Hey guys,
I want to here thoughts on Xerath's E. While it's pretty easy to dodge from a distance, at midrange it can be unforgivingly difficult and you rely heavily on the Xerath making a mistake rather than an impressive juke. While it makes sense for it to hit easily up close, I think it's just a tad unforgiving at a middle distance.
If not this, what about the cooldown being too low? Thoughts?
TehNACHO4 votesSee, the problem is that we're already assuming he's at midrange. Most Assassins would immediately eat him up for burning his stun like that.
Jasiwel2 votesSee, the problem is that we're already assuming he's at midrange. Most Assassins would immediately eat him up for burning his stun like that.
However, my experience as Xerath and against him is that you can usually outburst any assassin so long as you land your E at midrange then unload Q/W. You can easily say that, especially in a laning situation, Xerath will eat up any assassin caught by E.
TehNACHO2 votes{quoted} so long as you land your E at midrange
I'm going to make this very simple. I assume midrange means less than 600 units. Most melee targeted dashes/binks are 600 units in range, and for Assassins, often put them behind their targets, to negate skill shots.
Please put two and two together.
DarthSpectrum3 votesIn my opinion having a linear skill shot stun is fine. Xerath can't really afford to build tanky, without that stun, he will get ripped apart by more mobile champions since Xerath does not have any dashes or the sort.
Being a mage, he can't really exactly erase a target by landing one stun and spamming his abilities before the duration ends. However, this type of mechanic is much more troublesome on a mage that doubles as an assassin such as Ahri. If she lands her charm on you, a follow up from Q and W alone will take out 60% of most mid-laner's health, making it all together too easy to play in these situations. (Which explains why Ahri has a difficulty rating of only 5 when she is a skill shot champion).
Frankly, even if Xerath is having access to his stun too often, I would still opt that he keeps it. It is his defensive against even more OP abilities such as Fizz's playful/trickster and LB's distortions and ult. If he were to lose that stun, he would stand no chance against these champions.
Manwad3 votesXerath's a mage who's all about "death from afar" so he needs tools to keep you at bay while he pokes you to death.
His stun scales with distance, so at mid range it's like a 1 second. At close range it's like a mini-stun and utterly worthless.
However, many champs who can reliably kill him can do so with ease. Vi can ult right through that little baby stun. Zed can flank with a shadow and ult on his face. Rek'Sai can flank.
You can attack his blind spots. Why would you try to rush directly at a mage who's known for killing people from the fog of war?
Jasiwel1 votesXerath's a mage who's all about "death from afar" so he needs tools to keep you at bay while he pokes you to death.
His stun scales with distance, so at mid range it's like a 1 second. At close range it's like a mini-stun and utterly worthless.
However, many champs who can reliably kill him can do so with ease. Vi can ult right through that little baby stun. Zed can flank with a shadow and ult on his face. Rek'Sai can flank.
You can attack his blind spots. Why would you try to rush directly at a mage who's known for killing people from the fog of war?
I think this is acceptable. I was just poking about to see what people thought, not so much that I think he's too strong or that his E is too much. I totally missed that his E scaled with distance though.
My main reason for bringing it up was that I noticed how he could chain-combo you into submission during the laning phase if you played an Assassin like Talon that needs Level 5/6 to do enough damage before he reaches turret. The only times he caused me issues was at that midrange sweetpoint where he'd stun me then followup with Q+W for tons of damage.
I've also played Xerath since before his recent rework, so I'm not speaking out of spite. I have noticed that some situation feel outright unfair given how much burst and DPS he can clock out in a short amount of time, especially given his mana-reclaiming passive.
Manwad1 votesHe shits on weak laners like Talon or Kass. He'll just dance in the middle of lane while you're pushed to tower.
However, buying boots can solve that. You've no idea how much trouble I have with Kat. Not that I fear her burst, but the fact that sh starts with boots. When you have few things to focus on, a good melee can evade everything Xerath throws at you in lane.
His Q winds up and can be side stepped, his W can be straight up out ran, E is solved by either going ham and in his face or by hiding behind minions. If he tries to E you then he's more than likely on the far right or left. Tell your jungler this for easy money.
His ult... Well, it's hard to aim and relies entirely on Xerath predicting where you'll be when you're 100% evasion mode.
Also, since the mana regen nerfs, his spells cost a truck load. Mana's a weakness for him, and since he builds max CDR, Qs and Ws for days.
He cannot build a tear because that delays his power spike for too long, so he needs to rely on mana regen which works only if you've a high mana pool. He needs that passive because it puts him in his crappy AA range to gain just shy of 200 mana at max rank. That's less gain than a Q W combo would burn.
Yes he has insane DPS in teamfights and burst if you get some poor sap in the jungle. But that comes at the cost of having to manage his mana. Does he try to poke now with just Q or does he wait until the teamfight starts to start button mashing and combing everyone in range?
Leblancs Boob2 votesMore like his Q is too easy to land