Goodday!

Hi, i am Maxilliano, and i really am into playing Twisted Treeline, just because i love the short laning phase, and the excess of teamfights and close combat. Playing the map will definitely increase your skills in Summoner's Rift aswell! Plus, if you like to play this with your friends, you only need 3 people!

In this guide i'm going to teach you how to play Ryze in Twisted Treeline, because a lot of beginners in this map simply don't know how to build their champs. Ryze is a cheap, and fun-to-play champion. I love how he can be tanky and have an amazing high-damage burst aswell. His abilities scale on your maximum mana! Now that's something different! Let's start!

Pros:

- Ryze has an amazing burst with E -> W -> Q.

- His abilities scale on a percentage of your maximum mana.

(Q: 6.5%, W: 4.5%, E: 1.0%)

- This allows you to build tanky items. (For example: Rod of Ages)

- Ryze is naturally a bit tanky.

- His ultimate ability, Desperate Power has no cost and it still adds damage to all of your other abilities. On top of that it gives extra movement speed and spell vamp!

- Rune Prison can snare enemies, just so you can fire your burst, or to hold them off.

- Spell Flux reduces the Magic Resistance of enemies it hits, making it great to start off with in your burst. It synergizes extremely well with Desperate Power

- Overload has a very low cooldown, and it is a nice tool to reduce the cooldowns on your other abilities aswell. It is also a great poking ability.

- Ryze can burst a squishy target down in the late-game phase, and he can deal some serious damage to tankier targets.

- *(see below) Ryze's abilities are not skillshots. That means that they require no skill at aiming at a target.

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Cons:

- Ryze's abilities aswell as his auto-attack have a short range. Overload, Rune Prison and Spell Flux have a range of 600 units. Ryze's auto-attack has a range of 550 units.

- Ryze's gets most of his tankiness from his build (Items like Rod of Ages and Frozen Heart). This means the fact that he is squishy without them, can be quite annoying in the early game. His health at level 1 is only 446hp.

- The missle speed on his auto-attack is pretty quick, but the animation before is very slow. You will have to get used to that if you want to farm properly.

- His attack speed at level 1 is only 0.625, which means it is even harder to learn to farm properly using his auto-attack.

- *(see below) Ryze's abilities don't allow him to shoot freely into the unknown. They are not, not any of them, skillshots. Therefore you can't hit enemies you don't see.

- He is extremely gankable. Ghost gives you a little bit of a counter to that, but it is still a major problem.

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*******Mind you!*******

NOTE! that having no skillshots is a pro aswell as a con because the nukes on Ryze require no skill in aiming, but the lack of skillshots makes you unable to easily damage an unseen enemy in a bush or something. Therefore you have to stick with your team at lvl 1, if you go to the Ghost Relic Bush together.

The Runes

Total statistics: + 7.83 Magic Penetration, 12.69 Armor, 101.25 Mana, 4.5% Movement Speed

Greater Mark of Magic Penetration

For marks, i really love the magic penetration ones. They just give you a lot of damage early game on top of the mana from the Tear of the Goddess. They will also help you wreck the bruiser/offtank/tanky (often melee) top-laners in the early game of Twisted Treeline. This is very important, because the better early game team often wins the game in this map.
Late game, these magic penetration reds compromise for you perhaps not building Abyssal Mask or Void Staff. Though those items give you way more magic pen, in case you are not going to build them, these reds will still give you the essential basic magic penetration in the late game.

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Greater Seal of Armor

Secondly, you are going to want to get armor yellows. Armor yellows are just so good early game, that i think they outmatch all other yellows. They, again, help you win against AD top laners (and they often are AD, cause the squishy AP's go botlane, Ryze is an exception here).
Especially in the early game this is helping you to win trades and therefore making your enemy flee, or killing him. You will level faster, and get gold faster because of the prolonged sustain and trade potential.

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Greater Glyph of Mana

The glyphs are the key to having a good early game Ryze in Twisted Treeline, because this mainly compromises for the fact that your opponent is often tankier than you. This will be over when you buy your catalyst, but until then, mana blues are going to step up your burst, making you able to do more dmg with one aswell as landing the burst more often.

Landing your burst more often makes more use of Ryze's passive ( Arcane Mastery)than it normally would, so the cooldowns on your abilities (especially your Overload) will reduce more, which, again, gives you more damage output.

