Hey! I'm Hecahri. I'm an Ahri player with 688k mastery points right now. I play in EUW and I'm currently Diamond (I'm not too focused on playing rankeds anymore since I already rached Diamond and that was my goal lol).

I've been planning to make an Ahri guide for a long time, but since there are already tons of them I thought it would be useless, but on second thought I think of this as a personal thing and I wanted to make this guide to show you, whoever is reading it, the way I play and help you in case you need it. Hopefully the guide will reach a lot of people and help everyone by showing my playstyle. Hope you like it! <3

Also, you need to keep in mind I am the one making this guide, so most of the things I say are completely from personal experience, so don't take everything I say as the only truth.


*(I'll be updating this guide as much as I can to improve it so it has more content )

Innately connected to the latent power of Runeterra, Ahri is a vastaya who can reshape magic into orbs of raw energy. She revels in toying with her prey by manipulating their emotions before devouring their life essence. Despite her predatory nature, Ahri retains a sense of empathy as she receives flashes of memory from each soul she consumes.

Abandoned in the snowy woods of northern Ionia, Ahri knew nothing of her original family save the token they left her: a pair of matching gemstones. She joined a pack of icefoxes as they stalked prey on their morning hunt, and before long they adopted her as one of their own. With no one to teach her the magic of her kind, Ahri instinctively learned to draw it from the world around her, shaping destructive spheres and quickening her reflexes to take down prey. If she was close enough, she could even soothe a deer into a state of tranquility, so much that it remained serene even as she sank her teeth into its flesh.

Ahri first encountered humans when a troop of foreign soldiers camped near her den. Their behaviors were strange to Ahri and, curious to learn more, she watched them from afar. She was especially drawn to a hunter who, unlike his wasteful companions, used every part of the animals he killed, reminding her of her fox family.

When the hunter was wounded by an arrow, Ahri felt his life seeping away. She instinctively devoured the essence leaving his body, and gained brief flashes of his memories—the lover he had lost in battle, his children from a strange land of iron and stone. She found she could push his emotions from fear to sorrow to joy, and charmed him with visions of a sun-soaked meadow as he died.

Euphoric at the rush of absorbing the hunter’s life, Ahri felt more alive than ever, and traveled Ionia in search of more victims. She relished toying with her prey, shifting their emotions before consuming their life essence. She alternated between dazzling them with visions of beauty, hallucinations of deep longing, and occasionally dreams colored by raw sorrow.

She grew drunk with memories that were not her own, and exhilarated in the lives of others. Through stolen visions, Ahri watched through their eyes as they pledged fealty to a temple of shadow, sacrificed offerings to a deity of the sun incarnate, encountered an avian tribe of vastaya that spoke only in song, and glimpsed mountainous landscapes unlike any she had seen. She experienced heartbreak and elation in tantalizing flashes that left her craving more, and wept at the massacres of Ionian villagers at the hands of Noxian invaders.

Ahri was surprised when the memories led her to discover the tale of an unearthly fox demon. As she absorbed more life essence, she grew to identify more and more with her victims, and felt guilty at ending so many lives. She feared that the myths about her were true—she was no more than a cruel monster. But whenever too much time passed between feedings, she sensed her own power fade, and could not help but partake once more.

Ahri tested her self-control by consuming small quantities of life essence, enough to absorb a memory or two but not enough to kill. She was successful, for a time, but was tortured by her unending hunger and soon succumbed to temptation, indulging in the dreams of an entire coastal village.

Tormented by her mistake, Ahri could not forgive herself and felt a deep sorrow that forced her to question her own existence. She withdrew to the forest caves, isolating herself in hopes of controlling her relentless desire. Years later she emerged, determined to experience every facet of life through her own eyes. Though she might indulge in occasional essence, she resisted consuming entire lives. With the twin gemstones as the only clue to her origin, Ahri set out in search of others like her. No more would she rely on borrowed memories and unfamiliar dreams.

There are many fun champions to play, but personally, I prefer Ahri over all of them. She is such a versatile champion and so many ways to play her that you never fully know her. Not only that, but I love her concept and the way Riot made her. She is such a beautiful and artistic champion I just love her. I believe Riot did an amazing job with her not only ingame, but also her lore and little stories they have made for her. She is a really good character overall and the comunity seems to like her too!

