With the release of Patch 5.8 for League of Legends we’ve received a few new skin releases, the newly reworked Black Cleaver (article coming soon!) and the amended Ryze – the subject of this article.

In the past Ryze has suffered issues of balance; due to a lack of mobility he keeps getting compensated with bits of damage here and there and the end result is that he becomes too powerful and an instant pick or ban choice. Predictably then comes the nerf from Riot, which sees the mana mage disappear off the face of the Earth/Rift again unless you’re incredibly good on him or happen to be playing him in ARAM.

So, to business…

Video courtesy of Sp4zie [Note: content is PBE - Ryze may have changed since]

What’s new:

Ryze’s kit has been amended to try and bring him back in line with a mostly equal selection of champions, bar a few exceptions which become the meta picks. As part of his readjustments, Ryze has gone down to 5 mana regen per second, but gains 0.2 mana regen growth stat, bringing him up to 1. His armour growth stat is down from 3.9 to 3.0 too meaning that playing him and escaping his fairly tame early game doesn’t instantly give you a wonder mage late game who can take all the hits and dish out all the damage.

Passive – Arcane Mastery: Originally Ryze’s passive was a cooldown reduction based on casting other spells. Now this has been replaced by a stack system for Arcane Mastery. 5 stacks of the passive trigger Ryze to become super-charged for 3/4/5/6 seconds and these ranks are tied in with the points in Desperate Power. They offer a shield which blocks 20 damage + 5 per champion level PLUS an additional 8% of your maximum mana in damage. This ties into the classic case of building Ryze with a solid mana pool from Archangel’s Staff and Rod of Ages. The old passive isn’t entirely gone though; the super-charging copies the cooldown ratio of Overload across for all abilities to promote burst damage and selective engagement.

Q – Overload: Overload is a simple ability. It’s a straight line skill shot that stops at first contact with the enemy. It’s on a 4 second cooldown, has 900 range, and gives cooldown reduction for other abilities once cast. At maximum level this CDR is 10% and the ability has a 0.55 ability power scaling ratio plus 6.5% of maximum mana is dealt as bonus damage. Compared to the old Q, Overload is cheaper and for greater range shooting but at the loss of a guaranteed hit and slightly lower damage.

W – Rune Prison: Another simple ability, with a minor nerf in damage. You press W on somebody and they are trapped. You then unload a boatload of magic into their face and hopefully you kill them, or at least scare them half to death. The cooldown is a bit steep at 14 seconds but again, you will reduce this with the super-charge passive, Overload, and items such as Frozen Heart.

E – Spell Flux: Spell Flux is the most debated piece of Ryze’s kit change because it is buggy at present. The attack bounces a magic orb between enemy units and himself, depending on the distance between targets, for up to 5 times (a total of 6 potential hits). The bounces deal damage and reduce magic resistance (12 / 15 / 18 / 21 / 24) for 5 seconds, but this does not affect Ryze himself.

R – Desperate Power: Ryze’s ultimate is another super charging ability, this time gifting him spell vamp, increased movement speed, and adding 50% Area of Effect damage to all of his abilities. The cooldown has been increased early game but decreased later, to reward his selection as a late game pick.

I'm like unimpressed with the new ryze but the passive has potential so I guess I need more games to tell.

— scarra (@dscarra) April 30, 2015

The “Broken” Spell Flux:

Ryze’s Spell Flux is a single target AoE chain ability. The issue with this is that combined with the active abilitity from Muramana – the mythic form of Manamune - it triggers an boosted amount of damage based on the item consuming 3% of current mana to deal bonus physical damage equal to twice that of the mana consumed.

I feel the need to further emphasize that Ryze is 2013 Black Cleaver kind of broken, it's virtually impossible to lose with him.

— Olivier Debeuf (@OlivierDebeuf) April 29, 2015

The problem comes with the orb splitting after its initial hit. The smaller splits are supposed to dish out half the magic damage and resistance reduction to each of these units – champion or minion – and return that damage to the primary target. With the primary target likely a champion (because they’re the big goal after objectives) we’re seeing the returning split orbs act as single target casts just like the parent Spell Flux orb. The result of this is that the enemy champion is pulverised, simply.

It is worth pointing out that the video staged to show this broken power was with a Ryze running two Rods of Ages, Seraph’s Embrace, Sorcerer’s Boots, and the Muramana with the active turned on. The video below shows it all but the minion wave around him rightly die and the Maokai seemingly gets shredded, though the argument is that he has no resistances nor used his ultimate to reduce damage. It also shows Ryze’s Spell Flux costing 1000 mana out of a 4000 mana pool because of each hit registering as its own drain. For all the damage is excessive, it’s going to be incredibly hard to replicate this single target surge of power in anything other than fluke situations.

