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Ezreal Build Guide by MichaelKinneyFan

Ezreally not that hard

Ezreally not that hard

Updated on August 9, 2012
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League of Legends Build Guide Author MichaelKinneyFan Build Guide By MichaelKinneyFan 24 7 24,383 Views 31 Comments
24 7 24,383 Views 31 Comments League of Legends Build Guide Author MichaelKinneyFan Ezreal Build Guide By MichaelKinneyFan Updated on August 9, 2012
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Choose Champion Build:

  • LoL Champion: Ezreal
  • LoL Champion: Ezreal

Introduction

Ezreal is a highly versatile champion who can play every role except support. When built AD, he is a menace in laning phase with his attack speed slow and insane early damage output. AP Ezreal has trouble until he gets his deathcap and lichbane out, but after those two items your burst becomes completely unreal.

Ezreal has been the only character I play since I bought him months before writing this guide. I've built him everything from AP to AD to troll, and I've experimented a lot with the items for each. This is essentially a culmination of everything I've learned and an explanation for why I differ from the generic ( Trinity Force-> Bloodthirster) build.
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AD Ezreal

When built AD, Ezreal can go to any lane and is nigh impossible to counter except when he goes top. His laning presence is terrifying, and his level 1 damage output trumps that of any other AD Carry. AD Ezreal should be played aggressively in lane, because Essence Flux makes it so few AD carries can't effectively retaliate, and his damage output is so high at low levels. If you can get off a few Mystic Shots while the opponents are still level one or two you can easily win the lane.

AD Ezreal cannot carry as hard as carries like Vayne and Kog'Maw, but he does not fall off so long as you do not build him poorly.

Good Supports: Alistar, Taric, Leona, Blitzcrank, Lulu.
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Pros & Cons

Pros
+ Strong Laning Phase
+ Counters most carries in lane
+ Extremely Versatile
+ Lots of Skillshots
+ Very satisfying when you hit your skillshots
EZ PZ
Cons
- Outclassed by other carries late game
- Squishier than most
- Lots of Skillshots
- Can't spam his skills as much as some characters
- Very stressful when you miss basic skillshots
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As an AD Carry

Ezreal begins the game more of an AD caster, he bursts people down with Mystic Shot and autoattacks. The typical build is to grab a Bloodthirster and a Trinity Force in order to maximize the damage on his Mystic Shot. The problem is that the purpose of an AD carry is to bring their team through the late game, and the Infinity Edge --> Phantom Dancer --> Last Whisper combination gives you much more damage output then what others usually build.

If you build for maximizing the damage of Mystic Shot it will still inevitably fall off due to not being able to get critical hits. Even AP Ezreal can potentially do more damage than you with it. Mystic shot is going to be overpowered in laning phase regardless of what you build. My build still takes advantage of Ezreal's OP earlygame while maximizing damage output late game.

Practice last hitting, you need farm as an AD carry to afford all of your expensive items. You can use Mystic Shot to kill minions that you might otherwise miss, but don't do that just to do it, because you're going to run out of mana pretty fast.

Double Doran's Blades and a Vampiric Scepter give you a lot of sustain and killing power in lane. I would only skip the dorans if you get extremely fed and can grab a B.F. Sword right away.

In order to AD Carry properly you need to stand in the back and attack whoever is safe to attack without overextending. You have Arcane Shift to save you, but it doesn't go that far. Keep in mind the consequences of your actions. If you chase after the low-life Shyvana in the middle of the teamfight and get too close to a Veigar, you're going to die and the teamfight could potentially be lost. The AD carry is the enemy team's #1 priority when looking for who to focus (unless your ap carry is extremely fed or something).
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Runes (AD)

Runes

Precision
Fleet Footwork
Phase Rush

TEEMO I take MR per level glyphs because most of the damage you are going to be receiving bottom lane will be physical damage, so you won't need the magic resist very much until later. It's still viable to grab flat MR if you feel that supports like Lulu are going to be a large problem for you in lane. Some carries such as Corki also deal magic damage with a lot of their skills. TEEMO

