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thoughts by an OTP ahri about her state and her future

wildfox99·2/14/2018, 9:05:45 PM·3 votes·834 views

hi,i'm a main ahri,sure not literally an otp but i play her almost every game,and i wanted to give my feedback (to both riot and lol community) about her actual state and how she could be changed

i saw that riot is going to look at her kit,and i wanted to point out what exatly feels bad in her kit and what in my opinion should be changed,based on my experiance and what i heard by other ahri mains

edit : the post is really long,that's why i separated each point with a title

i know it can be boring (though nobody is forcing anyone to read this),but i wanted to be as precise as possible

HER ISSUES

first off,as meddler said she feels underwhelming because you feel like you have 0 impact on the game,you are safe so it's hard getting caught (unless they can't chain CC with undodgable stuns you have literally to int for getting caught),but your damage is too low

another big issue is her skillcap,it's too low and she doesn't reward you for being an experienced player (not as much as other champions does),that's why so many ahri mains are quitting this champion

her kit is too flat and her abilities have no interaction with each other

look at lux's kit (just for making some examples),you hit an ability and your next AA proc her passive,you can use your Q for setting up your combo,they can't dodge and your R will proc her passive,also is not a bad idea slowing your enemy with your E before...

syndra have to manipulate her balls,orianna as well

ahri's kit is only raw damage or separate effects,you missed your E? ok 80 less damage,who care you charmed someone? throw a Q just because it will 100% hit,then there is no reason for continuing your combo,R wont do anything and her W as well is only raw damage,no interaction with her E/Q at all W as i said have no interaction in her kit Q as well,the only real interaction is with her R that is supposed to help her to hit the way back,but as long as she have this movement speed she doesn't need to do it at all

that's a big issue,because in this way she have 2 separate playstyles in her kit,E/Q push her toward safely poking from the distance (trying to hit them at max range and then running away with her Q ms),W/R push her toward getting near,going in and fight (ofc her W and R are way weaker then her E/Q so atm she's more toward a safe playstyle)

on top of that her abilities already feels underwhelming themselves

her passive needs to be reworked in my opinion,it's useless unless you are proccing it with your Q in a minion wave (basically only useful in laning phase,after that you almost feel like you are playing without a passive)

Q is fine as it is,you only have to remove the movement speed,personally i don't like it dealing true damage since ahri is not supposed to kill tanks,but that's not a big problem

W feels so bad to use due its low base damage/scaling,it can be almost good if you are hitting a single target but you are not controlling it,it's all up an AI not to mentoning its multi target damage that just tickle

her E gives no reward for being hit,i mean,it deals raw damage and CC your enemy,but again it have no interaction with her kit,if you hit with your Q on a charmed and not-charmed champion there is no difference it makes her more safe since she doesn't need to getting near or doing something for making her charm effective,you can hit someone at its max range and you did its damage

that's why many ahri mains want her charm damage boost back (i strongly disagree with that,but it's an example of reward for hitting this skillshoot which is not raw damage)

her R works better as escape than as engage/gap closer,its damage is too delayed (3 sec+) compared with the rest of her kit then it feels bad to use due its really low range (lower than her AA range) and because adding her W she have 2 abilities controlled by an AI (that works in a similar way)

about her laning phase,it's basically only Q and AA while playing safe with her Q movement speed + sustain,but i think it's fine once you remove her safeness (Q movement speed and outdated sustain passive) since she's supposed to be weak in early game

WHAT SHE NEEDS

in 4 words : damage / skill espression / identity

but as long she have mobility with her ult,buffing too much her rotation would make her kit problematic,she'd be either too strong (because able to 100-0 while having mobility) or too weak (dealing no damage)

i think giving her low CDs in her Q/W would help her giving a nice damage output without allowing her to 100-0 someone without doing a perfect combo,her counterplay would be clear :

  • dodge her charm
  • if she ult you know she's going to engage someone so you can get ready (if you have any mobility ability for example,you know when to use it)
  • if she can't kill you in 1 rotation you already have a delay on her combo (waiting for her low CD abilities),so you don't need to add some weird delay mechanics like for le blanc,then when mid-late/late game comes and she's almost full build i think it's fair if she can kill someone with 1 rotation if she do it correctly

spamming her abilities while surviving with her ult (3 delayed dashes) would fit her more than a 100-0 burst combo

about her kit becoming to strong for that,as long as you don't give a low CD on her escape (R) or CC (E),it wont be a problem

about identity,i think she can't be a pure kiting mage,because her only ability that really makes her "kite" is her Q movement speed her R is NOT a kiting ability (mobility =/= kiting),it's not spammable and i'd say it's totally counterproductive for a kiting champion healty,a kiting champion should be able to kite,keeping the distance while dealing damage,that makes them hard to engage when a champion on top of kiting abilities have one of the greatest escape of this game you can say his desine is toxic,and that's exactly the case

since these dash are part of ahri's identity (and one of the funniest part of her kit),i think it's out of question making her a pure kiting mage

she would be funny as assassin,but i think it's just a miniority that would make her a pure assassin,so no

she can't have the same damage/AoE/CC than an immobile mage,or there wouldn't be any point to pick them over ahri,so i don't think making her a pure burst mage would be the best

she could be nice as pick mage...yea,it's what she's supposed to be but riot has been pushing her first before an assassin playstyle,after in a pure kiting playstyle,making her lose her identity through these changes)

i mean,something like zoe (though i'm not asking for a zoe 2.0,one is more than enought!!!) supposed to pick a target and kill him,without being able to dive an entire team like an assassin does

