I used to do catalyst start, but I didn't like it that much because Ryze is kind of a bruiser mage that has to be pretty close. Basically, without the movespeed it was difficult to harass without them just running out of range, and on the other side, it was easier for them to hit me and then run out of range. + Boots help me dodge skillshots. For the first fight or two, I have to be on the careful side because I have less HP, but it seems worth it to me.

But to the main point.... I will try building revolver after the intermediate items.

Wota is actually a pretty bad, inefficient item for Ryze. Hear me out and don't scream yet...

For 2300 gold, he gets 70 AP which isn't worth as much to Ryze since he is mostly mana-driven. His AP has about 2/3rds the impact as mana does, per gold spent.
So the 70 AP is really worth about 1000 gold to Ryze.

So you are paying 1300g for the 25% spell vamp. How does this work out?

In dominion staying topped off isn't THAT difficult due to fast B, common Bs, and health packs. So the vamp isn't as useful for that as in SR with bigger map.

So the true purpose of WotA is to give you more "effective life" in combat, just like autoattackers use lifesteal.

Does it work?

Kind of. WotA is a bit subpar for many casters because they tend to be at full health when they toss out all their spells, and gain nothing. Then they are on cooldown and don't have much for when the melee guy jumps on them.

Ryze has continuous firepower so WotA actually works for him! Ryze Qs, XIn charges, ryze proceeds to drop his W,Q,E,Q,R,Q,W,Q,E,Q.

In an ideal situation, Ryze can deal 3000 raw damage to the enemy which is 2000 actual which will give him 500 life back. He only gets about 400 really since he can damage them before they start to hurt him.

This is pretty sweet, but this is really all you are getting for your gold remember, plus a modest amount of AP. You are basicaly getting a Giant's Belt.
If you took a Rod, you'd be getting the same AP overall, a bit more health overall, and the 700ish mana would improve your firepower significantly. And Rod isn't really even a great item for Ryze.


The problem with WoTA is that as soon as Ryze pops his Ult, his stuff becomes AOE and only leeches 1/3rd as much. His Ult does give him extra spellvamp though to compensate, sort of.

Also, Ryze has to be dealing damage to get this virtual life! The problem is that he is often CCed which messes up his chain. He also gets bursted to death by 2 attackers. In this case, Ryze often just isn't able to get all that much damage off. Maybe a thousand or so, which is 200 health leeched.

This is why I would not use WotA as a PRIMARY item. I would call it a situational secondary:

Primary items are:

sorc shoes, Glacial Shroud, Odins Veil, Tear.

You will almost always upgrade Shroud in dominion to Heart. In SR you may do other stuff first.
Tear will become AA staff, once you have about 3k mana it becomes cost effective.

So you have 2 slots. Some decent choices include:

Rod of Ages, even taken late mostly for the health booster.
WotA, if their burst and CC isn't too bad.
Abyssal Scepter if they have high magical damage. Abyssal adds a LOT of extra dmg.
Void Staff in theory. In dominion I never ever see multiple players stacking >80 MR. So abyssal is better.
Another AA staff for pure offense, IF you have 4k mana pool.
Warmog for defense (only on SR of course. Pure health with 200 armor and 150MR = badass)
Rylais - Youd get a giants belt for pure health, then upgrade to rylais as a last thing to do.

Except WotA is the single reason why Ryze is banned so often in high elo Dominion. You can do as much math as you want, but if his tear is even decently charged he's going to be dishing loads of damage and gaining back health proportional to this.

Let's assume close quarters combat with say... Tryndamere, and there are no nearby minions (for sake of argument). Your QREQWQ combo is going to do close to 1500-2000~ damage (E bounces off of you) to him assuming he has minimal MR (which he probably does). That's an automatic 750-1000 health gained back in LESS THAN THREE SECONDS. Not only that, but when you go back through your rotations, you gain MORE health back. If you are being useful to your team and dealing tons of damage (which you should be), you're going to be gaining back at least 1000 health per life from WotA alone. Not to mention you'll sustain infinitely off of minions while in lane.

Honestly, all you need is revolver, but upgrading it never hurts and provides 10% more vamp which is more effective health.

To answer the question though, you should grab revolver/wota as soon as you can afford to. Obviously items like glacial/FH, catalyst->Negatron->Odyins, magic pen, etc. might be required ASAP depending on enemy composition, but grabbing that revolver (for only 1200 gold!) increases your survivability by a very noticeable margin.

