Ashe benefitted a lot from durability patch, as a champ that loves to chunk high HP bars and thrives in extended fights this is a great time to pick up the champ. With that said she struggles vs squishy/mobile comps because she needs time to pump out her damage and she's immobile.

Default to standard runes and items unless specific circumstances occur such as:
- you have high DPS team (e.g. Cassio Mid, Viego Jng)
- enemy team is composed of mostly squishies/assassins
- your team REALLY lacks any form of engage/CC (e.g. Jayce, Master Yi, Zed, Brand)

If two or more of the mentioned conditions apply you can consider going utility. This changes a lot your playstyle and become more of a second support. Your new job now is sniping an high priority target with your ult and poke enemies down with W spam around objectives.
Also this playstyle works best in organized teams because you can make calls and scout areas your team can't normally facecheck. If you want to play this build in soloqueue make sure your teammates agree first because it is a bit of a weird set and doesn't play like a normal adc but more like a caster.


However this playstyle should be used only when you really can't dish out damage by autoattacking, and/or the enemy team has a very potent catch comp you can't escape from. Consider it as a last resort where you give up being the carry in order to help your team as much as possible while not being under kill threat every time you fight with your team. For every other situation the traditional ADC style is more reliable

As you can see Ashe is very versatile in her build path, this allows you to opt for many different playstyles: she can build Crit, On-hit, Full AD or even Utility. My personal favourite is the build I show in the Example (Kraken + Muramana) but another viable build path is going for more defensive items so that you can survive longer. The core of this build is Shieldbow + Rageblade, but currently I wouldn't suggest this a lot since your damage output is very low; I suggest that even if you are behind you choose your itemization based on the enemy team comp rather than prioritizing your safety. Maybe going Shieldbow will make your game safer but if you can't kill that Sett, Zac, Nautilus, Tahm Kench fast enough your frontline will eventually die and your defensive items will be worth nothing.

You can also rush BORK into Galeforce. The idea is that BORK gives a lot of dps and galeforce gives some mobility, basically you can run down everyone with bork's slow + Ashe's Passive while having Galeforce safety and bonus MS. It is very viable whenever enemy team has 2+ HP stackers but you also need to dodge 1 crucial ability (e.g. Ahri Charm, Blitz Q), DPS is lower than Kraken build but the extra mobility KINDA makes up for it and gives you some outplay potential.

Starting Item:
- Melee support vs Melee support: always start Doran's Blade + Pot. You need the extra HP and lifesteal in the 2v2 and all-ins
- Melee support vs Ranged Support: depending on how much kill threat you have on the enemy botlane you will start either Tear + 2Pots (Low Kill Threat), or Long Sword + 3Pots (buy Refillable later) (High Kill Threat)
- Ranged support vs Melee support: applies same as above, if they have high kill threat (e.g. Samira Alistar) go Doran's Blade, otherwise you can choose between Long Sword and Tear
- Ranged support vs Ranged Support: personally I like to start Tear in these lanes because it allows me to spam W and poke more without having to worry about mana but in most cases you can run whatever you are more comfortable with; most optimal choices would be either Tear + 2Pots or Long Sword (better lane)+ 3Pots and buy Refillable on 1st/2nd back.

LANING PHASE:
Ashe excels at extended trades and chasing down opponents, look out for mispositioned enemies to W them and chase them with Approach Velocity and your AA+Q reset. The best W is the one that both last hit minions and poke enemies. Even though you have good range (600) beware that support matchup matters way more than ADC matchup so before the game starts make a mental note on the key abilities you'll have to dodge or follow up in lane. Also remember that many lane matchups change after lvl6 and your champ in the first place gets a very big powerspike at this stage.
(If you are playing HoB your short trades are better so look to W and then follow up with 3 empowered AA)

If you have a RANGED support you should try to push the enemies under their tower (slowpush first 2 waves then crash the 3rd) so you have a number of options at around 3 minutes: Poke them, get a Cheater Recall, Damage the tower in order to take Plates later, Rotate to the Jungle to place vision or follow up on your Jungler's move (either invade or contest scuttle).
In this scenario it's also your job to ABSORB JUNGLE PRESSURE, that means the enemy jungler will look to gank you since you'll be pushed, so make sure you waste his time by making him come to your lane without giving him kills. This will usually happen at around 4:00 to 5:00 since his botside jungle will spawn at around 4:15 if he started bot.
[Of course this depends on who the enemy jungler is, if you push very hard with Summoner Spells up and enemy jungler is pre-form Kayn you'll probably be able to "waste his time" and not give kills but if the enemy jungler is, lets say, a lvl3 Elise you probably don't live even if you Flash and Heal, so keep that in mind before planning to crash a big wave and play aggressive]

If you have a MELEE support you won't be able to manage the wave as you wish and you'll probably be pushed under your tower, in this scenario a lot of the responsability is on your support to make a good engage lvl2/3 so you can at least burn the enemy's Flash. This way if they try to push again you have a very good gank setup or you can even try to win the 2v2.

