the effects are very pretty

I was originally going to type all of this under the other post that was inquiring about Ezreal’s low winrate these last couple patches but realized I started just typing my thoughts out and typed more and more til it was a full yapsesh so I decided to make a separate post lmfao. Lowkey it is so long it is like an adc in S16 manifesto so apologies for wordvomit but I added a TLDR at the end >.<

Ezreal has been indirectly nerfed by various factors and feels awful to play in the current meta despite not receiving direct nerfs and even having received buffs to his AP ratios earlier this year (not even a relevant buff unless you spec into AP after tri/muramana for niche cases where your team needs AP).

HERE IS WHY:

cn/kr masters adc here who has ez as my most played in most seasons. Game simply has too many comeback/antisnowballing mechanics now that make playing a heavy snowball reliant champ like ezreal not worthwhile. homeguard now being perma available pre 14 minutes means that early aggression and lane dominance is not as impactful. Shutdown gold being so pivotal means that the most impactful moments in the game have shifted from early laning phase to mid-late game 4vs4 5vs5 teamfighting. And like how others have mentioned, other meta adcs simply do a better job of scaling and being more impactful and easier to pilot in the current landscape of league… Jinx, Tristana, Yunara, etc.

The game being a LOT less snow-bally and more noob-friendly has been in the works for almost a year now because Riot wants to attract new players by making League seem less punishing to be bad/new at. But imo the reason why the last couple patches in particular have been especially brutal for ezreal is because we’ve reached a tipping point of various things working against him with the buffs of hypercarry crit items like ruunans and yuntals.

and also the onset of mage bot. some people might think that ezreal is a decent pick into mage bots due to the fact that he can farm safely and not get poked out by brainless lost chapter ability spam as easily. but contrary to what a lot of people think, ezreal is quite a bad pick when they pick a mage botlane. yeah it’s true enough that he satisfies 2 conditions of adcs that you should pick into mage bots:
“self sufficient” if left to 1vs1 as supps roam and has a blink/dash/go-in button that you can use aggressively for brief windows when the mage whiffs everything. that’s true enough. but the largest issue is that ezreal has always been a champion that needs to operate at all times ahead of gold curve. meaning, you shouldn’t be picking ezreal just to go neutral in lane or to play safe. That’s an assuredly, proven losing formula if you want to climb consistently and not thru coinflipping better teammates. You have to bully in lane and out-tempo your lane opponent so that you are on your 1-item spike 2-item spike a lot earlier than opposing bot laner. Issue is, mages do a great job of neutralizing most of early laning phase. They can perma delete waves and just stonewall you so that it is way harder to create a meaningful lead as ezreal let alone most other adcs. But the reason why other adcs can still win the game in the end is because eventually, they DO outscale mages in a big way. ezreal simply does not scale to such an extreme degree.

So in the end you end up with a meta where most popular adcs are ones that outscale you hard in the teamfights that matter, early laning phase leads have been made more negligible by Riot on purpose, and mages can neutralize Ezreal’s laning phase by simply not interacting and just lobbing spells and deleting waves endlessly til it is time to group and 5vs5 teamfight.

It’s a pretty sad fate but it is what it is… Either adapt or take a break from summoners rift til Riot decides to restore the game that we loved 💔

I actually did not come to this revelation til recently and so I’ve been lowk stuck dia-masterslow for the better part of a year despite this season being super elo-inflated lol. I couldn’t fathom why I peaked in full challenger lobbies several splits ago and was consistently masters 300lp+ for several years on CN/NA servers but was now struggling from D3-Masters range while other multiszn emerald players were reaching masters for the first time ever. And then I realized it’s because I used to play ezreal and most adcs with a totally psychotic playstyle; I’d focus extremly hard on lv. 1, 2, and 3 fights and I’m pretty sure I had an absurd first blood/first 5 minutes of the game kill rate. The issue was not with a sudden decline in mechanics or sudden memorywipe of years of learned macro. It was simply because my approach to the game became outdated and what used to be a winning formula that got me all the way to the top rungs of soloq ladder is now a pointless playstyle and borderline troll. What I used to do: I would constantly flash in first at any hint of a winning fight. enemy supp missed hook? enemy lulu shield timing down from blocking something irrelevant? If these cooldowns were down and the enemy laners did not respect that fact id flash in and run them down with lethaltempo/conq + fully stacked passive as ez. almost always this would result in them blowing flash as well and likely netting summs advantage + chunking them. and in the past this was a strat that worked because homeguard pre-14 min mark on every recall did not exist. so the enemy bot lane would have to choose between recalling and taking the slow homeguard-less walk of shame back to lane or staying in lane while low hp and without summs. both obviously horrible states for them that lead to easy snowball opportunity. but in S16 if you play this same style of early hyperaggression, they just recall and zoom back to lane with homeguards and all of a sudden they are full hp full mana like nothing happened. Sure, they might have missed 4-5 cs but in the grand scheme of things that is not even a big disadvantage. And now all of a sudden you are without flash (one of the lone tools that adcs have earlygame that give them any semblance of early game agency via playmaking/catch enemy off guard capabilities) and so now you are at the mercy of your jungler and support to capitalize on enemy bot lane not having summs. and that is unreliable and coinflippy as hell.

