I haven't really played him on Dominion yet. So for now it is a WIP. But I will get it done~

- MrMoonsin

Hey folks, it's MrMoonsin here with my first real guide.
And it's for one of my favorite characters in League of Legends~

So here we begin the guide for Ryze, The Rogue Mage.

Ryze is a great champion if you can play him correctly, he has amazing burst potential and can solo most, if not all champions 1 on 1, and can even devastate the battle field of team fights thanks to Desperate Power.

This guide is designed to be simple, but effective.
The Items, Runes and Masteries are the same that I use when I play him. And I have found them to be the most effective.

Once upon a time, Ryze was a fairly standard AP character, however, Riot did something truly unique with Ryze, and that is make him rely on Mana for damage. This sets him apart from every other character in the game, and combining it with the fact that you can manipulate your cooldowns, gives him some diabolical burst damage.

Here are the Pro's and Con's (in my opinion) for Ryze.

Pros and Cons

Pros

Amazing Burst
Bulky Mid + End Game
Great in 1v1 and Team Fights
Ranged
Manipulable Cooldowns
Good Farmer

Cons

Squishy Early
Mana issues at early levels
Fairly easy to wall

There are many on Runeterra who are attracted to the study of magic or, in recent times, the emerging field of techmaturgy. For most, pursuit of such knowledge is formalized in a college or university. The halls of traditional study were never for Ryze, however, who felt a more raw and primal connection to the magic of Runeterra than those who tried to teach him. He struck out on his own as a young man to discover what already called to him. Ryze traveled the world, seeking the wisdom of powerful hermits, witches, and shamans - anyone who had something to share beyond what was taught in the city-states of Valoran. When he had learned all he could from these fonts of wisdom, Ryze turned to seek the lost, forgotten, and forbidden knowledge in the world, delving into mystical worlds where others feared to tread.

Ryze's tireless searching for magical knowledge led him to an ancient form of spellcraft known as thorn magic. This art required Ryze to tattoo spells on his body, permanently infusing his being with vast arcane power and finally fulfilling his need to bond with the mystical energies of Runeterra. His travels also led him to uncover the giant indestructible scroll he now carries on his back - the purpose of the inscribed spell remains a secret only Ryze knows. He claims it is an abomination - something that he must safeguard from the world. This has piqued the curiosity of many, though no one is sure how to separate the scroll from Ryze, or if it is possible to overcome the rogue mage to do so. Since then, Ryze has joined the League of Legends to study the magical creatures and powerful will-workers that fight there, in order to complete his exploration of mystical Runeterra.

''Ryze is no longer just a mage - he has become a creature of magic itself.''
-High Councilor Heywan Relivash

So, I know a lot of people are probably looking at this and thinking something along the lines of. . .
"This guy is a noob! Taking 3 Rod of Ages? WTF? Lolololol"

But, like I said. This is the build I have used countless times, and it works VERY well.
Take into account that each Rod of Ages gives you a total of 630 HP, 725 MP and 80AP. That's nothing to turn your nose up at. 3 of them will give you a massive 1890HP, 2175 MP and 240 AP. Very nice if you ask me. Making you very bulky, and giving you some insane burst.

I take Ionian Boots of Lucidity for the Cooldown redux, this, combined with the runes, and the passive effect of Overload will give you a 39.89% reduction in Cooldowns.

The 6th item, is mostly filler. I normally run Lich Bane if the game lasts that long, the bonus mana just adds to Ryze's devilish burst and the movement speed is nice too. And it allows you to swing in a fairly heavy hit afterwards due to the amount of AP you have via RoAs and the 3% MP to AP bonus from Archangel's Staff

And now I have justified my selection of items, here is the purchase order.

Start with a Sapphire Crystal and 2 HP pots. Then when you rack up a total of 925 gold B and pick up your Catalyst the ProtectorCatalyst the Protector. This will give you some great sustain, thanks to the MP, HP and the regen upon leveling. Continue farming and picking up any hero kill you can, then B and get yourself Boots of Speed (normally at this point, I have enough for Boots of Speed and Tear of the Goddess). Then get back to your lane and continue doing your thing, but use your skills whenever you can (use it on everything, this will help your farm and get that Mana racking up) Next time you back you should have enough for your first Rod of Ages.