N.B. THERE ARE GAMES WHERE YOU CAN SKIP MURAMANA COMPLETELY: if enemy team consists of mostly bruisers/tanks and low range champions you can go ON-HIT, swap your Infinity Edge with a Rageblade and skip Muramana completely.
The whole point of going Muramana is it gives you a lot of AD, scaling and ability haste so even in those situations where you can't really contribute to the fight with AAs you'll still be able to pump out consistent damage with W. This is not really the case when enemy team has 2+ tanks/bruisers, you'll be the primary damage source and will need all the AS you can get so you can skip it.

- When you have an Assassin Mid Lane:
after the 14th-15th minute towers start to fall so you and your support swap with your Mid Laner and apply pressure to Mid tower and prepare to rotate to objectives such as Dragon and Herald. Since your Mid will probably have Ignite it is ideal that your Top laner (who will likely carry TP) plays on the opposite side of the objective you want to take next so your Mid laner will join by walking while your Top laner will have the option to TP.

- When you have a Mage Mid Lane:
Since your Mid laner doesn't have the same side lane pressure as in the previous case, you can wait to swap with either him or your Top laner but the same principles apply here: if you want to take Herald next you should either swap with your Top laner or send your support to help with the skirmish topside leaving you alone, if you want to play for Dragon instead you can keep the usual lane assignments.

NOTE: If you lost lane very hard, (let's say you lost tower at 12 minutes and enemy ADC is up 2/3 kills) and you can't possibly contest objectives your "safe zone" is between you Tier1 and Tier2 Tower, if you push any further than that you are probably dead. If you realize the game is not in your hands anymore your best bet is to try to perma-freeze the wave in front of your Tier2, this way the enemy ADC will be forced to either push your Tier2, leaving him very exposed to ganks, or rotate somewhere else on the map (much more likely to happen). In this scenario you catch up in gold and exp under your tower while the enemy botlane will feel like they need to push their advantage, so they'll sometimes greed for a play; wait for their mistake and be ready to punish, your champ is the best at it!

N.B. Before you rotate to any objective it is ideal that you push out your wave or setup a slowpush so that if the Dragon/Herald dance lasts long enough the enemy team will lose exp and gold just by contesting the objective.

As Ashe, your job around objectives is to either snipe someone with your ult before the fight starts or peel with your ult from an enemy diver. Once the fight starts you play as any other immobile ADC: melt down the highest priority target in your range while being safe.

This is the stage of the game where Ashe's value skyrockets: your ult is now on a 60 seconds cooldown and a single pick can change the fate of the game. Use your ult wisely, don't waste it before an objective unless you are 90% sure your pick will work or your life is in danger.

As Ashe one of your greatest strenght is to make picks on enemies before the fight begins, making it a 5v4, but let's suppose you can't find the pick and both teams fight on even numbers.
Now your team will likely have 2 different ways to play 5v5: FRONT-TO-BACK or DIVE
FRONT-TO-BACK: standard teamfight style where both frontlines try to kill eachother first and your support will usually be next to you peeling. In this scenario your job is relatively easy.
DIVE: your solo laners (and probably also your jungler) will dive the enemy backline trying to kill them first and the enemy team will likely do the same. As Ashe this is a very difficult situation since you are immobile and surviving enemy's engage will require both of your spells, perfect positioning and target selection. With that said if you are behind in exp and gold to the enemy ADC this fighting style will give your team the best chance of winning so don't be tilted if you die every fight and your support won't peel for you, just accept you won't be the win condition and try to survive as long as possible.

N.B. If you have Baron buff and you are late for Dragon (or simply you don't have vision and cannot facecheck), don't facecheck through the Jungle! Always push the Mid wave first, threaten to take the tower (if you have time) THEN reach the Dragon through the river

MYTHIC:

- SHIELDBOW: If you run Shieldbow I suggest you get Legend: Alacrity to recover some of the lost AS. Personally I only buy it if enemy team has a LOT of burst damage and my support has no peel. With that said Shieldbow is the most common option when you go the on-hit build for a reason, it allows you to stay in fight much more time and DPS for longer, even though your damage output is uncomfortably lower than Kraken's.

