So now Xerath has been out for a while..

Rich0 · 7 months

Fucking OP in ARAM

Rawrjeevz · 7 months

I love how everyone screams OP in champion spotlight or just by looking at his skills, he has A MILLION RANGE + Stun, HOW CAN YOU GET AWAY!? And when people actually play him they realise his long range is compensated with low-er damage than the normal ap caster, never the less, awesome character, he is ALL about positioning, if you siege up in the middle of the engagement you won't get far, he is the best pusher in the game when it comes to destroying inhibs, siege outside the enemy base and cover your team while they tower. Very fun to play.

Trux42 · 7 months

He's ok. Difficult to play well, but who needs to play well when you can double Q every wave for near-perfect cs. Too reliant on his ult to do any damage, W could use some tweaks (would much rather see it have less of a delay without the movement speed buff). Going for fast CDR seems the best route for a number of reasons. 3 second Q, ~6(?) second E and minimum downtime on ult. He doesn't have the best of ratios on his basic skills, but his ulti makes up for that pretty fast. % spell pen on W makes building for flat spell pen less than ideal.

Overall, relatively linear champion and playstyle, without many options in build. At least he's not non-autoattacking AD. 5xbloodthirsters is such innovative design.

Psychobolt · 7 months

His dmg seems a tad low for the amount of set-up he needs to get it off. If you put him next to most casters it dosnt realy add up.

Emptypiro · 7 months

I like him. I wish his spells had more impact, but i am pleased overall.

Problem_Santa · 7 months

I've seen him do ok in dominion, but he needs 1 or 2 bruisers to hide behind else he is dead meat.

Nerkson · 7 months

He's got amazing poke, though there are some things that people should attempt to realize:

Using Locus of Power while in the middle of your lane is just asking to be ganked. You have to know where people are and assess the risks. Just watch out for the enemy, and if they have a jungler with some form of a stun (Udyr, Warwick at 6, Amumu, so on) then be ready to break Locus off fast.
Running him Ghost/Flash is probably the best overall set up. Ignite/Flash would provide more damage, but Xerath is a slow beast. He needs some way to get around more than just Flash and the occasional minor speed boost from Locus.
His Passive isn't exactly super strong. It does help don't get me wrong, but it's certainly one of the weaker free gold passives. Don't worry about stacking ONLY AP. Some CD Reduction helps with his ultimate, but he has a pretty low CD frame any rate.
Once again, his poke is just good. I sort of like Rylia's in the fact that landing a Mage Chain will make hitting Q that much easier.
The Spotlight suggested nearly all AP/Level runes. I strongly suggest Mana/level Yellows or Blues though. He does need some mana regen. Picking up two Doran's Rings + Some form of Rune'd Mana regen will greatly help with lane sustain. Blue buff helps a ton too.
I've heard that Spell-pen boots do not work very well on him due to how they interact with Locus's innate % Spell Pen. However, you're not in Locus 24/7. Make your judgement calls here as you see fit.

johnmedgla · 7 months

I like his concept, but he just doesn't have the late game impact to justify giving him the solo he needs to accomplish, well, anything. Needs a smallish ratio buff on at least Q I suspect.

Grafeno · 7 months

I find him very meh early game, meh midgame and really good engame.

Overall conclusion: Meh. You'll own if you get into lategame, but that doesn't happen too often.

RedCarmine · 7 months

I'm finding him really powerful, I won't be surprised at all if he becomes a FOTM after a high elo player starts streaming him a lot. He doesn't need any buffs in my opinion.

He is powerful through every single stage of the game. He starts out with powerful harass (if you are good at landing your Q), at level six he has an incredibly powerful nuke combo, and if whoever you are laning against has taken about two Qs, you can guarantee a kill with your ultimate and ignite every time. He never loses his relevance, all the way into late game with incredible harass and a bunch of free magic pen and armor. With Rod of Ages and Rylai's you practically are as tough to kill for AD champions as a full tank. To top it all off he has great farming and hard cc. Really what more do you want? Hell, he even has high AP ratios, more than Veigar.

stacksandwhiskers · 7 months

Standing at my tower blue pilling after a fight and having a Xerath from behind a wall pound me in the ass makes me very sad. But very satisfying for the Xerath, I'm sure.

