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Xerath's Passive -- Mana Surge -- and why I believe it is poorly designed.

shicky97·12/24/2016, 7:32:39 PM·4 votes·910 views

As the title says, I have some opinions to share about Xerath's Passive, but first I will begin by stating what Xerath's thematic is supposed to be. He is meant to be a long range Poke/Siege mage. Two other mages that have similar goals to these are Lux and Ziggs.

Xerath, Lux, and Ziggs all have passives that are meant to keep them from staying at extremely long range all the time. Their passives require them to get into auto attack range to be used. The problem is that Lux's passive not only deals a considerable amount of damage, but also can be consumed using her ultimate, meaning it can be used even when she isn't in auto attack range. A similar concept goes for Ziggs, his passive also deals a considerable amount of damage, but can also be used to quickly destroy towers. Xerath's passive does no damage, but restores a sizeable chunk of mana to him when he auto attacks a minion or champion.

My problem with this is that the reason for all three of the passives is to keep them from staying at a safe distance 100% of the time, but I think that Xerath's does it in a bad way. Sure, it is useful in the early game when you A. Wont be severely punished for being within 525 range (Xerath's auto attack range) of an enemy, and B. Actually need the mana sustain because you haven't purchased mana/mana sustain items yet. In the mid/lategame however, when you aren't having mana issues anymore, the passive becomes borderline nonexistent. He has absolutely no reason to want to get close enough to an enemy to auto attack them to regain mana he doesn't even need.

Overall my point is that Xerath's passive is worthless past laning phase and needs to either be changed to give him an actual reason to use it later on in the game, or scrapped completely and replaced with a new one.

Give me some feedback in the comments. Convince me that his passive does something for him that I haven't considered, or share some of your ideas on what could change about it that would make it more useful.

12 Comments

UltraGigaNiga12/24/2016, 8:13:08 PM4 votes

I think it's fine if it's useless outside of laning phase but I can see why some people might be unhappy about a passive that becomes irrelevant.

AgentBlack12/24/2016, 8:09:36 PM2 votes

Terrible passive in the same way as Lissandra's. It allows his mana-starved kit to function, but it's a band-aid, not a real passive. Replacing it would require overall adjustments to his kit, unfortunately, so it won't happen anytime soon.

Handy Sandy 12/24/2016, 7:42:14 PM2 votes

Have you seen the mana cost on his Q,

it gives an enormous amount of sustain and lategame when you're poking down the enemy team you probably haven't bought a item 3040, just a item 3165 so autoattack a minion or a jungle monster when you have the time

Escheton12/25/2016, 6:27:41 PM2 votes

It's a way to keep him in check. Either you buy ap and use the passive for strong waveclear and poke but with spaces, or you buy tear and are free to stay safer and spam more but with less oomph.

It along with his mana costs and that of lissandra are to ensure certain laning patterns.

You may not like it, but the champ is balanced around it.

Emerald Fang12/26/2016, 4:06:13 AM2 votes

That's kind of the design of Xerath's passive. It's supposed to fall off late game. Honestly unless you go full mana-AP build like item 3048 item 3165 item 3027 etc. (my favorite build, but that's beside the point) you will still run into mana issues because you're Q uses 120 every 3-4 seconds.

shicky9712/24/2016, 7:51:45 PM1 votes

I get that the mana cost on his Q is high, but if you're really having mana issues lategame with him, which I don't usually see all that often, the 195 mana you get from hitting a minion/monster would only pay for a little more than 1 Q. I just think his passive doesnt feel good to use and that it needs something to give it more oomph.

shicky9712/25/2016, 8:47:56 PM1 votes

I dont think it's that complex, I am more of the opinion that Lissandra's and Xerath's passives are just lazy design. Why not make their CDs higher and their costs lower to make room to actually give them a meaningful passive instead of one that is just a boring mana sustain crutch. There is nothing fun to use about their passives whatsoever, so I say instead of balancing a kit around a poorly designed passive, Riot should rebalance the mana costs and cooldowns and give them something interesting in their passive slot to compensate.