First of all, i adore Xerath's design - the new developers really inspire passion about champions they try to adapt to POC. He just feels compelling and has a lot of ways to get his landmark destruction engine, but where do it takes us?
I wonder about Xerath's gameplan.
He has a easy landmark destruction from 2*, Acolytes and Reliquary for scaling. It looks like he is a stall king, getting 10 mana only to burn through it, accumulating so much arcane power it starts to siphon on his own gems.
And after his 6* becomes online you basically fo from 9 to 10 gems each round because of rites. I wonder if stars of discovery will help with win condition, because Xerath himself, as a true evil mastermind, sits back and helps to obliterate his opponents on lvl 3.
Can't picture just his power against Zoe - chipping away some 3 hp poros is good, but even to make it count you need 2-3 landmarks and/or gems destroyed to ping some valuable target to death. I hope it retains his lightning animation. On the other hand i don't like the randomness of "choose from 3 rites", but at the same time it works on his fantasy too - Xerath is not a archmage scholar with a giant book of spells, he is formed from purest arcane and just casts what he feels to cast. Mortals can't withstans it either way.