Ezreal Build Guide by Haedrix

Introduction

Welcome to my Season 3 Ezreal mini-guide.

I've separated this guide into segments based on the different builds / lanes to attempt to make it easier to navigate and find the information you may be looking for.

This is intended to be a mini-guide meaning that you can basically get all of your need to know information from the +NOTES on the Itemization cheat sheet, Runes, and Mastery Page portion of the guide.

About the Author

My IGN on NA is Phaetox. I am currently Gold II w/ 2400+ Normal wins.

I'm a content provider for a few online gaming communities but the main project that I'm involved with is Diatomic Gaming.

Diatomic Gaming is an organization focused on providing a comfortable environment for players looking to experience a community aspect to League of Legends, Counter Strike, Minecraft, Rift, Planetside 2, WoW, and several other games. We promote streamers, have content providers who upload champion guides and write articles for eSports websites, promote a few Youtubers, have experienced and high caliber players who offer coaching / tutoring, and fund servers, tournament fees, etc. for members. It is an open gaming community that is actively recruiting and strives to enable members to pursue their interests in a constructive format.

If you are interested check out any of the following links to seek more information:

Diatomic Gaming's Website

Diatomic Gaming's Steam Group Page

Diatomic Gaming's Facebook Page

Common Language Reference

• AP = Ability Power
• AD = Attack Damage
• HP = Hit Points / Health
• AS = Attack Speed
• MR = Magic Resistance
• AA = Auto Attack
• DMG = Damage
• Pen = shorthand for Penetration
• MPen = Magic Pen
• ArPen = Armor Pen
• Q / W / E / R = References to a champion's abilities via default key bindings
• Ult / Ultimate = Champion's 4th ability (usually on a long cool down) that is not available until level 6

Pros / Cons

AD Carry Ezreal (No IE)

• Strong level 1 fighting potential (good DMG + low CD on Mystic Shot)
• Inexpensive build path w/ Manamune + Iceborn Gauntlet (if you choose to build them)
• Long range harass w/ Mystic Shot
• Uninterruptable blink ability for escapes via Arcane Shift
• Strong Kiting w/ Trinity Force // Iceborn Gauntlet + Blade of the Ruined King's active + Arcane Shift
• AoE Ultimate for team fights on Trueshot Barrage
• Global snipe for low-health targets on Trueshot Barrage
• AS Steroid on passive Rising Spell Force
• AS Buff for allies via Essence Flux
• Quick burst potential
• Lower CDs due to Mystic Shot's passive CD Reduction on-hit
• Trueshot Barrage can be used to clear a large minion wave pressuring any area where your team cannot afford to send someone to

• Damage falls off late game (no crit in build)
• Squishy
• Can easily run out of mana in lane if careless

AD Carry Ezreal (w/ IE)

• Strong level 1 fighting potential (good DMG + low CD on Mystic Shot)
• Long range harass w/ Mystic Shot
• Uninterruptable blink ability for escapes via Arcane Shift
• Strong Kiting w/ Trinity Force + Arcane Shift + Blade of the Ruined King's active (if you buy it)
• AoE Ultimate for team fights on Trueshot Barrage
• Global snipe for low-health targets on Trueshot Barrage
• AS Steroid on passive Rising Spell Force
• IE Build helps you scale into Late Game well
• Trueshot Barrage can be used to clear a large minion wave pressuring any area where your team cannot afford to send someone to

• Expensive build
• Squishy
• Can easily run out of mana in lane if careless
• Rushing Trinity Force gives you a strong Laning Phase but if you rush straight Infinity Edge you won't be able to make as many smaller purchases here and there to steadily increase your DPS, the increases will come in delayed chunks

