5.2 Ahri changes.

This is a well thought out post and I agree this was a colossal mistake, but Riot won't respond. They avoid Ahri threads like the plague and especially since you're questioning the balance teams' decisions on her, this is a wasted effort.

They've made their decision and they're going to brick-wall any complaint or offer of compromise essentially acting like a pretentious artist that cares way too much for their work. It might look like crap, people will say it looks like crap, but the artist will scoff at them and respond; "they just don't understand my genius."

We understand what this art looks like. Let me make this as clear as possible without ranting about it even more - it sucks, plain and simple, it sucks.

will have to play it to find out

but i feel that having alot of power tied into mobility but nothing else particularly powerful to go with it doesn't really work unless the numbers are overtuned. if the enemy avoids chasing you, then how can you force your mobility to give you an advantage?

1. poke your enemy before a teamfight? range isnt good enough.

2. split push? has bad single target damage so can't duel.

3. kite in a teamfight? kit not suitable for burning frontline. (so build ad ahri)

4. dive in a teamfight? they're nerfing this. (diving a squishy is a reliable way to turn mobility into a real advantage)

5. gank/counterjungle early midgame? its better to have single target burst; mobility is already plenty enough with just ult.

"Don't you trust me?" - Rito 5.2

I'm upset they left her Charm at 85 mana. So much for kiting when you go oom fast.

{quoted}

Sooooo... When Riot said they would be compensating for no longer having what they really meant to say was "Nerf into the ground."... Okay. Now of course I really can't go all whiny and cry and complain about "unjust nefs" with out having all the hard math. Just like when she was nerfed for being tanky, and yes nerfed Riot the math did not lie, we will have to wait till this gets fully flushed out. So lets go over this objectively and point for point so we all can understand what Riot really meant.

Orb of Deception: Now grants an unspecified amount of movement speed while the skill shot is active. Alright cool. She was meant to be a highly mobile mage assassin and this change shows that. Ok. I'll take free move speed. I personally have her set up to have high move speed anyway. Build and on her anyway and have 4.5% increased move speed runes. For a total of 14.5% increased move speed. Since she has a really low base move speed anyway this greatly helps. So +1 there Riot But, She is supposed to be receiving a 20% Magic Damage increase or something of equal value so you go back down to +0. Her getting increased move speed from her Q as you have stated is not because she no longer has .

Fox Fire: Improved Targeting System and Rank 1 to 5 total damage increase of 10/15/20/25/30 Per fireball. No interrupt on Auto Attack. Not bad. Not bad. But not all that good. With a paltry .4 AP scaling This doesn't even come close to restoring the move back to its previous power since it was last nerfed. Because due to the moves last nerf and now current standing the damage is reduced by %70 on a single target hit multiple times when it used to be 50% damage reduction. Seeing as she was supposed to be compensated for missing out on 20% of her magic damage you get -1 here Riot. Standard math is standard 20% of 170 is 34. or 170 divided by 5 equals 34. But, I personally appreciate the effort and since this is not final you get a tentative +0 instead

Charm: Charmed targets no longer take 20% increased damage from . Rank 1 to 5 damage increase of 0/5/10/15/20 and AP Damage ratio increase of .15% Ok the damage increase to charm and the AP ratio increase of charm is how a proper compensation is supposed to be done. Good show chap. +1 there riot. But wait.. that first part.. the 20% Damage increase is removed. Now that is just uncalled for. If not completely asinine! -4 points on this one riot. Because of how you made her back in V3.13 She was made to have to land Charm before anything else in order to gain increased damage which in total was less than her damage before her nerf, and Math doesn't lie Riot! which forced her to buy to be even considered viable. DFG as we more or less know it now was made how it was back in v3.02 So this change was made knowing full well how DFG was effecting the game. So one point each for her Q, W, and R, respectively. Now the 4th Negative point on this one. Her charm's effect was a flat 20% all around damage boost. That includes her Physical Attack Damage! These changes were supposed to be about Magic Damage! Yet you go and nerf her over all damage by a total 40% and cumulative damage by 60%! 20% from physical and 40% from magical. This to me makes no sense in any way. Now I do understand that AD is full blown off the rails 100% non meta. But when she has her Total damage from a Critical can actually be compared to a Headshot crit at level 1 which is 487.5 raw damage to Ahri's 399 raw damage critical. Now yes there is a pretty much 100 damage difference but for an AP Assassin that is disturbingly impressive. But what makes that even more so is the fact that damage increase lasts 6 seconds while Caitlyn only has it for 1 shot and during those 6 seconds Caitlyn is unable to respond for 1 full second not to mention Ahri has more attack speed than her as well. So Riot pull your head out of your 4th point of contact for just 5 minuets so you can realize you made a huge mistake here.

