Phreak Disagrees With Pros, Says Ezreal Too Viable for Buffs

I do big damage?

After several pro players publicly declared on stream that Ezreal was not-viable, shouldn't be played, and anybody that does is making a fool of themselves, the forum-goers went nuts. They demanded buffs on Ezreal and hundreds of players poured their support out. However, it seems that Riot Web Content Specialist Phreak disagrees.

I apologize for the fact that this blog post is starting to get bulky and very text heavy!

UPDATES: Here are some more updates from our favorite Web Content Specialist:

I agree his mana costs are a bit high. It's rare to see a 150 mana ultimate on an AD carry. But this is the only thing I think is underpowered on him. While I totally see why Ashe has high mana costs, as she can perma-slow you, Ezreal's abuse cases aren't quite as high. Certainly, he's the only AD carry with 1100 range Trinity Force procs. Sure W goes through minions and always hits, but there are numbers that still keep those things gated while not making him OOM too quickly. 

Now, again I don't think he's underpowered. I think he is actually gated by mana, which is rare for an AD carry nowadays. You can choose to not spam W on cooldown in lane, and you can choose to not last hit with Q unless you need it under your turret. Following these rules, you should always have enough mana for a team fight. Honestly I'd be a bit scared of an Ezreal who gets to spam at me in lane and not feel hurt by it in a team fight. However, Q and E are the easiest skills to avoid in the "playing against" case, so I wouldn't feel like "Oh god, it's Ezreal again" if I fought one who got those mana costs lowered. 

Edit: The other thing to point out is the most common strategies are bruisers for top and jungle. Landing Essence Flux on Irelia, Gangplank, Lee Sin, and Udyr is a really big swing in a fight. I don't have to hit an AD carry for it to be useful. -2 Posted Here

To this I respond: The main problem with his W is that most AD Ezreals won't get it until level 13 and as a result won't be able to use it for a large chunk of the game. Moreover, as a result of the range and size of his W, it's hard to position yourself to land the W on any two specific given targets at a time. (IE both the bruiser and the AD carry) Compare this to Tryndamere, who has absolutely no problem landing a massive AOE damage reduction on an entire team with 0 targetting necessary.

Not only this, most bruisers are more than capable of taking down Ezreal to half, if not lower using nothing except gold generating items (meaning no damage boosting items). You give Irelia and Lee Sin as examples, but the fact of the matter is that if you're close enough to throw a W on them, they'll be close enough to blink onto you, CC you, and take you down to half health just from their initial spell burst damage.

I'd like to respond to each of these paragraphs, so here goes:
1. I did read your post. From memory, and to be fair, this is after playing a few games, but it quoted a few top players including doublelift who said Graves was "worthless" before the last patch. Then I see Dignitas basically winning the tournament this weekend with him. It's an obvious ad hominem, but with the point of the quotes being "Top player X says..." then his calls on "best AD" are kinda relevant to the discussion. You then also listed the last 8 or so patches that buffed Ezreal and said that he gets dominated by any AD in the game. 

2. His release buffs were usability tweaks. He didn't need any of the base stat buffs, but the rest of them were basically "Let's make him easier to use" because he's a really high skill cap champion. I'll give you that obviously this is a very large set of buffs, but he was powerful before them. After the patch you quoted he proceeded to be the most dominant force in the game. Thing is, it took players a while, but AP Ezreal was gamebreaking. This was before Season One, so there was no draft mode. He got at all ahead and his team would refuse to die. He was the best champion in the game. 

3. Honestly this is just "feel." You can say a knockback and Ult/Tumble are good escapes. Absolutely they are. So is a dash that comfortably goes over walls and lowers its own cooldown, as well as the ability to fight from 1200 range if you really need. 

4. This is again completely without any backing evidence. This is just you saying, "It happens this way! It's Vayne!" I don't know what to say to you about that. It's part of why my first post was so brief. It's just, "I feel Ezreal is underpowered." I accept that you feel he's underpowered. I don't think he is. World Elite doesn't think he is. They play him pretty regularly. He does different things from the other AD carries. He has abilities that let him never die and always contribute to fights no matter how far back he's been pushed. He has extra synergy with items and buffs that many other AD carries don't have thanks to Mystic Shot. He can make someone walk at half speed from 1200 range away with Lizard and a Trinity Force proc. This is obviously not 100% but it's something that no other AD carry has, save Ashe.

Honestly I think he's kinda the Shaco of AD carries. You can point out dozens of think that make Shaco weak. You can also point out dozens of things that are unique to only Shaco. He has a million ticks in his bag. You put them together, and you get to do a lot of really cool stuff.
I really feel Ezreal has that same ability. Sure it's only like 40%, but Essence Flux is going to severely disarm a Tryndamere. You can keep it up 100% of the time with Mystic Shot spam. No bruiser in the game can actually chase you. You can initiate chases at 1200 range. You can steal buffs and dragon and baron or farm minion waves that are going to kill your turret. You can assist team fights while farming. He makes your team Dragon almost instantaneously because he gets free attacks for Wriggles and buffs your jungler with bonus attack speed. At the cost of some single target damage loss, absolutely. But I think he makes up for it. +83 Posted Here

Calling Ezreal the Shaco of AD carries might be pushing it a little bit, but he does make some good points in this post!

Here's the thing though. Skill shots work both ways. Either you never stop to land an attack, or you lose half your attack speed if you ever do. I'm not going to fire a skill shot while you're in "dodge" mode. Either you give up part of your attack timer or you get hit. -58 Posted Here

He basically says if you're good you can dodge a skill shot, and if you're better you can hit them with one. 

Ezreal's closest comparison is Corki. Corki's damage is not significantly higher than Ezreal's. Ezreal's big power is that he's extremely safe, comes with a permanent 50% attack speed buff, and has a poke on a four second cooldown. 

I think he's completely viable and quite strong. If you're looking purely at single target DPS, of course Vayne is going to out-DPS him. That's her single role. She only deals single target DPS. Ezreal is one of the biggest bullies in lane. He's got the biggest AD burst of any of the standard AD carries except for Vayne's Comdemn->Wall. The attack speed swing from W means he'll win any basic attack duel by default.  -118 Posted Here

Personally I don't think he's recognizing that any normal AD Ezreal player won't be getting his W until level 13+. Phreaks "biggest AD burst" is also highly subjective; I'd be willing to bet Graves and Tristana players disagree.