Do you think Ashe might be better off if her Frost Shot were a limited-duration steroid?

darkdill·May 27, 2014·7 votes·1,997 views

I was looking at a thread that suggested making Volibear's ult and Kog'Maw's W a toggle, but obviously making them that way would cause severe imbalances. In looking at the idea, though, I had a thought: What if Ashe's Frost Shot weren't a toggle, but a temporary attacking steroid?

Would this enable Ashe to have more power? Or does it conflict with her game design?

This isn't to suggest that Riot actually make such a change. It's merely theorycrafting.

EDIT: Nice, we got Riot's attention. Now to show an example of what I think could work. Remember, numbers are just theoretical, and can easily be adjusted.

Passive: Adds a 15/20/25/30/35% slow to Volley.

Active: For the next 6 seconds, Ashe's basic attacks slow enemies by 30/35/40/45/50% for 2 seconds. During this time, Volley's slow is also increased to 30/35/40/45/50%. The passive effect is disabled while Frost Shot is on cooldown.

16/15/14/13/12 second cooldown.

Sure, you could almost get that permaslow back if you have 40% CDR, but is that really wise on Ashe? That's a matter of debate and circumstance.

17 Comments

RiotRiot SotereMay 29, 20148 votes

I have never given this any thought. Glad you brought it up. I don't think it conflicts with her design and I don't know that it would modify her overall power level. The question that I'd focus on is whether it makes her better and more enjoyable.

My very quick impression on that is Ashe, as is, is one of our more appropriately mana gated champions. I always struggle, and on occasion run out of mana, due to my careless use of Frost Shot. Even being pretty experienced with her this is a problem but as a newer player weaving Frost Shot was a challenging venture.

So what would we gain by changing this into an ability with a meaningful CD? Along my line of thought above, it may be more simple to use. Ashe players may appreciate the slow more if it were condensed into a shorter period of time. There would be one decision per ~10 seconds, as opposed to many. Opponents may recognize that there is a window of opportunity to play around. Concerns of being perma-kited by Ashe (although they're not incredibly prevalent) would be a thing of the past. Ashe's cadence and skill rotation would also be changed.

There are definitely some potential gains. However, the costs are the opposite of above: players may miss the technical expertise of toggling between autos, may long for more decision points, and may appreciate and have mastered her present cadence so that changing it would be disruptive. I couldn't tell you which is better offhand but I do enjoy the theorycrafting. Thanks! :)

MansanaMay 29, 20144 votes

What about adding magic damage to frost shot? Similar to Jinx's chompers where it costs mana to do a little bit of extra damage. Her Enchanted Crystal Arrow does magic damage, why can't her frost shot? Would make sense to add some type of aspect other than just a slow.

darkdillMay 29, 20141 votes

Maybe try a PBE experiment and see what people think.

Joren UniekMay 29, 20141 votes

There might be some expertise involved in toggling Frost Shot, but there isn't really any meaningful decision making involved. You can save some mana by toggling Q off for when you hit a minion/monster or a champion you've recently slowed and expect to slow again before the current slow wears off, but that's it. It's just an optimization problem.

I would love for Ashe to get a kit that causes some more decision making on both sides of the table. She's seen some minor buffs over the years: bit more base stats, passive got a bit better, Hawkshot got a bit better. She's still very one-dimensional though, and very underwhelming because of the mobility creep the game has suffered from for a long time now. There are pretty much three possible macro scenarios for Ashe right now:

The enemy team has significant back line dive threat, and Ashe will be a liability for your team.
The enemy team has significant back line dive threat, but because your entire team picked terribly, you also have no reliable initiation on your team so Ashe is somewhat useful to press R.
The enemy team has no dive threat, and Ashe is Queen and will destroy them all if you make it to lategame.

