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Spells:
Exhaust
Flash
Ability Order
Rising Spell Force (PASSIVE)
Ezreal Passive Ability
Pre-note.
The massive wall-of-text is currently under construction in order to make it look pretty and appealing, as it can be very off-putting to see that much text without awesome colours or pictures.
So please don't downvote because of the wall of text if you've not read it, as the content is mostly fine :)
Alternative Items at the Bottom!
I have added a list (which will grow) to the bottom of the guide which details items you can exchange easily in certain circumstances. I can, of course, never tell you to buy these items every single time, as on occasions you do not want to follow this build for whatever reason. Read the list below to see if what you think would be a good idea is already there.. If not feel free to put it in the comments and if I agree, I'll put it there :)
====================
Introduction
====================






In a teamfight, or even a gank/kill, the standard procedure is: Autoattack, Q, W Autoattack Q - And by this point your enemy should be dead. If they're not, E and auto-attack will usually follow up the kill efficiently.
I'm writing this guide as I want people to play

PROS!
- High Damage
- Skillshot based
- Great for checking bushes
- One of the best finishing ultimates in-game.
- Double flash!
CONS
- Hard to play
- Shut down easily
- VERY Squishy!
- Needs some experience with skillshots to play correctly
- Can be weak late-game.
===
I've tried to be fair with the pros and cons, and to be fair, he is a very balanced character (in my opinion), I don't think his damage output is outrageous, however it's enough to be extremely useful in any fights of any kind.
Right, well. My item list.
Some players will look at the items and get to the
Phage and think: "Wat."
Well, in higher ELO play, it's very likely that you're not going to have a tank on your team, the thought being that having a tank is an excuse for carries not to build survivability, I agree with this statement wholeheartedly.
I want to justify the
Phage as much as I can before moving onto the other items, as I understand that it can be a controversial item, however, the number of times that I have been saved by the extra HP the
Phage gives I cannot count on both hands, the number of times that a chase has only been successful because of the slow proc on the
Phage is high up there too. The
Phage is the ultimate item for an AD carry who needs low-cost survivability without moving too far from the Damage build.
===
THE BUILD
===
Starting with D-Blade, no surprises here, the
Doran's Blade is one of the most essential items for an AD character to buy first. The likelyhood is that you will be at bottom with a support character, so the +100hp, the damage and the lifesteal will come in handy for staying in lane, thanks to the D-Blades survival enhancements I often stay in lane until I have about 4k gold, as I don't have to recall before that point.
Boots are an obvious buy, you want to keep up with your enemies in lane, especially against AOE or Skillshot based enemies such as Brand or Morgana, and boots are so so so useful for staying out of range and dodging the dangerous spells you're likely to encounter on the battlefield.
Tear of the Goddess is the first item I buy if I have to recall early, primarily for the mana, but also because it builds into the Manamune, which was practically designed for
Ezreal and
Corki.
Long Sword for obvious reasons, the damage and the fact it also builds into the Manamune.
Manamune.
Oh God this item is perfect in every way.
Ezreal's Q costs next to nothing, it's his W, E and R that you have to nurture with the
Manamune, and because of the low low cost of
Ezreal's Q ability you can spam it constantly to build the passive on the
Manamune. With
Ezreal you don't even need Golem (Blue) buff to max it out, you just keep rattling the Q every time it's off cooldown while walking around or going back to lane and it'll soon add up to that extra 1,000 mana.
The
Manamune is also cheap for the damage that it produces, which is another great bonus.
Ionian Boots of Lucidity are a great buy for Ezreal, it lowers his cooldowns significantly which is a great bonus HOWEVER: The Ionian boots are SITUATIONAL, sometimes it's more beneficial to build into another set of boots such as
Mercury's Treads, depending on the enemies you face.
