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Ahri's New Charm Passive, and How to Make It More Rewarding and Useful to High-Skilled Players.

Shárpie··7 votes·1,986 views

REQUEST

I would like to suggest that Ahri's charm be slightly adjusted, so that it's base damage and scaling is lowered slightly, but increases her total damage output by 20% for those 5 seconds, not just ability damage. This would include basic attacks, item passives, and item actives. I'm not certain if it would be healthy to allow this effect to take place with Ignite, but it may be just fine. Either way, this would do a few things to help make her more rewarding to players who have a higher skill level and understand the fine details of how she works:

  • It would help her to have that little extra kick of damage in the early game for trades, and help her to secure that kill on an enemy trying to sneak away with a sliver of health when all your abilities are on cooldown.
  • It would potentially adjust her build to be even more of an assassination build to take advantage of the passives/actives from items such as Gunblade.
  • It would really reward players for proper use of basic attacking, item actives, and other passives from items, and give her a slightly higher skill cap without making her any more difficult to learn.
  • It makes more use of those 5 seconds that the Charm passive is enacted, and allows things like Elder Dragon Burn to do a bit more damage.
  • Consequently, this would help those few individuals who try to make her work as an AD Carry feel some love, recognition, and relevance.

I do not necessarily think that item passives and actives must be included in this bonus damage, but I do feel that including basic attacks to the bonus damage from her Charm would be a healthy, rewarding asset to her kit.

Thank you for reading and taking this request into consideration,

Shárpie

REASONING:

Ahri Ahri has a new passive on her E - Charm, as of Patch 8.8. This passive states that "When Charm damages a champion, Ahri's abilities deal 20% more damage to them for 5 seconds." I would like to start off by saying I have played thousands of games on Ahri from before the points system, and have around 250,000 points on her currently. While I do primarily play jungle at this point, playing primarily Elise Elise, my heart will always be with Ahri. As an ex-Ahri onetrick, I really like this new addition to her kit, but I feel it is incomplete. When you land a charm (which isn't exactly difficult), landing your Q and W are basically guaranteed to land thereafter, save the use of a item 3140 Quicksilver Sash, or a TahmKench Tahm Kench intervention. What aren't guaranteed to be used properly, however, are basic attacks, item passives, and item actives. For many champions, the knowledge of when to use actives, how to effectively use item and champion passives, and especially knowing how and when to sneak in basic attacks during trades and assassinations can mark the difference between a 'normie' and a pro. Take a look at Riven Riven, for example. Knowing how to animation cancel so you can sneak in extra item actives or auto attacks between abilities is what makes the mechanical difference between a weaker Riven player and a highly-skilled Riven player, like Box-Box.

I spoke with Riot Tank about it over at Riot Support, and he agreed that it would reward high skill players, and would potentially be a great addition to her kit, but that it may be too good, and that players would be able to abuse certain items, such as the passive healing from item 3146 Hextech Gunblade. This is why I'm suggesting the lowered base damage and scaling on her charm. Let's start with the base damage. I would suggest lowering it from 60 / 90 / 120 / 150 / 180 to 50 / 80 / 110 / 140 / 170. It would balance out the early game a bit more. Her base AD is 53, so lowering the base damage on her Charm and adding bonus damage to her attacks moves that missing 10 damage to her first auto attack, and then subsequent attacks after that are rewarded. When an Ahri gets behind, it can become very difficult to be useful for anything besides being a waveclear machine, and I feel like this could help her to have a bit more healthy relevance in the early game by giving her a pinch more early damage which requires good positioning and a landed skillshot to take full advantage of. I believe lowering the AP Scaling ratio from 40% to 35% or even 30% would help to balance out the late game extra damage from item actives and passives, and force the player to know how to use her entire kit and build more effectively to make full use of her.

10 Comments

Akasylia4 votes

I actually really like this idea

[sg-ahri-2]

new88pain3 votes

This makes her become more mechanical. I'm in!

