Riot i am fucking sick of Blue Ezreal abusing the Iceborn.

HandheldBrandon··144 votes·17,457 views

EDIT: I CAN'T BELIEVE I HAVE TO POST THIS BUT SOME PEOPLE JUST DO NOT READ! i DO NOT THINK EZREAL OR BLUE EZREAL IS OVERPOWERED OR ICEBORN IS OVERPOWERED SO STOP PUTTING IT IN YOUR POST BECAUSE I AM JUST GOING TO IGNORE IT IF YOU DO.

This is not the first time Ezreal has used the item but this is the first time it has gotten so bad to the point where its in every single game and in every pro game.

**(DELETED BECAUSE PEOPLE READ THIS PART OF THE OP AND THEN POST NOTHING BUT THIS PART AS AN ARGUMENT). **This is absolutely not fucking okay and the fact that Ezreal has been abusing (Not too mention he is the reason several other items were changed because of him abusing them) you need to do something about Ezreals Kit so that he stops abusing so many items and gets them all nerfed to hell.

I would fucking ban him but then i leave Fiora/Yi/Jax/Mundo/Udyr/Koggles/Zed etc whoever else requires a priority ban over him.

You need to do something and you need to do it ASAP because right now he is abusing a playstyle that is neither fun to deal with nor fun to see every single game.

EDIT:You know what else can be done. Change item 3025 proc to every 6-7 seconds on ranged champions. BOOM. Now you no longer have to nerf Iceborn or gut Blue Ezreal or ruin the item for melee champs. (but still you need to do something about Ezreal being an abuse case for so many items).

**> {quoted}

**EDIT2:

Blue Ezreal is different.

Hes good right now because hes incredibly difficult to catch and provides massive utility on top of massive damage while having godly amounts of kiting. His team almost never has to worry about him because of how well he can protect himself so it allows all hands on deck to focus on fighting instead of protecting their ADC. Its a huge advantage born of an extreme abuse case of Iceborn gauntlet being able to be spammed at such a huge range with a massive mana pool.

It doesn't help that he has a blink on top of this massive kiting potential so on top of that hes incredibly safe where if things get sticky he can blink right out and then go right back to kiting and if you try and get on top of him again after taking a pot shot or 2 then his blink is already back up.

Its downright frustrating and Ashe was nerfed for the same thing back in the day except she took actual skill to play and didn't have access to a blink every what 12 seconds that could be reduced through landing a 1.5 second 1100 range High damage skillshot. Granted Blinks were rarer back then but Ezreal is doing the same thing that Ashe was doing except hes doing it better and with almost no inherent risk to himself.

**

**EDIT3:

[{quoted}](name=Shiny Shellder,realm=NA,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=TQWLsBcJ,comment-id=000b00000005,timestamp=2016-02-15T00:49:19.483+0000)

Can we add that item 3025 gives armor and therefore Blue Ezreal has a default advantage against ADCs because of it. Never would you see an enemy ADC build any type of Armor Pen first, while item 3025 is either his first or second item. Any advantage you had on Ezreal before he bought his item 3024 is gone now simply because of that flat armor gain. Ezreal is already harassing you with his immense CDR/Kiting/AoE Slow and just the territory of the Caster-type champion that he is, should you get the jump, he can easily counter-engage just because of this items Armor gain alone. **

EDIT4: Alot of people are suggesting to remove on hits from his Q. That would definitely solve the issue but then IMO it would just make Ezreal himself weaker overall and then they would have to compensate him or else he would be guttered. I do not think Ezreal himself is OP but i am however sick of The Blue Ezreal being an extreme abuse case for IBG.

222 Comments

GEMS GEMS GEMS51 votes

Yeah honestly I think Iceborn should only work for melee champions. It's just too OP having it work on range champions. I mean getting out ranged and having an AOE slow put on you? That's a bit ridiculous..

ModKnightsKemplar4 votes

PBE changes will help a lot. Without restricting it to melee only, too.

pinkyblossom6 votes

What changes?!

His R cool-down?

If that How is that helping?

Thryale3 votes

they are refactoring the aoe size so that it scales better with more armor but has a smaller base aoe. This way the aoe for champs that buy just IBG is smaller, but champs that buy 1 more armor item will sill no change, and champs with 3 armor items will see an improvement in the aoe size.