TEEMO Flat Armor runes help to mitigate a lot of the damage you're going to be receiving from the enemy carry, which when combined with the debuff from Essence Flux leads to a happier Ezreal. TEEMO

TEEMO Flat AD runes to help you last hit and increase the early damage of your Mystic Shot. TEEMO

TEEMO I take these for the same reason I take my marks, more AD to help last hit and increase early damage output of my Q. TEEMO


Alternatively, you can take armor penetration for your marks. Flat AD makes it much easier for you to last hit however and makes your Mystic Shot hurt like nobody's business.
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Masteries (AD)

Offensive

Summoner's Wrath 5 AD after using ignite, also good.
Alacrity to get to Weapon Expertise
Weapon Expertise Makes you do a lot more damage
Deadliness More overall damage than havoc by itself.
Lethality A lot more damage than havoc. If you actually do the math on it, Havoc equates to about 5 extra damage for all 3 points. If I'm critting for about 1000, lethality is adding an extra 40 damage to my crits, and I crit 93% of the time with full build.
Vampirism Extra sustain for 19% lifesteal with your early core.
Sunder A flat reduction of 6 armor, helps last hitting & damage.
Executioner AD Carry needs to get kills, this helps in doing that. Apart from that it's okay.

Defensive

Hardiness Armor helps reduce the enemy carry's auto attacks, take MR instead if you go mid lane.
Resistance Because there was nothing better to take.
Durability An extra 108 hit points is a lot when you consider how low Ezreal's base is.
Veteran's Scars 30 extra hit points at level one, can really help turn the tide in those level one skirmishes.

I prefer to take 9 points into utility when playing with my friends to grab Runic Affinity because I will often get red buff. 9 points in defense is the superior route when you can't rely on your teammates to realize that it helps you more in teamfights.
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Items (AD)



Openings






Boot 3 pot for short, is probably the best opening for most situations. The early boots help you escape early jungle ganks, and they allow you to more easily chase down your enemy. The potions provide an enormous amount of sustain early on that allows you to play aggressively then step back for a few seconds to regain all of your health.





Cloth 5 pot is what you're doing if you're going to try to jungle. I've also seen many top laners run it, but I imagine Ezreal would need the boots to kite. You could grab cloth 5 pot if you blind pick top lane and you're up against a Nidalee or something like that. Boots are still the safer option since you're not going to be tanky enough to escape if the enemy jungler gets you.





This is the weakest opening for most scenarios, but also the most common in lower levels of play. I really don't recommend grabbing a Doran's as your first item. It's doable if you go bottom lane with a support that offers a lot of sustain such as Soraka. You can very easily just get your Doran's on your first recall.





This is your laning phase core, regardless of what you start you should try to work toward this. I'd grab the vamp scepter early if you're dealing with a lot of poke and you need the extra sustain. Grab your Doran's blades if you're having trouble last hitting under a tower or you want more killing power. Boots 2 should come after you get both doran's blades and the vamp scepter, but you can rush it early if you feel like you need the extra movement speed.



Main Build








You need this item to carry, you cannot keep up in DPS without it. So many Ezreal builds grab this item as late as possible which is the worst thing you could do. The extra 20 damage you would get on your Mystic Shot is not worth gimping your carry potential until super late game.







Synergizes well with the above more than a triforce would due to more attack speed and more crit chance. This is fairly cookie-cutter if you're playing carries like Graves, but many Ezreal and Corki players like to opt for a Trinity Force instead.







Always get this before your bloodthirster. If you need the extra sustain from Bloodthirster just get a Vampiric Scepter. As an AD Carry you are going to be mostly attacking tanks, and you get much more damage output from this then you would a bloodthirster assuming your target has more than about 90 armor, which is base for most bruisers.







Gives a lot of damage, that's the #1 reason to take it.





This is a bad item choice if your team is composed of goldfish. What is supposed to happen is in the event that you die, five seconds later you hop back into action and lifesteal all your hit points back.