TomorrowByStorm · 7 months

I love him. I sat down the other night and played 26 games in a row with him to try all these ideas I have for him and to see what he was capable off. Here is what I've learned thus far.

*Xerath is not a carry. He has RIDICULOUS power in his range and ult, must remain too far out of the battle. He simply can not be the champion doing the most dmg for your team.

*He is a great mid if you know how to play it back and wait for your six. Once you have Ult capabilities his bust dmg goes through the roof.

He is THE best person for shutting down the current AD/Support bottom meta. I would even go as far as to say he may have been built for it on purpose because it works to damn well. Just put him with a ranged AD carry bottom and you simply can't lose if the AD is good and Xerath builds to support.

This is what I do. I stack full AP runes. I know a lot of you will go gasp no M.Pen Reds?!! Deal with it, I like having as much early game smack as I can get with him. Then 10 - 0 - 20. For cool downs, Move speed, mana regen.

Early Game: Intro Meki and 2 Health Pots, go bottom lane with your Ranged Ad carry (Ashe is best IMO, but I haven't be able to try a Kog). Let the carry farm farm farm. When they need to back farm yourself, but where most your money is going to come from early on is Champ Kills/assists. Take skill order R>Q>W>E. Intro with Q, W, E. Every time your opponents try to come in and last hit...smack them. Every time they try to come into harass your carry. Smack them. If they aren't good a dodging your Q ZONE THEM HARD. When someone drops low enough for a pretty secured kill...Stun them, and let your carry kill them. As soon as I have 610 gold I B and grab the Tear. This is just great for Mana Regen and A larger mana pool late game when you will really really need it. If I'm doing really well grab boots one as well.

Mid Game: Once you have your Ult you can be MUCH more aggressive! Xerath's Ult deals a TON of dmg. With maxing W second you will be able to pop Locus pretty much when ever you want. I pop it every time I shoot off a Q to harass pretty much. Continue as before Zone Enemy, Harass them any time the step into range, but now start picking up some last hit. Rush the CDR boots, then Will of the Ancients, then The Evil Tome. This combo on his is for me, his core build. The CDR, The Spell Vamp, The Mana Regen...all beautiful on Xerath. If you have this by the time you are LV 12-14 you're doing well and should be able to Q every 2-3 seconds, Pop into and out of Locus any time you want due to the 2 second cool down, and when your ult hits lv 3 it will be at a 35 second cool down...which is....so good.

Late Game & Team Fights: Find someone's dick to ride. For me it's whoever is getting the most kills or the Tank. Follow this person everywhere. NEVER EVER EVER GO ANYWHERE ALONE! Xerath can 1v1 just fine against just about anyone but will pretty much never survive a gank...even under the tower. By now you can farm entire waves of creeps whenever you want. Make up for the lost early game farm. Use your ult to farm huge waves..it comes back really really quick. Get a Crystal Scepter for some extra health and Team Slows. Then build the Hat. Finish by completing the Tear into the Arcangles. This should equal roughly 700 AP. This will make your ult do nearing 1700 dmg if all three hit. That's a lot of dmg that can be dropped on the whole team if they group. When team fights look like they are coming stay in the back and start unloading q's while in Locus. Pop out, move, do so again. Wait for a time when they group up on a team mate and then Do this combo "E, R,Q,R,R,Q" You just threw nearing 3300 Dmg into the team fight.

Important Side note: When you are harassing early game do so from angles that don't hit your minions. This way your just screw your Carry's farm.

TL;DR. I think Xerath is a Support Mage like Zeilen only he doesn't fall off in DMG late game.

KaelNukem · 7 months

His W needs to be faster, I can't hit people that flee because W takes to long before I can shoot my E. THis needs to be faster.

RebBrown · 7 months

9/0/21 + flash + clairvoyance. Don't go mid and dominate the lane thanks to the insane poke. No one can hide from you thanks to CV.

anadomie · 7 months

I really like xerath alot, since his gameplay differs a lot compared to other casters. He is a great poker when positioned correctly, but relies on his ult too much to put out decent damage. Imo his Skill numbers need to be adjusted slightly, because his DMG output is quite weak compared to other casters (Except for his ult which can do quite a lot when used correctly, but if the enemy team positions well you won't be able to use it to it's full potential)

dalek167 · 7 months

Does his W increase range for summoner's like ignite/exhaust?

stfalx · 7 months

He is annoying but if u can get close to him he is dead.

