----AESTHETIC EDITS INCOMING----

Welcome to my second build, this time written on Xerath. Xerath is a mage with CC, incredible range, and very good damage output. A very well rounded champion indeed, Xerath reminds me a lot of Ryze and LeBlanc, so I have built a guide modeled after the way I play those two champions. I ask that you read the whole guide before judging it, and I would be happy to take feedback from anyone in the comments section. ENJOI

Pros:
- High, consistent damage output
- Stun
- Percent spell penetration
- Passively increased armor
- Good harass levels 1-18

Cons:
- Immobility in Locus of Power
- Many skillshots
- CC hurts
- Vulnerable to AP burst

These runes tend to be my standard set for any and all AP casters.

Greater Mark of Magic Penetration - Mostly for the early game damage, considering most other champions you might likely face have around 30 magic resist, this will allow your spells to deal with only about 22 of their magic resist

Greater Seal of Replenishment - Xerath is a champion who tends to use his Arcanopulse a lot for harass, and even taking out multiple minions. The flat mana regen runes really help to sustain in lane, and allow for that continual use of spells

Greater Glyph of Scaling Ability Power - Probably the most obvious runes for any AP user. More ability power, more damage, and for Xerath, more armor

Greater Quintessence of Ability Power - The AP early game helps a lot, for more damage and more kills

9/0/21 masteries. Very standard, with the spell penetration, cooldown reduction, experience boost, death time reduction, and decreased Flash cooldown.

The champions I tend to play are AP casters with good burst. The summoner spells that I always get on these characters are Flash and Ignite.

I always find Ignite to be very useful, whether it is used to ensure a kill, shut down a lifesteal champion, or counter a Soraka or Dr. Mundo. Especially on the more bursty type of champions, Ignite will allow for that kill, as opposed to autoattacking and not getting the kill.

Flash is probably the best escape in the game, and to have it on a champion who does not have any other built-in escape is amazing. This summoner spell can be used both offensively and defensively as well, and knowing when to use it or not is very important. My views on the decision of Ghost or Flash are as follows: AD champions, especially those with mostly melee attacks, should definitely get Ghost. AD champions tend to have more consistent damage that will continually wail on the opponent, and to complement that consistent damage will be the consistent movement speed increase of Ghost. Flash on the other hand, I feel complements AP champions, those with more burst damage, because the burst damage needs the burst movement of Flash.

Ghost - Ghost is a very good spell, but as explained above, I find Flash to be more suitable for a champion like Xerath.

Teleport - Useful spell that will teleport you to an allied non-champion unit. Very good for maximizing time in lane, but this spell is better suited for good pushers, and tanky champions for defending turrets well.

Exhaust - Suited more for 1v1 champions, especially AD champions.

Clarity - Not a very recommended spell at all, because of its uselessness late game, and Xerath is not SO mana hungry early game that he needs to waste a summoner spell for it.

Cleanse - Cleanse should only be used on a champion who is in the action a lot, and who would be very vulnerable if stunned, such as a Master Yi.

Clairvoyance - Should only really be taken by the support on your team, and since this Xerath build (and most others) are not meant for support, do not take it unless you or your team sees it as necessary.

Fortify - Can be useful at times, but this spell is incredibly situational, and should only be taken by a tank or support... maybe.

Heal - Heal is an absolutely useless spell from mid to late game, and even early game, pretty much the most it will do is make people laugh at you.

Revive - Terrible spell in general, only a few builds for a scarce amount of champions might even consider it...

Rally - This is the summoner spell that people use to make other people queue dodge when a friend just came online.

____________ Arcanopulse is the bread and butter of Xerath. Fairly low cooldown, high damage, long range, and AoE, this is a great spell to have, as long as it is used properly. I'm fairly certain that almost all builds have this ability maxed out first, because of its reliability in damage and low cooldown. Besides your ultimate, this move will be doing the most damage in battles. This move is perfect for taking out waves of minions, especially the ranged minions in back. Gauge the amount of damage your Arcanopulse will do, and using that assumption, be sure to last hit all 3 of them with one Arcanopulse.


____________ Locus of Power is the reason why Xerath has such incredible range. In addition, the percent spell penetration is huge, especially against tanky enemy champions. Xerath's key to success in teamfights comes from his ability to sit back, immobilize out of range, and hurl out as many spells as he wishes. The range and spell penetration combine to do great damage to the enemy team. The thing that I find different about my builds from other Xerath builds is that I do not put a point into Locus of Power until level 5, and I leave that one point in it until every other ability is maxed out. This will be discussed further on.

Some people might be wondering if the movement speed increase from Locus of Power is worth it to immobilize yourself for that 0.5 seconds. Well, over a span of 3 seconds, a Xerath with only his base speed and boots with Enhanced Movement 2 travels 1155 game units, whereas that same Xerath using Locus of Power for the movement speed increase will travel 1232 game units, confirming that the bonus movement does outweigh the 0.5 second delay. Assuming that you deactivate and start walking again exactly at 0.5 seconds.


____________ Mage Chains gives Xerath his only form of CC, however, being a stun, it is one of the best types of CC to have. The mechanic behind the Mage Chains is that after you hit an enemy with it, in order to proc the stun, you must damage them with another one of your spells, which is only Arcanopulse and Arcane Barrage. Using Arcane Barrage to proc the stun is very simple, because of the wide area that the ability covers. Arcanopulse provides more of a challenge, since it is harder to land the ability.