Late game you have the option of selling your Berserker's Greaves for another Phantom Dancer. I do this all the time when I get to this point of the game. It pushes your crit chance to a total of 93% with an Elixir of Agility. The loss of movement speed is negligible, your movespeed is still greater than the movespeed of somebody with regular boots 2, and you have Arcane Shift to get you out of bad positions.





If you don't have inventory space, you automatically drink these. Always take them when you are full build.




Other item choices






This is still an okay item on Ezreal, it makes your midgame strong but your lategame suffers for it. If you do grab a triforce take it after your Infinity Edge. Another misconception many have is that sheen is based off their total damage. The sheen proc from your triforce is only giving you an extra 150 damage every 3 seconds. You can easily reach 260 every attack from a fully stacked Bloodthirster on crits, and you can easily attack 6 times in the 3 seconds between sheen procs. Since Sheen proc can't crit, this item is best used on bruisers who don't rely on critical hits to do their damage.





Get this if you're having problems with burst mages like LeBlanc. It saves lives!





A great pick for players with the reaction timing to make it useful, wouldn't recommend it to newbies.





Also good for reducing crowd control if you really need the extra survivability.





A highly situational item that I rage whenever I see as the first item in someone's build. The only time a black cleaver is really useful on an ad carry is if you're playing against people who are bad and don't build armor for some reason. In this scenario, you swap your Last Whisper for this.
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Skill Sequence (AD)

This is Ezreal's only steroid, and honestly it's not as great as Rapid Fire or Quickdraw. It's really hard to get it charged up in lane without wasting your mana, but in teamfights all you have to do is shoot your Trueshot Barrage. Jungle Ezreal only works because of this.


Max this second for increased DPS and poking ability. Your ability to play AD Ezreal relies on your precision with this skill. If you're going mid lane I'd max this first because AP carries tend not to be the most auto attacky.
  • Damage falls off late game due to not being able to crit.
  • It automatically applies on-hit effects such as Sheen proc and red buff.
  • Fire this off into a bush before you walk into said bush, you will both be able to see the skillshot hit something and you will gain 1 stack of your passive.


I max this first because it's magic damage and the attack speed debuff is incredible. I max this last if I'm going mid lane because AP carries tend not to be the most autoattack reliant. If for whatever reason you run into another AD carry like Ashe Midlane, which does happen at low summoner levels, max this first.
  • Late game, Essence Flux will probably not be used on the enemy carry because your positioning is hopefully not terrible enough that you will be within range to use it on the enemy carry. It can still be used at the bruisers who charge after you though. It is also possible that the enemy carry has extremely bad positioning and you are within 900 range of them, but they should be dead relatively quickly.
  • For the most part, only try to use this in lane if you are trading auto attacks with the enemy carry. You have Mystic Shot for poking, and essence flux drains you mana really fast. Learning how to manage your resources, in this case mana, is one of the most important aspects of any strategy game.
  • The attack speed reduction is multiplicative, whereas the buff is additive. This means that you reduce their total attack speed, so if they have 2.00 you reduce that to 1.20.


E at level 2 to pick up early kills or escape from ganks. Careful about using it offensively though, because I've had so many situations where I'd arcane shift to get a kill then the jungler comes in to gank.
  • NEVER USE YOUR E OFFENSIVELY IN TEAMFIGHTS, IF ANYBODY DIVES AFTER YOU AND YOUR E IS ON COOLDOWN YOU ARE A DEAD EZREAL!
  • Arcane Shift can be used to dodge Blitzcrank's pulls with good reaction speed and careful timing, even if you are hit by the pull you will go where you jumped to and only be stunned.
  • Mana costs are high, don't spam this in lane except when using it to pick up kills or dodge skillshots that might otherwise be hazardous to your health.
  • When going midlane, you can use this to juke skillshots from casters like Xerath. You should also check if the enemy jungler is a skillshot dependent champion like Amumu, so that you can save your arcane shift to dodge his Bandage Toss.
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Trueshot Barrage



This skill is so sick it deserved its own chapter. You can steal baron with it, pick up kills from across the map, steal buff camps and kill the enemy jungler, and punish the enemy team for bad positioning by hitting them all with your thousand damage banana. Phreak uses Ezreal's ultimate to clear minion waves. This should only be done if you're feeling particularly trollish.

