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Ezreal W Discussion

lostbob117··5 votes·1,549 views

Hello fellow Summoner's today I'm here to talk about Ezreal's W and based the idea around something I learned from what Meddler said today.

Agreed, Ezreal's W is the least interesting and least satisfying part of his kit. We're certainly open to improving it, though would want to do so in a way that didn't remove an intended weakness or just straight out overpower his kit (hence the removal of the old attack speed slow for example - strong duelist against other marksmen's not a core part of Ezreal's intended identity.).

So let's first look at Ezreal's W and his overall weaknesses as a Champion. So his W weaknesses is that it cannot waveclear, it is slow, and hard to hit. Now his weaknesses as a champion is that he cannot waveclear outside of his ult, he has no CC, and he is squishy.

Now that we have those out of the way we must keep him in his intended identity of being able to go AP and AD, and of what he does as a champion which is poking and weaving spells through his Autoattacks and a very mobile ADC/APC. Also a core thing with Ezreal is no CC.

So while keeping these identities of Ezreal, let's go over some suggestions that can work with his W to make it more unique and not entirely like his Q.

  • Nerf his Q AD ratio and making it BONUS AD and buffing the base and adding more AP Scaling to nerf his W AP ratio and adding a BONUS AD ratio on it, also change the mana a bit on his W to lower cost. So his Q is weaker on AD Ezreal and stronger on AP Ezreal and his W is stronger on AD Ezreal and weaker on AP Ezreal. They will balance each other out.

This follows how he kites more, promotes hitting more abilities for maximum damage output and making his skillcap higher. You still have the weaknesses, it's more punishable if you miss or someone dodges one of them. Also it makes it satisfying to hit as AD and AP Ezreal.

  • Make his W mark the enemy where the next autoattack or Q will deal X amount of additional damage.

Promotes weaving Autoattacks in with his abilities, and does not give him any of his weaknesses. I feel like this isn't as good of a way to go than the first suggestion, but it's not a terrible way to go with it.

What are your thoughts guys?

17 Comments

bbbbates2 votes

Honestly, if it made a bit more noise when it hit someone and had a tiny bit more base damage so their health bar actually moved then I think it would be fine, the most unsatisfying part about it is that it has all but no indication that you landed it

Jinxed Amulet2 votes

Hmm, no idea how they can fix his W, but I can agree as a spell I hate it. Doesn't feel rewarding landing it at all, and sometimes I miss my Q because I focus so much on trying to land W first.

EnderForHegemon1 votes

Idea one makes AD ezreal, especially Q focused ezreal with triforce or gauntlet, strictly worse, because he needs to land more abilities and use more mana to get the same damage, where previously he wouldn't rely on W at all. Not to mention that W has a longer cooldown, and having to use both effectively lowers AD ezreals DPS.

Idea two doesn't promote autoattack weaving or any interesting mechanics, it just gives him more burst.

Ezreals W is a real puzzle. His QER are basically a complete champion, and his W was gradually nerfed from an extremely overpowered skill to it's current ally buff and negligible damage because it was the part of the kit that Ezreal was least reliant on.

lostbob1171 votes

Actually this is a little right and a little wrong, of course when you have to use more abilities to get more dps, it's worse, but it could be made in a way to get more dmg.

EnderForHegemon1 votes

What part would you say is wrong? Your post said you'd even his damage out between Q and W, so you won't get more damage, and in a lot of situations you will get less because of the difference in cooldown, and the extra mana cost.

lostbob1171 votes

Point 1: It balances out. Which means it'll go and make the dps about the same.

EnderForHegemon1 votes

Those two things contradict each other... If you balance Ezreal's current damage into two spells by reducing Q's damage and increasing W, then Ezreal will have less damage because W's cooldown is longer. That doesn't even factor in missing skillshots, or increased mana cost, or cast times.

If you want to preserve Ezreal's DPS about the same, then you're giving him more burst, and he already has a ton of that. Do you think he's be balanced if you increase his burst more?

lostbob1171 votes

True, what could happen to fix that is lower Essence Fluxes damage and cooldown, by a bit only though.

EnderForHegemon2 votes

But essence fluxes damage is already almost nothing... I don't know where you're going with this at all lol. I give up.

Angry Monster1 votes

Nerf his Q AD ratio and making it BONUS AD and buffing the base and adding more AP Scaling to nerf his W AP ratio and adding a BONUS AD ratio on it, also change the mana a bit on his W to lower cost. So his Q is weaker on AD Ezreal and stronger on AP Ezreal and his W is stronger on AD Ezreal and weaker on AP Ezreal. They will balance each other out.

Their is a flaw in this thinking. You are making AD Ez have another consistent source of damage to weave. I think this is a buff to a pretty much balanced character.

The problem is that you do not like the feel of the skill not that he needs more consistent damage.I feel you are going at this the wrong way.

