Zeraph

I know what you mean about E, I've tried doing it that way and will at best get 2 minion kills with it(usually 1, while almost getting another), very rarely 3* but compare that to fiddle, who brings great CC to the table, AND with one spell, dark winds, can farm and harass better...point 1 dark winds does more base damage and silences, by point 2 it bounces just as much, point 3 their base damage approximately catches up (I think ryze is still slightly behind but I forget) but dark winds now bounces 3 or 4 times more (i.e. does more dmg), and generally surpasses ryzes E in almost every way. Maxed dark winds bounces 11 times and silences! compared to ryzes 5 times ~120 base damage. Dark winds can also bounce farther and almost always bounces for the full duration, whereas ryzes often only hits once if the champ is running away.

Wow, big paragraph, in other words, fiddle's dark winds is superior in every way except 1v1 when dark winds has nothing else to bounce off (soooo rarely happens, like once a game) of or when paired with ryzes ult I guess, but then you could bring fiddle's ult into it too, and his really kicks ass.

I really want to like Ryze. Keep in mind, I've done better with Karthus, who's supposed to be the most difficult mage, after only trying him in 4 or 5 games. And I played the old ryze and carried teams with him. The current ryze sucks I'm fairly sure. I admit I could be wrong. But there is just so much slightly off about him. For an assassin character with such slow move speed and such small spell ranges it is rare I can ever catch someone off guard. His spells are fast but not fast enough to continuously cast (not sure where that rumor started) even with full CDR and maxed ranks and nor are they potent enough to one shot someone like annie and veigar can frequently do.

So he ends up in this weird space of not being an assassin, nor really being a good AOE character nor a good utility/CC character.

*remember, talking early game here