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Ashe Ability Updates

OnlyEpic·7/19/2014, 6:02:27 AM·21 votes·4,915 views

###Hello Everyone!

http://i.imgur.com/XnEwDQA Today I want to talk with you all about the Champion Ashe - The Frost Archer

"With each arrow she fires from her ancient ice-enchanted bow, Ashe proves she is a Master Archer. She chooses each target carefully, waits for the right moment, and the strikes with Power and Precision. It is with this same vision and focus that she pursues her goal of uniting the tribes of the Freljord and forging them into a mighty nation."

A quote of the beginning of Ashe's lore show a bit of what Ashe is all about as a Master Archer. Power and Precision.

Ashe has fallen out of favor, and although she was strong in Season 3 as Ashe/Zyra botlane (proven by Cloud 9), she didn't offer nearly as much as the ADC's of today. Be that due to number changes, item changes, or just meta changes, Ashe is a Utility Carry who has exceptional precision and is able to slow with her frost enchanted bow. As she stands now though, she is unable to bring much of that.

Here are some minor changes that still fit thematically with Ashe, but aren't a rework of her kit or her identity, just changes to give her back her Niche and make her viable over other options given the situation.

Focus If Ashe has not attacked in the last 3 seconds, she gains 4 / 5 / 6 / 7 / 8 Focus stacks per second. At 100 stacks, Ashe will critically strike on her next basic attack. Thereafter, Focus stacks will reset to an amount equal to her critical strike chance. [This is the current Passive for Ashe the changed one will be below]

[Edited Passive] If Ashe has not attacked a champion in the last 3 seconds, she gains 2 / 3 / 4 / 5 / 6 Focus stacks per second. At 100 stacks, Ashe will critically strike on her next basic attack against a champion. Thereafter, Focus stacks will reset to an amount equal to her critical strike chance.

Changing the passive to affect champions only makes her ability to capitalize on poor positioning in and out of lane with a very strong and intimidating first attack, it also fit her lore in that "She chooses each target carefully, waits for the right moment." I don't know about you, but critically striking a creep doesn't seem like "the right moment." Reducing the crit scaling reduces the early game power, while still powerful mid-late.

Frost Shot TOGGLE: Ashe enchants her basic attacks with ice, slowing her targets for 2 seconds. SLOW: 15 / 20 / 25 / 30 / 35%

[Edited Q] TOGGLE: Ashe enchants her basic attacks with ice, slowing her targets for 1.75 seconds. This effect can stack up to 3 times. COST: 8 MANA PER ATTACK SLOW: 5% / 8% / 11% / 14% / 17%

[Numbers changed after talking to MrBuffington and Khodexus and Zbane1] The stacking slow makes repetitive autos much more successful in kiting, as well as chasing, while not initially being too powerful. This also mean that hard engage champions (Malphite, Maokai, Amumu, etc.) still will be able to negate the slow effect if they land their abilities, while "kite-able" champs will still have a hard time engaging. Ashe will also have a lot higher chasing potential, allowing her to prevent an enemy escape with her enchanted arrows and superior marksmanship.

Volley Note: Holy cow this skill makes me cringe looking at the scaling. ACTIVE: Ashe fires 7 arrows in a 57.5º cone, dealing physical damage to each target hit. Each arrow will only hit one enemy, and each enemy will only be hit by one arrow. Volley also applies the current rank of Frost Shot, regardless of whether it is toggled on or not. PHYSICAL DAMAGE PER ARROW: 40 / 50 / 60 / 70 / 80 (+ 100% AD) COOLDOWN: 16 / 13 / 10 / 7 / 4 COST: 60 MANA RANGE: 1200

[Edited W] ACTIVE: Ashe fires 7 enchanted arrows in a 57.5º cone, dealing physical damage and applying one stack of Frost Shot, regardless of if it was toggled on or not, to each target hit. These enchanted arrows pierce their enemies, ignoring 10% of their armor. Arrows can strike champions up to three times, however arrows past the first deal 25% of the original damage. PHYSICAL DAMAGE PER ARROW: 40 / 50 / 60 / 70 / 80 (+ 100% AD)(+60% AP) COOLDOWN: 10 / 8 / 6 / 5 / 4 COST: 45 MANA RANGE: 1200

Ashe shoots 7 enchanted arrows, these arrows can still hit creeps and thus be dodged. The arrows now do more damage as they ignore armor, as well as still applying your slow. The lower level 1 base cooldown also scales less sporadically than it does on live, smoothing out to the current 4 seconds cooldown.

