More Ryze nerfs incoming

When Ryze was first in the PBE, he had a 17 second CD on his W and when they reverted it to 14 seconds right before release, I thought he was going to be OP as shit. I had done the math before and found that at level 16 he could basically perma root someone if his W had 14 seconds. This didn't really become a problem due to how weak Ryze was in the early parts of the game. When they gave him 6 second passive at all levels, I knew this would happen. The worst part is that there is almost no down time between his passive procs if you use his abilities correctly, so his passive is always up in a fight (I'm actually fine with this part). They really just need to increase the CD of his W to about 16 seconds (sadly) but he is going to need something to compensate this change. Possibly increased damage on his W at all levels.

Another option is to increase the duration of his passive but apply a down time to it so he cannot immediately proc his passive again. This would allow him to spam his keyboard for a decent period of time, but have to reposition before he can start stacking his passive again. Say if you increased his passive duration at level 16 to 8 seconds (it would be at 5 at level 1 but gain an additional second with each Ult level), but it had a 3 second downtime where you could not stack it. It would allow him to fight all in for the 8 second duration, but he would not be able to keep proccing his shield. He would also have to make a choice when his passive goes on CD if he should keep firing spells even though they do not stack his passive during this time, or should he run out of the fight for 3 seconds until he goes back in so none of his spells go to waste.

Of these choices, I kind of like the first one more. I think the other option would hurt him more as his power comes from his always on offense. If there is a down time in his offense (which is also his defense when you think about it), he isn't very potent as a damage source. I'm not sure what they will do to Ryze in future patches, but I honestly didn't like that they gave him the buff to his passive. Don't get me wrong, I love Ryze. He was the first champion I picked up; I liked his rework as I thought it introduced new counterplay to him with keeping his passive in mind at all times, but I don't think it was the right way to go giving him so much power to his early game. I would have rather seen damage increases to his Q (which happened as well), more base armor to help him in the early game, slightly better mana scaling, and/or a slight alteration to his E (less bounce targets but a larger radius with slightly less maximum damage). I think Riot failed to realize how much power Ryze has in his passive and that giving him TWICE the duration at early levels could lead to problems in lane.

Anyway. I hope Ryze can be in a spot where he is strong, but not overbearing and "broken" as he is right now. I thought he was actually in a decent spot before they gave him his buffs, and I was very adamant that in the right hands, he was very strong. I thought he needed small buffs to his early game, but the buff they gave him was MASSIVE, and I don't see how it got past the PBE without somebody realizing that it should not go to live. I think that it was good to try on the PBE to see if it could be healthy, but I don't think it should have made it to live. I blame . He distracted everyone on the PBE client and they did not do enough tests for Ryze. :P I kid.

These are my thoughts on the matter, but I welcome any discussion. Good luck everybody. Peace.

I posted the math in another thread. But Ryze can basically perma root at level 9 with 20% CDR, At least for the duration of his Passive which is 6 seconds at all levels.

While i think some nerfs to his perma Runeprison are needed, i really do hope they don't forget to compensate him if they nerf it. he's still not in a great spot, if it wasn't for the potential perma-prision, he probably wouldn't see any lcs play atm.

Well they wanted to eliminate Ryze's tanky potential, but oops, that mistake costed that OP cc lol :p

Btw, link for that Ryze nerf?