Is Ashe even supposed to kite anymore? Her Q slow is obsolete.

darkdill·Feb 14, 2015·47 votes·3,942 views

Any jungler can take Chilling Smite and simply negate any advantage her slow gives her when she's trying to orb-walk, over 70% of Champions can gap-close on her, yadayada, you've all heard the arguments. Bottom line is, Ashe can't orb-walk anymore against pretty much ANYONE.

Though I'm gonna guess Riot's response is "Ashe isn't supposed to kite, she's supposed to hold someone down for her teammates". Why can't she do both effectively?

If Ashe is ever remade, her Q needs to either have a more powerful slow or actually inflict short-lived snares.

But Riot doesn't give any fucks about our ADCs right now. Nope, it's only the burst casters right now, nothing for the ADCs.

56 Comments

CrazedPorcupineFeb 14, 201510 votes

My idea for Ashe is changing her Q into a castable Slow for her next auto empowering it, and having it level up to a 99% Slow every few seconds (Maybe 3 seconds and the slow lasts 1) Similar to a nasus Q. It would reset her Auto attack, and wouldn't change her W, except, an AoE 99% Slow would be kinda crazy. But it would make Ashe great for chasing high mobility and running from super mobile champs.

ModKnightsKemplarFeb 14, 20156 votes

I like this idea, surprisingly. It addresses a few problems with her current Q. Such as, it costs mana for each attack but you don't get any stacking benefit if you have high attack speed. It just costs more mana. That is silly.

PatMcGroynFeb 14, 20156 votes

A stacking slow on Ashe' Frost Shot would be an interesting idea, I like that. I also think it would be cool if they changed her passive to synergize with it, ie. they made her auto attacks do extra damage the more slowed the enemy is.

blueberrypancakeFeb 14, 20151 votes

Now that's a good idea

blueberrypancakeFeb 14, 20151 votes

But it means blue build ashe is obsolete, and that was the place where her damage would come from.

ModKnightsKemplarFeb 14, 20152 votes

I play Ashe quite a bit, and I would never go blue build on her. I have never seen any other players do it either, outside of ARAM. I am not under the impression that it's necessary... Crits and attack speed work just fine on her. Typical adc build.

DecaedeusFeb 15, 20151 votes

I like this idea, but I'd like to modify it slightly.

The slow now decays over the duration. Slightly lowers Ashe's power level on the Q, but Ashe has slightly more power to invest elsewhere, and the slow feels similarly powerful. Visceral, but not broken.
Casting Q can also empower your next W. This definitely tones down Ashe's possibly oppressive harass in lane; she has to invest significant cooldowns to get the big slow.
Tack on some damage and increase the slow duration to 1.5 seconds (that also empowers W if she chooses to combo the two together.)

Just my thoughts. I don't really play Ashe, just thought her power budget could be slightly re-allocated this way.

Linna ExcelFeb 14, 20154 votes

Why "fix" a champ that doesn't need nerfing only to see that champ even worse off or OP and needing nerfs? That's my biggest problem with changing ashe. No she isn't current, but she isn't broken OP/UP either. I'd rather the devs fix champs that have bigger issues ATM.

darkdillFeb 14, 20156 votes

Because her Q is too binary. Either it (FREQUENTLY) fails miserably, or it does too good a job (which is rare). No middle ground at all.

Her kit is too ancient, and needs updating. The utility she gives is rather uninspiring and done better by actual support Champions. I'd much rather her Q be a stronger slow if it meant losing the permaslow.

Linna ExcelFeb 14, 20153 votes

Make the slow amount scale with (AP?) and give it a small damage ratio perhaps? That'll let her do a few points of damage while it's on.

My biggest complaint about it is once someone is slowed, if you are focusing one target like you should you either need to keep toggling your Q (annoying) or leave it on (waste mana). I'd say that aspect of her kit needs a QoL adjustment.

