Last Updated: 31/07/2018

Hello, welcome to my Season 8 Ezreal Guide. My username is Dysokiaphyx (EUW) and I've played Ezreal for a reasonable amount of time now, on both North American Servers and EUW (EUW is my native server). I've learnt a load from playing Ezreal on both servers, and it's interesting to see how common certain play-styles are when laning and playing against Ezreal. In this guide I'l try to explain how; when; where and why to play Ezreal; What Ezreal can do; How to use him in Team-Fights and River Fights; what Items give him power-spikes; How to effectively use these power-spikes; where to use the power-spikes and finally how to maintain momentum of the power spikes, so that you don't fall behind or lose your effectiveness. Due to the 8.9 patches to some specific items *cough* Tear of the Goddess *cough* Ezreal has some slight mana consumption problems. You've got to be careful that you don't pour all of your mana out by using your Mystic Shot too often. This means that landing all of your Mystic Shot is crucial to winning your lane and not being punished due to the lack of mana.

Tips and Tricks

There are loads of small Tips and Tricks which I can give you. A few of them I will mention further down in my Guide, when they are appropriate. As I said above, I am planning on updating and improving this Guide, any of your Tips and Tricks are welcome, please comment or Message me on EUW Servers. General Tips and Tricks I will list here though.

[*] Leaving Your Leash Early.

When game starts, make your way to either the Junglers Red/Blue Buff, and help them out. Standard. But leave at 1,000 hp to make sure that you get to lane before the opposing laners. You should use your Mystic Shot to assist you in clearing the entire first enemy wave. This, if your support is out of lane, will give you level 2. Which is a huge Advantage. Obviously. It also means you're a level ahead, and will hit 6 early, which is when you should look for kills and/or ganks with your ult. This can give you the crucial edge.

[*] Maximizing Vision

All of the free wards that you are given by Kleptomancy should be used in the bushes in lane, deep wards in River (Next to Drake) or the enemy Jungle (Next to Red/Blue Buff). Vision is crucial Kids. Let your support ward River and the Tri bushes, those are a waste of your free wards.

[*] Arcane Shift in the Jungle

Be careful if you Arcane Shift over a wall in the jungle. Arcane Shift may target jungle monsters, so if you escape on 1% health, you're gonna get mauled by those Jungle monsters who are now angry that you just attacked them. Arcane Shift prioritises the nearest enemy, be that a minion or a champion, so be careful of that.

[*] Level Two Engage and Power Spike

Ezreal has an absolute disgusting level two engage. This is due to his insane power potential with Essence Flux and Mystic Shot and the extra attack speed with his Rising Spell Force. Work up your Attack Speed Passive with your Mystic Shot when in lane at level one. Be sure not to clear the minions too hard or else you'll lose all of your stacks before hitting level two. Level Two arrives. Instantly level your Essence Flux and engage. You should still have that extra bonus attack speed from Rising Spell Force. Should be an Ez first blood.

[*] Maximizing Dmg with Stormrazor and Sheen

When you're almost full-built, or if you've decided to pick up Stormrazor and Sheen early (which I don't object to, it can be good) then Ezreal has some pretty mental dmg. To get the most out of these items and to create a God-Like burst ADC you've got to set up some basic combos. Mystic Shot does not proc Stormrazor or have the Sheen dmg so it's a safe ability to use when approaching someone. When you get close it's best to use Arcane Shift to get closer to an enemy A.K.A Auto Attack Range. This charges the Sheen and deals some dmg. You can now Auto Attack, which will consume both Stormrazor and Sheen to deal some serious dmg. Now you can follow up with a Mystic Shot which has just come off cool down to finish them off.

Why Play Ezreal in the first place?

That is a good question. Most of all, he is insanely fun. Ezreal has a semi-spammable skill set. Not as spammable as the sorts of Ryze for example, but almost. Ezreal also has high damage output, althought far behind Tristana, Vayne and Twitch in basic attacks but is considered, on this current patch, one of the top 5 ADCs. That's nice and all. But will he do well in ranked? Heck yeah. Of course. Duh. Ezreal has a really strong and consistent presence throughout Professional play. I'm sure you can find many eSports Ezreal montages on Youtube. Some of the best players even manage some pretty epic Pentakills in professional games with Ezreal. Let's go through some really quick Pro's and Con's of the Caster ADC - Ezreal.

