Table of Contents

  • Who is this pleb?
  • Summoner spells
  • Items
  • Matchups and Synergies
  • Gameplay
    • Early game (lvl1-5
    • Mid game (lvl6-11)
    • Late game (lvl12-18)
    • Other ways to waste your mana
  • Tips/Warnings
  • Dodge patterns
  • Random moments

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Xerath - [Analysing Enemies]

Midlane

Deppengu

June 16th, 2022 ⸱ 15 min read



Quick Xerath AP Mid Build

Summoner Spells

Starting Items

Best Overall Build

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Who is this pleb?

-Im Deppengu (EUNE), I also play EUW but less, currently I got around 900k Xerath and diamond

-If you have specific questions you can always ask on Reddit or in Discord





Note: Xerath is a champion where you want the enemy to be as squishy as possible, and ideally not a enemy team that can engage well like (Kled, J4, Noc...) So if the meta, or the enemy team comp has multiple fighters/tanks you probably want to avoid Xerath in that matchup or in other words, you dont want to be in a matchup where you need to buy liandrys



Summoner spells

-Usually I tak

Teleport
because you... get to lane faster lol

-If enemy likes to get close and personal like Zed/Azir then

Exhaust

- For Unavoidable / long range CC like Veigar/Syndra

Cleanse



For skills there are just 2 options and thats all on level2, depending how agressive the enemy is and how well he pushes the wave



  • Usual (Safety first)
  • Immobile / Good wave clear

Xerath

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Items

Read it from left to rigt and then next row (Soulstealer is optional, buy it when you feel confident enough)

Note! If tank meta the secondary runepage should be

Precision
with
Presence of Mind
&
Cut Down
with +Ability haste

  • Squishy
  • Somewhat tanky
  • Tank meta (avoid)

Matchups and Synergies

Difficulty level in order from top to bottom

  • Dodge
  • Thin Ice
  • EZ PZ

Gameplay

Early game (lvl1-5

Always.. ALWAYS check for invade, its frustrating to see the midlaner not doing their job by not checking/warding their side.

You should always be focused on farm before getting

Lost Chapter
, unless you see a easy poking target especially if you can easily proc your passive of him, depending on your recall gold I also buy
Hextech Alternator
with it, and always pay atention what your jungler does, if he needs help and so on.

Early game your E is your best friend, so try to get some cheeky E to the enemy to combo him AND ALWAYS auto attack there for pasive. Just for info, your E stun duration depends on the distance it travels.

Combos:

(E - AA - W -Q)

(W - E - AA - Q)

(W - Q)

Sadly patterns became musscle memory for me, so idk is my dodge types outdated or not, will keep it as last slide just in case.

NOTE: Xerath is a POKE champion, dont flash agressively into the enemy, EVER unless you are backed by teammates, because that can easily backfire.



Mid game (lvl6-11)

Try to avoid using your ult for the midlaner unless you are sure you can kill him, because using ult for roams is allot better.

While walking around a unwarded area use your

Eye of Destruction
for vision or any other spell because it will proc your
First Strike
if it hits a enemy.

If enemy roams try to follow them, even if your team loses you will most likely find atleast one enemy with a easy ult kill, but if you react fast you can come there and save the day, for example if corky takes package dont just spam ping and leave it be because no one listens in solo que, just go to the lane where teammates pushed the most and wait a bit, but if team listens dont roam and honor them because its a rare sight.

Late game (lvl12-18)

At this point your ult can potentially kill a enemy from 100-0, if you see a target like that (Zyra, or some squishy support) you can easily stack your

Mejai's Soulstealer
with them

How you use your ult depends on comps, if adc is strong and has no enchanter you can ult him before teamfights to make him low for example, would be too much to write in text format, but with time you will get the gist of it.

And here most people are dangerous for you, if a enemy jumps on your, always use your W

Eye of Destruction
to slow them down, and then your E
Shocking Orb
for the largest stun duration.