Matezoide20 votes

Can we fucking gut Ezreal already until he gets a rework? Jesus Christ, so many items end up being nerfed because of this asshole.

If we nerf IBG what the hell is going to happen? Ez is gonna disapear until a shinny new item shows up so he can break it.

This is Runeglaive all over again, lets just get rid of the root of the problem.

Dominick Destine16 votes

{quoted}

so many items end up being nerfed because of this asshole.

Funny because it's true.

Photos of Ghosts3 votes

Runeglaive was outright a bug, does Sunfire or Iceborn proc Luden's? No, so neither should Runeglaive.

Matezoide5 votes

[{quoted}](name=Photos of Ghosts,realm=EUW,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=TQWLsBcJ,comment-id=000e0001,timestamp=2016-02-14T23:55:46.786+0000)

Runeglaive was outright a bug, does Sunfire or Iceborn proc Luden's? No, so neither should Runeglaive.

Ezreal's Q procs everything, on-hits and on-spells. Lich Bane works the exact same way as Runeglaive did on him.

If it was truly a bug, Riot would have fixed it rather than nerfed

Unless i am mis-reading ayy

Abyssphere5 votes

{quoted}

Ezreal's Q procs everything, on-hits and on-spells. Lich Bane works the exact same way as Runeglaive did on him.

If it was truly a bug, Riot would have fixed it rather than nerfed

Unless i am mis-reading ayy

It was a bug AND an abuse case. The bug was that Runeglaive was procing Luden's, which wasn't meant to happen. The abuse case was that Ezreal was using the AOE Sheen proc on Runeglaive with his Q to get waveclear.

They nerfed Runeglaive to not be AOE on creeps anymore and they fixed the bug where Luden's was procing on Runeglaive. Ez doesn't proc on-spells with Q.

LadyRenly14 votes

But its such a skillful playstyle, you have to be a pro to play it!

Eh, honestly, I'm just sick to death of playing against it. It's just not fun in the slightest. When he pairs up with blitzcrank its just mega cancer

Unironic SJW12 votes

Just rework Ezreal.

The guy breaks 2-3 different items EVERY season. A long range poke spell that applies on-hit effects is just terrible design, and his E is just too strong of an escape for a guy who pokes from long range (only comparison is Rocket Jump which has a longer CD early, is ranked 3rd, and requires you to go all in and get a kill or assist to get a reset where Ez can fire random Qs and get his E back up).

He needs a Sion level rework, his kit is NOT healthy. If it was, why would he literally break every good item that interacts with his Q?

HandheldBrandon10 votes

IDk if i would go that far his kit is fun but they need to make Ezreal a special case when it comes to items and make it so he can't abuse them the same way he is abusing Iceborn right now.

If they can make it so Items have special interactions and when Ezreal utilizes them with his Q and makes it less powerful specifcally for him then it could be fine.

Jeddy0172 votes

To add to your Rocket jump point:It can also be interrupted.

Hemulen Magi11 votes

This thread makes no sense... You claim Ezreal is crowding out all of the other marksmen in the game except for Lucian, yet you say can't afford to ban him because you need to ban Kog'Maw... Who happens to be a marksmen... And then you just ignore champs like Graves who is a marksmen dominating top and jg roles.

Here are the marksmen that are popular right now: Lucian Ezreal Vayne Graves Caitlyn Tristana MissFortune Kalista Jinx Jhin Corki KogMaw

There is no lack of viable marksmen. Ezreal is not crowding anyone out. If you are referring only to pro games, then I couldn't care less about who gets played in those. Ezreal will always get played in pro games whenever the game is too punishing/snowbally because Ezreal has always been the "safest" ADC.

I don't play Ezreal, so I have no bias. If Ezreal is being picked too often then it's because safety is being overvalued due to the game being too punishing right now with snowballing, long death timers, overly reliable assassins, and weak front lines.

HandheldBrandon19 votes

See this is what i have a problem with.

People see one thing ONE FUCKING THING and then just laser focus on it.

I just threw koggles into the list and then when someone asked about Koggles i clearly said..

{quoted}

Eh i have seen him pretty crazy and where i am at he is being banned sometimes because of how he gets late game.