ExcessiveProtest2 votes

I'd be largely okay with it, though I hate the idea of making ADC Ahri more viable; seeing Infinity Edge on her causes physical pain. I'd rather it not affect item actives, if just to avoid parallels to DFG; once they decided to do something about that combo it took over three years just to get the Charm amp back, and I don't think I can take another three years of that. It would definitely be a buff, even after weakening Charm, but since it would only really take effect after your first (Second in some lanes) full item, it wouldn't kick in until mid-game, meaning her weak early is still weak, and her midgame is stronger if she hasn't been forced to buy defensively. That means the enemy has time to prepare or force you on the defensive, and if it's still too strong they could hit Charm's low-level base damage; weaker early for a stronger mid.

Overall it probably depends on where Ahri falls with the new dework. So far she's doing worse, but not enough that I'd expect any favors from Riot; they wanted most players to do worse so the better ones could do better, and it's looking like she'll land at 51-52% winrate as people adjust.

Aptest1 votes

I disagree.

this will make ahri overly dependant on landing charm and will reinforce ahri's "assassin" identity whereas her more healthy identity is "kiting, medium range MAGE".

countering what i think your next argument will be: "because ahri is an assassin....". No. Ahri should be balanced into staying a mid range, kiting mage, with some limited assassination pattern, and not being primarily an assassin with some mage qualities.

Shárpie5 votes

{quoted}

I disagree.

this will make ahri overly dependant on landing charm and will reinforce ahri's "assassin" identity whereas her more healthy identity is "kiting, medium range MAGE".

countering what i think your next argument will be: "because ahri is an assassin....". No. Ahri should be balanced into staying a mid range, kiting mage, with some limited assassination pattern, and not being primarily an assassin with some mage qualities.

No, this will not make Ahri overly dependant on landing charm. It will instead make landing charm become more rewarding. I don't believe anything in the rest of her kit should be altered. The main purpose of this change is to give her a higher trade potential in laning phase trades, while also giving more relevance to those who want to build her super assassin-style and go for the high-risk, high-reward plays, while leaving the mid-range, kiting ahri virtually untouched, as well as showing AD Ahri players some love. It gives her a much wider array of build paths, and makes her feel more healthy overall.

NineTailedMystic1 votes

How about no.

ReshiKillim1 votes

Been playing Ahri since her release in early S2, some thoughts.

While a nice concept, this would be far too strong on ADC Ahri, and generally much better than it would be on AP Ahri. Would probably make ADC Ahri significantly stronger than AP Ahri. It'd put her ADC builds on a damage output level similar to that of Shadow Assassin Kayn, which on a ranged champion with a charm, would probably be overpowered or more annoying than playing vs Tristana as slow moving melee.

Early game trading was never really Ahri's thing in the past, it shouldn't really be now she was strongest from midgame to lategame as an assassin, and this rework is a partial revert to when she was more of an assassin pre-first rework, so the her charm amp isn't exactly new. I feel her charm is pretty rewarding as is, at most she could use a few adjustments to foxfire's damage for her assassination potential.

Have to remember, however, is that even for the pro players, the partial revert is going to take a little time to get used to, but when you are used to it, she'll be much better at assassinating. And, by the way, just curious, what runes do you run on Ahri?

Shárpie1 votes

{quoted}

Been playing Ahri since her release in early S2, some thoughts.

While a nice concept, this would be far too strong on ADC Ahri, and generally much better than it would be on AP Ahri. Would probably make ADC Ahri significantly stronger than AP Ahri. It'd put her ADC builds on a damage output level similar to that of Shadow Assassin Kayn, which on a ranged champion with a charm, would probably be overpowered or more annoying than playing vs Tristana as slow moving melee.

Early game trading was never really Ahri's thing in the past, it shouldn't really be now she was strongest from midgame to lategame as an assassin, and this rework is a partial revert to when she was more of an assassin pre-first rework, so the her charm amp isn't exactly new. I feel her charm is pretty rewarding as is, at most she could use a few adjustments to foxfire's damage for her assassination potential.

