Obligitory "but mah ahri" thread

I haven't gotten an upvote in months and I definitely do not plan to anytime soon.

I also really hate how they changed champion.gg because now the parts about avg playerbase statistics look all wrong.

Now of course there is about 4-5 times a year where ahri nerf threads become prevalent and ignored for many reasons. These kinds of threads show up for a lot of champions, mainly lee yasuo riven etc. Ahri has been one of the only champion where statistics would justify a nerf. Not to mention that she has been played in the LCS a bunch this season. Last season the nerf threads were pretty rare because she wasn't being played at all in the LCS, and her counters were pretty meta, but ill get to that later.

The interesting thing with the nerf threads is that they all interpret the statistics the exact same way, something which you see with lee sin or yasuo. When people ask for Lee sin nerfs, and a lee sin main brings up his negative winrate, the people asking for the nerfs generally say that his winrate is only low because most people are bad at him, and that he is too overwhelming at high elo; therefore, nerfs are justified. When it comes to an ahri thread, the person posting will talk about her winrate, and a ahri main will comment saying that her winrate is so high because of all the dedicated ahri mains.

A bit hard to follow but, what I'm trying to say is that people will throw around statistics and only try to explain them when its convenient to their case. The person posting for ahri nerfs will ignore the reasoning for her winrate, and the person arguing for lee sin nerfs will look for an explanation in his low winrate, mainly being that his mains are overbearing. Technically, neither explanation is wrong, its just how people interpret the statistics. Its also perfectly valid to attribute ahri's high winrate to her amount of options in her kit, or lee sins low winrate to him being a complete garbage champion who is unplayable at all levels.

God I hope that people understand what I'm saying here.

This rambling was to show how any position can be argued from, and how statistics can be interpreted from different positions.

(this is where the post starts) My perspective on Ahri's statistics as an AHRI MAIN are as follows:

1. Ahri has the most mains out of any champion in the game, meaning more games from experienced players (contrary to the current champion.gg graphs which I still don't completely understand yet, I'm just going off of what they were before it was changed)

2. She is blatantly the most anime champion, drawing in a playerbase from the weeb community. (im 3 years clean from those khazakstani cartoons, I just kept the name)

3. All of her hard counters were nerfed, not that it neccisaraly matters because she is one of the few champions in the game who can actually beat a counter based on player skill. Lb was nerfed hard, Swain's kit just doesn't punish ahri anymore (because of e damage reduced and new q). Annie is still pretty decent with protobelt initiations and the such. Talon is good but only because of leathality. I think fizz is still decent into ahri. Anivia (yes I'm counting her because she could waveclear and not see ahri for the rest of post-6 lane phase) and Malzahar were both nerfed hard. katarina has become unpopular. Syndra can be pretty good. yasuo is a skill matchup, as well as viktor. Lux gets dumpstered. Cassio is a skill matchup surprisingly, as well as zed. The thing with champs that do well into ahri is that they aren't popular, or that they don't do enough to justify a pick.

4. She is reliable, and straightforward for new players, but has a very high skill ceiling because of the nature of her kit, which intensifies point 1.

5. A minor thing, but for some reason she is now able to consistently clear the caster minions with a single Q much earlier in the game than I remember. But seriously, this is a huge thing that needs to be looked into, her waveclear feels so much better than it should.

6. Basically an extension of 4. She has the tools to do SO MUCH MORE than most other champions can. I will try to keep this from sounding like an "op overloaded kit" list, but I think it's objective that champions with dashes and skillshots overwhelmingly tend to have more options than champions who are missing 1, or 2 of those things. Especially with skillshot cc.

7. Basically an extension of 6, 1. She has a large number of mains, and a large number of opportunities. Obviously if you play a champion enough you start to understand their skillshots by heart. When you have a massive number of people who do this, the winrate will rise.

8. Difficult to shut down early. Her Q ms helps a bit, but its mainly the fact that she has her charm. If she is overextended in lane but only uses her Q to escape, chances are she will be chunked down pretty hard, or possibly stunned if the enemy jg is into that. Without her charm, her Q ms is worthless vs ganks if she isn't overextended. In lane poke however, if ahri is the person who pokes first, she will most likely dodge whatever retaliation is sent by the opposing laner. If she casts it in retaliation to poke, she will not have enough ms to dodge the ability because of the cast time.

