October 5, 2022
Ahri, the nine-tailed fox, is a Vastayan fox who can reshape magic into orbs of raw energy. She roams the world of Runeterra in search of her memories and her clan. She’s a mystery even to herself, with no recollection of her past, her people (the Vastayan), where she came from, or her purpose.
She can manipulate the emotions of those around her, making her a dangerous enemy as she revels in toying with her prey before devouring their life essence. But this predatory nature is sprinkled with empathy, as she receives flashes of memory from each soul she consumes.
ABILITIES OVERVIEW
Ahri is the queen of mobility, and she’s not far behind on sustain. She’s a versatile champion, though. Her waveclear is amazing, her burst damage helps her win a lot of the trades she’s involved in, and her E ability (charm) is shockingly useful for team fights.
In the lane phase, you want to nuke out waves using both Q and W so you can roam to other lanes, help your jungler and win some juicy trades.
Ahri’s abilities overview:
Essence Theft (PASSIVE): Killing minions or monsters grants Ahri an Essence Fragment. After obtaining 9 Fragments, Ahri consumes them to heal, When Ahri scores a takedown against an enemy champion within 3 seconds of damaging them, she feasts upon their Essence, healing her.
One of the significant changes in Ahri this year, this new passive effect is what gives sustain and survival. This allows for trading and roaming without fear (in conjunction with the ultimate or flash as a backup plan).
Orb of Deception (Q): Ahri sends an orb of arcane energy in the target direction, dealing magic damage to all enemies it passes through, then pulls it back, dealing true damage instead.
Minions don’t stop this spell, and it deals reliable damage. It’s Ahri’s main weapon, and we should use this all the time to clear waves, poke, and whenever we want to trade with our opponent.
Fox Fire (W): Ahri gains a bonus movement speed that decays over 2 seconds and summons three spectral flames which orbit her for up to 2.5 seconds. After 0.25 seconds, each flame targets a Sight* icon visible enemy, or after 0.4 seconds target the closest visible enemy in range, dealing magic damage.
Flames prioritize enemy champions hit by Charm, then enemy champions, then minions that would die to Fox-Fire’s damage, and lastly, the target of Ahri’s last basic attack within 3 seconds.
It can be used to finish creeps after a Q, come back to lane faster (even though this is not very mana efficient), or to charge the passive, and it hurts more and more as the game evolves.
Charm (E): Ahri blows forth a kiss in the target direction that deals magic damage to the first enemy hit, knocking them down, charming and slowing them by 65% for a duration.
Ahri’s charm is, in my opinion, one of the greatest CC (Crowd Control) abilities in the game. It allows you to land the full combo, and makes an amazing engage for teamfights.
Spirit Rush (R): Ahri dashes in the target direction, and then fires energy bolts up to 3 visible targets to deal magic damage. Can be recast twice more at a 1-second static cooldown within 10 seconds of activation at no additional cost.
Our one and only, the best spell in our belt – the ultimate. It can be used aggressively to start a full combo and destroy our enemies or defensively to go in and out without getting too hurt. It’s a fantastic spell full of possibilities.
RUNES
Runes are enhancements that add new abilities or buffs to champions, allowing us to slightly modify our playstyle for one of them depending on the game, our lane, the enemy composition, and our team composition. There are five different paths of runes: Precision (Improved attacks and sustained damage), Domination (Burst damage and target access), Sorcery (Empowered abilities and resource manipulation), Resolve (Durability and crowd control), and Inspiration (Creative tools and rule-bending).
Each rune page contains two possible rune paths: the main and secondary rune paths. There are so many different rune combinations that can be used for any champion, let’s review some of the most popular ones for Ahri:
DOMINATION + INSPIRATION
One of my favorite builds.
DOMINATION
Keystone: Electrocute gives us the burst damage needed to avoid having enemies run away with 50 HP. I think this is the best choice without any kind of doubt.
First Rune: Here we have several choices. Taste of Blood is my favorite as I think Ahri has a weaker early game than other mid-lane champions.
- Taste of Blood is amazing against a hard match-up, providing us with a safer early game.
- Cheap Shot makes us deal damage after a successful charm and could be useful for a teamfight-oriented strategy (even though I think is the weakest choice in this tree).
- Sudden Impact boosts our all in with Spirit Rush.
Second Rune: The best choice is Eyeball Collection because it allows us to get more damage and improve our snowball capabilities. Another good option could be Ghost Poro to enhance our vision but, what are wards and pinks for?
Third Rune: Ultimate Hunter, Ahri’s entire gameplay revolves around her Ultimate, so there’s no other possible choice here. More ults = more kills.
INSPIRATION
I really love the combo of Biscuit Delivery and Time Warp Tonic as I think it provides a strong early game, even more so if you start with a Corrupting Potion to have huge amounts of sustain.
Another great Inspiration combo is Minion Dematerializer and Cosmic Insight. Minion Dematerializer improves our wave clear ability and Cosmic Insight gives great CDR on items and summoner spells, amazing for builds that include the Everfrost.
DOMINATION + SORCERY
SORCERY
First Rune: Transcendence. As CDR is the way to go with Ahri, when choosing Sorcery as the second rune path there’s no way Transcendence is not part of the plan.
Second Rune: Gathering Storm. Ahri is quite weak in terms of damage and scaling if we compare her with other champions in the late game, Gathering Storm provides us with a good way to keep our damage up in those longer games.
OTHER RUNE BUILDS
The last two rune builds are my favorites depending on the enemy composition and my team composition, but there are a lot of viable runes for Ahri that could be better depending on the setup.