And forgot to say,

Xerath
is excelent for stealing objectives, full build Xerath can do more damage than enemy smite can do just with any spell, but thats a bit close range, the safe steals are with your Q and ult, you usually use your spell when the dragon/baron is at 1kHP so when enemy panic smites it will keep it alive for you to steal it. And if you get there early enough you can poke them allot, especially if they are in stun distance

Other ways to waste your mana

Qchannel - Flash - Qrelease

E - Flash (E before flash)

W for vision

All in



Tips/Warnings

Warnings

-you CANT cancel your Q so dont charge it brainlessly



-DONT get greedy and try to get mana on minions if enemy is scary, rather ward Razorbeaks and auto attack them!



-If a enemy comes with a gap closer DONT E him if he has 2 or if he has one gap closer but still did not use it, rather slow with W and wait him to jump and THEN stun him, because if you hit or miss its closly the same... HIT means he will be stuned short period of time because what closer you hit the stun is shorter and he can catch up to you with his gap closer after that and if you miss... well same situation but just you did less damage



Tips

-When you are not confident about hiting your Q get in the "Fog of war" or bush and charge it from there and hit the enemy, its a 100% chance to hit (example in video)

-When being cased, or when enemy is going towards you but you are just out of his vision, you can use your E stun to suprise him, probably wont dodge, and maybe even kill him (Clip not available yet, bcs its not that often that you get in that situation)



-DONT be like other xerath palyers and charge to the max and THEN think what to hit charge the minimum ALWAYS



-Your

Shocking Orb
has a shorter stun duration if you hit a target what is close, try to avoid using your
Shocking Orb
at close distance if possible, a way to do it is slow him with
Eye of Destruction
and then after some distance throw your
Shocking Orb



-If you play on locked screen like me when you hold a shillshot what is far away press "Z" or "Y" idk what is it on other keyboards.. but the most convinient position to press that is this one so put the lock on this key.



-When you go through the jungle to roam or whatever the reason is, AA jungle camps for mana (Plants and wards work too)



-if you have a sneeky gap through enemy minions use it to hit your E, its closly a guaranteed hit



-While you charge your Q try to analize how the enemy moves, over time it should start to go automacly, basicly dont be stupid to try to analize while you dont even charge your Q.



- For hitting your skillshots you can use the animation of the enemy auto attacking a minion, because: It roots them for a small duration and they are probably focused on the minion more than your Q



-In lane or when enemy is alone and knows you are aming at him that is the only part where they activly try to dodge, when there are teammates close to him (not just one but the full team) they wont think about it too hard even if you start hitting, unless they are in front line.



- And you can predict movements most easy if enemy is under pressure of your teammates or towers because the angle is of escaping your ult is not a 360 but a 180.



- Im not sure why but I sometimes just aim at a place with my Q and wait the enemy to walk in and the I release it, did not do it too often but the times I did it was more easy to predict how they move



- Try to ult enemies only when they dont have mobility spells, because they can use them to escape more easy or to get to you, basicly if possible try to avoid ulting before you waste their mobility spells



- Sometimes its worth to take a spell in your face for meleing the enemy for mana (Ahri Q for example)



-If you see your ally attacking a enemy and you ult WAIT and see will he kill him, but if he escapes then ult, if not dont... because if you cast even a single ultimate your CD will be the full cooldown, but if you dont then it will be 50% less. But if your ally might die ult and support him ofc



-if enemy is tilted try to poke them most they dont try to dodge your spells at most so its easiest to hit them (bit scumy tho)



-You dont need blue after you buy lost chapter so dont ask the jungler for the blue unless its like Rengar or so because you can alow yourself to miss more Q-s and spam W too in that situation



-I recomend to turn "Screen Flash on damage" on because you dont look at your champion too often, your spells have long range and especialy when you ult you have no idea if someone is attacking you. Sadly if minions attack you or monsters it can make you panic and cancel your ult, happened more often than actual champs, so you decide





Dodge patterns

NOTE: Yes again, just wanted to say, those patterns are something I wrote long ago, and I dont activly look at them anymore, so they can be outdated or wrong, this was just my interpretation of how people dodged at that time.