I usually don't ban him though unless asked.

The most popular ADC right now is without a doubt probably Lucian followed very closely by Ezreal.

Lucian is strong right now but thats not really a problem because he can be dealth with easily if you catch him.

Blue Ezreal is different.

Hes good right now because hes incredibly difficult to catch and provides massive utility on top of massive damage while having godly amounts of kiting. His team almost never has to worry about him because of how well he can protect himself so it allows all hands on deck to focus on fighting instead of protecting their ADC. Its a huge advantage born of an extreme abuse case of Iceborn gauntlet being able to be spammed at such a huge range with a massive mana pool.

It doesn't help that he has a blink on top of this massive kiting potential so on top of that hes incredibly safe where if things get sticky he can blink right out and then go right back to kiting and if you try and get on top of him again after taking a pot shot or 2 then his blink is already back up.

Its downright frustrating and Ashe was nerfed for the same thing back in the day except she took actual skill to play and didn't have access to a blink every what 12 seconds that could be reduced through landing a 1.5 second 1100 range High damage skillshot. Granted Blinks were rarer back then but Ezreal is doing the same thing that Ashe was doing except hes doing it better and with almost no inherent risk to himself.

Nivloc11 votes

{quoted}

Blue Ezreal is different.

Hes good right now because hes incredibly difficult to catch and provides massive utility on top of massive damage while having godly amounts of kiting. His team almost never has to worry about him because of how well he can protect himself so it allows all hands on deck to focus on fighting instead of protecting their ADC. Its a huge advantage born of an extreme abuse case of Iceborn gauntlet being able to be spammed at such a huge range with a massive mana pool.

It doesn't help that he has a blink on top of this massive kiting potential so on top of that hes incredibly safe where if things get sticky he can blink right out and then go right back to kiting and if you try and get on top of him again after taking a pot shot or 2 then his blink is already back up.

^ This

Hemulen Magi6 votes

I think that the things you describe as making Ezreal frustrating are the same things that define his niche. I think we're in Ezreal's meta right now due to emphasis on safety, yet other marksmen are still viable, which suggests that Ezreal isn't much of a balance problem. I think it would be better to shift the meta back to one that is less punishing and let Ezreal fall out of favor naturally.

On the other hand, I wouldn't mind if Iceborne received some small ranged-only nerfs to encourage Ezreal to use Trinity Force more often instead. There are three things I don't want:

  1. Iceborne to be weakened for its other users.
  2. Ezreal to lose his build flexibility
  3. Ezreal to lose his safety niche just for thriving in a risk-adverse meta

I would probably be okay with Ezreal getting some small damage nerfs, but I think he's definitely not a huge balance problem. I mainly just want to go back to a meta where front lines Braum Sion Nautilus Shen are stronger and people don't feel the need to play the safe adcs Ezreal Lucian Caitlyn Kalista who peel for themselves.

HandheldBrandon17 votes

I have to disagree here.

Ezreals Niche to me is a long ranged poke champ with High consistent poking and constant High long ranged single target damage.

Iceborn Skews all that and turns him into some Long ranged AOE slow utility siege machine with better kite potential than the dedicated kiting champ (Ashe ). He not only completely overtakes her in this regard but completely and utterly does her job better.

Varus is a good example of a heavy poke champion with Good AOE poke the problem is he has drastic mana costs which disallow him to do continuous poke at full damage Value unless he hits a single target. Ezreal overtakes this from him by doing Aoe damage with his Pokes on a single target damaging skillshot and at the same time does it from a range almost as long as Varus Fully charged Q.

It is my personal opinion that Ezreal is fulfilling multiple different types of Adc roles while at the same time doing incredible amounts of damage while being the safest carry in the game by his own power and not because of his team protecting him.

Currently with the blue build he has the mana for constant poke, damage, Safety, Kiting, Armor, Cdr etc. He does it all and because the build covers his mana costs he can do it fast and with little downtime between each shot while being able to blink away at the slightest hint of danger. He also slows the enemy for his team and can keep them perma slowed if he manages to get them into a chain of Q's.

I do have to say though i do miss the tank meta because everything and every champ (Except poor Yorick) was seeing play and fights were actual drug out battles between front liners and the back liners complimenting the front liners in fights with their damage. It was a good time.

