Ezreal Build Guide by ViciousHorizon

Pre-note.

Hi Guys, here's my guide to Ezreal.

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 :)

Introduction!

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 :)

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Introduction

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Ezreal. What can I say? He's my favourite champion, and, in my opinion, the most fun champion to play.

Ezreal is free this week, (at time of writing, of course), and I've been beaten to the selection screen by people who've seen Ezreal being played at Gamescom and deciding "I can do that too!" - Well sorry to break the news to you, but you probably can't.

Ezreal is purely skillshot based, his Q, W and Ultimate are skillshots, and his E, which is a small flash followed by a bolt can be classed as a skillshot, as to use it accurately you have to judge distances perfectly.

Ezreal is one of the few characters in League of Legends who can be built either AD (Attack Damage) or AP (Ability Power), however in my opinion, Ezreal is best left to AD. The reason I believe this is because of his Q. His Q is based from AD at a 1.0 ratio, meaning it's pure attack damage which is converted, and his Q has such a fast cool-down; even without runes!

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 Ezreal well, he's my favourite character, and I think in the right hands he's in the top 5 AD Carries in game.

Pros / Cons.

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.

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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.

Items.

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.

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THE BUILD
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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 of Speed 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 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 The 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.

Masteries

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.

Skill Sequence

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.

Summoner Spells

and are the spells I use.

Flash is a funny one, I see a number of people who don't take it and tell me "He already has a flash"; this is wrong. Taking Flash alongside your E doubles the distance you can flash, and you can flash over 2 walls simultaneously which will juke almost any other character.

I take Exhaust as it allows me to shut down a melee enemy champion as it lowers their damage output and slows them down, allowing me to kite them well enough to survive until my team arrive, however be careful as a Master Yi won't get slowed by exhaust when he uses his ultimate, and he is possible the biggest threat to a ranged carry, due to his speed and damage output countering any form of kiting.

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Other summoner spells that are suitable are Ignite, for obvious reasons, it's a nice finishing spell and it's essential to kill a number of champions who regen health (i.e. Dr. Mundo).

I suppose Ghost is possible, however I'm not a fan of taking ghost if you're going to build into a Frozen Mallet as well, however Ghost is the counter to a Flash, as you'll catch up to them quicker than they can run, but I prefer to bring a utility spell.

As well said in the comments, Clairvoyance is another good spell for Ezreal in place of Exhaust, however only take it if for some reason your support decides they don't want to take it. (In arranged play, the support nearly always takes Clairvoyance due to supports not needing any combat summoners in standard play.)

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Big NONOs include:

Becomes useless mid to late game.
Wow... a whole 35 extra damage at level 18. How useful.
Just why? It's an excuse to die and feed faster, in my opinion.

Why anyone would take these bemuses me, even Clarity seems idiotic to me, just learn how to conserve mana and you no longer need it.

Team Work

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.

Ezreal's Spells

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.

Farming

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!)

Footnote and Alternative Items

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.

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DIFFERENT ITEMS

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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

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Swapping out Infinity Edge for ANY B. F. Sword ITEM

A The Bloodthirster or even The 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 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

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Swapping the Infinity Edge for a The Bloodthirster and Trinity Force

As said above, the money saved by buying a The 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 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.

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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.