Akali / Kassadin :X

Bluedemonfox · 7 months

He is better when played on dominion. Also I tried going spell pen boots instead of cdr in 1 game I did pretty good, but I had offense masteries and ad/armor pen runes by mistake xd

fishhand · 7 months

Haven't played him myself but the ones I've played against have shown that he has consistent AOE burst, not as much burst as Annie but puts out the AOE from longer range. He's not much of a worry if you're fighting him 1v1 but he easily bursts enough to put you out of commission in a 2v1 and with his long range and stun can be frightening and hard to escape.

BlindKitty · 7 months

Pretty high burst on relatively low cooldown. Lategame poke is op.

cobrabb · 7 months

In my opinion, Xerath is a decent champion that might fit well into certain teams.

Early Game: He isn't able to do much besides lasthit creeps and hope that someone doesn't gank. If you have a good jungler you can try to set up the stun for the kill.

Once he gets his ult he has a bit more harassing/killing potential, and once you get ~60-80 AP he can farm like a boss. Generally, I try not to roam too much as Xerath, preferring to just farm if possible.

Use farm to get some more AP and maybe some MRES (you will already have decent armor). He works better on teams that can utilize his stun early game and also teams that have a good amount of magic damage from other sources (Cho'Gath, Singed, etc.)

Kektek · 7 months

I don't have a ton of experience but his AoE damage seems really strong in teamfights. I wasn't as effective at finishing people off, but hitting ~3 people with your ultimate at Q usually turned things in our favor.

On the other hand, his laning phase seems more troublesome. His mana and lower single target damage makes it harder to be aggressive. My best results have been with a lane partner that can take advantage of the stun. I haven't played him mid yet, but it seems like he'd have trouble vs. burst casters like annie, brand, or malz. But perhaps not!

On Dominion, he's pretty decent at defending points, but easily killed 1v1. Even if you're doing well you still need to rely on your team.

higherbrow · 7 months

I've been pretty dominant on him. He plays a denial game in lane, because of his massive range. You can keep people from last hitting without interrupting your own farm too much. If they try to ignore your harass, it's not like you can't kill early.

Mid game, his ganks are very good, if he can get a good flanking position he doesn't even have to get into danger to put out a pile of damage.

End game he can rule a team fight if his positioning is good.

Torlen · 7 months

I haven't seen him in a single game.

Inoyh · 7 months

Xerath is a great laner, though he gets raped by anti-carries. Hes also hard to use in teamfights as all his spells are skillshots. It's very akward to have to cast 6-7 spells in a single combo, takes forever and most of the times you get CC'd and die before you get to use all your ult charges.

MFMFMFMFMF · 7 months

Played him for the first time last night; he's cool and I absolutely dominated my lane vs karthus, but my bot lane did horrible and my team ended up surrendering very early due to a legendary urgot, so didn't really get to experience him much. anyway, he's interesting but a bit clunky. It's jsut really annoying when you w, then they just run out of range of your e and all you can do is fire off a random q and w again; it's just frustrating. I feel like a much better mechanic would be that instead of using w and being still for a second when you can't do anything, you should instead only be able to use it after remaining still for a second and have the transition be instant. Also I heard somewhere that someone suggested being able to just right click out of w instead of having to hit w again which would be really nice. He just doesn't flow as well as someone like Brand.

VillainGuy · 7 months

The only thing I have to say about him, is that when I carried one game with him? I was able to blast away an akali with my 3 ult burst, and one E.
I chuckled and grinned, as I hate facing akalis.

Ladnil · 7 months

It's rather funny how little respect/fear I have for an opposing Xerath in lane. It's entirely possible I've yet to face a good one, but so far he seems rather unintimidating. Even if he stuns you, you're not dying unless his jungler shows up.

tidal_flood · 7 months

Tough lesson I learned yesterday. Never play Jarvan with a xerath enemy. Your ulti = death trap for your teammates who's flash is on cooldown. Also made my ulti useless because it was:

1) keep it on and get pelted

2) Shut it off and use it only for the gap closer.

