Introduction: This is not a redesign, it is a discussion.

Ahri's kit was designed back in a time when Riot was still pumping out champions at a rather fast pace. And while she is thematically strong, her gameplay is seen by some as lacking in some ways. As such I would like to discuss with you a variety of ideas for making her kit more cohesive and potentially better overall. Some of the ideas go together but many of them are standalone. It is not a true rework, but rather a discussion about each part of her kit. Feel free to respond to some, none or all of the ideas in the comments section.

I'm interested in hearing other peoples' thoughts, and I want to find some sort of common ground between everyone who has a stake in Ahri and her potential future rework. As someone who used to main her and who still plays her occasionally, I remember how fun she can be to play, and I want the best possible outcome for everyone from whatever changes Riot decides to make to the champion.

Passive: Essence Thief

This passive already has the makings of a really cool mechanic, however I believe that it works backwards - thematically speaking. For two reasons:

1. because she is gaining stacks for herself instead of placing stacks on enemies.

2. because when she 'drains life essence,' it rewards hitting as many enemies as possible rather than a single victim.

If her theme is supposed to be tempting people and then eating their soul then I think that this passive should really be something that stacks on individual enemies rather than on Ahri herself. And when it triggers I think that it shouldn't work on all enemies struck by her ability, but rather just on enemies - or a single enemy - whom she has placed a sufficient amount of stacks on.

It could add a stack whenever she affects an enemy with one of her abilities, and if she has enough stacks on that enemy then she should get a chance to do something cool like charm the enemy or consume their life essence for some healing, or gain a cool effect on her next ability against them. 9 stacks may prove to be too difficult with this change in effect, so the cap required to trigger the effect could be lowered if necessary.

A completely different idea for her passive (if it were to be replaced with something else entirely) is that it could allow her to mark a target, and doing so could allow her abilities (or maybe just her first ability) against the target to have (an) additional effect(s). It could be a choice by the player or it could be made to affect just the nearest enemy to Ahri.

And lastly, her passive could involve Fox Fires. But more on this later.

Q: Orb of Deception

This ability is already relatively cool, given it's function. You get to deal more damage if you land both parts of it, and you have to aim the second part of it by positioning carefully. New Swain's E works kind of like this, and it's a cool means of skill expression. This is something I would not change about the ability.

For the most part I would leave this ability unchanged. There is some debate over whether she should keep or lose the movement speed that the ability grants her. My only thoughts regarding this is that if the movement speed is kept, it should be changed so that the ability is more particular about when or even if she is granted movement speed by it. Perhaps it should reward her for hitting enemies, or it should only work when moving in a particular way. I don't really mind one way or the other about it though and I'm open to hearing other peoples ideas both for and against the movement speed on her existing Q.

W: Fox Fire

This ability has potential, but as it stands it's kind of lackluster. It is controlled by AI and it has a short range, making it feel very clunky and not very skill expressive to use. It is thematically pretty cool though, and the animation is also kind of cool, but it also already happens automatically when she casts her ultimate.

I've got a few different ideas for how it could be changed, but I'm not overly attached to them. They struck me as interesting, and I'd like to see your own thoughts about them as well. I'd like to know whether you like the proposals or not, and how you might tweak them in order to make them work well in your own opinion.

1. What if this ability (and it's effect that occurs on her ultimate too) were moved to her passive (and tuned appropriately of course) so that she gained 3 fox-fires whenever she casts an ability? This could be expanded upon in any number of ways, including:

• working when she lands an ability on an enemy, and then going on cooldown for some amount of time so that other abilities would not trigger it repeatedly. Her ultimate could perhaps ignore this cooldown and be allowed to generate fox-fires on each cast regardless of what the cooldown is.
• grant some boon (like triggering essence thief healing or charming the target) upon using them effectively (such as hitting the same enemy with all three of them).
• having fox-fires not deal damage, but instead grant her abilities cool effects when they hit enemies who have been struck by one or all 3 of the fox-fires.

2. Combining the fox-fires with her Charm by making it so that enemies who are hit by all 3 fox-fires become charmed for a short duration.

3. Giving her back the damage boost that she got on her charm, but only against targets who have been hit by 3 fox-fires (could potentially be made to work with her ultimate as well).

Both of the first two proposals would free up her W ability slot, so a new ability would be needed. I have no thoughts or opinion on what would go in that place, but if you have a favorite idea (or several ideas) please feel free to share them in the comments.

E: Charm

Ahri's Charm is a successful ability. Design-wise it is thematically appropriate, and Ahri players have multiple ways to use it - it can be used to pick an out-of-position enemy, or it could be used to defensively charm a diver or assassin who catches her, and it works great when chaining cc on an enemy who has already been picked by an ally. It does seem to fit fairly decently with her play pattern as well - helping her to land Q's or bring an enemy closer for her Fox Fires to hit.

But I can't help but look at Riot's recent reworks and new champions and think that this ability could be way cooler, and both more skill expressive and more interactive for opponents besides just a skillshot to dodge. I'm not sure exactly what I would want from an update to it, but if Riot does change it I hope that they implement some of their newer design techniques to provide a rewarding charm ability that also still has counter-play for her opponents. Maybe it could be made to work better if it interacted with Fox-Fires somehow. What do you think?

R: Spirit Rush

This ability is super iconic and really fun to use, and the animation for it is really great... but it has a bit of a problem because of how it gives her a lot of safety when she has it available. That said I really like her ultimate and I hope that Riot preserves the repeated dashes in some form or another. I do think that forcing her to use it defensively is good enough counterplay because then she can't use it to make plays, and perhaps she just needs more agency (along with counterplay of course) in the rest of her kit rather than have her ultimate changed too much.

Conclusion:

That's it for my thoughts as of now, please feel free to provide feedback or tweaks to the ideas presented above, and please feel free to share your own thoughts regarding Ahri and her potential rework. Discuss in the comments.