I am not a High Elo myself, i am just 700K points with xerath and i used it to jump through divisions playing him , so i told myself to share my build and way of thinking here.




My Build Focuses mainly to be do the maximum damage and go super aggressive , if you play Xerath safely or just to sustain your lane, this guide may not be the best for you :) .I Named this Guide XERATH THE ASSASSIN as u gonna see the build of assassin champions and u gonna wonder how to use assassin build on a mage champ. well i will describe every single thing for you now !!!

Before i made this Guide, I tried different runes and build on him to see the best one that suits his kit, play style, agressiveness ..etc

Don't Forget to leave your comments plz

There maybe other better guides than mine so check them too, and have a nice day :)

Morellonomicon

Now it became very nice item after the update, it makes awesome damage to tanks now with it magic penetration

Loden's Echo
20 CDR is really nice i guess with the empowered damage u cast that is is collected when u move, like spellbinder but without activation ofc


Void Staff
is amazing for 40% magic penetration for tanks and even it demolishes squishies, specially when you you buy it early and u r ahead in the game and fed, you will make their magic resist useless.


Death Cap
for me is bought mostly the 5th Item to maximize the AP from it's passive unless the game is easy and wanna end the game fats i buy it the 4th item.

P.S

I NEVER BUY MAGIC PENETRATION BOOTS to maximize my Damage & my AP with Exception ofc, if u met heavy tanky team u must buy it with Liandry's Torment

Liandry's Torment

Now This item is the bleeding item for AP champs, as adcs have armor penetration items that make tanks cry, now this item will me tanks think twice before diving .



Defensive Items

Zhonya Hourglass

In my opinion, it is only great against Assassins, it really helps against them.Specially if ur enemy midlaner it ZED it cancels his Death Mark Ultimate, i don't buy it as i said in most of my matches, but when i face an assassin i rush it the FIRST ITEM or 2nd .

Spellbinder

This item is made literally to one shot adcs and squishy champs, every time u charge ur stacks too 100 by casting abilities yourself or your allies or enemies cast their abilities , it gives u 100 ability power for 4 s as if you bought a whole new item for 4 seconds and it makes really awesome damage, i hope they don't nerf it :D , you can use it with xerath before casting your ultimate in team fights or in laning phase you can activate spellbinder then cast your ultimate, it will make decent damage


Crystal scepter

is a good item on xerath, i don't frequently buy it as it provides 85 AP , but i buy it with liandry's torment in case i wanted to be tanky ( depending on ur match up) and it is good in case ur team doesn't have much CC in his kit, as it slows enemy speed upon casting any ability, so upon activating your ultimate, ur first shot will decrease the movement speed of the enemy making it easier for you to land the second and third ;) .after rework this item will be frequently used now as it has nice damage and slow

Most of you will actually mock me, insult me for picking up this preseason Runes, But trust me i tried every single build and i didn't get comfortable with xerath Damage or its true capabilities
Electrocute

I guess you all already know it is the same as Thunderlord and we already picked thuderlord with Xerath for me it is better than Arcane Comet and it will work perfectly with the other runes WHY ?!!1 whenever you land your E, u surely will land ur full combo damage + electrocute (thunderlord) damage compared to Arcane comet. The Thing is, u can land surely 3 separate abilities or attack with Xearth whether you used ur E first to stun or used your W first to slow then landing you Q with Auto Attack.

The Difference between it and Arcane comet is : Electrocute AP :50-220 while arcane commet is 30-100 , Cooldown of Electrocute 50-25 while arcane comet 20-8 , so basically Electrocute has more damage and as i said it works the best with rest of runes as cheap shot.yeah, maybe the cooldown is much longer for Electrocute and u can use arcane comet moderate damage more often but the key word here u don't wanna poke forever, you need to make large amount of damage One Time for your takedown, that is why i Named my guide XERATH THE ASSASSIN
Cheap Shot

I guess you already know what i am gonna say, Xerath = cc from his E or W so every time you land your E or W , you will have extra damage and it works best with electrocute so u will have have you full combo damage ( E+W+Q) or (W+E+Q) + electrocute + Cheap shot ;)
plus The cheap shot cooldown is 4s only so u can abuse it every single time u use W or E
so u will achieve 12-30 bonus damage everytime u stun him
Eyeball Collection

You will increase your damage and aggressiveness with this champ whenever you get a kill a champ or a ward ( I don't think this is hard on Xerath ;) )
Ravenous Hunter

well i was little confused at first whether to use it or Ingenious Hunter , but Ravenous will be great in the laning phase as it will heal u every time you use ur ability even-though your not suppose to take a lot of damage as xerath as u r a ranged champ but still u gonna take damage eventually but if u chose to take Ingenious hunter to Take the benefit from its CDR on Active items as zhonya or seraph's and trinkets ofc it is ok and won't hurt really but u can use it whenever you use zhonya specially when u face assassins.