The_Unreal · 7 months

If you're going to play this guy, you'd damn well be able to land that extreme range poke. I've faced 2 Xerath's that couldn't and it did not go well for them.

He's really intriguing. I enjoyed Dan Dinh's commentary, and it gave me great insight on how to fight him.

ajacks0n · 7 months

He has a weak early game and kind of requires a passive lane, but pretty much as soon as you get a deathcap you can burst down nearly anybody you can catch with your E/ult combo.

I have lost some of my lanes hard before, and was still able to snowball after sniping a couple of kills.

Melkster · 7 months

I'm not a big fan of Xerath, personally, for these reasons:

He dies easily (quite squishy, no built-in escapes, his stun is rather hard to get off when his ult is down)
He doesn't really do that much damage (long cooldown on his spells, his Q is a skillshot that can easily be avoided, and his abilities just don't do that much damage anyway.)

Compared to other casters like Annie or Karthus, he seems very underpowered.

Im_Clowny · 7 months

I'm playing a lot of Morg mid to blind-counter him in blind-picks. She can farm really safe away from his poke and even if I get hit that passive spell-vamp just heals me right back up. Not to mention black-shielding his stun.

His early game can be really nasty if you get caught without shield he can chew a lot of HP down, but I found past level 6, binding him then flashing in and ulting is pretty much a free kill.

bearwithchainsaw · 7 months

Personally, I dislike his playstyle. But thats just me.

Visually, Riot did a very great job on him. I really like how he looks, and what his effects look like. Really neat concept, and hes fun to look at in game!

IMO, a good addition to the game, and is something a bit different.

Rayezilla · 7 months

I've been playing some Xerath, I quite like his look and feel.

Maaku · 7 months

Killing people over Walls then proceeding to type "sniped" in all-chat would be my favourite thing.

geezlers · 7 months

Late game is when he really, really shines. At this time, you'll probably be at 600-700 AP. This is when your damage gets really out of control. Your Q should hit for about 600-700 and your E for slightly more than that. Don't forget, you have 30% extra spell pen with locust of power. Your ulti has potentially 2000 damage, probably the highest of any caster. With about 700 ap, you also get bonus 105 armor, give or take (700 * .15), which should give you about 200 armor along with your base. This will make it hell for any AD assassins or ranged carries to kill you quickly.

Poptartica · 7 months

I was playing him in dominion, and I sometimes go bottom. At first I was having a really rough time VS. strong bot champions, but the second I went in with a catalyst most of the good bot defenders lacked the burst to overpower the constant healing + leveling I was getting from my items. This pretty much left me to freely use my Q/W to poke nonstop every time it was off CD, then use the speedboost to get out of range to disallow them a kill or a few pokes. I don't see him do well in dominion often but I think the problem is a lot of people aren't using the speed boost from their W aggressively to kite when their other things are on CD. (this is assuming they've leveled it and the CD is roughly what, 4 seconds? For me, with my CDR items, my Q and W had the same very short CD so it worked well)

Anyway he's a fun dominion champ, but if you miss any of your skillshots the enemy team will think that you have no damage output because you pretty much need to land everything.

As others have suggested, Rylai's is nice. I also like exhaust, mostly because if there is a tanky melee or assassin (which you will see a ton of in dominion obviously) chasing me and I'd like to kite around while my spells come off CD. Oh yeah, and exhaust is amazing if you happen to be going top as well. Anyway just thought I'd add some dominion-related input since there are already a lot of good comments about SR.

MrPeppa · 7 months

His range is a little out of control when you consider that none of his attacks are true skillshots. Plus he has 4 AOE chances to proc his stun...overdone imo

RoBellicose · 7 months

A lot of people seem to think that CDR is only useful to reduce long cooldowns, when in actuality its best on characters with short cooldowns. If an ult has a long cooldown it's only getting used once per teamfight regardless of your CDR - if your Q ability has lvl 5 cooldown of 4 seconds, 40% cooldown will allow you to spam ~5 or 6 more shots of it in the teamfight. Xerath needs his CDR so that he makes full use of his locus.

P.S. his taunt is based on powerthirst which makes me crack up every time I hear it!

dou10 · 7 months

Bought Xerath, but compared to Brand, Xerath's burst is kinda weak to me though his Locust of Power i guess compensates for it.