WHAT SHOULD BE KEPT (if you rework something)

as i said her dashes are part of her identity of agile fox,as mechanics i really love her W having no cast,it makes her rotation smoother and would allow her to make some plays if it would deal some damage,her charm should be kept as well

as concept i love her stealing enemy vital essence and her foxfires (a kitsune isn't a kitsune without them)

SOME IDEAS FOR HER KIT

(if i give some value,don't take it seriously,are just indicative)

  • her Q could have an higher CD in early but it could scale with levels (example : 8/7.5/7/6.5/6),even this second would really make the difference

(if her W don't get reworked)

  • buffing her W in something like : 70/100/130/160/190 + 50% AP,10% per successive foxfires (max 228 + 60%AP vs 224 + 64% AP before W nerf and 224 + 48% AP post W nerf) would give her more multitarget damage and more reliability on her W (if 80% of the damage is on its first hit,you don't care too much don't hit the others)

  • changing her W CD to 7/6/5/4/3 sec,its CD (9/8/7/6/5) feels too long for what it does,as i said before giving a lower CD without adding too much damage would make her kit healty but would allow her to deal some damage

  • this one got proposed many times (once even in these boards if i'm not wrong),make her W prioritize charmed and / or autoattacked champions

  • rework her passive,change her E damage to 30/45/60/75/90 + 40%AP,the target gets marked for the next 3 sec,the next single target ability or AA pops it dealing 50/65/80/95/110 + 60% AP damage and healing for twice of this amount (halfed against lane minions) if you really want to keep her movement speed buff,this mark could give it (ofc removing the heal or reducing its damage)

  • change her R auto engaging projectiles to a single target empowered AA,you remove the AI from this ability,giving it more range (don't forget her R damage range is lower than her AA range),more control on this ability,while giving a delay on her combo it wouldn't feel bad to use,every ahri main knows how to AA between her abilities (many ahri main/otp build item 3100 for a reason),and changing it from an AoE to a single target ability would remove an unneded strength,i have more than 1.5M on her and i almost never used her ult for multi target damage,in 99% of the cases you are ulting either for escaping or picking a SINGLE target with your charm

  • reduce her R dashes from 3 to 2 which can be used during the buff duration,change it to a % damage amplifier that last 10 sec when you ult (for compensate the damage you are losing for having 1 less dash,it'd make her damage more reliant on her base rotation (aka,her E) without giving too much damage in her base rotation) if you get a takedown during this time the buff duration is resetted and you get an additional dash so her R would feel more like an "assault" and less like an escape,it would reward for an aggressive play while punishing harder for using it as escape (since both her mobility and part of her burst potential would be in her ult,but without adding it too much raw undodgable damage)

  • if her R stay untouched,at least change its damage to 140/220/300 + 50% AP,25% damage for successive hits on the same target,so at least it doesn't feels too bad using it for repositioning/mobility,without making it stronger in 1vs1 (then having less delay on this ability can only be good for who play ahri)

well,more or less i said everything,i hope this wall of text wasn't too long and that i didn't made too much grammatical errors (that's not my native language,and i'm an ape at talking english)

i would really appreciate if riot would see my feedback and will consider ahri's playerbase opinion,you can see it on /r/ahrimains,there is at least a post per week about how ahri could be balanced or ask on these boards,sure it wont be 100% of her playerbase but on reddit you'll find her most experienced playerbase,and anyway making a statistic on a large number of people (like reddit and/or lol boards) could give an idea how lol community would like this game to be (generalization)

4 Comments

Quil Evrything2/14/2018, 10:11:03 PM2 votes

Odd. I replied, but it vanished. here goes again.

FYI, I have 450,000 skillpoints on ahri.

main issue is, ahri cant get early kills unless enemy is really, REALLY stupid. her early game damage is too weak.

You say ahri is too mobile, and safe. Thats only true if you start celerity and boots or something. otherwise, her base movement is pretty slow, which translates to NOT safe.

PS: your article is about 200% too long >.<

HalcyonDweller2/14/2018, 10:55:05 PM1 votes

Lots of interesting ideas, I don't have the time to go through all of them right now, but I'd like to share some of my own thoughts about a few of them.

I agree that her R is very core to her identity, and I hope that Riot doesn't do too much to change it (unless they come up with something really cool that also delivers better on her theme).

In a similar vein, I think that her Q should actually stay as a skillshot orb. I'm less attached to the movement speed on it, because ideally later in the game she uses her ultimate to reposition so that the Q hits on the return.

Her Charm is definitely Iconic, but like you said it's not super interactive with the rest of her kit. It certainly serves as a good tool for making picks or chain-cc on enemies, and it delivers on her theme of being a temptress, but I believe that (given the level of innovation they have shown on recent reworks and new champions) Riot could do much better with it's mechanics now. Therefore I think her charm should be reworked to add more skill expression and counterplay.

It could still be a charm for sure, but it should be a more interesting mechanic. There's a lot of promise - just thematically speaking - in the idea of making it so she can drain life essence from enemies she charms. Perhaps they should move her passive onto her Charm and making her W a part of her passive, something that works on ability casts (thus freeing up space on her W slot and taking over the role of foxfires from her ultimate).

Her W is very lackluster. I agree. Not much else to say here, but I hope that whatever Riot does with it will improve her skill expression and make her more fun and engaging to play.