Hello, and welcome to this guide, How To Master Prodigious Spellcraft. Here, we will be studying the master of prodigious spellcraft, Ezreal. Documented will be two play-styles, one for the just beginning, and one for the experienced. Be warned, the experienced playstyle will take even more skill than the beginning Ezreal playstyle. However, those that can succeed will reap even larger rewards than ever before!

Again, this guide will cover two playstyles, one for the beginning and one for the experienced.

Beginner's Play-Style Duo Lane (with a support/tank) Offense + Defense Masteries Offensive + Defensive Summoner Spells Safest Method

EZREAL

Experienced Play-Style Solo Lane Offense + Utility Masteries Exhaust + Ignite High-Risk/High-Reward Method

Greater Mark of DesolationGreater Marks of Desolation are the best marks for a late game oriented Ezreal, to pierce through an opponent's defensive items.
Greater Marks of Strength are the best marks for an early game oriented Ezreal, to deal more damage early game.

Greater Seals of Resilience helps to deal with damned Attack Damage.
Alternatively...
Greater Seals of Clarity can be used instead if aren't worried about the enemy's physical damage and you want to deal with Ezreal's mana issues.
Greater Seal of VitalityGreater Seals of Vitality can be used if instead of armor you prefer straight health late game.

Greater Glyphs of Warding helps to deal with pesky Ability Power.
Alternatively...
Greater Glyphs of Clarity can be used instead if aren't worried about the enemy's magical damage and you want to deal with Ezreal's mana issues.
Greater Glyphs of Focus can be used instead if aren't worried about the enemy's magical damage and you want to cast more spells.

Greater Quintessences of Strength are to help a more early game oriented Ezreal, to deal more damage early game.
Greater Quintessence of DesolationGreater Quintessences of Desolation are to help a more late game oriented Ezreal, to pierce through an enemies defensive items.

With this Ezreal playstyle, which focuses on early and mid game dominance, its most beneficial to major into the offense tree, taking Weapon Expertise , Arcane Knowledge , and Sunder . This helps us reach our full potential for the most damage in the laning phase.

I don't take Vampirism or Havoc , because while these two may seem appealing at first glance, if you do the number crunching they are surprisingly weak. 1.5% of 100 damage is 2 (rounded up). 2 damage is not a big enough difference to make investing all those points for it.

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From there, I take the remaining points into the utility tree, taking Runic Affinity . Both buffs, the Ancient Golem Buff and the Lizard Elder Buff are incredibly strong on Ezreal, and the more you have both of them equipped, the better. It is your choice whether to take Good Hands & Swiftness or Expanded Mind & Meditation .

If you are new to Ezreal, take your remaining points into the defense tree instead, taking Resistance , Hardiness , Durability , and Veteran's Scars . This helps you to survive through mistakes in your play, especially early in the game.

Exhaust gives Ezreal something he lacks, crowd control...and boy is this some HARD CC. A crippling slow and reduced damage for 2 and 1/2 seconds......some of the best crowd control you could ever want.
Ignite gives Ezreal some additional true damage and makes healing near-useless......another perfect addition to your summoner's kit.


Flash can get people out of sticky situations, and with Ezreal's Arcane Shift, you can combine the two for a DOUBLE flash to get you out of the stickiest.
Ghost is also a great summoner spell. While Flash blinks over short distances, Ghost is better for closing or creating long distances. With Arcane Shift its a sure escape!
Cleanse, since the buff to it, is now really strong on champions vulnerable to crowd control, such as Ezreal. Hate Mercury's Treads? Can't remember your Quicksilver Sash? Grab this spell.

Rising Spell Force is Ezreal's passive. This is one of his finer points, and keeping this buff at 5 stacks allows you to have a lot of free attack speed, so the need to itemize for attack speed is avoided. With this passive, itemization can be centered around attack damage, which Ezreal scales stronger with anyway as a carry.




