@Riot team, can you guys PLEASE finally acknowledge Ezreal's problems? It wouldn't take much.

Despite any of the hundreds of suggestions for Ezreal since he was essentially told "We don't want you to exist" immediately following S2 worlds, Ezreal has not seen any sort of significant changes in years.

Thanks to the ton of nerfs he's undergone in the past and the addition of new champions, you guys have essentially ruined all of his fun. I'm not saying "he needs to be more powerful", I'm saying "the champion's fantasy does not happen as it should".

For those uninitiated in this (honestly, very old) discussion, here's a sum up:

Ezreal has no distinct "spot of power" or identity any more, and is vastly less enjoyable to play than he should, could, and once was.

His problems include: 1) He was nerfed for traits that were nearly immediately put (in abundance) on champions that were released shortly after his nerfs. 2) His W is not satisfyingly fun whatsoever any more, regardless of which direction you build him. 3) His ult punishes you for using it in the most skill-dependent cases (it's vastly more effective if you just use it as an up front burst rather than a global snipe) 4) He is not better at anything compared to any other champion with similar playstyle -Lucian and Jinx are better damage all around. -Lucian is a better kite/trade/burst champion -Jinx is a better harass/burst champion -Kalista is a better "can't catch me" kite champion, as well as a better "can't escape me" champion -Corki is a better "dabbles in a bunch of things" champion, and in most cases is just plain "better Ezreal" as an ADC. -Despite me preferring the playstyle far more, there's almost nothing about AP Ezreal that isn't all around outclassed by other mages

Now, granted, this isn't to say "OMG EZREAL SUX SO BAD PLS BUFF". That's not my intent here.

Obviously, he was overpowered at the end of Season 2. I've been playing him much longer than that, but I won't dispute why his "flavor of the month" play spike happened. His power isn't really what the point I'm getting at is. What I'm getting at is that he's not fun to play after he got nerfed so hard, for a few reasons, and despite his fans reaching out to you guys he's been all but ignored:

1. His kit has been stripped of a lot of it's power over time, making it feel "hollow" (hell, up till very recently he essentially only had 3 skills as an ADC)
2. Every aspect of the champion that at one point or another was deemed "too OP for League" was later put on a different champion with vastly more power, yet somehow was not okay when Ezreal had it.
3. He's been stripped down to being a very effective user of Trinity Force or Lich Bane and... that's it. No other real identity or particularly powerful trait that can't be done better by a different champion.

The worst problems making him feel frustrating to play, are, I think, beyond those three.

Firstly, Ezreal has an infuriating interaction with minions and a lack of control over his damage. He's supposed to not be a good duelist (indicated by the removal of the attackspeed debuff on his W), but if there are any other targets nearby (as there are in almost any non-duel situation), a large part of your already-not-impressive-by-comparison (as an ADC) damage can easily be heavily mitigated, due to the massive falloff in damage on your ultimate, the incredibly unreliable nature on your E, and your Q (which is your bread-and-butter) being bodyblocked by anything in the game that gets in your way. The fact that he has no fast waveclear only compounds onto the problem.

**Second, Ezreal's kit doesn't make sense when you consider how Riot treats the champion. **

• He's not supposed to be a duelist, but a ridiculous portion of his damage is tied to his potential attackspeed stacking via W->E and his passive as he must use both tools to maximum efficiency to reach close to comparable DPS out of his autos.
• He's "supposed" to be very good at harassing and kiting, yet in order to achieve optimal DPS you have to use his only real escape to go in for damage and the W attackspeed boost.
• His E is only reliable/effective when you use it to get right on top of people, despite him being a long range,harass-oriented caster.
• He has a very long cast time global ultimate, yet landing a skillshot a map away almost gurantees it will do absolute crap for damage, combined with the fact that it's the only way to quickly stack your passive results in it being most effectively used up close despite it's long cast and global nature.

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Many, many people have offered fantastic ideas for a rework to his W (so it's not super boring on AP Ezreal and nearly pointless on AD Ezreal), and none of those have come close to seeing the light of day. Nor have any proposals for changes to how his passive works or his ultimate, for that matter.

Despite Ezreal fans fighting tooth-and-nail to get attention for few years, at most we've gotten "oh, yeah, we think his W kinda sucks too" from Riot, and nothing else. I don't think I need to tell you why that's infuriating. Obviously he's not in as bad a place as, say, Shaco or Urgot players, but he requires much less effort to reach an enjoyable state and yet he's managed to be ignored for a few years now.

My proposal is that some of his infuriating lack of control and frustration be removed from his kit.

Namely a few skill changes: 1) Have his passive instead stack his spell damage as it's more universal (meaning works for both AD and AP Ezreal), feels more rewarding, will synergize better with his playstyle direction, and gives him an identify as a "caster" ADC. Some minor balance changes would have to occur in addition to this, perhaps a slight base attackspeed boost and/or slight nerf to AP scaling on his abilities (while we AP Ezreal players would just love to have more damage, it could get insane with stacking % boosts lol).

2) Have his W "mark" targets hit (including minions, perhaps, but this may give too much waveclear to be healthy) so that Ezreal's next E will hit all "marked" targets in it's range. This would introduce some reliability into his kit, as well as making his E less frustrating, and making his W/E feel less useless/gimmicky for damage (as AD Ezreal, AP uses W for damage all the time lol) in laning.

3) Lastly, his ultimate's falloff should be considerably changed. Firstly, I strongly feel it shouldn't fall off for hitting jungle camps, there's no reason for it to other than to punish Ezreal for actually using his global skillshot as a global skillshot. Second, I feel it should fall off only 5% per minion hit, rather than the full 10% from hitting champions. Ezreal's waveclear isn't particularly fantastic when compared to top ADCs, and that's okay, but that's exactly why it should be okay to make minions not completely annihilate his ultimate's damage in a teamfight or cleanup scenario. A slight falloff increase (no more than 11 or 12% falloff per champion hit) when his ultimate hits champions might be a suitable compensation nerf, though I personally believe it'd be unnecessary. If global waveclear is Riot's concern, removing falloff from minions entirely and instead having the ult do a %less damage to minions (similar to Fid's E) might be a fix.

Thanks for reading.

EDIT: bolded "minions being marked as well might give too much waveclear" in suggestion 2, as apparently people were opting to skip that part for some reason. The skill is meant to make E reliable.