So you feel the flat Spell Pen and AP outweigh the CDR mana Regen of Athene's? Is this due to trying to go for a snowballed quick victory whereas the Athene's would be a more sustained and longer Game?

Just curious, I haven't had enough time to play SR that much recently and Dominion/Aram aren't those most...accurate testing sandboxes.

I think his passive is stupidly strong. With a full build you get close to 100 bonus armor late game. Do I think the passive fits the idea of a long range seige caster? Not really.

I think so. Most people under rate the power of haunting guise. Keep in mind that if you get 9 mpen from runes, 20 from sorc, and 20 from guise you're sitting at -50 MR from enemy champions. Then with his passive the additional % reduction. I often times will also pick up a chalice if i'm spending a lot of time in lane farming/pushing. I suppose the play style I use for Xerath is similar to morgana -> push wave and gank.

I meant the passive is bad on Xertah free stats have always been strong passives like Vlads

I think chalice is a great item. I will often pick it up if i'm looking to push and farm hard. What people forget is that your item build from one game won't always work in the next. Sometimes you need the MR and regen to push, other times you just need pure flat damage. Keeping an open mind and itemizing correctly is super important.

Actually,

I heard that with the S3 items, they were going to have an item that extended spell cast range, but when Xerath had it and pop his W, his Q would go all the way across the map and actually damage himself from behind.

CDR <-- that is all

Yea, i'm just too in love with athene's. I only get double DRing now when against AD or i fall behind and need the health.

I see what you mean about Haunting Guise, i remember a while back i joked around with my friends about rushing it to abuse the flat pen Waaaay before the likes of Rumbles getting etc.

I guess it comes down to how the player chooses to use him. I've had successes running full burst mage to kill mid and roam around, but im sure if you took the farm approach you would just unload on the enemy team in any early dragon fight.

Chalice on Xerath might be a build path I'll consider trying since all the stats work so well on him.

I think all Xerath players have seen those things.

There's a reason i had to stop playing Xerath... Where a team is made of a hook'er (blitz/nauti...), dashing tanky dps (Xin/Diana/Lee/so many others) or Akalis, and ADCs who can poke the long range mage more consistently than he can (Ezreal/Corki...), with Flash + Ignite being the ubiquitous summoner spells, and some skillshots having dramatic effects if they were to ever hit you (Morg Q, Lee Q... not Xerath Q...), that's no country for old self-rooting mages.

Even with an awesome Scorched Earth skin :-(

I usually pick up the fiendish codex part of athenes after rabadons for the mana sustain/cdr when roaming, but I don't finish athenes until the end of the build.

Double Dorans/Large Rod(if fed) > CDR boots > Rabadons > Codex > Void > Rylai > Athenes > Situational item like banshees or zhonyas

I've found that Xerath is most effective in a team comp with a strong front line, if we don't have a bruiser + tank, I usually go with Anivia instead since she is harder to blitz. I haven't really been afraid of blitz/naut since you don't run into them until teamfights, and you should be behind the front line and out of range of any hooks.