It's on like a 60 second cooldown if you factor in your Mystic Shot's cooldown reduction. If you suspect you might be able to snipe somebody with it then by all means toss your giant golden banana at them.
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Summoner Spells

Main




Flash is an excellent spell for escaping or catching up to people. The effect is instant, so even if you enemy has flash you can still use yours to get in a few free shots before your opponent can react. You can use it to jump over walls if you need to. Flash and Arcane Shift make Ezreal very safe in lane.


Ignite is for the snowball and burst. I take it on Ezreal to get early kills that I use to get ahead of the enemy carry. You can use Cleanse to cancel the ignite, but you are going to take AT LEAST one damage tick from the ignite even if you have perfect reaction time.


Also Good




This is a great top lane summoner spell, and has a lot of potential for mid lane too. Don't grab it if you're going bottom lane, because your support should be the one to have exhaust. Exhaust can be removed with Cleanse.


Better for chasing, doesn't allow you to hop over walls a second time like flash would. Definitely a suitable Flash replacement though if you feel confident that Arcane Shift will be adequate.


Probably not.




For top laners usually, this is actually an incredible spell for laning phase. You can use it to teleport to a ward, Noxious Trap, Jack In The Box, Demacian Standard, and even allied units. One trick I like to do when I play Lee Sin is teleport to a ward in the bush at bottom lane to surprise the enemy AD carry and pick up a kill.


Super effective in low level/ELO games where you can bait people by getting them to fight you with low life then using heal. Doesn't fit into the current bottom lane meta however. People complain that it's been nerfed, honestly though if you really like heal it's still a decent summoner.


I feel like this is an incredible spell, but not the one for Ezreal. It has a lot more teamfight utility then ignite does. The problem is Ezreal needs to leverage his early game and a defensive summoner spell like cleanse is not the one to do it with.


Everybody, and I mean EVERYBODY hates this spell. You will get called a troll for taking it. Honestly, I don't think it's that bad. It's excellent on Karthus and Soraka due to the global ultimates. It's really good paired with Teleport (<3 dyrus).


Mostly for derpy games where all you want to do is snipe people with Trueshot Barrage. It has utility but you have other things to focus on so you probably wont be spamming it as much as you should (70 second cooldown, got to spam dat cv).


No




You don't have mana problems if you manage your mana properly. Even if you did, just take Teleport instead and you can teleport back to lane with full mana and more items.


This might be good on someone like Jax who benefits from both AP and Attack Speed, Ezreal is not that character.


Great on dominion, terrible on Summoners rift. It just doesn't do much for you and if you start winning you can't promote super minions so it's a wasted summoner until another cannon minion spawns.
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How to win your lane

AD Ezreal is a hard character to master, he takes a lot of practice and has a difficult play style. Even if you land all his skillshots, you still have to leverage his powerful early game over enemy carries to keep up. To do this you have to play aggressive.

In general, Only attack a minion if that attack will result in the minions death. Standing still using your autoattack on minions makes you easy to hit with skillshots like Blitzcrank's Rocket Grab, and pushes the lane so that the enemy can safely farm without fear of a jungle gank. It also may make csing more difficult then it has to be, because the minions could easily kill the monster in the delay between your auto attacks.

If you win your lane early, try zoning the enemy. Every time they get within range of the creeps shoot them in the face with a Mystic Shot.

Your support should always be warding for you assuming you go bottom, there is never an excuse to not have a ward on dragon & tribush (bush above blue team's 1st tower at bottom lane). If you go top or mid lane, it is up to you to purchase wards for your lane, and it's highly recommended at that because it helps everyone on your team.

If you are mid lane, poke your enemy with Mystic Shot as much as you can early on. Things get more difficult as mages start to scale with levels, so you have to shut them down while you are both low.

