League of Legends - Ryze Guide

Ryze is a strong AP carry with skills that scale from both Ability Power and Mana. He has a very low-cooldown single target skill, enabling him to dish out consistent damage to his opponents. Ryze also packs a powerful snare along with a multi-target bouncing ball that reduces enemy magic resistance.

This Ryze guide aims to be a basic and simple introduction on basic strategy that should be adopted when playing Ryze, it is recommended for people just starting to use Ryze.

Abilities

• 
  Arcane Mastery (Passive) With Ryze's passive It is very easy to give his Overload essentially a 0 second cooldown (Overload > Spell (Snare/Flux) > Overload > Spell (Snare/Flux)), Allowing Ryze to consistently deal some powerful damage to a single opponent.
• 
  Overload Ryze's powerful single target damage ability that also scales with his maximum mana, making mana a vital stat for Ryze to focus on. At full cooldown this spell has a very short cooldown, which is brought even lower due to Ryze's passive. This is Ryze's main offensive ability and also gives him some free cooldown reduction.
• 
  Rune Prison This skill is only a snare and not a stun, so be aware that some skills and attacks are available to champions during this skill. This skill has powerful range and is great at stopping an enemy for your team, or holding them still for a Spell Flux barrage. Rune Prison also scales from Ryze's mana pool.
• 
  Spell Flux A decent laning harassment tool (its effective range with bounces is very large, making it very hard for the enemy to retaliate), this skill also lowers enemies magic resist making your next overload (and allies spells) deadly. This spell is most effective when standing next to your opponent with no minions around as Spell Flux will bounce between you and your opponent. This should be cast together with Overload for maximum damage on your enemies.
• 
  Desperate Power (Ultimate) Ryze's ultimate provides him with a mana boost, an area of effect on all his spells and some spellvamp, for a decent duration. This skill is best activated when engaging in a team fight or during laning phase to sustain yourself. The added spellvamp and the added area of effect damage on this skill can quickly add up and may be the difference between living and dying.

Ability Order

Generally the best way to level your abilities is: Ult > Overload > Rune Prison > Spell Flux

If you anticipate a level 1 team fight and you feel your team would benefit from an extra form of crowd control consider taking snare first (this may also work well if your in a duo lane). Maxing Overload first is important for your damage output and lane harassment and is thus maxed first. While maxing Rune Prison second is important to increase its snare duration. Spell Flux is left till last as its main use is to decrease the enemies magic resistance and level 1 is sufficient for this.

Runes

Ryze Rune Build

Red (Marks) - Magic Penetration
Yellow (Seals) - Mana Regeneration Per Level // Armor
Blue (Glyphs) - Magic Resistance Per Level
Purple (Quintessences) - Health // Movement Speed

Magic Penetration Marks are vital for any caster and Ryze is no exception. Combine this with mana regeneration Seals to keep your mana up during the laning phase or you can run armor for a more defensive choice. Glyphs should be magic resistance as there is no need to use cooldown reduction (you will reach 39% cooldown with masteries/items detailed in this guide). Quintessences can either be health or movement speed depending on your preference and available runes.

Summoner Spells

 

Best Summoner Spells:
-Flash
-Ghost

Flash and Ghost are by far the best summoner spells for Ryze, they allow you to get in and out of battles easily and escape when required. Ryze like most mages is quite squishy (until he gets well into his build) and by taking two of the best escaping summoner spells you should always be able to escape from battles.

Other Good Summoner Spells:
-Teleport
-Exhaust
-Ignite

Ryze has many other summoner spell options that he can choose from. Ignite provides you with abit more burst damage and may help you to score some early game kills. Exhaust is a good pick to counter an AD heavy team if nobody else on your team has it. While Teleport is great at stopping backdoor champions and provides your team with good map control.

Masteries

Ryze follows your standard mage/caster mastery setup with a 9/0/21 build. The offensive tree provides you with a small ability power boost, some cooldown reduction and the vital 15% spell penetration. While the utility tree provides all the vital mage stats: improved summoner spells, mana regeneration, increased buff duration, cooldown reduction and summoner spell cooldown.