These boots don't affect your Q that much, given its already tiny cooldown, however your ultimate and E are going to be affected significantly, allowing you to utilise them much more efficiently.
B. F. Sword - I get this item at this stage as it's about now that the extra damage is going to come in handy with getting those hits on my opponents, and depending on how well you've done, some more damage on those towers. I don't build this item into
Infinity Edge straight away, as I feel the extra damage and crit-strike at this point in the game is very expensive and definitely overkill at this point, and you're much better off building into another item while you have the damage bonus from the
B. F. Sword.
Zeal - This item I've deliberated about for a long time, I'm never sure whether it's that good of a buy, but I've decided to put it here as in most games I usually go into the
Zeal because it's just such a varied item. The Speed increase, Attack speed buff and the Crit strike all come in handy for just over 1,000 gold; and will often benefit you much more than going straight into a heavy item such as the Infinity Edge.
Buying the
Zeal will allow you to get away from losing fights faster, it'll allow you to do more damage a second and you'll occasionally get those lucky crits that do oh-so-much damage.
Infinity Edge.
Another hallmark of
Ezreal I think. The attack damage this item gives you is massive, bordering on ridiculous, not forgetting the Critical Strike bonus it gives. The IE is the weapon of choice for a number of Ranged AD Carries, and I don't think
Ezreal is an exception to this, he definitely benefits from the
Infinity Edge greatly.
However, as stated before, I don't think this is an item to rush.. I'll admit that when I recall for the first time with 4.5k I'll often buy it straight away, but that's normally because I'm at the point where I'm pushing towers with little or no resistance, so it's situational.
But as a rule of thumb, don't rush the heavy items when they'll give less benefit to you in comparison to some other items.
Phage. I talked about the
Phage earlier in the chapter, I think it's a good idea for the survivability and chance proc which are great for
Ezreal, as he's not the fastest Champion in the game, so the slow helps not only him but the rest of your team.
Phantom Dancer
The
Phantom Dancer is the natural point on which to upgrade your
Zeal. Now is about the point that you should upgrade your
Zeal, as it's starting to lose its great bonuses, so the
Phantom Dancer swoops in and breathes new life into your old rusty Zeal. From this point on you're moving faster, attacking faster and have an even higher crit chance.
The
Bloodthirster is an item which benefits
Ezreal by increasing lifesteal and damage. I choose this item late-game as it's about now that fights are taking longer to finish, and I'm beginning to get focused harder because I'm getting fed and critting every other attack. It's about now I need some life-steal.
Remember to kill minions as often as you can (As you should be doing anyway) to get the lifesteal stacks going.
Frozen Mallet
Might aswell do something with that
Phage eh?
Frozen Mallet will make your slow proc every single attack meaning noone is getting away from you (apart from a
Master Yi on steroids, perhaps), and even more HP makes surviving easier in the late-game badlands.
Phantom Dancer V2
A second
Phantom Dancer? Whaaa?
At this point, ignoring all auras, you're going to have 85% crit chance, which is going to annihilate your opponents, you're going to move faster than
Singed, (especially with that
Frozen Mallet) and you're attacking faster than anyone else on the field. This second
Phantom Dancer has sealed the deal, you're now the perfect killing machine, and you're going to win this game for your team and get that tiny bit more ELO for the end of Season 1 lockdowns.
Note on the
Phage/
Frozen Mallet
OK, so you really don't like this item, fair enough I suppose.
Lets say you have a sick tank (i.e.
Rammus) who's keeping everyone alive and you've not yet taken a hit. Feel free not to buy the
Phage and go in for a
Black Cleaver. It'll help you with killing towers and bad guys alike (They've probably built some armour to try and hinder your damage), however only do this if you're confident you're going to live to get back to base and defend if everything goes wrong.
Some players will look at the items and get to the

