Ahri's foxfire needs a rework

As someone who plays Ahri from time to time when he gets mid, I have to say one of the least satisfying things about her kit is her Foxfire skill. It's the worst skill in her kit I'd argue. So I'd like to briefly go into what's right about it, what's wrong about it, and then talk about what her gameplay is about before making a few suggestions.

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The Good Things Starting off on the positives, I think that it's name and its visuals are perfect for Ahri. The name makes sense for her theme and the visuals have a nice allure to them. She's a mage/assassin so conjuring some balls of fire seem right. It's a very simple skill which makes it good for new players to her; there's not much to learn about it when you are starting out on Ahri, just press a button. It has a low barrier to entry.

Another thing I like about it is that it can be cast on the run and if you do, you get a nice animation for it.

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The Bad things It's not very satisfying a skill to use. Because all you do is press W and hope that all the wisps go where you want them too, getting proper use out of it isn't satisfying. However there are hidden mechanics to how the orbs select targets so if your position or how ahri is facing is a little off, the wisps won't go to where you want them to. So this skill has low potential to make someone satisfied and a high potential to make someone unsatisfied.

It lacks much in the way of skill expression. Again, as a very simple skill with a low barrier to entry, it also has with it a very low ceiling on proper use. In theory you could flash or ult just right for a specific orb deployment but if we are being honest, that's rarely the case with this skill. It's fire and forget and if you are going to flash or ult with Ahri, you are probably more concerned with hitting your charm than anything else. That relegates this skill to being more about bonus damage than anything else.

Wave clear with this skill is odd and not very fun. With Ahri's orb, wave clear is pretty simple: aiming. Using her Foxfire to wave clear on the other hand is unlike anything else in the game all because of those subtle mechanics one has to know about and master. If there are two low minions and one of them needs two wisps so you have not autoattack anything first, then you've got to move to the right spot and turn the right way so that one minion gets two wisps and the other only gets one and you have to do all this while your own minions are trying to steal your CS. Sure you aren't going to do this very often, but once or twice a game trying to last hit with this skill is going to stick out like a sore thumb. What's more, if the enemy laner is within the wisps' radius you have to be very careful in the early levels or you might accidentally draw minion aggro.

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Overall conclusion about the skill Foxfire is a skill that hits its thematic notes but in terms of gameplay is too simple and has too much going on under the hood to make it a good skill for the game. It's basically bonus damage in a trade with a little RNG (subtle mechanics) thrown into it.

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Defining Ahri's gameplay I think that if we want to see foxfire properly reworked, we need to talk briefly about all aspects of her kit. From there we can see what her gameplay is and try to come up with skill ideas that fit in with and compliment the things Ahri does. Ideally any new idea would keep the themes of the current foxfire as much as possible.

Ahri's kit includes the following:

• Assassin-mage hybrid. While she's currently leaning a little more towards the assassin side of things she's generally been somewhere between the two. For instance her Q is definitely a poke/waveclear tool.
• She's kind of reliant on hitting her charm for an all in.
• She's forced to decide between playing safe or going for a kill.
• Mobility. At first this was just her ult, later a speed buff was added to her kit.
• Aggressive life gain. One of the core themes of Ahri&'s persona and lore is her ability to take the life essences out of others. Originally she was a fox that magically sucked life out of people, then she was converted into a vastyaan with similar properties.
• AoE damage. Aside from her charm, all of Ahri's skills have the potential to hit multiple targets.
• Skill shots. Her orb and her charm require you to aim them. Her ult requires you to have a good idea of where you need to be when you dash.
• Niche ADC abilities. I'm a little hesitant to include this, but for sake of completion, Ahri is a very niche ADC up until low diamond. While she lacks AD ratios, her ult allows for repositioning that an ADC wants in a team fight and would work with TF/LB, she has a little CC for trading, her AA animations aren't bad for a mage, and her orb helps her with waveclear and heals her up a tad bit. So she's very niche but technically viable for the elo range riot balances around.

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To Quote Bill Belichick "We're on to Cleveland suggestions"

Up to this point I've defined what's wrong with foxfire. I've mentioned what's right with it. I've tried my best to list what Ahri's kit is to narrow down the field of improvement. So now I just need to offer an idea to correct the problem.

So, where do we go from here?

As I see it, there's two directions we can take. We can either go down the path of trying to pick one aspect of Ahri's to be the focus of the new foxfire or we can go for a broader approach that hits multiple areas of how Ahri was defined. With that in mind, let me offer for your consideration a new take on Foxfire.

Foxfire Ahri generates 3 wisps of flame. She can recast Foxfire to send a single wisp to a target location or she can auto attack, which uses one wisp to deal bonus AA damage. Using the recast version deals less damage over an AoE, using a wisp for AAing causes that auto attack to be boosted by more damage than the recast, but the damage only effects your AA target.

Foxfire does AP damage and scales by both AP and AD.

Enemies killed by foxfire heal Ahri for a little health that scales on both AP and AD, AA kills heal Ahri more than recast kills, and champion takedowns heal more than minions or jungle creeps.

So, why is this better?

First and for most it's that it's a new idea for league; we don't have many skills that I can think of that can either be used as a spell or as an AA damage buff. This gives Ahri players a little more choice and execution. This also draws out the time it takes to get the bonus damage off, especially for someone using Lichbane, so the window of damage and ability to counter play Ahri goes up a little. For AA damage Ahri will need between 3 and 5 seconds to get all of her damage off. That's enough time for the other guy to respond, especially if you miss your charm.

More importantly, this new version of Foxfire gives Ahri players more choices and there's now a little more decision making involved. Do you recast for pushing waves or because enemy champs are clumped up? Do you use your AAs on a single target for max damage? Do you do both? Also because you get 3 charges so you have 3 chances to make a decision in case you want to set something up or a situation changes. So how to use it correctly becomes a lot more situational and it isn't exactly free damage anymore. For example if you did get Lichbane you now have to consider using a recast to enable the spellblade effect to activate VS waiting on one of your other spells to come up.

Other advantages of this skill are as follows. It keeps the existing art assets, so it's that much easier to implement. Since players can now use it more suboptimally and its maximum damage takes longer and puts Ahri at more risk, her players can get a little more reward for skillful play. The healing she gets fits in with the aggressive healing philosophy, and it might encourage Ahri players who are low to take an extra risk to heal up on minions; players focused on getting the healing would be easier to trade against. AD scaling is added as a bonus for the rare gunblade user or ADC Ahri but not something most Ahri players or people playing against her would worry about. Last hitting becomes easier with this skill as the player has more direct input on how the wisps are used now. Finally it has simple mechanics even though there is more skill in deciding how to use it.

However I think the most important advantage of this new version of foxfire is this: Ahri players would now be forced to think more about pressing W and think more about how they want to press it vs autoattack. Getting people to think is good. Ahris who fall behind on the other hand aren't going to think as well and that'll make them more open to getting killed because this is one more thing you have to think about when you are already frustrated and tilting.