To start things off, first understand that this guide is for Low Elo ONLY. In the higher play, Xerath suffers from a great deal more, and the loss of a team-comp-based support pick can cost you the game. This guide isn't your end-all be-all Xerath guide, it's your guide to punishing incompetent players, and learning how to not be one, yourself.

It relies on capitalizing on poor vision management, overconfidence, inexperience, bad coordination, and poor build paths. You aren't the diamond climber, you are the gold stomper. With this guide, your goal is to ruin the day of anyone not skilled enough to escape Elo Hell, and ensure that they don't get out through some pure luck of chance. And most likely, you'll get out of the Elo where everyone makes those mistakes, and have to learn to play better once you're there.

Why pick support, why not mid?

Pros: Vision control, better matchups, more snowball potential, safer from ganks, and dark harvest.

Cons: Reliance on mid to not feed enemy assassins, more likely to get ganked by mid laner, less gold, bad team comp, and worse roaming potential.

In the bot lane, there is one huge difference that will let you survive more consistently than in mid. Your adc is the target. The enemy wants to kill the adc, because they believe the adc to be the bigger threat, and the larger damage dealer. This lets you sacrifice them to save yourself, and makes it harder for you to die in general. And there's another difference. You almost always have a winning matchup in the bot lane. Unless the enemy support is an enchanter, attacking the enemy adc is easy, and hard to punish. In the mid lane, your enemy's mobility can punish you for every wrong move you make. So by playing Xerath, you are ensuring that the enemy adc does not get fed, and that it isn't an issue. Late game, you can straight up kill the enemy adc on sight with just your ult, so they will never be relevant unless they build smart, which is uncommon in low elo.

But if your mid lane feeds the enemy assassin, how is that different from them killing you over and over? Wouldn't it be better to have a better support to counter them? In most cases, yes, it would be. But in low elo, and as a support, you have the greatest tool to use to your advantage, almost never recognized for its true worth in low elo. Vision. In the bot lane, YOU can still get fed, while the enemy assassin gets fed themselves. This means that both of you can one shot each other. And as the owner of four stealth wards and a sweeper, you hold the advantage. You go hide in a bush, and catch the enemy out. You ward the enemy jungle, sweep their vision clear, and dominate anyone that steps inside. People in high elo are less likely to wander in a place with no vision, but in low elo, bush traps are an effective strategy that work most of the time.

And last but not least, team comp. Yes, it would be better to play a "real" support to get your adc fed. But the secret to low elo is to only rely on yourself. If you assume that you're better than the rest of your team, then it is your job to carry. Picking Xerath support will make your adc worthless all game. But if you can carry them, then what's the issue?

In the bot lane, there's one place you can't effectively be. Top lane.

And as Xerath, there's one enemy you can't beat. And that's top laners.

The difference between a fed zed and a fed sett is that you can kill zed in one hit, and catch him out in the jungle. You will never be able to take care of a bruiser like that, unless they've lost lane hard.

As Xerath, the only thing you must rely on your team for is taking care of the enemy bruisers. Be it olaf in the jungle, or a riven in the top lane, you can't beat them on your own.

So avoid them like the plague, and pray that they won't be super fed. You can sometimes roam top with your R, but keep in mind that most top laners are tanky enough and have enough mobility to withstand or dodge your ult.

Early game, you only have three goals: Don't feed, proc spellthief, and get dark harvest stacks. Hell, you don't even need the dark harvest stacks, because you can get them later.

Your adc's life doesn't matter, but try not to bait them into feeding. Some people will think your E stun is a perfect engage, but forget that you can only deal burst damage. They'll go in once you land your combo, die, and then ask you why you didn't do anything. If your adc is like this, then just don't use your stun until mid game, unless you absolutely have to. Your most consistent trade is W Q, as your W is very hard to avoid, and applies a slow to let your Q land easier. Repeat that combo whenever possible. Try not to take too much cs from your adc, but don't feel bad about taking it if you need to to hit your Q.

You want to avoid feeding as much as possible. You always win late game, so if you go 0/0/0 for 20 minutes then you will still be able to carry, no problem. You can even carry from going 0/4 in the first six minutes, true story. But doing that will give the enemy a chance to stop you from scaling, mobile adcs can make your life a living hell if you give them gold, so understand that you can still snowball just by playing safe.