Chatillon17 votes

He does it all

But does he do it with style ?

Draven Draven Draven Draven Draven Draven Draven

Provengreil12 votes

Taric Taric Taric Taric Taric Taric Taric

Functional, and Stylish.

Tim is fire2 votes

I build Ezreal Iceborn then rylais then frozen mallet. You cannot escape me.

pinkyblossom4 votes

Taric : I dont want to escape you boy. Taric : ;D Taric : I just need you to follow me in the bush.

yoniame3 votes

Ashe might be the wron example she is overnerfed now, and her w is worth no shit

Anidan10 votes

HAH! Remember when the majority of the boards said Blue Ezreal was low damage? Like, when it was found, and even when it was abused even harder than this? Blue Ezreal's strength is not in his damage, and it never has been. If you're going Blue Ezreal, you've foregone 'massive' damage for utility and kiting. That was the case when the Blue build was first used, and that is the case now.

And to clarify, Ashe didn't take a particularly high amount of skill to play back in the day beyond her ult. Of the carries, she was probably the easiest to pick up (if not her then Tristana way back when), and not the most challenging to master. Anything popular is considered easy to play, regardless of actual skill it takes to get to that level of being fearsome. Remember when people kept calling Lee Sin easy to play? Too bad he's not particularly easy any time after early game. Or when people called Orianna easy back when she was really popular in seasons 2 and 3, despite the fact that positioning of the Ball was paramount to her teamplay. And Syndra, Yasuo, and the list goes on.

Look, Blue Ezreal can be ridiculous sometimes, but can we not outright lie if we want people to take these complaints seriously?

HandheldBrandon6 votes

Its different than before because Armor is kinda poor at the moment so Blue Ezreals Damage has gone way up because he doesn't have to contend with the massive amounts of Armor that champions had before.

Ashe has always required good mechanical understanding of how she works how to kite properly.

She was also the easiest to learn but the hardest to master.

Not only back then did she not have to deal with multiple hard hitting tanky champions with high mobility but she also had the likes of powerful tanks to protect her. Things Like Amumu were utter game changing fights and a single good ult from Amumu or Ashe could literally change the entire outcome of a whole match. Sure you could hop on Ashe and spam her W alot but the good players could keep you perma slowed while making sure you never got close to touching them with amazingg kiting and making sure you couldn't escape her either.

Blue Ezreal Just Spams his Q until he hits something and then he just continues to do it from almost double Ashe's range and he slows in an AOE and if you do manage to get to him he blinks out and slows you and then continues the process over again.

If Ashe was ever caught back then she was dead pretty much guaranteed.

If Ezreal gets caught he just blinks away and is right back to poking you down and slowing you.

Anidan5 votes

Ashe was never the hardest to master. Her mastery came in the form of the game mechanics - the same game mechanics you can use on Ezreal by buying a Frozen Mallet and relying on auto-attacks. Mastery of the game mechanics is largely what gave you mastery over the mechanics of old Ashe - that isn't the same for other champions. If we don't take the route of simplifying an argument to absurdity, back in the same era, Ezreal was actually harder to reliably kite with. Why? Because he didn't commonly buy a Frozen Mallet back then, so his form of kiting didn't even slow the enemy down (barring a lucky proc on the Phage aspect of Triforce, but that wasn't reliable so it wasn't factored in to most Ezreal's' playstyles). His form of kiting came from judicious use of his E to evade prime targets, and if wasn't successful, he had no way to even attempt to get them off his face, unlike Ashe's slow giving her the chance to do that depending on the enemy target.

Now, if we compare Old Ashe to Blue Ezreal, we see that it really didn't change much. He still relies on judicious use of his E for a majority of his survivability (IBG's armor isn't saving you from magic burst, after all) and his slow - however, his slow can only be applied if his straight-line skillshot hits, or his AA if the Q misses, as opposed to a cone-AoE with multiple hitboxes that all applied the slow and her AAs, she also had a stun she could use defensively or offensively (that said, it was universally a bad idea to use it when they're already on your face). They both have decently strict positioning requirements to do well, however the lead-up to that positioning violation and the response of both sides is what determines their skill ceiling - Ashe had the fewest responses, which does not mean she took more skill to play properly, it meant she had fewer options. This is often called a 'skill gate,' which means that as you get better at the game and fight better players, her options limit her more and more. To use her properly in this situation went from difficult to manage to impossible, independent of the actual skill of the player, but due to her lack of options. Ezreal continues to have options even in those tense situations which does not automatically make him easier to use or master - it gives him more tools at his disposal, which actually rewards further knowledge of the character, the enemy characters and the game itself.

