Talk:Ezreal/@comment-80.15.143.26-20120815152336/@comment-76.95.21.123-20120818213926

Everyone arguing in favor of Q first obviously never watch high elo Ezreals (especiallly the ones on asian server) play. The only time they max Q first is against a dedicated burst kill lane. 1 point in Q is all you need for its benefits, bar the cooldown. Maxing W leaves the enemy carry simply sitting there like a duck if they try to trade, and it does more damage. Try it yourself. If you are advocating Q, you obviously have never even TRIED maxing W.

And even though the cooldown on Q gets reduced, if you're utilizing this cooldown, you are either three things happening. You are either pushing your lane, hitting your enemy, or missing. Let's analyze each outcome.

If you are pushing your lane, you are making yourself much more susceptible to ganks. Not a good idea, unless your support is blitz who benefits from the lack of a minion wave on the enemy team. Even still, it's probably better to just have Blitz zone the enemy out simply with his presence.

If you are missing your Q's, then the low cooldown doesn't even matter. You're just wasting mana.

If you are able to hit the enemy with the majority of your Q's, you're likely playing against an opponent who isn't even near the skill level where it matters which skill you max first. Any decent AD carry should be able to dodge at least 60% of Ezreal's Q's if he's firing them on cooldown.

Now, if you're not firing them on cooldown, but only when the opportunity arises to land one for sure, then the cooldown reduction doesn't even matter. If the enemy is skilled enough to dodge the majority of these Q's, it doesn't matter either. Now, dodging the W is much more difficult to do than it is to dodge Q. Reason being is simple: it has a wider hitbox and it ignores minions. After landing a W, you can opt to trade in your favor if the enemy lacks a minion wave, because of the attack speed debuff.

At early levels, the attack speed debuff renders the enemy carry almost useless. Cutting 40% AS from a carry who likely has less than 1.2 AS while at the same time increasing yours by 10% leaves almost no possibility of a lost trade for Ezreal, unless the enemy carry is Corki or Urgot.

Now don't get me wrong, by no means is maxing Q a bad idea. The skill has its uses. But if you think you're doing well in lane by maxing Q, I can guarantee you'll do leagues better by maxing W. This skill is the reason Ezreal jumped from almost trash tier to the most-picked/banned AD carry at high elo, and it is the same reason those on the asian server have called Ezreal OP for months.