Ryze's on the ryze again... what now?

Well, Ryze seems to be a contested mid pick and he's doing pretty well for himself, in terms of his massive teamfight damage that only needs to hit a single champion in a cluster and pass around his Q like a hot potato.

So recently, i also got him in ARAM and i decided to try playing like pros are playing him. Suffice to say, i've gotten a similar result. After my two core items (RoA and Archangel's), anything more (like Void and straight into a Rabbadon's), the enemy had no chance fighting me. He's essentially critting minions from 1k+ damage while he hits champs for 500+ per EQ combo. And he's a machinegun mage so he can fling his EQs fast that he can dish out proper teamwide burst before squishies even realize they're dead.

It was really fun playing him like this but i can imagine the enemy team didn't have fun with me being so strong that any fight they picked, i'd kill at least two people if i was alone and severely crippled at least one more. So we're back to Ryze being a monster tanky APC that's not squishy enough and with proper rune choices (Phase Rush and Ravenous Hunter), he's uncatchable by immediate skillshots and soft CC. And he has sustain.

#What to do?

I'm fine with Ryze having a Spell Flux mechanic spreading around to chain his Q to multiple targets and even his machinegun spells. I'm fine with "spell crits" since this seems to be the unexplored area that doesn't have many champions (only Anivia comes to mind) but here's a solution i thought of to try to solve the Ryze problem:

• EQ combo deals reduced damage other than his primary target (only works for champions)

This makes it so that Ryze can't just farm champions in a teamfight just as he's farming CS. His primary target should get the full brunt of the EQ combos but the rest of the enemy team, catch like 50% of the damage unless he's focusing them. It's also possible that his damage bonus from his ult (10/40/70/100% Q damage) is too strong in the late game.

While we're on this topic, he looks like a damage champ to me, not a utility one. His teleport ult makes sense in terms of his lore (he's a rouge mage), he also does travel alone because none other than him can (to his knowledge) can deal with the power of the Rune Shards. I'd much rather see him with an actual power boost/damage ability as his signature move than a utility spell that's only usable in highly coordinated play.

His different ult is rather my personal wish, i think Riot's sick of annually reworking Ryze.