Ahri 7.11 patch notes

Passive- Essence Theft

[Removed]Gains a charge of Essence Theft whenever a spell hits an enemy (max: 3 charges per spell). Upon reaching 9 charges, Ahri's next spell heals her whenever it hits an enemy.

[New] When Ahri hits an enemy champion with her abilities it refunds some of the mana cost. The amount refunded is different for each spell

Q-Orb of deception: 50% per hit (100% max)

W- Foxfire: no refund

E- Charm: 150%

R- Spirit Rush: no refund

Q- Orb of deception

[Removed] ~~Ahri gains movement speed that decays while her orb is traveling. ~~ Cost: 65 / 70 / 75 / 80 / 85 > 80

W- Foxfire

[New] Holding W down with the mouse over a target that’s in range overrides the AI and makes foxfire attack that target instead.

[Changed]~~ Foxfires each have their own targeting circle with themselves at the center. ~~ > Foxfires share a targeting circle with Ahri at the center

[Unchanged] Foxfire’s AI prioritizes champions over minions/monsters and if multiple targets with the same priority are in range foxfires attack the target closest to its self (if Ahri stands between two minions she can hit them both with separate foxfires).

E- Charm

Charm duration: 1/1.25/1.5/1.75/2 second(s) > 2 seconds Cost: 85 > 100

Thoughts and feedback

Foxfire

Sometimes champion abilities have small quirks that cause a negative experience for the player, but those quirks largely go unnoticed except by people who play that champion a lot. As a result, these quirks almost never get addressed unless that champion has been under-performing for a while and riot is looking for ways to help them out. Riot often doesn’t notice these little flaws in champions that are doing okay because riot is either looking to nerf them or ignoring them because “they’re fine right now”.

In the case of foxfire, sometimes foxfire(s) attack(s) targets they weren’t meant to attack. This can cause the person playing Ahri to have a negative experience with the champion’s kit.

But isn’t something like missing charm a negative experience?

Yes, but the difference here is that when you miss charm you know it’s your fault. The player has total control over charm. So when you miss, you know the answer is to aim better. Foxfire on the other hand isn’t fully under the players control, Ahri can try to position herself so foxfire attacks the target she wants, but at the end of the day the AI decides what gets targeted.

When the player provides the supposed correct input (positioning near the target and pressing W), but the spell still doesn’t do want the player was expecting it to do, instead leaving the player feeling like their mastery of that spell needs to improve, the player is left to feel like the spell itself is just inherently flawed and there’s nothing he/she can do about it.

So how do we fix it when a spell like this is causing a negative experience?

There’s nothing the player can really do except try to tell riot about the problem and hope they do something about it. But getting riots attention requires more than just one person complaining about how their champion isn’t good enough. It usually just lots of people voicing the same concern before riot takes notice.

This is where is gets hard, because getting riot to notice often takes more than just the players who main that one champion. But, the players who play that champion a lot are the only ones who would be aware of the problem and even if other players know, they still may not care or may even be glad their opponents spell isn’t working for them. This means there’s a conflict in perspective, here’s an example.

Ahri’s perspective Foxfire is a spell that forces me to get close and put myself in danger, is totally reliant on positioning and is its own kind of skill-shot, due to its sub-ranges. But, it still sometimes doesn’t do want I it to do, like attacking the wrong target, and causes me problems, which is totally frustrating!

Opponent’s perspective Foxfire is a targeted spell that doesn’t miss and is basically free damage. “If foxfire is wasting one or more bolts on minions, instead of hitting me than good. That’s less damage I’m taking, leave it, I like it that way”

See the difference in perspective? A champion’s opponents always outnumber them on the boards so not only will most other players probably not know about the issue, they may not want it fixed even if they do. So getting riot’s attention can be really hard. But riot is the only one that can fix it.

What’s wrong with Foxfire? The spell seems fine to me.

Well the main problem is that foxfire sometimes attacks targets it wasn’t meant to attack. This is mostly caused by the sub-ranges brought up just before. But there’s some other things as well.

Foxfire has Sub-ranges? What sub-ranges?