From this point on its fairly simple.
Turn your Boots of Speed into Ionian Boots of Lucidity next.
From there build your next to RoAs.
^{If you don't have enough Gold to purchase a Catalyst the Protector, get the Sapphire Crystal over the Ruby Crystal for the Damage.}
Then proceed to finish off your Archangel's Staff.

As I said earlier, the final item, is situational and filler.
Items I would suggest are:
Lich Bane - MP, AP, MS and allows you to hit fairly hard with your normal attack.
Banshee's Veil - HP, MP, MR and a Spellshield. A great choice.
Guardian Angel - HP, Armor, MR and a revive. Pretty helpful item.
Abyssal Scepter - AP, MR and a MR reducing aura, it can be helpful. But I hardly ever run it.

My Suggestions

Ignite gives Ryze that extra little push that he often needs at the start of the game, also allows you to lock down people who can heal through your burst and pick off those who are running away from you with their tail between their legs.

Flash gives you the ability to escape ganks or just get away with stupidly low HP (many times I have dropped my W on someone then flashed away to saftey with under 50 HP left, lol). Even better is it gives Ryze the means to quickly catch up to someone and drop a Rune Prison on them allowing you to quickly burst them down. Really, Flash is one of the best Summoner Spells in the game. No doubt.

Other Viable Options

Ghost is a viable option for Ryze, it gives him more mobility and allows him to chase down and gank, as well as to escape when he needs too. However, I prefer Flash over this as it allows you to dodge over cliffs and trees and whatnot.

Teleport will give you great map control, and allows you to vanish from your lane for seconds and get right back into the action. I used to run Ignite and Teleport on my Ryze, but I found that Flash was the better option. Try it out, see how it goes. Great skill though.

Exhaust has its uses, it can save you from other carries, crippling them and allowing you to out burst them or run. And it will slow them enough for you to catch them and finish them off. Good skill.

Stay away from

Heal will only ever get you abuse. And, honestly, is fairly useless past the early levels, save the one or two times you might be near death with Ignite on you.

Revive. . . Yeah. . . If you are dying so much as to need to use this. . . You're doing something VERY wrong. . .

Smite is useless for Ryze, you aren't a jungler. Don't take it.

Cleanse is a very rare skill to see used these days, it IS a good skill. But don't take it on Ryze, you need the ability to catch people. This won't help you with that.

Clarity on Ryze bugs me. Really bugs me. When I see anyone else play Ryze with this skill, I immediately face palm, no lie. Much like Heal, but with less use. It's only ever going to be good for the first few levels. The 0-10 phase of the game, afterwards, it's pretty much fodder.

Clairvoyance is a skill which does have its uses, I've used it to great effect with Caitlyn, Ashe, Ezreal, Gankplank and even Nocturne. . . But don't run it on Ryze. It would just be a waste.

Fortify is again, another good skill. It can stop a tower push and save your teams bacon, however, leave it for the support champions or Tanks. Not for Ryze.

Rally. . . Just. . . No. . . Again, leave it to the support champions. . . If anyone. . .

Runes

I take 9 Greater Mark of Insight , 9 Greater Seal of Resilience, and 9 Greater Glyph of Focus and 3 Greater Quintessence of Swiftness. This combination of Runes give us +8.5 MPen, +13 Armor, -5.89% to our Cooldowns and +4.5 Move Speed.

They are all changeable, I know a lot of people would probably run MPen Quints rather than MS quints, but I find that the speed boost is very helpful. And fair few would probably preffer MP/5 for the Seals. Runes are a funny thing, play around with them. Use what suits you. This is what I use, and it has worked countless times for me. So I am happy with them :)

Masteries

I take 9/0/21 masteries with Ryze.
Making sure to grab Sorcery and Archaic Knowledge as they're really the only useful caster skills on offense before taking our skills in utility. I take a point in Greed, just because I can. I know not everyone likes that mastery. Again, just play around with it. Change it up to suit you.