At the end of the day all dodges are or he moves foward or backward, the pattern is in what they do before it, and whats the reason for dodging after release

If your gut feeling doesent work try to analyse how they dodge, here are dodge patterns I noticed and if you notice some I will be sure to add them.

And the ranks are more of how well the enemy dodges than actual divisions

Bronce

Here people dont even know Xerath is a champion because he is not a often champion.

Against the midlaner you will see extremly basic dodges and sometimes even not even dodging because they dont know your animations.

And if they dodge it will probably be bot side, this is not from personal expirience but I asked some people.





Silver - Gold

Mainly people are not good at dodging and will go for the gut feeling and think little about dodging, especialy when you hit all your skillshots.



Q Dodges in this elo are:

COMMON - Always left, Always right, always to the closer river, continue walking, doesent dodge



UNCOMMON - Walks the oposite way after you cast the spell, Always dodging to the center of the lane





Platinum

In low platinum there is 50/50 will the person know how to dodge but in higher divizions expect it more often



Q Dodges in this elo are:

COMMON - Runing to the closer river, Runing to the direction of your base if you get them close to a wall and they are runing away, Ignoring you and farming, runing oposite direction after you cast your Q



UNCOMMON - Runing to the direction of their base if you get them close to a wall and they are runing away, moove left-right-left-right fast and releasing the mouse after you cast your Q, Ignoring your Q and going full ham on you because they are anoyed of your Q-s :D





Diamond



Q Dodges in this elo are:

-When you charge your Arcanopulse they will run in a certain direction, and just before you released your spell (still not released) they will go oposite direction and after you release it they will walk the original direction again.



- When you release your Q they will try to go backward to get out of your Q range, this only works if you just get enough range to reach them with your Q



- left right left (very fast) then go right but keep walking right. (never see this anymore)

Ultimate (R)
Rite of the Arcane

-The most common type of dodging your ultimate is by walking to the direction where you are, but i recomend to press ult and R direcly on enemy and try to suprise him with your first R, after that try predicting where he walks and just if he dodged backwards predict the dodge, and the last ult you throw it between your ult max range and their character if they are close to the edge or they will dodge sideways, in rare situations they juke back if they are so close to the edge. And this is the only pattern I can tell for starters if they are strugling with hitting ults because you get this basicly with game expirience and I cant help here too mutch because its too complicated to tell in words.



- Basicly how they dodge depends on their: Skill/HP/Moovspeed/MobilitySpells/How close to your ult edge they are/How many shots you fired/How close the support or cone is/Alone or in a group/Is he under pressure of your teammates/... so I cant tell patterns for this especialy because its a spell that can be dodged in all directions.



-Press R and try to hit a bit infront it is good for zoning if you are not so confident or the enemy is good at dodging, that way he wont run away so easy when your team tryes to katch up to him, so if you want that press R the second you activade ult on him and ONLY ult when he starts walking again.. dont do it unnececary, but after your ult comes to expire point just spam the last ults on him.

Clips

- This one shows the classic type to dodge when they are close to a wall (ofc can just continue walking) and this is explaned as this in text format "Runing to the direction of your base if you get them close to a wall and they are runing away"

- This is you could say "The mainstream dodge" just SO MANY people dodge to the bottom side. This could also be oposite direction of the one you usually walk



Random moments

Totally calculated

This one would be sutch a cool looking play if I did not get a lag spike at my 4th shot, its not a excuse you see it would hit but it landed too late :(



In this clip ... well I just killed enemies with style :)



Just a clip of killing one of my bigest counters <3

Love when enemies suck :D

You can hit minions for ludens to not risk enemy dodging your ults

Putting it as a last clip so not many ppl see it :)

this is a dodge patternt hats almost impossible for xerath to hit (Im the vayne) reason is because the way you try to predict your ult just messes your thinking when someone does this



XerathMidLeague-Of-Legends
AUTHOR
Deppengu
ABOUT

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2 Comments

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alan 1 year ago

Hey Deppengu! Add the "mid" tag when you publish the guide to appear in "Xerath Mid" guides on U.GG's build page.

Deppengu
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