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An Ahri Change Proposal To Solve The Issues That Came About as of Patch 5.2

Lanofrose·1/30/2015, 7:07:45 AM·8 votes·2,999 views
Pixel Ahri

Skip to the** tl;dr** if you don't want to read the reasons and just the solution

So I have been playing Ahri on the new patch and quite liking some of the changes(Q is just plain fun no denying that) but have noticed she is rather underwhelming and I think I understand why other Ahri players are feeling this way as well. (And not just because DFG is gone that was for the better of the game sorry to say it)

  1. Ahri is falling off late game pretty hard: She has always had lackluster base damage but had the scaling to make up for it but now she has neither since she cant amp her scaling anymore 70%, 40%(64%in a 1v1 situation) and 50% and 90% these are horribly low for a Mid lane mage that also has bad base damage and has shorter range then other mages(She use to have 84%,76.8%,35%,108%) so we lost 30% AP scaling and 100ish Base and it showing.

  2. Ahri's CD are still balanced around being a burst champ and not a Mage Yeah she doesn't have the CD to support a mid range mage to the fullest and you really feel it late, she has two long static CDs(Q 7 secs flat and E 12 seconds flat) hard to keep up in DPS late when you don't have high damage or low cd to help.

  3. Charm's Mana cost is still being punished for damage amp Her mana on charm was increased a bunch to make sure people were not fishing for kills for free so they made sure it taxed Ahri's mana pool to punish spamming it but now that its just a skillshot cc and doesn't have the DooMed effect why is this cost staying so insanely harsh when Mana is already a huge issue in the Meta right now as well as pushing her Damage stats into the spell meaning I have to rely on it for a decent trade, Im not being rewarded at all for using it for damage as I burn to much resource and I feel like as if I just lost the war of attrition even just using it once.....).

  4. Plain and simple some don't like being force to play Ahri completely different when assassin had been there go to play style for 2 seasons this more conplain then an stats issue but nonetheless I have an answer for it.

So how can we fix all these in 1 buff? well let me just start by quoting Scarizard on why Riot removed charm's damage amp in the first place

RFine also has a great point - Ahri doesn't /need/ her dmg% from charm due to her poke/kite pattern. If i miss my charm, but still manage to hit you from long-range, i can

A. Rinse/repeat poking you down until you're low enough that i'll kill you with raw base damages (thus landing charm is irrelevant)

or, B. Land my charm after you've taken poke damage, allowing me to just overkill your out-right.

those of you who have followed our assassin dialogue for a while now may be familiar with the notion that we feel assassins require 'variable combat ranges' to build an expectation/tension around their 'all-in' moment. i.e. Zed has Living Shadow + Razor Shuriken, gated by a harsh dropoff on Q's pass-thru dmg and W's high cooldown. Fizz can 'poke' with Playful Trickster in, Urchin Strike out (or vice versa), but at the cost of safety/heavy mana-gating. http://www.surrenderat20.net/2015/01/red-post-collection-121-patch-update.html for full quotes.

So Riot dislikes Assassin Ahri just poking you down to where she doesn't even need charm which was suppose to be her counterplay and also fishing with charm resulting in insane overkill with DFG with no committing to the kill Making for her to not have a clear all-in counter play moment.

BUT I FOUND A SOLUTION(I think)WITH THIS CHANGE (feel free to tear apart if you see a flaw with this that I don't)

TL;DR R: Spirit Rush During Spirit Rush's Duration Enemies hit by Charm take 10% increased damage from Ahri for the remaining Duration of Spirit Rush (10 secs or till all 3 charges are used)

  1. This Buffs Her Damage issue as well as any falling off due to low ratios with a bit (10%) of damage amp but only in her All-in and not just if she gets a Lucky Charm (LOL) so AKA Charm FISHING IS GONE as landing charm then ulting will not give you the damage buff only hitting Charm during her ult. [ex. R>E and amp>Q>W>R>R] This makes a Clear all in Pattern for Assassin Ahri and a recognizable point that Ahri is going "All-in" using ulting with charm being the counterplayble skill shot that people recognize "dodging this is how to outplay her" with having so much more damage shifted to Charm on 5.2 missing severely lowers damage output

  2. Ahri's CD now would directly help her DPS as you would have shorter CDs(obviously) and have assess to ults damage buff potential more to help Kite-Mage Ahri not fall off so hard also Making Assassin Ahri(exist) Choose between a Harder Hitting All-in (High AP build) or More Pick Chances with less burst (CDR-Regen item Build)

  3. Pushing Charm's Amp to the SpiritRush-Charm combo frees up the pressure that non-ult charm has and maybe allow the mana cost to be looked at in a future patch if need be while still keeping charm's meaningful utility that 5.2 was REALLY lacking.........

