The old Xerath actually used to kill you from two screens away by pressing W. He also didn't need a Void Staff since his W gave him the penetration he needed, his Q was much harder to dodge, and his current W was his R. His E was a targeted ability that used to be able to hit you near cross-screen when pressing W, plus it was targeted, so all you had to do was land the easy to land R to stun after and unload the other 2 R's and a Q.
Honestly, his old kit made him a sitting duck, but he had way too much range and far too much hidden power with his W. It gave him 40% MPen, which is what a Void gave back then, now it's 35%, and it made all of his abilities hit cross-screen. He was a niche pick at best, but if you wanted to snipe some one, his old kit was the kit. Plus, he also laughed at anything that did physical damage since you'd go for the 600-800 AP and end up with enough armor to make a Rammus jealous. lol.
I should also mention that he wasn't very commonly picked since he, much like Ahri, were champions that people had NO idea how to play or even build. For the longest time, everyone and their mother rushed RoA on Ahri until S3 when we had DFG and Athenes rushing Ahris because of ProPlay. lol. Even Gragas was a RoA rusher until LCS brought in Athene's Unholy Grail on him with actual AP items. People were stupid as hell back then and people wondered why 70% of the community was below 1300 ELO. lol. No one knew how to play. At all. At least in NA.