Have to remember, however, is that even for the pro players, the partial revert is going to take a little time to get used to, but when you are used to it, she'll be much better at assassinating. And, by the way, just curious, what runes do you run on Ahri?

On AP Ahri, I usually run Electrocute, except for a very select few matchups, or against certain teamcomps, where my waveclear and mobility becomes more valuable than my assassinating. In those instances, I tend to run Comet or Aerie, depending on how often I plan to be trading in lane.

On AD Ahri, when I do feel like messing around and playing it, I usually run Press the Attack, so I can proc it in lane whenever I get a nice charm off.

Regarding your comments on it making AD Ahri overpowered, I do agree that it would be a substantial buff to an AD build, but you have to remember that this only deals damage to the charmed individual, and I think that in teamfights, to that one individual, it would still deal less damage than Vayne's Silver Bolts, or Tristana's Q + E. I think it would be fun to mess around with percentages, however, to find a good, balanced place for her in the bot lane. Her kit works pretty well for a mobile AD Carry, and it would be fun to see Riot decide to accept that AD Ahri is a thing and even give her some AD Scaling in her kit.

ReshiKillim1 votes

It'd effectively be a cross between Xayah's W and Shadow Assassin Kayn's passives. (basically a 20% damage amp to autoattacks and a chunk of AS for Xayah W, but Ahri wouldn't have the AS.) but lasts longer by a second. But it'd also be on a CC ability, which would require a higher cooldown, and on Ahri, who is by nature slippery and very hard to pin down once she hits level 6, would make her very annoying to play against. And likely abusive in toplane, like how Lulu used to be.

All in all, it'd make Ahri a more mobile but less powerful version of Xayah, and if she were to be viably strong in that role, AP Ahri would end up suffering for it. Also doesn't help that it'd be identity creeping on Xayah, and we really don't need more champions who're identity creeping (Kha R evolve creeping on Evelynn's identity for example).

I personally prefer the changes as is, and though I do like ADC Ahri, I think it's best for Ahri's health that it remains more of a meme strat, so that it remains viable as something to play for fun, but not powerful enough to warrant any balance changes to her around it.

I do think she could use a little love in the form of a tweak to increase foxfire's damage though, rather than giving her an overall damage amp, which could be very hard to balance.

Shárpie1 votes

{quoted}

It'd effectively be a cross between Xayah's W and Shadow Assassin Kayn's passives. (basically a 20% damage amp to autoattacks and a chunk of AS for Xayah W, but Ahri wouldn't have the AS.) but lasts longer by a second. But it'd also be on a CC ability, which would require a higher cooldown, and on Ahri, who is by nature slippery and very hard to pin down once she hits level 6, would make her very annoying to play against. And likely abusive in toplane, like how Lulu used to be.

All in all, it'd make Ahri a more mobile but less powerful version of Xayah, and if she were to be viably strong in that role, AP Ahri would end up suffering for it. Also doesn't help that it'd be identity creeping on Xayah, and we really don't need more champions who're identity creeping (Kha R evolve creeping on Evelynn's identity for example).

I personally prefer the changes as is, and though I do like ADC Ahri, I think it's best for Ahri's health that it remains more of a meme strat, so that it remains viable as something to play for fun, but not powerful enough to warrant any balance changes to her around it.

I do think she could use a little love in the form of a tweak to increase foxfire's damage though, rather than giving her an overall damage amp, which could be very hard to balance.

hm... I see what you mean by identity creeping. Is it so bad that I just want to feel powerful on Ahri ADC?

Regardless, I definitely think her W needs some work. I think in it's current form, it doesn't have any identity. It's nothing more than a button to push during your all in, and there's very little strategizing around using it. I think having it work somewhat similar to Evelynn's Q could be really cool, where it maybe does a mini burst of AOE damage, and then the next three auto's have bonus attack speed and a bunch of AP or something?

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