~ Bring Ashe back from the Ashes ~

Astral Chained·May 20, 2016·1 votes·1,087 views

So one of the rather traditional Marksmen would be the lovely and wonderful Ashe. 1. She has an adequate amount of CC in her passive, as well as her ultimate: being a slow and stun respectively 2. She has her bits of poke, and a very simple nature of kiting, which is a helpful maneuver at all stages of skill level and game-play. 3. She has a form of long range vision or scouting if you will in the presence of her hawkshot. 4. A fair boost to her attack speed/dps in the form of her rangers focus.

All traits that contribute to a somewhat adequate Carry. However, with that her own downfalls.

No escape besides her Flash.
No Defensive skills or utility aside from her ult.
No Scaling with Crit items.
No potential for disengages or engages aside from her ult.
Building defensive takes away from her meager possible damage output as it is.
Going full glass cannon makes you more of a glass flare gun by comparison to other carries.
Lowest hp/defensive stats out of EVERY MARKSMAN besides Ezreal. Which is okay because he has his E and literally gets free CDR from Q spamming.
Preseason changes gave just about every Marksman some unique twist and flavor and Ashe got nerfs.
Hasn't been touched since her rework in 5.9, with the exception of her Q's Focus stacks gaining 1 second in duration and the stacks gaining a natural falloff.
In the patch notes of her Q's tweak Scarizard says: "As a 'utility carry' Ashe's Strengths lie in kiting her pursuers rather than consistent damage output of other marksman. Embracing that style, however, can prove detrimental (even when shes doing it right)..."Post.
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        - Even when playing the champion correctly in her designated style, it has fatal consequences? That isn&#039;t okay.
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Calling Ashe a 'Utility Carry' is a specific niche only shared with one other Marksman...Markswoman, and that is Sivir. However Sivir has one of the hardest engages of 2016 (her ultimate), Self Peel/Defensive spell (Spell Shield)/ In addition to a natural kiting mechanic (Her Passive). She is immediately outclassed by the only other utility carry in the game except maybe Urgot. And hell, his ult is a harder form of Engage and an AOE Fear. Urgot has gotten updates before Ashe has.
According to lolking the top 25 Ashe players don't even have a positive KD/R They either break neutral (after going so far as to round the KD) or Negative.

Now who am I to comment and state an opinion? Just another player. That has feelings a much continued support of this champion. She was a favorite when I played back in S4, and then when I made this account in S5, and fell in love with her after the rework immediately. No questions asked. As of now nearly 200k Mastery points and broke the Lv7 Mastery barrier the moment it was implemented within a few hours of gameplay post patch as you'll see here and the game that I finally achieved my lv7 here. I feel like I have enough experience with the champion and her kit to bring some form of opinion and at least offer solutions on how to keep this Snow White Queen slaying the enemy team.

Solution One: Reintroduce the Focus stacks upon successfully hitting an enemy champion with your W- Volley & R- Enchanted Crystal Arrow. This allowed for a bit of a decent laning phase and made 1v1ing members of the opposing team possible by generating your passive Focus stacks while actually fighting with your only offensive spells. You literally only get 2. And one is actually your ult. So allow Ashe's utility to benefit her...?

Solution Two: Frost Shot's passive slow increasing in intensity based on follow up attacks against a target. Meaning the more subsequent hits you are able to land against your Foe, thus increasing your slow on them. Allowing you to effectively kite better and or force them to disengage or completely commit. This I feel is a fair modification especially considering how many Items grant movespeed, in addition to the amount of gap closers, and AOE speed increases: Youmuu, Rightous Glory, Deadmans, Swiftness boots (being a DIRECT counter to the slow), Lucian W, Sivir ult, Ekko's Passive, Karma's Ult+Shield, Etc.

