@Riot balance: Is Ryze Weak? Misunderstood? Both?

Wobly·May 11, 2015·20 votes·23,235 views

So obviously Ryze's winrate has plummeted since the rework, and is now the absolute lowest of any champion in the game. Which might be an indication that he is undertuned, or an indication that people have no idea how to play him, or maybe some of both. Personally I'm betting on that third option. There's no changes to him on the PBE, presumably because Riot wanted to give people time to learn and make adjustments. Has it been long enough?

Since I haven't seen any Rioters say anything about Ryze since he came out, I'd love to hear someone's thoughts on him. Is he weak right now, and how would you go about buffing him? Any chance we'll see tweaks in 5.10?

77 Comments

RiotMeddlerMay 11, 201527 votes

Probably both is our assessment. We're talking about possible buffs for 5.10 at the moment.

Puri Puri TaricMay 11, 20151 votes

5.10 rly ? just call it 6.0 and release taric already.

El DezMay 11, 201513 votes

The first number is the season, the second number is the patch. This isn't season 6 and it won't be until next year(ish).

VerxintMay 11, 20157 votes

Software patches don't work like actual numbers.

Usually something like [release].[version].[update].[revision].[build number].

Each decimal section is tracking a specific thing. In this case, seasons and mid season balance patches. Any bugfixes, hotfixes, or unlocking new content is reflected in the third number in the client version.

In fact, some software has been in 0.9 beta and moved to 0.10 beta.

Hinagiku33May 11, 20153 votes

I majored in computer science and yet I learned this from being in the Minecraft Beta test...

WoblyMay 11, 20155 votes

Any sense of where you might tweak? Damage, shield, base stats, utility? Are you aiming to make both a bruiser Ryze and a mage Ryze viable, or do you just want to make Ryze viable and let the players sort out how to build him?

RiotMeddlerMay 11, 201514 votes

We're planning on looking at his laning first. Whether that's where changes end up getting made or not will depend on the conclusions reached though of course.

OxBakerMay 11, 20154 votes

I really think you'll find that his laning is the main place where he needs help. If you can survive to late game you can do alright but the pain you have to go through during the laning phase just doesn't make it worth it. You have to play so passive, just carefully farm and still end up being bullied a lot.

Not really worth it just so you can shine for a while late game.

JaghataiMay 11, 20157 votes

He's lost most of his primary (previous) identity as a tanky mana mage. I'm all for windows of opportunity but he broadcasts EVERYTHING. I have zero fear playing against the Ryze's I've seen so far. You see 3-4 runes on the ground, force him to invoke his passive on a minion. Wait 2 seconds, pounce by the time you're in the fight his passive has worn off ... If you are not in PERFECT position with your passive ... you minus well not play and just try to afk farm.

Further his kit de-incentivizes previous interesting build paths.

I find him simple to play against and frustrating to play as. I do not like the changes.

RetillinMay 11, 201510 votes

Yeah, he had a very unique role/theme. Tanky front line mage who didn't build deathcap. Now he's just a worse version of Cass, but without the wave clear she has. (And her's isn't great)

Riot likes to say "we want to target a champions weakness when nerfing". Meaning they keep the core identity, but they missed this one big time.

ProfDrDeathMay 11, 201516 votes

Meddler, can you elaborate on why you hit Ryze's Armor so harshly? You lowered the growth factor from 3.9 to 3.0, which is a reduction of over 20%. The nerf especially hurts when you consider that FH has become a lot less optimal, both due to going over the CdR cap and due to him scaling worse on mana, and that Zhonya's isn't optimal, either - sustained damage mages do not really like that item's active.

If it has to do with him getting the passive shield, imo it would be more logical to nerf his innate HP instead of his innate armor. Both a shield and the ult's Spellvamp synergize better with resistances, after all - could that fact exerbated the effect of the armor nerf?

Despite him getting a skillshot, Ryze is still a close-range mage at heart, and needs some kind of defense to survive...