Hawkshot PASSIVE: Ashe gains 3 bonus gold each time she kills a unit or destroys a structure. ACTIVE: Ashe animates a hawk to scout for her, granting sight for 2 seconds as it flies towards a target location. Hawkshot grants a 1000-radius area of sight for 5 seconds when it reaches its destination. The sight extends into brushes. RANGE: 2500 / 3250 / 4000 / 4750 / 5500 COOLDOWN: 60 / 55 / 50 / 45 / 40 No Cost

*[Edited E]*PASSIVE: Ashe gains 3 bonus gold each time she kills a unit or destroys a structure. ACTIVE: Ashe animates a hawk to scout for her, granting sight for 2 seconds as it flies towards a target location. Hawkshot grants a 1000-radius area of sight for 5 seconds when it reaches its destination and reveals traps and invisible units in the area. The sight extends into brushes. RANGE: 2500 / 3250 / 4000 / 4750 / 5500 COOLDOWN: 60 / 55 / 50 / 45 / 40 No Cost

Allowing hawkshot to see say eve or twitch as well as reveal teemo shrooms cait traps and nid traps offers more utility to it, acting as a long range pseudo-oracles (still doesn' reveal green wards, just pinks if they would have been revealed anyways). This is a utility change, and shouldn't actually effect game play.

Enchanted Crystal Arrow ACTIVE: Ashe fires a giant arrow in a straight line. If it hits an enemy champion, it will deal magic damage and stun that champion for 1-3.5 second(s), based on the distance the arrow traveled. Additionally, enemies within a 250-radius of the impact take half the damage and are slowed by 50% for 3 seconds. MAGIC DAMAGE: 250 / 425 / 600 (+ 100% AP) SPLASH DAMAGE: 125 / 212.5 / 300 (+ 50% AP) COST: 100 MANA COOLDOWN: 100 / 90 / 80 RANGE: Global Max Stun at 2800 units (may need to re verify this, it should be listed on the tooltip IMO)

[Edited R] ACTIVE: Ashe fires a giant arrow in a straight line. If it hits an enemy champion, it will deal magic damage and stun that champion for 1-3.5 second(s), based on the distance the arrow traveled. Additionally, enemies within a 250-radius of the impact take 75% of the damage and are slowed by 50/60/70% for 1-3.5 seconds. MAGIC DAMAGE: 250 / 425 / 600 (+ 100% AP) SPLASH DAMAGE: 187.5 / 318.75 / 225 (+ 75% AP) COST: 100 MANA COOLDOWN: 100 / 90 / 80 RANGE: Global

The increase in AoE, slow, and damage make this a more impactful ability when maximized (since to get the max stun you have to be 2800 units away when firing the arrow). Since this is one the the major reasons you play Ashe (Utility ADC, get a pick with ult), it should be exceptionally impactful. As a slow moving ult it can be avoided when warned, and if fired short range it will pose less (since the slow also scales with range now).

As for now, that's all I am suggesting. This isn't a kit rework, as her kit does the same thing it does in live, just some changes that I feel would make her more enjoyable to play, as well as making her a very viable pick in niche situations (or as a pick you enjoy playing).

If you liked this, bump it. Enough upvotes and maybe even Rito senpai will notice us!

88 Comments

StayCozy7/19/2014, 6:24:13 AM1 votes

The new passive is super nice, in my opinion. I know I'm not the only person to accidentally miss-click a creep instead of landing that juicy crit on the enemy ADC.