AD Mid / Secondary AD Carry Ezreal

• Strong level 1 fighting potential (good DMG + low CD on Mystic Shot)
• Long range NUKE harass w/ Mystic Shot empowered by Iceborn Gauntlet and Muramana
• Uninterruptable blink ability for escapes via Arcane Shift
• Strong Kiting w/ Iceborn Gauntlet + Arcane Shift + Blade of the Ruined King's active (if you buy it)
• AoE Ultimate for team fights on Trueshot Barrage
• Global snipe for low-health targets on Trueshot Barrage
• AS Steroid on passive Rising Spell Force
• AS Buff for your primary AD Carry via Essence Flux
• Strong ability to peel for your Primary AD Carry via slows on Iceborn Gauntlet
• The Black Cleaver gives you the utility to reduce the enemy's Armor to amplify the damage that your Primary AD Carry deals to the affected targets
• Great poke / tower siege potential via a huge Mana pool (AD Ezreal Mid was picked up in competitive play as an alternative pick in poke comps and fills a similar role to Jayce or Nidalee)
• Trueshot Barrage can be used to clear a large minion wave pressuring any area where your team cannot afford to send someone to

• Your utility goes down the drain if your primary AD Carry gets assassinated or is extremely under farmed / weak.
• Great pick when your primary ADC is a hyper-carry but not as good when your ADC is more of an AD Caster such as Urgot or Miss Fortune
• Squishy and vulnerable to tower dives Early Game
• Can be 100-0'd by assassins in lane if not careful (watch out of LeBlanc, Zed, AP Tristana, etc.)
• Your team will need to pick up CC and Tanky champions in the Top / Jungle / Support roles in order to have a balance team comp with a good front line

AP Mid (Q Maxing) Ezreal

• Strong level 1 fighting potential (good DMG + low CD on Mystic Shot
• Good farming / last hitting ability due to AD from Runes + Masteries as well as a ranked Mystic Shot + Sheen
• Long range NUKE harass w/ Mystic Shot empowered by Lich Bane
• Uninterruptable blink ability for escapes via Arcane Shift
• Strong Kiting w/ Arcane Shift
• HUGE NUKE AoE Damage for team fights on Trueshot Barrage and Essence Flux
• Global snipe for low-health targets on Trueshot Barrage
• Seraph's Embrace grants a strong shield to utilize when needed
• Great tower siege / poke potential w/ Mystic Shot, Essence Flux, and Trueshot Barrage
• Nashor's Tooth causes your Auto Attacks to remain relevant late game even as AP Ezreal which gives useful meaning to your passive Rising Spell Force, your good AA range, and your high AS from base + itemization
• Trueshot Barrage can be used to get farm in lane even from base when you back, making it hard for your opponent to ever pressure your tower

• Low Early Game damage / hard to push an opponent out of lane
• Harassing w/ Mystic Shot can be difficult if the opponent stays inside minions
• You have to decide whether you would rather max your repositioning tool or your AoE Nuke 2nd before Mid Game skirmishes
• Squishy and vulnerable to tower dives Early Game
• No CC - Most AP Mids bring some form of utility and CC to the table but AP Ezreal only brings damage

AP Mid (W Maxing) Ezreal

• Strong level 1 fighting potential (good DMG + low CD on Mystic Shot)
• Strong Early Game damage via Essence Flux which is easy to land as it does not hit minions and has good range
• Long range NUKE harass w/ Mystic Shot empowered by Lich Bane and Nashor's Tooth
• Uninterruptable blink ability for escapes via Arcane Shift
• Strong Kiting w/ Arcane Shift
• HUGE NUKE AoE Damage for team fights on Trueshot Barrage and Essence Flux
• Global snipe for low-health targets on Trueshot Barrage
• Seraph's Embrace grants a strong shield to utilize when needed
• Great tower siege / poke potential w/ Mystic Shot, Essence Flux, and Trueshot Barrage
• Nashor's Tooth causes your Auto Attacks to remain relevant late game even as AP Ezreal which gives useful meaning to your passive Rising Spell Force, your good AA range, and your high AS from base + itemization
• Trueshot Barrage can be used to get farm in lane even from base when you back, making it hard for your opponent to ever pressure your tower

• Not great at last hitting / farming early game
• Reliant on Mana in order to do good damage
• May have Mana problems in lane, giving incentive to rush Tear of the Goddess / Archangel's Staff instead of Lich Bane / Rabadon's Deathcap
• Squishy and vulnerable to tower dives Early Game
• No CC - Most AP Mids bring some form of utility and CC to the table but AP Ezreal only brings damage

Tips / What To Do In Team Fights as AD Carry Ezreal

This is probably the simplest and most easily executable form of playing Ezreal.