Well, in higher ELO play, it's very likely that you're not going to have a tank on your team, the thought being that having a tank is an excuse for carries not to build survivability, I agree with this statement wholeheartedly.
I want to justify the




===
THE BUILD
===
Starting with D-Blade, no surprises here, the







Oh God this item is perfect in every way.





The



These boots don't affect your Q that much, given its already tiny cooldown, however your ultimate and E are going to be affected significantly, allowing you to utilise them much more efficiently.





Buying the


Another hallmark of



However, as stated before, I don't think this is an item to rush.. I'll admit that when I recall for the first time with 4.5k I'll often buy it straight away, but that's normally because I'm at the point where I'm pushing towers with little or no resistance, so it's situational.
But as a rule of thumb, don't rush the heavy items when they'll give less benefit to you in comparison to some other items.




The




The


Remember to kill minions as often as you can (As you should be doing anyway) to get the lifesteal stacks going.

Might aswell do something with that




A second

At this point, ignoring all auras, you're going to have 85% crit chance, which is going to annihilate your opponents, you're going to move faster than



Note on the


OK, so you really don't like this item, fair enough I suppose.
Lets say you have a sick tank (i.e.



Not much to say on the Masteries, they're fairly standard, with some emphasis on the Damage end, with the obvious Experience masteries over on the Utility end.
I suppose if you find you're dying a lot, you can swap the Utility out for some Defense masteries, however I personally wouldn't recommend it.
Of course, Masteries are a personal decision a majority of the time, you may not agree with the masteries I've chosen, and as someone in the comments (sorry! I can't remember your name) informed me one of the masteries I had chosen would only grant another 25 mana or so on the end of a fully-stacked
Manamune, so that's been switched out and hopefully it's a lot more efficient.
I suppose if you find you're dying a lot, you can swap the Utility out for some Defense masteries, however I personally wouldn't recommend it.
Of course, Masteries are a personal decision a majority of the time, you may not agree with the masteries I've chosen, and as someone in the comments (sorry! I can't remember your name) informed me one of the masteries I had chosen would only grant another 25 mana or so on the end of a fully-stacked

This is the sequence I use in all my games. It maxes out the Q attack quickly, which is your main attack, while keeping the mana cost of your E
(The oh-snap, gotta go! ability) as low as possible for as long as possible, until you're forced to level it up towards the end of the leveling stage. This way you need a lower mana pool to be able to escape in an emergency.
The Q is leveled first due to two reasons.
The first reason is that it's already a cheap spell on mana, and rising the mana cost by leveling the spell is not detrimental to your mana efficiency.
The second reason being that you want to increase its damage output as quickly as possible.
However, it's not worth neglecting your W completely; it's a great finishing tool as well as a brilliant harassment ability, I'll talk more about how to use the different abilities later on.
Leveling the W second is a good idea, as by the time where you're going to be using this regularly you should have enough mana to be able to support the spell indefinitely due to the Manamune. It's a spell that's often neglected by AD Ezreal players as it doesn't build on AD, however it still packs a punch that is useful against the more squishy members of the enemy team.
Your Ultimate should be obvious by now, Level it when you're able to, as it's the most powerful spell in your inventory.


The Q is leveled first due to two reasons.
The first reason is that it's already a cheap spell on mana, and rising the mana cost by leveling the spell is not detrimental to your mana efficiency.
The second reason being that you want to increase its damage output as quickly as possible.
However, it's not worth neglecting your W completely; it's a great finishing tool as well as a brilliant harassment ability, I'll talk more about how to use the different abilities later on.

Leveling the W second is a good idea, as by the time where you're going to be using this regularly you should have enough mana to be able to support the spell indefinitely due to the Manamune. It's a spell that's often neglected by AD Ezreal players as it doesn't build on AD, however it still packs a punch that is useful against the more squishy members of the enemy team.

Your Ultimate should be obvious by now, Level it when you're able to, as it's the most powerful spell in your inventory.




I take


===
Other summoner spells that are suitable are


I suppose




As well said in the comments,



===
Big NONOs include:



Why anyone would take these bemuses me, even

Where does
Ezreal come into the team composition?
AD Carry is where he fits best.
This involves you right clicking the enemy with most other champions, but with
Ezreal you have your skillshots to navigate, and of course your Ultimate which can be used either to lower the HP of everyone in your arc, or to finish off people who are running away from the fight (like little baby!)
I suppose rather than building the
Phage into a
Frozen Mallet, it's possible to build it into a Triforce, of course I think this should only be done if you're not going to be a solid damage type carry, in most high ELO arranged five you should have a team composition which has an AP champion which negates the need to
Ezreal to overly invest into AP, of course there are a number of ways to play and build
Ezreal, mine is just the one which I feel is most effective in ranked 5.

AD Carry is where he fits best.
This involves you right clicking the enemy with most other champions, but with

