This is a guide for the advanced player, who wants to play a successful Ryze, who is strong all game.

This is for the veteran player who will not forget to activate his item's abilities, and know -WHEN- to activate them as well.

YOU WILL NEED THE EXACT RUNES and mastery's provided if you want to follow the guide item for item. Otherwise you will not be able to start Doran's shield, which is part of the reason this build is so strong -all game- and not just later, like most Ryze builds.

And to those who saw the core build/summoners/runes/mastery's/ect, and felt a little flutter in their chest...

I know exactly how you feel ;) Damn it, why am I so good at this game?

*Sunglasses.

Or the uneducated, or those who don't understand how this game works.

(Edit, Shurelya's was part of the core build, but I assume if I don't change it to this, people aren't even going to read it. If you have any balls, try swapping the RoA out for Shurelya's, and buy Shurelya's after the Glacial Shroud, It's pretty -amazing-)

If you don't understand why Shurelya's Reverie and Rylai's on a tanky *** Ryze with lot's of mana is a good thing, you might as well just go to a different guy's page.

With this build, you're going to be enabling your team to rush in and do work.

Are you a traditional carry? Not really... Traditional carries aren't as multifaceted as this.

Will you be doing lots of damage? Yes.

Will you be doubling as a support? Yes.

Will you be doubling as an Off-Tank...? Pretty much. You will be quite tanky. You will certainly be giving more than you'll be getting, that's for sure.

So, in essence, you will be a carry, an Off-Tank, and a support, all in one. How could this -not- be a good thing? ;P

*Sunglasses?

Let's go over WHY the core items, what makes this build so devastating, and, why I picked all the odd things I did.

I know you're thinking it.

Let's go over why.

If you'll take a look at my gear, you will see I reach 35% CDR VERY early in my items. 40% is max. If you take a look at masteries, you will see another 6% there. Yes, you have ALREADY MAXED your CDR. WOW. Not to mention, those items provide Ryze with tons of amazing benefits, and make him not only deal good damage, but also be tanky, AND allow him to support the team at the same time.

No, we don't need CDR blues.

So, what should I take then?

Well, you could make the argument that MR runes might be better. Long term, you're right, but if you've ever made it to end game with the new Ryze, you'll know your end game doesn't need to be made any stronger. He's an absolute monster end game.

I prefer to strengthen the one lacking point in Ryze's game. His early game.

If you take Mp5 in both yellows and blues, and run the Utility spec for even more mana 5... You're gonna be puttin' a lot of hurt onto some unlucky summoner. I take the mana quints, of course, because that will not only make the Overloads do more damage, but it will allow you to cast more of them.

Doran's shield is actually the best Doran's item, if your champion can use it. When you play an energy champion, it's a no brainer. When you take Mord, no brainer. Sometimes when you're carrying vrs a hard lane, you take a shield over a blade because it's just better to have Hp5 if you're getting outlaned than life steal.

I digress.

These start runes allow us to take advantage of that 120 HP, 10 armor, and 8 Hp 5, so we can really dominate our lane from the start with our tankiness and still spam skills. This way we don't need a defensive tree spec, and we will be able to run the mastery tree which provides so many excellent benefits like more flashes, CD's, ect. The health regen is going to give us an advantage over most casters. If you don't think it will work, just try it.

Ryze with this start gear not only holds his own in most lanes, but wins lots of lanes. Later, when the gear starts to come in, the lane will be yours quite handily.

Well. If you don't like how this build looks, one of us is probably bad, that much I can say for sure.

Please, read onto the next chapter and then we'll see how you like the sound of it there.

Philo stone is going to stack so nicely with your Doran's shield and your Mp5 runes and mastery's; you're going to be able to trade spells easily with this set up, and spam your skills until they have to back out or die.

Then, later comes boots and a catalyst, and you'll find you're not missing your Tear at all. Your mana will always be generously replenishing itself, and your HP, and HP regen is going to keep you -very- happy and healthy. People are going to tell me I'm wrong and that the Tear is too good for Ryze and that I'm losing out on too many good bonuses by not including it.

That's fine... You can take out Shurelya's, because I know that's the item you're thinking about removing, and replace it with Manamune. You'll probably replace Cleanse with Ghost as well, and at the end of the day you'll have the same Ryze as everyone else.

And mine will be better, and you won't understand why.

It's not just as simple as hard numbers my friend, and either way, the hard numbers I provide are great as well. Let's explore a concept.

CDR on Ryze = more damage too.

Manamune/Archangel's provides 0% CDR, and Shurelya's provides 15%. This means you're going to be casting more spells, which translates into more damage. Because of this, for a large part of the game your damage is going to be similar with Shurelya's as it would have been with Manamune/Archangel's, although even if Shurely'as gave absolutely no benefit to damage, I would still choose it over Manamune/Archangel's

Manamune/Archangel's provide no special activates. Shurelya's has one of the best in the game, giving 3 seconds of AoE 40% move speed. Holy what? 40% move speed? To everyone nearby?