Pros

+ Huge Damage Output
+ Cool-Down Reduction abilities
+ Great Escape and Engage Tool
+ Semi-Spammable Skill-Set
+ Long Range abilities and Safe playstyle
+ Global Ultimate


Cons

- Drops-off Late Game
- Skill-Shot reliant
- Fragile to CC
- Lacks Significant Auto Attack damage
- Hard to carry with

Ezreal Runes are especially unique. It's like Riot made them for him, and him only. Except they didn't. Let's run through what you should go and why.

Kleptomancy

Kleptomancy IS brilliantly Over Powered. Well, not OVER Powered. More like Very-Very-Very-Good-But-Not-So-Over Powered. There are 3 types of drop. Mana Potion Consumables, Control Ward and Sly Sacks of Gold. The key to this build is being able to stay in lane for elongated amounts of time and farm well, and safely. The Consumables allow Ezreal to stay topped up on Mana while in lane. This means you can throw your Mystic Shot more and more and more. Whether you use your Mystic Shot for Farming or Harassment is situational. You should keep Equilibrium between them for the best outcome. This means that you can you enemy laners at a safe distance, and have total control over where the lane is. You also have the chance to get Sly Sack of gold money drops from hitting champions, which may give you more than 40 gold. If you use it well, the money will come rolling in from all directions.

Magical Footwear

Magical Footwear is So nice! It's also pretty important to remember this rune. I have't included boots in the build for a reason and it's mostly because you can get them for free at roughly 9 minutes. Unless your a super passive and safe player, then you'll have to wait another whole minute to get those slightly magical boots. This helps in the build path also. It means that all of your backs (after getting Tear of the Goddess) will be effecting the damage you deal and your sustain instead of those ******** boots stealing that 300 gold you needed to finish building Manamune. Super useful on Ezreal and his Tear rush.

Biscuit Delivery

Biscuit Delivery This works so well on Ezreal. As you can guess, it's a nice in lane item which gives health and mana back, so of course it will be good on Ezreal! Right? Right! But, you should be sure to use all of the Total Biscuit of Everlasting Will you get given. Each Total Biscuit of Everlasting Will permanently increases the max amount of mana. That's nice. Especially when you get Manamune. That's really nice. Each Total Biscuit of Everlasting Will gives roughly 50-100 max mana. You get 4 of them. That's maximun 400 mana increase. 2% of 400 = 8. That's 8 bonus attack damage. Free. Plus the 27 you will already get from Manamune, and the 25 Base dmg it adds. That's a bonus of 60 Attack Damage. How about that. And it's your first item.

Cosmic Insight

Cosmic Insight This is the nicest of the 3 Runes you have a choice of here. Not the most useful, but not the most useless. The CDR is really nice, especially early game. The summoner spells CDR is very nice, and you can surprise your laners with a super quick flash recharge after all 5 memebers of the enemy team dive you under turret and you get a Super Awesome PENTAKILL while you Stopwatch under turret. Awesome.

Manaflow Band

Manaflow Band WHOAAA. A free Mystic Shot every 75 seconds? Sure. I'll take that. This. Is. Very. Very. Good. Abuse it. Whenever Ezreal's hands go blue, use a spell. The New Manaflow Band is even better on Ezreal. The Eztra 250 mana gives you more attack damage with the Manamune. This allows you to scale even harder in lane and increases your sustain even more. A direct buff to Ezreal as well as most other Mana/Casters who rely on Tear Items. It can help charge up your Tear of the Goddess or Manamune without using mana as well. It's an insanely useful sustain tool and you should keep an eye out for when you have a charge. Use it as often as you can.

Transcendence

Transcendence I feel like this is the most appropriate secondary Rune. The CDR after 10 minute is very very useful. When you get Trinity Force, this rune switches to giving you bonus AD. Which is also very very nice. It has very little use before 10 minutes, but you should be playing safe and farming in that time anyhow. If you prefer, or would like to use, a different secondary rune go right ahead. This is not a core part of the build but I do like this in some my games.