Spirit Rush: It is now easier to move through and/or over terrain. Well while this is nice it means nothing in the end. If you play Ahri for an extended period of time you come to realize that She has a minimum dash range of 5 or so units effectively making it look like she is literally dashing in place. This falls under basic understanding of the champion's abilities and mechanics while in use. No 20% Magic damage increase or viable alternative in sight. So you get a well deserved -1 here

So in my completely worthless and more or less biased opinion you failed on a total of 4 counts. Final thought: Compensation not given.

So my fellow summoners... and possible Riot Employees what do you have to say? inb4 Charm's Bonus damage was given to ultimate trollolololololl

Bro.. NONO.... I give riot a NEGATIVE 10000000000000000000000000000000 POINTS! THX FOR CRAPPING ON MY MOST PLAYED CHAMP RIOT!!! GG WP! I KNEW IT DIDNT STOP AT TALON!!!!

She was meant to be a highly mobile mage assassin

The goal here is to remove the assassin aspect of the character and to get closer to a highly mobile kite mage.

I think they wanted her to be a mobile mage instead of a pick assassin. After all, zed is the only balanced assassin. /lol

You forgot that now that DFG is removed Ahri has an extra item slot.

I think you're simply misunderstanding the term 'compensation buffs'. It doesn't mean 'equivalent trade'. All it means is she got a huge nerf, and she's getting a bit back in return. All the major assassins got nerfed in some way, shape, or form. Ahri got something back because of her mage role. The very fact she got ANYTHING back is a 'compensation'.

I mean, if you'd prefer they took those away just to make your argument work, I won't stop you.

(hypothetically) So what will happen if nothing changes and everyone just replaces DFG with Lich Bane? She has low enough cool downs and they made it easier to attack after using W.

The only things I could really say about the new ahri changes, is that for one I'm a overall fan of them. This may seem wired but I have always played her as a mage rather then a assassin, I didn't start building dfg on her till last November(but it definitely was the correct way to build regardless rip dfg). People are going to have to change the way they see and play her in order for these changes to make sense. BUT I feel like the loss in interactivity of E with ahri's other skills is a negative change, I would much rather see the damage taken off the front of the skill and put back into a secondary spell effect. Not saying it should be a % damage increase, I'd just like to see some incentive to follow up on such a costly ability.

To follow up on some concerns I see above, I really dont think you people understand how big this q speed boost is for arhi, its a godsend in pre-six laning, (pretty great in post- six as well) and pre and post team fight squabbles. Sure its not going to increase your damage, but anyone facing a lb or blue-ez can attest to how annoying consistent kite is. In team-fights the most effective way to go(IMO) is to play like a sudo adc and use high cdr to chunk down opponents with q and w on the edge of the fight, then finish up the fight or disengage with e/r along with more q's cause low cool-down.

Ahri is about to become FotM and a pick/ban necessity.

{quoted}

Orb of Deception: Now grants an unspecified amount of movement speed while the skill shot is active. I agree with most of what you say here.

Fox Fire: Improved Targeting System and Rank 1 to 5 total damage increase of 10/15/20/25/30 Per fireball. No interrupt on Auto Attack. Not bad. Not bad. But not all that good. With a paltry .4 AP scaling This doesn't even come close to restoring the move back to its previous power since it was last nerfed. Because due to the moves last nerf and now current standing the damage is reduced by %70 on a single target hit multiple times when it used to be 50% damage reduction. Seeing as she was supposed to be compensated for missing out on 20% of her magic damage you get -1 here Riot. Standard math is standard 20% of 170 is 34. or 170 divided by 5 equals 34. But, I personally appreciate the effort and since this is not final you get a tentative +0 instead

I think that you forgot to include the AP ratio here. By your standards, this should be -1. Also, if assassin Ahri isn't great anymore, the targeting system change isn't as powerful as you might think.

