**drops everything to watch Coach Curtis Ahri guide** Man, I LOVE Ahri, I love how fun and versatile she is. 3 completely distinct playstyles, totally adaptable to any game.
As a high challenger player and the current rank 1 Ahri on NA im actually super impressed with just how accurate and detailed you are with a lot of things in this video. Usually a lot of these types of guides feel like theyre quite surface level, but this one is honestly very good. A thing I do think could be mentioned a bit more when it comes to playing Ahri is how to manouvre and find flanking positions during the midgame, as this is the main way Ahri carries midgame fights. For example if your team is controlling an area of the map around an objective, anticipating where the enemy team is going to move to contest and retake the space, and position yourself accordingly. Other thing is opening through midlane during the midgame, because you can often catch the enemy botlane when the midwaves meet. Overall though really good guide very very accurate and valuable for all levels of play id say
@@TeriiTeri European challenger and positional coach in Ultraliga that was in NA for 3 months during summer and 3 months during winter. During summer i played on this account: ChesterwMiIxO and got rank 1 Ahri During winter I played on this account: Posnet and also got Rank 1 Ahri
Couple extras: 1. Dont help with baron unless the enemy is aced, you are more valuable delaying the enemy engage, they cant if your charm is up (be between the enemy base and the baron, or in the river bush). Your dps is low, youe CC and burst is high. 2. Even if you kose the teamfight, dont int, your waveclear is amazing and you can sometimes hold 3v1 shoving waves. Hold your charm so they cant dive, or worst case trade 1 for 1 if they do dive, which buys your team more time to revive. 3. If ahead and have your R, you can act as a split pusher sometimes, because very few champs can out speed you if they come to get you, and you can kite and 1v1 all non-tanks. 4. Be patient with your R2 and R3, wait for a few seconds so that your Q and W are up again before going in again, you can do 2 full combos and late game even 3 in one ult usage. 5. Flash is faster then Ult, if you need to be instant, prioritize your flash. Also flash is more defensively oriented, because it doesnt deal damage on your way in. 6. As an extention to point 5, you can suprise and cover a lot of distance combining flash+ult+e in case you see an enemy recalling or something under turret you can dive that and ult back out super fast.
As an OTP Ahri with more than 1 million mastery point, this guide helps me so much! This is the best guide I've ever seen for Ahri. I think I lerned english just to watch this video 😂😂😂
5:59 one thing to note, if you do this setup into LB it actually changes how the matchup is played, and this typically benefits you. Typically, leblanc goes ignite and looks for a hard trade on the first 3 waves, so that she can kill you with ignite + combo on next rotation. Bone-plating completely ruins this gameplan, and typically if you choose to go ludens/liandries you can outdamage her in controlled fights.
Had a break from lol for over a year, just came back today and decided to play Ahri for now while I'm getting back into the game. Opened my favo coaching yt channel and well well well what do I see. Feels like Curtis sensei always got my back.
Cosmic drive has been the highest winrate 2nd, 3rd, 4th (and mostly 5th) item for ahri. I feel like it compliments her well. She has burst, but not enough to kill consistently. She also has her w which is not really a skillshot, can be cast while moving, gives movespeed and is low cd. Putting all those together, it seems that she is supposed to full combo where she can but consistently poke with w. She can go in with R, full combo then get out, continue poking with w till you can R back in to finish. The more obvious playstyle tho, is to poke with w till you can go in with R to finish the job (since she doesn't have the burst to outright go in and 100-0. This also makes sense when you take into account that liandry's has been top wr for basically the past 4 patches. Her w poke is safe but not that high damage. Liandry's damage doesn't care about the damage of the ability that procs it, just that an ability hit an enemy. It also can proc on multiple people which is neat. Liandry's also makes her kinda good into tanks and bruisers since you get a %dmg increase against health stackers and she also has true damage on her Q. The recent change to cosmic (100ap 30 haste version) is kinda better (still highest wr) than the old version. Ahri can proc it with her w alone which is super neat since she can gain access to up to 25% MS in somewhat neutral game which makes her that much more slippery and safe when she is poking. She can dodge more skill shots and she can use Q without getting punished as hard since she has MS stacked up on cosmic. The high ability haste also means she throws out more charms which is neat and also has more uptime on ult. Her ult being up allows her to play way more aggressively so if you somehow manage to screw up with your high range W which gives MS and can be cast while moving while also having cosmic move speed you can still get out of jail free with ult. Having your ult up can also psychologically help people play better since you feel more comfortable doing a risky play. This mainly helps when a player thinks a play is more risky than it is (usually due to confidence loss from previous games or losing lane). EDIT: I'm not saying you're wrong for not recommending it, since the version when you posted this video was knew and no one really played about with it. It was undoubtedly worse than the new version we had but even the old version (90ap 30ah version) was still top wr on ahri and helped when you full combo and then followed up with poking (also the 5% unconditional ms and 30 ah helped poking, without the need to proc the passive).