Manamune/Archangel's provide no HP, only mana. Shurelya's provides a healthy amount of HP, which will allow you to use Ryze to a fuller potential.

The bottom line is this... Give up a Manamune/Archangel's for amazing the utility and tankiness which you will desperately need. It will help with initiates, escapes, and ect. Your damage will be fine if you use the core provided here.

Rylai's turns Ryze into a slowing machine. His single target skills, which will be ready almost constantly, will slow a target 35% (Omg) and his Aoe spells, (His ult makes everything AoE) will slow by 15% for a while. Wow! So your team moves faster, and their team moves slower! With every skill you're constantly flinging out. Sign me up!

Well, he's an amazing champion now because he's not a flimsy AP nuke.

Now he's a sturdy MGC DMG monster. His DMG is sustained, high, and it never seems to end until you kill him.

Which is going to be hard to do because we have cleanse/flash/ and a 3 second Shurelya activate that makes us ninja fast for a short time. Not to mention 3-3.3k HP. Not to mention, massive damage.

In essence, it becomes very hard to hold you down or kill you. Lots of teams are reliant of the concept of, "Okay, their AP carry does a bazillion damage, but once we lock it down it's gonna die in 1 second."

Well, we should all know better. Champions like Ryze have the -potential- to break that mold, but you have to at least build him right so that he actually comes through and does the job.

THERE IS NO REASON TO BUILD ANY AP.

The only reason I have Rylai's is because of the HP and the slowing proc. The only reason I have the Void staff is the magic pen. All of your real damage is coming from your mana.

What you -do- have reason to builds, is tanky items that break the current mold, and allow you to do things people and team comps aren't ready to prevent.

If a tanky *** Ryze with amazing CDR and cleanse comes in, what options do you have?

Your carry has to back up, or you have to CC him long enough to kill him.

Cleanse sorta ruins your day, in that regard, doesn't it? Unless you have pop ups or suppresses, you're going to be taking lots and lots of damage, sadly.

Or, your team might blow 100% of it's cool-downs on Ryze, and then you'll find yourselves defenseless when it comes to dealing with other 4 members!

To play this Ryze effectively, you need to be like a beehive. You need to sting, and you need to sting often, and you need to be impossible to ignore. You need to be impossible to stop, and you need to be impossible to get out.

If your team is competent, and you have an amazing offtank like Irelia in front of you, I am confident you could 2v5 if you used both my Irelia build and this Ryze build. The current meta game isn't ready for this kind of a champion coming after them with this kind of utility and damage.

Try to kill any squishy that makes the mistake of coming inside your range, and follow as closely behind the tank as you can safely do.

Remember, you're not a squishy. You're almost an Off-tank with this build. You're not a nuke, but rather you're a sustained machine gun of damage, and you need to be in position to blast away at the opponents.

Isn't that what makes AD carries bad? The fact that you have to be in the fight and bombing away?

Yes. Precisely. Because they're incredibly squishy, or they will be ineffective. However, with this Ryze build, you will not be incredibly squishy.

You will be able to go and bomb away where a carry would not. It will take the enemy too long to kill you, whereas to kill a fragile carry fight simply take 1 combo of skills.

Beat your opponent and harass them out of lane while scoring last hits.

It is your duty to last hit. You -must- get your items going, it's the only way for you to win your lane.

And if Ryze wins his lanes, there's a good chance the game is over just with that simple fact.

Ryze is so good when built like this, he can literally snowball and take out entire teams if the other team isn't careful.

Farmed Ryze is the monster under the Boogie-man's bed. Don't let him get fed.

As mentioned, hopefully you have a farmed Off-Tank in front of you. Follow him/her into the fight, and double the effect of having two tanky high damage dealing warriors plowing into your team.

If you don't have another good initiator, it gets trickier.

Stay towards the front of your team, and if you land a good snare, might as well go for it. Harass will be important without a good Off-Tank.

If you REALLY want to build a REAL RYZE, You'll buy Shurelya's Reverie after the Glacial Shroud, and never buy RoA!

Be sure to follow the exact items and mastery's listed, or else it won't work.

Team fight bravely with this build, but intelligently.

You will carry/support/ and Off-Tank to victory with this build. This is a REAL Ryze build, for the REAL high level player.

It's strong if you are capable of remembering your activates in the middle of your skill spamming.

It requires a skill-intensive player, keep that in mind when using this build.

And as always, feel free to ask any questions about things you didn't understand.

Up-vote/down-vote, I don't really care, but just don't bring up the freaking Tear lol. Just don't even mention it, if one day they make that item better, it might be worth using on some champs, but for now there are probably only 10 champions that can even use the Tear.

Even Ryze has better items available.

Enjoy the new style of Ryze, and lead your team to many successful victories!