For me, Ahri is an unique Mage Assassin. Both things cover eachother's flaws and give her more advantages, allowing Ahri to have many different playstyles with a smaller risk of loosing. I like to play Ahri as a mage early game, poking a little, playing safe, but never going straight for the kill as many assassins do.

As the game goes on I start using her as a burst assassin, catching squishy targets and killing them before their team is able to react. It's the playstyle I've developed over time and I assume everyone plays her the same way, since it's very rewarding.

As I said, she is very versatile so she can adapt to many situations and has proven to be a really good SoloQ character for a looong time. She is a really strong character and has many ways to win, like carrying the entire team or just being a little second support as I've done it.

As good as she is, there are some problems with her. Her character itself is kind of confusing. She is a mage and an assassin at the same time, but doesn't really stand out in any of those.

When playing her as an assassin, you don't have that burst damage other assassins have early and mid game unless you are extremely fed. Once you get to late game, she does have a lot of damage but at that point, unless you are playing CRAZY GOOD, you will be a little behind just like other assassins, which is going to be a problem for your team.

When playing her as a mage, the same things happen. You can either be super good or just fall behind, but there is no middle ground. She doesn't have that great CC other mages have and the AOE damage, so as a mage, Ahri won't stand out at any point of the game and she will feel like a damage support, doing something but not much.

PASSIVE: Vastayan Grace

If Ahri earns 2 spell hits against an enemy champion within a 1.5 second period, she gains 20% movement speed for 3 seconds.


Ahri's passive is not completely bad, but it's definetely not a game changer. You'll mostly notice its effect if you are running away from enemies and you hit one of them with 2 abilities, then it'll be easier to escape.

Q: Orb of Deception

Ahri throws out and pulls back her orb, dealing magic damage on the way out andtrue damage on the way back.

If Ahri earns 9 spell hits (max 3 per cast), she gains Essence Theft, causing her next Q cast that lands to restore health for each enemy hit.


This is your main source of poke and damage in early and mid game. It's an AOE ability and at level 4, it will help you clear minion waves more easily. You should try to deal true damage every time you can, even if it means ignoring the first half of the ability, since magic damage will be reduced.

W: Fox-Fire

Ahri releases three fox-fires, which after a short delay lock on and attack nearby enemies (prioritizes champions), dealing magic damage. Additional fox-fires that hit the same target deal 30% damage.

Fox-Fire prioritizes any enemy champion affected by Charm's damage amp and the target Ahri most recently basic-attacked within the past 3 seconds.

In late game, this will be the most reliable source of damage and that's the reason why you should max it second. Early game it does basically nothing and that's why you should unlock the ability at level 4 instead of 3.

E: Charm

Ahri blows a kiss that deals magic damage to an enemy and charms it, causing them to walk harmlessly towards her for a few seconds.

When Charm damages a champion, Ahri's abilities deal 20% more damage to them for 5 seconds.

This ability is extremely important since it's the one you'll have to use to start any combo 90% of the time and, if you can, use it even in early game trades.

R: Spirit Rush

Ahri dashes forward and fires essence bolts, damaging 3 nearby enemies (prioritizes champions) for magic damage per bolt. Spirit Rush can be cast up to three times within ten seconds before going on cooldown.

This is Ahri's ultimate ability. At later stages in the game, it has a really low cooldown so you should use it to catch a squishy target (after hiting Charm if possible), delete said target and dash away.

DOMINATION PATH

-KEYSTONE

Electrocute is the most common rune for all assassins, Ahri included. It provides a great burst potential and has a great synergy with her abilities. It's a great rune to win trades in the laning phase, allows Ahri to kill the enemy carries really fast or even catch enemies without vision in the jungle, bursting them before they have time to react. It's a very decent rune and used a lot with Ahri. Of all the runes, Electrocute is the best and the most recommended one.

Dark Harvest is a good rune, but not the one for Ahri. She won't be able to stack it easily early game so roaming won't be as succesful with this rune since you'll have a lower damage at that point in the game. You can try it, but I wouldn't recommend it unless you are 100% sure you can stack it all the time, which is not common.

