Xerath is an oppurtunist. Most people don't seem to understand that from what I've read. You can't just land the stun and expect to follow up on your own. Laning you do like any other smart mage, wear them down then unload on low health prey. In team fights, if you can be targeted by the enemy team you're doing it wrong. You can build him any way you see fit (cdr, mp, high ap, speff effects, etc..), just as long as you play him accordingly. Granted, he does need some changes to his kit to make him a little more viable. I do think his q needs a lttle more base damage to help in farming, and I like the idea of his w adding effects or alterations to his other skills. I don't see why adding stronger effects to his kit is a scary idea to the designers when there are other champs that have way stronger cc and damage (ahem, Veigar). He's solid, just needs a little push to be great.

Xerath is a strong champ, and in my opinion as of right now he is both underrated and misunderstood. He is a long range burst caster but needs a specific team comp to see his true potential on a consistent basis. A heavy CC based team and/or having a team with a strong initiation is key for him. Otherwise he can snowball as hard as he wants but he loses a good deal of his power if he can't w down due to the other team zerging straight for him.
As far as runes, I go Mana regen yellows, Mpen red, flat ap quint, and AP per lv blue. Item wise I go boots/3 pots, then go into doran then blasting wand(2 dorans if falling behind).

I think your opinion is in line with the majority of the community. Xerath's passive is out of place with the rest of his kit. It just doesn't jive with the way he plays.

The armor bonus usually does not become significant till end game. Looking at your common build for example. You build lots of spell pen early game with a little bit of AP. You also sometimes buy CoH. So, you could potentially be spending your first 4k gold (Sorc Boots, Doran's Ring x 2, Haunting Guise, Chalice of Harmony) and only get 50 AP. That equates to 8 bonus armor. You're essentially not using your passive almost half of the game.

I personally also feel that it does not provide a whole lot of protection. Xerath needs to be very careful on his positioning. If he gets jumped by an AD assassin, he is pretty much dead in the water unless you're stacking armor. Stacking AP does not really prevent that. This is purely a testimonial driven point, but I think you may agree with me in that regard.

I have two very good ideas, IMO, that would:

-Be both more helpful to Xerath
-Fit in with his kit better
-Make sense for a master of arcane

1. This was my idea. Give Xerath a buff. When someone deals damage to him while he has the buff, the attacker is silenced for X seconds. When Xerath is attacked with this buff, it is consumed and goes away. Xerath regains the buff after a Y second cooldown.

2. This was an idea I saw from someone else. Xerath gains sight on anyone using an ability within X radius. I could see this being a bit OP, so maybe it could be specifically when he is planted in Locus of Power instead? It could just be an added feature of Locus of Power. I really like this idea because it gives an additional use to his long range attacks while in Locus of Power.

Anyway, just the thoughts of a big Xerath enthusiast to be added to the discussion.

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I'm gonna jump in here as an AP mid Main. I also bought Xerath fairly early and have actually come back to him a little bit and found that getting as much Mag Pen and AP is as important as possible. I've won lanes as Xerath becauase of my incredibly strong harass, With S3 I have yet to play him (only played 2 games so far) and I am wondering just how powerful Athene's Liandry's and Seraph's with Sorc shoes enchanted with Distortion will do. (I prefer distortion because of the CDR of flash) Xerath's Main thing is that Magic Resistance means absolutely NOTHING to him. FInishing the build with Deathcap and Rylai's should make him near unstoppable in terms of killing power.

not any more you don't huehuheuhuee

I just always avoided playing xerath haha

He's actually quite good, even in his current state. He probably won't be free for quite a while, so unfortunately you missed out if you didn't try him last week.

I played against a xerath last night.. think he went 25 - 4

Yup, going to have to relearn a lot of stuff with all the new S3 changes