You see, instead of a range circle with Ahri at the center, each foxfire has its own separate range circle with itself at the center. See image below.

http://m.imgur.com/gallery/MAZ7k

**Okay so each foxfire has its own separate range, but what are these sub-ranges you’re talking about? **

The way it plays out there’s 3 different sized ranges where a different number of foxfires will be able to target what you want them to target. When Ahri summons her foxfires to attack a target, depending on how close she is to her intended target, a different number of the foxfires will be able to lock onto that target right away, but some may have to rotate around Ahri 1st before they can target what Ahri wants them to target, this is where the sub-ranges come from. See image below.

https://m.imgur.com/account/EindrideNihil/images/J3QI9bD

In the red range all 3 foxfires will attack Syndra right away.

In the green range only 2 foxfires will attack Syndra right away and the 3rd has to rotate.

In the blue range only 1 foxfire will attack Syndra right away and the other 2 have to rotate.

Okay, so the foxfires have to rotate a little, why is that a big deal?

Well it’s not always just you and Syndra. Sometimes there are other possible targets that can come in range and ruin things. Like when you’re in lane and there are minions. Now instead of just rotating, the foxfires end up targeting minions and never end up targeting Syndra. This becomes wasted damage.

https://m.imgur.com/account/EindrideNihil/images/DaNLZ8s

Okay but that’s just in lane, and it probably doesn’t happen very often, right?

It happens all the time, especially if you play a lot of Ahri games, and it can happen in other places besides just in lane. It can happen in the jungle with jungle camps, which not only wastes damage but causes the camps to attack you.

If you’re doing dragon or baron the scuttle grab can come by and draw away some of your foxfires.

And if the enemy team comes to contest you might not want to be that far into the baron pit.

The best position for foxfire and the best position for Ahri don’t always match up. It depends on the situation.

But other than those scenarios foxfire usually attacks the right target, right?

Well there’s also how foxfire interacts with minions

Ahri doesn’t really have a good spell to last hit siege minions with but if she did it would be foxfire, because of its low cost and targeted nature.

However, since melee minions usually stand in front of the siege minions and minions all have the same target priority so foxfire just attacks whatever is the closest, Ahri either has to kill the melee minions 1st or stand right on top of the siege minion in order to get foxfire to target it.

Also, if there’s an enemy champion standing next to that siege minion Ahri can’t use foxfire on the minion, no matter where she positions herself, since the foxfire will prioritize that champion instead.

_So what are you proposing riot do to fix these “negative experiences” foxfire is causing. _ Just as I’ve outlined in the patch notes. Remove the Sub-ranges by having all 3 missiles share a range circle with Ahri at the center, this fixes most of the problem.

Now when Ahri summons her foxfires and there are both minions and champions in range, all foxfires will a be able to see that champion and target it, instead of 1-2 foxfires seeing the champion and the last one only seeing minions. This way the priority target (Champion) always gets hit instead of minions/monsters, as long as a champion is in range.

In the case where you have multiple targets with the same priority, each missile chooses the target closest to its self. But, the minion closest to one of the foxfires may not be same minion that’s closest to one of the other 2. So each missile can choose a different minion depending on where Ahri is standing, unless she overrides that with the new W function.

So what is this new W function? Looks like a mouse-over command

That’s exactly what it is, basically you just press and hold W with your mouse over a target.

Normally Ahri gets into positions, presses W, and that’s it. She’s done. From there the AI picks a target based on what’s in range and what has the highest priority.

Normally it goes like this

1. Closest champion
2. Closest minion/monster
3. Rotate

With the new W function, by holding down W with your mouse over a target, you create a mouse over target that goes at the top of the priority list, like this

1. Mouse over target
2. Closest champion
3. Closest minion/monster
4. Spin

This means that if you say, wanted to use foxfire on a siege minion, but an enemy champion is standing right next to it, by making that siege minion the mouse over target, you can have the foxfire attack that siege minion and ignore the enemy champion.

This also solves the scuttler vs baron problem as well as the aggro’ing jungle camps

But what happens if you hold W down but your mouse isn’t over anything?

If you hold W down but your mouse isn’t over anything then there’s no mouse over target and foxfire moves on down the list and starts looking for the closest champion.

What happens if you hold W down and your mouse is over a target but that target is out of range?

This commands Ahri to move towards that target, foxfires waiting to attack it when it comes in range, and ignoring other targets along the way.

What happens if that target dies before you get in range?

In that case foxfire drops the mouse over target and moves down the list again

What if your mouse slips and comes off the target, or you accidently stop holding down W?

In those cases foxfire drops the mouse over target and moves down the list.

What makes you think riot SHOULD implement such a change?

