Ryze; a Gameplay Update
Ryze is a champion that has been this balance headache, in the past he would go full tank with mana items and deal insane damage, while being super easier play. Now at least the tank issue has been toned back, but he is still not in a good spot with residing in two extremes, so broken at all elo brackets that he is a permanent ban/pick or the great dust collector since the problem with having a champion that is super easy to play will either stomp or suck, there is not really middle ground.
Riot tried to add skill to Ryze with making his Q a skill shot, in theory this is a good idea, but in reality it is bad since they also gave him a permanent root (point and click instant permanent root, great gameplay, much skill). The other thing Riot tried to do was grant a window of power through a new passive, this also failed because it means Ryze is dead weight when it is down and auto wins any trade and probably gets a kill or two out of it solo, so again the intentions were sound but it did not fix anything (probably made things worse honestly when you include the skill shot Q can stack it up while roaming and against he gets a permanent root).
Enough of my blabbering on, the main goal here is go for that machine gun hyper mage that has mana scaling for Ryze so that is what I will primarily focus my ideas on; and I will be keeping the instant root so he can count mobile champions, but the permanent root is going bye-bye, this allows for an easier time to balance the ability in the future (I always try to think long term when I do stuff like this, so need to be patient, okay).
Basic Attack Range: 550 units Movement: 340 units per second
Arcane Power (Passive): Range: 250 units Every 5th ability deals its damage in an area around its target while healing Ryze for 20(+10%AP)(+1%Mana) health per enemy struck.
Additionally, Ryze's abilities scale with his maximum Mana.
Overload (Q): Cooldown: 1.8/1.4/1.0/0.6/0.2 second(s); Cost: 25 Mana; Range: 925 units Ryze throws a charge of pure energy in the target direction dealing 42/44/46/48/50(+15%AP)(+1%Mana) magic damage to the first enemy struck.
Overload's skill key can be held down to automatically cast Overload every time it comes off cooldown.
Rune Prison (W): Cooldown: 18/17.5/17/16.5/16 seconds; Cost: 80/90/100/110/120 Mana; Range: 600 units Ryze traps the target enemy in a cage of magic for the next 1.25/1.5/1.75/2/2.25 seconds, the caged enemy takes 40% increased damage from Overload.
Spell Flux (E): Cooldown: 7 seconds; Cost: 60/70/80/90/100 Mana; Range: 600 / 200 units Ryze unleashes an orb of energy upon the target enemy, dealing 35/50/65/80/95(+25%AP)(+2%Mana) magic damage and reducing their magic resistance by 8/9/10/11/12% for 4 seconds, stacking up to 3 times.
After striking the target, the orb splits and bounces to Ryze and enemies near the target, dealing the same damage to each enemy hit, capped at 6 targets. The secondary orbs then bounce back to the primary target, dealing half of the initial damage.
Desperate Magic (R): Cooldown: 140/110/80 seconds; Cost: 100 Mana Ryze becomes desperate unlocking the power of ancient forbidden magic for the next 4/6/8 seconds causing his abilities to gain 50% increased range.
Upon casting Desperate Magic the first cast of Overload will stun its target(s) for 1.25 seconds.
For the ultimate, I wanted to give Ryze something that feels more like an ultimate and grant a skill aspect here where if you are on your 5th ability cast for Arcane Power then you can have an area stun if you land Overload and feel more like a mage with a game changing ultimate like the other mages; Arcane Power is a toned back version of his current ultimate since it always felt more like a passive than an ultimate. The change of his ultimate granting range instead of movement speed is to move Ryze back into an immobile extremely high DPS mage and allow him to get off his abilities without the need of giving him mobility.
If you have not noticed, all cooldown reducing effects have been removed completely since this was one of the majour issues that makes Ryze so hard to balance; now Ryze can have better control in terms of balancing in case he is ever too weak or too strong in areas by simple number crunching.