  4. Both Ahri's play-styles are supported with many item combination being viable IS THIS NOT RIOT'S CORE BUILD PHILOSOPHY AT IT BEST.....hehehe.........

And finally the damage breakdown per patch so you know that im not just overloading Ahri's kit with damage (the first charge of Ult can not be amp nor E as those initiate the 10% amp so make sure not to add 10% to them in 5.3)****

-----------------------------5.1 Damage Stats----------------------5.2 Damage Stats-------------------------Proposed 5.3 Stats Base Damage---[1325]--------------------------------------------[1202]----------------------------------------------[1302] Scaling Ratios--[303.8%AP]-----------------------------------[274%AP]-----------------------------------------[293%AP]

32 Comments

Rock MD1/30/2015, 7:27:35 AM9 votes

What

the actual fuck?

Ahri doesn't need buffs at all, are you kidding? I've literally had her banned from me 2 of the last 3 games.

Sailor Mint1/30/2015, 7:40:49 AM5 votes

57% win rate.

She'll end up getting fixed. Hopefully they keep in combat mobility and only nerf the out of combat abuse cases.

And honestly, if you think any champion with scaling true damage and crowd control falls off lategame, you are mistaken.

Everyone is building 40%CDR, so both her main damage spells are below 5 sec CD. Which also has the side effect of giving her a 2.5+ sec speed boost on a 4.2 sec CD.

Pika3101/30/2015, 7:35:24 AM4 votes

A detailed analysis and well-thought out explanation of her current situation.

Your proposed solution needs some fine-tuning, but sounds good for a rough idea. It's particularly confusing in exactly how and when the amp is applied as well as the time of the full duration.

If I read it right, you must Spirit Rush into Charm for it to first be applied. This is a common play, but lacks flexibility and creates an overly-predictable pattern that your opponent will always be watching for. Say I just happen to land Charm with Flash or just on its own? Why shouldn't I be able to press R before the end of the stun duration and begin the amp duration that way?

Moving on to that, exactly how long would it last? The initial 1-2 seconds on the stun is a very short window. On the other hand, the full 10 seconds on Spirit Rush could be a bit long, but Yasuo's is even longer so perhaps not. Surely it shouldn't disappear when the last charge of Spirit Rush is used, this might force players into unnecessarily difficult decisions between holding the last charge the whole time and judging whether they can get in enough damage after burning the last dash. Perhaps going back to the original 6 seconds once BOTH conditions are met would be the best option.

Byrnes1/30/2015, 9:36:33 AM4 votes

I mean no offense here, but your post summed up to me is basically people don't like her playstyle now. Which is, according to the people that made her, was her original intended playstyle. Regardless, she is definitely more playable now than she was, the majority of people I've spoken to about enjoy playing her AND facing her more than before, and she's becoming relevant.

AHeroNamedHawke1/30/2015, 7:41:37 AM3 votes

{quoted}

but have noticed she is rather underwhelming

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IJFgS1TBpEI

Strident1/30/2015, 4:14:56 PM2 votes

Don't buff Ahri. Her current state is very powerful, as evidenced by #57%winrate.

And also my pentakills.

The Stoic Hero1/30/2015, 4:30:01 PM2 votes

I do think this is a really good idea: tie the damage buff on Charm to Spirit Rush so that Charm can not be abused as much. It seems to be a direction Riot is going given how they changed Fizz as well(whether or not if it should be done).

The problem is right now no one knows how to play against Ahri with the new speed buff to her Q. It allows her to poke you under tower without getting hit and other fun stuff. Once people get use to this, and some more people who played her previously yet stop due to nerf hysteria, her win rate will probably even out. Most likely Riot will nerf the speed boost as a lot of people are complaining about it, though.

Another idea would be to tie it to her passive proc. With this, the downside is its very obvious when she has the additional damage, but on the plus side, you can use it before level 6.

Kingsgrave1/30/2015, 4:33:02 PM1 votes

She has like a 58% winrate

Kat Head1/31/2015, 2:08:09 PM1 votes

Ahri Currently has the highest winrate in this game. Playing her only once you realize how strong she is.

Abyssphere1/31/2015, 2:09:50 PM1 votes

As much as win rates aren't the be all and end all you can't discredit an argument just because it mentions them. 54-56% is significantly higher than it was before the change, and that does support her being better.

Most of the problems mentioned here I think are true. The mana cost on Charm is absurd, her scaling is mediocre and her cooldowns are very high. But apparently the speed boost on Q, damage "buffs" on W/E and and the QoL changes she received are making up for that. She has lost a lot of her kill potential, but in exchange she's picked up Cassiopeia style lane bullying through her Q and what I would say is an improved lane harass too.