Well, at the end of the day, the spells in a champion’s kit are just tools for me to use to achieve my goal of winning. Those tools should be under my control as much as possible so I can use them properly. If a tool isn’t really under my control and thus doing things I don’t want, then there’s a problem.

The other reason is because of clarity. If you hover your mouse over the foxfire icon in game, the range indicator you get is a big blue circle that represents what’s in range and not in range. So when a player uses foxfire to attack a champion and sees that sometimes 2 attack the champion and the 3rd flies off to attack a minion. They may not understand why that’s happening, what they’re doing wrong. In fact there’s no information in the game itself that explains to the player why that happens. He/she has to go on google and figure it out all on their own.

Essence Theft

Currently Ahri’s passive has some problems both for her and her opponent.

It feels like she doesn’t really have a passive

For Ahri herself the problem is that the heal on Essence Theft just really isn’t that useful at all, especially after lane phase is over.

The amount healed is based on the number of times a spell hits something, once essence theft is charged.

In a 1v1 dueling scenario the most you can get is 3 hits (foxfire), which doesn’t heal enough to amount to anything. But even in a skirmish or team fight, Ahri would have to land her Q on multiple targets to get more than 3 hits off the passive, which isn’t realistic.

Add to that it takes at least 3 spells to charge essence theft and a 4th spell to use it. Ahri doesn’t have time for that in a fight.

And you also have to consider how much damage she’s taking vs how much the passive is sustaining. Other champions are going to be dishing out WAYYY more damage than Ahri could heal back up and Ahri is most likely going to be a glass cannon who dies easily even when full hp.

The heal isn’t even close to being enough for her to take objectives like dragon by herself for her team, in fact, the passive doesn’t even help much against blue buff.

It makes sense thematically, since Ahri steals “essence” from her prey. So healing up is like her “stealing” essence in the game. But on the practical side, the heal just doesn’t belong in her kit. It’s doesn’t go with the rest of her abilities very well, it doesn’t match her play style, mage or assassin, it’s a purely defensive passive on a purely offensive champion.

Ahri is supposed to be avoiding damage in the 1st place, being decisive with her spirit rush and accurate with charm to keep herself alive. A healing passive is more for that of a beefy fighter like swain, after lane phase is over the passive is just useless to her, it’s so inconsequential that it might as well not even exist.

It’s frustrating to her opponent, and rightly so

But if it doesn’t help her with fights or taking objectives what is it good for?

Well, early in the game, when she’s laning against her opponent. Every 4 or so spells she’s gets a free heal. Which is the other problem, it’s unfair to her opponent.

Ahri can lose a trade, and then end up winning the trade later by healing up. But what does she have to do for this heal? Nothing really, she just throws her Q into a minion wave or raptor camp and she gets a nice little chunk of health.

When Ahri is already pretty safe, and you manage to successfully punish her missteps, watching her get a free heal just for using her spells can really be frustrating and annoying.

Basically Ahri’s passive makes laning feel unfair to her opponent, and then after laning is over it becomes useless to Ahri herself. Essence theft really just isn’t good for anyone in its current state.

It helps bad Ahri players, but doesn’t help good Ahri players

When Ahri gets punished for positioning poorly, missing during trades, going too far out when the jungler is MIA, or just making mistakes in general. The healing passive is there to make it more forgiving when she makes those mistakes. This is really nice for the Ahri players who make mistakes more often, however, the Ahri players who don’t make as many mistakes are going to find the passive much less useful to them.

And that’s the real biggest problem with her healing passive.

Mana-refund instead of a heal

By turning Essence theft into a mana refunding ability you fix those problems.

1. It becomes useful to Ahri throughout the game, so now she can feel like she actually has a passive ability.

2. But, Ahri no longer gets a free heal during her laning phase, so when her opponent damages her the damage sticks, Which feels better for them.

3. It helps the good Ahris separate themselves from the bad Ahris.

Players who carefully aim and land their charms and orbs get more mana to keep up the harass.

Players who throw spells out until they get a lucky hit, or just keep missing too much, are going to find the new higher mana-costs on charm and orb really hurt her mana-bar when the passive isn’t compensating.

This new passive also fits into her kit much more nicely because it’s tied to her skill-shots charm and orb of deception. The healing passive doesn’t really tie into any of her other abilities, so this makes her kit feel more neatly intertwined.

Another thing worth noting is that this new mana-refund still maintains the theme of Ahri’s lore. Since she’s absorbing mana she’s “stealing essence” so her passive still makes sense thematically. This doesn’t affect game play as much, but is still important.