This is not the only issue though. When Spell Flux returns to Ryze it is apparently popping Banshee’s Veil should you have built it. While the item is useful, it might be worthwhile going with Spirit Visage to synergise with Ryze’s spell vamp when using his ultimate – R: Desperate Power – and boost the spell vamp.

Skill Levelling:

Previously Ryze would level up Q, W, E, with points into the ultimate whenever it was available. That old style may return when Riot fix the bug with Spell Flux but until then your spell rotation should be E, W, Q, and proceed to stack the E. You want the Overload Q shot for team fights but as it is now a skill shot – and the E is doing vastly more damage whilst bugging – you shouldn’t put so much priority on it until then. It has a large hit box so struggles in lane if you’re not a sharp shooter or getting clear windows to poke.

I think ryze will problably not be played at all though. Hard to harass with Q now and W/E mana cost are WAY too high for ryze.

— saintvicious (@LolStvicious) April 29, 2015

‘Overload’ is typically Ryze’s go-to ability and with it being the lowest cooldown he has this is no different now. Do not mistake a suggestion to prioritise the E ability for a total discounting of the Q shot. The change in preference is merely because you have to skill shot it now and it won’t always be useful.

This is not to say selecting Spell Flux as your priority is a guaranteed success either. Everything depends on your opponent’s champion, skill, and pressure from ganks. What this does mean is that Ryze is a lot better mid lane once again because his feeble auto attacking on minions is quickly skipped over with the decimating capacity of the Spell Flux, which in turn grants more wave control and thus the ability to sit back and farm and control the waves in the safest lane for an immobile champion.

In terms of fight style, Ryze used to be all about rushing your enemy and obliterating their backline. This was an issue given the lack of mobility so you would Flash to engage and drop ult and Spell Flux, saving Overload/Rune Prison to peel and punish a dive back at you or the AD carry. Now Ryze still has the mobility issues but should focus on wrecking the front line with his magic resist negating power. This coupled with a Void Staff and a classic Ryze build of AP/mana meeting HP/armour should keep you resilient enough to do good work and peel for yourself and walk away if things are going badly or press home the advantage if you’re winning.

Build Path & Summoner’s Spells:

Ryze always used to use Flash/TP in the top lane or Flash/Ignite mid. Now it seems the go-to spells additionally include Flash/Ghost; keeping you relevant in fights and able to run in from the back lines and wreak havoc at a second’s notice. Any of these three choices for pairing are legitimate though, just make sure you know what you’re doing if you run Ghost else risk the ire and toxicity of your teammates.

Ryze is primarily a mid laner now imo. Ghost + Flash is super OP on him.

— Ram Djemal (@BrokenshardEUW)April 29, 2015

The core items on Ryze are still Archangel’s Staff and Rod of Ages, but Ryze no longer needs the Frozen Heart. It won’t hurt to have it but there are better options. More preferable is a Zhonya’s Hourglass; offering immunity and armour and a chunk of ability power.

Ryze’s ult still gives spell vamp so an item like Spirit Visage or Will of the Ancients are really helpful, depending how offensive or defensive you need to be. This applies to Mercury's Treads vs Sorceror’s Boots too. Aside this, the world is your oyster. Luden’s Echo offers movement speed and poke, Void Staff for magic penetration, Righteous Glory for more HP/mana like the Rod of Ages, Banshee’s Veil to block an initial ability attack, and even Manamune to trigger extra activated damage from the broken Spell Flux.

Video courtesy of Joaos92LoL

Runes & Masteries:

Before the update to Ryze, players would use Movement Speed quints to improve his sluggish pace and allow him to keep in and around fights. Team Dignitas’ own LCS mid laner Danny "Shiphtur" Le has been playing with these still recently, though others such as Pr0lly and PoohManDu have favoured subbing in ability power quints. All three – being the most up to date and regular Ryze players – follow these quints up with a mix of ability power, armour, and magic penetration.

Masteries were formerly 0-9-21 but with the changes to Ryze’s mana scaling/reliance for damage and a growth in AP benefits instead it would seem the usual caster route of 21-0-9 or 21-9-0 are the popular choices, depending on how much utility you like for movement speed/buff durations.

Ryze can be best summed up by Team Dignitas EU's coach and former jungler, Ram 'Brokenshard' Djemal:

New ryze is a disgusting beast late game but its really a struggle getting there. Similar to cassio right after rework 1/2

— Ram Djemal (@BrokenshardEUW) April 29, 2015

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