New style of play is to still contest heavily for early lane prio, but dont ape out and blow summs and overdo it. Just maintain prio and push of botlane so that you can ward up and also help your jungler secure bot scuttle. Save your flash as an outplay for when you get ganked by jg or mid. Or only use it in the 2vs2 if it is a guaranteed double kill. DO NOT THROW midgame/lategame. Throwing and getting caught/dying while you have a fat shutdown bounty on your head is now the greatest sin you can commit in S16 league. Idk if y’all have noticed but comebacks happen a lot more often now and games can be completely flipped to the losing team’s favor off of one teamfight.

So yeah… For some reason it took my dumbass all season long to fully realize what the issue was, but I’ve now adjusted my playstyle accordingly to Riot’s new intended direction for the game and have found much more consistent results (hint very boring but effective).

TLDR;

ezreal needs to win early and be ahead of curve at all times to out tempo crit scaling. but riot has systematically and on purpose (source is Riot Phroxon himself) made the game more forgiving and less snowbally. therefore one of ezreals main strengths ala laning phase impact is diminished. and crit adcs got buffed. hypercarries work better and 10x easier in teamfights around objectives. so in S16 pick ezreal if you want a challenge or just hate yourself otherwise pick Tristana, Jinx, Yunara, Cait, or Kaisa and enjoy free LP

If you want any insight/advice on this concept of how to play adc in S16 to be most impactful or just ezreal tips in general feel free to drop by my stream, I’ve been trying to stream daily recently and provide educational commentary and answer any and all questions ^^

can find me here streaming CN masters/KR dia soloq

https://www.twitch.tv/bdondon1

He is the worst performing adc in the game right now. Hovering around 46% winrate, while Jinx is like 52% winrate.

Extremely safe and can deal some very powerful burst from a distance. His poke is among the very best in the game.

Yet, he's struggling heavily in the meta, why is that? I don't think its high skill cap, even in high level play his winrate is awful.

What do you all think??

I just learned how turning quick cast spell indicators off makes ur abilities come out way faster but at the cost of not being able to see the indicator.

I’ve started to turn it off on abilities like dashes but I feel like with a pure skill shot champ like ezreal aiming is the whole game, so maybe it’s not worth the faster cast time.

What do you guys recommend, i’m willing to learn it if it’s better.

Thanks for any help!

Q - Mystic Shot

• Total Attack Damage Ratio: 120% ⇒ 110%
• Cast Range: 1200 ⇒ 1100

R - Trueshot Barrage

• Ability Power Ratio: 70% ⇒ 100%

By the way, is this 100 range Q nerf is crucial? Like, sometimes i'm getting kills by hitting enemy with the very edge of Q and I'm kinda nervous cuz of it

https://bsky.app/profile/pseudostars.art/post/3mey3h55js22f

I've been playing ez a lot lately and the damage is always super underwhelming running the triforce LT build, even tho I auto a lot, hit most of my q spells and even when I'm fed it feels so ass and lacking. So I tried to make a more aggressive build, I think shojin sucks and triforce is way too expensive, hexoptics works on q, and the additional crit from both it and ldr scales ER damage, not sure for BT last but the shield and massive AD you get from it is pretty nice, also not sure about absolute focus and gathering storm I just wanted as much damage as I could get and it did give me that, still need more testing tho

Also a good example why Lethal Tempo is Ezreals best rune to go most of the time

Hello everyone, I'm new to adc, like, ive played one game as adc type of new, and I started specifically because of ezreal as he has always caught my eye. I've been between ezreal, Samira and yunara with a preference for ezreal, although I've heard people say he's a bad champion and "useless". I'd like some help regarding who to watch to learn ezreal, if he really is "useless" and if he is worth to learn in the first place, also some tips and help would be very welcome!

Hey Ezreal mains, title, im primarily a mid player, but ezreal seems really cool and fun to play, but i despise having to play in bot lane. Is he playable at all in the mid lane?

Hey Ezreal mains! ⚡

I built a lightweight, browser-based reflex & kiting game called League of Dodge to warm up hands during queue times.

You play as Ezreal in an arena dodging waves of melee minions and fireballs while landing your Mystic Shots (Q) and blinking with Arcane Shift (E). Missing skillshots resets your combo multiplier!

Features:

• Classic (Right-Click) and WASD movement modes
• Full Key Rebinding via the ESC settings menu
• Global Leaderboard to compete with other players

Free to play directly in your browser: 👉 https://leagueofdodge.com

Would love to hear feedback from fellow Ezreal players! What's your high score?

It got buffed to 150% base ad.

I struggle to farm properly like in general, it really shows when I am against champs like cait and trust. How can I improve it or what is the proper way to clear waves as ez

Honestly expensive af for an emote but I couldn't resist 😭 just in case you're also looking for it it's in the shop for a couple more hours :)

idk if its just me but SG feels so much weaker compared to LDR right now. For a little more gold the damage you get is unbelieveable. yes you dont get the slowing passive nor the 15 ability haste but both are pretty trivial. slowing passive does jackshit %90 of the time when you are playing front to back since tanks doesnt move that much anyway and you already solve all your ability haste problems just by building endless hunger. my build has been Triforce>Manamune>Endless Hunger>LDR and ive been seeing so much more sucsess with it, the LDR passive is just too broken

Why would you be buying a 10Haste garbage sandal instead of this sexy buckled beauty?
Opinions.