Item Build

 
Final Item Build:
-Sorcerer Shoes
-Archangel's Staff
-Rod of Ages
-Frozen Heart
-Void Staff
-Banshee's Veil

Steps/Reasoning:
-Start off by buying 2 Health Potions and a Mana Crystal. This allows you to rush an early Tear, maximising its mana/Ability Power bonus. As well as providing a strong starting mana pool (and thus some damage).
-Farm your lane until you have enough for a Tear Of Goddess and Boots Of Speed. Eventually you want to upgrade your boots to Sorcerer's Shoes or Mercury's Treads if the enemy has lots of stuns and silences.
-Your next item should be Glacial Shroud, eventually turning this into a Frozen Heart, giving you some mana, armor and some strong cooldown reduction.
-From here you'll want to grab some defensive items such as Rod of Ages and Banshee's Veil, depending on the enemy team.
-Towards late game you'll want to grab a Void Staff to counter enemy magic resistance and finish off your Archangel's Staff.

Alternatives:
-Will of The Ancients (Provides some sustainability outside of your ultimate)
-Rylai's Crystal Scepter (You can consistently slow the enemy with Overload).
-Lich Bane (Provides mana, ability power, move speed and some magic resistance which are all very powerful stats for Ryze, the proc effect can also boost your damage if you find your playstyle leads you to auto-attacking after your spells).

General Ryze Tips

Below are some general tips and guidelines that will help improve your Ryze gameplay:

• Use your ultimate in teamfights and even minion farming, it has a very low cooldown.
• To output maximum damage your combo should try to lead with Spell Flux (for the damage reduction effect), from there you want to alternate between Overload, Desperate Power, Rune Prison and auto-attacks (hopefully Lich Bane enhanced). Overload should be used in between each of your other skills as its cooldown will reset quickly due to Ryze's passive.
• A strong harassment tool is hitting an enemy with Overload > auto-attack (Lich Bane) and backing away, this is a great way to dwindle opponents down.
• Your Rune Prison can only hold enemies in place, they can still attack and use certain skills.
• Concentrate on snaring enemies that over commit in team fights, to allow your team to jump them. You can also use them to bounce a Spell Flux back into the enemy, lowering their magic resistance for your team (and yourself).

Early Game - (Level 1-6)

• Farm minions (through auto-attacks) and harass with Overload early game.
• Spell Flux is especially potent if you are laning with another magic damage dealer as Spell Flux lowers enemies magic resistance for a short time. Spell Flux is extremely powerful to harass with due to its large effective range, making retaliation from enemies difficult.
• Use your snare to prevent champions from getting too close to you and your laning partner.
• Use the bushes effectively, if you can land a your full spell combo early game (Spell Flux > Overload > Rune Prison > Overload), it can do some serious damage. Beware of its high mana cost though.
• If you have lane control, Overload and use of the bush can quickly dwindle down enemies.

Mid Game - (Level 7-12)

• Harass your enemies with Q whenever they are in range, you want to consistently poke them. It also makes a great last hitting tool and will help you build that stacks on your Archangel Staff.
• Kill the blue golem and obtain the buff if possible, this will give you endless mana and massively reduced cooldowns, it is not a vital part of this build but it is helpful.
• Be careful when pushing lanes, you can destroy minions quickly but do minimal damage to towers and may attract more attention than you can handle, if you do push make sure Flash and Ghost are available to you.
• Rune Prison has a strong range, use it to catch enemies that over-extend just that little too much.

Late Game - (Level 13-18)

• Concentrate on putting out as much damage in team fights as possible, this will mostly come from Spell Flux and your ultimate. While your ultimate is active try to get as many spells as possible, not only will the aoe damage give you strong damage output it will also heal you.
• Continue to focus on harassing with Overload whenever possible and snaring any enemies that overextend. Overload > Rune Prison > Overload is a very quick and powerful combo against a single target.
• Don't be afraid to get into the thick of things if required, you have decent defensive stats thanks to your item build. 

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