Hard4HamstersMay 11, 20153 votes

I was wondering why they took out so much of his armor as well. I figured it was the shield too, but I agree that increasing his armor would be a good place to start if you wanted to give some power back to Ryze. I don't think he's all too weak right now, so I'm hoping the balance team doesn't go overboard with buffs that will leave him overpowered.

lightdragoon88May 11, 20154 votes

I'm thinking he needs better mana-regen, or gets some mana back when his passive times out. I feel like even with building all these mana items on him, he just always feels like he is out of mana.

I was thinking that if his mana shield passive counts down, whatever number was left on the shield is returned to his mana pool. For example if the shield is at 100 when it times out, he gets 100 mana back.

This can really help Ryze in lane and also show counterplay. If the enemy sees the shield up, they can go to attack Ryze to lower or get rid of the shield so he would get little to no mana back.

WoblyMay 11, 20153 votes

Yeah, mana problems really seem to be one of the things holding back his laning phase. At level 3, you can finally make good use of your passive, and win trades when timed well / you get an opening in the enemy minion wave. But even landing all your spells (a challenge in itself since Q doesn't go through minions anymore), you're not going to 100-0 anybody, and you will be left with almost no mana. Basically, Ryze OOMs himself before he can kill anyone. If they want him to be able to use his passive to trade in lane, he needs more mana, or he needs enough damage that he can blow all his mana to get a 100-0 kill.

Baron of BreadMay 11, 20152 votes

Really like that leftover shield being turned into mana thing. Might be to much of a buff though.

Duke AnaxMay 11, 20152 votes

Just a thought: most ppeople feel his range is short now that he is less tanky.

How about giving him something like: Overload administers a marker that attracts other spells, increasing their range. Somewhat like Urgot's lock on.

MãgeMay 12, 20151 votes

{quoted}

We're planning on looking at his laning first. Whether that's where changes end up getting made or not will depend on the conclusions reached though of course.

Ryze is really strong right now in the right hands. I really hope you'll give him a little more alone time before deciding to buff/nerf him.

Champion SkinMay 12, 20152 votes

The main problem now I think is Ryze laning As well he doesn't really have that much more damage but he has a lot harder time dealing that damage if the enemy just use the minions to prevent Ryze from using his Q And the fact that this will likely mean that Ryze will use more mana but deal less damage with it... ending up with him going OOM

And well yes his scaling and late game is good But why pick Ryze when you could rather pick Cassio who has potentially a lot better laning phase and scales just as well if not better

lightdragoon88May 13, 20151 votes

[{quoted}](name=Champion Skin,realm=EUW,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=TrTjfPtc,comment-id=00010001000000050000,timestamp=2015-05-12T12:25:47.869+0000)

The main problem now I think is Ryze laning As well he doesn't really have that much more damage but he has a lot harder time dealing that damage if the enemy just use the minions to prevent Ryze from using his Q And the fact that this will likely mean that Ryze will use more mana but deal less damage with it... ending up with him going OOM

Ummm...that is what his E is for. If they are in the middle of their minions, his E will do ahem **TONS OF DAMAGE **

Champion SkinMay 13, 20151 votes

Well most people would stand behind their minions not in the middle of them... And well it is kind of awkward... either your Q is good (no minions) or your E is good (lots of minions) but both are almost never good at the same time

lightdragoon88May 13, 20151 votes

True.

Usually the only time both are good at the same time is with your ult.

LouisPeeMay 17, 20151 votes

Fix suggestions: Passive: CDR from ult should be built into his passive and slowly increase to 30%. The power curve from 10 to 11 is a bit too much. Q: Increase damage (which is what you're going to do because it's the easy way out), zero cast time, increase range to 1.1k from 900.

NebuulMay 12, 20152 votes

{quoted}

Probably both is our assessment. We're talking about possible buffs for 5.10 at the moment.