]Rising Spell Force (Passive)

Rising Spell Force is a very useful passive. Ezreal doesn't have high amount of Damage from his Auto Attacks. Nor does he have a heap full of Attack Speed. There are lots of way to quickly get to 5 stacks. Mystic Shot has a shorter cool-down then Rising Spell Force stacks do. This means that if you hit 5 Mystic Shots in a row, you'll be at 5 stacks. This is useful when you're trying to Last Hit the Minions or trying to take a tower really quickly. What is also really neat is that for each Ally Champion you hit with your Essence Flux you get a stack. So if you hit all 4 of your allied Champions, you'll jump up to 4 stacks! Sweet. This is very useful in Team Fights. It's a decent passive which gives free attack speed. Make use of it.


Mystic Shot

Ezreal rotates around his Mystic Shot. Bread and Butter. Pen and Paper. You can't get more of a simple ability. It's easy enough to use. If you can hit it. It's a long Range Skill shot which deals a fixed amount of damage, which scales with level. It also has a 1.1 damage ratio with Ezreals Attack Damage. This does not change. Which means it'll be doing about 150-200 Damage at level one. This is when you want to Level this. Use Mystic Shot as much as you can. This will deal more damage than your Auto Attacks, and it also acts as an Auto Attack reset. Which means you can AA-Q-AA in a short space of time, This will deal a fair bit of damage and usually put your opponent on the run. The short cool-down is amazing. Use it every 4 seconds. But when you get Trinity Force or use Transcendence it'll be a much more spammable ability. Mystic Shot also reduces all other cooldowns by 1.5 seconds, if you hit any enemy with it. That includes its own cool-down. Now that's slight OP you might think. It is. Kinda. But not as OP as you think. Use your Mystic Shot to reduce the cool-down of you Arcane Shift when running away from chasing enemies in order to clutch an ace escape.


Essence Flux

This ability is underestimated. It's great. Don't even think about not using this ability when you're targeting an enemy. It deals more damage than people expect. It also gives you those juicy stacks on your passive Rising Spell Force. Essence Flux scales with AP. So when playing Ezreal ADC or AD Mid, it's not your big damage dealer. Essence Flux should not be used to poke. This is because it costs more mana than your Mystic Shot and doesn't quite as much. If your Jungle ganks your lane, you should try to get your Essence Flux on them, that'll give both of you more attack speed. What you can also do is use your Essence Flux and then Arcane Shift in to its path which will give you three easy stacks. That's nice. And it looks like you know what you're doing. Which you do of course ...


Arcane Shift

Arcane Shift is possibly the coolest ability. Like it's really cool. Jumping from point to point every 13 seconds? Yes please. How cool is that. Enemy Jungler comes and ganks? Arcane Shift in to your turret. Enemy just outside of you Mystic Shot range? Arcane Shift them into your range. A great Engage and Escape Tool. It isn't just a jump as well. It includes an attack which scales with AD. Not a much as Mystic Shot but it's about 0.3. Don't quote me on that. This also counts as an Auto Attack reset, so if you combo this with your AA-Q-AA attacks, you should have no problem shredding the enemies Health Bar. Also be careful if you Arcane Shift over a wall in the jungle. Arcane Shift may target jungle monsters, so if you escape on 1% health, you're gonna get mauled by those Jungle monsters who are now angry that you just attacked them. Arcane Shift prioritises the nearest enemy, be that a minion or a champion, so be careful of that.


Trueshot Barrage

Ezreal has an absolute amazing Ultimate. Trueshot Barrage is global. Another skill-shot yes, but it does have a fairly meaty hit box. and is not hard to aim. The hardest part about Trueshot Barrage is trying to figure out where the enemies are, or are going to be when the ultimate actually reaches them. You're going to have to calculate where they're gonna be. It does take quite a few games to get better and better at this, but don't be ashamed if you miss it more than once. Happens to the best of us. As soon as you get Trueshot Barrage at level 6, that's roughly 450 damage added to your kit. You should look to use it in lane to get ahead with some kills or assist other lanes without leaving. If you're ahead by one or two levels Trueshot Barrage might even half someones health. Now that is an ultimate and a half.

TOP TIP: When in game, I move my passive items to the bottom row, and the active items to the top row. This means that when all of those Kleptomancy items come rolling in to my item slots, I have them on very easy and very accessible keys. (For me, I have my active items set to X, C and V. Try that if it helps).