Solution Three: Provide some actual Focus to Ranger's Focus. Similar to how a Vayne must kite and focus 1 target for maximum effectiveness, let Ashe's activated Q-Ranger's Focus deal increased damage against the same target the longer you 'focus' them. This allowing a bit of strategy and depth to who this Marksman will single out and focus in a fight. If you're going to rely on your kiting then allow your pursuers to be punished for skilled maneuvers. Naturally of course the Increase in damage ONLY applying to your Ranger's Focus when active, and not to other abilities. (Possibly light blue crosshair on the target growing in intensity as they are being 'focused' Similar to Zyra's plants marking the target with a feint red crosshair).

Solution Four: New passive- Frostbite. Deals increased damage to movement impaired targets. The damage increase being based on AD or even a simple percentage. Thus offering her a bit more synergy with a team comp that can provide CC, and/or a damage bonus to the CC that she herself provides. Similar to the Oppressor mastery, however this in turn working well with her kit. Now this doesn't apply if the target is just standing still, however a slight bonus to targets slowed scaling with the slow percentage (allowing BORK to be viable) and higher ratios of damage for HARD CC, such as a Snare/Root or Stun/Suppress allowing the highest amount of additional damage to be done.

Now I am well open to critiques and other suggestions so long as they are creative in nature and origin. I'm not looking for a super out of control hyper carry, I just make a proposal for a champion that has a special place in my heart, and whom deserves a tender loving touch against her Ashe. Thank you for reading~

Also, I think this is my first forum post ^-^

Edit: This thread is NOT suggesting all of these changes to be implemented at once to allow her to snowball into some over powered monster. These are slight balance changes seeing as how shes a bit underwhelming. At the very least, solution 1 has the least amount of "over power" or abuse related possibilities tied into it. Consider that it was already in her kit upon release before down voting or nay-saying in the comments.

31 Comments

LaserDeathBladeMay 20, 20163 votes

I think Ashe is perfectly fine, and is a good example of what an ADC should be

The problem with Ashe and every other 'normal' ADC is Ezreal/Lucian are too fukin OP

Better to just nerf those two instead of power creeping the ADC class even more

Astral ChainedMay 20, 20161 votes

Lucian has sustained nerfs recently, most notably his Ultimate's range. Ez was also punished with ultimate nerfs, but thats resolved through his innate Q spam CDR.

The point that Im making is, in the actual marksman update. Everyone got some form of something. She literally has nothing. Like actually got nerfed. That was a bad time period for her to be a marksman. Twitch got some additional tweaks to his Q allowing for chained stealth, and all the other minor changes. But the point Im making isn't to power creep anything. She was literally nerfed to shit. How are you going to have a Marksman update. And then kill off one of the marksmen? Like what?

Edit: The Strength lies in the build paths for Lucian taking advantage of the unique item passives. And we know the birth of blue Ez. That isnt the champion, that is finding a nice niche that they fit in and can find an advantage. Hell Kog, Cait, Varus, Trist all use Runans. So what actual advantage do you have for Ashe? A weak passive that's literally ignored by any form of altered movement? Ok, thanks.

Rand0mH3r0XMay 20, 20161 votes

I would like Ashe's Q not to have 5 stacks in order to activate. It makes the Q so absent until late, when Ashe has enough attack speed to make it work, and everyone has armor to counter.

I would honestly prefer: Q - Focus Passive: Every 5th basic attack against a target slows for 30% and %bonus damage equal to missing health %. Active: Increases Ashe's Attack Speed by 20/30/40/50/60%

That way, she gets a bonus for "Focus"ing a target, and still retains her attack speed bonus. This gives Ashe a reason to continue a barrage against someone like Lucian who can deal out a large amount of damage in relatively short time.

For most marksmen buffed in the marksman update, they aren't as reliant on Attack Speed as they were before.

Astral ChainedMay 20, 20161 votes

Her Q only needs 4 stacks.

LaserDeathBladeMay 20, 20161 votes

I'm pretty sure if Lucian didn't have insane damage on top of his insane mobility, he wouldn't be so OP - so no it's not just the items.

Taking Ez/ Lucian out of the equation, Ashe is in a pretty balanced position regardless of what changes might have happened. There are plenty of reasons you'd pick Ashe over an alternative like Jinx/ MF/ Cait /Vayne, and also plenty of reasons you'd pick an alternative champ over Ashe.