I respect that you're humble enough to ask for your student's input in this guide. That might sound silly considering he's GM, but a lot of Challengers seem to really look down on GM players. Hell, a lot of Challengers seem to look down on other Challengers. Listening to the podcast and all, I've gotten the impression that you're far more down to earth and have more respect for both the game and the players who are struggling than a lot of other community members. Cheers mate. Btw, you forgot the https on the twitch link so it's not clickable in the description. Anyway, I honestly feel like Luden's is so underwhelming these days. With how tanky the meta is, going anything other than Liandry's and Sorc shoes just feels so weak on most champions. One-shotting people just doesn't seem to really happen with Ahri anymore. Maybe it's a lower ELO problem with games going on forever because no one knows how to end games, but I've literally had games where I'm 10 cspm, a few kills, no deaths...and then all of a sudden I do zero damage because I couldn't convince my team to pressure leads early on and now the entire enemy team is too tanky. Only way I've found around this is to go Liandry's + Cosmic. I usually play electrocute though. Maybe First strike helps with the damage later. I'll have to give the Everfrost + Horizon combo a try. I've always felt useless and like I did zero damage the few times I've tried Everfrost. It always seemed more like a "support" item that you would take in a competitive premade team environment. (Proplay, Clash, etc). Not that it's bad, just that...it seemed too reliant on teammates for solo queue. It feels terrible to build it and then all of a sudden you realize you have to be the wincon for the team but aren't doing enough damage to actually pull it off. BTW, I noticed that LegitKorea maxs W on Ahri...I've never seen anyone else do this, what do you think about it?
I can't comment too much on W max Ahri. I'm assuming he does it into lower ranged matchups for heavy trading? Maybe because its more reliable and lower CD as its leveled or lower mana costs? The downside of the W max is that you have less wave clear though. I'd have to look into it further before I give a final verdict
@@CoachCurtis hes putting 2 points into q and maxes w than. 1 shots the back minions at the same point as with q max as far as i remember. And yeah he does it vs melee champs. Has one benefit over q max: you can roam faster because the cd goes down to 5 seconds from 9 :) I personally still like q max a lot more.
Hey Curtis, always nice to see such an In-Depth guide on my favorite champion and I agree with a lot of the stuff you talked about. :) However I do have some major comments regarding the builds section and mythic playstyles. *1. Everfrost is just as effective at an assassin playstyle as Ludens if not better.* The biggest misconception people have about mythics for Ahri is that Everfrost is seen exclusively as the more utility/facilitator build and if you are looking for an assassin burst playstyle Ludens is the way to go. But that is actually FALSE. Everfrost has the same burst dmg and kill threat as Ludens against squishy targets even if they dont build any mr. And where Ludens is kind of reliant on enemies coming into you in order to burst them down Everfrost can actually look for proactive assassinations thanks to the slow/root active it provides. If this seems hard to believe here are some videos of my dmg tests I did in practice tool vs 40mr targets and giving Everfrost an Amp tome to equalize gold value of both builds for a fair comparison. imgur.com/gallery/LQfyiWZ The reason why the dmg is so similar is because 20% of Ahri's dmg is true dmg that doesn't benefit from the magic pen of Ludens and the Everfrost active has 20% more ap scaling compared to Ludens and you will have slightly more ap. All these factors combined make it so at 1-3 items Everfrost deals just as much burst dmg as Ludens and it's only the late game where the additional mpen from the mythic passive starts to outscale Everfrost in terms of burst dmg but realistically most Soloq games are decided by 3 items and you rarely get into an even 5 item late game situation where this would matter. If whoever is reading this comment has some extra time and wants to learn more about the discussion of Ludens vs Everfrost and what the actual advantages of each item are here is a lengthy comment thread between another high elo Ahri main and myself discussing this topic in depth: www.reddit.com/r/AhriMains/comments/12c2i7h/ludens_vs_liandrys_vs_everfrost/jf0x5cv/?context=3 What all of this means is that a lot of the tips you talk about when playing Ludens can just be directly applied to Everfrost and the mindset you should have when playing with this item and the beauty is that if a game ever goes wrong and you fall behind or someone else in your team pops off you can just fall back into the utility/facilitator playstyle that Everfrost is already used for anyways by most people. *2. Mejai's is your best friend on Ahri.