Ahri Build Guide by

Ahri Guide (Still in progress will add matchups)

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Ahri Build Guide By Updated on

Guide Discussion More Ahri Guides

Runes:

Domination

Electrocute

Taste of Blood

Eyeball Collection

Ultimate Hunter

Inspiration

Biscuit Delivery

Time Warp Tonic

Bonus:

+10% Attack Speed
+9 Adaptive (5.4 AD or 9 AP)
+10% Tenacity/Slow Resist

Spells:

Flash

Ignite

Items

Starting Item Options

Typical Ahri Everfrost CC Build

My Go-To Ahri Burst Mage Build

Ahri Tank Melt Setup

Ability Order

Ahri Passive Ability

Threats & Synergies

Threats

Synergies

Extreme Major Even Minor Tiny

Show All

None Low Ok Strong Ideal

Extreme Threats

Ideal Synergies

Yasuo

Extreme

Yasuo is a very annoying matchup for Ahri. His passive allows him to tank through your trades easily early game, his dashes allow him to easily dodge all of your linear skill shots. and he can even wind wall all 3 of your abilities as well. A good Yasuo should be able to dominate Ahri in lane.

Synergies

Ideal Strong Ok Low None

Champion Build Guide

Why Ahri?

Many people are seeing now that Ahri is a top tier pick for mid lane as of now. In my opinion, she is an S+ tier pick. Ahri has it all. She is a mage who can be built for burst or be built for lots of cc to help set up her team. She can help to immobilize and kill fed targets on the enemy team or to absolutely nuke squishies. She has a great laning phase, great mobility with her ult, a fun kit, and even a really good trading tool which I will get into later into the guide. If you want a way to climb, Ahri is your ticket to high Elo.

Runes

These runes are probably the best for Ahri regardless of the situation and I will explain why.

Electrocute really helps to get extra damage off, especially early game with a combo I will discuss later. If you play properly and trade with electrocute up during your laning you should be able to bully most champions with low difficulty.

ToB- Just helps to provide some extra sustain in lane, encouraging you to play aggressively and damage champions to get some hp back

Eyeball Collection- Come on, who doesn't want free AP from takedowns?

Ultimate Hunter- Big Plays can be made from Ahri's ult, so we need it to be off cooldown as much as possible.

Quickly for the inspiration tree, having the extra sustain from biscuits and timewarp in lane is super super nice, but this tree sort of falls off later in the game but it is extremely helpful later on.

If you really want to, you could sub out this rune page for sorcery and get something like scorch or manaflow band, but I prefer dominating the laning phase with inspiration.

My Itemization

Here are your go to starter items. I take corrupting potions in probably like 90% of my matchups. They really help with sustain and I even keep them after the laning phase just to make sure that my hp is always full or near full before taking engages. They also help to make sure that I don't need to back as often since they replenish my mana as well.

I only take Dorans + Pots into matchups where I know that I will hard win, and it helps me farm easier since it gives extra bonus damage to minions. If you are a new Ahri player, just take corruptings every single time and you should be fine =)

So this is the meta ahri build that is going around right now, revolving around the mythic being everfrost. This build is for sure good, and it turns Ahri into an absolute mage CC monster with the extra everfrost root every 30s. If you hit your charm and everfrost, you can stun a target for around 3 seconds, which is more than enough time for you and your team to absolutely burst someone down, even a fed enemy champion. This build is also good since it is more forgiving since we are running CDR boots to spam our abilities, and even if we miss our charm, we still have everfrost to root people. The only think that I don't like about this, is that in comparison to the other builds, your damage definitely is not as good. I like to play Ahri like a traditional nuke burst mage, so this build just isn't for me. It is definitely good but I like to play other ones. This build is great for setting up picks and helping your team, but I like to be the one grabbing kills :))

Now this is the build that I personally like to go. It's the same as the other one, except we take Sorc's shoes and Ludens for our mythic instead of CDR boots and Everfrost. This build is for sure harder to play since it is less forgiving with cooldowns and we don't have the everfrost root. What you do get though, is a ton of burst damage. This build can 1 combo enemy squishies no problem if you land all your abilites properly. If you are confident in your abilities to land your skillshots and you want to hit like a tank, then go ahead and take this build.

So this is the anti-tank Ahri build, and I will only take this into enemy team comps that have 3 tanky champs, typically when the enemy top, jungle, and support are all tanky. Liandry's is the perfect item for this because of the extra damage based off of max hp, and the burn effect that you get which can be really nice for helping to finish off tanky targets after they escape from you. This build isn't used often but is still nice to know and have in your arsenal.

Abilities Explanation

This is Ahri's Passive, essence theft. Basically, whenever you kill a minion or a monster you get 1 piece of essence, and when you get a champion takedown (kill or assist), you get 9. When Ahri gets 9 essence, she automatically consumes them to heal for a portion of her missing hp. This passive is extremely nice for laning since you can sit in the lane and get a free heal after killing 9 minions (as long as you are good at last hitting). It can also help Ahri survive in team fights since champion takedowns will automatically give her 9 essence which she can then use to consume and heal. Overall, a really nice passive which helps you survive.