Astral ChainedMay 20, 20161 votes

Lucian has a high skill cap and decent base stats. Only thing is his recent itemization allows him to be a very strong carry indiscriminately shedding your armor and HP. But what does that mean? Nerf him? No. He's just got a well working buildpath and nice base stats.

Jinx, vayne. Tank shredding hypercarries.

Cait, MF. Poke and siege champions that can crit from crazy range as well as output amazing damage one with an escape and the other a very non modest move speed boost. Funny thing if I'm not mistaken MF has an AoE slow. Cait has single target slow that also works as an escape. And can snare an entire front line while doing damage.

Kiting, CC? Things that Ashe's kit is based upon yet everyone doing a much better job of it. Now yes I do enjoy Jinx a ton and much love for Mf as well but they quickly and easily out scale and out dps Ashe.

YordlelayhehooMay 20, 20162 votes

Now that Zyra support is absurd, ahse zyra is a pretty great bot lane once again

Astral ChainedMay 20, 20161 votes

I played a Zyra game and her kit is very interesting. Plenty of room for mistakes but you can provide excellent peel and coverage for your ADC. However, I was laning with a Jinx that game.

9kPluzZMay 20, 20162 votes

Bruh, at least checkout high-elo/other regions before you make a balance post. Ashe is a high priority pick in Korean high-elo right now. This post is a waste.

Astral ChainedMay 20, 20162 votes

Same as stated above. Mr. High Elo, explain why she's not seen in competitive play? Lucian, twitch and Ashe compose the hugest picks. But who are you to base statistics on a single region as a sound base of judgment for a champion across ALL regions. That bandwagon attitude gets you nowhere.

To go even further you have no answer or justification as to why another marksman gets shat on during the marksman update. "Let's make everyone stronger than Ashe, but let's reduce her effectiveness as well". At the very least point 1 & 2 could work. As far as the original focus mechanic and some form of increased slow or damage to focused targets. Keep in mind she DOESN'T EVEN SCALE WITH CRIT. Immediately being out scaled by just about anyone.

9kPluzZMay 20, 20161 votes

she was seen in competitive play just last season, after the rework. Hyper carrys just arnt in the meta

Astral ChainedMay 20, 20161 votes

Yes, Season 5. After her rework. Then the Marskman Update. Where her rework changes were nerfed/removed. And with 2 LCS Splits having just occurred. She had not been played more than 4 times the entire time. The only one I personally recall was in the KR LCS Spring Split when the ADC of SSW played Ashe against SKT.

Where is your 'valid' argument now?

ZarkkastMay 20, 20162 votes

Ashe is currently the ADC with the second highest win rate.

She's far from needing any buffs.

KieferrMay 20, 20162 votes

Ashe got completely updated last April 2015 if I remember correctly. Does NOT need another rework
Her winrate is incredibly high for an immobile, low damage adc especially with the amount of tanks and zeds running around these days
All your suggested changes are straight up buffs that would likely put her over the edge in terms of power
Solution 4... u can't be serious?? Her passive applies cc to targets that she autos, u know that right? So.... do increased damage just for doing damage?

No offense, but you need to really educate yourself and understand how the game works better if you wanna suggest changes ppl are going to take seriously.

Astral ChainedMay 20, 20161 votes

These suggestions aren't a rework just a touch up. If you actually read the Op you'd see that clearly.

Her kit innately works well against tanks, provided she has enough time to safely position herself.

The changes suggested were NOT designed to all be accepted and implemented. Just a series of solutions to at least keep her in relevance. Keep in mind; I main this champion. As if I haven't done my research. Lucian and twitch are up there in terms of win rates.

Specifically to your bullet point 3: first solution used to be in game but was removed God knows why. It was an effective and fun part of her kit allowing for chains and combos when fighting.