Frost Shot is nice, too. I liked your original idea of adding a steroid on it or making it do damage, but this feels a lot more Ashe to me. Dude.. If this was live, she and Braum would legitimately be unstoppable.

Volley seems nice, too, but I almost wish it would allow more than simply one arrow to hit. I mean I'm not a whiz when it comes to mechanically breaking something down so maybe that would be too strong, but if I threw out 7 arrows in a cone and someone was close enough, more than one arrow's gunna hit. I mean, come on :P Maybe instead of always applying 2 stacks of Frost Shot, you could instead have it add up to 3 if more than one arrow hits? She should be rewarded if someone's on her face with how immobile she is, even with your change to her Q. But that's just what I think.

Enchanted Crystal Arrow makes me so happy you don't even know. I hate when even if I land that beautifully perfect ult on one of their squishies while my team is en route with the follow up, the people around can counter engage because the effects wore off and they took like no damage. It hurts my soul. This little bufferino would make it a bit more worth those long distance engages without making it something stupid like a crazy across-the-map-Amumu-Ult!

Good work sir (:

Zarkkast7/19/2014, 6:40:26 PM1 votes

I might me alone in this, but I think her E is kind of underwhelming when compared to other adcs' kits. Maybe if the hawk marked enemies it saw making her deal % armor damage to enemies marked? Not an incredibly high percentage, of course. And it also fits thematically with her lore.

YouLostMe7/19/2014, 8:23:05 PM1 votes

A huge stacking slow is really not fun for anybody. Ashe is just as boring as before but now Shiv is mandatory, and enemies without gapclosers just don't get to play against her.

A lot of similar problems still exist with ashe. She still doesn't have very engaging gameplay, she still has a slow and frustrating chase/kite mechanic against anyone without dashes, and she still has 0 escapes once an enemy cc's her. Your design basically empowered the parts of her kit that make her frustrating to play against without solving the problems that make her frustrating to play.

Khodexus7/19/2014, 9:24:19 PM1 votes

As for Ashe (since my comment below didn't actually mention her); my thought here, with these particular changes (I have my own list of changes I'd like to see that are probably beyond the scope of this particular thread) is that the stacking should have a slightly diminished return.

So what about: 7%-12%-15%/10%-17%-21%/13%-22%-27%/16%-27%-33%/19%-32%-39%

This gives the initial stack a little more punch, but with max stacks it's not quite so devastating. It also means you're gaining significant power with each rank in the skill, but it still scales a little more smoothly.

For W, what if you allowed multiple arrows to hit champions (and only champions, minions still get only 1 arrow per volley), but similarly gave a diminishing return. Like -20% damage per arrow after the first, up to a maximum of 5 arrows hitting the same target. That's only 20% damage on that last arrow for a total of 300% damage. Also, I'd apply 1 stack of her Q for 1 arrow hit, and another stack for every 2 arrows after the first, so if you hit with 5 of her seven arrows, it'd apply all three stacks, or 2 stacks with 3.

Finally, and I've said this before, I'd really like to see a few more mixed ratios on Ashe somehow, somewhere. Right now, her ultimate is the only part of her kit that benefits at all from AP, and as useful as it is, it's hard to justify an AP build on Ashe just for an awesome ultimate you hardly ever get to use.

Now, I think it'd be awesome and thematic if you got some AD damage on her ultimate, at least for the single impact target, but failing that I'd at least like to see some AP out of one or two of her other abilities, whether it's a reworked passive, some AP on her volley, or even her frost shot (though I'm not sure how you'd add any AP scaling there, maybe slow duration?)

I think she honestly needs a completely different passive, though I do think this subtle adjustment is a definite improvement. My current preference is a passive that grants her a flat static value to her critical hit chance, that scales with level (15/20/25/30 at levels 1/6/11/16 for instance), and then grant her an ice themed added effect when she crits, such as a .3/.4/.5 second snare (at levels 1/8/15).

