Am I the only one who's glad Ashe is a top tier ADC?

Miraweave·8/30/2016, 7:54:25 PM·134 votes·6,187 views

She's really one of the more tolerable ADCs. She's strong, but she has really clear weaknesses you can exploit. It's a nice change given that the top tier ADCs for the past few seasons have usually been highly mobile swiss army knives with high burst on top of their DPS like Lucian/Graves/Corki.

Sure, there are some annoying things about her kit, but that's true of literally every champion. I know I definitely prefer when the best champions for a glass-cannon DPS role aren't also bursty as fuck and actually die when jumped on. Those champions have a place, but IMO they shouldn't be the best in their role.

EDIT: To be clear, I'm not saying she's not a pain to play against or that she doesn't need nerfs, I'm saying that I'd rather deal with Ashe's particular brand of bullshit than the nonsense we've had to deal with for the majority of the last few seasons.

150 Comments

Guyy Fieri8/30/2016, 8:23:38 PM38 votes

The thing with Ashe is that she's supposed to be a utility carry, not a high DPS carry. When the ADC with the most utility at the position is also putting out the most damage in team fights consistently, that's the issue. I'm all for Ashe being strong if it's for one of those elements, not both.

Only Play Darius8/31/2016, 12:17:11 AM26 votes

She doesn't feel as overbearing to deal with as other ADC's when strong. I'll take her over Vayne, Kalista, or Ezreal metas

Brutalitops018/30/2016, 8:16:25 PM20 votes

But, right now, she has insane damage and her arrow, which most other ADCs can't keep up with. With Ashe and Jhin as the top tier, if you see one, you're forced to pick the other just so you can keep up in damage. If one is banned and one is picked, bot lane is almost guaranteed to lose. Yes, they die when jumped on, but they have enough poke to make sure that you can't jump on them. And them just existing with the amount of damage that they have right now makes literally every other ADC unviable when compared to them. Honestly, I'm glad that they got nerfs this patch. Not sure if it'll be enough because I haven't seen either of them yet, though.

Let's look at Twitch as an example. He's strong and has decent burst in his kit with his E, but Ashe and Jhin have so much range on him that they just destroy him. For Ashe, it's a skill matchup between both players in bot lane. If your bot laners are just outright better at their picks than the enemy bot laners, they can win. However, the instant Ashe hits 6, if Twitch hasn't killed her several times by that point, she just fires an arrow into his face and kills him. And then does it again. And then again. Every single ADC in the game, when playing against an Ashe, has to crush her into the dust to the point where she's useless other than the arrow in order to not just have the lane turn into her favor the instant she hits 6, and even then they still have to play 100% perfectly to avoid throwing. The arrow moves fast enough that you can't dodge it from a short distance without instant mobility, so unless you're playing Sivir, Nocturne, have your flash up, or have a QSS, no matter how far ahead you are, Ashe can just ult you and kill you. Even point-blank, it's a 1.5 second stun. If she has her Q stacked up beforehand, you'll be lucky to survive that if you aren't a tank.

And, she's the only ADC I can think of off the top of my head that has a stun or something else that prevents you from moving and attacking entirely. And don't say Urgot because he's so off-meta and obscure that nobody will be playing him in ranked, plus he also immobilizes and stops himself from attacking during the duration.

PermabannedGaren8/30/2016, 8:28:58 PM17 votes

Yeah I much prefer when the ADC who has the best utility also has top tier damage, it's way better than when the best ADC pretty much just brings damage.

Zedex8/31/2016, 12:16:37 AM11 votes

Am I the only one who wishes that there wasn't a top tier adc and all adcs were equal strength, with meaningful tradeoffs, weaknesses, and advantages, and counters.

disregardable8/30/2016, 7:58:06 PM10 votes

It's always obvious when someone that doesn't play ADC is talking about ADC.

chubs12248/30/2016, 10:49:25 PM9 votes

I am a big fan of mostly immobile adc such as jinx, ashe jhin kog being top tier. When the highly mobile ones are meta it makes it difficult to play assassins or bruisers. Oh I am a teundle and I forced my way through your frontline to get to you? Nope you just dash or blink over a nearby wall. Feels good man.