This kind of playstyle encourages aggression in lane because of the initiation advantage with Q ms, and also secures safety in lane because of her charm and q ms

Ok, there are plenty of early to mid game champs that people are perfectly fine with having this kind of playstyle, But most of them don't have the cc that Ahri has. Ahri will always have that cc that may or may not mean anything because it is a skillshot. She is a champ that can properly play from behind because of her cc and ult. Playing from behind as ahri really only works out well if the rest of your team is ahead though. A 2 second taunt means nothing if your team can't do anything with it. Also, being behind on ahri really screws her dps. If Ahri is not ahead of a figurative curve, then she will not do damage, but if she is ahead of that curve, then she can function as an assassin. This ties into point 6, she can be both an assassin, or poke mage depending on how fed she is. Her potential is relatively crappy as a poke mage, but its damage that an assassin might not be able to dish out if they are behind.

9 Riot still aren't sure on their benchmark for champion balance, so they are still just stabbing in the dark when it comes to balance. This is not a result of incompetence, there is just no way to find a benchmark for balance considering all of the variables that go into what makes a champion subjectively "balanced." Unfortunately just going off of a 50% winrate won't work because of varying skill levels and the such. Also this would punish champions with a higher "main" playerbase because every time people got better at that champion, the champion would be nerfed. Given all the variables, a 50% winrate on all champions isn't even Ideal considering high and low skillcap/floor champs.

10 The list is done but I just want to add one more thing that I find interesting. Ahri now has a higher winrate against champions that theoretically counter her, but a lower winrate against champions that she should theoretically counter. I find this weird, she only has a 46% winrate against Karthus. Sure counters only apply in lane, but I just found this to be interesting.

Alright, now that the list that people won't read is done, lets get to what everyone actually wants from ahri, nerfs!!!!!!!!!!

Nerfs aren't fun, but you want to know what is? POWER REDISTRIBUTION!!!! I just find this kind of change more exciting.

So her q ms and her W are getting the most complaints so far, other than her ult cd.

Aw fuck it, add an extra 15 seconds to her ult, what the hell difference would it make considering all ahri mains basically run the 40% cdr builds anyway? Remove her damn passive too, its so weird to have a heal on an assassin hybrid. And while you are at it, move the ms from her q to her W instead. for the new W, I have a crappy idea that I thought was good while typing this at 1 in the morning. Make the W a skillshot. Upon activation, the 3 things orbit her, giving her decaying ms. Upon second activation, the fires converge on the mouse cursor, each one having its own individual range. After the first target, all fires deal 40% damage or some heavy reduction like that, or maybe they would just be small circular ground skillshot types instead, like cassio Q. This would make her kit becomes a lot more interesting. This might just break her though considering her glitchy W targeting is really the main thing holding her back from a higher winrate.

I hope this sounded somewhat reasonable. I really tried to be fair and objective here, which is a bit difficult because I am an Ahri main. I'm hoping for some sort of response instead of the thread just dying right away like the last 6 I posted.

Sorry for not putting portraits of champions instead of just the names, If I remember this post in the morning I will probably do that.

Edit#1

I made this reply on a comment And I think it helps add to the discussion.

The context is comparing Ahri to both an assassin, and a mage.

Leblanc and Ahri have similar mobility, cc, and damage proc window thingy (leblancs new passive and ahris return orb.. Leblancs burst damage is typically much more efficient than Ahri. What I mean is that Leblanc takes less items to get those crazy killer chains.

I will get back to the LB and ahri comparison soon.

Xerath and Ahri Both have very similar cc, waveclear abilities, burst, and safety in terms of range. Xerath has an advantage on AOE, and range, but ahri's Q has about 50-60% of xeraths range on Q. Xerath however has 2 base long range abilities. Xerath does not have any mobility whatsoever.

Ok, so now That I have set up these 2 comparisons, let me explain my belief about the current meta. I believe it is a poke meta where both long range poke champs, divers and assassins are all top tier for their ability to deal with poke, and pokes ability to win fights before they start. My reasoning for this is the rise of leathality benefiting both the melee ad assassins, and the poke adc's. Ahri can be both a poke mage, and an assassin, so in my opinion, this is the absolute best possible meta for her.

Leblanc tends to lack the poke that both ahri and xerath have, but xerath lacks the mobility that both leblanc and ahri have. Ahri in these 2 comparisons has both, making her a better choice in general.