Hello Everyone,
My name is Shrouded and I have been playing league since its Beta. Throughout my years of playing league I have played almost all the champions and all the roles with the exception of jungling which I am taking up more this season. I believe that to be a better player you'll need to understand all the roles and what each champion looks to accomplish. I've been playing a lot of Ashe this season so I decided to make my first guide and impart what I know with the hopes that you will be able take something away from this guide and apply it in game. This is currently a work in progress and I intend to update this page frequently.

It is important to understand how Ashes passive works when playing this champion as unlike other champions she cannot critically strike (200% damage). Instead her initial attack will do normal 100% damage before damage reduction, then each subsequent auto attack while the enemy is affected by ashes slow will deal an additional 10%. This damage increases based off of critical strike % and critical strike damage %. It is especially important to understand because this means that as you are building critical strike items you are actually gaining bonus AD on your attacks. This component is why Ashe is not considered a hypercarry and this is why you will generally see more attack speed/crit items on Ashe rather then several BF sword items.

PRECISION

Lethal Tempo is currently the favorite rune of choice and for good reason as it typically backloads Ashe's damage onto her Q. Usually when a fight starts you will attack an enemy champion or hit them with W beginning the trigger for Lethal Tempo and by the time you have access to Q your Lethal Temp will be active giving you the bonus attack speed % of lethal tempo + the attack speed bonus of Q giving you alot of DPS. Due to how Lethal Tempo functions you have more control on when you want to proc it as well.

I personally prefer taking Overheal especially since in most cases I will be building BotRk but you can opt into presence of mind if you find yourself frequently running into mana issues.

This one is arguable but I will typically use Alacrity on Ashe since I am using BotrK however other ADCs frequently take bloodline for the free 12% life steal at max stacks.

This part of the tree is actually quite valuable as and I almost always take cut down. As long as you do not build any additional health items outside of dorans blade and your target has 300 or more max HP then you, you are guaranteed at least 5% bonus damage throughout combat regardless of how much remaining HP they have.The higher the HP a target has beyond 300 more of your max hp the more % damage increase you get beyond 5% as opposed to the Coupe De Grace rune that you only have accessible when a target is below 40% HP.

Attack speed % and Adaptive damage, take Armor for trades or MR if your going against double AP botlane.

DOMINATION

With the changes to Hail of Blades now reseting while in combat Ashe is able to use this in order to access her Q on enemy champions when a fight is initiated much faster then she would with Lethal Tempo. HoB will proc the bonus attack speed for your first three attacks, when it expires your Q will be available and when Q expires your HoB will be back up. If instead you proc Hail of Blades on your Q you will gain the attack speed bonus on your first 3 Q procs before returning to normal attack speed during the remainder of your Q duration. In a nutshell this allows you to consistently cycle through Qs as soon as a fight is started and if you time it correctly you get a free proc of HoB as auto attack resets such as Ashe's Q will increase the HoB amount by 1.

Taste of blood is usually preferred here as it provides you with early sustain until you complete BotRk however you may choose to opt into Cheap Shot as Ashe's passive will constantly proc the Cheapshot effect every 4 seconds.

Not much to see here as eyeball collection is the easiest rune to passively gain stacks.

Ultimate hunter is great here as it lets you access Ashe's ultimate more frequently.

Attack speed % and Adaptive damage, take Armor for trades or MR if your going against double AP botlane.

INSPIRATION

I almost always go for the free boots here for cost efficiency plus they have more move speed then standard boots. Another option is mana biscuits

Approach velocity is almost too good to pass on Ashe as her passive allows her to constantly gain the bonus movement speed

LETHAL TEMPO ¥ Backloaded damage ¥ Has a delay before activating ¥ Can be queued with spells ¥ Longer sustain burst Lethal tempo tends to offer more control over when you want to proc it and how through your rotations while offering a steady sustained burst before going on cool down

HAIL OF BLADES φ Frontloaded damage φ No delay to activate φ Requires AA to activate φ Only activate for 1 AA Reset + 3 AA's Hail of blades tends to offer short upfront burst and in Ashes case allows her to access her Q at a faster rate in immediate combat without preparation which you may frequently find yourself in. Additionally Hail of Blades allows Ashe to short trade with enemies with relative ease as the nature of the rune is not generally used for extended combat

Summary

In summary I believe both runes are viable on Ashe and should be a personal preference, in solo queue I personally prefer Hail of Blades at this time as I feel it gives me more reactive options and allows me to play more aggressively at times but there is an unquestionable damage sacrifice as it removes you from having access to runes like Cut Down and Coupe de Grace

PROS + Perma Slows + Unlimited range hard CC + High pick potential + Good late game scaling + Easy to play + Teaches ADC mechanics Ashe is considered a utility pick ADC as she is not a traditional hyper carry or duelist but has a balanced kit. Her hawkshot allows you to scout out incoming ganks, jungle positions, baron / dragon plays and her R allows for her to pick off opponents that are out of position or roaming. Her passive allows her and her team to stick onto any target or to kite away enemies that are running at her. Due to the nature of her kit there is no complexity to learn her.

CONS - Squishy - Does not have access to critical strikes - No mobility - Functions better with peel - Requires good positioning Ashes biggest issue is her mobility which will cause her to be punished much more then others ADC's when making positioning errors. This con however is what I consider her best trait because once you learn these positioning issues you will become a much better ADC player and those skills will transfer to any other ADC you play.

Lane Terminology

Freezing - Freezing is when you keep the minions just outside of tower range. This has 3 main benefits:

Slow Push - Slow pushing is when you only last hitting minions that are about to die as you are receiving a reinforcement wave while slowly creating a large minion wave this has 3 main benefits:

Crashing - Crashing as its name implies is when you push the wave into the enemy teams tower this has 3 main benefits:

At level 1, I always take Volley first. This will give you safe damage early as well as some minor wave clear.

If your lane composition is aggressive compared to your opponents you may push for the level 2 first put 1 point into Q and then short trade with your opponent.

If your opposing lane composition is stronger then match their CS so you can reach level 2 at the same time and put 1 point into E. This will allow you to scout the enemy jungler at either their Red or Blue camp for early level 3 ganks. If the enemy jungler finished Red and Blue and Kruggs or Gromp depending on which side of the map your on then they will likely be recalling and going back to the side they started on. This is extremely useful to deter jungler ganks early on.

Your priority during laning phase should be:

1. Not dying
2. CS
3. Wave management
4. Vision
5. Objectives
6. Forcing your opponent to miss CS/Poke
7. Kills

After the laning phase is completed you will want to continue to farm and avoid over extending.

Overextending changes based on the map state. How far behind/ ahead are you, how much vision you have, how many players are visible on the map and how many turrets you have left. If for example you have all of your towers are up and you decide to catch a creep wave in the top lane, pushing the creep wave beyond the river without knowing where all the enemy champions are would be overextending. It should be assumed that any enemy that you cant see on the map is closest to you, especially when playing Ashe.

It will be important to establish vision especially from flanking positions which are common along the river and jungle entrances/walls facing towards the lane. Preemptively accounting for enemies before they appear and where they commonly want to attack from is crucial to playing Ashe as this will affect your positioning.

Your priorities during this time will be to take turrets, dragons, inhibitors and baron while steeling extending your gold farm however forcing towers with team fights will cause the game to have a coin flip outcome unless your team is really far ahead. As Ashe having good vision control and looking to catch enemies out of position will give your team a numbers advantage when looking to take objectives. It will always be easier to win a 5v4 instead of a 5v5.