Predator is not for Ahri. It only help with roams, but considering you won't have any damage to win trades you won't get to roam as much, so it's simply not worth it.

Hail of Blades just won't work, Ahri doesn't scale with AD so basic attacks won't add any damage to her combos.

-Malice

The reason why I choose Taste of Blood is because I like a safer early game, so this rune will give us some sustain whenever we hit an ability against an enemy champion.

Sudden Impact has a great syngery with Ahri's ult, giving her magic penetration to deal even more damage during her Spirit Rush combos, allowing her to deal more damage to the target(s).

Cheap Shot is not completely bad, but you need to hit your Charm if you want to activate it, which won't happen all the time. It's a very risky option but if you have good aim it will help more early game since you''ll unlock your Charm sooner than your Spirit Rush.

-Tracking

Eyeball Collection is pretty simple. You kill, you get AP. After 10 stacks, you'll get bonus AP for a total of 30 AP. Works well with assassins like Ahri and this is the one I recommend the most.

There is one reason why Ghost Poro is slightly worse than Eyeball Collection and that's because your wards NEED TO EXPIRE. Sometimes the enemy will destroy your wards and it's a lost stack until you get your next one and this process will take a long time. It gives 30 AP at 10 stacks.

Zombie Ward is good, but as a midlaner you'll only get stacks once you get your Oracle Lens which happens after level 9 but, even after you get them, you'll still need to get the stacks and this process will take a bit more time, making it an useless rune early and a bit of mid game. Gives 30 AP at 10 stacks.

-Hunter

Spirit Rush already has a fairly low cooldown, but with 40% cooldown reduccion and Ultimate Hunter it will be even lower, which is perfect since the ability is extremely important because it's Ahri's only mobility.

Ravenous Hunter's purpose is to give us a little sustain early game so we don't leave the lane too often. Aside from that, it doesn't have any more uses since Orb of Deception already provides us a healing.

Relentless Hunter is a good rune if you are planning to roam a lot. If that's not the case, the rune will not be as useful as it could.

Ingenious Hunter is a very situational rune and you need to plan if you are going to use it to its full potential or not. With Electrocute as the keystone, you'll probably buy a single item that has some kind of use that places said item in cooldown, which is going to make Ingenious Hunter a little useless. I personally don't recommend it.

SECONDARY RUNES

SORCERY

-Artifact

Nullifying Orb is in my opinion the best rune out of the three, since Ahri, being an assassin, will deal lots of damage but at the same time will be very squishy, so this rune is really nice as long as there is AP in the enemy team. If there isn't any AP, then just go for Manaflow Band since we won't need any AP shields.A Banshee's Veil could be useful too if the enemy team has a lot of AP damage, since it will help us even more against magic damage.

Manaflow Band The best option if you won't pick Nullifying Orb. Ahri suffers from great mana problems, especially in early game, so this rune will help us a lot to fix that. Still, this doesn't get rid of the problem, so always watch out for your mana and make sure to stay over 100 so you can use Spirit Rush or Charm to escape from many situation.

Nimbus Cloak is actually a pretty decent rune with Ahri since it gives us extra mobility once we ult, which combined with Essence Theft is going to give us a lot of Movement Speed. I personally don't use it since I'd rather have Nullifying Orb with me but this is also a good choice with Ahri.

-Excellence

I personally don't use these, but feel free to do so if you want.

Transcendence is my favourite above the other 2 since CDR works well with Ahri, especially to have Spirit Rush ready sooner. The only problem is that it activates once we reach levl 10 but I think it is worth it, also the extra AP is something we can't decline if we pass 40% CDR.

With Celerity, Relentless Hunter, Nimbus Cloak and Essence Theft you become Rammus 2.0. It's only useful to have a few laughs, because the rune is not that worth it on Ahri since you already have a lot of Movement Speed from Essence Theft and 3 dashes from Spirit Rush.

Absolute Focus is not necessarely a bad rune, I just don't like it as much. Once you are below 70% health it becomes useless so I wouldn't consider taking it. Works well in laning phase against melee champions though.

-Power

Gathering Storm might be my second favourite rune behind the Keystones. Ahri falls off late game but this rune solves this problem by giving her an incredible amount of AP at later stages of the game. If you think the game won't last long I would consider choosing something else. Overall it's a really great rune.