“Almost certainly needs a nerf. Direction not certain yet, two main ones being considered being_ higher Q mana cost (hit waveclear/pressure early)_ or shifting damage from W/R into E.”

https://boards.na.leagueoflegends.com/en/c/developer-corner/lMQyGnlO-quick-gameplay-thoughts-may-16

Meddler was talking about increasing her Q cost as a way to hit her early waveclear/pressure, but the problem with just increasing the cost of Q, no matter how she uses it, is that it doesn’t just hurt her waveclear/pressure, it also hurts her ability to harass and make trades. This can really be detrimental.

The new passive takes care of that, thanks to the mana-refund when she hits and enemy champion you can justify the higher costs on charm and orb of deception. The high mana-cost makes it hard to push waves early on, but the refund makes it so that harassing and trading damage isn’t effected as long as she hits her mark.

Orb of deception

In the patch notes you see that Orb of deception costs a lot more, this is justified by the new mana-refunding passive. As already mentioned the higher cost hits her waveclear/pressure but the refund makes it so harassing/trading damage is unaffected.

The other thing is that the running speed boost is gone.

There are different reasons for this but the biggest one is that it would be better for Ahri’s future in the grand scheme of things.

You already have Rylai’s

Rylai’s is a great item on Ahri, it puts a nice slow on all of her abilities, which gives a lot of benefits:

1. When Ahri lands the magic half of Q it slows the target hit and makes it harder for them to move away and dodge the true damage.
2. The slow on Q also becomes a good disengage tool for her whole team (vs the movespeed-boost which only helps Ahri).
3. The targeted abilities W/R slow targets making charm/orb easier to land
4. It makes it easier for Ahri to escape enemies but harder for enemies to escape her
5. Ahri doesn’t have to throw Q in the opposite direction to get closer, the slow lets her throw Q at her target and get closer.

The slow on Rylai’s is better for her in just about everything than the movespeed-boost is, and having both is pretty redundant. But while Rylai’s slow is far more useful, it’s also much more fair, Ahri has to farm and spend money to get that slow, unlike the movespeed which is free at the start of the game.

The movespeed-boost greatly increased her defense and did very little for her offense

Ahri has 4 abilities plus her passive.

1. Spirit rush: is a dash which also unleashes some missiles for damage. A dash can be used offensively(dash toward the enemy, deal damage) or defensively(dash away from enemy, save yourself).
2. Charm: applies CC and deals damage; it also can be used offensively(set up other spells for damage) or defensively(charm enemy and run away).
3. Foxfire: only deals damage and so it’s purely for offense
4. Orb of deception: only deals damage so it’s purely for offense
5. Essence theft: only heals Ahri so it’s purely for defense.

In terms of offensive/defensive tools her kit use to look like this:

R:[offense/defense] E:[offense/defense] W:[offense] Q:[offense] P:[defense]

Now with the speedboost added on to her Q, it can be used offensively (damage) or defensively (running away). So now her kit looks like this:

R:[offense/defense] E:[offense/defense] W:[offense] Q:[offense/defense] P:[defense]

Ahri only gets the movespeed-boost while orb of deception is in the air, so if you use Q and run in the same direction the movespeed-boost is shorter, but if you use Q and run in the opposite direction it lasts longer. If you’re chasing an enemy you can throw Q in the opposite direction to help you catch them but you waste your main damaging spell. But if Ahri is getting chased she can use her Q to deal damage and help her escape at the same time. That means that the movespeed isn’t very helpful when being aggressive but does a lot more for her when she’s running away.

It doesn’t help enable any of her abilities.

It doesn’t help enable her Q because she has to use her Q to get the movespeed-boost, it doesn’t help charm because of telegraphing, And it doesn’t help spirit rush because how does a movespeed-boost help a dash? It doesn’t.

Arguably it helps with landing the true damage for Q, but, because the target is closer to the pivot point for the lines, the target only has to move a little to get out of the way but Ahri has to move a lot to keep the shot lined up. So it doesn’t really help much with that.

What it does help with is running away and getting away, and Ahri doesn’t need any more of that.

The movespeed-boost doesn’t help the Ahri player who takes risks and tries to make plays, it helps the Ahri player who spams their spells and runs away. This is less interactive and not very fun to play against, and in my personal opinion not very fun to play as either.

