[Suggestion] Ryze E + R Changes

Umbrus·Aug 31, 2014·4 votes·1,080 views

This is a relatively minor suggestion, but I think that it would add something to Ryze. At the moment in competitive play, he is a very strong solo-laner with his ability to do relatively well in lane swaps, as well as his ability to shut down Yasuo, and his lane-game monsterness. I really enjoy his late game comboing, but I don't like the idea of ticking time bombs. They feel frustrating to play against (Hello, Tristana), especially when they also do fairly well in the early/mid game (HELLO, TRISTANA).

With all of that said, I don't think that Ryze is a very serious offender. Instead, I want to give something additional to his ult to make it something that is more interesting to use, increases his power, and also helps during those few seconds where he truly is a monster.

E - Spell Flux 80/90/100/110/120 Mana / 14s CD Ryze unleashes an orb of magical power which bounces to enemy units or himself within 200 range, up to 5 times (for a total of 6 hits).

Against enemies, each bounce deals 50/70/90/110/130 (+35% AP) (+1% maximum mana) magic damage and reduces magic resistance by ~~12/15/18/21/24~~ 10/12/14/16/18 for 5 seconds. This reduction does not stack with multiple hits. The orb has no effect on Ryze if it bounces back to himself.

R - Desperate Power ~~0/0/0 Mana / 70/60/50s CD~~ 100/50/0 Mana / 90/65/40s CD Ryze becomes supercharged for a duration of 5/6/7 seconds, gaining 15/20/25% spell vamp and 80 bonus movement speed, causing his spells to deal 50% of their damage to other enemies in a 200 unit radius around the original target, and causing his Spell Flux to prioritize enemy champions and the bounce range to increase by 200 (this number is up for quite a bit of debate, so far as to even just take it away)

The idea I had behind this change was to take away a bit of his mid game, most notably in the extended laning phase where he can just harass indefinitely until he runs almost oom, waveclear, then come back to lane full health and mana, but also to enhance his late game teamfights. His ult is already monstrous if the enemy team is grouped up improperly, and this change makes his E more rewarding to use. Right now, it can feel frustrating, especially if you use it in a minion wave, to see it bounce to just the minions and for that spell/perfect ult opportunity to be wasted. But, the MR reduction was to make it so it wasn't too OP in the late game, but that number is also up for debate.

I am not a Ryze main, nor am I particularly good at this game, but I do watch a lot of games, and these are issues that I have noticed and have stood out most prominently to me. Thank you for reading, and please leave a comment below!

5 Comments

ArkenStormSep 1, 20141 votes

Well I think the only part that I agree(not a bad post, but I just disagree, explain later) is that his spell flux should prioritize bouncing to champions, but that should happen ANYWAYS, but reluctantly I agree if what I just said happened, the mr reduction would have to be reduced. I think putting a mana cost on his ult is pointless, it does no additional damage to the target of his spells, so i figure its ok where it is.

UmbrusSep 1, 20141 votes

Thank you for your comment!

The point of the mana cost is to reduce his ability to push the wave out without any issue to him. At the moment, he can harass until he's low on mana or health, R, QWQEQ the wave and it's gone, and then just back and walk back, so you can save your TP for a fight. Admittedly, the change isn't that good, but the CD in addition to the change would make it slightly more penalizing to use.

The reason, in my opinion, that his Spell Flux doesn't bounce to champions is that it would be far, far too OP in a splitpushing scenario. He would have too much 1v2 (and obviously 1v1) potential since it would just bounce between the two, reducing both of their MR by 24. It's somewhat similar to the Ahri W, where it doesn't prioritize a charmed champion simply because that would be far too OP at a certain scenario of the game.

Overall, I don't know if these changes would be good or even necessary, but the meta seems to favor him with his ability to sustain the mid-game and turn into a late game monster.

Again, thanks for the comment. I, by no means, consider myself an expert of Ryze nor at the game overall, so having second opinions is very helpful (even [possibly, I could say, especially] when they disagree with me).

MrBuffingtonSep 1, 20141 votes

I've only recently picked up Ryze in the mid lane, honestly I don't know him well enough to know what these changes would do. I can seldom get my E off in a trade before QW, so the MR reduction wouldn't do much, I think. The mana cost to his ult is minor, also; Ryze is a champion that scales with mana, meaning he usually has plenty of it. What seems strange to me is that you're making his early and mid game a bit weaker, which hasn't been a problem for me since you can usually play safe without much trouble (in my experience), and just scale into late game where you're super strong. On the other hand, you're making his late game stronger, which he doesn't seem to need help with, tbh.

UmbrusSep 1, 20141 votes

Well, the direction that Riot has stated they wish to push the game into is give every champion a very clear strength and a very clear weakness. Additionally, they have stated that they do not wish to have any spells that you don't have to think about using (Vladimir's Q, for a wonderful example). These changes nerf his early game since it feels far too strong. His level 1-6 should be strong, in my opinion, since it is a characteristic of Ryze and his matchups, but his 7-16 should be slightly weaker, since he will scale so hard into the late game.

As for the E trading, it isn't focused on the lane. It should pretty much never be used in lane until you have your Archangel's, since it costs way too much mana and doesn't scale that well off of mana (though it scales wonderfully off of AP, but that's a story for another time). The issue, however, is in the late game where he needs to do as much damage as possible since he has to be in the face of the entire enemy team (his range is about 400 units for a 1v1 and 500 units for any teamfight). The MR is simply to make it so the bouncing isn't OP. Although I love the idea of it being a strong spell, targeted spells shouldn't be that strong.

As for the ult changes, it's basically so he can't clear wave, back, and run back to lane. Most Ryze's run TP when they go top or mid, so being able to save your TP for a teamfight instead of using it to get back to lane is huge. The increased cooldown means that it will take about 1.5 - 2 waves for it to come off cooldown, and the mana cost means that, early game (think before level 11), he will actually have to use the ult at about half mana. His Q, W, and E are all extremely expensive since he builds mana anyway. The issue with these changes are that it will become basically not important after level 9 or so, and he'll be able to do that again anyway. Most dragon fights happen, in solo queue, around levels 9-12, whereas in competitive play, they happen around 6-9. I am more than happy to see a better change to his ult. I feel like increasing the CD by too much would make it too costly to use, especially considering how not-impactful it feels till the late game.

Thank you for the comment! I don't wish to blatantly disagree with you, just trying to explain my position/point. I definitely think that the ult change has some seriously flaws in it and am more than happy to hear any critique/ideas that people have for that.

MrBuffingtonSep 1, 20142 votes

I personally have a hard time judging what smaller balance changes will do to a champion; usually in Boards it's someone calling for a champion to be completely gutted since they don't like playing against them, which makes it easy to argue against them. I do think a longer cooldown on his ult at early levels is good, I've seen some players, myself included, use his ult just to get to lane faster, since it's such a short cooldown, you're building CDR anyways, and you don't need it too much for laning.