TFBaam8/30/2016, 9:37:17 PM9 votes

nope i would actually like to have a choice late game, but with ashe its only one. death. any other adc i actually have a half assed chance to get out

Linna Excel8/30/2016, 9:45:19 PM8 votes

I think riot is nerfing her specifically for worlds, but I think that's a little odd in that her arrow is an #LCSbigplay starter.

I'm looking at her stats right now and she seems below average in just about every area yet she still has a decent win rate. For instance she has one of the lowest damage amounts in plat+ games so she's not the damage monster people think she is. She doesn't get that many kills. Her CS is average.

I'm thinking it's her ult that's keeping her afloat.

Jhin UItd JFK8/31/2016, 12:14:28 AM8 votes

I remember when Jhin was released and people were like "xd jhin is shit he wont b played in lcs or high elo ever xd"

Now people are saying he's op. feelsbadman

ValyrianBlade8/31/2016, 2:27:23 AM7 votes

I have to disagree.

Ashe has too much damage for her CC.

Just like those with mobility need to sacrifice something, Ashe should need to sacrifice damage for her CC.

She should NOT be capable of straight outdamaging a Jinx/Caitlyn/Tristana/Twitch/Miss Fortune/etc... who bring neither reliable CC nor oodles of mobility. Yet with her Q and W, she can handle any of them pretty consistently. Ashe should need to use her slows to escape all-ins in the laning phase (or help a secure a gank) but instead she's able to use them to secure all-ins in laning phase.

Half of the ADC roster is healthy as the "best" in the role. Ashe is not in that half. Neither are Lucian/Ezreal/Corki/Sivir (what we've seen lately) but just because we've previously had one type of "wrong" doesn't mean the current is any better (and as a Jinx player that dreaded going against Ashe since I started playing in season 4, I have to say it's worse).

Blakiepug8/30/2016, 10:16:17 PM7 votes

True, it's much nicer than last season when we had Jinx every game. The adc meta around worlds last year was disgustingly imbalanced.

DeathBot6668/30/2016, 10:53:53 PM6 votes

My favorite thing I like about it is that she's a 450 champion, so I don't have to drop 6300 on a champ which looks fun to play and is strong right now.

A Basic Island8/31/2016, 1:57:56 AM5 votes

considering she was in the gutter from the games inception till now (teleport+ult ganks dont count)

it doesn't bother me either

Ok sure but why8/30/2016, 8:19:08 PM5 votes

KogMaw daddy coming

Baron Perenolde8/31/2016, 2:47:39 AM5 votes

I like that she's one of the trinity at the moment. Like the OP already mentioned, Ashe has exploitable weaknesses even while strong. Assassins can jump her, she can be chased down (especially by Olaf), and the usual adc counters of building armor items still dampens her damage. The only thing that needs to be tuned at the moment is her Q.

Miss Worthless8/31/2016, 7:21:59 AM4 votes

Yes, i really like that Ashe is a top-tier ADC atm.

Rengar

JDB8eoX8x08/31/2016, 6:15:14 AM3 votes

I really don't understand why Riot decided that "Ashe is a utility marksman and shouldn't be stronger than other ADCs" when really we have Lucian running around with Black Cleaver being an OP utility marksman himself. A really quickly armor shredder is a pretty meaningful tool for a teamfight.

They should just stop touching Ashe to be honest. She has no tools that can assure her an escape and she can really quickly get gutted by any assassin. They also nerfed Sivir of all champions. Why? She's barely even played anymore. She had a few two patches where she was a god tier ADC because of her W crits, but now most people know how to even counter THAT.

They don't do some champions their justice and solely because of the LCS. Solely because "Ashe enables easy kills" and "Sivir is a speedbuffer". Riot gives these ADCs SO much meaning when really they're not half as meaningful outside of the LCS.