* I wish you would have at least mentioned Mejai's in your build section considering Ahri is one of if not the best Mejai's abuser in the entire game. Ahri is incredibly safe and it is very hard to die on Ahri so you will never loose stacks while at the same time Ahri is incredibly good at creating plays and finding picks to easily get stacks. What this basically means is that if you ever get the ball rolling with Dark seal/Mejais you will pretty much always keep it rolling and your opponents won't be able to stop your snowball and you can completely take over games and 1v9 thanks to the dmg Mejai's provides. For this reason Dark seal is pretty much a core item in every single game on your first back and if you go into the midgame with like 5+ stacks you usually wanna upgrade it into Mejai's 2nd item. You don't need to have 10 stacks and already be 6-0 in order to go for Mejai's. It is enough to be even and well farmed or slightly ahead and the synergy Ahri has with this item will do the rest for you. *3. Horizon Focus actually procs from your ultimate* This is a minor thing compared to my other 2 points but it's just an interesting fact not many people seem to know about the item. When you dash in with your ult and the bolt fires at a target Horizon Focus actually uses your starting position from where you dashed as reference point and not your current position. So while you might just be 400 units away from your enemy when the bolt hits the dash range gets added on top of that which will pretty much always put you above the 700 unit threshold needed for Horizon Focus. So this item is also quite effective with Ludens or Liandries and you don't need Everfrost active to proc it.
I appreciate the thorough feedback! I disagree with the Everfrost being as effective at being an assassin as Ludens, despite all the numbers. I'm a feel guy, and the other high elo Ahri's I've spoke to tend to agree with me here. I agree with you on Mejai's great purchase situationally into the lower threat comps. Nice tibit on point 3, makes a tonne of sense!
@@CoachCurtis Thanks for the feedback! To be honest this Everfrost discussion to me is the greatest mystery I have ever encountered in League of Legends. I made a post about this over a year ago on the Ahri subreddit and to this day it is by far the most controversial post I ever made. Since then I talked to multiple different high elo Ahri mains and pretty much every single time it ends similar to this where people just disagree with me but not a single person ever gives me proper reasoning why the disagree or any evidence to disprove my claims. The reasons are usually along the lines of that they simply don't believe in my numbers without any proof why or they try to argue that 20 dmg which isn't even half an AA in the midgame is apparently a significant dmg difference or the biggest argument which is that Ludens FEELS better. And to me this feelings argument is very problematic because it is impossible to argue against feelings. But feelings aren't this magical unchangeable thing...they are just the logic of your subconcious intuition. That's why feelings are an amazing tool to listen to during a game where you don't have the time to slowly think everything through to make the correct decisions. But when we are outside the game and theorycrafting builds we have all the time in the world. This is the place where science and numbers rule not feelings. So when you say Ludens FEELS like the better assassin item I encourage you to try and deconstruct these feelings. Try to find the reasons of your intuition that tell you Ludens is better. And boil it down to the logic and facts and then you can see if your feelings are justified or not. Im not here to trash on Ludens and claim that it's a terrible item you should never build. I just want people to actually consider Everfrost as a viable option for an assassin style Ahri. So when people decide to go either Ludens or Everfrost they know the ACTUAL advantages of their choice and play to its strengths accordingly and not just this simple false idea that Ludens deals more burst dmg. Here is just the quick summary what I believe to be the advantages of each mythic. If you or anyone reading this is interested in the explanation and reasoning for them you can find them in the Reddit comment thread I linked in my previous comment but I think most of them are quite intuitive and obvious. *Ludens:* - equally good burst against squishies - more late game dmg scaling (noticable at 4+ items) - more dps (I didnt do any concrete tests if it is 5% or 15% more dps) - slightly better kiting potential thanks to the movespeed proc of Ludens (Everfrost has to choose between burst or kiting with its active) vs *Everfrost:* - equally good burst against squishies - earlier powerspikes (due to being 400g cheaper) - more utility in terms of cc - better playmaking/catch potential (since the slow/root allows you to initiate plays and create picks that would be impossible without) - slightly more durable since the item gives you extra 250hp
@@Ryvertz Curtis talked a little bit about your comment in the recent podcast episode fyi. I for one am converted since I wasn't aware of just how much True Damage Ahri actually deals, but I checked some post game graphs to make sure and yeah it's a lot.