I could see doing 3 other things to her Q to make it relevant though:

Q also slows attack speed while someone is debuffed. That'd make her a better dualist against another ADC, but I'm afraid that'd also give her too much more power leading to the nerfs I talked about.
Q lowers dash/flash distance. That'd make her a counter to league of dashes and make her relevant in a way that works for her. Still worried about it'd requiring nerfs.
Q increases her attack range as well. If it puts her into cait/kog/twitch range while on that'd be interesting for the ashe player. Either rush a ER (not many would) or you'd have to pick times to trade at range.

Still, none of these suggestion make me happy as they'd screw with her power budget. If you look at her kit, I don't think she has much room for more power while remaining healthy. I mean when was the last time someone complained about Ashe being OP? Yet she has a healthy win rate.

I'd like a QoL update, but not a change at this time. There's just too many other champs that need work ATM.

darkdillFeb 14, 20153 votes

When you talk about Ashe's power budget, you gotta look at her ult. That is basically where 80% of her power is located, and sadly you can't nerf her ECA without too many people bitching.

Linna ExcelFeb 14, 20152 votes

Right. However her Ult is a global initiate/stun/disengage which makes her kind of unique (jinx's ult is more of a finishing move) and I really wouldn't want to give that up. Dat Ashe wouldn't be the same without her current ult.

I say leave her as is for the people who love playing her and those who are in draft and realize they need to be able to initiate as the ADC.

chumblerFeb 14, 20156 votes

{quoted}

When you talk about Ashe's power budget, you gotta look at her ult. That is basically where 80% of her power is located, and sadly you can't nerf her ECA without too many people bitching.

Yeah, 80 cents of her dollar of power budget is in one easily countered skill. Meanwhile the carries Riot likes are dropping benjamins like skin flakes.

PatMcGroynFeb 14, 20152 votes

Yeah, all it takes is a 1250 gold QSS to make Ashe' ult completely useless.

SolaxoFeb 14, 20154 votes

{quoted}

When you talk about Ashe's power budget, you gotta look at her ult. That is basically where 80% of her power is located, and sadly you can't nerf her ECA without too many people bitching.

Meanwhile Lee sin and Zed

PatMcGroynFeb 14, 20151 votes

You're crazy if you don't think a lot of Zed's power budget is in his ult.

lojicianFeb 14, 20154 votes

{quoted}

But Riot doesn't give any fucks about our ADCs right now. Nope, it's only the burst casters right now, nothing for the ADCs.

Oh please. Adcs are by far the most broken class at the highest levels of play. Trying to play a completely outdated adc doesn't change that.

History lesson: league of idiotic mobility creep actually started because of ashe. They had to give every melee champion a dash or they would be completely worthless as ashe sat their permakiting and laughing at them. So then they started giving ranged champions even more crazy mobility to counteract that and so on until league of kalista. So to answer your question: no ashe actually isn't really supposed to permakite anymore. They gave everyone in the game (everyone that matters anyway) a mechanic specifically bypassing ashe because otherwise ashe would make them useless.

Sir YamazukiFeb 14, 20154 votes

"But Riot doesn't give any fucks about our ADCs right now." What a silly statement. They've been mandatory for ages, if they were really bad they wouldn't be picked at all.

In the case of Ashe, her state of being 'weak' is grossly exaggerated. In all ranks she has more than 50% win rate, increasing as you go up in rank. You also have to keep in mind the popular junglers and even mid/top laners are mobile, yet she isn't being destroyed. She's not even the least played out of the adcs either.

FuaztinFeb 14, 20153 votes

[{quoted}](name=Sir Yamazuki,realm=NA,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=xsyfK07n,comment-id=000a,timestamp=2015-02-14T12:50:34.352+0000)

"But Riot doesn't give any fucks about our ADCs right now." What a silly statement. They've been mandatory for ages, if they were really bad they wouldn't be picked at all.

