Boards›Gameplay

Xerath drops off?! or is it just me...

Maxotaur·8/24/2015, 12:18:11 PM·1 votes·441 views

Hey there. Basically, i've been trying to expand my usual routine of playing the same solo mids now and i've branched out, and started playing characters i never would in the past. I gave xerath a go and i found out i'm actually good with him. I've had decent matches but it seems to be that, although i can literally 3-4 shot my opponent, late game i am useless... i can't burst anyone down like anyone else, i can actually get outranged by some champions... like brands Pillar actually is on par with my W... Not sure if that's fair and my Q doesn't scale enough.. it just doesn't turn teamfights like a well landed spell from the likes of annie or brand. I know he's a ranged champion and his ultimate lets him pick off fleeing squishies but his kit needs buffed... and his passive? His passive isn't even that noticeable late game unless you build mana... and the main item you would only go for would be a rod of ages which isn't even needed on him since he's ranged and doesn't need HP as much... like azir. I have all the magic pen items, including runes and a void staff, I literally got into a fight with udyr and he tanked every single ability and killed me and he had 1 magic resist item and he had 3k hp and i couldn't even get him to half health like any other mid could do, early game he'd be dead.

What am i doing wrong?

4 Comments

Serevas8/24/2015, 1:46:13 PM3 votes

So here's the thing with Xerath, he gets hyper tuned in the later parts of early game, and in through the mid game because he has pretty massive base damages paired with solid scalings.

When it gets towards late game and people pick up resistances if they're not idiots, those benefits get slightly mitigated. So what ends up happening is you don't full combo burst out the enemies any longer, but that's fine. You're purpose isn't to utilize that assassin secondary trait any longer, but to fully utilize the fact that you can siege turrets as well as prevent any siege on your own like no other champion in the game. If you're frontline is semi reliable, you can get a bit closer into the fight and start poking at the back line and try to push them out of the fight. You may or may not get a bunch of kills doing it, but killing them isn't your purpose, your purpose is to poke hard at carries when possible to give your team the best possible advantage.

My typical build looks like this: item 3089 item 3157 item 3174 item 3020 item 3135 item 3285 item 2139 (when you either don't have enough for an actual item past 9, or when you're basically at the end of your build.)

A lot of people are drifting away from Luden's Echo on poke mages like Xerath, but in my opinion, having the highest amount of ability power that you can is important on a champion like Xerath. The only alteration I might make is to slip in item 3116 and item 3151, which would go in place of Zhonya's Hourglass and Luden's Echo. I'd go that route if there was heavy HP based tank on the other team, or if I just needed the increased spell penetration.

So it's not that he falls off, it's that his role switches to something else outside of lane. You can still often times full combo and burst a squishy into the ground, but the tanky people become, well tanks.

Summonerrr 18/24/2015, 1:54:02 PM3 votes

You're not doing anything wrong. Even if opponents don't buy resistances, Xerath's forte lategame is long range poke/DPS in sieges, so naturally his burst DOES fall off. He's one of the few mid lane casters that can reliably and safely poke people from beyond 1k units, and this lends very well to him being a backline pick sniper. Riot jokes about him being "the arcane sniper", but the fact that he has the longest Rank 3 non-global ult in the game means he's pretty much built to be midlane AP Caitlyn . You punish your enemies for coming within 900 units or more of you, then proceed to siege for days with your team. If you let anyone get within 700 units and you aren't running away, you're doing it wrong.

If you're serious about playing his early burst game, though, I would recommend mixing Mpen flats into whatever rune page you use on him if you're not already, since they have a more appreciable effect midgame than AP runes do if you're routinely getting kills/farm and AP anyway.

IxtaliKing8/24/2015, 2:12:25 PM1 votes

Is Xerath worth trying to master? I've been meaning to ask this for a while and this seems to be the best place to find out. I know he's strong I used to main him to carry myself out of Bronze, but ever since getting to high silver/low gold he feels a lot harder to be helpful with. Especially since super mobile champs like Zed and Yasuo who can instantly clear waves whilst poking you down and duking Xerath's slow skill shots are so popular. Is Xerath still worth it?

Meep Man8/24/2015, 2:27:47 PM1 votes

I disagree. Get a simple Void Staff and you are back to bursting people back to their fountain. Also, your long range abilities help you poke down priority targets in the back so they are always targets.