Top lane I don't know about, I haven't played very much Ezreal top lane and I feel like other characters can do it much better than he can. That being said, Ezreal works incredible against bruisers with suboptimal gap closers like Singed, just auto attack him every time he tries to get minion kills and kite him if he chases after you. Always ward top lane, one death from a gank can easily shut you down. Top is the most snowbally lane in the game presently.

If you're going up against a really hard lane or your support doesn't bring any sustain, by all means buy potions. the hundred or so gold you "waste" on a potion could potentially win your lane.

Practice, you're probably going to fail for a lot of your early games if you're unfamiliar to the role or game, but you have to keep up the effort. Ezreal is one of the most fun and rewarding champions to those who get good with him, and hes versatile enough that you're almost always able to play him.
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Bottom Lane: Supports



Explanation




There are a fair amount of support champions in League of Legends and if you play bottom lane you need to learn to work with one. There are four types of supports you could have: poke, sustain, burst(kill lane), and troll. Poke lanes usually work well against burst lanes, sustain lanes beat poke lanes, and burst lanes beat sustain lanes.

Troll lanes are when nobody on your team wanted to play support, so the last pick was forced to do the job. The result is a no-ward support Mordekaiser who needs your cs so that he can work toward his deathcap, because that's all he can play. The moral of the story? Never duo-lane with a last pick support.




Burst(Kill) lane






A good Alistar is overpowered in my opinion. Flash into somebody and headbutt pulverise them towards your carry while being invincible even without items and providing a decent amount of sustain. When laning with alistar know that his headbutt could potentially move your target out of the way of your Mystic Shot. You should save your combo for after you have a good idea of where they are going to be.






Taric is a great beginners support, he's not too difficult to play and he bursts extremely hard. When he stuns somebody you try to follow it up by jumping on the person he stuns. Keep in mind though that not every taric stun is worth following up, he's just wasting his mana if he stuns somebody that I can't hit with my Q due to minions being in the way.






He increases your attack & movement speed and does the opposite to the enemy carry. Incredible support with Kog'maw and other right-click to win carries. Ezreal is more of an AD caster in laning phase so they dont synergize that well. That being said, nunu's slow does make it easy to land skillshots, and blood boil helps with chasing people or running away.






This guy is annoying to play against, he packs a lot of damage and pubstomps super hard. Alistar is better though. Bad blitzcranks can lose games all by themselves. You'll know what I mean when you see a blitzcrank pull a Malphite into your team and then he ults. If he misses his grab its also an invitation for the enemy carry to harass the hell out of you because blitzcrank can't do much and brings no sustain. A blitzcrank player should ideally never pull in other bursty champions like Alistar without good reason; because, they will just kill the carry and walk away laughing.






Most Ezreal players I know prefer Leona over any other support. She has a bunch of crowd control and ridiculous kill potential. Her spells apply sunlight, by which you can auto attack to deal additional damage to your target. She's incredible paired with Corki.






He's a lot like Blitzcrank, but his pull only meets the enemy halfway. After that he has a ton more CC then blitzcrank would. Nautilus has the most CC of anyone in the game, and he can easily lockdown the enemy carry. He has more potential out of the jungle though, his ganks are among the best.






She bursts pretty hard with her Q, and Crescendo can guarantee a kill if she uses it properly.






I hate lux support, it works fairly well but shes just such a good laner that it makes me cringe.






See above only worse. Morgana support is turning one of the strongest laners into a mediocre support. That being said, support Morgana isn't bad, but if you're looking up a mobafire guide you're probably not good enough to take full advantage of her kit. Black Shield is just broken in the hands of the pros.




Sustain Lane






Her heals have a low base and scale pretty bad. Another problem is they auto-target whoever has the lowest life, which could be problematic in teamfights because you need to stay alive more than anyone else in the team.




OP






She's like the second squishiest hero in the game (first is Anivia I think). She's also probably the easiest support in the game to learn and play. Her kit is incredibly strong however, two great heals a silence and magic penetration. Infuse allows you to spam your skills more often without worrying about running out of mana. Soraka is a weak support for Ezreal though, who needs an aggressive support to fully abuse his strength early.