In a side-by-side comparison, Ezreal is actually harder to master if we're being honest here because much of old Ashe's difficulty came not from actual mastery the champion required, but because of the limited options she had if the game didn't go exactly her way. A fighting game example would be Sheik in Smash 4 compared to Palutena: Palutena is harder to use in a competitive environment due to her lack of options, but this doesn't mean that she has a higher skill ceiling than Sheik who has far more options.

Unrelated: this is the longest thing I have typed here in a very long time. Jesus.

HandheldBrandon6 votes

{quoted}

Ashe was never the hardest to master. Her mastery came in the form of the game mechanics - the same game mechanics you can use on Ezreal by buying a Frozen Mallet and relying on auto-attacks. Mastery of the game mechanics is largely what gave you mastery over the mechanics of old Ashe - that isn't the same for other champions. If we don't take the route of simplifying an argument to absurdity, back in the same era, Ezreal was actually harder to reliably kite with. Why? Because he didn't commonly buy a Frozen Mallet back then, so his form of kiting didn't even slow the enemy down (barring a lucky proc on the Phage aspect of Triforce, but that wasn't reliable so it wasn't factored in to most Ezreal's' playstyles). His form of kiting came from judicious use of his E to evade prime targets, and if wasn't successful, he had no way to even attempt to get them off his face, unlike Ashe's slow giving her the chance to do that depending on the enemy target.

That Literally proves my point.

She was easy to play but it required knowledge of what she does on top of knowledge of a skill that takes practice to learn properly to full bring out her potential.

Sure you could buy Frozen mallet on Ezreal But it wouldn't have anywhere near the same effect that Iceborn gauntlet has and it provided completely different stats. Back then Ezreal (If we are talking early Ezreal) was played because his fucking heal on his W was broken stupid and he was just a monstrous damage and poke/siege machine that couldn't be handled.

After his heal was removed he kinda of fell out of favor for a bit and then he got picked up much much later because of how much damage he was able to put out in such a short amount of time.

Now, if we compare Old Ashe to Blue Ezreal, we see that it really didn't change much. He still relies on judicious use of his E for a majority of his survivability (IBG's armor isn't saving you from magic burst, after all) and his slow - however, his slow can only be applied if his straight-line skillshot hits, or his AA if the Q misses, as opposed to a cone-AoE with multiple hitboxes that all applied the slow and her AAs, she also had a stun she could use defensively or offensively (that said, it was universally a bad idea to use it when they're already on your face). They both have decently strict positioning requirements to do well, however the lead-up to that positioning violation and the response of both sides is what determines their skill ceiling - Ashe had the fewest responses, which does not mean she took more skill to play properly, it meant she had fewer options. This is often called a 'skill gate,' which means that as you get better at the game and fight better players, her options limit her more and more. To use her properly in this situation went from difficult to manage to impossible, independent of the actual skill of the player, but due to her lack of options. Ezreal continues to have options even in those tense situations which does not automatically make him easier to use or master - it gives him more tools at his disposal, which actually rewards further knowledge of the character, the enemy characters and the game itself.

See heres the thing.

IBG Ezreal doesn't have to worry about mages blowing him up because IBG prevents mages from ever getting to him. On top of that IBG (While he is slowing the mages trying to get him) is also slowing anyone near that mage trying to get to him as well. So not only does he not have to worry about magic damage blowing him up but he doesn't need to worry about the physical damage either because they probably won't be able to get to him either.

yes Ezreal can miss his Q but with IBG and Manamune he has the Mana and the cooldowns to shoot that Q off every 1.5 seconds and so that "Missed" Q that he shot is nearly immediately replaced by another Q and so on and so on until he runes out of mana (Which with these 2 items and his Q's relatively low cost doesn't happen very much) so he can just bombard you with skillshots from 1100 range and if even one connects he can quickly chain them onto eachother for a constant AOE slow field.