I really don't like this rune. I believe Scorch doesn't really deal that much damage during early game since its cooldown is fairly long considering it's used to poke. I personally think Gathering Storm is way better than this rune past minute 10. Since its job is to poke the enemy laner, the rune becomes useless late game.

Waterwalking is a useful rune to roam, but since you are in lane most of the time and fights IN THE RIVER won't be that common, I believe this rune isn't that useful on lanes.

INSPIRATION

I would only take this as my secondary runes if I'm fighting an AD assassin in lane and a heavy based AP enemy team so I can get the free Stopwatch as soon as I can.

-Contraptions

Perfect Timing is the must-have rune if you go for Inspiration as your secondary runes. A free Stopwatch at minute 10 (saving 600 gold) is just too valuabe to not choose it. Also reduces Zhonya's Hourglass cooldown by 15%, making it a safer choice than a normal Stopwatch.

If you really really want it, I guess you can go for Magical Footwear, but Perfect Timing has a lot more to offer.

Hextech Flashtraption is just too slow to make combos with it. Not even worth a try. Completely useless for Ahri.

-Tomorrow

Since I always choose Inspiration everytime I don't feel safe, I usually choose Biscuit Delivery to have more sustain in lane and also for the total 80 extra mana it gives.

I'm not a Minion Dematerializer user at all, so I can't really say much about this one (so sorry :C).

Future's Market is a great rune if you know it's going to be a rough lane so you can get the essential laning items as soon as possible (like Lost Chapter.

-Beyond

Since you are here mostly because of Perfect Timing, this rune will reduce Zhonya's Hourglass cooldown by 5% more for a total 20% CDR. Also increases your CDR cap by 5%, gives you 5% CDR and reduces your Spell cooldowns by another 5%. Basically increases our chances to survive lots of attacks.

Time Warp Tonic is nothing too special. Grants us inmediatly 50% healing from potions and Biscuit Delivery and increases our Movement Speed while under their effect. Not a bad choice, but I wouldn't play it. It does help a lot to survive ignites, that's something I can't deny.

Unless you are buying Rylai's Crystal Scepter, Approach Velocity is going to be useless most of the time. Wouldn't recommend it at all.

PRECISION

I really don't recommend going for this since there are other more viable options to go with Domination for Ahri.

RESOLUTION

Same as Precision, there are just more viable options.

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INSPIRATION PATH

Considering Inspiration is a safer path, choosing it means we will be less agressive early on since we don't have enough damage to trade properly. Unless your jungler is helping you or you hit a good Charm you should not look for any fights or trades since you'll most likely loose.

-KEYSTONE

If you ever go for Inspiration, this is the rune you'll be looking for. It doesn't provide us any extra damage so you'll have to play safe early game. Once you get Everfrost, the rune will start doing its job and it will slow enemies so your team can catch them and kill them 1 by 1, or just provide a great slow so the carries can't escape from your team. Or just slow, in general.

I'll be honest. If I ever play this rune is to fight Kassadin. You just can't kill him in lane thanks to his magic damage reduction and the magic shield from his Q and it gets even worse late game, so this rune helps us to get lots of gold and consumables to have it easier in lane and get our core items as soon as we can or else Ahri will be useless the entire game against that monster. I don't recommend this rune in any other situation.

I never play Unsealed Spellbook. We won't really need to swap spells since we only need Flash and Ignite and it takes a lot of damage and utility away, so I don't recommend playing it at all.

-Contraptions

A free Stopwatch is always nice so if you feel like you are going to need it really soon then go for it. It saves us 600g which we can use for some core items or boots and it reduces Zhonya's Hourglass cooldown by 15% so it's even better.

Magical Footwear is good so if you know you won't need Zhonya's Hourglass then go for it. The extra 10 Movement Speed and saving 300 gold are both good reasons to take this rune instead of Perfect Timing.

Hextech Flashtraption is just too slow to make combos with it. Not even worth a try. Completely useless for Ahri.

-Tomorrow

Future's Market is a great rune if you are goinf for Glacial Augment since we need our core items as soon as we can, so this will help a lot to do so.

