Making a champion that has a permanent snare on his W just seems wrong. Yeah, I get he only counters a small percentage of champions 100% but the ones he does counter he counters completely with 0 counter play. Why is this a thing. I would rather his q do 300% more damage than his W snare forever.
Its another failed rework. You simply cannot balance Ryze with the new passive and not have him be terrible. It takes up WAY too much from his power budget.
yeah, it's not fun when a ryze ults, walks up to you snares you permanently while releasing his magical load all over your face. Then he can do it again because HURRR DURR CDR IS IN MY ULT EVERY TIME IS SPAM SPELLS THE CD IS LOWERED SO I CAN DO THIS TO YOU FOREVER!
I much prefer the iteration that was on PBE for a short while, with the 24 second CD root. Instead of doing the same WQEQ combo every time, Ryze spammed QE (which was partially dodgeable) and his W was an opportunistic tool that made it hit more reliably for 1.25s. Additionally you could "unload" all your spells at once to get a single chain-root, but it would put your other cooldowns at an awkward position.
I think if they tinkered around with his cast animations that version of Ryze could have been a cool "machine-gun" type short-range kite mage without relying on the perma-root. Oh well.
I like how the 4.12 patch was supposed to "nerf" him, when in reality, his win rate has gone up by 1-2%.
As a 
player im almost always tempted to afk if i see him on loading screen because deep down you know
No matter how hard you bully him out of lane, or how far behind he is. If they dont FF its just gg later.. The kiting and his fucking w, like just as the OP said. I feel that without the infinite snare id actually be willing to fight him late game and that passive -_-
If you can't beat 'em... Join 'em.