Lastly maybe you should do your research or at least learn how to read. This champion LITERALLY hadn't been touched since her rework. And when she was, during the marksman update of all things, she was nerfed. So everyone gets changes and whole new kits, but your neutralize the kit of one marksman on the list. During the entirety of the LCS games, since you want to make comparatives that don't matter, she was played fewer than 4 games across the NA and KR LCS. But why are you attempting to base your negative remarks on the statistics of ONE region? If KR has a high winrate of Crit build Darius with life steal that means nothing at all. Point in case she was great after her rework. Then nerfed to a mediocre carry.

Once again. Check the description and documents yourself before automatically telling one to educate themselves.

KieferrMay 20, 20162 votes

She is completely relevant, there isn't much wrong with her at all. If you want to see irrelevant, look at Urgot, Cassiopeia, and Tahm Kench. Just because shes not strong, doesn't mean she's weak. She may not be meta, but she sure is one hell of a strong niche pick. And why do u keep making a big deal out of competitive play? Whether she gets picked there or not doesn't even matter, it shouldn't be an indication of how strong a champ is. Yi is terrible in competitive, but extremely strong in solo q. Champions get nerfed from time to time (yeah, even your precious mains). Deal with it and stop crying.

Astral ChainedMay 20, 20161 votes

Urgot recently had a slight tweak to the effectiveness of his ult in the form of an AOE Fear, and before that receiving damage reduction while casting.

Cassiopeia has recently been completely reworked in the Mid-season. Moot point. And has additional tweaks coming her way as of recently to keep her in stronger spirits as well as gameplay. Legit. 6 Damage items. This was an irrelevant statement for you to make for the sake of sounding correct or intelligent.

Tahm is actually still played and is effective as all hell. Maybe not as hefty as a solo laner, but more than capable of holding his own, his team, and the enemy team within the depths of his fearsome maw.

I brought up Competitive play for the sake of everyone arguing what the 'KR Meta' and top tier marksman picks are as of right now based on pick rates and overall scores. To provide a baseline with the other statements and comments fellow forumers are making. As for her strength in Solo Q, where you are basically at the mercy of your team's picks and competence regardless of your own ability. You cannot solo carry a game as that champion. Period. To which you will likely argue, "Then just pick a stronger/More Dominant/Harder Carry", when that shouldn't be the case to pick another champion because they are stronger. When you can keep this one from being as weak as she is.

Dismissed.

MiraweaveMay 20, 20162 votes

Ashe is fine. The best ADCs in the game right now happen to counter her.

Astral ChainedMay 20, 20161 votes

That would make it seem as if she is indeed not fine, when the very people she's laning against counter her. Let alone the remainder of the enemy team.

PiVoRxMay 20, 20161 votes

bring yi back from dumpster

Astral ChainedMay 20, 20161 votes

Yi recently got a buff and modification to his ultimate. His Wuju Style deals even more true damage, and his ultimate has a shorter initial duration but longer chain activation upon kills or assists. Making for a decisive stance in superior Yi players. Unless you mean old AP Yi. In which case please god no.

NarvuntienMay 20, 20161 votes

Ashe is great her problem is that everyone is playing Lucian or Kalista and other champions that ignores her slow completely.

Basically she is fine they are OP.

Astral ChainedMay 20, 20161 votes

Instead of calling everyone over powered, let's face facts that she's just underwhelming. You can't go on a sweep weakening everyone for the sole purpose of keeping her relevant, how about instead as the title suggests, we adjust her slightly to allow some form of competition. Against high mobility champions you could argue her slow right? But during preseason, that was the first thing they REDUCED. The overall consensus is "Ashe is trashe but it's fine she can stay there so as to not be an actual threat in game". From the perspective of an Ashe main, I know for a fact she barely can go toe to toe against other carries only to get outscaled by the 2-3rd item. That's not even taking into account the remainder of their team comp.

RandomoniumMay 20, 20161 votes

While I appreciate the work you put into the post I honestly think Ashe is fine as she is. Yeah she didn't get touched in the "marksman update" but she did get a rework before that.

