December 12th 2014:

• Updated Items, Runes and Mestries for S5 - section updates pending

March 25th 2014:

• Added change log section
• Changed recommended Quints from Greater Quintessence of Gold to Greater Quintessence of Attack Damage - Recommendations from EdisonKhoo
• Changed recommended summoners and explained Clairvoyance choice - Recommendations from EdisonKhoo
• Added boot options to Items section
• Minor tweaks

Hello everybody! I'm Federico, a programmer that likes to play Supports on LAS servers.

I would like to start this guide by saying that Support Ashe is not the strongest pick, I personally play it just to have fun on normal games. You will loose a lot of matchups (not to mention that your team will call you a troll) but when you win, oh man, when you win it's all worth it.

With that being said let the guide to Support Ashe begin.

Pros

• Strong AoE slow that neglects tenacity effects ( Mercury's Treads, Zephyr, Spirit of the Ancient Golem) due to it's continual application.
• High map vision control.
• Strong early game poke.
• Global Ultimate with hard CC, very good initiator.
• Acts as a secondary ADC mid-lategame.
• Split-push potential once Runaan's Hurricane is built while Hawkshot and Clairvoyance keeps you safe.
• AoE Armor Shred / Magic Resist Shred for your team via Runaan's Hurricane combined with Black Cleaver/ Wit's End.

Cons

• Squishy.
• No sustain.
• Ultimate / hard CC is a skill shot.
• Difficult to escape enemy CC if you happen to be caught / low mobility.
• Damage heavily falls off without items.

Rune set up it's pretty standard for a support. It provides armor and damage for the early game and magic defense for the later stages.

Seals

Greater Seal of Armor are pretty much mandatory. Rune changes will be introduced very soon. Once this happens, I will review Greater Seal of Health since changes look pretty interesting.

Marks

Greater Mark of Attack Damage help with the early laning phase. You will be able to deal decent damage, your objective early game is to poke as much as possible.

Glyphs

I like to go with Greater Glyph of Scaling Magic Resist because most of the damage will be AD, at least early game. You could also use Greater Glyph of Magic Resist if going against a Lulu, an Annie or a Morgana.

Quints

Greater Quintessence of Attack Damage will amplify your auto-attack harass the most in the laning phase. I previously recommended Greater Quintessence of Gold but they seem to fall off late-game, Attack damage stays relevant during the whole game.

• I want to kite my enemies so I need to be as fast as possible.
• I am not farming and I cannot afford to fall behind in experience/gold.
• I need the extra sustain from potions.
• Cool down reduction for your skills/CC, specially your ultimate.

Utility

Phasewalker : Faster recalls are always good considering you are very squishy and have no mobility.
Fleet of Foot: For extra kiting and chasing power.
Summoner's Insight : To help with your summoner spells cooldowns.
Alchemist and Culinary Master : Useful for sustain, especially since you don't have a healing ability nor a sustain item build.
Greed , Scavenger , Wealth and Bandit : More gold in order to get items faster and have more efficient utility.
Inspiration: Again, you don't want to fall behind on Ashe in order to deal as much damage as possible. Also, you want to reach lvl 6 as soon as possible since you depend on your ultimate for hard CC.
Intelligence : More CDR for your ultimate and a shorter CD for your Talisman of Ascension active.
Wanderer : Kiting and chasing power.

Defense

Block and Unyielding : Better trades in lane.
Recovery and Veteran Scars : As discussed before, you don't have sustain nor Health Quints, so you want to maximize your survivability.
Oppression : Since you will be applying Frost to your enemies, this mastery synergizes very well with Ashe.

Default Support Summoner Spells

Exhaust is the most common option for supports. It provides you with a slow (not that important because you are playing Ashe) and most importantly damage reduction that could save your ADC's life or it could even turn around a fight.

Other options:

Ashe supporting style

I like to run Clairvoyance with Ashe support, but I would not recommend it for other supports. If you are playing against a hyper-carry like Vayne you should consider taking Exhaust instead for the damage reduction (even more considering that Riot is planning on lowering the slow and increasing the damage reduction of Exhaust).

The idea behind this choice it to use Clairvoyance in conjunction with Hawkshot to gain vision when your lane is pushed. You can also buy a Vision Ward to gain control over specific locations (tri-bush, river bush, Dragon, etc.).

Kill Lane

If you want to be even more aggressive you could take Ignite and score yourself a kill.

Ult + Teleport

Because nothing gives more satisfaction than stunning someone from across the map with your ultimate and teleporting in from a nearby minion and kill them.

Classic ADC

If you are playing against a strong lane you could consider a more conservative start.

[Q]: Max first as it's your primary support tool, you want this maxed out and ready for when you buy your Runaan's Hurricane.

[W]: Since your Volley slow is based off the ranks you have in Q, exta Volley points are unnecessary. Take one point at the start of the game for level 1 harass.

[E]: Get some points to help during the laning phase and also get some extra gold later on, specially if you are split-pushing.

[R]: Take it whenever possible.

[Passive]: Focus - Early laning phase is where your passive really shines. Unfortunately, it falls off mid to late-game due to your support-type itemisation.
Wait for your passive to be fully charged and harass with Frost Shot and Volley. This is your bread and butter.

Try to take advantage of your global ultimate, pay attention to other lanes, a well played arrow can help your teammates score a kill.

Core Items

Runaan's Hurricane: This is the most important item. It provides great attack speed and also on hit effects on multiple targets, this means that Frost will now hit two additional enemies. The main objective of support Ashe is to stack as much on hit effects as you can. With that in mind comes the next item...

Black Cleaver: Decent attack damage, CDR for your ult/hard CC and armor penetration on hit. No need to say that it synergizes extremely well with Runaan's Hurricane.

Statikk Shiv: With the attack speed we are building, the proc rate on this item can reach insane levels and on top of that it synergizes very well with your pasive, Focus, for a guaranteed critical hit.

Boot choices

You have three options:

Mercury's Treads: This are my go to boots almost every game due to their passive: Tenacity. CC reduction is crucial for any chance of survival.

Ionian Boots of Lucidity: If you wish to get 40% CDR this might be your boot selection. I like to get to the CDR cap but you are wasting 5% CDR if you already have Talisman of Ascension + Black Cleaver + Intelligence .

Boots of Swiftness: For extra kitting and chasing power.

Alternative items

Other items that you might want to consider are Wit's End if you also wish to shred magic resist.

If you are playing against HP regen dependant champions like Dr. Mundo or Swain, Executioner's Calling can be used to counter them.

Sustain option

If you find yourself lacking sustain you could go for the Blade of the Ruined King.

Defensive Items

If your team is actually loosing consider buying more defensive items. During the laning phase Frozen Heart is a great option, providing armor and lowering the attack speed of your adversary.

Enemy AP mid is fed? Consider buying a Locket of the Iron Solari and give your teammates some magic resist.

If the enemy team damage is well rounded mitigate it with a Guardian Angel.

I would not recommend playing ranked games with support Ashe, as mentioned above, some lane opponents will crush you. Nevertheless, this is one of the supports I enjoy the most due to the AoE damage and debuffs.

Build you core items as fast as you can and try to take advantage of your global ultimate.



I will continue to update this guide, please comment if you think something is wrong/missing.

Thank you for reading and I hope you find this guide useful.