Overview
There’s a subset of support mains who’d secretly prefer to be in mid lane but can’t be bothered with clicking minions or having the spotlight of being mid on them, and they all know how to play Xerath. He’s a champion who can become another source of damage for your team throughout the game, and is a great pick for those who want a lot of poke pressure in lane. Click here for the latest data on his best builds, including Runes, Items, Summoner Spells, and more.
Keys to Remember About Xerath
He's a strong support pick when you need more poke and damage, but sometimes Xerath support players get a little too caught up in trying to do damage and lack proper vision control -- always be sure to prioritize securing vision as it will make the game easier for you, too.
Xerath's passive restores mana, so make sure you maximize it whenever possible in lane to keep up your poke. To get true value out of this pick, you have to make sure the enemy ADC has a miserable time trying to CS.
Strengths
He has some of the best poke in the game, and that starts as early as level one. He’s extremely annoying to deal with in lane phase in the hands of an accurate player, as all of his abilities can strike you from afar. Melee supports in particular are going to hate him, and with his range he should be able to keep them away. Despite being so damage centric, he still comes with a stun in his Shocking Orb [E], which is useful in setting up kills once you’ve managed to poke opponents down enough.
Weaknesses
He’s extremely immobile, which is compounded by many of his abilities forcing him to sit still in order to cast them. This is most noticeable with his Rite of the Arcane [R], where he fully roots himself into place in order to channel long-range barrages across the map. This means that if he’s not careful, enemies can easily sneak up on him through flanks or from fog of war to kill him. But the biggest weakness of Xerath is also his strength -- all of his abilities are skill shots, which means it’s only as effective as you are. And sometimes you just… well… miss.
Game Plan
Early Game: Look to poke with Arcanopulse [Q], though be wary of it hitting the minion wave too much if you aren’t trying to push up. You can make it hard for the enemy jungler to gank if you’re able to keep your opponents low in HP.
Mid Game: You want to keep the mid area of the map warded and be ready to support any fights with your range -- in general you want to poke as much as possible before fights.
Late Game: At this point in the game, you should have enough damage to be a good secondary dealer (you’ll often top damage charts, but that’s more a result of poke than actual damage output in a team fight). You can use your ultimate early to get poke if you’re confident you can land it.
