User blog comment:StrategicMagic/Xerath and AD Mids/@comment-60764-20130103232107

As much as I love inopertune strategies as it promotes the meta I have to shout this down: Xerath isn't "supposedly unviable", he's "entirely useless pre-level 6 and/or without his ult, even with the new items, probably moreso now that AD scales better with AP). He wasn't go last season for the same reason against anything mid and the same holds true here (even with the magic pen changes).

He needs changes to his kit to function. Not buffs or nerfs, just changes.

To go over his 'strengths'.


 * Xerath's auto attack range is 550. That's around your what most character's aa range are, save for a few. That's good for Xerath, but he's not special in that right.


 * Arcanopulse ain't great. Rather, it's range is 900 and 1300 while 'sniping' (Cho'gath's, a melee mage you forgot, Q has a range of 950+350(have the diamter of at max range) without bending over backwards. That sort of range is common among champions even with sniping.), the damage and scaling is low for the high cooldown (235 and 60% AP scaling is laughable), the mana cost is moderate, and to top it all off there's a .75 window open for people to move out of the way.
 * Xerath's passive with 500 AP gives 75 Armor. If you have 500 AP there's a good chance it's late game and 75 armor isn't going to mitigate shit if you have no other defenses. On top of that he also has low base armor and armor per level gain (12.6, while most champs start around 14-15), which hinders the passive's benefit.
 * Xerath's stun requires him to hit an enemy twice, and is part of his arsenal, so if you're initiating with that chances are you'll have nothing else to cast (lest you have your ult) for some time. That's not a 'burst damage' combo. As far as the range goes, it has a range of 600 and 1000 when sniping. As an example of why that's bad, Kassadin's Q has a range of 650 and a lower cooldown. You're not ouranging any other mage (or most bruisers even) with that.

Now unto his other weaknesses.


 * He can snare himself for a long time if he's crowd controlled with W, since cancelling it needs a global cooldown.
 * His ult has a channel time on each cast.
 * The magic Pen from Locus of Power suffers immensely from diminishing returns. More often than not with itself.