Biscuit Delivery provides us a bit of sustain and extra 80 mana in total, so if you think your lane is going to be tough this rune is really good.

I'm not a Minion Dematerializer user at all, so I can't really say much about this one (so sorry :C). Still, I don't think it's a good rune.

-Beyond

For me it's just the best out of the 3. In this path we will most likely have at least 2 items which will be on cooldown sometimes ( Twin Shadows and Everfrost most of the time) so this rune will reduce their cooldowns by 5%. Along with Perfect Timing, Zhonya's Hourglass's cooldown will be reduced by a total of 20%, which is really nice. It also increased our CDR cap by 5%, gives us 5% CDR and reducing our Spells' cooldowns by 5%.

Time Warp Tonic is nothing too special. Grants us inmediatly 50% healing from potions and Biscuit Delivery and increases our Movement Speed while under their effect. Not a bad choice, but I wouldn't play it. It does help a lot to survive ignites, that's something I can't deny.

This time, Approach Velocity would be used a lot more since we are going to slow our enemies, but I still prefer Cosmic Insight over this.

SECONDARY RUNES

SORCERY

The best secondary runes to go with Inspiration on my opinion. I always take these whenever I'm using Glacial Augment.

-Artifact

Nullifying Orb is in my opinion the best rune out of the three, since Ahri, being an assassin, will deal lots of damage but at the same time will be very squishy, so this rune is really nice as long as there is AP in the enemy team. If there isn't any AP, then just go for Manaflow Band since we won't need any AP shields.A Banshee's Veil could be useful too if the enemy team has a lot of AP damage, since it will help us even more against magic damage.

Manaflow Band The best option if you won't pick Nullifying Orb. Ahri suffers from great mana problems, especially in early game, so this rune will help us a lot to fix that. Still, this doesn't get rid of the problem, so always watch out for your mana and make sure to stay over 100 so you can use Spirit Rush or Charm to escape from many situation.

Nimbus Cloak is actually a pretty decent rune with Ahri since it gives us extra mobility once we ult, which combined with Essence Theft is going to give us a lot of Movement Speed. I personally don't use it since I'd rather have Nullifying Orb with me but this is also a good choice with Ahri.

-Excellence

I personally don't use these, but feel free to do so if you want.

Transcendence is my favourite above the other 2 since CDR works well with Ahri, especially with Spirit Rush. The only problem is that it activates once we reach levl 10 but I think it is worth it, also the extra AP is something we can't decline if we pass 40% CDR.

With Celerity, Relentless Hunter, Nimbus Cloak and Essence Theft you become Rammus 2.0. It's only useful to have a few laughs, because the rune is not that worth it on Ahri since you already have a lot of Movement Speed from Essence Theft and 3 dashes from Spirit Rush

Absolute Focus is not necessarely a bad rune, I just don't like it as much. Once you are below 70% health it becomes useless so I wouldn't consider taking it. Works well in laning phase against melee champions though.

-Power

Gathering Storm might be my second favourite rune behind the Keystones. Ahri falls off late game but this rune solves this problem by giving her an incredible amount of AP at later stages of the game. If you think the game won't last long I would consider choosing something else. Overall it's a really great rune.

I really don't like this rune. I believe Scorch doesn't really deal that much damage early game since it's cooldown is fairly long considering it's used to poke. I personally think Gathering Storm is way better than this rune past minute 10. Since its job is to poke the enemy laner, the rune becomes useless late game.

Waterwalking is a useful rune to roam, but since you are in lane most of the time and fights IN THE RIVER won't be that common, I believe this rune isn't that useful on lanes.

DOMINATION

This one will be quick since there are only 2 useful runes to go with Glacial Augment. If you are going for Kleptomancy I don't recommend going for Domination as your secondary runes.

In this path, we weren't focusing on damage so the magic penetration from Sudden Impact is extremely important and essential if you go for Domination as secondary runes.

Extremely important and essential too if you go for Domination as secondary runes. Reduces our items CDR by a lot so we can use Everfrost a lot more during the game.

PRECISION

I really don't recommend going for this since there are other more viable options to go with Inspiration for Ahri.

RESOLUTION

Same as Precision, there are just more viable options.

