Ezreal, his builds and why he is underappreciated.

I want to talk about one of my favorite champs who at first I thought was extremely underwhelming. He had like.. NO DMG WTFZ!? That is... until I learned to play him correctly. He has TONS of burst if combed correctly, and plenty of escape.

adc ezreal - normal build route build like any other adc static shiv zerker greaves (unless tons of cc? i'd personally still get greaves) DAMAGE (botrk, black cleaver, blood thirster) IE defensive item (GA) last whisper

pro's: this build gives him sustained damage through auto attacks with some crits. Less reliant on hitting skill shots. Maximum damage output from this build with 5 stacks of passive you can W -> E into your own buff and get a huge 40%+50% increased atk speed from nowhere!

cons: your so squishy the first sight of an enemy targeting you is a death sentence. You need to constantly re-position yourself in team fights or all that high sustain damage is worthless. A very 'vayne' like play-style but a bit more of escape than vayne perhaps but less damage) Your Q,W,E cannot crit. so crit is wasted on your abilities. Your passive stacks increase dps or you can look at the atk speed item as a lost dps item if you value the stacks. your essence flux does nothing to enemies.

Blue/AD ezreal - This is how I prefer to play ezreal if im playing anything with attack damage items. pros: You have a much safer play as you do not rely on auto attacks for damage Having a 40% cdr means you can poke until your at advantage and then all in with a Q->E->Q or R->E->Q combo to finish someone. passive and buffing yourself with W allows for increased atk speed that u dont even need to buy. with gauntlet,essence reaver, and muramana, you are not only a kite machine and practically uncatchable. However, you also do alot of damage and close range aoe damage from your Q spam. Do not underestimate this damage. since you build no AS items you can buff yourself with W and rely on the passive stacks for a 90% increased atk speed. Push towers harder than ADC ezreal thanks to the sheen procs from your Q and W and E(just dont shoot minion with Q or the sheen will trigger) max cdr allows 30 second ultimate cd to spam in lanes for farm or team fights (mystic shot lowers cd by 1 second each hit) so more like 20 seconds if your farming and using it still. essence reaver allows spam and allows u to keep muramana on at all times.

cons: if your close to enemy with E down you are as good as dead (same for adc ez in that perspective), however you can at least attempt to trade if your fast enough by using R-Q-IGNITE with auto attacks in there. Assume you have a gauntlet... it may never be to late. if cooldowns are not up like your ultimate and or your E and your being chased by enemy adc you are probabaly going to die. You can not 1v1 outrade without cooldowns up unless they are really really bad. Extremely cooldown relient. 2 second cd on mystic shot is the only thing u can spam W is only to buff urself or allies and by buffing allies u gain stacks of rising force (your passive) keep that in mind. If you spam E too often you will get caught in bad positions and die. (THERE are exceptions to this however like having plenty of ward coverage and catching an enemy off guard chasing your ally. weak laning phase in bottom lane thanks to tear rush(switch to mid so you can man handle most mids and the lane is safe for you to E from... perfect for AD ezreal and you do not have problems with wave clear because.. well.. your AD ez.

OOOOOOK... and.. AP EZ - He has higher burst faster than the AD route because AP is cheaper to buy. His W becomes useful and another skillshot into his kit Pro: so much burst you can delete enemy teams with R->W

The E->W->Q(->ignite if u need to?) combo is so damn scary once ezreal gets lichbane/rabadon that you literally fear every bush and un-warded area in the game.

W actually does something (highest burst tool) easy to harass through minions

you can still build him cdr40% and go ape shit

cons: you trade your W for your passive so now your passive does nothing. Self buffing yourself with W also seems worthless unless taking tower.

because you lack gauntlet tanks can catch up to you on a bad E-W-Q combo and make you pay for not seeing them in advance.

you rely 100% on skill shots... auto attacks dont count for shit (maybe a lich bane proc)

Q doesnt do shit until you farmed up a lich bane

bad wave clear early game vs certain champs can spell disaster for your early game farm. actually you have bad farming capabilities all game

in team fights if your team also lacks terrible wave clearing options.. this can be a hinderance during teamfights when u want to be landing Q's but minions are STILL in the way.

TLDR

Redo his W into something that can be good for his kit no matter what he does...... i would also like to say i feel if this is done his passive would need to be changed to compensate for the AP ezreal as well.

also, E'ing into your own W buff is a suicide mission 80% of the time. I know in the spotlight video Phreak shows this as a viable option for W however all I ever see at low elo/my smurf account is new Ezreal players jumping into W only to go from 100-0. It is NOT a viable method for trading and it does not make up for his low base damage early game when fighting someone who has a higher base damage (looking at you Draven) and skills that can help them dodge or cc you.