Let me know if you like any of these thoughts.

KLee10077/20/2014, 4:51:35 AM1 votes

I agree that she needs her Volleyshot cooldown need to be reduced. But the rest, I don't. The reason why we max Vollyeshot first is to be 'at least' have some proper lane phase and thts why ppl give only 1 point to frost arrow and neglect it until volleyshot is maxed. I have never felt that Q was useful unless its level reached higher than 4. The 'usual' AD carry item tree won't maximize her uitility fully with still some relatively low damage. The Trinity Force is the only item tht could boost her frost shot, but it's expensive to buy right away (and its better to buy common ADC items for better farming). Also, her auto attack motion is rubbish that it's hard to kite in early level 'and' has no escape skill. So I think it'd be just better to make frost arrow's slow rate higher than the one that is right now, unless she's given an escape skill.

Hawk shot, yeh its balanced, but not useful. Better have escape skill than Hawkshot. I mean, even Quinn has E for escape, who is way stronger and has passive that boost her attack and movement speed when attak marked enemy, why not Ashe?

And I think her crystal arrow doesn't need much change. Riot should give a hint to us that at by each set of distance, how much stun time will we get. And should buff its stun rate at very close range shot, if Ashe cannot have an escape skill.

Atajo7/20/2014, 9:54:35 PM1 votes

I like the overall direction you've taken with this, but suggestions that amount to straight-up buffs worry me. Ashe is currently enormously strong in a few specific situations, while being weaker than average overall. As such, she gets used as a niche pick where that utility/situation use is expected to be required. Bringing up her overall power level inevitably increases her present power spikes, and I don't think anyone feels accidentally shoving a champ into must-ban status is a good idea.

I'll just leave a couple of quick points here, will return for in depth stuff later.

Ashe's strongest power spike in my opinion is a solo pick on the enemy ADC or mage. Midrange arrow (out of vision range, but able to get into AA range before stun expires) into full combo is currently a huge chunk of damage with the conventional mid-game IE+Shiv. A direct ultimate hit, automatic AA crit, critical Shiv proc, and Volley does ~1480 mixed damage before mitigation before her target can do anything (magic damage: 450 from rank 2 R, 250 Shiv. physical 500 AA crit, 280 Volley w/ 200 AD). Grabbing a squishy champ not at full health or adding another couple AAs wipes them from the map with little to no response. I'm not saying Ashe is OP right now, but it's not exactly a part of her that needs buffs, if you follow.

Volley changes: AP ratio is nice, not sold on bonus armor pen though. Food for thought: Back in beta, Volley could strike targets multiple times. This was later removed. Also, it's kind of Graves' thing, yes? Cooldown also used to be 20/16/12/8/4, dropping it to 10/8/6/5/4 from 16/13/10/7/4 while lowering the mana cost worries me for lane bully potential. It's already pretty effective poke in lane.

Passive: This is an enormous buff to her early lane. Ashe can now shove hard with constant autos and still get that burst coming up every minute. Furthermore, it is held ready when CSing. Read from the enemy perspective, it says: "Ashe's first attack will ALWAYS crit me."

KLee10077/21/2014, 8:45:06 AM1 votes

BTW, what happens when Riot never answers this thread for a long time? Does it get deleted and you will start a new thread with same topic?

Stacona7/21/2014, 4:29:46 PM1 votes

Ashe is fine right now, she just needs to get played, in all honesty she is the best scaling marksman in the game right now because of her utility, nothing actually beats a 6 item Ashe- NA is also filled with idiots that wait until someone else does something first then copies them, we will never be the top tier region if we do that

Muted Summoner7/22/2014, 9:52:19 AM1 votes

These are some nice changes I considered once giving her a bit more mobility when close to her slowed targets but this change to me seems closer to her original kit and just better.

The W change I'm not sure. Giving it armor pen in addition more than 1 arrow can hit a target? But tbh with so many more ADCs able to push out so much damage, the W change might be justified.