I find this long range mage alot of fun to play but his main mechanic is quite frustrating to me. Once i hit level 3 i can land an e,q combo for a 1 second stun which i wish to be able to take advantage of. Then i realize hey its another 7 seconds before i can actually do any more damage. This is extremely frustrating since that combo is actually relatively easy to dodge and i personally feel as if i'm not being rewarded for landing the difficult combo since i have no follow up damage. Once you hit 6 yes you do finally have follow up damage with your ultimate bt no matter what i do or how i build him i never seem to be actually able to kill someone. I unload every spell i have on them then they walk away with about 1/4 hp left. I just find that his cooldowns are that of a burst mage yet the dmg is paralleled to a sustained dmg mage like a karthus q. Giving him no kill potential and never actually being able to accomplish anything in the laning phase of the game, even though I'm landing combos

Edit 1:

Wow first thread ive ever written that has so many view and a red has posted your now my fav red dannamoth but yeah ive tried some of the stuff recommended and im having alot more success now that im stacking spell pen. Norm i push them out of the lane pre 3 and free farm till 6 where i get a insta kill thx for the help guys

* a lot

Weak laning phase -> insane team-melting lategame.

You can't have both. You ether have a strong early and weak late, strong late and weak early, or average in both. Xerath with a Dcap/Void Staff/Sorc Shoes/AUG/Morello's Evil Tome/other situational item is scary enough that he can melt TANKS.
He needs an ult rework to make it feel less clunky and perhaps a bit shorter casting times. His damage output doesn't need to be changed one bit.

I just find i can never get to this point because his laning phase is so weak i just can't every afford these items until it is much to late in the game and we've already won or lost due to the other 4 members of the team

I agree with Rathour here. In the beginning, chances are you will not kill a soul, unless you poked at them for 10 minutes and they were too dumb to port the hell out of that lane. However, his weak begin game phase easily makes up for his fantastic, late game team fight contribution. Anchor yourself, open up with your Q, and then fill the enemy team with R's or E's, and maybe another Q if the CD ends. The amount of damage done is fantastic.

Also, it may be because I am not 30 yet, but if you are mid'ing and being careful and patient, you will not die in the first 15 minutes. Conserve your mana, poke when you can, and you can keep the enemy away from your minions while you are farming his. No, you won't get many kills, but you can easily get several thousand gold before you need to port back.

I agree. Xerath's early game is trash and it makes you feel really useless until about 30 minutes. Unless you get a kill or two in lane, and then you become untouchable.

Xerath has basically the highest damage potential in any sustained fight for summoners rift, as his ult is a 35? Second cool down with 40% cool down. You can melt whoever you want whenever you want at 40minutes, and if you have a Rylais, you can make it so you kite the living hell out of bruisers because of your 200 Armor/Ok Health/Slow/Stun every 4 seconds.

He's in a good spot and he'll probably see play next season when they change how penetration works.

PS: To help you on this early game trouble, take Mana regen runes. They help tremendously for staying in lane. Xerath is a niche pick and can't be used against champions with mobility.

Xerath has great farming potention. As the minions walk up the lane they form a straight line, Xeraths main source of damage is a straight line... Hmm! So instead of focusing on killing your enemy instead focus on farming and harassing. If you push your enemy out of the lane you will get exp lead and gold lead, you don't necessarily need kills. Pre-6 if you are having trouble hopefully the jungler can gank. Get additional AP penetration for crazy MR ignoring damage. Then when lvl 6 comes along you can easily kill them, or gank top/bot with with E-R-Q-R-R with or without mage chains depending on your allies cc ability. You will want to use W as much as possible because the range and mostly penetration are very important.

The play pattern that I have success with is using Q to harass in lane without focusing on getting the stun off. I usually only pick up a kill pre-6, without jungle help, if my enemy makes a mistake of staying after I land 3 Qs. If you have a jungler that is paying attention to your lane you can utilize that to score a kill before you're 6.

For runes I usually use mana regen per level yellows, spell pen reds. I then vary between flat AP quints/blues and MS quints/MR blues.

build is most frequently: boots+3 pot -> double dorans -> sorc shoes -> Haunting Guise -> death cap.

What about with the new items coming? How will your build vary? Does BFT sound any good on Xerath?

I own Xerath, but haven't played him for ages! Thanks for the tip, i'll try this build on my next journey to the mid lane (altough I main suport, I was once given the opportunity to be mid, since everyone else took the other roles :O )