Talk:Ezreal/@comment-2.122.237.101-20120617214558

AP Ezreal : A guide.

Okay, getting sick of bad AP Ezreals, so I'm gonna give you a guide here.

Disclaimer : I AM NOT saying this is the best way to play AP Ez. Nor am I saying I'm amazing at Ez, or that this is the only way to do it. I'm simply saying that this is a good way to build him, and I've done very well with it in the past.

AP Ezreal : Strengths.

- Nice burst, with short cooldowns.

- Very mobile.

- Long range pokes.

- Your AS debuff will be levelled early, giving your team a hefty advantage in teamfights.

Weaknesses.

- Squishy.

- E can be tricky to land, especially with minions around.

- Has difficulty farming, particularly against heavy pushers.

- Skillshot reliant, and therefore a fairly high skill requirement.

- NEEDS mid lane. He can't put out enough sustained damage early on to be good for top, and he has too many issues farming to take bot. Meanwhile, he's very item dependent. Please don't try to play him anywhere other than mid.

- Looks really fuggin' gay.

Skill priority : R > W > E > Q. Get Q at level 4.

Reasonining:

R - Self-explanitory. It's your damned ult.

W - This is your bread and butter. You poke with it in lane, you throw it into the enemy team in teamfights. It's got a good range, good base damage, decent scaling, and a huge hitbox. It's awesome.

E - This is both a damaging nuke and your escape mechanism. You don't level it first because poking with it is both difficult, and also removing your main way of escaping ganks. Level it second, however, to reduce the cooldown and make it more likely to be up when you need it.

Q - This spell will, for a long time, do very little damage. You basically use it a) to make last hitting easier, and b) to reduce the cooldowns on your other spells. Don't fall into the trap of thinking you're AD Ez and you use this to poke with - it doesn't do enough damage, and it requires you to get around a creep wave in ways that leave you open to ganks.

Runes and Masteries

Nothing special. A basic 21/0/9 AP carry build will work fine, and your standard AP runes. I like to use armour, MRes, MPen and flat AP.

Build order

Okay, builds are always contentious. First, let me explain your priorities in your build.

Mana - Obviously, spells cost mana. Any skillshot reliant champion will want enough mana to allow the occasional miss. Furthermore, Ezreal is a fundamentally 'spammy' champion due to his short cooldowns. Personally, I like to make very sure that I won't ever run out of mana; if you're more confident, feel free to take as much as you think you can get away with.

Cooldown Reduction - I know, I know, Q reduces your cooldowns. That's WHY you want CDR. CDR not only reduces your cooldowns further, but it also reduces your Q's cooldown - thus allowing even LOWER cooldowns. It helps with farming (which AP Ez struggles with), poking, and for teamfights. Get it.

AP - Duh. Hit harder. Duh.

Lichbane - Necessary so that your Q actually does something.

So, what order do we get things in?

Personally, I start off with a Sapphire Crystal and health pots. This gives you plenty of room to poke in lane early on, as well as giving you access to an early tear.

Build Tear of the Goddess as your first item. It'll let you spam all day, as well as opening up Archangel's later on for a big fat AP boost. [NOTE : if you're really confident about your mana or you want something else instead of archangel's, feel free to skip the tear.]

Next, T1 boots. No big thought process here, it's necessary to move around.

Now build a Kage's Lucky Pick. You're going to need one soon, and you may as well get the gold rolling in. Then upgrade your boots to Ionian Boots of Lucidity. Yay, CDR!

Your next item is Morello's Evil Tome. This, along with your boots, gives you more or less capped CDR; it also gives some nice AP and mana regen, and the active is situationally awesome.

[At this point, with a tear and Morello's, blue is pretty much obsolete. This is awesome if your jungler is blue-reliant, e.g. Skarner.]

Right, you've got your CDR and mana. Next stop, AP. Build a Rabadon's, picking up the component parts whenever possible. Rabadon's is the moment you start doing sexy damage, since up til now you've been relying on natural spell scaling with levels. [Note : If you really love your Q, you can build a sheen before Rabadon's. I wouldn't recommend it though.]

At last! It's time! With your Deathcap complete, start picking up the materials for your Lichbane. You can get Blasting Wand or Sheen first, it doesn't make a huge difference; I tend to get Sheen just to help with farming. Once you finish your Lichbane, your Q's scaling goes from 0.2 to 1.2 - it goes from being largely useless, to being your strongest non-ultimate nuke. Yay.

Finally, build your tear into an Archangel's. The tear should be more or less stacked, and the incoming AP boost will allow you to burst heavily. We're almost there.

Finally, finish your build with a situational item. There are many good items, so feel free to try things out; I'll give you a list of nice items a little later.

Summary:

Sapphire crystal + pots.

Tear of the Goddess

T1 Boots

Kage's Lucky Pick

Ionian Boots of Lucidity

Morello's Evil Tome

Rabadon's Deathcap

Lichbane

Archangel's Staff

Situational.

Situational items:

BAD items to get:

Rylai's. Although the health is nice, it won't proc from your Q, and your W and R are considered AoE spells; E, meanwhile, will only hit if you're close enough to slap them anyway. It's not a terrible item, but there are many better ones.

Abyssal Scepter. You generally shouldn't be close enough for this aura to be affecting many people on the enemy team; that's the way AP Ezreals get asploded. If you want MR, try something else.

'Some' (not all) possible nice picks:

Rod of Ages. I know, it's your last item... but it's still nice even when not stacked, and it doesn't take long to stack up. The health helps to solve your innate squishiness, and the AP is pretty good once you factor in the AAS conversion from mana. The only reason this isn't a core item in the build is that Tear and CDR are so useful; you can easily replace Archangel's with Rod if you prefer high health and lower AP and mana.

Zhonya's. It's not an amazing item on Ezreal, but if you're getting focussed it's a nice way of getting your E closer to being available. The armour also helps protect you somewhat from AD carries.

Athene's Unholy Grail. By the time you get here, the mana is borderline irrelevant; nonetheless, more mana means more spamming. It's also nice for a combination of AP and MRes, if the enemy AP carry is messing you up. IMPORTANT NOTE: if you want to build this, make sure to swap your Ionian Boots out for Sorceror's Shoes since otherwise you'll be wasting the CDR.

[Additional Note : if you need tenacity, dropping your Ionian Boots for Merc Treads and replacing the CDR with an item like this is a good way to get it.]

Guardian Angel : The classic choice of the squishy trying to be less squishy. It gives you a nice get-out-of-jail free card, particularly if you're being focussed.

Frozen Mallet : I know. You're AP. I've actually never tried this as a last item, but I suspect it may actually work better than Rylai's - your Q procs it for the full slow I believe, and it gives more health than Rylai's. Consider it.

Note, there are many other options. I just threw out the ones that came to me.

Conclusion : AP Ez is pretty simple, so long as you don't make the same mistakes so many people make. Your W, not your Q, is your fundamental spell; your Q is an afterthought until you get Lichbane. On a similar note, Lichbane is not your core item; getting it early, before you have AP, is pointless.

Happy spamming.

Final Pro Tip: For an amusing game, hit your taunt every time you do anything. Land a skillshot? YOU BELONG IN A MUSEUM. Dodge a skillshot? YOU BELONG IN A MUSEUM. Escape a gank? YOU BELONG IN A MUSEUM. You get the gist.

Pretty soon, your opponent in mid will want to kill you, then themselves. I've made people ragequit before with this tactic (seriously). The only downside is that you'll be focussed for the rest of the game.