Xerath Support Guide & How to get out of Silver to Gold

This video annoys me more than it should...

It's nice that you are trying "off-meta" support champions and promoting diversity and all, but as a main support, I'll just be straight with you... if anyone picked Xerath against me, I'd bully them and their ADC out of CS range and proceed to keeping them zoned for the entire laning phase with almost any support champion. Xerath support may sound great on paper but in reality, it's not. It has so many exploitable flaws that it would never work against a competent support.

Let's compare it to the other 3 popular mage supports at bot lane... is more viable than Xerath because his passive allow him to not be left behind because of lack of gold and items, doesn't have to stop so much to cast his stuff and his ult is far more dangerous in a duo lane than Xerath will ever be. reliability, enough said. better CC, vision from seeds/plants and the ability to block certain skillshots with her plants. ** Now let's see how he face against tank/bulky supports...** will just walk up to you and CC you if you try to Arcanopulse while his ADC do whatever he wants because you as a support will be utterly useless with an Alistar on you. just like Alistar. He will walk up to you, bash your face with his shield and show you what a real stun is. same as the other 2 hard engage support. She'll all in you during your Arcanopulse, your stun will only last 0.75s because she will already be in melee and she'll keep you locked down and burst you down with her ADC. pretty obvious why he win. But I'll say it anyway. A slow, immobile mage against a pull and CC. just like Blitzcrank, pretty obvious.

Now for the sustain supports... will just Q you while you try to Arcanopulse because of how immobile you become. a good Karma will just shield your Arcanopulse and outpoke you so hard, especially early game, that you will never be able to scale into late game. will just shield everything. shield, CC, poke, actually helpful to her ADC... yeah, she won't have much trouble once she squirreled you. do yourself a favor and just forget about ever winning against her. she'll Q you while you try to Arcanopulse, easily poke you and your ADC because you got nothing to stop her from doing so, she will outheal your poke, force you to your tower and to add insult to injury, she will ult your ult. the moment you get out of position, she'll blow you to kingdom come with a Ult + Q+ Power Chord, and if you don't get out of position, she'll just heal and shield everything you do from behind your own ADC. yeah, good luck killing her or her ADC. She'll just silence you if you ever try to burst anyone down.

Reasons why Xerath is bad at support...

1. No escape. No dash, no blink, no burst of speed, nothing other than a flash.
2. Unreliable CC, especially against any melee jungler or hard engage support. It's a single target skill shot stun that has a lower duration the closer you are to your target. An hard engage will almost always result in your death if you don't flash because you won't be able to get them off of you.
3. Clear moment of vulnerability during Arcanopulse and Ultimate.
4. Cannot protect his ADC whatsoever.
5. No sustain at all.
6. SCALING!!!! Xerath is a mage! He requires a lot of gold to do his job and support doesn't provide that need.
7. You are taking the spot of an actual support champion to add an underfed carry. What does this means? It means your ADC won't have a babysitter during end game. It means you aren't covering anything that your team is lacking because the "carry" job cannot be done using a support salary. Other mage supports are viable because they stay relevant at end game. Whether it's from extra vision (Zyra), reliable CC (Annie and Zyra) or by simply not being hit so hard by the scaling (Brand).

TL;DR: Xerath is bad at support because he: 1. Need gold to scale, 2. Doesn't provide much of anything to his ADC, 3. Has absolutely no escape in a lane with 2 enemy champions that can also easily turn into a 2v3 or 2v4 and sometimes even 2v5.