This stage of the game is pretty much the same for all mages and Ahri is no exception. As I said you should start with Doran's Ring and 2 Health Potion OR Dark Seal and Refillable Potion as I mentioned in the items section.

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FARMING

Try to farm as good as you can so you get your Lost Chapter as soon as you can, since Ahri really needs this item due to her mana problems. I recommend improving your farming by going into Practice Tool and farm without items so you get used to Ahri's attack speed and animations since every champion is unique in this aspect.

*Star Guardian Ahri has a different basic attack animation which, for me, feels a little heavier causing me to miss more farm than usual. Keep this in mind since skins impact your game in many ways due to their own animations and effects.

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TRADING

This is an extremely important part of the laning phase and will highly determine if you'll carry your team or not.

As I said, Ahri suffers from mana problems which lead to you playing incredibly safe since you won't be able to win trades in this state. I like to ALWAYS stay over 100 mana all the time in case I'll need to spend it to get a kill or Charm/ Orb of Deception AND Essence Theft to run away.

Orb of Deception will be our main ability to poke, especially since we will level it up again at level 3 instead of 4. Even still, you should try to poke when you know it will be worth it or to get another stack of Manaflow Band as I usually do. Orb of Deception at level 3 starts dealing a great amount of damage so you should try to hit minions AND the enemy champ at the same time so we use it to its full potential instead of wasting mana in case we miss the enemy champion. If you think you can hit a Charm, try to use it any time to trade since it will increase our abilities damage and, along with Electrocute we can take a really high % of the enemy laner's HP.

Remember that Fox-Fire deals little to no damage so I don't recommend using it to trade since it's basically wasting 40 mana. Instead, try to use it if you know you won't be trading soon to stack your Orb of Deception's passive to 9 stacks so you can heal with it if you desperately need it. Other than that, Fox-Fire doesn't have any other use early on. In later stages, it will be just as important as Orb of Deception to burst down enemies.

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WARDING

Obviusly, this is a very important part of the laning phase.

Always keep in mind your Stealth Ward and use it carefully, especially if you are using the Ghost Poro rune.

If you are playing safe or nobody is pushing, place your wards in the bushes near your tower.

If you are playing agressive, place them in the enemy jungle so if their jungler comes you'll have more time to react. (I'll upload a photo of this explaining it in case it's too confusing).

Control Wards are very important and you should buy them constantly. Especially if you are facing junglers like Evelynn or Twitch since they won't be able to surprise you with their sneaky ganks. Sadly, Twitch is a bit of a different case since he is able to gank you right when the game is staring and you don't have any Control Ward right when the game starts, so play extrmely safe against him in the jungle.

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ITEMS

There is nothing special about this. Always go for Luden's Tempest by buying Lost Chapter first. Unless you are facing an AD assassin and you are sure you won't survive, consider buying Seeker's Armguard as your first item, but even if that's the case just leave the item there and focus on buying Luden's Tempest first.

Vladimir is an exception in all of this. Against him, rush Morellonomicon as soon as you can since you'll need the grievous wounds debuff as soon as possible. Sadly this is going to slow your itemization a lot and he is going to mess with you the enire game (reason why I always ban him C:).

In my personal experience, Ahri is a great champion and is doing very well, but I feel like she could do a bit better. The tank meta was a horrible time for Ahri and it never disappeared because sometimes, unless the enemy team is full of squishy champions, you'll notice tanks are extremely powerful against her. Yes, she is basically an assassin and that's what tanks are for, but sometimes other assassins have it a lot easier dealing with tanks, at least that's what I've seen/exxperienced with other characters.

I sound like I'm DEMANDING an Ahri buff but no, aside from that, Ahri is a really good champion overall and I believe she is in a good spot right now, so I'm fine with Riot not doing anything to her for now. Especially since the Glacial Augment rune became a thing for her. It's funny because before it became such a famous thing I did try it but thought it wasn't as good. Now that I'm experimenting with it a little I've seen many good builds and playstyles with that rune, making the experience of playing with Ahri a lot more enjoyable.

I really recommend to try Ahri as soon as you can, because you never know. Maybe you'll find her as enjoyable as I do, and probably you'll climb a lot with her!