Your specific abilities to kite, poke, reposition, burst, and DPS will vary depending on your build path.

With the IE Build, your Arcane Shift does practically unnoticeable damage and you should use it 100% to reposition in the most effective manner.

Your Auto Attacks will also do more damage than your Mystic Shot in the IE Build. While that may sound discouraging, remember that landing Mystic Shots reduces the CD of your repositioning tool so they are still very important to fire and land.

With the Muramana Build, your Arcane Shift deals decent damage so you may want to use it in a way that still hits enemies while still repositioning properly when necessary.

People seem to forget to Auto Attack when playing Blue Build / whatever you want to call it which is silly. Muramana, Spirit of the Elder Lizard, Blade of the Ruined King, and Iceborn Gauntlet ALL apply on Auto Attacks as well, not just on Mystic Shot. Forgetting to Auto Attack in between throwing Q's will net you a sub-par DPS measurement.

Remember that which core build you should choose to go with, what your purchase order should be, and what your primary objectives are will change every single game and you will need to learn how to adapt to these situations. You can't always build the same items in the same order. I mean... you can... but that doesn't make it optimal.

When building Iceborn Gauntlet it is sometimes more important to land Mystic Shot on a target that needs to be slowed rather than on a target that can be killed quicker. You bring a lot of utility to a team fight and you need to make sure you are utilizing it to its full potential. If there are 2 enemies available to hit with one of them attacking / chasing an ally and one of them that isn't on a target yet, you should peel for your teammate. THAT'S RIGHT! Ezreal is an AD Carry who can not only peel for himself but for others as well. I know that an ADC peeling for a tank / bruiser sounds like heresy but it can be a very useful strategy.

As an AD Carry you will understand priority targeting as you mature as a player and become more experienced.

It is important to take out the enemy team's damage dealers but it is also important to know that you can win a team fight without always having to kill their carries first. In most team fights, each team's AD Carry attacks the opposing team's front line. If you can kill the enemy front line faster than the enemy carry can kill your front line, you will naturally win a team fight by simply focusing the front line and having your team dedicate to peeling for you. If the enemy ADC can kill your front line faster than you can kill the enemy front line, then you need to communicate that to your team so that they can make an effort to kill the enemy carry, zone them from the fight, land CC on them to drop their DPS, etc. so that you can come out on top in the damage dealt competition.

Don't sacrifice yourself to just kill one person. That's not your job. Your job is to win the team fight and win the game. Your job is not to kill any one person specifically but to just keep your focus on the long term effects of your targeting and positioning. If someone is running away from a team fight with low HP LET THEM RUN AWAY. You don't have to finish them off. Whether they die, abandon their team, or even only temporarily leave the fight to go life steal / heal up they are no longer dealing damage or providing CC / Utility for their team and they are as good as dead in the eyes of priority targetting. Force someone out of a team fight and then switch targets. If you do this for all 5 enemies and don't get a single kill, you have still won the engage because the enemies are too low to continue fighting, too low to contest an objective, and too low to defend a structure. Though, this may change if you are in their base and they have homeguard enchantments. That makes it particularly important to finish targets off because they will rejoin the fight quickly and your team is in their territory and does not have the same advantage.

Tips / What To Do In Team Fights as AD Mid Ezreal / Secondary AD Carry

Generally, you'll want to play from the back lines of the team fight. Your overall job is to keep your primary AD Carry alive while dealing damage.

You can perma-slow their front line by spamming Mystic Shot with Iceborn Gauntlet applying an AoE slow with each hit.

Use Essence Flux to buff your primary AD Carry's Attack Speed.

The Black Cleaver will allow you to also lower the armor of all enemies you are hitting, allowing your primary AD Carry to deal more damage to them.

The other team should see you as a threat alongside your AD Carry, as your Mystic Shots will visibly chunk them. If the enemies decide to go for you, don't worry! That's fine! You're much more tanky than your actual AD Carry is and you probably have stronger kiting as well.

Running this build as Ezreal Mid works really well when playing with a Tristana or a Vayne as they both have strong repositioning on top of you peeling for them and they have great right click damage. Kog'Maw is a viable choice as well as long as his positioning is on par.

