I am Hot Eboy Xerath, aka Chris. I’m a Challenger Xerath player that’s normally around 800 LP and a dedicated streamer! I’ve been playing League of Legends since Season 2 and have reached Masters on several accounts playing Mid, ADC, and Support. I have also coached players and teams from all ranks since Season 6. I created this guide to help any player looking to understand Xerath better and so that everyone can experience how strong he can be. I hope to share my knowledge that I have learned through playing Xerath in Masters and reaching #2 Xerath in NA. If you have any other questions, please feel free to ask me on stream at Twitch.tv/HotEboyXerath. I stream every day at 7:30 pm EST so I hope to see you there!

Pros Strong poke damage Scales well into the mid-late game High damage Good CC One shot squishies Strong carry potential

Cons Hard to land skill shots Immobile/Vulnerable to ganks Very squishy Struggles into hard engage teams Semi-weak early High-skill champ

Playing Xerath requires good patience and even better positioning. Ideally, you need to play as a poke mage and avoid straight up 1v1s.

First Strike is made for Xerath. It is very easy to proc it and this rune becomes stronger and stronger as you get more items. To explain it simply, every time that the rune is off cooldown, you have the opportunity to use your next auto or ability to proc the rune and convert 70% of that damage into gold. First Strike will also increase your damage dealt by 10%. Through testing, I can confirm that yes, the ability that procs First Strike does actually convert into gold too!

Magical Footwear is an all-around gold efficient rune. It's amazing not having to worry about spending 300g on a back for your boots.

Biscuit Delivery is a great rune that will allow you to do more aggressive trades and sustain longer in lane.

Approach Velocity is a surprisingly good rune for Xerath. The reason for this is that you can effectively proc it with your W. When you go for a max range W, your Q will be slightly short of reaching your target. Therefore, using this rune will give you the movement speed to be in a better position to follow up with your Q / E or any CC from your support.

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If the team has Bruisers or are generally tanky, you will need to select the Precision

Presence of Mind In the mid to late game, you will need to spam out poke before fights to lower the enemy team’s health before a team fight. In order to avoid awkwardly running out of mana or having to ask your jungler for a blue buff, take this rune.

Cut Down is the main rune we want from the Precision Tree. It increases our damage by between 5-15% based on how much more health the enemy has.

If their team is fairly squishy or they only have one bruiser, I run the Sorcery Tree for my Secondary Runes

Manaflow Band Similar to using Presence of Mind to sustain your mana pool in the mid to late game, Manaflow Band helps by giving you up to 250 bonus mana. When you do hit 250 bonus mana, you will then receive 1% mana regeneration every 5 seconds.

Gathering Storm is a terrific rune for Xerath. Every 10 minutes into the game, this rune gives you more AP and doubles that effect every time.

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I tend to judge if I want to build Liandry's Torment if I notice if they have 1 or more tanks. When playing an APC in the bot lane, it is still your job to handle the enemy’s tanks so you will need to build this to deal with them. You will be surprised how much damage this item still does against squishy teams too!

Build this item when you notice that the enemy has anti-heal. I actually only buy the Oblivion Orb and never complete this until the very last item in my build. I would only complete it if they have crazy healing like a Soraka healing a Vladimir.

For Zhonya's Hourglass, I rarely build it. I have the mentality when playing Xerath that if I need to buy an hourglass for Xerath then I'm not positioning well enough. I will buy it if I am facing a Nocturne that is non-stop going for me and there is no counterplay but that is the really only reason I will buy it. You will notice that even if you buy hourglass, you will likely still die right after as Xerath so it isn’t that worth it overall.

Before going into the laning phase as Xerath, the very first thing you should do is check the enemy champions to see their builds and if they’re running MR. Is the enemy ADC running boots and 4 pots? Maybe Doran’s and 1 pot? Depending on what they’re running, you can determine which champion you should focus your abilities on. Be sure to also ask yourself what your enemy’s core abilities are and what you need to look out for. For example, if you’re facing a Blitzcrank or Thresh then you need to be careful of their hooks.

As you reach your lane, remember that playing Xerath as an APC in bot lane is all about doing small trades and slowly poking the enemy down. Try to avoid long, drawn-out fights because Xerath has very long cooldowns.

When playing Xerath, a big tip is that you want to lead with your W so that you can apply your slow to them and land your Q more easily. Another reminder would be to only use your E when you are going in for an all-in or are trying to peel and disengage from a fight. Try treating it like a Morg Q or Blitz Q where holding can be more threatening than constantly using it. If you use your E too often, you will also find that you’ll run out of mana very easily.

The key takeaways here are that you want to focus on farming, do small trades when it is advantageous to you, and only throw your E when necessary.

Welcome to everyone’s favourite time as a Xerath player - the Mid & Late game. Xerath thrives at this state of the game where your 2-3 items and abilities help you melt everything. Let’s get into the best way to play at this stage of the game!
The Mid & Late game is all about your positioning and how effectively you can land your abilities without putting yourself at risk. Ideally there are two main actions you should be doing:



Besides that, there aren’t too many tricks. As Xerath, remember that while you will eventually have massive damage, you have to be alive to do it!

For Xerath’s ultimate, I do want to emphasize that there are different ways to effectively use it, especially later in the game. Even though I know we love to joke about zoning ultimates, it actually is an extremely useful way of using Xerath’s R. Most people use Xerath’s ultimate to finish off low health targets, but it can actually be a way to initiate team fights. If you are able to recognize that the enemy has been caught or is out of position, instantly ulting them even at full health will indicate to your team that you are looking for the teamfight. At the same time, your ultimate will now force the target to make a tough decision. Should they run back towards their team and get hit by all of your ultimates or should they attempt to dodge and have to run towards your team? Either way, this losing scenario for them will give your team the advantage to win the teamfight.

Thank you so much for taking the time to read my guide to Xerath APC! While this is my first guide, I hope to improve and bring you more informational guides in the future.

In the meantime, it would mean a lot if you could stop by my Twitch at Twitch.tv/HotEboyXerath. I stream every day at 7:30 pm EST and would be more than happy to answer any questions you may have!

I will continue to keep this guide updated as I test out the new runes and preseason changes. Until then, enjoy playing Xerath! :)