In my opinion, Ryze's major issue is that he cannot effectively use both E and Q. If his E hits a good target, then he probably cannot hit his Q on that target. Make his E mark targets like Urgot's E, so afterwards, his Q will lock on target of you click near it. Otherwise, Ryze will always be at a disadvantage, either able to take advantage of one skill or the other, but never both.

Mathlete864May 12, 20152 votes

I honestly LOVE the new Ryze, I literally have not lost a 5v5 game with him. The spell-vamp with ult let's you tank pretty much anything... The CDR makes you a katarina in team-fights. His kit is fine. I cannot see why his win-rate is so low. If you buff him he'll be OP.

DrNovaMay 12, 20154 votes

His win rate is so low because of all the problems he has that you didnt feel like mentioning.

And you have two games in the last month, in teambuilder. Stop pretending you know what your talking about

Mathlete864May 12, 20151 votes

He has no problems whatsoever and in my opinion he's borderline broken.

DrNovaMay 12, 20152 votes

Like I said, you havent used him enough to have an educated opinion on him. Just saying.

TheMobius40May 12, 20151 votes

{quoted}

Probably both is our assessment. We're talking about possible buffs for 5.10 at the moment.

5.10? Isn't that the same thing as 5.1? Or 5.10000000? Math rito pls item 3070

Zeus JukemMay 12, 20152 votes

it's season 5 patch 10

XyltinMay 12, 20151 votes

{quoted}

Probably both is our assessment. We're talking about possible buffs for 5.10 at the moment.

Maybe a slight Q range or speed buff? It currently feels that the enemy can outrun the Q at 550-600 range already, making it easy to not only dodge it, but also running away is very effective.

His passive should also maybe have a tick higher duration (the stacks not the triggered shield) to make it easier to time it and trigger it when you need it.

Captain AishiMay 13, 20151 votes

I think it could be nice to look at his passive and have him need to hit a unit to gain stacks for it, because currently playing against ryze as a melee champion means he just spams Q at thin air and sits at 3-4 stacks forever so you can never engage on him, if he needed to hit a unit to do this he'd at least have to somewhat push the minion wave in order to have that passive always at the ready

JingerbeardmanMay 11, 20156 votes

Id say his cast rate needs a boost/lower his global cooldown, maybe a slight range increase on overload up to 700, Rune prison feels kind of wonky with how it is working right now (it doesn't seem to work all the time or goes off long after it is cast), and a small increase to the bounce range on spell flux. Damage seems like it is in the right place though.

pretty much the same feedback over on PBE when i got my hands on him there.

FertsaMay 11, 20154 votes

The statement that new ryze is amazing but just has a high skill cap is surprisingly unpopular. I spent a long time on the pbe learning to control the timing of ryze's new passive before he got updated and i personally love how it plays. I can explode enemy squishies and tanks alike given the right opportunity. and there is where i think people don't like it, "opportunity", as in planning, positioning, getting your enemies exactly where you want them before you can be productive. Every person i've gotten into an in-depth conversation about ryze's update tell me they play champions that have extremely high burst only restricted by if they can get in range of their target and that's it, not "is my passive going to be up when i get there?" "will they still be standing in the minion wave?" "will they have backup with hard cc?" and all the other problems that ryze now actually has to worry about.

DrNovaMay 12, 20152 votes

Thats the problem. You need to time your passive JUST RIGHT, AND they need to be in a minion wave, really close to minions. You neeed essentially all of your mana still, so you cant have used much before then. And then you blow your spells and your little three second window closes, and the enemy is still alive and your nearly oom with no more useful tools.

Thats IF you get lucky with Passive and enemy smack in the middle of a creep wave.

Joe DreddMay 11, 20153 votes

i feel like he's stronger than ever when you actually time your ult and passive together. The reductions are ridiculous now

Cosmic WarperMay 11, 20153 votes

{quoted}

i feel like he's stronger than ever when you actually time your ult and passive together. The reductions are ridiculous now

The problem is before then. His laning is even worse than before and when he doesn't have his supercharge up he's worse than any other mage in the game because his DPS plummets in fights. Cassiopeia is a way better DPS mage than him at the moment as she has a better laning phase and her windows of vulnerability can be nullified through proper peel. Ryze is low-mid range so he's screwed.