Mystic Shot is Ezreal's Q. This mighty skill is the key to your middle lane domination with Ezreal. It has a very long range, and deals exceptional damage, especially with its (+1) Attack Damage ratio. Its also quite spammable, but be careful with the spam! Unwise usage will quickly drain your mana pool.

Its also quite important to note Mystic Shot's special effect of reducing all of your skill cooldowns by 1 second, but only if it hits something! You can use Mystic Shot to bring your Arcane Shift off of cooldown faster for more repositioning, to use Essence Flux's buffs and de-buffs more frequently, and to use your Trueshot Barrage, Ezreal's ultimate, more often!

Max this skill first.




Essence Flux is Ezreal's W. Since we are going AD Ezreal, this skill isn't as strong as it would be on AP Ezreal. Get one level of it at level 4 if you are against a champion in lane who relies on auto-attacks. Otherwise, skip it until team-fights start, which is around level 8 or 10. It doesn't deal very much damage in the lane, doesn't buff your own attack speed, and it costs a lot of mana for what it is does. Its far better for team-fights due to the AoE buffing/de-buffing.

Max this skill last.




Arcane Shift is Ezreal's E. This is basically a built-in Flash, which is how this build is viable with the two offensive summoner spells, Exhaust & Ignite. Be smart with your use of this skill, as being caught with it on-cooldown can spell death.

Max this skill second.




Trueshot Barrage is Ezreal's ultimate. This is a GLOBAL nuke skillshot, which can net kills, double kills, triple kills, quadra kills, and so on. It does a lot of damage with its attack damage ratio of (+1). Knowing when and how to use this skill is key to mastering prodigious spellcraft.

Important things to note:
-You can use it to clear a minion wave hacking at a tower.
-You can use it to farm that small sum of gold you need for an item.
-Try to avoid being seen while channeling this ultimate. If enemies see you, they'll be all the more ready to dodge it.
-It never hurts to get close up to snipe enemies with more accuracy with this ultimate.
-The channel time can not be interrupted.

Level this skill up whenever you can.

Ionian Boots of Lucidity will allow you to spam more of your spells, increasing your DPS. However, unless you are good with Ezreal, you might overspam even easier, and drain your precious mana pool. Careful!

Berserker's Greaves increase your DPS by letting your auto-attack more. Take these if you can't manage Ezreal's mana.

Mercury's Treads are a must against CC-heavy teams, especially due to Ezreal's vulnerability to CC.


The Bloodthirster is the item I get at this point. It gives 100 Attack Damage and 25% Life-Steal fully stacked, and that is a large amount of each. Your attacks will hit with the force of stampeding automobiles with this item fully stacked.


Banshee's Veil is a very strong item to counter tanks and initiators taking you out of the fight with their crowd control. It is a very valuable choice not to be underestimated! My personal favorite.

Guardian Angel is the item to counter sheer damage, when the problem isn't being caught by stray CC, but by stray damage. Very strong anti-damage, especially with the revive effect.

Quicksilver Sash is the ultimate anti-CC item. This is the item to purchase when Banshee's Veil just won't cut it against a very high amount of crowd control. Remember the active.


The Bloodthirster is a perfectly grand choice, but I would caution on doubling up on The Bloodthirster, since you lose a huge amount of attack damage and life-steal stacks if you die.

Last Whisper is a favorite item of mine for Ezreal. Because, opponents with any sense will get armor to counter your immense damage output. With this item, you'll cut through their layers of armor like cheap scrap.

Infinity Edge pairs well with your Trinity Force if you prefer a more auto-attack oriented Ezreal. I personally like this item for its high damage and its synergy.

The Black Cleaver is a very strong item against opponents with minimal amounts of armor (less than ~100). Otherwise, Last Whisper is stronger.

Madred's Bloodrazor is a strong alternative to Last Whisper if the enemies are taking the unconventional route of building defenses against you through health instead of armor.

