I'm not to fond of the Mejai.. It's a very risky item and by buying it too soon (still in the laning phase) you don't really know yet if you're likely going to die a bit too much for that item.. By the way if your team get dominated you become quite useless... You're only overpowerful when you're already dominating the other team..
To my mind snow ball items should be bought according to the current situation. Someone who always buy it as his first or second item is making a strong mistake to my mind.

"Not bad for a level 7 nuke. Total damage = 104+260+400=764. Multiply this all by 65% for the AOE effect that also applies to the primary target and you get 1260. Ouch."

Sorry if it has been clarified somewhere, but i as under impression that 65% aoe did not hit the primary target. Is there trick to it or something, i was going to go test it out but i dotn have access to LoL this weekend.

any updates to this guide?

I really like the build in the op. I followed it to the T (w/ exception of very minor adjustments to a couple runes based on play style)...and I dominated in my 1st 2 games w/ this build. I was skeptical at first because it isn't until later that the ap power comes in...but it really works well.

1st game: 5/0/16
2nd game: 11/1/15

I played Ryze a lot before his major nerf in Dec...haven't' played since until just now. I'm in love w/ this champ all over again.

Ty again.

What is Strength of Spirit giving you because it says that it "increases your health regeneration by .3% of your maximum mana" which is normally 500 at the start for your build which would mean 1.5 health per 5 or per second? The mastery tree doesn't explicitly state which it is. Could you clear this up?