how do you feel about mid ap ezreal smite

Koldheartedjsp·Jul 6, 2015·5 votes·1,084 views

Okay, so ive seen an ap mid ezreal in almost half my games i've played the last week or two. I play a decent amount of mid, so I've actually faced this quite a few times the passed week or so.

TBH, i don't think it's strong AT ALL, at least not during laning. laning it's.... so damn bad jesus (and i play lee sin mid with smite).

Later in the game, it's insanely annoying but again, don't think he's THAT strong, def not strong enough to nerf ezreal himself.

thoughts

18 Comments

Mayor StubbsJul 6, 20154 votes

I just made a thread about how weak he seems earlier today, because I've been seein him in like half my games too. Most people agreed that he's pretty weak.

ShuffledPancakeJul 6, 20151 votes

Hes only weak in lane phase and if you cant hit skillshots, he would still be No.1

Mayor StubbsJul 6, 20152 votes

I can't agree, he doesn't begin doing okay damage until nearly full build (with exclusion of his ultimate). and even then any burst mage is more valuable in team fights than his sustained damage 9/10 times

ShuffledPancakeJul 6, 20152 votes

But its still top tier, over ahri and others.

ErockandrollJul 6, 20153 votes

I honestly though this was just going to be a gimmick. I almost Cried when I saw it in the LCS.

To say that Runeglaive Ez is bad in the laning phase is a no brainer. Cause AP Ez in general has a bad laning phase. I still say it's a gimmick, and will probably die down, though not now with the Runeglaive buff coming next patch.

What could possibly happen. in the order of Probability.

Absolutely nothing. especially when Riot want's to collect Data as a result of the other AP item changes.
The Gimmick's a Gimmick and becomes forgotten. (like the whole smite support idea that cropped up at the pre season.)
The late game power of Ez terrorizes YoloQ because they don't know how to shut him down, whether he's OP or not. Resulting in his AP ratio's to get gutted, whether they were Justified or not.
The Rune glaive gimmick becomes more enduring, and more popular with other champs. Resulting in it getting nerfed or reworked, regardless if helps or hurts the Junglers it was meant for.

PartholonianJul 7, 20152 votes

Well 1 is out, because Riot is fixing the bug that allows runeglaive to proc things like ludens. Particularly important for Ez because his Q won't proc them by itself (but will with the runeglaive interaction, until the patch).

Any of those other things could still happen, but I'm going to bet on 2. It's marginal now with the bug and with people not knowing how to punish it (pros are already learning, I think).

Most people can't runeglaive poke because their poke spells wouldn't proc runeglaive, but they can already ludens poke (like Nid or Kog), so runeglaive wouldn't help them proc ludens anyway. Ezreal benefited from the bug in a rare, possibly unique way. And how many other mid smites have you seen? Runeglaive just isn't that good for most mids (especially when you give up ignite to have it).

DrCyanideJul 6, 20153 votes

I've played AP Ezreal for the last year or so. To me, the jury is still out on smite or not.

It's worth mentioning that of the two PvP games I've played using smite, one of them had me reaching the highest average CS per 10 out of the 120 out so games I've played.

The biggest thing I'm worried about us that my tried and true AP Ezreal will be nerfed because of an item interaction. I think AP Ezreal is fine as is and doesn't need nerfs, but that people who are seeing the build for the first time are feeling out.

KoldheartedjspJul 6, 20153 votes

Hopefully they just nerf the item or something but knowing rito... rip ezreal

DrCyanideJul 6, 20154 votes

I feel like we've seen this cycle before:

Item makes champion strong
Champion is nerfed to where they must build said item
Item is nerfed because it was actually too strong

KoldheartedjspJul 6, 20154 votes

yup. I remember this EXACT scenario with spectral wraith and lizard elder. lmfao rito pls have mercy on ezreal.

Drunk RummateJul 6, 20153 votes

Balanced at best. Personally I think it's kind of meh. It's popular in pro play because it's safe and consistent damage.

GundayMondayJul 6, 20153 votes

He can play safe enough in lane that he can go even with most laners. He doesn't do well against champs like Zed Talon Fizz Pantheon that love fighting 1-on-1 with squishy late game scaling markspersons.

But that said, his late game powerspike is ridiculous. Once he gets to 5+ items, he can chunk down enemies by poking. He's like a Nidalee with her spear on a shorter cooldown for multiple abilities. This part is pretty broken, but the early game weaknesses kind of balance it. If you can stop him from getting to that 6 item god build, then he's still pretty weak. Even if he gets there, one good crowd control combo can shut him down since he's still squishy. I would say it's balanced if you consider the counterplay, granted the item 3716 numbers should probably be tuned to benefit junglers more than laners (like what Riot did with Cinderhulk). I haven't lost to a mid summoner 11 Ezreal yet, but he's definitely a little overtuned with the jungle item and full build if you look at damage output by itself.