Bottom lane you'll definitely want to consider catalyst, but catalyst top I've found to be quite detrimental overall. The real difference is the movespeed top lane, and the ability to safely get in range of opponents to cast without being ganged on because of adequate movespeed is very beneficial. Starting tear also provides heavier damage and a slightly stronger late game. In the end I'd say it comes down to preference, but the ability to start tear is always appealing on Ryze.

I too find that Ryze needs the movespeed, even bot. I've opened with Catalyst several times, but I find that boots are way more helpful for staying at max range and tossing safe Q and E.

If you can kite without boots, then yeah, Catalyst may be a stronger bot opening than Tear/boots. If you can't, the extra health will generally NOT save you against strong earlygame duelists. I can see it laning against strong poke, but Ryze is still super vulnerable to ganks without boots, so I'd call Catalyst a MUCH more situational opening than Tear/boots.

Regarding the OP, I generally get my Revolver after my opening Tear/boots and my first item (either Catalyst or Galacial Shroud, depending on who I bot against). Upgrading to WotA isn't a major priority, but it's cheap at 900g, and often quite handy, especially if bot looks to be developing into a 2v2 lane this game.

Imo catalyst is better to start with than tear for most games.

Is it really that much heavier damage, though? As mentioned, Tear is only 25 mana more than Catalyst for that first fight. That gets you like... 3 extra damage on a Q and 2 extra damage on W I think? Also, that first fight for the turret is generally not going to get you a bunch of Tear stacks due to its frantic pace, so the late game boost seems minimal.

I think Tear versus Catalyst really comes down to whether you want the 290 health or the movement speed. For me, that starting health is just too good - especially when you consider Catalyst lets you sneak in a health potion to start as well, granting you another 150 effective health if you're able to stay alive for the entire duration of the potion. And there's always the Catalyst passive to help sweeten the pot (and can be the difference between you being able to stay and defend or needing to immediately recall for health). I do understand that mobility from boots is always important, but man, a gauranteed 290 bonus starting health and a potential 500+ effective health from potions and catalyst procs added in is just too good for me to pass up. I do run movement speed quints on Ryze, so maybe that makes me not feel the early slowness as much.






Warrrax:
That is very interesting math, thank you (still reading it all over again) - but does his ultimate really make his spells to be area effect for the matters of spell vamp?

So that means, with pre-Wednesday WOTA you would actually have MORE spell vamp without Ryze's ult than you would with it. Old WOTA + Ryze ult would be 50% spell vamp combined. At one-third rate from AE spells, that would be 17% spell vamp. For the purposes of a 1v1 fight, you'd be better off not clicking on his ult and just going with the 25% spell vamp from WOTA. That can't be correct, can it? I'll admit, I've never actually tested it and crunched the numbers myself.






Also on this topic, is WotA still worthwhile on Ryze now that it's been nerfed? Do we Ryze players just leave it at Revolver until very late game?

His ultimate ADDS AoE damage to all of his spells. Therefore the vamp applies to his single target spells (still 33% on his E), AND the 33% vamp of the AoE added. So no, you actually gain significantly more vamp from using his ultimate.

Yeah I wouldn't bother upgrading anymore unless you plan on going duo with another AP champ. double wota ryze+cassio is seriously messed up.

K, that's how I had always assumed it worked. (and both makes a lot more sense and matches up better with my experiences with it)

Consider that only 25% of your actual damage dealt is coming back to you as a result of WotA. 750-1000 health is BS since your ULT is already giving you 250-500 of that. Its like saying that Bloodrazor gives Kog 10% damage....it doesn't. It gives 4% still.

If you really do 2000 actual damage, then you will get 500 health from the WotA. I thought that I was vamping less after hitting R but maybe it was my imagination.

I can see aura synergy with other champs, but in dominion especially with people all spread out, I considered this a minor thing.

A revolver doesn't seem all that useful either. 10% spell vamp = 2000 damage dealt to enemy for 200 health gained back to you.... if you live long enough to do your combo.

A giants belt gives 430 health that always works.

Revolver is 15% Spell Vamp (not 10%).

You raise a good point, but Revolver can also be used for sustain which can be invaluable. Revolver also has AP on it. That 40 AP gets you:

8 damage on Q (equivalent to 100 mana).
24 damage on W (equivalent to 480 mana).
14 damage on each bounce of E (which does not scale with mana at all).


I really think a lot of Ryze players are way too averse to AP, but that's an entirely different topic.