Ive been attempting to get better wit the new rye... but my history has been horrendous. his one on one capabilities are terrible unless you're around creep waves... idk if its itemization thats messing with me or if I'm just playing him incorrectly... but it seems like I'm just not having any good luck. so here i am, humbling myself to ask for help from the rest of you guys. thanks!
I don't think anyone knows how to play Ryze really well yet, general trends I'm seeing:
His laning phase is different. He can't poke as well now, but he's still bad at all ins. What he can do is, if you find an opening where your opponent isn't behind minions, you can use your supercharged combo to trade with them and win, but you'll need to back off immediately when it's over, you can't really follow up on your trades afterwards unless your opponent is super low. He can also just stay far back and farm with Q, especially in tough match ups. I think new Ryze might be even more of a lategame champ than old Ryze was, so it's cool if you don't get ahead in lane as long as you don't get wrecked.
The other thing I think is really important is that now, even more than before, it's really important to have your combos down. If you screw up and just press all your buttons, you can end up doing way, way less damage. Once you hit five stacks, you just need to go QEQWQE... until the super state wears off. But you do need to pay attention to how many stacks you have and use your abilities in the right order to enter your super state. You can do it from as little as 1 stack if you have ult.
1 stack: Q>W>E>R (hit 5 stacks, reset Q) > QEQWQE... 2 stacks: RQW (hit 5 stacks) > QEQWQE... OR w/o ult EQW (hit 5 stacks) > QEQWQE... 3-4 stacks: QWQEQW... use ult first if you have it / want to
I didn't originally realize that you could use your super combo from 1 or 2 stacks. I think lots of people playing against Ryze aren't really thinking about that either. If you can take advantage of that you can get trades on unsuspecting lane opponents. But you need to cast your spells in the right order or your combo flops.
Ryze is very powerful but you need to build him more of a mage than a tank since they gutted his mana ratios.
Start with his E and use that on your target when they are in minions and they will take massive damage when it bounces back to them. This will be your primary poke. Skills should be R->E->Q->W. When you have all of your moves, your killing time is when your passive is active since you can spam your moves like crazy, always cast Q first if there are two moves ready to be cast since Q will be back up from casting the other one. His ult + E while the target is in minions can sometimes insta-gib a person at half hp from the bounce back and AoE from the minions.
Build Tear ASAP and then RoA. From there Sorc shoes and Luden's Echo makes chasing/running much easier. Add more AP as you go adjusting to the game, upgrade to Archangel's at 700 stacks. Last game my Q did 800+ magic damage on a ~2.5 second cool down.
So far, the only trouble I have had was vs a Rengar since he would hide in a bush instead of behind his minions.
Also watch your mana, if you combo your spells, you can drain your entire mana pool if you use your passive twice in a row fully. I need to see if Chalice fixes that for him.
Early just poke and farm with Q. If your opponent is out of position you can hit them with a quick Q>W>Q. Don't try to trade until lvl 3. Then look for opportunities to trade with your passive at 4 stacks. With your passive up you can cast Q every other cast, W every 4 casts, and and E every 3 casts. When at 4 stacks, go Q>E>W>Q>E>Q>W>E by then your passive will probably be up early levels, so back off. With your shield you should usually win the trade, even if you don't hit all your Qs. Make sure you are in range for your E and W before you start the combo, if you can AA, you can hit all your spells. You probably won't get early kills without jungle support because your damage isn't bursty enough and you are super easy to escape. Instead, just try to force your opponent out of lane so they lose farm and experience.
Once you hit 6 you have amazing clear with your R+E and you can start your combo from 3 stacks, which also give you a 24 second window of pressure rather than 12. I don't recommend activating your combo from less than 3 stacks because you will end up waiting on cooldowns which kind of defeats the point. If you get an opportunity to harass an opponent, but don't have your stacks up, just hit them with everything you have up and back off. If at any point during your passive your are waiting on cooldowns you need to back off. If you don't think you can get pressure on an enemy and your ult is down, feel free to use your passive on minions to get your ult back off cooldown.
I start with blue crystal and pots then go Tear>RoA>Boots>Archangels. After that, itemization for Ryze gets a little dicey. I like to go tanky, with Righteous Glory then other tank items according to the opponents' damage. You can also go straight AP for damage or split the difference with Zonya's and Abyssal. If you think the game is going to go very long you can even pick up another RoA and a Muramana for crazy late game strength. None of these paths really feels optimal, but they all have their strengths.
This is what I have found from playing him a lot since 5.8. I hope it helps.
