Welcome to my new Ryze guide. Ryze is one of my main AP carries and that's why I would like to show you, how I play him. Please read and calculate all the sections before downvoting it because of Rabadon's Deathcap. In my opinion this is a really viable way to play him.

Please enjoy the read.

Pros

• CC
• Good farming/lasthitting with Q and E as soon as you have Tear of the Goddess
• Good aoe dmg
• High burst
• very low CDs
• Tanky build

Cons

• No escape skills. Only Rune Prison.
• High cost item build
• Needs good coordination to do the skill sequence properly.

Recommendation

Optional

Top/Mid lane Standard marks for an AP carry. Nothing more to say I think. Top lane Armor seals help you laning against any AD or tanky/dps champ early game. Top lane Greater Glyph of Knowledge In most cases there will be a tanky/dps top. That for you don't need extra magic resistance as long as your lane enemy hasn't high magic damage. Top/Mid lane Greater Quintessence of Knowledge For higher damage late game.

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Mid lane Greater Seal of Knowledge Due to the fact that in most cases you will face a magic damage dealing champ on mid lane, you won't need more armor. Take Mana/LvL runes for more mana because mana equals damage. Mid lane If you play mid against an AP champ, get magic resistance glyphs for better early game lane phase. Top/Mid lane more health for a better lane substainability.

This runeset will give you great tankyness early game but also a good amount of mana on LvL 18 for great damage. For the Quints you can take what you like more.

Additionally +3% of your mana will be converted into AP thanks to your Archangle's Staff. That means you will get +19 AP (With Rabadon's Deathcap +25AP) thanks to your Mana/LvL runes.

Offensive

SPACE4 more AP. Passthrough.
SPACEfor 5 more AP when Ignite is on CD. Passthrough.
SPACEbetter CDR. Passthrough.
SPACEfor 10% magic penetration.

Utility

SPACEbetter Flash CD.
SPACEfor 216 more mana on lvl 18 what's great for your damage output.
SPACE2% more movement speed for a better mobility.
SPACEbit spellvamp is great for laning and a bit selfheal.
SPACEfor longer buffs (Blue/Baron).
SPACEfor a bit more experience.
SPACEmay help you get a LvL advantage.
SPACE6%CDR. With Sorcery together you will get +10%CDR my masteries.
SPACEbetter CD for your summoner spells.

Starting Items

Usually I start with Boots and three Health Potions. I rush a Tear of the Goddess or a Catalyst the Protector. This depends on how .

Earlygame

Your Early Game goal should look like: Catalyst the Protector

Midgame

Try to rush a Rod of Ages as soon as possible. What you will get next depends on your enemy. Next get a Glacial Shroud for more Mana and Armor. After this, farm for a second Catalyst the Protector and finish your Banshee's Veil.

Midgame should end like that: Catalyst the Protector

Lategame

You have all your defense and mana you need to survive and carry a tf in late game. You reached the point where it makes no sense to stack more mana. So the next step would be build some AP or MPen for even more damage or even get some SpellVamp next to your Ultimate.

Finish your Archangel's Staff and you will get a good amount of AP. Now you have 4 different ways in my opinion. Either you get a Rabadon's Deathcap, Void Staff, a Will of the Ancients or a Abyssal Mask. Your choice depends on the fact if the enemy is stacking MRes. As long as the enemy has not >200MRes, a Rabadon's Deathcap, Will of the Ancients will win over a Void Staff or an Abyssal Mask. (at this place thanks to ADRyzeHuehuehue for his calculation about the question Rabadon's Deathcap or Void Staff.

Late game should look like:

or

or

or


But more you can find in the Deathcap or Void Staff section.

Your main combo will be:

-> -> -> ->

Thanks to your passive Arcane Mastery your Overload will be ready again after casting the other 3 spells. Be sure you are fast enought with activating Desperate Power before Overload hits his target. So you will get spellvamp and do AoE damage.

If you catch an enemy moving alone, cast Rune Prison and move near him, so your Spell Flux will release his full damage while bouncing between you and your enemy.

We talk about the last item in this build. Normally the game should not take that long that you can build your full item build because it's rather expensive. But in case I personally prefer more Rabadon's Deathcap because you get such a high damage boost Late Game.

Another item which works really fine on Ryze is Will of the Ancients. Good amount of AP for more damage, an AP Aura which is perfect when you going to play double AP and the best thing: Spellvamp. Due to his high burst damage and really low CDs, Ryze will heal himself so incredibly fast that together with this high defense you are crazy hard to kill.

If you want to get more magic penetration you have to decide between Abyssal Mask and Void Staff. I will tell you why Void Staff is only viable in really, really special cases. Lets talk about the magic penetration in this build:

• 8.55 by 9x Greater Mark of Magic Penetration
• 20 by Sorcere's Shoes
• 12 by Spell Flux

That makes 40.55 magic penetration plus 10% magic penetration from Archane Knowledge. This is a pretty good amount of magic penetration because most of the squishies (your targets) have more and less only a Banshee's Veil, that means <100 magic resistance.

If you think they have still a bit much magic resistance you should first think about gettin an Abyssal Mask[/color], because of his nice defense stats and the magic penetration aura, before you invest your gold into a Void Staff.

While engaging high mres enemies like Galio, Garen or Rammus or if they have a Soraka in their team, you may think about getting a Void Staff.

The goal is to reach 40% CDR. Thanks to his passive on Overload, Ryze will reach this pretty easy:

• 10% from Masteries. (4% from Sorcery, 6% from Intelligence )
• 10% from Overload
• 20% from Frozen Heart

Preword

This section is for all the people who think "AP Ryze sucks". You are right. Pure AP Ryze sucks. But due to his primary damage source is mana, you will reach a limit of where it makes sense to stack more mana and where not. With Runes, Tear of the Goddess, Rod of Ages, Banshee's Veil and Frozen Heart you will get ~5.3k mana in lategame.

But what additional mana item makes sense on Ryze? There are some items (e.g. Lich Bane). But i think items such as Lich Bane are useless on Ryze:

Lich Bane provides you 350 mana. That will make around 11 damage on Overload and 18 on Rune Prison. Not very much though.

The point where to switch to AP is after



First, update your Tear of Goddess to an Archangel's Staff. So lets calculate:

• 100 AP from Rod of Ages
• 45 AP from Archangel's Staff
• 150 AP from the 3% AP based on mana (Calculated with 5000 mana)

That makes 295 AP thanks to these 2 items.

Second, you pick up a Rabadon's Deathcap for the following reason:

295 AP ( Rod of Ages & Archangel's Staff) + 140 ap ( Rabadon's Deathcap) = 435ap

435 AP * 1.3 (because of Rabadon's Deathcap's passive]] = 565 AP only with 3 items

Calculation with the skills

Overload has an AP ratio of 20%: +113 damage.
565 * 0.2 = 113 damage

Rune Prison has an AP ratio of 60%: +339 damage.
565 * 0.6 = 339 damage

Spell Flux has an AP ratio of 35%: +198 damage per bounce.
565 * 0.35 = 198 damage

• 25.08.2011 Release
• 15.11.2011 Exchanged Ghost with Ignite, checked the spelling once again (not yet perfect. i know.)
• 16.11.2011 New Masteries.
• 06.12.2011 Changed Masteries a bit. Changed runes & Added optional runes. Updated optional items
• 23.12.2011 Changed Masteries in the Offensive Tree for +5 dmg against creeps for better lasthittin and moved the point in Sage to Strength of Spirit for better health regen.

Please subscribe my build and try it out. Don't be disappointed if you lose or fail a game. It's not the builds mistake. It works really properly.