@@MickyAspire That's nice to hear. :) Also thanks for pointing out that he mentioned the comment on his podcast! That was interesting to hear his thoughts on my second comment and it made me realize what I actually have to do now if I wanna convince people of this build. So I am currently working on making a full video guide on this build that doesn't just include my numbers but also concrete clips of my ranked games to showcase the dmg and kill threat in real games to show people this isn't just a good build on paper but also works really well in real games.
thankyou so much for these videos, they help immensely when trying to pick up a new champion. I dont know why so many people on youtube put up a single gameplay and call it a guide! This is a proper guide.
actually for junglers it's probably better to watch guides for other roles to understand game as a whole since u interacting with everyone on the map for whole game so understanding other lanes and specific champions will give u much better decision making and that's all what jungle is about
saw the title and couldn’t belive my eyes. hyped to see and hopefully learn from the video. i’m a long time bbc listener and resonated a lot with your statement that there is no real reference point clarity when playing ahri. i tried figuring out my own ways and am still experimenting. thanks for the video coach 💪
great video but I got a few notes to add about some items: 14:50 horizon focus is pretty good on ahri, yes. some of the reasons for this that you didn't mention is the extra vision helps you land W/R bolts, and the % dmg amp applies on the true damage from Q2. it makes for pretty potent max range Q pokes if you can land those reliably. also due to the weird way the "700 range" requirement on HF is calculated, it's very easy to proc it with an R dash. the enemy only needs to be >700 units away from your R dash START position. (this actually happens at 51:39 where you proc HF on draven with R) 15:15 the shield part of shadowflame passive is mostly bait imo. the big value is in the mpen you get in the early game, as the mpen scales off the current hp of the enemy. hp is overall lower in the early game and so you get the high mpen value of shadowflame much easier without shields even entering the equation. personally not a fan of this item since it lacks haste, though. 16:30 I love new cosmic drive on ahri. hp is overrated imo when you have enough speed and haste to kite and dodge everything. it pairs well with ludens for successive hit 'n run pokes given the low cd of ludens and each ability hit reducing its cd even more. on top of that, ludens gives an initial burst of move speed before the cosmic passive stacks up. it even goes fairly well with liandrys for a playstyle where you whittle enemies down over time while staying out of their range. I build cosmic drive in most games. 59:00 you can do the same with ludens as long as you build extra haste. the way I look at it is that ludens amps dmg vs low mr targets, while liandrys amps dmg vs high hp targets. haste is what allows you to be more of a "carry" with consistent threats. 1:04:29 this is another reason why I like cosmic drive. the haste and speed gives you the option to make plays and escape even without your R. obviously R is still amazing, but you're not a sitting duck without it if you have cosmic drive. this also favours saving your R dashes for offensive plays instead of defensive plays. the high amount of haste also helps reduce R cooldown, especially in builds without ultimate hunter.
