Why is xerath underplayed?

He isnt really safe. Considering his counters like Ahri, Kassadin, Syndra, Fizz, Zed, Leblanc are highly popular, he wouldnt stand a chance.

As someone else pointed out basically does the same things that xerath offers, but his CC is more reliable and he's just more satisfying and flexible.

Vel can extend the range of his Q thanks to math, which just feels good to take advantage of and his E isn't blocked by minions and can hit multiple targets with about the same delay.

He seems exhausting to get good with, tbh.

But I'm a Silver scrub so I may have a skewed perception of how hard it is go "git gud".

I feel like it takes a person with a very specific playstlye mid to play although he does have good burst with items, that makes up for his complete lack of mobility. He is very similar to in that they are immobile, can't move during their ult, but both have good damage. In my opinion, the most played champions are allincredibly mobile with the addition of good damage. Why play a champion with good damage and fairly easily dodged skill shots, when you can play someone with good damage that is also mobile!

He shares some issues with other laners - he's overbalanced. Sure you can get fed as hell if your opponents are bad... but in a normal game where you just win your lane you can feel quite useless in the most important midgame.

He's not bad but if you can just pick someone like Ori and blow whole teams out of existence with literally the same effort or Ahri and Snowball like an avalanche because your mobility gives you an opportunity to force fights you will win...

Xerath has nothing but DMG and if he's not the best in terms of dealing said DMG there's no reason to pick him.

I have won almost 2 out of 3 games with him for 400+ games over the last 2½ season :) He is a really nice champion, and does a TON of damage, and rewards you for being smarter than the opponent who commonly has more tools than you. Go ahead and main him - its worth it!

Oh, that's simple!

Riot's making a LoL movie, and they pulled every Xerath main into their offices to write the script. Since they're all writing scripts, they don't have any time to play the game.

4 Skillshot abilities and immobile

Aiming is hard.

His stun is weaker the closer it hits, and being immobile, guess what? He's hard countered by divers! Old fans dropped him since his rework removed the only interesting tool of his kit, and made his ultimate pathetic.

The reason he isn't played more is that every ability he has is a skillshot. Not many people can pull that off.

Well on mid there's a lot of champions that will make you cry. That's why i picking him on bot as support. His hight poke can make enemy adc near dead very fast.