NolanVoid · 7 months

I find him to be a lot of fun, in SR, haven't played him in Dominion. People always bitch and cry when I pick him, and then I go 3-0 in the laning phase and proceed to taunt the rest of my team for the duration of the game. I always have a ridiculous KDR unless the game drags on really long in which case I usually come out close to even.

You have to know when to use Locus of Power. You use it when you are behind three of your teammates. You use it when you are behind your tower. You use it when someone near death is running away and you want to try and Lux them while they are in the fog of war. You do not use it in the middle of a duel. You do not use it when you are overextended. In fact, you should pretty much never be overextended because you have Locus of Power, so why bother?

Flash and Ignite for summoners, because if you don't run Ignite your opponents will keep getting away with 2hp and you will be pissed off. I've found the best way to play him for me so far is to take mid or top and go boots x2 Hpots x1 Mpot. After that I usually end up grabbing two Doran's Rings for health and mana sustain, finish my CDR boots, and transition into Deathcap, because you should have enough health from the double Doran's if you are playing smart. Then pick up Rylai's next. I have stopped getting Morello's becase I feel like health is more important over the CDR when you are bursting someone down with your combo. If you don't have enough health, someone like Akali or Leblanc will just stand there and duel you, and they will win.

Normally I farm until level six and then poke them down to about 60% health, then go for the kill combo: E,R,Q,R,R, Ignite, and then use whatever is on cooldown to keep hitting them until they die. So far I've had an easy time against Akali, Anivia, and Brand. Morgana is always banned, and if I get first ban I usually go for Kassadin too, which upsets the team, but they would probably be upset about something no matter what, so c'est la vie. I've seen Caitlyn lane against him and she seems to get her feelings hurt that someone can actually keep up with her ridiculous range, so I imagine he doesn't have a hard time against her.

rhythmguy · 7 months

It generally takes a few weeks more than this before we see people really playing the champ properly... so far I think people play him incorrectly. A Xerath on a team generally means that team will lose.

bobisoft2k5 · 7 months

Played him once, did decently but that was mostly because the other team was kind of bad. I'm not usually one to reference a "pro" or guide on these things, but I think ColbyCheeze hit it on the head when he did his Xerath first look/impressions. He's pretty underpowered although his mechanics are interesting.

Holybasil · 7 months

I find him Turrrrible... The fact that you have to stun yourself for 1.5 seconds before you can take advantage of the extra range is silly. Nor can you cancel it midcast.

His damage also isn't something to boast about. If you go against someone 1 on 1 you will lose.

And the only chance you may have to do proper damage is with your ulti up. If it's on CD, then you're basically screwed.

So you need CD reduction, which means you don't get as much AP as you could, meaning you won't have as much armor and he's already pretty squishy to begin with.

Dominion hes pretty useless as well. Sure he can cancel a capture, but he can't kill anyone and by the time you're ready again, it's too late.

Like many has compared before. He is Brand with extra range and less nuke.

CorAutMors · 7 months

doesnt do enough damage for an ap in a standard team comp

sniperx99 · 7 months

Every time I see a Xerath on my team

He is countered so hard by silences. WARNING: Anecdotal evidence ahead. I've lost every game that I have had a Xerath on my team. He seems like fun to play, but the design is just not fun in my opinion.

FrozenRevolver · 7 months

His W is just too trash. The biggest issue is even if you are immobile and have a (decent) increase in range, it doesn't pay off for being completely vulnerable to getting walked up to and killed.

His R needs a shorter cooldown, it should work like Kass or Kog's ultimate. You can spam it but the cost starts to ramp up really hard. The problem with Xerath is his damage is super situational, if you are in a tight spot where you can line up your Q and hit everyone and people aren't spread out then you do pretty nicely, but in an open area you are kind of a single target stun and you might land one or two ults. A hero that serves as artillery should be spammy (think Kog). If you miss your ultimates you are pretty much useless and even then you are strongly dependent on your team and their positions, etc. He has the potential to be great but his W needs to be remade into some sort of movement speed debuff instead of a literal anchor and his R needs to be turned into a spam-able skill with aa 200-300 mana increase per cast.

His passive is also kind of ass, it won't save you from anything that has a decent amount of Armor Pen/Damage.

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