Irelia or more than 1 tanks get it. However as good as this item may seem, it is only better than Black Cleaver if there are many enemies with armor values higher than 100.

P.S Also note the fact that in the case studies section, I say that armor is reduced. THIS IS WRONG, in fact it is ignored.

However Black Cleaver is an item that offers a flat 45 armor penetration no matter how much armour the enemies have, but it takes some time to stack it. Most people who dislike this item use this as an arguement to prove that the Last Whisper is better. But in all honesty, using Mystic Shot and 2 auto attacks to fully stack the debuff would take about 1 second or a little more. The sole difference for them against an enemy with 100 armor, is the damage that the first Mystic Shot will do against him. Apart from that, for me Black Cleaver has one more advantage, one that kicks the Last Whisper's ***: The enemy's armor is reduced (not ignored) by 45! Yeah you heard it right. But what does this mean? It means that it allows your fellow attack damage characters to deal more damage to that specific enemy. What does this ultimately mean? That Black Cleaver offers you times more team utility.

The verdict

Get Black Cleaver if:

• Want some extra attack damage (although it's a little)
• Want some extra attack speed.
• The enemy team is made of squishies and/or 1 tank/bruiser.
• You are the only possible candidate for it, or you want to increase your team utility.

Get the Last Whisper if:

• The enemy team is made of super durable characters
• You have agreed with your team, that someone else is going to take Black Cleaver

Q:Are you ******ed?

A: No I am semi-******ed.

Q: Why did you write a guide for Ezreal?

A: Just for the fun of it.

Q: Your build sucks.

A: Learn to farm or uninstall.

Q: Do you get a lot of people adding you in game on a daily basis?

A: No. I am no HotShot GG.

Q: Will you write any other guides?

A: When this guide reaches the 1.000.000 views milestone.

• Play
• Enjoy
• Profit??!?!
• Mangoz
• Bananaz