Her opponents feel like she’s too safe

The complaint I hear from people the most about Ahri is that she’s too safe. And maybe they’re not wrong.

In the past if Ahri only had 2 defensive tools (3 if you count her passive) charm and spirit rush.

Let’s say, Ahri got ganked but she used her R- spirit rush to get away. Even though she got away THAT time, now her R is on cooldown and won’t be there to save her again, not for a while at least. On top of that, without spirit rush, Ahri has a small chance of winning an all in fight, so now she has to show her opponent respect. Also, Ahri doesn’t have her R until level 6, so that made her vulnerable from levels 1-5.

So while spirit rush is like a get out of jail free card, it has a long cooldown and she doesn’t get it right away, so it’s fair. Also, using it defensively sacrifices her offensive power for a while as well.

The other tool, charm, could help her get away but it could miss or get flashed over, and charm can only hit one target.

The movespeed on her Q doesn’t have these drawbacks, it has a short cooldown and she gets it right away at level 1, she doesn’t have to land it on anything and it doesn’t have the single-target limitations of charm.

So now Ahri has 3 defensive tools, her movespeed-boost, her charm, and after level 6 her spirit rush. All of this adds up to make her incredibly safe.

And now when Ahri gets herself in a bad spot in general, missing charm is more forgiving because you have a second layer of safety with Q.

She had to lose something to justify her increased safety, and she’ll probably keep losing more in later patches

Her defensive power went up, and so to justify that, her offensive power needed to come down.

Shortly after getting that move speed her ranges on W- foxfire and R-spirit rush ended up getting nerfed.

The nerf on Spirit Rush hurt particularly badly because the angles at which you could dash towards an enemy and still hit them with the missiles got more narrow. This means that when dodging a skill-shot with a large hit-box, you may not always be able to hit your target with missiles at the end where you dashed to. And the viable positions around her target when using spirit rush got lessened quite a bit.

“Almost certainly needs a nerf. Direction not certain yet, two main ones being considered being higher Q mana cost (hit waveclear/pressure early) or shifting damage from W/R into E.”

https://boards.na.leagueoflegends.com/en/c/developer-corner/lMQyGnlO-quick-gameplay-thoughts-may-16

When riot thinks about nerfing Ahri, historically, her R has always been the 1st thing they think about hitting. Spirit rush is critical for Ahri’s play style and enabling her other abilities, meanwhile while the movespeed-boost is just unnecessary and doesn’t work with the rest of her kit very well. I would rather just lose the movespeed-boost than see her keep it and continue to get hurt in other areas. And losing her movespeed-boost lessens her defensive power and justifies her having more offensive.

Charm

Just like Orb of deception charm now costs more mana. Since, lore wise, Ahri usually charms people before draining their essence, and, game wise, charm is the hardest of her spells to land, it makes sense that charm gives the most reward via her passive. Missing charm now hurts a lot more, but landing is also more rewarding.

Making charm’s duration 2 seconds at all ranks is also part of that(making charm more rewarding.) This is a buff, but here’s why it’s a justified buff.

She’s losing something to get the longer charm

Basically Ahri is trading the mobility on Q for more early utility on E. Losing the speedboost on Q makes her less mobile at every point in the game. But the longer charm only helps her early and middle game(since charm is already 2 seconds in her late game). So this is a net nerf to her late game.

The compined loss of her speedboost and healing passive takes away a lot of her early game safety, making lane phase rougher and more challenging on Ahri.

But players who are able to survive laning, then successfully skirmish with their team and make picks with charm are going to find this a decent trade.

Roaming will be slower without the speed boost but if Ahri lands her charms she’ll find her roams have more impact when she gets there. Making charm a meaningful spell to land again, and making charm help good Ahris seperate themselves from the bad Ahris again.

Landing charm isn’t meaningful anymore

Back in the day, players use to say charm was one of the best CC’s around

The main reason charm was so powerful back then was because it could interrupt almost anything, It used to be able to stop people mid-dash, even Malphite’s ultimate. And a really good player who could time charm just right could do some really cool things with that. That’s gone now.

The damage amplifier (aka the kiss of death) is gone as well. Back when she had the amp, charm was always the 1st spell you used, you needed to land charm before anything else to get the most possible damage output. Without the damage amp though, spell order doesn’t matter, you can use charm 1st or last or somewhere in between. This is good as far as being able to use your spells in different orders now. Also having to always use charm 1st made Ahri’s attack very predictable. But the damage amp made landing charm a must, like, if you missed charm, you might as well pack up and go home because you missed the kill.