Old Ashe by comparison had super meaty front lines with the likes of Amumu and back then trying to get past Amumu was a nightmare because if you got caught in his ulti you were as good as dead and if you somehow managed to get past Amumu an Ashe Arrow would immediately halt you and then she would Kite you back.

current Ezreal doesn't need a meaty front line to prevent people from getting to him because he can do that all by himself and with little risk to him and no inherent CC for him to utilize. He does what old Ashe could do but better and at further range and can peel for himself if he needs to. Otherwise he provides super long range high damage utility for himself and for his team at almost no extra cost except for a single item.

In a side-by-side comparison, Ezreal is actually harder to master if we're being honest here because much of old Ashe's difficulty came not from actual mastery the champion required, but because of the limited options she had if the game didn't go exactly her way. A fighting game example would be Sheik in Smash 4 compared to Palutena: Palutena is harder to use in a competitive environment due to her lack of options, but this doesn't mean that she has a higher skill ceiling than Sheik who has far more options.

The only thing that made Ezreal Difficult to master back then was his complete reliance on landing his Q to do any significant damage at all but if you had that skillshot down he was incredibly easy and incredibly safe to play.

Ashe was Queen however because in a team composition with her meaty frontline she could lock down someone if the player knew how to kite and keep up with opponent using attack move. Ezreal doesn't have that problem right now because he just throws out Q's willy nilly and if one connects he chains them nearly back to back to form a perma slow field you can't escape from and it does alot of damage with manamune as well.

Anidan4 votes

You bring up a lot of good points throughout your posts, and have given me a bit to think about. Thank you.

I personally don't agree as of right now, but my stance could change in time while I think.

WIOP64575 votes

Funny thing is, I've been playing blue ez since elder lizard was in the game. I will admit it's annoying, but it's been around a very long time. And never before has it ever been considered an issue. I'm just a little confused about the uproar over this like it's a new thing... [zombie-brand-mindblown]

Elewd7 votes

it was an issue back then as well, they nerfed elder lizard BECAUSE of ezreal, hes gotten like 10 items nerfed because he works too well with them.

ChaoticPinecone4 votes

I dont agree.

How can you say Lucian is okay because he can be dealt with easily if you catch him? Isnt Ezreal the same? Except Ezreal is harder to gapclose to, but easier to kill once you do. And I also disagree that Ezreal is the "best" adc. Sure, he gets played a lot - but Lucian gets played more. Id even say Graves would be more popular if his pickrate in the jungle/top didnt crowd out his ADC. He doesnt have the best winrate (Kog gets that stat).

But you nailed why Blue Ezreal is popular - he is safe. He can kite, which is important since the rise of melee divers since the end of last season. Once those champions get nerfed, then other ADCs who can pump out more damage get more popular. He gets picked because he is safe, especially with the strength of Xin, Fiora, and Poppy (plus assassins like Zed) who will easily kill any ADC they can gapclose to before taking 5 autos off.

And lets not overestimate his damage. The blue build is weak before 20 minutes, when he is stacking his Manamune (Tear if youre unlucky) and you spent a ton of gold on defensive stats (though admittedly, his damage is still solid early - it always has been. Trinity gives a better 20 minute spike though). Even afterwards, his poke gets strong but his consistent damage is less than ADCs who build crit.

HandheldBrandon4 votes

Lucian has far less range and still has to worry about his mana because he doesn't build for it.

Even with Essence reaver if hes not landing crits then hes not getting back any mana and he has to do that at a much MUCH shorter range. If Lucian has somebody get on top of him and he doesn't have his dash up he is dead. If someone (somehow manages to get to ezreal) and he doesn't have his blink up he can get it back up faster by landing skills which in turn slows the enemy and then can almost immediately blink away and then continue to pump out high damage and slow fields from almost double Lucians range.

In short.

Lucian provides High Damage High Mobility Excellent burst

But

Dies if his dash isn't up Has short range Requires his passive to do his full damage Mana constraints (until he gets enough crit chance If running with reaver).

