I'm not an old Vet of LoL but I think that this build could be quite effective. I'm not level 30 yet so I cannot personally test it completely but from what I've tinkered with It is a very good AP Ryze build. Ryze and Heimerdinger are the two Champions that I've found that I like, Ryze being my favorite. Now, I've told you I'm not a Vet of this game but please don't use that as a way of judging this build, judge it purely on it's merits. I would love to get feedback as to how I can improve it.

I will go as in depth as I can for my choices, if you disagree with any of them just leave a comment with CONSTRUCTIVE criticism about why you think a different choice would be better and I will definitely consider it.

Update#1: Changed some masteries and runes for dodge.

Quintessence Choices:
Greater Quintessence of Swiftness. I chose this one because improved speed is always good useful way to get that last hit on a champ whose running away and also to help you run away. Improved speed also gives you better field control because even if flash and ghost are down you can still get from place to place quickly.

Alternate Choices:
Greater Quintessence of Intellect, this would be an ok choice seeing as how the more mana you have with this build the better your Health Regen is and the less you have to Recall to base.
Greater Quintessence of Celerity, Extra CDR is good but is not needed for Ryze because of his passive. It can however help you to spam spells which in turn means more spell spammage (Que Viking corus) and in turn do more DPS.
Greater Quintessence of Wisdom, I wouldn't use this but if you're bad at farming XP this may be helpful to you, if you are bad at gaining XP another change you might want to do is take 3 points out of Archmage's Savvy and 1 out of Hardiness and put it into the Awareness mastery.


Glyph Choices:
Greater Glyph of Celerity, CDR for Skill spamming for increased DPS. Also great for Rune Prison letting you snare enemies more not letting them escape from your major damage output.
Greater Glyph of Knowledge, Extra Mana means less Recalling and greater Health Regen for this build.

Alternate Choices: I would not suggest anything else really. If you wanted you could take out some Glyphs of Celerity and put in more Glyphs of Knowledge and vice-a-versa.


Seal Choices:
Greater Seal of Evasion, With Nimbleness this is great for being able to run from a losing battle.
Greater Seal of Defense, Extra Armor for a bit more resilience.

Alternate Choices: When it comes to Seals for this build it's really up to you. This was the hardest section for me to do because there were no Seals that jumped out at me saying, "Hi I would be PERFECT for Ryze."


Mark Choices:
Greater Mark of Insight, The magic penetration is just superb for your DPS.

Alternate Choices: I personally wouldn't change the Mark of Insight for anything else. But if you must you could change them for Marks of Knowledge because once again More Mana = More HR5.

I won't be doing a paragraph and a half here for each mastery because that would just be INSANE, however I will be going over the Key ones and the ones that may seem odd.

Key Masteries for this build:
Strength of Spirit, This mastery is just ridiculous by level 18 I usually have between 50 - 70hp regen just from this.
Awareness, I changed to this from Expanded Mind because I found that leveling quicker is better than the like +50mp from Expanded.
Quickness, Is it just me or is extra speed just amazing?
Perseverance, Similar to Expanded Mind not because you get extra mana but this also goes great with Strength of Spirit. Also the extra mana regen is not bad at all.

Good Masteries for this build:
Archmages Savvy, extra AP = More DPS.
Intelligence, Extra CDR for more DPS.
Ghost, This is very useful I don't know why but I really like extra movement and although this doesn't increase base movement it increases Tactical movement by being able to run towards or away from an enemy quickly can often mean a Kill or a Death.
Blink of an Eye, Although you won't be using flash on recharge it's very good to have available. The more it's available the more choices you have to escape a gank or to gank yourself.


Alternate Choices:
Good Hands, Because some people die too much...
Expanded Mind if you would rather have more MP than XP gain

You may notice my build doesn't go for alot of AP and that's because for Ryze it's good but Defense and Mana are just better. Archangels is more for the mana than anything that's why Manamune can be taken instead.
To start off the match you want to buy a Sapphire Crystal with 1HP Pot 1MP Pot or 2HP Pots. Take 2HP pots if you're Soloing a Lane and just Last hit the enemies, DO NOT PUSH. If taking a lane with someone take 1HP and 1MP because what you're job is going to be is harassing the enemy champs out of XP range of the creeps so you want to have that extra Mana regen for Overload.

Next thing you want are Boots for the movement.

Tear of the Goddess is the best thing to get next so that you can start gaining mana with its passive ability

After the Tear of the Goddess you want to just save up for the Archangels Staff but if you really need you can also skip it and get the Sorcerers Shoes.

Now I personally LOVE Rylai's Staff it's so useful for ganking between its passive and Rune Prison trying to escape from Ryze alone can be an ordeal and if you have a ganking partner it's almost an assured kill. Rylai's is this builds only real offensive weapon and it's offensive because of its slow, Ryze dishes out a lot of damage and if the opponent stays with you too long they won't be able to run away because you can just hit them with Overload then run up and Rune Prison them then another Overload and usually that's death to someone at 50% or less health.


Banshee's Veil is very good but if their team doesn't have a mage or if theirs is just bad take Frozen Heart instead. The Proc on this item is good but very obvious so the opponent can just waste something like Spell Flux or equally bad PvP Spell on Banshee's Proc. "Disclaimer: Spell Flux can be a very good PvP spell but you have to stand next to the enemy so that it will hit them and bounce off of you back to them."

If their team is short on casters take Frozen heart instead of Banshee's Veil. If they have casters take Banshee's THEN Frozen, Frozen is just all round amazing.
Rod of Ages is just a good item for you DPS...

These are only 5 out of the 8 items you can carry so here are some I pick up Late game:

Deathfire Grasp, This is just a great item all round its active is just killer, literally.

Morello's Evil Tome, Good CDR good item.

Shureyla's Reverie, This item really depends it's Active is great for catching fleeing foes and for getting back to the enemy after recalling the rest of its abilities are also good like its CDR.

Take Overload first I cannot stress that enough, it's just so useful when harassing the enemy out of XP of the creeps and really the only good spell early game. This is your main Damage throughout the game.

Rune Prison is a good next choice because it can snag you some early game Kills on unsuspecting opponents. Late game it just becomes silly.

Spell Flux is terrible early game because you don't want to Push creeps early and it just isn't up to par with Overloads Harassment level. Late game this spell is great at Pushing Lanes especially when matched up with Desperate Power to just annihilate massive amounts of creeps at once.
"Disclaimer: Spell Flux can be a very good PvP spell but you have to stand next to the enemy so that it will hit them and bounce off of you back to them."

Desperate Power is good for many reasons, its passive of gaining extra mana is useful for your mana and health regen. When using its active it can be that extra little damage vs champs or when used with spell flux it just wipes out enemy creeps.

If you don't know why I picked Flash and Ghost.... never mind...

If changing to a different spell NEVER TAKE OUT GHOST always take out Flash.

For more Champ hunting you could go with Ignite If you do take out Flash and change the Blink of an Eye mastery to another point in Utility Master.

Clairvoyance is a nice way to choose which lane you'll take by being able to see where your opponents are going and thus taking the lane with the easiest opponent for you. If you do take out Flash and change the Blink of an Eye mastery to another point in Utility Master.

Fortify can be good less for its tower defense and more for your ability to push lanes and last hit creeps. I personally would not take it but it can be useful.

So all in all I think this is a very good build that does massive damage while at the same time having a good amount of resilience. Perhaps I've made a mistake and this build really sucks but hey I've only played for less than a week... Constructive Criticism in the comments would be very helpful. Any way thanks for reading this far and hopefully people like it. Also Ryze is not all about the AP he's all about the Mana