This is Ahri's Q, called Orb of Deception. It is a linear skillshot which Ahri throws, and then returns back to herself. It passes through minions as well. On the way forward, the ability deals magic damage, and on the way back it deals true damage. Her Q is a great way to poke out enemy champions who are moving too close to you, especially during laning, and is also a really nice way to weaken enemy minions to last hit and to even farm from range as well. The Q also moves sideways with Ahri, so you can angle it to hit enemies who are moving. (iE if you move left the orb moves left vice versa). A mistake lots of people make is letting the first side hit and not letting the second side of the Q hit, which really limits your damage. Since the second side deals true damage, people's MR won't help them, and it will often even do more damage then the first part of the Q. If you want to maximize your damage, please poke out enemies with this ability and hit BOTH sides of it.

This is Ahri's W, Fox Fire. It's a little bit of a confusing ability for new Ahri players. Right as you tap W, 3 little fox fires will appear next to Ahri, and they will auto lock on to whatever is near you, or the closest target which you have most recently hit. The fox fires themselves don't do a ton of damage, but they provide some nice poke. They can also be a nice way to finish off some enemy minions to get extra gold since you can send out 3 of them to finish off 3 low hp minions. One of my favorite tricks to do with this ability is during laning I auto an enemy champion when they step up to last hit, then w, then auto again. They will take damage from my autos and my W, and my W will hit them since it goes past minions to hit the enemy champion, and electrocute is also procced since it is 3 separate abilities/attacks. This is a great way to poke people down during laning phase extremely safely. Fox Fire also gives you a little burst of decaying movement speed right as you use it, which can be really nice to help you escape to safety while getting ganked or to reposition. Another huge thing is you can use the increased movement speed from your W and move sideways to make sure that the second side of your Q hits for maximum damage.

This is Ahri's E, called charm, and the logic behind her builds stems from this ability. If you didn't already know, a charm is a kind of stun in league which stuns enemies and makes them start walking back towards your champion. Ahri's E is a linear skill shot just like her Q is, but unlike her Q, it does not pass through minions. Her charm is really important since landing the charm essentially guarantees your Q and W will hit. Landing the full combo can be extremely devastating to most champions, especially during laning. It also is something enemy jungles need to be wary of, since if Ahri can charm the enemy jungle, she basically gets a free escape, but she is very vulnerable in the windows where she doesn't have it.

Ahri's Ult, spirit rush is probably the best or for sure one of the best mobility abilities in the game. When you cast it, Ahri can press her ult key and get three free dashes in directions of her choosing. Whenever Ahri dashes, she shoots out a bolt of energy which does damage to the target closest to her. The bolt doesn't do a lot of damage, but it can for sure finish off low health targets if they don't die to your full combo. The ult works like a flash and lets you jump through walls too, so it is great for helping you escape those sticky situations. You also get one extra dash everytime you participate in a champion takedown. Once Ahri gets her ult, she becomes a pain for enemy jungles to gank since she has a charm, and a free escape, especially since her ult cooldown isn't that long even at level 6. A great way to use the ult is to dash over a wall and E+Q+W a squishy target and escape back to safety before they even realize what hit them. Even in lane, if a target is low hp, you can use your ult aggressively to get in your enemy laners face and full combo them and hopefully kill them.

Laning Tips/ General Tips

I had mentioned previously that Ahri had a strong laning phase, and I really do think that she does. On Ahri, especially against melee champions, absolutely do not be afriad to step up and spam autos to whittle their hp down. Even mages autos can do decent damage at level 1 where everyone has low hp. By far the best tip that I have is to absolutely ABUSE the auto + w + auto combo. You can auto, use W to have the fox fires lock onto the enemy champion that you just autoed and then auto again to proc electrocute, and this absolutely chunks people level 1. This is why I recommend taking electrocute and taking W level 1. Even if the enemy knows whats coming and tries to avoid your electrocute proc, they really won't be able to if you are positioned properly since Ahri's W gives her a quick boost of movement speed which will basically guarantee that you will end up hitting that last auto to get that sweet electrocute proc.

A problem I see with some Ahri players is that they literally will not use their abilities, especially their Q, unless they hit the charm first to guarantee that their other abilities are gonna hit. Of course, landing your charm would be the most optimal way to combo someone, but you can't always land it. Since people who know how to fight Ahri like to stand behind their minion wave a lot so that they can't get hit by your charm, make sure to throw your Q since it goes through minions. A majority of the time they wont expect a random Q thrown into there so you can poke them down with it. Even if you don't end up hitting the enemy laner with your Q, you can still create lots of pressure in your lane and last hit some CS. Another great way to create pressure in the lane is to use your abilities when enemies are trying to last hit. If your predictions and timing are good, you can charm someone while they are in their auto attack animation trying to last hit someone. Also, Q while they are trying to last hit. Let them get that 14 gold since your damage that you put on them is more valuable.

Make sure that you stick to a side with vision on it in the mid lane. This is an obvious bit of advice, but if you don't have your charrm pre-level 6, you are extremely vulnerable to ganks, and you don't want to have to burn your flash to escape. If you know an enemy jungle is lurking around, ping your jungle to come to you and save your charm. Chances are you can focus one target and kill them. If you are going to use your charm and push your wave in, just make sure you have good vision.

One thing I also want to say is MAKE SURE to get lane prio. If you can get prio at level 6, Ahri's roams are extremely good. I always make sure to crash my wave at the enemy tower and roam botside or near dragon. You can be the reason that your botlane wins with a simple charm on the enemy adc.