Stark's Fervor is not everyone's cup of tea, but its hard to deny how strong it is on an AD carry like Ezreal. Take this if your team is more physical damage oriented...
{For more information: a fantastic piece on Stark's Fervor by Jhoijhoi: http://www.mobafire.com/league-of-legends/build/why-why-not-runes-masteries-items-99827#chapter14 }

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Wriggle's Lantern is a very popular pick on the Ranged Attack Damage Carry these days...I think its a fad. I mean, its a great item, but I see it as an overly-glorified Doran's Blade on Ezreal. You're just going to sell it just like a Doran's Blade for better damage at the end of the game. Take it if you like it. I prefer not to, simply.


The Brutalizer is an item that competes with Sheen for Ezreal's affection often. I'm on the side of Sheen. In my honest opinion, Sheen and The Brutalizer both produce the same amount of early game strength. But, what The Brutalizer builds into, Youmuu's Ghostblade, utterly pales in efficiency compared to Trinity Force. Its a lose-lose situation with The Brutalizer, sell it later in the game and waste gold, or turn it into Youmuu's Ghostblade and waste gold? Compare with Sheen, far better because of just how much raw power Trinity Force bestows upon Ezreal.


Hexdrinker & Wit's End are both being talked about together because they each do the exact same thing, just in different styles. They attempt to fuse magic resistance and damage output together into a single "hybrid" item. Both of them fall flat when it comes to efficiency in my opnion, because it would be just far more efficient to take a B.F. Sword and a Negatron Cloak than either of these items, which can then be built into even better items, and those two items gives you more combined power than both of these items put together. Skip both of these, they are too inefficient compared to stronger items.


Atma's Impaler is just a kind of the case above, but more peculiar. Regardless, if you need armor, just buy Guardian Angel. If you need damage, just buy Infinity Edge. Ezreal has no need to build high amounts of health to fit in with this item.


Frozen Mallet should be brought up, speaking of high amounts of health. Again, Ezreal has no need for the health this item offers, and could benefit more from a more resistance-oriented defensive item like Banshee's Veil, or an actual damage item like Black Cleaver. Another "hybrid" item that falls flat when it comes to efficiency. What ever happened to the Lizard Elder Buff?


Manamune is very overrated. It is used on Ezreal as a mana-management quick-fix...the problem is he does not scale with the actual mana once it is all built up. Yes, he also builds it up fairly quickly, but aside from all the mana and mana regeneration, giving one ton of mana but not enough attack damage to allow it to compete next to other damage items. Basically, learn how to manage mana, deal more damage. Ezreal's mana costs aren't even that high!

Take your Doran's Blade and head to the middle lane. This lane is where the true potential of Ezreal can be unleashed.

(Laning solo top 1v1 works as well, but the middle lane fits Ezreal better in my honest opinion.)

Remember when I said "this takes even more skill than the average Ezreal playstyle"? The difficulty of this playstyle starts here. You will need to multitask, and be able to last-hit minions for gold and kill your opponent for even more gold. If you fail to last-hit, you will be gold-starved, but if you can not zone your opponent, then the whole point of your pre-game build is muted. If you can accomplish both however, you will, in fact "reap even larger rewards than you ever could before!"

Get as many last hits as you can, and when you have a break, you need to harass your enemy laner with auto-attacking and your Mystic Shot. Even at level 1, Mystic Shot will take at least 20% of their health! By level 2 or 3, they should be low enough for the kill (generally around 50% health). Once you see your chance, try your best to hit them with the nuke from Arcane Shift (it usually misses however, its largely unreliable), then use your Exhaust and/or Ignite, and kill them with your auto-attacks and Mystic Shot. Done correctly, they will die.

Now with dominance secured, kill some more minions, and recall for health, mana, and items. If you can, push to the enemy tower! Whittle down the tower if you can, but most important, the minions will be killed by the tower, and the experience/gold will be gone, and your enemy laner will be even poorer for it, and you richer in turn.