PRECISION + DOMINATION
resource
I loved seeing this build come to life by Rasmus “caPs” Borregaard Winther. It’s an original way of approaching the champion. It gives her a huge boost for the early game against other typical mids like LeBlanc or Viktor, as they’re totally object dependent, and you just have to keep hitting them and dodging their skillshots. So, essentially, basic attack all the time and use Spirit Rush to get out of trouble, throw some W now and then, and you don’t even need to use your skillshots to get a kill.
INSPIRATION + DOMINATION (GLACIAL AUGMENT)
This build revolves around CCing your enemies and making them suffer, it’s very dependent on Everfrost, and it can be a very unforgiving build.
ITEMS
We will not review each object that can be usable and viable in an Ahri build as this could be the longest and most boring guide of all times, so let’s just take a look at some of the more impactful items for this nine-tailed Vastayan.
CORE ITEMS
GLACIATE – Active effect. Unleashes a fan of icy shards in a cone in the target direction, dealing magic damage and slowing the enemies hit by 65% for 1.5 seconds, moreover, enemies struck in the center of the cone are rooted for the same duration instead.
Everfrost is one of three Mythic items you can choose to build Ahri. It allows us to be extremely aggressive and pick people off while also being suitable as a defense mechanism against threatening champions that dive on us all the time.
ECHO – Passive Effect. Dealing ability damage to an enemy deals additional magic damage to them and launches orbs at up to 3 other enemies within range, impacting after 0.5 seconds to deal the same damage to each and grants 15% bonus movement speed for 2 seconds. Dealing ability damage to champions reduces the cooldown of Echo by 0.5 seconds per champion, up to a maximum of 3 seconds per cast.
Luden’s Tempest is a perfect item to face a team full of squishy champions. It also gives a bonus movement speed after hitting an ability, allowing us to chase our enemies effortlessly.
TORMENT – Passive effect. Dealing ability damage burns enemies.
AGONY – Passive effect. Deals bonus magic damage against enemy champions based on the target’s bonus health.
This item is ideal when you need that extra damage against a tanky team, as it makes percentage health damage and increases your damage based on how much health your enemies have. So this is the Luden for a match full of enemies with a lot of health.
DEFENSIVE ITEMS
STASIS – Active Effect. Puts yourself in Stasis for 2.5 seconds, rendering the user untargetable and invulnerable for the duration but also unable to move, attack, cast abilities, use summoners, or activate any other item.
Zhonya’s Hourglass is an amazing defensive res. It’s a great counter to many champions, and it can altogether avoid Karthus’ ultimate or an aggressive Zed coming for you. But I don’t recommend building this early instead of other core items.
ANNUL – Passive Effect. Grants a Spell Shield that blocks the next hostile ability.
Another excellent defensive resource for our belt. It’s very good against a LeBlanc or a Lux, and it’s perfect against champions that rely on hitting all their spells to kill someone or hitting their crowd control first correctly.
BOOTS
Sorcerer’s Shoes are going to be your boots 95% of the games unless you need to get a little defense against a heavy AD team. In this case, you would have to make Plated Steelcaps, or against a heavy AP team, when you should choose Mercury’s Treads.
Ionian Boots of Lucidity are a great fit for a full CDR build. They provide some ability and summoner spell cooldown reduction to have your flash earlier and spam abilities.
My usual build goes a little bit like this:
- Luden or Liandry (or Evefrost)
- Sorcerer’s boots
- Shadowflame
- Zhonya
- Rabadon
If the enemy team has a lot of healing, you may need to build Morellonomicon, or Void Staff if they have a lot of Magic Resist (and it also provides a good amount of Ability Power). Lich Bane is currently pretty popular as Ahri is usually in range to hit with her basic attack, and this item boosts your basic attack damage after using an ability. Horizon Focus is a huge boost to damage if you nail your Charm.
STRATEGY
Ahri has a weak laning phase, and she has very low HP and armor, so any damage will hurt a lot. In the early game, she doesn’t have a lot of damage, but with the new rework of Fox-Fire (W) you can play a little bit more aggressively as it won’t drain your mana as fast as before. I usually start with my W and try to maximize the Q after unlocking all the abilities.
So until you get your ultimate, you should play safe, harassing your enemy as much as you can with Orb of Deception (Q) and last hitting with Fox-Fire. If the jungle tries to gank you or your adversary gets aggressive, try to charm them under the tower so the damage can help you punish them. Be careful as the Charm (E) can be blocked by minions.
Be sure to have good vision around you, make good use of your Stealth Ward, and always have a Control Ward up. You want to be aware of your surroundings because, even though Spirit Rush (R) is your get-out-of-jail-free card for ganks, it’s also your main start-play; you don’t want to waste it running away.
My favorite Ahri trait is that she’s a great roamer. I love going around the map (always after getting priority in your lane) searching for easy kills on other lanes, and Spirit Rush (R) makes it easy to dive and get away. I usually change my Stealth Ward to an Oracle Lens once I get to mid-game to clean bushes and pick people off.
Ahri is great at mid-game, her damage starts to increase, and her enemies won’t have a lot of defense to avoid her combos. However, she doesn’t have a strong late game so you don’t want to extend the game too long. Ahri is a versatile champion that can, at this stage, wait in the bushes and pick off squishy enemies, or group up with her team and start a massacre with a well-thrown Charm or interrupting important abilities.
CONCLUSION
Ahri is such a versatile champion that can work in most team compositions but has a weak and challenging early game, so it can be scary to pick her up. Still, she’s currently, in my opinion, one of the strongest mid-laners in the game and should not be overlooked.
Mastering her just requires practice and getting used to her pacing and abilities, but a good Charm could be the point of no return between a loss and a win.