I suppose rather than building the




So, you're playing
Ezreal, you know what all of his spells do, you kind of know when to use them, but if you're not sure, or just want my insight, here's how I use his abilities.
MYSTIC SHOT
Mystic Shot is your bread and butter, it is the spell for
Ezreal.
I use
Mystic Shot for everything. I use it to stack my
Manamune, I use it to last-hit far-away creeps, I use it to harass my opponents when they move out of position and I use it in fights as an extra attack aside from my auto-attacks.
Starting with CSing with
Mystic Shot.
It's generally bad practice, I think, to use a lot of abilities on Minions, however with the low cost of
Mystic Shot I think it's fine to use it to either knock down a minion quickly by autoattacking, Q, autoattack, which will normally kill any minion aside from Super-Minions.
I use it to last-hit minions when I'm just about to get back into the lane, and when I'm being harassed too much to get close enough to auto-attack. It can also be used to last hit 2 minions at the same time, by autoattacking a minion which is behind another minion which you can last-hit with
Mystic Shot.
Harassing your opponents with
Mystic Shot is simply by moving to the side of the creeps and firing it off at the enemy. If you opponents move off to the side themselves, punish them for it by rattling off a
Mystic Shot.
Another extremely useful point with
Ezreal is if you hit an enemy with a spell, a small buff (
Rising Spell Force) will appear on your bar, or the number on it will increase if it is already active, this shows you there's someone in that bush you just fired at, and it's probably a bad idea to walk near it.
ESSENCE FLUX
I'll admit I don't use
Essence Flux very often, I use it against players (obviously, due to it only working on Champions) in combination with
Mystic Shot to increase my damage output during teamfights. Remember that it also passes through champions and deals the same damage, meaning that you can use it to damage multiple enemies at the same time!
However due to this build being AD it's not going to be doing horrific damage to anyone due to it building off Ability Power.
ARCANE SHIFT
Arcane Shift is a second
Flash, which works in the same way as a
Flash with a crucial difference, after flashing you'll fire a bolt at the nearest enemy minion or champion and deal damage, if you're good with this you can use it to damage an enemy near death enough so that your auto-attack will finish them off, extremely useful when in lane.
TRUESHOT BARRAGE
One of the harder Ultimates to use right, and I don't think I get it right half the time.
Anyone that plays with me knows how trigger happy I am with this ability, I use it as an initiation, I use it during team fights, I use it to clear minion waves and I use it, more crucially to kill escaping enemies (When I can actually hit them, that is).
Its range is map-wide, but its damage lowers the more enemies it passes through, so firing it at someone behind a wave of minions is not going to do any damage in the slightest. A direct hit is where it is more efficient and most dangerous.
During the laning phase I normally use it when I've pressured and harassed someone down to about 400HP, and they run to their turret to recall, when they do this, I find a clear shot in river and let my ultimate rip. It'll often kill them, and if it doesn't you've probably taken them down so low that they're forced to recall before they change their mind.
Team-fights are tricky with this ultimate, you have to guage whether it's worth spending the ultimate during the fight, to knock people down to fairly low HP mid-fight, quicker than they can react in order to give your team a higher advantage in the fight.
However if you get it wrong, then when that guy running straight down mid with 200 HP isn't going to get finished off nicely by a hero ultimate.
It's up to you when you use it, and it takes a lot of game sense and experience to know when to use it, however I can't tell you when to and when not to, so just practice in every team-fight and you'll learn soon enough.


MYSTIC SHOT
Mystic Shot is your bread and butter, it is the spell for

I use


Starting with CSing with

It's generally bad practice, I think, to use a lot of abilities on Minions, however with the low cost of

I use it to last-hit minions when I'm just about to get back into the lane, and when I'm being harassed too much to get close enough to auto-attack. It can also be used to last hit 2 minions at the same time, by autoattacking a minion which is behind another minion which you can last-hit with

Harassing your opponents with


Another extremely useful point with



ESSENCE FLUX
I'll admit I don't use


However due to this build being AD it's not going to be doing horrific damage to anyone due to it building off Ability Power.