ButthurtMay 12, 20153 votes

This comes with every rework. Sions winrate didn't go higher, Sejuanis lowered, Xeraths lowered, etc etc. People don't know how to play this champion and a new rework or champion with a low winrate isn't always a bad thing. If anything sometimes it's a good thing, if the champion requires mechanical skill.

I've found that the new Ryze is an absolute beast late game, and I never use that word. He can easily get 5 rotations of his spells off in a single proc of his passive once he has max CDR. His damage was hurt, and he's definitely a bit harder to play but I wouldn't say he's bad. His new passive is great and I think his over-all kit is more rewarding and skillful (timing is much more important, still very facerolly, but a bit less). His only current problem is that his early game is pretty terrible, especially against popular mages and top laners. His Q could use some better damage, maybe lift the scaling per point spent off of it? Or have the level 1 one be higher? Who knows. But yeah, I feel like people are just trying to faceroll with him and aren't realizing this isn't the old Ryze. You have to time your spells properly and if you get the right combo off you'll deal a lot of damage. I think he's also a lot less mana reliant in terms of his scalings, meaning if you want to deal damage you gottta build some AP (which is how it should be imo).

HateDaddyMay 12, 20152 votes

Don't buff him, I think he's reasonably strong and people haven't figured him out yet. The last thing you want to do is buff him and it turns out he was really strong and all your buffs did was push him over the edge. What this leads to is harsh nerfs that probably weren't necessary in the first place had you not buffed him. I think you need to give it time. His skill cap was just raised by an insane amount, people are just beginning to understand him now.

BeddlamMay 12, 20152 votes

Although I'd like to see his mana ratios buffed back up a little and his mana costs lowered, I really think he needs utility changes more than simple numbers changes. Here are some different options I think might help him:

Remove CDR from his ulti, replace with bonus tenacity while his ulti is activated
Change cast animations so he can move while casting
Increase the AoE on his E slightly
Give him a small MS increase with each stack of his passive
Some way to return mana if he hits/uses spells well
During window of power or ulti, Q is not stopped and damages all enemies hit
E does bonus damage if AoE hits no other targets
Full snare duration on level 1 of W

Hard4HamstersMay 13, 20151 votes

I think the only thing that would be reasonable would be increasing the AOE on his E, but that would accompany changing how many max targets it can hit, lowering it to 4 or 5. This would also probably accompany a slight increase in damage as compensation, but then again it might not. A lot of your other suggestions overload him in my opinion. (maybe giving some return mana wouldn't be too bad I guess; it would have to be situational).

Giving his W full duration at level 1 would make him so oppressive. Ryze's E has always been about hitting multiple targets and shouldn't be rewarded for catching someone away from other units (though I think 200 range is really low for the bounce). MS increase would be too much on top of his Ult MS buff. Removing the CDR with his Ult would restrict his build as he still wants to get high amounts of this stat and he would be forced to take Frozen Heart again and he would still struggle to max CDR. Changing the cast animations so he could move while casting would make him WAY too sticky with the lockdown ability of his W. Right now, he has to stop slightly to cast W for 1.75 seconds of a point and click root that will be up again in less than 3 seconds if you are using your passive well, giving an enemy 1 second of freedom to get away from Ryze. Making Ryze able to hit W while running means that any champion without a potent dash or Flash available would never get away from a good Ryze player.

What most people are having trouble with on Ryze is his early laning phase. I really don't know what can be done, but I would think they could start with giving him his armor back, as this was nerfed with his rework. I would be very cautious of overbuffing Ryze at this point though, because I think he might be very strong if played well. That's just my opinion. Don't take my word on it. Good luck out there. Peace.