This is where I get a little "Off-Meta". The build Path is simple enough to follow, but is done in such a way that is maintains consistent growth of Power-Spikes. Another good point I like to make is that you should grab your boots whenever you can. I do not specify where or when you should get them. Whenever you can. However, I can say: Do not go over 15 minutes without ionian boots. Now that's covered, let's run through it.



Starting Items
As soon as you spawn in, pick up Faerie Charm and a Sapphire Crystal. This should be a full buy at the beginning of the game. Also be sure to grab your Stealth Ward, which is a dead necessity while in lane. These two items will be hugely beneficial to [Ezreal. It allows you to farm and harass with your Mystic Shot without being dangerously low on mana and susceptible to attack.


Two minute Items
When you can afford it, back and get Tear of the Goddess and, if you can, Pickaxe. These two items are great for the 2 or 3 minute mark. The Tear of the Goddess means better mana sustain and the Pickaxe means more damage on that Mystic Shot. These items will also help you rush in to Manamune


First Item
Manamune is huge for Ezreal. This item just puts Ezreal on Steroids. But what is better is that these steroids scale. With level. If you want to think of it like that. The base bonus damage is 25. Not that good. But it's passive gives you more attack damage based on your maximum mana. Alongside those cheeky Total Biscuits of Everlasting Will, you'll be getting about +55 Bonus Attack Damage after purchasing this. And that will only increase as you level up, and increase your max mana-pool. Those Mystic Shots are really gonna start hurting. So are your basic attacks. Be sure to use them BOTH for some serious damage output.


Sheen, Phage and Stinger
This traditional combo of Sheen, Phage and Stinger. Builds in to a Trinity Force to save item slots. How nice of them. This has been what I've been building on Ezreal for quite a while. Almost all the way through Season 7. It's a very very very solid item. A lot of positives. The item itself doesn't give a power-spike, so be sure to buy these three separately to maintain that momentum which is crucial. Be sure to buy Sheen first. Sheen is huge for Ezreal. Obviously. I would be dumb to leave it out. Phage is very nice also. More damage and that nice movement speed which is useful for Kiting and getting real close and personal with the enemy towers. Or running away. Stinger is great. Intensifies Rising Spell Force and really helps with you DPS.


Essence Reaver
The new Essence Reaver is so Strong with Ezreal. The Mana refund Passive is absolutely amazing. Those Auto Attacks now refund, at full build, roughly 40 Mana. Half of the Mystic Shot cost. Two AA's and you're set for another. This is probably gonna be your Third or second Item. I would recommend building it second. Getting a Sheen, however, before you start building this item can be very beneficial, because we all know how strong the Sheen is on Ezreal. The B.F Sword in the Essence Reaver Build-Path is a good boost to the Damage of Ezreal, and the full Item comes around very quickly after building it. This brings in that extra mana and super nice attack speed after using you Ultimate which stacks with your passive, giving you A LOT of Attack Speed. After testing this new item in-game, I can safely say this is going to be a core item. So pick this up eitherSecond or Third (before or after Tri-force).



Duskblade of Draktharr
This item is ... interesting. Some people wouldn't build this on Ezreal. Some people would rush it. Some people Will get it last. I get it third. Duskblade of Draktharr applies some serious passive effects. A single Mystic Shot can deal at least half of the enemy ADC's health. Easily. You have to be careful, of course, with the passive. Don't expect every Q to deal that much. It helps if you're hitting blind shots, or arriving in lane or a team fight, or have used Arcane Shift to close a gap between you can another Champion. You should, if you're clever, move in and out of unwarded bushes to reset the passive and consistently deal over 600 damage to an enemy Champ. Then you should get the idea of why this item gives Ezreal such a huge Power-Spike. Make good use it. Whenever you have the Duskblade of Draktharr passive, use your Mystic Shot to harass.


The Bloodthirster
This is so nice. The damage is insane. You can't deny it. Also, Mystic Shot applies on hit effects. This means that Ezreal can heal up, and indeed get that oversheild from quite a distance. It's Good. If you get Bloodthirster late game, you can pull-off some crazy stunts and clutches. It allows a whole extra level of sustain. We'll get in to how you can use this in Team Fights later.