Here we will take a look at Ryze's skills and how they work. I'll even through in a few figures and numbers that are applicable to my build so you can see the kind of damage you can be doing.

Skills

Arcane Mastery
This skill is part of what makes Ryze capable of such insane burst damage, it allows you to manipulate your cooldowns, wish scary results. Knowing how to use this correctly is what separates the good players from the bad.

Overload
This is Ryze's bread and butter. A single target Nuke that, with my items has a 2.1 second cooldown and deals 702 damage (If using a Lich Bane)

Rune Prison
A great skill, it's important to note it is a hold and not a stun. At max level, it will hold for 2 seconds, and using my items deal 810 damage.

Spell Flux
A overlooked skill, but, honestly, it IS Ryze's weakest skill. Hitting an enemy reduces their MR and deals full damage per hit, which, with my build will be 321.

Desperate Power
Ryze's ulti is pretty good in my opinion. It passively increases his mana by 225, giving him more damage and makes his spells deal 50% AoE damage. Great for team fights. It also gives him 25% Spell Vamp.

Ok, so he's not as scary as he used to be. Ryze, once upon a time, could deal damage which I can only describe as disgusting. But, he's still a beast. Ryze can literally melt the faces off of people who go against him thinking he is a push over.

Skill Sequence

Q-W-Q-E-Q-R-Q-W-Q-W-R-E-W-E-W-R-E-E

In simple terms, max out Overload first. This is your bread and butter. I take it at level one because it allows you to pressure and harass and the cooldown reduction is nice too, you could take it at level 2 if you are keyboard happy and have a habit of spamming it as it's mana cost is fairly expensive. After this make sure you pick up Rune Prison (or take it as a first skill and take Overload second), this will keep you and your team safe and will allow you to catch your running opponents and net your team a kill. After this, pick up Spell Flux, although to be honest, early game you will only use this to refresh the cooldowns of Overload and Rune Prison as the damage is negligible at best until you complete the Archangel's Staff. Of course, pick up Desperate Power at 6, 11 and 16 and use it often, it really helps with Ryze's farming and activating it counts towards your Tear of the Goddess / Archangel's Staff's 1000 bonus mana.

As I said earlier, how people use Arcane Mastery can distinguish them from a good Ryze player and a bad one.

►► means it should be castable due to Arcane Mastery reducing the cooldown.

Ryze's standard DPS rotation is as follows:
► ► ►

This is insanely fast burst damage, taking between 1.5 and 2.5 seconds and with my build, you'll be bursting 2086 damage (if they have 30 MR [which every Champion has by default]). That's alot of hurt right there folks. And that's only taking into account a single hit of Spell Flux. If you're 1 Vs 1 and there are no minions, you'll get a few more bounces off and increase your DPS a little more.

For Farming the rotation is as follows:
► ►
This should mop up most waves, from time to time you might find you will need to toss out another spell just to finish them off. But the first Spell Flux and Overload will do it the majority of the time.

To max your DPS in 1 Vs 1's. Try and make sure you are close to them, almost in melee range (normally a bad thing for a caster, but for Ryze and his considerable bulk, it shouldn't be too bad). The reason for this is you want to get the most out of Spell Flux's MR reductions. Also, remember that Desperate Power triggers the effect of Arcane Mastery too. Don't use it right at the beginning of a fight, I see all too many Ryze's do this. And it's just wasting damage potential. To get the most out of Desperate Power use this rotation:
► ► ► ► ►► ► ►► ►
Although, it is VERY rare you will ever find the need to pull off that combo, only in huge team fights, and even then you probably still won't pull it off.

Well, this is the end of my guide to Ryze, and the end of my first guide.
I hope I have covered everything off fairly well, and if anyone has any pointers or tips or advice, feel free to leave a comment.

Also, please don't just rate this without trying it. Positively or negatively.

Using this item build, you should have huge levels of HP and Mana and some truly scary burst damage. It really does come into it's own the moment you get that Archangel's Staff due to the boost you get to the damage on Rune Prison and Spell Flux.

Like I said, give it a try, see how it goes. Leave me some feedback and rate the build.
Good luck fellow Summoners!