Nerf Ryze already
First off, I am a Ryze main. I have played Ryze since the rework and this season I've put over 500 games on 4 different accounts on him. Originally, my stance was that Ryze was extremely weak but I worked on a few aspects of my gameplay to only realize how strong he actually is.
My first main issue was mana consumption. This is a problem in soloQ, in comparison to professional play, because your jungler, regardless of how competent they are, will most likely not give you their blue buff. Blue buff is very important to mana oriented midlaners and is EXTREMELY important to Ryze because of how much his abilities cost in the early game. After they nerfed his E mana from 40 -> 60 level 1 it proved inefficient to max it first since it was originally maxed first to increase Q damage output. Thus after this nerf it was more mana efficient to put 3 levels into Q before investing in E. Even doing it this way it is still costly but when they changed AAS into Tear + Lost chapter it became much easier to manage mana costs. Currently, in the most average elo [Silver], once I get Tear + Lost chapter + Ionian boots I can shove any midlaner out of lane while maintaining decent mana levels. Not only can I shove lanes quickly I can sufficiently harass nearly any midlaner out of lane. Now, it is harder to harass artillery mages such as Lux, Velkoz, and Xerath but my push is stronger than theirs and my rotations are up more frequently. Even if I cannot punish certain midlaners I can roam and secure kills elsewhere.
My second main issue is that I couldn't CS properly. In the early game I would often use abilities to clear the first few waves but I learned that it is better to last hit the waves (even though last hitting is difficult) and harass the enemy midlaner. Since we are maxing Q first, it is easy to land Q and proc scorch applying heavy damage. At rank 3 Q, Q does 110 magic damage or 110 + 110*.40 (if affected by E flux). This is huge seeing as Ryze Q is on a flat 6sec CD but at 30% it is up nearly every 4 seconds. It is extremely easy to freeze the wave in front of my tower, last hitting as needed, then harassing people with Q for near no mana cost. It is very to abuse Ryze this way since Q doesn't draw minion aggro and when you do take minion aggro you can mitigate it by EWQ and obtaining a shield.
My third main issue was that I felt like I couldn't do anything mid-game and part of it was due to my itemization. I played old s5 perma-stun Ryze so I was used to drain tanking with RoA so naturally I built RoA but changing it to Morellonomicon was probably the best choice I made. Morello provides 15 magic penetration, 80 AP, and 300 health. With RoA you would have to wait 10 minutes to gain 200 HP, 100 mana, and 40AP. This delay is HUGE in the current meta and Ryze building Morello + E flux (spread) + Q on an entire team is absolutely digusting damage not to mention applying Grievous wounds on ALL OF THEM. Since I was so used to old Ryze I frequently resorted to building tank but it really doesn't work with current Ryze. I either build glass cannon or I ask to lose. Building Seraphs + Ionian -> Morellonomicon -> Rabadon -> Void Staff -> (Zhonyas or FH) creates a monster of a champion. Applying flat magic penetration, % magic penetration, Grievous wounds, E flux Q damage destroys enemy teams and it is, unfortuantely, very easy to do.
My fourth issue is how effectively Ryze utilizes Ravenous Hunter. With how much damage he can output + ravenous hunter and (if) Abyssal Mask/RoA makes current Ryze even more of a drain tank than old Ryze. This becomes an evident problem when you get max stacks with a fully stacked AAS. There has been situations where I've been ignited but due to how often my abilities are up, how often I can shield combo, and Seraph's active I completely mitigate ignite damage. With Ravenous Hunter I have seen my post-death damage dealt on me and I've seen that I took 2 times the amount of health I had because of how much I can tank
Essentially, I am extremely sorry for complaining about how weak Ryze was, both on this account and my other accounts. I was merely abusing a champion to almost his max potential and I guess I wanted more. I think that the areas that need to be nerfed are his Q and E. They are too reliant and up too often so I would suggest spacing them out by increasing their CDs or by delaying Q reset after E or W are used. Ryze is a generalist and a safe champion. HIs scaling is too good for how strong his early game is so that is where I would want to nerf more.
Thank you, DiamondSeed.
