User blog comment:Emptylord/2017 Patch Notes (Unofficial)/@comment-12904660-20170625181923/@comment-3974211-20170625190746

I'm not a fan of making an anchored ability not able to be cancelled early - since it limits how long the ability can be active for. Having to cancel the ability early should be the cost, not forcing you to activate it in really obscure locations, in my opinion. I like the idea of him being visible, although in my rework I substantially reduced his range - part of my goal was to turn him back into a "center of attention" champion, like he used to be.

Some of your ability ideas for him do sound interesting, but I'm not sure they're best used on Xerath - at least not in combination with the other abilities, or his existing kit. Having a cursor-controlled missile is something that I think should be explored in League, and I'm sure it will one-day, but it seems out of place given the rest of Xerath's kit. Maybe if it was his ultimate and was a super-powerful effect, but I don't think it's an interesting enough ultimate for Xerath. Similarly, a mini-prison is another interesting ability - but I'm not sure it's best explored on Xerath. I had proposed a similar ability for Xerath myself, except that the target was tethered to a location and super-slowed while the tether holds, but could break the tether by moving out of range - so the ability could be used to force an enemy to move in a certain direction.

Lastly, I kinda dislike the idea of Xerath "keeping an enemy locked down for an extensive period of time, from far away" - that doesn't sound fun for Xerath or his opponent. Ashe already features extensive duration on global range, but she doesn't have the ability to capitalise on it herself. I don't think it's balanced to have both, and I would prefer Xerath retained the ability to capitalise at a distance (although, as said above, I actually opt'd in favour of removing some of his distance).