When running this build for Ezreal Mid, it is important to try to have a support that can act as a front line such as Leona, Taric, or Blitzcrank. Your AD Carry and you will be staying behind everyone so it is a good idea to have the rest of your team be capable of setting up this ideal team fight strategy.

Tips / What To Do In Team Fights as AP Ezreal

AP Ezreal has large AoE burst damage that you need to focus on utilizing properly. Make sure you get a good Trueshot Barrage + Essence Flux combo off at the start of a team fight.

Remember that with the base AP Ratio on Mystic Shot (20%), the Spellsword Mastery Point (5%), Lich Bane (50 + 75%), and Nashor's Tooth (15 + 15%) your Q has a de facto AP Ratio of 115% (plus the base damage, 100% of your AD, and the +65 bonus base damage from LB + NT). This is also on an extremely short CD and is very spammable. Mystic Shot is an AMAZING ability when building AP despite what you may have heard.

Arcane Shift has a much higher skill cap on AP Ezreal than it does on AD Ezreal. This is because the damage that it deals as an ADC is negligible for the most part (yes, Muramana does make Arcane Shift do decent damage as an ADC but nowhere near the extent that AP makes it deal). So as AD Ezreal your only concern when using Arcane Shift is solely on how to position most effectively with it. AS AP Ezreal however, you will want to use it for damage VERY CAREFULLY. In team fights it is important to get as much damage off as possible but you don't want to put yourself out of position or blow your escape for no reason either. So my best advice is to use Arcane Shift when you need to reposition but to do so in a way that still gets its damage off against the person you are repositioning from. Going over short walls, juking diagonally or to the side, going backwards but not the full distance, using it to jump behind close teammates, etc.

Make sure to be landing Mystic Shot every time it is off CD. Doing so will bring Essence Flux and Arcane Shift off CD much faster.

You really should not use Trueshot Barrage to clear a far away lane late game. Yes, it is usually a nice tool to apply pressure to a lane without having to go there but as AP Ezreal it simply does too much AoE damage to waste on anything but essential uses. You should avoid team fighting when your Ult is down and using it on minions means your team has a DPS disadvantage while it is down. It's simply too important to use for that purpose.

You are a high priority target in the eyes of the enemy. You can use this to your advantage based on the enemies' team composition.

If they have one person who dives the back line, create a little bit space in between you and your ADC while kiting away from the opponent. Basically your goal is to trap the enemy diving you in the dangerously awkward open area between you and your ADC so that you can both pump out DPS on the same target while both staying relatively safe. If the enemy is following you, arcane shift to get him to pursue into this intermittent area. If the enemy is on your ADC, pump out large burst damage to him from close up in order to grab his attention and attempt to pull aggro because chances are you have stronger kiting with Arcane Shift than your ADC has. Once the enemy turns on you, continue repositioning and baiting him into no man's land.

If the enemy team has two people who dive the back line, you may want to do one of two things. Either 1.) completely separate from your ADC so that you can kite one enemy while they kite the other or 2.) fall back / reposition with your ADC so that both opponents are grouped together while diving you. The former means that if one assassin is able to finish off one of you, they will not be able to switch to killing the other target as quickly. The latter can be effective because you have HUGE AoE damage in your kit and you may be able to drop them simultaneously to completely prevent them from succeeding in their team fight objectives.

Proof of Success w/ Various Alterations of These Builds.

Thanks For Reading!

I hope that this guide and the content within it will help you become a better Ezreal player, help you understand how to better play against Ezreal by knowing what goes through their head, and help you better play with a teammate who plays Ezreal by understanding his capabilities and strategy.

I know that my guide does not have a lot of coding and may appear as a wall of text in some areas but I am not one to add unnecessary fluff into my guides. This is meant to be a mini-guide and to be straight to the point. I only want to provide important need to know information.

A lot of the information that may answer questions can be found by simply hovering over the +NOTES parts of the itemization cheat sheet. I tried to make this guide so that readers are not left wondering why I set up Runes / Masteries a certain way or why I suggest certain purchase orders for different situations.

I will keep this guide updated to the best of my ability and I will gladly answer any questions you may have. If you are curious simply leave a comment or message me personally and I will do my best to respond with solid information to answer your question or concern in a timely manner.

Thanks for taking the time to check out my Ezreal guide!