In the case of Ashe, her state of being 'weak' is grossly exaggerated. In all ranks she has more than 50% win rate, increasing as you go up in rank. You also have to keep in mind the popular junglers and even mid/top laners are mobile, yet she isn't being destroyed. She's not even the least played out of the adcs either.

She has a solid win rate because only experienced players pick her. Nobody wants to play ashe and try to win unless they know the enemy team can't dive her. It's like seeing J4 and Maokai against Draven. But he has a stun/interrupt which not only isn't tied down by a long cooldown. It's also far more effective as a response tool than Enchanted arrow.

BluePolarizerFeb 14, 20153 votes

lolwut ADCs are riots favorites. Try to play AD bruisers these days, the only AD bruisers that can even touch ADCs with equal gold are Vi and Master Yi, and Yi can't outcarry Vayne.

Only Play DariusFeb 14, 20157 votes

item 3075

ThePlasticSporkFeb 14, 20153 votes

Dear God if she snared with her Q she would be OP as shit.

Rito pls do NOT listen to this man

67chromeFeb 14, 20152 votes

Any jungler can take Chilling Smite and simply negate any advantage her slow gives her when she's trying to orb-walk, over 70% of Champions can gap-close on her, yadayada, you've all heard the arguments. Bottom line is, Ashe can't orb-walk anymore against pretty much ANYONE.

Pretty sure you can still orb-walk. Orb-walking doesn't mean "kite things forever". It's just attacking and moving.

The biggest thing I feel like pointing out is the strengths of Ashe's kit vs. a typical assassin/fighter jungler though:

Range, AOE, and CC get exponentially better in team-fighters the more allies you have nearby. AoE should be self-explanatory, Ziggs and Lux in ARAM is a solid case for range, and a 1 second stun when 5 people are nearby is considerably more potent than a 1 second stun when Janna's all by herself.

Ashe is a massive asset in team-fights even if she's not getting credit for killing everything. She can literally do Malphite's job without ever putting herself in harms way, bringing massive initiation and siege potential, as well as essentially bringing a tank/support's utility to the table.

Your typical fighter/assassin jungler though? Melee range, single-target, only noteworthy CC is from Smite. Horrible team-fighter.

However,they're generally fast - and when your mobility is designed so you've got a 50/50 shot at surviving a ~500 range dive with just enough HP to kill an enemy when ~4 opponents take off ~25% of your HP in an instant, diving onto a lone target when they take off ~25% of your HP is a very different scenario.

Anyways - team fight potential and dueling potential are usually counter-balanced.

LoL isn't a 1v1 fest for balance as the end-game is blowing up the Nexus, which probably favors won team-fights over strings of duels.

Ashe plane sucks when she's by herself because she can still easily win games when she uses allies and teams to really push her kit to the next level. She's actually sat in a ~52% monthly win-rate for multiple years in a row.

You just kind of need to accept you're never doing anything by yourself when playing Ashe, because outside of a few edge cases everyone else is a better duelist. And either a worse team-fighter or significantly worse at getting objectives.

NoMonkuFeb 14, 20152 votes

If ashe had the ability to negate champions from EVER approaching her, then she would counter any champion that had less range then her, making her incredibly broken. She still can kite, it is just harder since champions have dashes now to make her kiting ability a LOT harder to do.

HandheldBrandonFeb 14, 20152 votes

Go ahead and try and kite Zed/Yasuo/Akali/Gnar/Nidalee/Ahri/Leblanc/Corki/Ezreal/Lucian/Vayne/Irelia/Jarvan/Lee Sin/Kassadin/katarina/Kalista/Leona/Braum/Malphite/Renekton/Nasus/Master Yi/Morgana/Pantheon/Poppy......You get the idea. The only time Ashe will ever be able to truly kite anybody in this day in age is if the odds are heavily in her favor to begin with meaning the Enemy champion used their dash/Gapcloser/Flash/Slow/CC and Ashe is just far enough back to not be in range of them or Ashe is chasing a fleeing enemy.