A lot of people consider her to be the strongest late game support. Her shield gives you AD which is pretty nice for your Mystic Shot. Tornadoes offer decent poke and crowd control. Her ulti brings so much utility though, and hard counters a lot of annoying champions like Kennen.






His heal is garbage, it costs a lot of mana and has a really long cooldown. You pick Taric for the killing power not the sustain.




Poke Lane






He's somewhat of an overpowered top laner, but he also makes an excellent support. He has a bit of crowd control and a ton of burst/self sustain with his ghouls. Also Omen of Death is so broken in the late game, two AD carries for the win. Yorick support is a great pick when going against a bottom lane with weak sustain. On the downside, he doesn't offer you any sustain so you might want to consider buying Health Potions if you're up against a tough lane.






Everyone says shes an OP support, idk about that. She's really good though with a kit consisting of tons of crowd control and tons of damage mitigation. She works great with Ezreal because its hard to dodge skillshots when you can't move, and you can't retaliate if you're a squirrel. Her poke is also really strong and combined with Ezreal will easily force your opponents out of lane if not kill them.






She's a really versatile support, what can I say?






Her Light Binding goes through one minion and moves really fast. Lucent Singularity is also a great zoning tool.






Dark Binding doesn't go through minions and is really slow. Her ulti is a group stun on a delay, which is awesome but it's mostly for teamfights. Her shield blocks crowd control like Pulverise and Rocket Grab, but won't do anything to mitigate damage from autoattacks.






Tornadoes are pretty easy to dodge, but you can still hit people with them.




No Idea






Nobody plays her. I've heard she's really overpowered with Corki from a friend who mains supports, but I really don't know.






Well, I've heard it works, someone did it in a tournament apparently, I've never had a fiddle support though. He has a lot of crowd control and his base damage is pretty high, so I imagine he'd make a pretty good kill lane.
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AP Ezreal

Disclaimer: My section on AP Ezreal is still relatively unfinished, I still need to do a lot to it.

AP Ezreal is fun, his damage output is really good in the later part of the game. The main issue is his early game is so bad that you don't get him to late game. The only thing he brings that other AP carries can't do better is a global skillshot ultimate. You have no crowd control, no ability to push the lane, and little damage output until you get a Lich Bane.

On the plus, you have great range, great poke, great burst, and a lot of AoE damage. Rylai's Crystal Scepter helps make up for the lack of crowd control and Zhonya's Hourglass is just an excellent item if you're getting focused.
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When is it safe to play AP?

I would only pick AP Ezreal if I was up against a weaker AP carry that can't push the lane very well. Characters like Morgana will have you permanently pushed up to your tower so that it becomes really hard to get minion kills.

Or you could just play Twisted Fate instead, he's like the exact same thing as AP Ezreal but you have a strong laning phase.

If Riot ever released a buff to make Essence Flux damage minions like Wild Cards or Orb of Deception, maybe AP Ezreal would be viable. His inability to push the lane is what makes him such an inferior character. If I were playing against an AP Ezreal I'd just stack gold per 10 and keep him farming under his turret.
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Runes (AP)

Runes

Precision
Fleet Footwork
Phase Rush

TEEMO Flat MR runes to help mitigate damage from the enemy AP Carry/assassin. A lot of people also like to run AP per level glyphs, but I think that's a bit reckless. TEEMO

TEEMO Helps you spam dem skills in lane, and evens out with flat mp5 runes at about level 7. TEEMO

TEEMO Helps with Sorcerer's Shoes to reduce the enemy's MR to next to nothing, helps your poke a lot. If you're a miser you can keep your flat AD runes, but I don't suggest it. TEEMO

TEEMO There's not much else to take in my opinion, flat AP quints give you a fair amount of extra damage in your spells. TEEMO
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Masteries (AP)

