I disagree that he would have to sacrifice something in order to have an ammo system. What makes his ult so strong is that he can pop 3 charges very quickly and in total doing loads of damage. In fact if anything you are reducing the full effectiveness of his ultimate by creating situations where he does not have all charges.

Right now I feel that Xerath's biggest flaw is his lack of lane clearing, it takes a lot of gold and time before Xerath can clear an entire wave of creeps compared to other ap's. However with an ammo system he can choose to use a charge or two to clear the lane properly.

He is a champion that has more positioning options than any other champ in the game, however his skillshots are sometimes difficult to land or ineffective due to being so narrow. The delays, the unforgiving nature of such narrow skills and the inability to clear lanes effectively(wraiths take forever) are already huge disadvantages to him.

Can he not just have this one little gift to make him more of a champion and less of a gimped peasant?

Am I the only one that doesn't agree with this at all? Putting his ult on an ammo system with 1/3 of the original cooldown for each "bullet" would result in it not being affected by CDR. CDR is Xerath's bread and butter. He doesn't need the tankyness (Zhonya's, Abyssal) that other mages do coz of his range, he utilizes CDR much better (Morello's/Athene's, Ionians). I always max out my CDR with him when I play him, and I survive remarkably well by just staying away from danger. Positioning with Xerath is 10 times easier than any other ap carry, and 100 times easier than playing ad carry. Just back the heck off, and hit your spells anyway!

Here's what I love about Xerath: If you're really smart, you stay away from enemies at all times. You participate in team fights, but never close to the danger. You deal all your damage with the ability to stay safe. Granted, there are some champions that are able to dive you anyway, despite your range, but no champ should have no counters. Here's what I think would benefit Xerath: Better itemization for artillery mages. Let me list all the common AP items and how they suit Xerath:

Rabadon's: Great item.
Void Staff: With this item and your W maxed, you have 80% MPen. This is great if you wanna play tankbuster. But with Xerath, you will be well in range to blast enemy carries, hence you're paying for a whole lot of MPen that you don't need.
WotA: You're paying for spell vamp, which doesn't benefit my proposed playstyle.
Abyssal: You're paying for MR and a short range aura, which doesn't benefit my proposed playstyle.
Athene's: One of the better items, but you're still paying for a bunch of MR which doesn't benefit my proposed playstyle.
Rod of Ages: You're paying for HP, which doesn't benefit my proposed playstyle.
Morello's: You're paying for an active that will never be in range of anyone to use. Otherwise great item.
Lich Bane: You're paying for MR and a passive that works with your autoattacks, you won't be firing lots of them.
Zhonya's: You're paying for armor, which doesn't benefit my proposed playstyle.
Archangel's: Gives you a lot of damage output, but not nearly as much as its price requires. You're paying for tons of mana and manareg that you don't need.

Xerath needs one or two new glasscannon AP items! Being able to build him true glasscannon will give him enough damage output to get an area of use.

Xerath has higher level 6 burst than Leblanc.

rofl

Thank you for the answer.
About that, I wouldn't care if you trade the ammo system vs a small nerf in the flat damage and the ratio for the ultimate.
Is it possible that you tell us how many damage his ultimate would loose if xerath has the ammo system ?

And in my opinion the fact that he has this poke (even nerfed but buffed by this new mechanic) would give him more power than his current kit and fit more in the role he should take. It would be a win-win for everything.

Based off what the red just said, what if when xerath ulted, if he has any unused ults, it reduces the CD of his ult? Say at level six, you press R for the hell of it. You drop an ult but decide not to press it again. So once it goes on CD the CD becomes 80*1/3 which is approx 26ish seconds. If you used it twice it'd be 53ish seconds. Obviously if you use all 3 ults, the CD is 80 or if you didnt use it then it'd still be up. This helps prevent his ult from being just another long range poke and prevent that crappy feeling of wasting those extra ults when only 1-2 shots are needed. I do love to play xerath but I have no reason to play him because I can always do better as say diana, ahri, swain ,ryze, TF ect.

_G

darn you beat me to the post about that idea, to add, the "buff" you get when you ult would function as normal, but if you let it expire, it refreshes 1/3 of the cd for each stack.
I guess great minds think alike.

I don't understand why Riot is so scared of buffing Xerath. He was imho at his peak or "prime" when he was first released. Then following a slew of a number of buffs and nerfs. He isn't as strong as most casters right now and Riot needs to realize that. Not meaning to be rude and I somewhat understand that if they buffed him to hard he could have potential to be a mega OP, but right now he is just so "meh" or average I can't see that happening.

bump.

Why not just slightly reduce the cd if he doesn't use all of the charges?