A noob's thoughts about the Ryze rework

I shall deal with each ability and then the kit as a whole. I still haven't played him, so this is all guesswork. Enjoy the ride - this is more of a text cliff face than a text wall!

The passive first. Love the mana shield. I am glad the passive stacks don't wear off too quickly. You can slowly build the passive up over a minute if you wanted to surprise your enemy. An important thing to consider is that Ryze's abilities all get reduced by the same percentage, regardless of CDR. For example, Q is 100% off, E is just over 50% off. It therefore makes sense from a gameplay perspective that the cooldown reduction is reduced by cooldown reduction. The 0.25 second delay also doesn't matter - Ryze has 0.25 second cast times on all his basic abilities, so the cooldown of Q becomes 0 after your first spellcast.

Now Q. Of course this became a skillshot. Important to note, I don't think that this is there for counterplay. It is there to prevent undodgeable, unpunishable with W, harass in lane. It had to be done.

Mana cost down, Mana ratio down, Range up, Cooldown slightly up, AP ratio up, Base damage up by 5/level. While the mana ratio changes make this seem like a big nerf, remember that due to the ultimate's passive, Ryze probably won't build FH anymore. He will probably grab a Luden's Echo or Zhonya's instead. This has all the benefits and disadvantages of a skillshot including range, bush checking, minion blocking (those bastard minions), dodging etc. It is probably wise that the damage hasn't been increased. In the moments when his passive is up he will be getting as many undodgeable Qs off as before, if not more.

Onto W. I am glad that this has remained functionally the same. Point and click CC is a necessary evil. However, everything but the mana cost has gone down. The cooldown change could be because of the new passive. The cooldown will be reduced by about a quarter each time a spell is cast suring the passive (17 second cooldown, 4 seconds per spell, ratio remains the same with all values of CDR). While the damage has been reduced, Ryze only ever got one Rune prison off per rotation (unless the target was stun locked by a support who deals no damage) so it isn't much.

E time. The new E is better against a single target in all circumstances (aside from the target standing right next to Ryze), better if the target is in a group. However, the AOE is severely reduced. The cooldown has been drastically decreased - amazing, particularly with the new passive. During the passive, the Magic Penetration is better against targets who have MR, and is probably the same or better against squishies - 36 magic penetration is incredible! However, it only reduces the MR of one target - this lower's Ryze's overall teamfight utility BUT increases his pick potential and burst.

E is a great change. I love this new E... or at least I think I will when I play him

And then there was the ultimate. The duration is down by one second - my guess is so that the ultimate window matches the passive window giving Ryze real moments of strength and weakness. Everything else is te same aside from a new passive. 10/20/30% CDR. There are two ways you can look at this. "Bugger, FH is sort of stupid now" and "Hooray, I no longer have to build a FH!". Given his increased damage potential while his passive is up, Luden's echo will probably be better than FH for damage anyway and Zhonya's will be better to let him wait for the last cooldown before he melts your face (or will let him survive till clean-up after he burns his passive). I believe the second way of looking at this is better. Yes, you lose amazing synergy but you get amazing synergy in return. This also stops the "unkillable late game sustained damage threat" thing Ryze had going on which is good for Ryze's opponents. And yes, those people matter too (so long as their faces get melted!).

Overall, I like the changes. One thing that you have probably noticed (if you made it this far) is the phrase "while the passive is up". Ryze will have to manage (hopefully not micro, but given the time for the stacks to be lost, probably not) his stacks and choose his engages. Ryze's opponents will have moments where they need to kite and kite well.

While I won't be able to tell until I play him, Ryze looks like he will still play like himself outside of lane - if he gets the hang of his passive, that is. Some changes to the laning phase were expected anyway (he was bull early on). A small adjustment to deal with that powerful passive and Ryze will be good to go.

My only concern? Ryze's opponents may have to burst Ryze down early - the passive looks like it can be charged quite quickly. Perhaps this will have to be changed. Even without FH Ryze gets quite tanky - it doesn't seem fair to his enemies to make them burst him down.

Well... Thanks for getting to the end, I guess. What are your feelings about my response? Where has my guesswork gone awry? While I wrote this mainly to improve my understanding of the rework, how could I communicate my ideas to you better? Do I need more memes? Should I stop asking questions?