- GALEFORCE: very situational, if you really have to dodge 1 important ability you can go GF but you will feel the damage loss while playing with this item. Many times you have the option to run Cleanse and buy Kraken instead, however the new Bork rush set has proven to be viable in specific situations and allows you to run Exhaust or Heal instead of Cleanse. Some champs I like to go Galeforce into are: Miis Fortune, Ahri, Pyke, Renata, Blitzcrank

- KRAKEN: currently the best option in terms of damage and sinergy with the rest of the build (at least in my experience), of course it's best in heavy bruisers/tanks comps but the extra AD/AS and passive damage come in handy also vs squishies

LEGENDARIES:
- WIT'S END: it remains a viable option especially vs heavy AP teams. If you go the on-hit build you can either buy this or Rageblade second depending on enemy team comp. Right now rageblade seems the most consistent second item though. In general you buy on-hit because it's cheaper but 3 item powerspike is worse

- RUNAAN'S HURRICANE: I've always loved this item and I want to build it on every champ but honestly speaking it's only good when your team has no waveclear and if the enemy team ever gets a baron at 20/25 minutes you aren't totally screwed. Also AoE slow in Teamfight feels very good. Plan to buy this if the enemy team wants to play front-to-back and your team has AoE abilites such as Orianna R- Shockwave. I't also good vs summon champs like Malz, Bel Veth, Yorick, Heimer

- RAGEBLADE: on-hit build is very good into low mobility/ heavy frontline teams. It's a very good item whenever you are not going to have 60%+ Crit, or enemy team has 2+ frontline champs, or you have 2+ Crit champ (including you) in your team so enemy's Randuin's Omen doesn't get too much value

- INFINITY EDGE: counterpart to Rageblade, if you need to max out your AD to get as much damage as possible with the least amount of AA this is your way to go. The good old classic

- MURAMANA: early Tear gives you infinite mana but lower your early damage so beware of that. Scaling is very very good and before the items rework it was a staple on Ashe. Still follows the principle of "Max Damage with Min AAs". Also gives a bit of Ability Haste, you may catch enemies by surprise with your ult just off Cooldown before they expected it to be.

- RAVENOUS HYDRA: gives you a bit of survivability, a lot of waveclear, a lot of Damage and Ability Haste. Overall I like it a lot and finish the build with it pretty much whenever I don't need a GA or a QSS. Still if you have to choose between this and LDR the latter will be better in terms of DPS

- GUARDIAN ANGEL: whenever enemies are able to kill you despite you positioned well, if you get caught in a weird spot it's useless (mostly vs Rengar, Kha'Zix, Talon, Zed). Death' Dance is also an option and I personally prefer it over GA since the passive sinergies very well with any form of sustain and GA in a bit situational

- MORTAL REMINDER: vs Vlad, Samira, Aatrox, Yuumi, Soraka, Hecarim, Olaf, Nasus, Nilah and all those champs this is a must-buy since you can AA from range and you may also have a Runaan's so you apply it A LOT. Also first component is 800G PLEASE buy it ASAP if your team needs it because you have the ability to buy it while many champs really need like 2/3 core items before they can start building something else, so it's better for you to delay your spike a bit usually but really depends on the game state. Situational item, stats are pretty bad.

- MERCURIAL SCIMITAR: vs Malz, Warwick, Lux, Seraphine, Veigar, Ekko or in general if you are the win condition of your team and you really need to remove that CC and you didn't take Cleanse. On a personal note, I'll never buy QSS if I'm not my team's win con and I'll build around the team's needs

- BLADE OF THE RUINED KING: good vs HP stackers such as Sett, Sion, Xin, etc. but other than these PD is also an option especially if fights drag out for longer. Bork rush build is viable but try it out in advance so you get the feeling of it

- PHANTOM DANCER: performs very well in extended fights, percentagewise does better than Runaan's as third item. Works well with both On-hit and Crit builds, maybe has a bit better sinergy with On-hit items

- DEATH'S DANCE: strong synergy with any form of healing, I think it performs better in the on-hit build, paired with Wit's End and Shieldbow you become pretty difficult to take down for enemy assassins/divers. It used to be the best item in the game a long time ago but now is very situational, only buy it when enemy team is full of dive/burst damage

I hope you'll find this guide at least a bit useful, it's the first one I write but I did put effort into it. Let me know your opinion, I'm very open to suggestions and I'm looking forward to know how you feel about it!


About me: I'm a student who plays mostly for fun and enjoyment but in the years I've grown to like the competition in this game and took an interest in getting better at it. I've been playing since Season 3, started playing ADC in Season 5/6 and peaked Diamond 2 in Season 1. For now that's all folks! Have a wonderful day and I hope I inspired you to play Ashe!