Ezreal provides High Damage long range Highly spammable skillshot. Aoe slowing field from said high range Extremely low mana costs Near constant High range skillshots Ton of mana and some CDR which already synergizes well with his ability to lower his own cooldowns. Great mobility with the ability to lower the cooldown of said mobility through landing skillshots. Armor plus CDR plus AOE slow field plus Sheen proc on a single item in his build.

But His laning phase needs to be spent farming Needs to a rush a non offensive item Needs to spend more time in lane stacking said non offensive item. Then needs to continue stacking non offensive item until the item changes into its full offensive form once the item is completed and the stacks are provided.

I agree his early game is nothing amazing but thats not the problem the problem is once he gets Manamune and IBG he becomes the single best kiter in the game with high damage and insanely low cooldowns as long as he lands his skillshots including crazy levels of mobility and a global AOE ultimate.

He just has too much going for him with the blue build and once he gets it he gains a massive massive powerspike along with the ability to completely protect himself against backline dives.

ChaoticPinecone4 votes

I can agree with your points, but i have to say - Ezreal's "high damage" is "building carry damage". Its not "high damage" compared to other ADCs.

And yes, his blue build allows him to protect himself (ish). His winrate drops a ton as the game goes on, when enemies are tanky enough to just dive and ignore Ezreal's damage. Yes, iceborn allows him to kite as an ADC. Crazy levels of mobility? He has one blink. Its not like he is Kalista or Lucian, who both have more mobility. Sure, his ult is AoE, but not building Magic Pen and hitting multiple members means while its AoE, but hardly does much damage past midgame.

I still maintain that Ezreal really isnt strong. He is safe. Theres a difference. If both ADCs are freehitting, most ADCs can outdamage Ez. Ezreal can kite though, and in a meta with strong backline dives, being able to kite is important to surviving, which allows him to eventually pump out more damage. If the meta shifts away from the high-damage, high mobility, very tanky bruisers, you will see the rise of Trist and Jinx again.

HandheldBrandon1 votes

{quoted}

I can agree with your points, but i have to say - Ezreal's "high damage" is "building carry damage". Its not "high damage" compared to other ADCs.

And yes, his blue build allows him to protect himself (ish). His winrate drops a ton as the game goes on, when enemies are tanky enough to just dive and ignore Ezreal's damage. Yes, iceborn allows him to kite as an ADC. Crazy levels of mobility? He has one blink. Its not like he is Kalista or Lucian, who both have more mobility. Sure, his ult is AoE, but not building Magic Pen and hitting multiple members means while its AoE, but hardly does much damage past midgame.

Games rarely ever reach the point where people can ignore his damage anymore because of how snowbally games are.

Ezreal has crazy levels of mobility because he can lower the cooldown of his mobility by landing skillshots.

his Q lowers all his cooldowns by 1.5 seconds if they hit something.

His Blink with IBG is has a 10.5 second cooldown.

Mystic Shot lowers its own cooldown (if i am not mistaken) so with 20 percent CDR its at 3.5 seconds and if he lands his Q its lowered even further allowing him to chain the Q's back to back to continously lower all his cooldowns at an alarming rate.

Lucian may be able to dash but hes required to get closer and take more risk to land the 2 shots of his passive to gain that CDR on his dash otherwise he has less mobility than ezreal if he can't apply those passive shots.

Ezreal both outranges Kalista and Lucian and provides far better team utility than Lucian (and only slightly better utility than Kalista) through his ability to chain AOE slow fields which allows his team to focus on fighting rather than defending their carry.

I still maintain that Ezreal really isnt strong. He is safe. Theres a difference. If both ADCs are freehitting, most ADCs can outdamage Ez. Ezreal can kite though, and in a meta with strong backline dives, being able to kite is important to surviving, which allows him to eventually pump out more damage. If the meta shifts away from the high-damage, high mobility, very tanky bruisers, you will see the rise of Trist and Jinx again.

I don't think Ezreal is too strong i think that the blue build is too damn good on him. If Ezreal didn't have access to IBG i think he would b perfectly fine but IBG provides him too much safety and too much utility at such a large range on top of armor/mana and CDR that its completely over the top on Ezreal.

ChaoticPinecone3 votes

I wont go into "what ifs" of what happens during a game, because snowballs can be achieved both ways. Ever try kiting a fed Fiora with Blue build? If you manage to kite her, she just jumps away - you cant really play aggressive or she will turn and kill you.