There is no situation in this day and age that Ashe will be able to kite anyone well enough to do a serious job.

HandheldBrandonFeb 14, 20152 votes

I have made multiple threads and countless debate on this very issue.

Rito just wont acknowledge the problem.

PartholonianFeb 14, 20152 votes

{quoted}

Though I'm gonna guess Riot's response is "Ashe isn't supposed to kite, she's supposed to hold someone down for her teammates". Why can't she do both effectively?

Nobody should solo kite as effectively as Kalista does now. Marksmen should be reliant on peel and the one that isn't is the problem. Fighters and assassins are supposed to catch and kill marksmen 1v1, unless they have a nearby ally or turret to save them. Assassins, if they can reach them in the first place, may be able to kill them even under turret or with an ally nearby (but if they don't, they will very likely die themselves).

No one champion should do too many things effectively.

But Riot doesn't give any fucks about our ADCs right now. Nope, it's only the burst casters right now, nothing for the ADCs.

As a class, ADCs are in a good place; they're still mandatory on every team. Ashe MissFortune Quinn Varus have individual problems (although I still wouldn't give any of them away in Nemesis Draft), and Riot can't seem to really decide if they want Teemo Urgot to be marksmen at all or something else.

ADCs were never intended to be good duelists though, except maybe Vayne . Peel reliance is intentional. Their main assets are farming very easily and safely, taking objectives quickly, dealing full damage to buildings, not being as limited by CDs/resources as other classes, and being able to contribute while hiding behind the rest of their team. (And Ashe still does every one of those things, even if you think her slow is weak.) If they're caught out -- especially by a burst caster -- they're supposed to die.

PokladnicaZlaFeb 14, 20151 votes

There is thing i don´t get about Ashe´s Q.The icon implies that the arrorws freeze an area where they hit. So why not make Ashe´s arrows slow and then snare someone upon X number of stacks(4 or 5 maybe?).Volley applies 1 stacks.

Is this a good idea?Or just OP?

SolaxoFeb 14, 20151 votes

I don't think you understand what orb-walk means.

WiriusFeb 14, 20151 votes

You see, permakiting is unhealthy for the game. Ashe's slow is still insanely useful if someone is trying to get away, but she still requires teamwork to be successful. Look at Kalista for example. She relies 100% on her teammates for her ult, extra damage, and needs her teammate to kit- wait her passive doesn't need a teammate? Oh, and she gets better kiting on a passive, not a toggle that uses mana. Well hell, my arguments shot.

HandheldBrandonFeb 14, 20153 votes

I dont get why people think Kalista is a problem.

Attack speed slows and normal slows not only destroy her auto attack animation but also will force a flash almost guaranteed. Also shes easy enough to collapse on if a single Hard CC is thrown her direction and if her Soul bound buddy isn't around she has no ultimate and no W proc. She is far more team reliant than anyone in the game.

SeenanFeb 14, 20151 votes

How about adding a knockback to Volley if people get too close? Not sure about the distance to push ratio, but think Drow Ranger in DotA 2 (her silence).

As for Q, make the level scalings better. Start it at like 20 or maybe 25% slow, work up by 5%s or something. Ends up 45% if started at 20% or 50% if started at 25%. Or, I dunno, add an effect to Q that makes it better...Maybe if 3 hits are hit consecutively, they're rooted for a second or two? Charges start adding up again only after they're unrooted..Or make E more of a skill than a bush check/temporary screen-wide ward that remedies the situation?