That was bad because charm has many ways it can be outplayed and this caused Ahri to be less reliable, so she fell off at higher elos and didn’t see much competitive play.

But it was good because it made landing charm important and helped separate the good Ahris from the bad Ahris.

Charm should be important to land but not so important that missing it means not dealing any damage.

In her all important middle game, her 1 second charm is fairly inconsequential wether she hits or misses it. It doesn’t amp up her damage, it doesn’t even guarantee landing her true damage. It just doesn’t do that much for her. So why is landing charm so important? It’s not

Charm enables Orb of deception

Orb is really clunky, because of being a boomarang. The magic damage is easiest to land up close and hardest at max range(makes sense right?). But the true damage moves in the opposite direction. So the true damage is most likely to hit at max range,the range where the skill-shot is most likely to miss altogether, and less likely to hit up closer to Ahri. Anything less than max range allows enemies to easily avoid the true damage by moving to the side.

Lots of champions have a CC that enables some other part of there kit(morgana’s snare and her puddle) Charm enables orb by keeping the target in place. Since charm is slowish and hitting it at long range can be hard. One idea might be to dash in closer, then charm and follow up with orb. But orb has to go all the way out and come back before the true damage hits, and that actually takes longer than charms duration lasts at early levels.

As it is right now, you max charm last, which means for all of the early game and most of the middle game (middle game being where Ahri is supposed to try and make her impact) charm only lasts for 1 second. 1 second charms don’t keep someone CC’d long enough for the true damage on Q, unless you land charm from far away. Look at this.

https://youtu.be/iu0T0XtjOjI?t=5s

Nagne technically did everything right here, dashed in, landed his charm, followed up with orb, he did everything quickly and smoothly. But charm only lasts 1 second until later, for most of Ahri’s power spike, in fact, she’s only sporting a 1 second charm. And what is that good for?

Later on, once Ahri finally starts putting points into charm, it eventually gets to being 2 seconds long. But at that point she’s grouping up with her team, and if her team is there to jump on it, the longer charm doesn’t matter as much. 2 seconds, 1 second they’re both more than long enough for 5 people to blow up who ever got hit. And also, if Ahri is level 18 she’s probably letting the game drag out too long. A good Ahri won’t get a 2 second charm very often because they’re ending the game before her power spike ends and she starts falling off.

Charm should be valuable for its CC, because the CC leads to the true damage on Q. That’s the point in making the CC longer at earlier levels

Ahri’s general direction

“Almost certainly needs a nerf. Direction not certain yet, two main ones being considered being higher Q mana cost (hit waveclear/pressure early) or shifting damage from W/R into E.”

https://boards.na.leagueoflegends.com/en/c/developer-corner/lMQyGnlO-quick-gameplay-thoughts-may-16

I’ve gotten the sense that riot doesn’t really know where they want to go with Ahri. So let me just give you my personal opinion on where I want Ahri to go.

https://youtu.be/RqXWjBCmNqM

https://youtu.be/-uq4qHX1kBE I want riot to support playmaker Ahri more and stop supporting the throw Q and run away Ahri

Ahri is a magnet for one-trick-ponies

I’m a soloQ player and a One Trick Pony. Even though the game is clearly stacked against it, I prefer to play one champion and only one champion. I would rather be really really good with one champ and have a deep knowledge of that them and know them in and out; then be just okay with 9-10 champions and only know them at a surface level. I basically want to be like boxbox and Riven, which is funny because I use to play Riven. I was working on getting better at her, practicing my animation canceling, etc. But I found Riven had major weaknesses, and I decided to Start Playing someone else instead

If I’m going to play one champion and only one champion who I pick makes a big difference. Of course it has be someone with a play style that I enjoy playing, and for me that means be able to do impressive cool outplays (like in the videos), someone I can make plays with that I feel good about putting on youtube, I want to have moment that makes me go “Oh shit did you guys see that” to my teammates even though I know they don’t care. The champion needs to be difficult enough that they’re impressive but not so difficult I feel like I’m wasting my time. There’s no point if there’s no fun, so that’s the 1st thing I look for in a champion, fun and flashy (Zed/Riven/Leesin/Katarina/Ahri/Leblanc/etc).