Offensive

Summoner's Wrath If you do use your ignite early(when you have kill potential), the extra ad and ap help slightly both in last hitting and against the enemy carry.
Brute Force You have decent AD scaling ratios anyway, 4 AP will do nothing for you but AD helps to last hit.
Butcher Help last hit.
Alacrity Prerequisite
Weapon Expertise Lich Bane and Mystic Shot both hit for physical damage, meaning they don't benefit from magic penetration at all. Late game this helps your mystic shots hit a bit harder.
Sorcery 4% CDR, which combined with a few other things late game helps me push my CDR to 39%.
Arcane Knowledge What's not to like? increases your damage at every stage of the game.
Blast Needed to put the points somewhere, you can put them anywhere you want so long as it's in the offensive tree.
Archmage Moar AP, do want.
Executioner Helps with bursting people down when they have lower life.

Utility

Summoner's Insight Having Flash up more often is a very good thing.
Expanded Mind Increases your mana pool, which can make a huge difference since late game Ezreal may expend a good portion of his mana pool poking with Mystic Shot
Meditation Along with your mana regen seals, you get to spam your skills a lot more often.
Swiftness Nothing else to take.
Runic Affinity Most junglers should offer you blue buff, granted that they know you're not just going to go die with it. Especially useful in premades where you can rely on your jungler to get 2nd blue and every blue after that.
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Items (AP)

Opening Build

You get two of these early on for the extra hit points, sustain, and killing power in lane. Don't skip these unless the enemy for whatever reason tries a mass tower dive on you at level one and you get a pentakill.

You get sorc shoes to make your poke hit harder. Void Staff makes this item less efficient however. On a target with about 100 MR you're only reducing that by about 10.8.

Consider grabbing these as a late game replacement to Sorcerer's Shoes for 39% CDR with blue buff & masteries. Protip: CDR cannot go higher than 40%.

Core Build

Most cost effective item when it comes to raw Ability Power. Core on every mage ever.

Gives your Mystic Shot a 1.2 AP ratio, you need it to do good damage mid and late game. You get this after the Rabadon's Deathcap because you need AP to make it cost effective. I've done some math on Ezreal's combos involving triple doran then a lichbane as your opening, and the only one Lich bane comes out on top of is Essence Flux--> Mystic Shot. Triple Dorans Lich bane is only good if you are maximizing your long ranged poke and saving Arcane Shift for the escape. You would do this against characters like Annie or Veigar who can easily kill you if you don't abuse your range advantage. The damage scales slightly better with the Lich Bane, but my calculations ignored that there was a 600 gold imbalance in Lich Bane's favor, so Death Cap is probably more cost efficient.

Need magic penetration to do damage to people who start stacking MR.

Amazing for Ezreal

Gives you CC, 15% of 400 is 60 move speed from your Essence Flux or Trueshot Barrage.

Life saving active, also gives you a lot of armor and AP.

6th pick of an item, really great for Ezreal. Lifesteal works with Mystic Shot and spell vamp works for everything else.

Situational

Gives a lot of MR and a little bit of magic penetration, you can go for something like this early if you're against a LeBlanc or a derpy team full of AP carries.

It's a great item, you mostly get it if you're having mana problems. If your jungler for whatever reason refuses to give you blue buff, this may be a viable item.

Adds a lot more burst, it's a great item for when the enemy team is stacking hit points and you can't damage anyone.

Only get for grievous wound if you're up against a Sion or Warwick and your team for some reason lacks Ignite. The other stats on it are okay, but nothing you absolutely have to have.

Don't Bother

Great item, but a Hextech Gunblade is much better because Mystic Shot benefits from lifesteal, not spell vamp.

Becomes cost effective at 6 stacks of kills, but even if you get it all stacked up it's really dangerous to build snowball items. If you die it takes a long time to stack it back up. This might be viable if you're playing with people too dumb to focus the guy with the Mejai's, but otherwise its an inferior item.

Do I even need to explain? This is an item that you get for pure early game benefit, AP Ezreal suffers in the midgame. Getting this only delays the items you need to start doing damage again.

Takes too long to stack up to be effective, and even then it only really gives you AP. You could grab a Tear of the Goddess early to stack up the mana, but it seriously delays your core build which means a lot longer until you start doing damage again, and that's a big deal.

