Finally played against a decent Xerath and he's probably the most OP on release champ since Poppy. Good times.

Lol I've went 16/5, 11/4, and 11/1/12 with him so far.

He really isn't OP though. People are heavily underestimating his output. I've had tons of people stay around me with 600hp or so, and I just destroy them with my ult/stun combo.

I played against him with Nasus earlier. I had FON and BV and he melted 2k hp off me in around 2s from the fog of war. On the rare chance I could actually close the gap on him, there was nothing I could do to him despite having last whisper and 400+ damage stacked to my q. His kit is pretty crazy, he's super facerolly and has a free stun.

thats really surprising cuz i've faced multiple xerath's and they've all sucked. I was a kogmaw and i completely destroyed him everytime it was 1v1. Also his q is the easiest thing to dodge, i mean there's a red line that appears on the ground!

I havn't seen a good Xerath yet. Every time I've faced him in lane he's been absurdly easy to zone out despite his supposed long range.

Chances are this is due to the people playing him not knowing what their doing rather then Xerath being weak though.

@Frenchie108: He's bad 1v1 early, his mana pool sucks and he'll always lose to a decent player who starts with boots and pots. Once he has max cdr and deathcap he can win a lot of 1v1s and be pretty devastating in a teamfight.

Once he hit's 6 a good Xerath auto wins using his stun right.

Good to know so far everyone I've played against has done poorly. My Riven gets close and finishes him pretty fast.

Like someone said, he's all about level 6. He's the only champ I would put on the level of akali in the since that once they hit lvl 6, back the fuck up. Or, in Xeraths case, leave the map, or you best have more than 1k hp at all times.

Once more people figure him out, QQ will make him Orianna 2.0, until then, I'm gonna enjoy facerolling.

I play as Veigar and I can shut down most of the Xerath's I've played. You just need to know how to avoid his attacks.

@Jace: Yeah normally I'm not too worried about champs like that because they can be slowed down early enough that you could win before they're geared up enough to do anything. I played another good Xerath and shut him down solo mid with Ashe, which was great until he started roaming and melting my team from out of sight and ended the game like 18/7/8 or something.

Xerath is unquestionably squishy once you get past his absurd ranged attacks.

Xerath isn't any more OP than any other champ. His Arcanopulse has a significant enough channel that you can dodge it, and Mage Chains can be taken care of with a Banshee's. Locus leaves him as an open target for any gap closer. His ult is probably the most powerful thing he has going for him, and even then, you need the AP to deal with him.

You just make sure that you have him laning against an AP champ, as his passive is only for armor. Every time we put an AP champ in a lane against him with a gap closer like Akali or Leblanc or Annie, he's get nuked to shreds with no hope of every getting any farm or feed.

A lot of it is also learning what his range is and practicing the timing on dodging his Arcanopulse. To get his Mage Chains on someone, he's got to get in a bit closer, which causes him to be open for an assault. You just have to make sure you avoid his Arcanopulse after the Mage Chains. He'll probably nail you with the ult for a stun in time, but even then, you should be able to get in and murder him after that point, leaving him incredibly vulnerable.

Plus, he is SUPER mana-starved. His Mage Chains is a risky move, as it can easily put him in a position of not having the mana to finish up. You want to force him to poke with Arcanopulse while dodging it, then try to bait his Mage Chains stun combo.

I cannot stress enough, however, that you shouldn't be fighting him early on unless you've got some form of gap closing moves (even as an AD, guys like Wukong, Xin, and Jarvan with a Brutalizer or Last Whisper can eat through his passive) or some form of silence/stun.

It just requires playing smart. That's all.