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Greater Quintessence of Movement Speed

Last, but definitely not least, these movement speed quintessences will amazingly help you throughout the game. These synergize incredibly well with the build. They comprimise for not buying boots at the start, which makes it possible to have movement speed AND a TotG at the start of the game. Also, the percentage of these quints stack with the mastery bonus MS, to benefit more from the Alacrity upgrade of your Sorc Shoes.

You will end up with an average to high final movement speed. This will help you get away easily together with your W and possibly your R. W and R wil also help you chase and hunt enemies down, which is nice, because a full burst often leaves your enemy with just a tiny bit of health. I've experienced a lot of difficulties trying to hit that last needed auto-attack when i was not running Greater Quintessence of Movement Speed, so they do make that essential bit of difference.

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Summary & specifications

All together, this rune page helps a lot in your early game. Notice that i use flat mana and flat armor runes! That is because your items will provide you with enough bonuses in the late game, so choosing scaling runes is a bad idea, i think. The early game against a tanky top-laner is not easy if you do not bring enough sustain or early damage.

This page is to help you against the tanky ones. That does not mean that you're going to have a bad time against squishy hypercarries. Ryze just has one of the most powerful bursts in the game, especially because it scales with your mana(in other words: it scales with the potential to use your abilities more often). Fire a burst at almost anyone, and they will be dead or left with a slither of health.

I don't take any AP runes, because Ryze does not benefit from those as well as other AP carries. Taking mana instead will give you way more power and sustain to keep firing of your burst. Also, i dont take mana regen yellows, because of the Tear of the Goddess you already have in the early game. Catalyst the protector and Archangel's Staff and your maximum mana will cover any mana problems in the entire game. Instead, armor seals are the best option for tankiness, and just because they are so good in the early game.

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Offence Tree

The offence tree is pretty straight forward, taking the essential CDR from Sorcery to get the maximized 40%, an upgrade to Ghost from Summoner's Wrath , countering to ganks, then taking the magic pen branch's Blast , because we need the power of Arcane Knowledge in the early game.

Quoted:

"Magic damage will ignore 8% of the target's Magic Resist."

Assuming the enemy doesn't start off buying a Null-Magic Mantle, or a Negatron Cloak, this will affect the base Magic Resistance of the enemy in the early game, giving you even more power. In case the enemy does buy Magio Resistance to start off with (which is highly unlikely) this will counter that.

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Utility Tree

I think an early game Ryze against a tanky top-laner benefits more from the Mana Regeneration off of Meditation , than the movement speed out of combat from Wanderer , because there is not much space in Twisted Treeline to roam freely without getting hit. I take Improved Recall because this allows you to get on an enemy altar, press Recall, and be away as soon as you captured the altar. (I recommend to press Recall as soon as you get on the altar IN ALL CASES, because you can just cancel it if you don't need to go, but more importantly, you can be gone when enemies arrive.)

I get Mastermind for Cooldown Reduction on my Ghost and Ignite, so that i can use them more often. Expanded Mind is pretty straight-forward on Ryze, as it gives you 10mana/lvl. Vampirism and Biscuiteer give some more really necessary early sustain.

Awareness allows you to out-level your enemy laner, which gives you several periods of time throughout the game in which you are at a higher level than your opponent. Make use of this, especially when you are level 3 (when you have all of your main skills) and the enemy is level 2 (so he only has two of them), or when you reach level 6 and the enemy does not (you have Desperate Power and the enemy can't use his ultimate yet).

Intelligence in utility, Sorcery (3 of 4 points) in offence, Overload's passive and Frozen Heart's Cooldown reduction values add up to 39% Cooldown Reduction. The Cooldown Reduction value's maximum is 40%, and that's why building another Cooldown Reduction item (like Ionian Boots of Lucidity, Blackfire Torch, Athene's Unholy Grail or Spirit Visage) is not a good idea.

Finally Nimble helps counter your short range on auto-attacks and ability!