When the enemy laner returns, the 2nd kill should be even easier. Just whittle them down with auto-attacks and Mystic Shot, Arcane Shift at them when they are low, use your summoner spells (if they are up), and that will be kill #2. Kill #3 will be even easier, and so on. Your opponent will get weaker & weaker, and you will become stronger & stronger in turn.

Also: Try to attain the Ancient Golem Buff and the Lizard Elder Buff, as both are very strong on Ezreal. Ask your jungler for one or counter-jungle one from your opponents once you have your Vampiric Scepter!

Remember to make opportunities to gank other lanes, especially once you have Trueshot Barrage!

Here are my recordings and ratings of the various opponents who challenge Ezreal's rights to the 1v1 solo lane. This is an ongoing project.

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Annie may seem surprisingly intimidating, but she is only tough if you let her be. She usually has her Q, Disintegrate, down, being used for farming, so she only has her W, Incinerate, and her auto-attacks, which deal pitiful damage. The only thing you'll want to worry about is her passive stun, Pyromania. It is important to harass to her as hard as possible, as early as possible, as she is weak early on. You'll need to beat her down before level 6, or she might be able to turn the tide of the lane with her infamously painful full spell combo.

To beat Annie is simple, charge at her while her Disintegrate and Pyromania are down.

(Do not try to engage her if she has her stun up and is over 30% health. It won't work.)

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Morgana is infamous for her strong laning, but what I believe most people fail to realize is, she is out-laned easier by AD solo lanes than AP solo lanes. She will beat most, if not all, AP solo lanes, thanks to her speciallized Black Shield. However, she is still an incredible laner thanks to her passive, Soul Siphon, which makes her very sustainable in conjunction with her Tormented Shadow, which gives her easy farming & lane dominance. Dark Binding combined with her Tormented Shadow makes for very painful harassment in the lane. At level 6, she can combines this Dark Binding + Tormented Shadow harassment with her ultimate, Soul Shackles. This can will kill most middle laners...however you are quite capable of preventing her from reaching level 6 in the first place.

Morgana's laning is most effective against other mages. Ezreal is a Ranged Attack Damage Carry, however. Her Black Shield is useless against your physical damage. Her Tormented Shadow is very weak if not coupled with her Dark Binding, since you can simply just run out of it (please don't stand in it, it does a ridiculous amount of damage over the full duration). So, her Dark Binding, is the ability that makes Morgana's laning phase strong. However, this skillshot can be easily dodged with practice. Furthermore, she has a strong tendency to push her lane thanks to her Tormented Shadow farming. It is perfectly plausible of damaging her past her Soul Siphon with auto-attacks, not to mention Mystic Shot.

Assault Morgana when her Dark Binding is on cooldown. Her Black Shield is near-useless against a Ranged Attack Damage Carry. Do not underestimate her Soul Siphon.

It is quite possible to Arcane Shift at Morgana & dodge Dark Binding at the exact same time. This is the best method to assault her, but requires the most skill.

When Morgana has her Soul Shackles up, save your Arcane Shift to flash out of the tether. Doing so can save your life against her quite often.

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Twisted Fate may seem scary with his 2 second stun with Gold Card, but he's surprisingly easy to take down. He is extremely squishy, and has no other form of crowd control. Twisted Fate's attack range is lower than Ezreal's, so he'll have a hard time dealing damage with Pick A Card, much less Stacked Deck. His Wild Cards are also really easy to dodge if you are paying attention. His Pick A Card is down surprisingly often as well when he is farming with Red Card or Blue Card.

When Twisted Fate charges at you with Gold Card, you should try and bait him over. That means, run away from him, until you have a clear shot for Mystic Shot. Hit him with your Mystic Shot, and keep running until he turns around or his Pick A Card is used up. Then, hit him hard with Arcane Shift, Mystic Shot, and auto-attacks. Add in Exhaust and/or Ignite for the kill!

Harass/kill him as above if he uses up his Pick A Card for farming with Red Card or Blue Card.