Secondary Runes

There are couple of build u can choose from
The Ultimate Hat

I love this one really as i hated the long CDR of Xerath Ultimate , it is kinda long and it forces you to use it wisely and not often, so now you can use your ultimate more often ( Thanks to this mastery) in team fights or 1 vs 1 with a champ or when u wanna steal drake or baron with your ultimate ( i stole a lot of drakes and baron with my R heheheh :D ) .so u gonna have ultimate CDR separately from your actual CDR of the champ.

TRANSCENDENCE


Who said having 10 CDR is bad ? that will work perfectly with Xerath for his continuous poking with his Q, don't even need to explain this one :D ,so basically you will have CDR from Morellonomicon + TRANSCENDENCE (25+10) = 35 CDR which is not bad and u can reach 40& if you bought zhonya.

P.s Personally i love to go full aggressive in my plays with Xerath so if u r the same type as me you can Use

Absolute Focus

not only it gives you more damage but also because it is easily to stay above 70% of your Health with xearth becoz he pokes from wide range not easily to be damaged so u can use it too if u want with Ultimate Hat .i use it most of the time honestly.

P.s I didn't like "Scorch" much as it didn't make much difference in my damage when i tried it.Gathering strom too adds little to xerath as for a whole 10 i get 8 AP, wtf seriously?!!!! i can make better use of TRANSCENDENCE in this whole 10 minutes plus when i get fed , 8 or 24 AP will not add much to my damage .

But if you want to go full damage neglecting the CDR, you can go with absolute focus with Scorch but i don't recommend it .


There is a defensive Build you can use in you Secondary runes which is " Inspiration"

You can Use
Cosmic insight

as it gives you on the starting of game 5 CDR and Increases your ultimate cap to 45% instead of 40% plus 5% on summoner's spell and item CDR which is not bad but if u bought zhonya and morello u will have 40% out of 45% which is nearly the same as 35 out of 40% in case of sorcery secondary runes but still it is good if u gonna use zhonya and good for you flash and heal because as we know Xerath has not escape potential if he missed his E
Perfect timing

You can take it if u gonna face an assassin as it will be useful early game if Zed of Fizz used their ultimate on you plus it will decrease the cooldown of Zhonya by 15% and decrease it price when u buy it.

But as i said The inspiration build suits xerath ONLY when u want to go defensive so u r not gonna use this build most of the time and definitely this is not your build when u want to go aggressive.

If u wanna play only as a poking champ xerath which is not wrong ( this is not my play style ) and wanna sustain ur lane and get ur kills over time by continuous poking then take this build. Again this is not my favorite build and kinda Meh!!! and boring for me :)

Arcane comet


The Ultimate Hat


TRANSCENDENCE


Gathering Storm

Secondary

Magical Foot Wear

Cosmic Insight

Pros

1-super aggressive
2-Tons of damage Early and late game
3-snowball the lanes when get fed easily
4-be dominant in your lane


Cons

1-Once you are caught, there is no way out when your spells on cooldowns
2-you need to land your full combo in order to assassinate the enemy champ, so no place of missing your skill shots
3-Mana reliable unless you bough seraph's embrace so you don't have to worry about that
4-Weak against high mobility champs as Fizz so it is not easy to land your skill shots and u can get assassinated easily becoz u have no mobility

Combo 1 : E + W + Q + R

Combo 2 : If u r facing a highly mobile champion enemy and dodginf ur skill shot then do

W + E + Q, in order to slow his movement first to easily land ur E ( stun )

Combo 3 : Flash + E + W + Q if u r chasing low enemy champion or in lane when u want to surprise him ( take care from landing ur E on a minion

Combo 4 : Over the wall, if u have vision, use E behind the wall and then ur full combo

P.s Try To use ur (R) first in team fights when both teams engage and don't use it at the end of team fight in order to make the maximum damage by your champ ( our priority is to win the team fight not chase some kills )

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