Earl Eulrich1 votes

Myprefered direction would be to have the w buff minion-AS aswell, allowing for more options when trading in lane and helping him pushing a bit if the opponent doesn´t waveclear fast.

Eapenator1 votes

My view on ADC Ezreal's Core identity.

  1. Long Range Poke
  2. High Mobility = very safe but weaker damage for trade offs
  3. Spell Caster = Great mid game / poor late game
  4. Utilizes sheen probably the best in the game (trinity force/

Other Weaker Parts of His Identity

  1. Ramps up in damage the more he lands skill shots in battle (passive)

  2. Utility - AS boost to allies

Currently, the core of ezreal's identity is satisfied by ezreals Q, E, and R.

His W however, provides the much weaker parts of his kit. W is able to give attack speed to his allies as well as proc his passive multiple times when you use it on multiple enemy champions. Currently, it serves to be a rather useless spell in lane, because it's sole use is to use to to proc your attack speed passive. Its damage is abysmal and it has a rather slow cast time.

The difference between good ezreals and great ezreals are their ability to land skill shots for both poking, and high pressure situations. However, while great ezerals are rewarded with more damage, and the continued duration of their passive, they are not rewarded as much as other ADC's are.

In some recent change's, his W was changed so that you could tag your self with it's attack speed buff if you were somehow able to put yourself in the path of the W. Lets look at why it is currently a problem, and how it could be improved.

The only case I would ever see his W being used to procc the attack speed on your self is when you are kiting backwards. The trade off is that while you get attack speed, you lose out on the (bad) damage that the W gives. You could argue that ezreal also loses out on gaining a stack of his passive. but after ezreal hits level 6, he will always lead in with his ultimate because good ezreals will position it in such a way that they begin the fight with max stacks.

So now that this change has been made, the best case scenario to use ezreals w is to use it on a) himself only when he is kiting backwards/engaging with your jump. b) his allies when pushing towers

Ezreal is making no real trade off when he uses the W on himself because using it on enemies is a waste of Mana, since it absolutely does nothing. And even then, attack speed is very undervalued in ezreals kit since he relies on his abilities for damage. Ezreal needs to at least have a good alternative to using his W on himself so that we can create some meaningful choices within his kit. If Ezreal is losing something other than mana when making this decision, then it allows for more strength to be added to both sides of the spell, since ezreal won't have access to either side unless he W + E into the enemy, tagging himself and the enemy champion. This incredibly risky move should reward ezreal instead of being weak like right now.

Borand1 votes

I agree that W is the least interesting spell on his kit.

But I feel that his entire kit needs improvements, not just his W. (For instance I don't really like his passive or how his E works!)

Doogmi1 votes

I think they should allow his w to hit minions to give him wave clear and take away the as buff. I don't believe this would make him overpowered either as basically all ADCs have the ability to clear waves except him. If I were to compare similar ADCs (IMO) graves, Lucian,Cork(all mobile ADCs with strong burst) each can clear waves yet ezreal has to burn mystic shots in order to attempt to keep up. Which it doesn't by comparison and also burns more resources. I'm aware his w his good base values(250) at level 5 and an 80% ap scaling ratio. Toning the DMG to a 50-60% seems fair to me in order to give him wave clear capability, and in my opinion making his w feel impactful

Khodexus1 votes

I think it needs to be more visually distinctive from Q, which is why I suggested making it a sort of spinning disc/yin yang graphic instead of just slightly different from his Q. New audio could also help distinguish it. I like the idea Don Eulrich said of allowing W to buff minions it passes over. And with Riot recently allowing him to effect himself, I also had the thought of "why only effect himself when he blinks into it? Why not have him channel it through himself before releasing it as a spinning disc? Give it an automatic self hit/buff in addition to being an interesting and unique skillshot that can damage enemies and subtly buff his allies/minions?

lostbob1171 votes

I feel like that would be a bad thing to do for Ezreal, it kind of cuts into the being a strong duelest and always having a 20%-40%AS is not good for Ezreal and there needs to be a line between, when you can have it and when you cannot. If you can afford E'ing into your W, you can afford it. If you cannot put the risk of having your escape down, then you shouldn't get it.

Khodexus1 votes

Well, it was an idea. Rarely does it hurt anything to share an idea. But the thought was to give him a single method of maintaining stacks when there's nothing nearby to actually hit.

That said, I had another idea I thought might be even better. What if his 'mark' off of his W 'prolonged any non-damaging effect' currently on the target? This could make for great synergy with his laning partner. I'm thinking give it something like a 30-50% duration boost, perhaps with a cap of .5-1 second, or something. Thus, if Braum slows the enemy, you can ensure the slow lasts a little longer, and so on.

Again, just an idea, but interested to hear what people think.

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