She also has a very high win rate in high elo and even saw some play at worlds in season 5. The meta doesn't favor her right now so we don't see her much in competitive play now but I have a feeling that the meta is shifting and we'll see her more in the summer split. She actually has a surprising amount of burst and with the vision changes her E is much more valuable now.

Astral ChainedMay 20, 20161 votes

Yes she got a rework, but as stated in the Op. She actually got nerfed to shit during the actual Marksman update. My issue isnt she was left behind or untouched. She was kicked while being down. https://gyazo.com/b8a3a1cb37a34fa1f26d6b22542e52ba

So that was the only actual change Im arguing for.

RandomoniumMay 20, 20161 votes

Eh, the Q change was a pretty massive buff. Later her Q got buffed again to proc after 4 hits instead of 5. She is currently sitting at the second highest win rate in plat +. Whenever I play her she feels powerful and yet very unique and distinctive. I think you're barking up the wrong tree personally.

DrehirthMay 20, 20161 votes

Hi. I'd like to say that I mostly don't agree with the post, but you put so much effort into it i'm going to go into detail why on most points.

1 Yes this is her definitive drawback and one of the things that is her weakness; however I don't think this should change really, because of how much it would change the character and ADD to mobility creep when I think they should be at least attempting to move away from it.

2 "Defensive skills" mostly sounds like another word for escape, and was already part of your first point.

                                                                                                                                                           Second, I think it's a shame you didn't mention her hawk shot and how much of a game saver it can be; while I can see why some people may have trouble using it to it's full potential, have you ever been in the lose-lose situation where the enemy team was able to set up shop near baron, and cleared wards? Blue trinket serves the same purpose, but may be on cooldown at the worst moment. The vision it provides can save your team from face checking/ getting caught or from enemy team killing baron for free and allows your team to take decisive action (because often times that situation leads to the enemy team getting baron for free AND people getting caught because no decisive action was taken)

Also early/mid game hawkshot into the enemies jungle more often than not will show exactly where the enemy jungler is, which is unbelievably useful information for the team. Say you see him at his wolves, your mid laner knows he may be getting ganked soon, and will hang out on the opposite side of his lane because he'll know which direction the jungler will come from. Your top laner knows they aren't getting ganked and can be more aggresive etc.

Also her ult is too game changing to be dismissed so casually. You, as an adc, have the option to start a fight without putting yourself in danger. That's more control over a game that most adcs won't have, and can be a big deal in solo queue if you become good at shot calling.

3 Not even sure where you get this from, have you read her passive? She basically gains ad on her autos from building crit, how is that not scaling with crit? One important thing to note is how her passive actually makes an infinity edge alone gold efficient and a ridiculous power spike. Other IE ads often build a zeal, or even complete ruunans before finishing IE because of how inefficient it is on its own, and are much slower to get going because of this. What's better is that nobody will realize this in a game, and often underestimate you causing you to win all ins in lanes that were even or even losing before.

4 ? Again her ult shouldn't be dismissed so casually, but I've covered that. Disengaging is very easy while your team is being chased with volley, I don't see the validity of this point (Sorry). Especially because most other ads don't have this at all, and will basically be forced to wait for one team to engage for them.

5 I think most ads are struggling with both feeling the need to build defensive, and needing to do enough damage to kill the tanks explained well in this video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EZoQHSLsuAw

Having said that I've seen my damage increase quite dramatically in games where I've built defensive item after my first core two items, in other words her damage is very far from meager so long as you are alive and I don't think she suffers significantly worse than other immobile ads.

6 Not sure what you mean by this.

7 Not really? I'm looking at other ads base stats and give or take they aren't far from eachother. She has higher health than several early, and slightly less than those same ads later on. She seems middle of the pack tbh, vayne's stats are even lower than Ashe's.

8 Yea, feelsbadman.

9 If any changes are made they really should be in baby steps like they had been doing since her rework. I'd 100000000000000000000x prefer this treatment of balance compared to what happened to kog'maw with basically being trash to OP, to being completely lopsided with his skills.