DecrousMay 17, 20151 votes

I kinda just want to make his ults CDR down to 10/15/20% That way I don't feel bad about building frozen heart... I love being able to build frozen heart on him.

Hard4HamstersMay 17, 20151 votes

You still can. It's very cost efficient. It's just no longer core on him. It used to be that you HAD to build Frozen Heart on Ryze because it was the best item for him to get max CDR. That meant that he had 3 core items and one of them was an armor only item, making him much weaker against high magic damage comps. Before there was basically one Ryze build: item 3040 item 3027 item 3110 item 3135 item 3102 this could vary by one item depending on the team comp but this was pretty much the staple Ryze build.

Now there are much more options because he doesn't need Frozen Heart anymore. His E now does %MR reduction instead of Flat, making Void Staff less core (but still a very strong item). His build has just been opened up more. You can still use Frozen Heart as the stats it provides and the passive are all very strong on Ryze. Going over the CDR cap is not always a bad thing if you benefit heavily from the stats an item provides.

MartyrofsandMay 12, 20152 votes

I'm gonna go with straight up weak. Anytime I see a Ryze against me in lane I show zero respect, hell last game I had one in top lane against my Jax and I just took Q level 1 and jumped right on top of him as soon as he tried to hit a minion took him to 50% HP while he only took me to 80%, and most of that came from minion damage.

Only way Ryze is doing much anymore is if he happens to get a match-up that heavily favors him, IE no way for them to jump on him or they don't out range him, or people just don't bully him like they can.

AKruspyMay 12, 20152 votes

I have to say that Ryze just doesn't feel like Ryze anymore.

Old Ryze was a very reliable laner, if a bit weak without items, with awesome lategame power. In lategame he just tried to snack the enemy ADC. His lategame was comparable with Nasus' and Vaynes lategame.

I understand that Riot wanted to create more ways to to play as Ryze but also ways to play versus Ryze. The new passive is nice, but I think turning his Q into a fairly slow short ranged skillshot wasn't the right way to do it. This change hit the hardest. He nearly lost all his dueling power. First you have to charge up (what your opponent will notice), then you have to walk through/around the minions (what your opponent will also notice) and then - finally - you can try to hit your enemy. Oh wait - he pedicted your plan and is out of range/in the minions. Trading without being able to hit Qs isn't worth it. But with his Q being a skillshot it is nearly impossible to hit because you can't reposition as Ryze fast enough. It is not like he is LeBlanc, jumping in, throw a Q and jump back (and you don't even have to worry about missing your spell).

Second thing is - in lategame he is just stupid - even more stupid than before. Where Non-Ryze players always thought that Ryze players smash their keyboards (which isn't true: you had to add a Q in between each spell and even had to wait a little CD to come off - it was not hitting your keys in a random order), well, now it is! It is nearly impossible to put your spells in a specific order, because you have so little CDs your finger can't react - it isn't challenging anymore. Although his low CDs it feels like it ages to burst an enemy down, because half of your Qs don't hit because of minions and/or Champions inbetween. You can't smash all your buttons and walk around obstacles simultaneosly. And god bless people who don't use smartcast - they will persumably break all their fingers!

SonicÐeHedgedawgMay 13, 20152 votes

I think the main problem with Ryze right now is his Q.

With the combination of range, windup and missile speed, it's too hard to hit anyone so isn't right on top of you, they can simply walk backwards and it won't hit them.

I'm not saying it needs to become spammable poke, but it really lost a while lot of reliability in the remake... Way more than I thought it would

LordR4inMay 18, 20152 votes

In order to keep the conversation afloat let me give you my .2 cents, as I main Ryze.

There are 3 things that, I do believe if addressed, we could get Ryze to be more competitive, more picked and probably improve his winning rate a bit higher.