As well, pre-6, you want to play safe for two reasons: One, you don't do enough damage to justify an aggressive playstyle, and two, you want your ult as soon as possible. The faster you get your ult, the faster you can roam mid, or help your jungler, and it makes a huge difference across the map.

Mid game, your priorities expand. You need to get kills, and you have the tools to do so. With lost chapter and some other goodies, you can now start doing heaps of damage to your enemy bot laners, and doing heaps of damage when you ult, too. Always check the map for fights or low hp enemies. Getting those free kills will turn you into a weapon, and getting those stacks will only make your roaming stronger. You want to roam often, as your enemy bot lane will eventually learn not to mess with you, and you'll have a harder time killing them. If not, they'll be giving you reduced gold anyway.

Roaming does a few important things for you. One is kills and gold, obviously, two is opportunities for vision placement, and three is saving your team. As a carry, you don't want your team to die, because then the enemy gets fed, and you'll have to deal with them. But if you roam mid when your mid laner is losing a fight, and help them get the kill, then they might win their lane off of your help, and the enemy mid won't be as big a problem anymore. Also, impacting other areas of the map makes it more likely to get an S rating for that game, sooooo

Mid lane is peak time to farm for dark harvest stacks. It's where you get the most impactful kills, and it's generally the deciding factor for how late game will turn out. So whatever you do, DON'T DIE. Don't wander in the jungle if you don't know where the enemy jungler is, and make sure you know where EVERYONE is when you're roaming. Getting caught out is game over for you. The only exception to this rule is when you have both sums available, and can flash/ghost away at a moment's notice. Try to steal drags and barons, but don't get too close.

Once you're in late game, if you played correctly, then you should be fed. You have a few options to secure the win. By now, you should be able to one shot the enemy squishies, but you have to figure out the best way to go about it. One way is to see a few in range of your ult, and take one or two out with it. But if the enemy you took out wasn't very fed or important to team fights, then you've wasted your ult, as they wouldn't be able to fight anyway. One way is to take control of one side of the enemy's jungle, place vision and clear enemy vision, and wait for a good opportunity. More often than not, enemies will face check their own jungle, and you can take advantage of that to get a game winning pick. As well, killing the worthless enemy adc is no cost to you.

But what if you can't do that? The enemy's carry isn't a squishy, and they've got vision all over their jungle. So, what do you do? Now, you have to rely on your team. Team fights. In a team fight, you want to go for the enemy squishies at the start, even if the enemy carry is a bruiser. Ult them down, or Q them to death. You want your team to focus the bruisers while you take out the squishies. But even if that doesn't work, you have one advantage. Range.

You are constantly in combat with any enemy in range, which, unlike most other champions, is not the case. As long as you keep your distance, you can keep fighting, even if your team is dead. This is where ghost comes in. Enemies with light mobility could chase you down, but with ghost, you can still kite them, and win. Even in a 1v5 scenario, as long as you keep your distance, you win every time. This is what makes Xerath such a powerful pick in low elo. You may be just as inexperienced as the rest of yours and your enemy's teams, but you're playing Xerath, and it doesn't matter what champion the enemy is playing if they can't get close enough to fight you.

Hiiiii, that's the end of the guide for now. Now this kind is probably worthless to most people because I haven't told you anything about myself, and why I would know anything about how to play Xerath.

I am a filthy Xerath/mage main, and mostly just enjoy playing with my friends. But I do have an unreasonably high Xerath win streak in ranked right now, and though I don't play it very often, all my friends seem to agree that when I play Xerath, we just win. I started playing at the start of Season 10, and easily climbed to gold that season. This season, I just recently started playing ranked (now that I've gotten used to all the mythics and how the items work lol) and have a very impressive win streak and rate with Xerath support, so I figured I'd share what I know with anyone that might need the help. Currently gold 2, having only lost 1 Xerath support game in the past 20 I've played.

Though Xerath is my "main", I don't one trick any particular champion, but I do kinda one trick the mage role. My highest mastery is Xerath, with 260k, followed by 190k Swain, 160k Vel'koz. If you want to get a feel for how powerful bush camping is, try out Vel'koz, as he can one shot even bruisers! lolll

So if you're stuck in iron/bronze/silver/gold, then check out this guide, then maybe this guide will help you get out of there. After all, there's a huge difference in playstyles between low elo, high elo, and pro play. Some tips only apply for high elo, or only apply for low elo, so I figured it would be good to share my low elo experience.

And with that, I bid you adieu. PEACE!