Ryze: 49% win rate in your BEST match-up is not fair
The Problem I realized this when searching for numbers in response to a thread about a Yasuo beating a Ryze. Of course, it's expected that Yasuo would be fairly strong in that match-up. After all, his shield will block the initial damage from Essence Flux and his Wind Wall can block Ryze's entire combo. So when I saw that Yasuo has a 58% win rate against him, I thought, "well that's a little high, but to be expected of a hard counter."
Yeah, on Yasuo's page Ryze is among his top 3 best matchups. . . But on Ryze's page, there are FIFTEEN champions who perform better against him than Yasuo. The strongest of which is Renekton, who has an absolutely insane 62% win rate against him.
Worse than that though, is the fact Ryze has precisely
ZERO
champions he counters.
His best non-troll match-up is against Nocturne, and even in that match-up he only has a 49% win rate. His best match-up against an actual mid-laner is Syndra, with only 48%. He actually loses more often than he wins against champions he performs best against.
And his pick rate is so low that it can't be blamed on his skillcap, since there isn't a large number of unskilled/inexperienced players picking him.
Let that sink in.
######Note, I say non-troll because there's apparently a trend of people taking Kalista mid and getting absolutely stomped, and it's so poorly thought out that even the worst champion in the game in his intended role is beating it. All data is from his page on op.gg.
Why it's been allowed to persist Of course, the explanation for this disparity is that he has bar-none the strongest team-oriented ultimate ability in the game. And it's effectively impossible to fix without being removed.
Yes, we've seen a promising trend in recent patches with Riot shifting power from the abilities that make certain champions overpowered in professional play to other parts of their kit so the rest of us can use them. Galio, Kalista, Sejuani, and Ornn all received such changes within the past three patches. But there's a problem:
They've already nerfed any part of Ryze's ultimate that could be abused beyond its normal function. Mainly that it no longer works with Zhonya's or Stopwatch. They could remove its ability to move minions, but that aspect is so rarely used even in pro play that it wouldn't make a difference. Where they were able to remove the ally defensive buff from Galio's R and the shield from Ornn's W, there simply isn't anything about Ryze's ultimate they could remove any more.
Conclusion, and my suggestion for a solution It may have become a running joke that Ryze gets yearly reworks, but the only way they can fix his ultimate is to do a mini-rework where they replace it. The rest of his abilities are fine, as he's very mana-hungry and so doesn't scale up until he has Seraph's Embrace finished. But the ultimate can only be replaced.
What I suggest is a modern take on his original ultimate, using his new mechanics instead of the now-outdated Spellvamp:
R - Runic Power [Edited] For 6/8 seconds, Ryze gains 10%/20% CDR. During this time, Overload will not consume a rune if he has only one charged, and his shield and movement speed from consuming two runes with Overload are 20% stronger.
Increasing his shield and MS for the duration mimics the spellvamp and MS boost he used to have, but with a condition added. I don't think there's need to add an AoE aspect to the abilities since he's not single-target like before. The CDR would grant him more AoE damage through Spell Flux.
And I think this would be a reasonable solution, as it doesn't require adding any mechanics that don't already exist within his kit. It would only require toying with the numbers.
Edit: My proposal for an ultimate change is just what I think would fit his old thematic while modernizing it. It may be more sensible to give him a completely new ultimate, as long as it's one that is not so oriented towards professional play.
And again, his pick rate is not so high as to support the claim that it's just bad players dragging it down. If so, then we'd see him performing incredibly well at high-level play. But the problem is he is not a combo champion like others are. He has several well-defined combos that are even made obvious in his ability details. And because the reward for one is a shield and MS, not mobility like many other combo champs, his difficulty and versatility are drastically lower compared to them.
Whereas Zed is picked in high-level even when he's only good in the hands of a mechanically skilled player, Ryze is not. His "combos" are very easy to both learn and master. It's his ultimate that makes him overpowered in the hands of a coordinated team, not his combos that make him overpowered in the hands of a skilled player. In that sense, he's much more like Twisted Fate, Tahm Kench, Shen or Pantheon with their near-global movement being a massive asset to a team. But exacerbated by the fact his ability can bring up to and including the entire team where they want to go.
and his 
ran into the R, and his 
ran outa the r. So now he just auto loses. If you look at whohe loses most to, its people that excel when enemies are dropped on them, that typically have 1. Problems with enemy jg ganks(Renekton shoves and is weak to jgs) ryze root in pro play garuntees renekton dies, in solo q, the jg never goes top or mid to begin with. 2. problems making it to late game champs like yasuo typically cant really get to their power spike before they are feeding in solo que, however, with a ryze, ryze cant punish yasuo hard enough early to stop this, and he practically hands yasuo his 2 item power spike(which his allies then hard feed yasuo). Ryze is weak becuaes he is an enabler and the best one in the game(point and click cc, mass aoe teleport that doesnt break channels 
and can pretty much roam at will. Think how many times on TF or ryze that youve ganked for bot lane and got no follow up. Then think how many times in pro play that alone woulda won the game from turret plating and double kill.