Charm: Charmed targets no longer take 20% increased damage from . Rank 1 to 5 damage increase of 0/5/10/15/20 and AP Damage ratio increase of .15% Ok the damage increase to charm and the AP ratio increase of charm is how a proper compensation is supposed to be done. Good show chap. +1 there riot. But wait.. that first part.. the 20% Damage increase is removed. Now that is just uncalled for. If not completely asinine! -4 points on this one riot. Because of how you made her back in V3.13 She was made to have to land Charm before anything else in order to gain increased damage which in total was less than her damage before her nerf, and Math doesn't lie Riot! which forced her to buy to be even considered viable. DFG as we more or less know it now was made how it was back in v3.02 So this change was made knowing full well how DFG was effecting the game. So one point each for her Q, W, and R, respectively. Now the 4th Negative point on this one. Her charm's effect was a flat 20% all around damage boost. That includes her Physical Attack Damage! These changes were supposed to be about Magic Damage! Yet you go and nerf her over all damage by a total 40% and cumulative damage by 60%! 20% from physical and 40% from magical. This to me makes no sense in any way. Now I do understand that AD is full blown off the rails 100% non meta. But when she has her Total damage from a Critical can actually be compared to a Headshot crit at level 1 which is 487.5 raw damage to Ahri's 399 raw damage critical. Now yes there is a pretty much 100 damage difference but for an AP Assassin that is disturbingly impressive. But what makes that even more so is the fact that damage increase lasts 6 seconds while Caitlyn only has it for 1 shot and during those 6 seconds Caitlyn is unable to respond for 1 full second not to mention Ahri has more attack speed than her as well. So Riot pull your head out of your 4th point of contact for just 5 minuets so you can realize you made a huge mistake here.

MATHS MISTAKES! It is about a 40% damage nerf overall. 1 (her standard damage) x 0.2 (charm) x 0.2 (DFG) - (a small amount from basic attacks excluding AD Ahri) ~ 1.4. I think that Riot is ignoring AD Ahri here. Oh well. Overall, that is unimportant (It is only a 20% loss from AD Ahri, as only charm affected that. Still lots of damage, but unimportant compared to AP Ahri). i think that you messed up timeframes. The order was

1. DFG Ahri was unbalanced
2. Charm and Foxfire were changed - if Ahri wanted to assassinate, she at least had to land the small charm skillshot first While she was effectively forced to build DFG after these changes, this was because she had to be balanaced around DFG.

Spirit Rush: It is now easier to move through and/or over terrain. Well while this is nice it means nothing in the end. If you play Ahri for an extended period of time you come to realize that She has a minimum dash range of 5 or so units effectively making it look like she is literally dashing in place. This falls under basic understanding of the champion's abilities and mechanics while in use. No 20% Magic damage increase or viable alternative in sight. So you get a well deserved -1 here

Having not played new Ahri, I cannot judge how powerful the terrain change is. I know that I often juts dashed into walls before. This COULD be a brilliant change. I am reserving judgement until after I have played a few games with her. Remember how strong mobility is.

So in my completely worthless and more or less biased opinion you failed on a total of 4 counts. Final thought: Compensation not given.

So my fellow summoners... and possible Riot Employees what do you have to say?

I have this to say: In my completely worthless and probably biased opinion, you haven't considered the real compensation. Each of these changes is only a small buff, and they only sum to a moderate buff, not enough to overcome the Charm and DFG amp... (dramatic pause for effect)... in one rotation. Thanks to DFG and charm, Ahri's first rotation was too powerful for her to have much afterwards. No longer. Yes, her burst has been lowered, but her kiting and chasing power has been buffed incredibly (ultimate change and movement speed boost) and her overll damage has been increased. In an extended teamfight, Ahri will get more than one rotation off. Here the mobility and damage changed make a real difference. She has her compensation.

While I admit I don't play Ahri, but I think the changes are pretty cool, and put her in an interesting spot.

In exchange for some damage, she gets a lot more mobility to move around in fights. This is really cool because no other mage is nearly as mobile as Ahri now, and it creates a really cool niche for herself that makes it so that even if she is not as good as other champs, she is still worth a pick because no other champ does what she does, whereas before, you could pick about a dozen champs that had the same niche as her.