I played Ahri even before her rework and I'm absolutely in love with this champion. I didnt like first strike as much, but I found out to myself that it's extremely good against melees that are hard to kill, like tanks or bruisers on mid (Sett, Morde, Cho'Gath, etc), and you just chilling and stacking gold on them. I still cant play first strike into lot of melee matchups becsude i dont feel dng without aery. This guide tbh really helped me with new runes and items setup (especially about resolve tree second, that I saw in Chovy games first time) that I wanted to learn myself. Great content, keep it up! (also note: first strike with ulti hunter and tob also feels good, but you need biscuits for mana)
Hey Courtis ❤ I love you and your accent . My cousin just moved to Australia, and I hope to see both you and my cousin ❤️😍 Love from an Irelia and Yone main ❤
I'm an aspirant to be a professional brawlhalla player and your psychology videos REALLY helped me out, mainly because it is a fighting game and the nerves are always up there, TYSM for the awesome content, I hope I can come back here an year later to say that I achieved my dream cuz of you
Hey Curtis, 8 years Ahri main here. You forget about a path of Rylais + any three mythic mentioned on video. I’m a Rylais abuser and I always win games. Rylais is much more better then Everfrost and it’s a perfect item on Ahri while it’s much more sustainable plus versatile on engage/defense. I build Ludens/Liandrys + Rylais on every game and it never outdate. You need to have a try on it!
I think Rylais makes sense for Liandrys for sure but for ludens it doesn't really make that much sense since the identity of ludens is all about burst. Ryalis is more centered around kiting/sustained damage.
As a recomendation for a future vid i really strugle in pilling someone else from my team. I play sylas right now and I identify that i need to play for the adc but i can’t find the way to do it.
amazing guide, really simple and explained well! Just a question, when was the chovy vod recorded? They were taking way too much damage, kind of seems like pre-durability update
You are spot on I main champs like Viktor and case but hate champs that are mobile. Even tho I hate mobility I need it in my pool so ahri was my best bet.
Maybe do an Update on the new Item builds, also something that confused me a lot was you talking about enemy teams and set up like something that can be predicted beforehand, but as far as I know we can't change our builds mid fight, can we?
Are there still relevant takeaways from this guide for this season? I realize there are outdated aspects (items like Everfrost being gone) but I'm curious to know if Ahri's build path is as versatile as it was in S13 even now. Or is there only one -effective- way to build Ahri? (like an assassin)
Hey Curtis thanks for the nice guide, I have two questions though: -In the faker review, how did he know Sylas wouldn't lvl 3 gank him as he is pushing? -You said ahri really comes online after 6, does that mean we should say no to 2v2 skirmishes before 6? Also love the podcast!
1) he could have, but Faker held charm, so even if Sylas came, it wouldn't have been impactful 2) Pre 6 you ideally dont want to 2v2, but if the situation arises you have to be willing to adapt. Sometimes you gotta do what you gotta do to make your teammates life easier.
Can we please get a video about best settings for lol because I’m struggling with the mouse move speed and I can’t control my mouse clicking I feel like I don’t feel comfortable when I play with unlocked camera and at the same time I can’t play with locked camera bc I can’t see what’s happening in the other side so please some help with settings ! Thanks 🙏🏻
Could we have an updated viktor guide please? Im returnign to league after three years and role swapped to mid and i have no idea whats going on but i love viktors dr doom vibe
This is so perfect thank you Coach Curtis. I've been thinking about which champ to main for ranked (I've played about ten ranked games over my two years of playing league) and whenever I would play normals I had a draw to playing Ahri. I think this is the sign I need to get going finally. I've been trying to work on some Stage Four issues but I have to queue up at some point. Much love Coach.
1:23:26 I have a question so what if my jg is going for a drake and asking for help and my enemy mid laner is still on lane farming and clearing the wave should we go help with drake or stay in lane catching the farm ? I need an answer pls coach if u read this or anyone who knows well 🙏🏻 thank you
These guides are really helpful. Hard to find guides for plat-diamond players that aren't generic/surface-level stuff. Could you do one for Viktor? Or is the season 11 guide still viable?
Man even coming in having played Ahri since like Season 4 this is so so useful just for remembering basics and having it all laid out cleanly and efficiently, well done coach! Quick question tho, since the Lost chapter cost reduction to 1100 is the lucidity boots rush still worth it in those faster games or does that LC just have more impact in your experience?
Hey Coach Curtis. That's a really good Ahri guide and I really appreciate your effort. I played Ahri quite often this season and would like to hear your opinion In terms of itemisation. I am a huge fan of Liandries, especially because of the in-and-out playstyle. Due to the fact of the scaling potential of Liandries, that you also have mentioned in your video, I prefer building Rabadons as a second item. The advantage of Rabadons second is, that it gives the most damage outcome possible and also increases the damage of Liandries. The disadvantage, however, are the costs of Rabadons, but because of playing SoloQ and choosing a scaling build path, I do not hesitate building Rabadons second. In order to further increase the damage, I also build Seraphs as a third item, mainly because of its adaption (AP instead of Ability Haste and because of the shield passive). What are your thoughts about it Curtis?