If Ezreal is doing nothing but spamming Q in a fight, he better hope his team will carry him. He relies on his autoattacks as well. Its fiction that Ezreal is standing in the back of a fight spamming Q's at max 1100 range, getting the slow field and completely outranging other ADCs. Sure, i guess he could, but it should be easy to steamroll a team with that kind of Ezreal on their team.

You cant exactly say that it provides too much mana and CDR with the "regular" adc with essence reaver gives max CDR and mana regen - its not like the Blue build gives him "extra" over what he would get in a different build.

And the point of blue build Ezreal is to sacrifice damage at the expense of some utility and self peel. I think thats a sensible tradeoff for an ADC, whose main purpose is to do damage, and I dont see it as a problem. Other ADCs have utility as well - Ezreal just has to build for it.

alasarcher9 votes

Actually its fun. Its a challenge to kill him and it makes games more interesting.

HandheldBrandon16 votes

Thats your opinion but i respectfully (I am going to assume others will as well) disagree with you.

Spøøky5 votes

Kalista

charcharmunro7 votes

Here's the thing, if you DO catch Kalista, she dies. Blue Ezreal is annoyingly tanky and the mechanics on his blink are so wonky sometimes he can blink out while getting snared.

HandheldBrandon7 votes

The only issue i have ever had with Kalista is that Dueling her is a lose/lose Situation if you can't burst her down rapidly. She will jump around and continue to stack her rend all the while doing consistent damage. The longer you fight her the more likely you are going to be guaranteed to lose to her.

Other than that i don't mind her so much because she can be shut down hard in the early game and the game can end before she ever gets her power spike.

Boswick4 votes

IBG should just be disabled if you pick ezreal. The item is pretty well balanced on anybody else. People were suggesting this ages ago when blue ez first became a thing.

Unfortunately it's basically his only viable build.

YumaS2Astral4 votes

{quoted}

IBG should just be disabled if you pick ezreal. The item is pretty well balanced on anybody else. People were suggesting this ages ago when blue ez first became a thing.

Unfortunately it's basically his only viable build.

It is not the first, nor it is the second time that Ezreal abuses an item and ruins it.

ImortalLyfe3 votes

Um.. It's not abusing the Iceborn. It's buying it and using it. There's no Possible way that it does something better than all the rest of the people using it... Just know that some builds are better than others, and some are really strong.

Lajinn510 votes

{quoted}

Um.. It's not abusing the Iceborn. It's buying it and using it. There's no Possible way that it does something better than all the rest of the people using it... Just know that some builds are better than others, and some are really strong.

He actually does abuse it. No other champion is anywhere near as powerful with it as ezreal, that item alone is what makes blue ez stupid as hell, and needless to say very few people would miss it if Riot made it so Iceborn was melee only

JQKAndrei5 votes

He is actually abusing it, his Q procs the onhit constantly at 1500 range, it hasn't any effect reduction because he's ranged and the slow doesn't decay.

orangepuffity3 votes

Make his Q not proc on-hit effects. Then, you will never have to deal with blue, Runeglaive, or any type of broken Ezreal combo of items ever again.

MunchCrunchLunch2 votes

i see lucian more. lucian is stronger than ezreal imo and he needs nerfs too.i l ike blue ezreal i think its a fun build. something different. utility adc rather than am gonna auto you to death type of adc

HandheldBrandon7 votes

Except hes not a utility ADC when built this way. He still puts out massive damage and does so at a range that you can't get to him without taking a ton of poke and then when you do get to him he just blinks away and immediately slows you forcing you to back off or over commit and take a fuck ton more punishment.

Ashe is the pinnacle of Utility ADC and look at how often she is picked.

The Reason Blue Ezreal is so good is because he brings Ashe level kite with nearly double the range and with far more damage and quadruple the safety. Thats not okay in any way shape or form.

khorney2 votes

to bad urgot craps on ez liek nothing but okay

HandheldBrandon10 votes

How often do you ever see Urgot anymore in a ranked environment as the Primary ADC anymore?

I could cut off all my fingers and still count the times i have seen urgot in the past 2 months.

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