I HAVE FOUND THE ANSWER TO FIXING SOLOQ RYZE WITHOUT MAKING HIM OP FOR PRO-PLAY *TL;DR BELOW*

After dedicating much time to understanding this champion, seeing the changes Riot has made to this champion to target pro play, spamming games til Mastery 7 and perform well enough to be able to win with him in Ranked, (It's still quite hard due to many nerfs) I do now understand after playing him over and over what he needs for SoloQ performance to be a viable pick. It's actually some pretty minor changes but they will do so much for him. I hope Riot will consider them, seeing as they are trying to implement some minor buffs to Kalista to make her better, when they stated they had no long term plans for the champions. (and Azir, but honestly as an Azir main I think he's fine, He's just very skill-based to play properly)

Riot has done a very good job nerfing the PRO ASPECTS of this champion. Focusing on targeting his long-snare combo to be not as strong, since it's accessible very early on, and also targeting his E spread to not provide too much "lane tempo" as Riot put it. I am here to say that those changes were healthy for the champion, however implementing these pro-play changes should allow avenues for his extreme weak points to be addressed. Without his long-snare combo being as strong, and his E spread being much weaker, his laning is just too weak now, but there are ways to make this decent WITHOUT reverting these changes.

First is his laning. Nobody wants to pick Ryze because basically every other champ's lane tempo is stronger than Ryze's current early laning patterns. His E change messed up his early laning presence, and pretty much concedes to his lane opponent almost always, assuming equal skill levels. He's limited to his range, doesn't do a lot of damage and doesn't really ever have any wave pressure until he completely finishes either ROA or Archangels, say around 12-15 minutes. I would propose lowering the early mana costs of his spell flux, just by 10, **considering that the gratification of this ability has now been subdued, **and runs OOM almost immediately just trying to keep up with CSing or contesting any lane pressure (let alone having less range to do so as well against other mages) Next are his auto-attacks. They are both too weak and too slow. (He's not Karthus where he can get away with not autoattacking ever) and since he needs to build tear first, and the nature of the champion in general being a Mana-pool champ, he doesn't like to grab doran's ring first, so his last-hitting feels atrocious like he's throwing feathers at minions. Him being able to at least have enough AD and attack speed to catch minions without throwing a spell flux just to keep up with catching CS in time is what I would see to be very beneficial to his laning.

The next change that needs to be addressed is his ultimate. The first level of his ultimate is a complete joke. Nobody feels good about leveling it, and even pros have shared their thoughts on how troll his lvl 1 ult feels. Riot has made 's R the only ultimate in the game that can only be leveled twice, instead of 3 times. and compensated with being able to level Q 6 times, with Q maxing out at 185 dmg max rank. Riot has experimented with some massive changes to Ryze's ulti that never went through months back. They tested with giving Ryze around the same range as TF's ult level 1 and 2, and massively increased the cooldown, but they ultimately decided not to go through with this, I'm assuming because it's also a group teleport and the manipulation it can cause early on with 5500 range is just simply too much; However, 1750 range just does not feel any good at all for both self-usage, and the team. On top of it being way too difficult to "use properly" even when you do, it feels like a huge joke to jump such a short distance and be on a 180 second CD. The proposed change I had in mind was the make his R the only one in the game that you ONLY HAVE TO LEVEL ONCE at level 6, and give the ultimate it's level 2 value at lvl 6, when it actually feels useful at 3000 range and 180 CD, but not overbearing, and to give that extra level to his Q, maxing out at 210 damage rank 7, and yet still being weaker than Ryze's first iteration of his maxed Q on this rework's release. (185 damage/100% E amp /50% MS On-Release level 6 Q to 210 damage/80% E amp/ 43% MS Proposed change level 7 Q) but not as weak.

_TL;DR - Proposed Ryze changes for SoloQ performance are as follows: _

Base attack damage increased from 55 to 58

Base attack speed increased from to 0.625 to 0.675

Q - Overload Can now be leveled 7 times

Damage changed from **60 / 85 / 110 / 135 / 160 / 185 ** to 60 / 85 / 110 / 135 / 160 / 185 / 210 Movespeed % changed from 25 / 28 / 31 / 34 / 37 / 40% to 25 / 28 / 31 / 34 / 37 / 40% / 43%

E - Spell Flux Mana cost changed from 60 / 70 / 80 / 90 / 100 to 50 / 60 / 70 / 80 / 90

R Realm Warp - Is now only leveled once, Covering 3000 units at level 6 from 1750/3000 level 6/11

After playing many games as Ryze, and seeing the direction Riot wants to steer him in, these changes, in my humble opinion, address the correct things about Ryze without turning him into a powerhouse in pro-play, but make him good enough for SoloQ

Thanks for the read.