There's really not a lot of interesting gameplay here (Ashe is either pretty decent or pretty bad, depending on champion select), and the third scenario somehow has always resulted in Ashe never getting to have significant damage compared to any other ADC in the game, which makes her extremely unfulfilling to play even if her winrate might be acceptable (not that winrate was ever a good indication of champion balance, but well).

tl;dr I'm very sad Ashe hasn't seen the spotlight in 3 seasons. (Please don't mention Cloud 9 last year, they could literally have played any ADC in the game and still done the same, they were that far ahead of their competition as a team. And Sneaky had the least game impact of any player on their team at the time. And this is one team.)

MandaariMay 29, 20142 votes

Ashe is and always has been my favorite ADC for almost 5 years now. I don't think this is the right area to address her power. There's a reason people tunnel vision her passive and hawkshot. Also, her base stats are absolutely awful.

Managing her mana and Q toggle is a core part of her kit IMO. I'd be furious to see that go.

darkdillMay 29, 20141 votes

That's why I put this to a discussion: To see what the general opinion is.

MandaariMay 29, 20141 votes

I know. And that's my opinion. I think frost shot is perfect as is. Her passive, hawkshot, and base stats are all what I'd like to see addressed.

darkdillMay 30, 20141 votes

One thing, though, is that if this change were made, Ashe could be allowed other changes. Right now, because she can permaslow, that requires her to be held back in other areas, or she becomes OP.

MandaariMay 30, 20141 votes

I really don't think it does. Perma slows mean very little in harass, trades, and duels. Ashe's slow really only shines when she's running or chasing once Q is maxed, but in those situations - especially for chasing - she shines brightly. Even so, I think she has room to be buffed or changed elsewhere without making her OP. Would it make her strong? Certainly. But I don't think it would be OP.

That being said, if something had to change to make room for more power then I'd rather keep frost shot the way it is or not change her at all. The more I think about it, the less I want to give her a traditional steroid. It just homogenizes her too much. That's especially true if it takes away the defining ability of her kit in order to do so.

SilverthaneMay 27, 20141 votes

idk an ashe who max's the dmg steroid with built in crit shot sounds like tons of dmg early.

darkdillMay 27, 20141 votes

I meant more along the lines of this:

Passive: Adds a 15/20/25/30/35% slow to Volley.

Active: For the next X seconds, Ashe's basic attacks slow enemies by Y% for 2 seconds. During this time, Volley's slow is also increased to Y%. The passive effect is disabled while Frost Shot is on cooldown.

Making the skill an active of limited duration would enable Ashe to have stronger slows on Frost Shot since it's not a toggle and thus nearly a passive. Since she could time it wrong, there's better counterplay: attack her while you know her slow is down, and she can't kite you.

MahewaMay 29, 20141 votes

So you wouldn't have the passive cost any mana?

Sightless66May 29, 20141 votes

No, because it's just giving volley a slow like Frost Arrows currently does. It doesn't need to cost extra mana because the mana cost is attached to volley.

MahewaMay 29, 20141 votes

Ah, didn't read that closely enough. Thought you were saying the passive was the same as the current frost shot.

BearticMay 28, 20141 votes

I think the problem with Ashe is that her E is kind of useless. If it did damage like Corki q it would be much better. Perhaps if her w was some kind of steroid instead of gold that would be better. As far as i know Ashe is the only marksmen that dose not have some kind of steroid.

ChaosThiefMay 29, 20141 votes

Do you mean her E???

Her W is volley, her E is the hawk. It sounds like you're talking about the hawk.

Hinagiku33May 30, 20141 votes

I feel like this would make Ashe more boring. I like the skill of toggling and mana actually mattering - leaving Frost Shot on too long can easily screw you out of being able to use Enchanted Crystal Arrow in a pinch, which seems like a reasonable weakness/choice-point.

Ashe also doesn't have a lot in the way of tools. What the heck is she going to do when her Q is on cooldown? Her E has a cooldown on-par with some ultimates and her ultimate has a big cooldown and needs to be used very wisely. About all she could do is Volley to proc the slow once and hope it's enough...which is doubtful as Ashe has extremely poor base movement speed and no mobility in her kit.

Honestly, without some pretty major changes to her kit, I see this as just making Ashe very weak without really giving her any positive benefit.