This is an item you build early so that you can get it stacked up late. Ezreal needs to rush his Rabadon's Deathcap and Lich Bane to do well in teamfights. You also don't really need the stats it gives you. [Rylai's Crystal Scepter]] already gives you life, and a slow to go with it. [Zhonya's hourglass]] gives you a panic button for when Nocturne uses his Paranoia on you.

Yuck, you don't need most of the stats this gives you. The CDR is wasted with CDR boots and blue buff, and you aren't autoattacking so what would you do with attack speed?

Philosopher's stone Kage's lucky Pick Gp10 stacking in mid-lane is for AP Carries that can push super hard and safely farm like Malzahar and Karthus. Wouldn't recommend it on Ezreal. Don't buy a gp10 item past about the 20 minute mark, because it takes about 20 minutes for them to pay themselves off and it's no longer a good investment.
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Skill Sequence(AP)

Ability Sequence
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18

I've already explained the use of all of Ezreal's skills earlier, so I'll just justify the skill order here. Mystic Shot is taken at level one because it does the most dps of all your skills at level one. Afterwards, I max Essence Flux because it's much more reliable damage then Arcane Shift. I take a point in Trueshot Barrage wherever possible.

One thing you need to keep in mind is that the damage of Arcane Shift is a lot like Heimerdinger's Hextech Micro-Rockets. It's a pain in the arse at times, I've had people get away from me just because my Arcane Shift hit a minion instead. Late game you should still keep the habit of not using Arcane Shift offensively.
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Hybrid Ezreal

No, it's just bad. Your auto attack cannot keep up in damage with AD and all of your skills do less damage than lategame AP. With a Lich Bane, AP Ezreal's Mystic Shot has a 1.2 AP Ratio. Overall, you just lack damage at every stage of the game except early (Which AD still beats you at).
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Jungle Ezreal



Mystic Shot procs red buff, it definitely works. You're going to pull your hair out in frustration if you get counterjungled though. I personally dislike the idea of an AD carry in the jungle, because you don't get the money you need to carry your team through the late game. Jungle Ezreal is gank reliant in that if you don't kill people then you are useless in teamfights.

Pay attention to how Stonewall fired a Mystic Shot over the wall at Golem to keep his Rising Spell Force stacked up. He also takes advantage of his range by kiting the monsters. You have to do these things when jungling Ezreal in order to make it viable. I don't recommend it to people who are new to the character.

You can use arcane shift to hop over walls, which leads to plenty of surprises for the people you're ganking.
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Changelog

August 9, 2012
  • Maxing Essence Flux first when you go bottom lane is ridiculous, skill order on the cheat sheet and skill sequence both modified.
  • Added a bit and changed a bit of the stuff I had written for Essence Flux.
  • Cleaned up certain parts of the guide that I felt were messy or redundant.
  • Redid the chapter where I explained my AD runepage.
  • Added a Credits section, because stealing peoples ideas without acknowledging that you stole them is totally uncool.
  • Added more information on AD Ezreal's possible item openings.
  • Added dividers everywhere, inb4 complaints to get rid of them. I think they look nice in some spots, but I'm still messing around with them and I was extremely tired when I added them.
  • Support Fiddle
  • revamped the entirety of AD Ezreal.
August 8, 2012
  • Changelog Added
  • Entry added on Yorick Support
  • Introduction updated
  • Elaborated on a lot of items for the "Don't Bother" section for AP Ezreal, and suggested a possible alternative build involving grabbing your lich bane before a death cap(Which is almost always a terrible idea on other carries, would only work on Ezreal due to having **** ratios to start with).
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Credits

  • Michael Kinney for inspiring me to achieve greatness as both a person and a player.
  • jhoijhoi for her "how to make guides" guide.
  • IceCreamy for his guide on columns that I clearly took a lot of ideas from.
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Other things I need to do.

Add pictures and stuff.

Eventually may look into a matchups section.
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League of Legends Champions:

Teamfight Tactics Guide