ARCANE SHIFT




TRUESHOT BARRAGE
One of the harder Ultimates to use right, and I don't think I get it right half the time.
Anyone that plays with me knows how trigger happy I am with this ability, I use it as an initiation, I use it during team fights, I use it to clear minion waves and I use it, more crucially to kill escaping enemies (When I can actually hit them, that is).
Its range is map-wide, but its damage lowers the more enemies it passes through, so firing it at someone behind a wave of minions is not going to do any damage in the slightest. A direct hit is where it is more efficient and most dangerous.
During the laning phase I normally use it when I've pressured and harassed someone down to about 400HP, and they run to their turret to recall, when they do this, I find a clear shot in river and let my ultimate rip. It'll often kill them, and if it doesn't you've probably taken them down so low that they're forced to recall before they change their mind.
Team-fights are tricky with this ultimate, you have to guage whether it's worth spending the ultimate during the fight, to knock people down to fairly low HP mid-fight, quicker than they can react in order to give your team a higher advantage in the fight.
However if you get it wrong, then when that guy running straight down mid with 200 HP isn't going to get finished off nicely by a hero ultimate.
It's up to you when you use it, and it takes a lot of game sense and experience to know when to use it, however I can't tell you when to and when not to, so just practice in every team-fight and you'll learn soon enough.
CS Is important.
I mean it's the most important thing to do in LoL.
Forget ganks, forget harassment and forget kills.
Here are a couple of numbers, 15 minion kills (thanks 'Leaguesdf' for correcting me on this) (CS) is equal to a kill, so in the time that someone is trying to kill another champion, if you're good enough you can get more than 20 CS, you're overtaking them in gold.
And don't forget that people on death streaks give less gold, whereas minions give a flat rate (sort of, their value increases late-game), for example, in a game I have gone 3/2/11 with 310 Minion kills, whereas a friend of mine has had 12/2/6 with less than 150 CS and I ended up having the exact same amount of gold as him.
That was on one of my off-days and I didn't get the same number of kills that I normally do, so hopefully with these numbers you can see that by getting an acceptable level of CS I was doing as well as someone with 9 more kills than me.
CS is important, and if you can get kills and CS at the same time, then you will out-feed in comparison to the enemy team and others on your team and you will really start to dominate the game.
tl;dr? KILL MINIONS ALL THE TIME. (Unless you're playing a Support character, in which case, don't kill minions and let your AD carry take the CS, they need it more!)
I mean it's the most important thing to do in LoL.
Forget ganks, forget harassment and forget kills.
Here are a couple of numbers, 15 minion kills (thanks 'Leaguesdf' for correcting me on this) (CS) is equal to a kill, so in the time that someone is trying to kill another champion, if you're good enough you can get more than 20 CS, you're overtaking them in gold.
And don't forget that people on death streaks give less gold, whereas minions give a flat rate (sort of, their value increases late-game), for example, in a game I have gone 3/2/11 with 310 Minion kills, whereas a friend of mine has had 12/2/6 with less than 150 CS and I ended up having the exact same amount of gold as him.
That was on one of my off-days and I didn't get the same number of kills that I normally do, so hopefully with these numbers you can see that by getting an acceptable level of CS I was doing as well as someone with 9 more kills than me.
CS is important, and if you can get kills and CS at the same time, then you will out-feed in comparison to the enemy team and others on your team and you will really start to dominate the game.
tl;dr? KILL MINIONS ALL THE TIME. (Unless you're playing a Support character, in which case, don't kill minions and let your AD carry take the CS, they need it more!)
This is all for now, I will update this guide soon (in the next few days) to make it look nicer and more appealing, it is very long in places, but this is a detailed guide on how to play Ezreal to his full potential as an AD Carry. I suppose I should put alternative items down here for those of you who think you have better AD builds.
==================
==================
Swapping out
Frozen Mallet for
Trinity Force
Swap out the
Frozen Mallet and build a
Trinity Force BEFORE the
Infinity Edge with the
Phage and
Zeal. It's a good item for
Ezreal, however if you have a strong AP character on your team such as
Orianna,
Brand or
Annie then the other team will have Magic Resist, and the little AP the
Sheen has granted will not be very effective, and the extra AD you need to force them to spend even more money on Armour will be much more beneficial.
However this item is a very varied and flexible item and it's not to be sniffed at. I just personally don't use it much as I like the greater health that the
Frozen Mallet gives as well as the 100% chance proc. It's down to personal preference, The
Frozen Mallet builds into more survivability whereas the
Trinity Force is more likely to increase your damage output with the proc from the
Sheen
==
Swapping out
Infinity Edge for ANY
B. F. Sword ITEM
A
Bloodthirster or even
Black Cleaver against a high-armour team could be more beneficial for a cheaper, faster option depending on circumstances. If you need higher damage faster, or don't want to go with a high crit-strike build or even need more survivability then A Bloodthirster is a great item.
A note when building the
Bloodthirster is that the earlier you get it, the better the item will be, as you gain lifesteal depending on the number of creeps and champions you have slain in that life. So if you get it early and don't die, you'll have a lot of lifesteal for survivability, and more money to put towards a
Trinity Force
==
Swapping the
Infinity Edge for a
Bloodthirster and
Trinity Force
As said above, the money saved by buying a
Bloodthirster as well as the survivability it gives you allows you to avoid the
Frozen Mallet and go into a
Trinity Force, as the extra survivability from the
Bloodthirster and the
Frozen Mallet is too much for too much money. The
Trinity Force in this case is a better buy.
Again, it's completely down to personal preference and how the game is going.
==
Swapping out
Infinity Edge for WRIGGLES LANTERN
Wriggle's Lantern? On an AD Carry?
Yes. Definitely Yes.
The
Wriggle's Lantern right now is a horrendously OP item, it gives Damage, High-damage Minion Procs, Armour and Lifesteal as well as a free ward every 3 minutes for a very low price.
You can build into the
Wriggle's Lantern rather than an
Infinity Edge, and then use whatever money you saved to build into a faster
Zeal (and even into a
Trinity Force. It's up to you, depending on how much survivability you want. It is, of course, situational.
==================
DIFFERENT ITEMS
==================
Swapping out


Swap out the










However this item is a very varied and flexible item and it's not to be sniffed at. I just personally don't use it much as I like the greater health that the




==
Swapping out


A


A note when building the


==
Swapping the



As said above, the money saved by buying a






Again, it's completely down to personal preference and how the game is going.
==
Swapping out


Yes. Definitely Yes.
The

You can build into the




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