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Choices made:

I do not use the defense tree, because i feel that after getting catalyst the protector my tankiness is good enough to keep me alive against burst and poke. Only the phase in the game before getting catalyst the protector is a bit critical. In that phase you really need to watch out for ganks and you need to focus on juking heavy poke while still farming properly. Though this seems like a tough job, i have always managed to succeed this.
I take 21 in utility and not 21 in offence, because i think Ryze benefits more from the mana, utility and mana regen coming from the utility tree, than the ability power, and other damage from the offence tree. Ryze's passive: Arcane Mastery makes you benefit a lot from mana and cooldown reduction to get higher damage out of your abilities.

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Extra item specifications

A lot of explanation on items is already stated in the notes in the build. My build seems a bit similar to a hyper-carry ryze, but with Rod of Ages, Greater Seal of Armor, Frozen Heart and possibly Abyssal Mask, the build is tanky enough for fast paced games in Twisted Treeline. Look at the notes at in the build at the top of the page for a detailed explanation of the items.

EARLY GAME: (lvl 1 - 6)

Try using as much abilities as you can, as this will fill the tear and reduce the cooldowns on the other abilities, therefore spam your Q. BE REALLY CAREFUL ABOUT OVER-EXTENDING, AND WATCH OUT FOR GANKS OR MISSING PLAYERS IN THE BOT LANE BECAUSE IT CAN WRECK YOUR EARLY GAME.
As soon as you hit lvl 2, start using W -> Q -> run away on the enemy. Farm properly, as soon as you hit lvl 3, try hitting the enemy laner with W -> Q -> ignite -> runaway (this will force the enemy to leave the lane, making you able to farm better, however, if you want to kill the enemy, save your ignite). If you feel like you can kill the enemy because you're ahead, hit him with E -> W -> Q -> AA -> E -> AA or Q -> W -> E -> AA -> ignite -> Q. This will give you an almost guaranteed kill. I max Q first because of the nice CDR passive and the low cooldown and AA cancel.

MID GAME: (lvl 6 - 11)

Now that you have your ultimate, see if you can help the botlane or see if you can get into a teamfight with your team (assuming you have outleveld the enemy slightly with your masteries). Your ultimate also provides a dmg boost, which, combined with ignite, makes it possible to wreck a squishy enemy completely or deal severe AoE dmg in teamfights. Because of the low cooldown and no cost, you can use your ult to clear a wave prior to ganking the botlane or to clear jungle camps very fast. I max W second because you will really benefit from the longer root and the better poke/nuke/dmg output.

LATE GAME (lvl 11 - 18)

Use your ultimate as soon as someone engages in teamfights to maximize your dmg output. It is the best to use your abilities as fast as possible in TF, but it would be even better if you could use your abilities in the following order as fast as possible: R - E(then focus the dmg dealer) - Q - W - E - Q. Use Q as often as possible, and AA when you cant use an ability. I like manamune on Ryze because it makes your AutoAttacks really do some dmg aswell. I have also noticed that it doesnt matter how far you're behind most of the time, because when your low health against a dmg dealer; lets say an ADC; just activate your R, try to ignite, then faceroll your keyboard to kill him. The spellvamp on R absorbs the enemy dmg, while the insane late game burst on Ryze kills them all.
Dont be afraid to use your ultimate to clear a big wave really fast, it will be worth the gold, and it costs no mana, and it's cooldown is really low. I max E last, because although it gives a MR decrease to an enemy it hits, the 1st point gives 12 MR drop, and the 5th one gives 24MR drop, so i think it scales badly, and though it hits AoE the base dmg is not getting better from points into it, 12 MR is good enough in a TF, and it works well enough with your R in TF's.

I take Ghost and Ignite for Summoner spells.
Ignite is a must, and i personally prefer Ghost over Flash, because it helps you root the enemy with your W, then run away. I think that Flash doesn't really help Ryze get away, because of his slow base speed, and his slow early game MS.

I hope you liked this guide to a Twisted Treeline Ryze. I personally love playing him this way, and Ryze is a very cheap champion, which makes it assumable that almost everyone has Ryze. He's an insane Magic dmg dealer, and he is tanky aswell.

I would love some feedback on my guide and i hope you like playing along to this guide!

Stay tuned for more,
Maxilliano

Update log:

28-10-2013 23:38 or 11:38pm (CET):
- Revitalised the introduction, pros/cons, runes, masteries and items chapters.
- Added details and improved layout.
- Changed the masteries to what they needed to be, and added explanation to where it was needed.