____________ Arcane Barrage is a pretty sweet ability, being spammable up to 3 times, with high damage, and a fairly large radius. Its 3 different charges are perfect fillers in combat while waiting for other moves to come off cooldown. Arcane Barrage has a range as far as that of Arcanopulse, both in and out of Locus of Power, so be sure to use that to your advantage whenever possible.

____________ Ascended Form is a pretty sweet passive, allowing for Xerath to be more resilient against AD champions. It also lets Xerath build without worrying too much about being able to survive, which is why in this build, I try to add in items that will synthesize with this extra armor. This passive is a good thing to keep in mind for whenever you buy an item, because the ability power you get from the item will also give you armor along with it.

The decision to level and max out Mage Chains over Locus of Power comes from the way I have decided to model my playstyle of Xerath off of that of LeBlanc. The mechanic of Mage Chains really reminds me of her mechanics, which is one of the reasons I decided to play Xerath in the first place. For this reason, I decided not to utilize the long range of Locus of Power, and focus more on the damage of the Mage Chains + Arcanopulse combination.

The only real use for the extra range on Xerath, besides harass, is to finish a kill with Arcanopulse. In Locus of Power, the range on Mage Chains is 300 lower than that of both of Xerath's other damaging spells, at 1000 game units. This means that actually dealing damage long range only comes from Arcanopulse, because wasting an ultimate when not engaging is stupid. The times that you are really going to get kills is when the enemy engages you in a closer ranged battle. In this situation, which will be the majority of the time, it is better to have more damage than range and increased spell penetration. Besides, because of the delay between when you activate Locus of Power and when your character actually is able to use another move, the enemy is able to easily see what you are doing. They will either take your immobility to their advantage and engage, making the extra range useless, or they will be ready to dodge the incoming arcanopulse, which, to be honest, seems a great deal easier to dodge at long ranges than up close. For teamfights, that is when you use your Locus of Power, and cooldown doesn't matter, because you will only be needing it once to send out spells at the group engaged in battle, and the rest of the teamfight is spent on the run, where Locus of Power is not a good idea to use.

Meki Pendant - Two main ideas pointed me in the direction of using this as my starting item.

Morello's Evil Tome
Mercury's Treads
Rylai's Crystal Scepter
Rabadon's Deathcap
Will of the Ancients
Banshee's Veil
Abyssal Mask
Zhonya's Hourglass

____________The early game, which I would consider to be levels 1-5 in this case, are considerably different than later in the game when you have your ult available. Autoattacks during the early game are going to have to be your filler in between cooldowns. If an engagement occurs, and both you and the enemy are fighting, first use Mage Chains, then be sure to hit the following Arcanopulse for the stun. It is almost guaranteed that you will only be able to use one Mage Chains, so try to make it count by landing the stun. While waiting for the cooldown of arcanopulse, you will want to autoattack, and try to move in between autoattacks as well, to make any skillshots harder for the enemy. If you think you can get the kill, be sure to Ignite before they Flash away, and feel free to use Flash yourself if you think it will be worth it. The majority of combat in the early game will consist of autoattacks and waiting for cooldowns.

____________Mid game, which I would guess is from around levels 6-15, is fairly different from early game, because you have to factor in your ultimate (and theirs). In the general 1v1 situation, a Xerath must lead with Mage Chains, and attempt to proc the stun with Arcanopulse. Then follow that up with 3 Arcane Barrages, and by then, the 3.55 second cooldown of Arcanopulse should be off, and you smack them again with that. This gives out some pretty crazy damage, and with the stun, is pretty good 1v1. If this fight is one of those where all the enemy wants to do is stand there and wail on you, let them, and go into Locus of Power for the entirety of the fight. Otherwise, its entirely situational for when to go into Locus of Power. I would suggest to activate it when it comes time to use Arcane Barrage, because no matter how much the enemy moves, it should be very easy to land the arcane barrage, especially if you have your Rylai's Crystal Scepter by then.

____________The line between mid game and late game is pretty foggy, but I will say that late game is once you hit level 16 to the end of the game. At this point, you should probably have your first 4 core items if you were farming fairly well. Also, the difference between mid game and late game is that there won't really be any 1v1s at all. Everything should be teamfights once the game gets past a certain point. In teamfights, it is best that you position yourself about 900-1000 game units away from the point of engagement (yes, you will have to guesstimate). Your goal is to root yourself down in a relatively safe place with Locus of Power, and use that 30% spell penetration to its best. You should know or have communicated with your team who to stun, so hit them with Mage Chains and follow up with Arcanopulse. At this point, the target should be to busy with the rest of the fight to even attempt to dodge the ability, but still, don't miss. Once that is done, start throwing out all of your Arcane Barrages, and send out an Arcanopulse when it is ready for use. Be ready to unroot yourself from Locus of Power in case the fight moves towards you, or an enemy champion starts to focus you with a lot fo damage. The movement speed from the deactivation of Locus of Power should give you the speed you need to move away from most predicaments. One thing to be aware of is that your second Arcanopulse might come off of cooldown soon before your Mage Chains does. It is most of the time worth it to wait to use Arcanopulse until you have hit the target with Mage Chains first, because of the stun.

On the other hand, when Xerath is immobilized for 0.5 seconds, with the 2 second 35% speed increase, the movement looks like this: This makes the distance travelled from using the immobilize more efficient than simply walking, assuming that you deactivate and start walking again immediately at 0.5 seconds.

Thank you all very much for reading my Xerath guide, I hope you ENJOI'd it. I ask that you read everything (ok, fine you don't have to read the equations section) before voting. I am glad to take any feedback, positive or negative, just don't be too offensive if you can :D. K SHOOTS!