QuortFeb 14, 20151 votes

I always thought a good change to Volley would be to make it similar to Heimerdinger's Hextech Micro-Rockets in the sense that an enemy can be hit by more than one arrow, dealing increased damage. This would give Ashe a better response to people that just jump right onto her than a point blank Enchanted Crystal Arrow. It could also add some interesting counterplay or interaction like the enemy tank standing right in front of her to block all the arrows or Ashe deciding if she wants to use her W to poke or save it to dissuade the enemy laners from engaging on her. Of course the numbers couldn't be crazy but it's a change that I think would be pretty neat! :3

ZGM DazzlingFeb 14, 20151 votes

Honestly the real problem is they need to give her a real passive -_-

OyddAWqJ5rFeb 14, 20151 votes

Though I'm gonna guess Riot's response is "Ashe isn't supposed to kite, she's supposed to hold someone down for her teammates". Why can't she do both effectively?

Ya just answered ya own question lol. But I do feel the mobility creep has invalidated her. Increased range seems fitting. But yeah she is supposed to just hold people down. They needa give her some kind of bonus for building attack speed so you have a reason to build Runaan's for the AoE Slow

exiledFromBadmenFeb 14, 20151 votes

I think that her attacks should silence.

aperson1Feb 14, 20151 votes

I wish her ult was a suppress so it wasnt affected by mikael's/tenacity... but that would be way too op lol

Jungle Lux GodFeb 14, 20151 votes

Now imagine that her Q slow is not obsolete.

Any champ with gapclosers now cannot reach Ashe after they used their gapclosers. Unless that champ is Kalista of course, but Kalista is so broken right now.

darkdillFeb 14, 20151 votes

If you drop Ashe with a single strike, can she kite?

GloriousKaiserFeb 14, 20151 votes

Well i think it's pretty neat... Mordekaiser

SwordGruntFeb 14, 20151 votes

Oh dear god

I swear if people played Ashe I would ban her every time I wanted to play Mordekaiser

Darth Pixy MisaFeb 14, 20151 votes

I like the idea of q always doing the slow as a passive, and have a active that resets Ashe AA timer. This way she can aa, q, aa, volley, for a quick burst

MandaariFeb 14, 20151 votes

Before they even address her slow I want Riot to deal with her passive. I really want her to actually have a full kit and then make sure she can kite. I don't want to see Riot make her able to kite, say "OK, we're done here," and then leave her with her useless passive.

JedenVojakFeb 15, 20151 votes

Just change Ashe's passive to be a snare instead of a crit.

Watch as people swarm to player her then.

TruŁęgitoŃFeb 15, 20151 votes

Kalista better version of ashe basically

Darth Pixy MisaFeb 15, 20151 votes

For the q what if it had a stacking 15% slow as a passive, then for the active her aa timer is reset, and a shield is applied that reduces crit chance and damage based on the number of slow stacks the enemy champ has like 5% damage and crit per stack for 6 sec.

JasiwelFeb 15, 20151 votes

The problem Ashe faces isn't even her kit not being able to kite melees with soft gapclosers. It's champions that can jump on her so fast that her kit does her literally no good. As a result, she isn't played often and is undesirable in 70% of matchups.

You have to basically make sure no one on the other team can instagapclose or nuke her from a distance...which is getting harder every champion release.

InsaneSamuraiFeb 15, 20151 votes

The idea is to make slow a noob trap skill. Someone thinks Zilean's new 99% slow sounds awesome, cause it sure does on paper. Dashes kinda ruin it, but even when you finally fight someone who can't just Lee or Kalista away from you, you will never slow anyone 99% because of move speed caps. Hell I doubt the last point in it ever even matters.

I'm kidding, but it really does look like this sadly.

KeyoshiFeb 15, 20151 votes

But Riot doesn't give any fucks about our ADCs right now. Nope, it's only the burst casters right now, nothing for the ADCs.

Didn't realize adc's were under-powered. Just because she doesn't fit in the meta doesn't mean shes not good. If shes against the right team ashe can be really annoying and last i check adc's have been favorable this year. No armor pen nerfs, being able to kite is getting better. Some have insane high burst. Quit complaining. If you played any melee or even tanky champions. you'd realize how annoying any adc can be with 400+ crits through 220 armor because of last whisper.