Well deathcap as a second item is not that good because it's expensive and the build path is too hard. SURE if you are super fed it can work, but I don't think it's a very reliable setup. Also the problem with deathcap 2nd after Liandrys is that you have no HP, you are FULL squishy, which I do not like. Seraphs third is good if you want to play for scaling, it does make sense with Liandrys. But I personally don't like delaying my mythic so I prefer not to spend gold on early tear. I also find it a little OVERKILL in terms of 'scaling'. But it is good
nymaera actl made a guide on ahri a bit ago addressing how ppl complain ahri does no damage, and its because everfrost and the facilitator build just doesnt rly allow it, smthn i have found actl quite good, despite how risky it sounds is mejais second after ludens, i have gone plenty of games where i just dont die for 10-20 minutes while still sitting on dseal, like if i bought it second i could easily have 25 stacks even with just getting assists, due to how safe ahri is as a champion
Saw your old Galio guide from 3 years ago. Was wondering if you would ever do an updated S13 one for Galio? So many big changes and meta shifts has happened since Season 10.
What he means by that is the lower ELO you go, the amount of details about the game that players can focus and understand drops quite a bit. Where a Challenger mid laner might be spacing, trading, CSing, getting vision, and tracking both junglers all at the same time, a gold player is just trying to not miss CS and trade a bit while having no idea where the junglers are or even what items their opponent is building. This is the main thing that allows people to climb, by having a larger mental stack, you can create invisible advantages over your opponents by just thinking about the game more than them. It sounds easy, but it takes a lot of focus practice to expand your current mental stack under pressure of doing well in the game.
Maybe a little update since the 1100 LC change? Personally I go FM every game now for a super cheap LC buy. Don’t think it’s necessary to start Crystal as well but I suppose it’s an option. FM seems to be enough making the LC around 950gp. Seems like a sweet spot.
At 4:49 you suggest cosmic insight because "she works really well with ability haste", but it gives it gives item haste. Was this changed or did was it a mix up?
Hey Curtis, Great to see another video like this. Related question; I've been playing a lot of TF but acknowledge his weakness as a blind pick/ into and with certain team compositions. I was considering Ahri as a second champion that serves as more of an all rounder / better blind pick. Are there any other champions that you feel fill the holes that TF leaves in a champ pool. If this is a bad TF game chances are it will be a good (X champion) game. Thanks for your time coach
Ahri could definitely be a good second champ in your pool. You can pick her into those games where TF doesn’t seem that good but there are still gonna be situations where TF can have more value than Ahri so her being in your pool does not devalue TF. As for other champions that are similar, Galio and Sylas could be worth looking into (Galio being a bit more on the facilitator side and sylas more skirmish heavy)
I think Ahri is a great compliment to TF. I also think it'd be nice to have something with lane strength and games where there isn't as much volatility like a Syndra
Well, let's think about what you'd get from the alternative. Neutral state gives Gragas free farm and nets you LESS overall pressure. Harder to deny farm, take good trades. Pulling wave on your side won't result in a kill, and will make it harder to farm since Gragas is hard to gank and Ekko threat isn't overly high. PLUS gives Gragas first move into river. ALSO note that in high elo KR, the games are quite fast paced, so they value raw pressure much higher then other elos/servers.
@@CoachCurtis I can imagine! But the jungle changes, item changes and match ups may have changed significantly since then. I for one would greatly appreciate it!
Can anyone explain to me, why people call Ahri an assassin? Imo she is a burst mage, always having to poke others down before killing. Even when ahead, she can't oneshot in a single rotation.
Hei coach i have a question. I have been playing for 4 years now but i never had a champion pool so i have litle maestry with a lot of champs. After founding u a month ago ive created a champion pool and done a similar 3 week challenge to yours in january. But some games i found my sleve in a position were i could pick an old champ to counter the enemy but im not that good with it. Maybe i do good in laning fase but when team-fights come ido worse. Should i stik to my 2 champs pool and play a bad machup to learn it or keep geting does akward piks to counter. Comunity feel free to response. Ive had this in my head for weeks now.