Charge at Twisted Fate when his Pick A Card is on cooldown. If he is charging at you with Gold Card, bait him away from his tower!

Take a point in Essence Flux at level 4 against Twisted Fate, since some of his damage is through his auto-attacks and Stacked Deck. Use it sparingly, not for harassing, but for dueling/killing.

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Veigar probably has the worst laning phase out of any caster...which is good for Ezreal. Veigar spends the entire laning phase farming with his Baleful Strike. His passive, Equilibrium, is not quite enough to allow his Baleful Strike farming to be sustainable either. His Dark Matter is ridiculously easy to avoid. His only trick is his clunky stun, Event Horizon.

Try and force him into using his Event Horizon prematurely, and then assault him while it is on cooldown.

If you are stuck inside the Event Horizon zone, you can Arcane Shift outside out of it. It would be quite the nice timing to assault Veigar as well.

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Vladimir is hard-countered by Ezreal. Basically, you'll need to put down Vladimir before level 9, which isn't too hard. His early game Transfusion is weak, but it becomes stronger with enough levels. If he tries to harass you with it, just hit him back harder. You'll easily win the trade...You can win every harassment trade you make with Vladimir early on. His other harassment spell, Tides of Blood has a high health cost in the early levels, so while he is trying to deal damage to you, he is also hurting yourself, so it is easy to win that harassment trade as well!

Some may argue how Vladimir's Sanguine Pool makes him impossible to kill. This is simply not true, as it costs 20% of his current health to use.

Often, you'll be able to kill him while it is cooling down as well, so while he may be avoiding your damage, he is still taking damage!

Just kill him, he's so very weak early on. Don't worry about his Sanguine Pool.

Don't just let him freely farm up his spell vampirism! If you do, he will become hard to take down alone.

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Before a team-fight begins, you should be using the long range of Mystic Shot to harass. Harass and hit hard with this, preferably on squishy targets, but any opposition suffices.

Once the team fight starts, get into range to shoot out auto-attacks on the squishiest target you can safely reach. Aim your Essence Flux at the enemy right-clickers mainly as it will deal damage and lower their attack speed greatly, or at your ally auto-attackers if it is unsafe (as it will only somewhat increase their attack speed), or preferably all auto-attackers in the fight. It will make a HUGE difference if you can hit them all!

DO NOT USE ARCANE SHIFT TO INITIATE. Save it to re-position yourself! Arcane Shift will let you change your positions in the team-fight fairly often, to escape out of bad positioning and into more favorable positioning.

Save your Trueshot Barrage for valuable moments, such as when the entire enemy team is clustered up or in a line, or when low health opponents are trying to escape.

Keep your Rising Spell Force passive stacked up, as it will majorly increase your damage per second fully charged. It is 50% bonus attack speed at 5 stacks, almost as much as a Phantom Dancer!

To conclude this guide, I simply want to thank those that helped me create it.

The first person I must dedicate this guide to is Evil Nosferatu. The world's best older brother & friend, who has changed, and will continue to change, my life...<3

The second person I must dedicate this guide to is Wictor Dolk a.k.a. win10cent. A great player of Ezreal, whose guide changed my ways, not just with Ezreal, but with my entirety of LoL play...as well as inspiring me to tread new paths with Ezreal, that I write here, in this guide.
( You can find Wictor Dolk's a.k.a. win10cent's Ezreal guide here: http://leaguecraft.com/strategies/guide/11826-a-very-detailed-ezreal-guide.xhtml )

For very good reason, the third person I must now dedicate this guide to is Jhoijhoi. Her critiques of my old (and now archived) Ezreal guide, How To Master Prodigious Arcana, and my new guide, this one, make me realize so many enlightening things, not just about guide writing, but about Ezreal himself. Thank you so very very much!

The fourth person I wish to dedicate this guide to is Demina. Thank you for being a wonderful supporter to me & my ranged carries!