10 Riot didn't think it was okay either, which is why that was said as justification for a slight buff??

11 Sivir's good, probably better overall than ashe (which is why she's seen pro play recently), but let's not forget how she was never played until ONE slight change to her w being allowed to crit (and a general consensus they she would again not be played if that were removed). This again is why I don't think any major changes/rework should be made if there are any made at all.

12 These stats aren't very relevant I think... and even if they were they don't even agree with what you said. The highest ranked player was diamond 5, and they had a very solid kda of 3.37, the next highest were in plat 4 with kda of over 2, I didn't bother looking at the rest because at this point even my own stats would seem just as relevant http://na.op.gg/summoner/userName=drehirth (leave my winrate alone I swear it was above 60% 2 weeks ago before my worst loss streak ever -_- while playing this game, even though my kda didn't change and I don't think I played significantly worse in those games either but I digress haha)

One last point I feel like I should make is that she actually has a good laning phase despite what people seem to think... Let me put it this way.. ezreal has a safer lane and can still do okay even with a potato for a support, but all things being equal Ashe does great against most ads in lane. The only one I struggle with all things being even is a good draven. Then again often times you'll have the advantage of being underestimated in lane. If you have 4 stacks of q ready to go as lucian dashes into you... you win that fight... many lucians have made that mistake and have had to burn a summoner immediately afterwards. The only problem is when their support counters yours or is in general better than yours..

So my main point here is that I'm not in favor of any large changes, and hesitant for any straight up buffs (again, kog'maw's treatment has scared me). For now I'll be happy to another nerf of swiftness boots.

Cheers from a fellow Ashe player [slayer-pantheon-thumbs]

Astral ChainedMay 20, 20161 votes

Seeing as this is the first fully thought out and fair response aside from the simple down-voting, I appreciate that. To take things a step further along the lines of "tweaking". Were it changed so that her E upon detonation were to continue to provide vision of enemies revealed in the zone for a bit of time afterwards (similar to old scurrying orb), and again the reintroduction of Focus stacks coming from her W and R that alone would be more than ample to satisfy her kits shortcomings.

Naturally in a balance post, there are going to be some ideas that are a bit outlandish, that is expected. So that by comparison the minor suggestions are taken a bit more seriously for the sake of compromise. That would allow her to be able to get her Rangers Focus off more effectively and live up to her potential as a Kiting utility carry. But seeing as how you can only gain stacks on basic attacks means you leave yourself much more vulnerable by stopping to do so. Whereas you can run back with a volley or two then AA into your Focus at that point having a HOPE of coming out on top.

Keep in mind in the images Ive included Im not saying the champion as is, located in an unplayable state. Im saying her last balance changes were nerfs, and its a bit difficult to find an early lead and provide enough presence to maintain it. If you want to argue her Ult being a game changer then sure; lets include QSS, Clense, Mikael's Crucible, Morgana's Shield, Banshees Veil, and whatever other counters to that "Game changer". What are you left with? A kite ability with a half severed string. Instead of nerfing items, or nerfing champions, bring one small tweak that would provide a bit of backbone towards her playstyle and ability to become an Attack Damage Carry.

Darth SidioussMay 20, 20161 votes

Ashe does scale with crit items its built into her passive. Other than that i would like riot to make her more interesting i have made several posts on her boring E to make it more interesting like making the arrow turn into a global ward that's made of ice. Her kit is just dull and not as fun sometimes as the other adcs.

CrossetteMay 30, 20161 votes

Underwhelming?

she's fucking bullshit mate

what, with the Q that shreds literally everything you aim at for no reason

the permanent slows from level 1 to level 18

W that doesn't actually do that much damage but you CAN'T FUCKING DODGE IT NO MATTER HOW HARD YOU TRY

E for free global vision in a huge line

and then her ult. you know, the giant arrow that either stuns for 1s and does a quarter of your health early game, or stuns for 3s and does half of your health late game?

yeah, she literally three shots with point blank ult, volley and a Q auto late game

I don't think she needs MORE power

NarvuntienMay 30, 20161 votes

She is currently being played in the LCK, as in right now, she is fine.