Ryze still relies a lot on items, still relies a lot on the blue buff to keep him on sustain and can't actually fare too well against most top laners. Now that the newness wore off, every top laner knows how and when to strike Ryze. They keep a little away of the minions, generally on the side, either left and right, and strike once we spent our charges. Because they mostly have gap closers, they just win easily. We just went from having absolutely no farm to have like 24 seconds of farm (we need to have at least 2 stacks to be dangerous and keep 3 spells always up for the combo stack - you use q to farm and all the other 2 and R to the end to become the powerhouse).

However here's what's currently keeping Ryze on the lowest levels of picking:

No sustain - we have no way to refund on mana - we are reliant on items to give us that - and we are reliant heavily on our active abilities to do anything - which ends up consuming a lot of mana.
No gap closer/escape alternative - we have nothing that will make us jump walls, skip anywhere, get anyone, nothing. Only our ultimate increases our movement you can be rooted, stunned, etc etc
All In strategy - Because we can't control stacks, it's an all in strategy... We can't lose the stacks momentum because once their gone, we have no strategy left, nothing to play on. We need to push back. So in every time, in the game - early, mid or late - once we lose stack control, we have to push back, get our stacks back to 3 so we can put it up.

Anyone who knows Ryze know how easy it is to counter him. If Ryze has no mana, it's a Scuttle Crab. If he has no stacks, go in - he can only root you, at best, which will take like 1 second or less to fade off - and you win the fight.

A mediocre riven can either win the trade or just pull off oh so easily. Irelia, maokai, rumble, fiora, tryndamere, etc, any toplaner has both escape mechanisms or highly counters to Ryze. The only rule of thumb to win against Ryze is: stay away from the minions and keep an eye on his stacks. Once you know this, everything else is easy.

I like the mechanism they gave Ryze, as he can farm better now, but if he is caught anywhere else is lane or any other tower, you are toast.

I would love to take Ryze as a jungler, support or even ADC. This is my champ and I just love him so much. Alas I know that's not possible, but I also know that I am very very limited to what I can do. As a Top laner, I can't really roam that much, as I am heavily dependant on the farm to keep myself afloat. I can't gap close so even if I roam, my window of helping out is reserved to large mistakes made by the enemy team member, and I really can't sustain myself as my mana regen/refund is crawling unless I have blue buff.

I really would like to hear from other Ryze players and this is obviously my own (flawed?) perspective of the changes to Ryze.

GroundRuleDoubleMay 11, 20151 votes

They're not going to make any changes this fast because it'll take time for people to get use to the new Ryze. I've only played him a few times, but I think he is a great deal more powerful than he was before. His early laning is so much better than it was before. The lower cost and increased range on his Q allows him to farm with ease.

Cosmic WarperMay 11, 20154 votes

{quoted}

They're not going to make any changes this fast because it'll take time for people to get use to the new Ryze. I've only played him a few times, but I think he is a great deal more powerful than he was before. His early laning is so much better than it was before. The lower cost and increased range on his Q allows him to farm with ease.

Honestly his early laning is worse in terms of trading. He just can't trade in lane. Any damage he does can be mitigated with one hp pot, and his Q wont hit anyone in lane because it's a largely telegraphed linear skillshot. His harassing is gone, and it's sad. His farming is slightly better when he's being pushed in, but that's about it. Either his Q or E need buffs, and i'm leaning more towards E since he needs good waveclear.

GroundRuleDoubleMay 11, 20152 votes

He's a farmer with a strong late game. If you give him a stronger early game, he'll be too strong.

Cosmic WarperMay 12, 20152 votes

{quoted}

He's a farmer with a strong late game. If you give him a stronger early game, he'll be too strong.

He doesn't need a strong early game. He just needs a better early game than right now. At the moment he probably has one of the worst early games in LoL. Akali even moreso. Cassiopeia hyperscales and still has a respectable early game. Azir has an average early game and can actually harass an enemy in lane with variable results. Ryze can't do anything to an enemy standing behind minions, and it is horrible for him. He loses against almost all non melee champions in lane.