hey, riot. fix ryze please. he's kinda awful in solo q and I would like to play the game again.

hi, riot. please make ryze viable for solo q. sick of seeing so many "but he's good if played properly" and "he's OP in pro-play" posts defending his current state. Ryze has many problems right now that make him downright frustrating to play as in solo q. without already being far ahead, basically any meta champ just destroys him through sheer stats alone. it's gotten to the point where I keep a list of champs that I HAVE to dodge or suffer a very rage-inducing game. I don't care if it's a rework, but would honestly prefer one at this point.

a hard-stuck d2 ryze one trick's thoughts

his range, q reliability, mana, and stats are contributing factors.

range: jax jump stun auto attack to death is 700 range ryze snare is 615 range, meaning you cannot do anything without getting jumped on and destroyed. renekton can stun instant kill you at longer range than snare with no counterplay, hold the wave by face tanking the whole wave infront of his tower and threaten instant kill. anivia has a 1000 range wall that she can toss behind you with R and basically instant kill you with no hope of reaching her or escaping.

q reliability: 1000 range q that moves like a lux snare, does basically nothing without casting e first (615 range), gets blocked by minions, literally cannot hit champs ontop of you (wukong, jax), accounts for all your damage and you cannot miss even one or you're probably gonna lose the fight. I saw a rioter comment that "ryze's damage is more reliable than cassio's", but I have to seriously disagree with that one as hitting q 3 times per combo (even if one is free with empowered snare) is not more reliable than mashing E as cassio (same damage as ryze q on .75s cooldown btw).

mana ryze has 0 mana-regen and basically every champ forces him into tower permanently until he's oom and has to back, losing cs, or get dove. the nerfs on lost chapter, tear (both of ryze's starting items) and seraphs were too much. the way they mitigate this in pro-play is giving ryze blue buff early. this just isn't an option in most solo-q games at the moment. there are matchups that basically force you into not using a single spell on minions or risk not having enough mana to lower their hp to zero (should they manage to make a mistake) and early jungle fights in solo queue can really mess your lane up permanently (more on that in a sec)

stats: this is probably the most frustrating thing about playing ryze. while he feels good when ahead, his early game is absolutely abysmal. your initial stats are very low without items, and unlike basically any meta champ, it is VERY hard to comeback if you're behind. for me, every game is either gonna feel good or you're gonna die once early and go 0-6. this is easily the most frustrating aspect of playing ryze. it feels like you're playing a game with only one life, and with the way current champs are balanced to basically instant kill you with one skill shot (zoe, lee sin, camille), it makes life very miserable when you're even slightly behind. I've had several instances where I dodge all dodgeable abilities, hit all Qs and still get destroyed full hp'd by a meta champs that are sometimes even behind to begin with. (any meta bruiser, cassio, kass, one shot junglers, etc.) in pro-play, ryze is pampered by a jungler for 20 minutes until he can be useful.

teamplay ryze's R is hilariously bad in solo q for two reasons: 1: it's too easy to cancel. even a displacement like anivia wall will send the ult onto a 3 minute cooldown. it takes 2 seconds to channel, which is enough time to get instant killed from max hp sometimes. 2: it's impossible to get teammates to utilize it consistently and can easily ruin a fight without proper coordination.

bugs abilities not casting will always lead to a death when not ahead. e cancelling due to lost vision or range, buffering into a q, destroys your shield/speed combo and will kill you basically every time since some fights/trades cannot be won or escaped from without it.

q bug still exists (rarely) where none of your abilities will reset from q, triggered by an ability cancelling, causing the ability to appear reset on the client side, but still be on cooldown server-side, this confliction somehow causes your q to no longer reset your abilities until the client side attempts to use the ability, revealing the true cooldown, only then to cast q to reset.

this post is probably gonna be buried, but I can at least say I did something about it.