The fifth person I need to dedicate this guide to is TheNamelessBard. Thank you for making all the wonderful & custom Ezreal images!

The sixth person I must dedicate this guide to is GrandmasterD. Thank you oh so much for helping me to improve this guide & my Ezreal play!

From 6sick6:
From TetricAttAck:
From ThePancakeist:

Warning: This is almost completely irrelevant to proper Ezreal play.

So, considering this is apparently a mandatory section to have in every Ezreal guide...ever...how is this relevant to Ezreal at all? Because Ezreal's dance is based off of an animation from the anime ending credits of The Melancholy Of Haruhi Suzumiya. Don't believe me?

Its a well-made anime by the way...I'd recommend it?...Its...artsy?

A review of the anime is on my blog if you are actually interested:
{ http://www.mobafire.com/league-of-legends/blog/blydden/a-review-of-the-anime-quot-the-melancholy-of-haruhi-suzumiya-quot }

9/12/11: Guide re-released.
9/13/11: Added a new chapter, "Frequently Asked Questions". Edited the display build to be in according to my current theorycraft...as well as the "Runes", "Masteries", & the "Items" chapters. Re-did the "Runes" chapter, renovated the "Items" chapter, and general spelling, grammar, & coding fixes.
9/14/11: Nothing for Patch 1.0.0.125 except a bug fix for Ezreal.
Ezreal

• Essence Flux will now break spell shields (I thought it already was supposed to?...Bug fix'd)

9/15/11: I received a nice image for the "Fan Submissions" chapter today. ^_^
9/20/11: Grammatical fixes.
10/1/11: Thank you all so much for making my guide the #1 Ezreal guide on MobaFire!!! I'm not just slacking off on this guide, I'm working on a a new section or two, but I'm making sure they are exactly right before release. Grammatical fixes and up-to-date masteries!
10/6/11: Nothing for Patch 1.0.0.126 that directly involves Ezreal. However, I got a really nice fan submission today!
10/14/11: Coding fixes.
10/23/11: Patch 1.0.0.127, Hextech Gunblade is nerfed! Updated the display build and "Items" section, also took down the "Frequently Asked Questions" section for renovations.
Items:

• Hextech Gunblade
  [**] Attack Damage reduced to 40 from 60
  [**] Ability Power reduced to 70 from 75
  [**] Life Steal reduced to 15% from 20%
  [**] Spell Vamp reduced to 20% from 25% and is now UNIQUE

This is very serious. Hextech Gunblade is now crippled and very gold-inefficient on Ezreal. While I know people will miss Gunblade, including me, Ezreal needs to move on now.
11/10/11: (Late update, sorry) Patch 1.0.0.128 brought no changes to Ezreal (minus a new cyborg-esque skin for him ^_^). However, I've cleaned up the formatting on the guide some today.
11/18/11: (Late update again, so sorry) Patch 1.0.0.129 brought a bug fix for Ezreal, "Essence Flux is now correctly flagged as an area effect spell," or something like that, but more importantly, NEW MASTERIES~!...Display build updated as well as the "Masteries" section.
11/20/11: Grammatical fixes.
12/13/11: Sorry, so busy I haven't be able to update my guide...updated information, cleaned the formatting, coding fixes, spelling/grammar fixes, upgraded the "Items" chapter, two THREE new chapters, and a second display build! Even more things coming soon when I have time...Oh, and Patch 1.0.0.130 brought no changes to Ezreal.
12/14/11: Grammatical fixes.
12/17/11: Added Twisted Fate to the "Trials of the Solo Lane" chapter. Edited the masteries of Build 2 to reflect current theorycraft. Grammatical fixes.
12/18/11: Squashed a MASSIVE coding bug in the guide. OI! Had to re-write the "Introduction", "Foreword", and "Runes" chapters.
12/29/11: Edited the display builds, deleted the second one. Updated the "Foreword", "Runes", and "Masteries" chapters. Grammar & spelling fixes.
1/15/12: Coding fixes.