Mortal Reminder
MORTAL REMINDER OR LORD DOMINIKS REGARD? Okay so which one is better? The 8.13 patch took out the Giant Slayer Item, so Mortal Reminders Built Path is a little weaker than Lord Dominiks right now. HOWEVER. Mortal Reminder does have Grievous Wounds Which is SO SO SO useful against a fed Dr. Mundo and as we're seeing Mundo and tryndamere in lower Elo's destroying the top lane, I recommend getting Mortal Reminder for those heavy hitters. Again Mortal Reminder is also used with Mystic Shot. This really really helps Ezreal get through to those Super Fat and Very Irritating late game Tank carries who have Warmog's Armour and keep walking in to a bush and then out with Full health *Cough* Garen Sejuani Zac *Cough*. Especially with that Duskblade of Draktharr passive. And that Bloodthirster lifesteal. Damn. Ezreal is pretty fuc- I mean ... God Darning strong now. He's Still an ADC remember, so don't go thinking you can 1v5. Even though you can. Sometimes.

Stormrazor
He He. Ho Ho. A new ADC Item I spy. This one is interesting. A Crit Item. 8.12 Brought a lot of new and intresting changes to some of the ADC's. Stormrazor has had some wider influence however, being an incredibly useful Item for most AD champions. With Ezreal not building crit because Mystic Shot does not work with Critical Stikes, his Auto Attacks do lack some late game damage. Riot noticed this. Riot thought about this. Riot fixed this. With Stormrazor Your first Auto attack on a champion from being out of combat will deal 185% Physical Damage. That Damage should be higher than Mystic Shot and Mystic Shot doesn't count as a Stormrazor proc So you have two attacks which will deal a high amount of Physical Damage when First engaging in a Fight. Along with that Sheen Proc. To max out your burst DMG you should use Arcane Shift to charge Sheen, then Auto to use that Sheen AND Stormrazor dmg on your Auto, to finally finish it off with a Mystic Shot which might even charge your next Auto Attack with a new Sheen proc. How juicy, eh bois? It totally solves Ezreal Auto Attack problem and allows Ezreal to flourish later in to the game. A Must Grab Item, for this high burst mid/late game carry.

Ezreal is a a pretty good ADC in Team Fights. Even though he has no CC. So, unlike Varus or Jinx, he cannot pin down targets for the rest of his team to concentrate fire on. This means that Team work is more crucial than ever. Trueshot Barrage
is a brilliant Team Fighting Tool, dealing roughly 300-400 Damage to each Champion on the enemy team is such a huge advantage. You should attempt to coordinate Ultimate abilities with other Champions. Examples are; Orianna, Draven, Gangplank, Kennen and Yasuo. Ezreal has a very high amount of single target damage. This means that he is very good at destroying a single target, and then being able to quickly swap to another. This is useful in Team Fights if you have a well coordinated Team, or Champions who can CC carries and Tanks so that they cannot stop Ezreal from demolishing the enemy's back-line.


If you find yourself in a 2v1 (or even a 3v1), Ezreal is not put in a disadvantage. I'm going to almost contradict myself here, because Ezreal has many situational uses and advantages. Ezreal can easly target 2 Champions at once. Yes. I know I said that he has very high single target damage in the previous paragraph, but read on and I'll explain. Mystic Shot is crucial to 2v1's with Ezreal. This is because you can split your Auto Attacks and your Mystic Shot between two enemies. You can do this by, for example; Auto Attacking the Support, and using Mystic Shot on the ADC. This splits your damage between the two, but does not limit your single target damage, because of that lovely passive Rising Spell Force this means that while hitting your Mystic Shot you increase the DPS of you Auto Attacks. Finally, if you are low, you should use Arcane Shift to quickly escape into a nearby bush. Here is where you use Trueshot Barrage to deal 400-600 damage to both The Support and The ADC. This is huge amounts of damage applied to both enemy Champions at once. You can now finish them off with Mystic Shot and upload your Totally Awesome 2v1 Replay to Youtube.

I recommend finding youtube clips of Insane Ezreal outplays or Ezreal Montages because these can give you ideas on how to effectively use and outplay others with Ezreal. Take the small details into account. Try to also find some good Streamers or Challenger Players also who regularly play Ezreal, or have a good history with him. They might commentate their thoughts of play style while playing. Enjoy playing Ezreal!
GL, HF.

Dysokiaphyx