I want someone that always has a chance, I don’t want to get hard countered in champion select and feel like I’ve already lost when I’m not even in game yet, that just sucks. I need someone who can be the underdog, so I always have a chance even if that matchup is slightly in the other players favor, I want most or all of my matchups to be skill matchups. I don’t like champion rock-paper-scissors.

I need a champion that’s versatile, it would be nice if I had a good tank every game and jungler that ganks and a support that supports, but it’s soloQ. Teammates are random and team comps get weird, so I need a champion that lets me adjust to the team instead of needing the team to adjust to me.

And lastly I need that’s strong but not too strong, I want to climb but I can’t have my champ being a pick/ban or I won’t get to play them, and I need them to not fall off at higher elos so I’m not wasting my time getting better with them.

Ahri has all of this, I can play her from bronze to challenger, She can make sweet looking plays and is difficult to master, she has a versatile kit and item pool which means I can play her according to the game I’m in, she fits most team comps and she’s not oppressive so she rarely gets banned, and most importantly, most of her matchups are skill matchups, so when I win I feel good about winning and when I lose I feel like it was me and not the matchup(I also like her avatar).

Ahri has everything I’m looking for; she’s the only champion that has everything I’m looking for. So she’s the only champion I play, she’s the only champion I WANT to play. Within league of legends I’ve come to identify with Ahri as a player, she’s my main, everyone who knows me in league knows me as an Ahri OTP. I’m sure I’m not the only one either.

Damage, damage-supplements and item actives

“Almost certainly needs a nerf. Direction not certain yet, two main ones being considered being higher Q mana cost (hit waveclear/pressure early) or shifting damage from W/R into E.”

https://boards.na.leagueoflegends.com/en/c/developer-corner/lMQyGnlO-quick-gameplay-thoughts-may-16

I can see why you might do that considering landing charm is much harder than hitting W/R. But she does need some reliable damage and right now W/R themselves aren’t particularly strong. They feel stronger than they really are because of luden’s echo and Thunderlord’s decree adding extra burst. At level18: 180(+ 10% AP) + 100 damage(+10% AP). That’s quite a bit of damage and they’re not themselves actual spells, they get added on to spells, that’s why they’re supplements, they supplement more damage onto a spell, which can make that spell feel stronger than it really is. Foxfire’s and by Spirit Rush’s damage by themselves isn’t really anything special though.

Although Ahri’s W/R with damage supplements can chunk some hp pretty hard, it’s still not enough to kill someone by themselves; you still need another source of damage. That’s where gunblade comes in. its active adds just enough damage that Ahri can kill a squishy target without using a skill-shot, same thing with protobelt. These items use to be things Ahri built in normals in a game when you’re screwing around but weren’t viable if you seriously wanted to win. Now 80AP is a lot more than it used to be thanks to AP items losing more and more AP. These items are what’s adding to her non-skillshot damage output and if you’re going to nerf W/R based around these you’re deciding that they’re now part of her core items and she’s usually going to build them, which they’re not and she won’t.

Another thing to consider is this: Do you want charm to be the new Nidalee spear? it already does pretty decent damage, and if you get hit with charm you’re probably going to get hit with orb of deception too. The same damage supplements that buff up W/R also apply to E/Q. If you suck damage out of foxfire/spirit rush and put it into charm, E/Q is going to hit even harder. Nerfing Sprit rush’s offensive power will also disincentive Ahri from making risking plays and instead saving her dashes purely for defense, which won’t be fun. You’ll send Ahri in a direction where all she does is fish for charms and save R to run away.

Charm isn’t reliable

https://youtu.be/f5sK6uE56XA?t=58s

That was faker, the worlds #1 LOL player, the godliest god of mechanics, missing both charm and orb. We saw charm missing plenty of times just recently in MSI. Charm isn’t reliable, it’s just that kind of skill. If you make Ahri too dependent on charm she’ll be unreliable which means she’ll be less viable at higher elos and she won’t be used in competitive play. I want Ahri to be viable at every elo and see her get used on the big stage too.

Foxfire and spirit rush lend themselves more too assassin play style while orb of deception and charm lend themselves more to mage play style. Ahri’s damage needs to be evenly distributed through her abilities, which is it right now, or else you push her too far in one direction and she’ll get over shadowed by other champion like leblance over shadowed her in the past.

Tl;dr

Trade movespeed on Q for longer charm at early levels

Lose healing passive to make laning less safe; mana refund instead to reward landing skill-shots.

Foxfire sometimes attacks the wrong target; changes=fixed

Some personal opinions at the end.