League of Legends - Ashe Guide

Ashe is a powerful ranged physical carry, she packs a built in slow with a strong map wide ultimate. She is a great starting carry for any League of Legends player but also maintains her effectiveness throughout all skill levels (thus making Ashe a great champion to master).

This Ashe guide aims to be a basic and simple introduction on basic strategy that should be adopted when playing Ashe, it is recommended for people just starting to use Ashe.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Abilities

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  Focus (Passive) Ashe's passive ensures that when she reaches the battle that she can output some quick damage with a critical strike. It is also great to use for your very first attack at level 1, giving you a guaranteed critical while also establishing lane dominance.
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  Frost Shot Ashe's strong slow that she can toggle on and off as required. It makes her auto attacks very deadly, making it hard to get close to Ashe or escape from her. Its current level also applies to her Volley ability, giving Ashe a strong area of effect slow.
• 
  Volley Volley is Ashe's lane harrassment skill and area of effect slow. It gives Ashe great poke damage and is a great ability defensively and offensively.
• 
  Hawkshot Hawkshot has a great number of uses for Ashe and her team. Its great for scouting out for ganks when pushing a lane, it also helps you not lose sight of an enemy as they run into a bush and is great for checking Baron and Dragon. The extra gold for kills doesn't hurt either.
• 
  Enchanted Crystal Arrow (Ultimate) A map wide ultimate that can quickly turn a battle in your favour. It can be used very effectively to initiate on the enemy team and can also be used to help your team mates if you find yourself on the other side of the map.

Ability Order

You want to level your abilities as follows:
Ult > Volley > Frost Shot > Hawkshot

Volley is useful for harassment and farming so is best to max first to greatly decrease its cooldown and slightly increase its damage. Frost Shot should be maxed second to increase the slow amount on both your auto attacks and on your Volley. One point in Hawk Shot is important at level 4, this will help you scout out areas to prevent being ganked and also great to stop bush campers in side lanes.

Runes

Red (Marks) - Armor Penetration
Yellow (Seals) - Mana Regeneration Per Level // Armor
Blue (Glyphs) - Magic Resistance
Purple (Quintessences) - Attack Damage // Armor Penetration // Health // Movement Speed

This rune build gives Ashe amazing early game damage with armor penetration and attack damage to ensure she can hit hard right from the start. Mana regeneration on Seals allows Ashe to forgo any mana regeneration item and allows her to consistently harass early and constantly make use of her Frost Shot throughout the game. If you find yourself not needing the mana regeneration consider taking armor instead. In the case of Glyphs magic resistance is a strong choice.

Depending on your playstyle (and available runes) you can run Health, Movement Speed or more Armor Penetration on Quintessences.

Summoner Spells

 

Best Summoner Spells:
-Flash
-Ghost

Ashe is a very squishy ranged champion and as such relies on perfect positioning to be effective. As such taking two position based summoners will really save your life (and even score you some kills).

Other Good Summoner Spells:
-Cleanse
-Exhaust
-Teleport

There are a few other summoner spell options for Ashe, Cleanse is nice to help you escape crowd control and is a nice pick if the enemy has lots of it, as it will help greatly until you can build a Banshee's Veil. Exhaust is another okay option for Ashe and is great if the enemy team is packing a few too many assassins too handle. Teleport is your final option for Ashe, this allows you to get around to the map quickly and can be combined with your ultimate to stun someone for the full duration and then Teleport in for the kill.

Masteries

Ashe works well as a 21/0/9 champion, you want to grab all the relevant offensive masteries (penetration, critical chance, attack speed and critical damage). You also get to grab the bonus experience, improved ghost and some extra buff duration from the utility mastery.

Don't forget to grab improved Exhaust/Teleport if you take it a summoner skill.

Item Build

 
Final Item Build:
-Boots of Swiftness
-Banshee's Veil
-Last Whisper
-Infinity Edge
-Bloodthirster
-Phantom Dancer

Steps/Reasoning:
-Pick up a Doran's Blade at the start of the game, this gives you a damage boost, some life-steal and a boost to your starting health.
-Farm up as much as possible in lane going back to build your Boots of Swiftness or Berserker's Greaves also buying another Doran's Blade if you are forced back early.
-If you are not forced back early grab yourself a B.F. Sword, eventually building this into an Infinity Edge.
-From here picking up a Phantom Dancer is a great idea to boost your attack speed, critical chance (important to make use of Infinity Edge) and movement speed (helps you position yourself better).
-By now you will probably need some survivability, thus build towards a Banshee's Veil
-From here if the game is still going you can build a Bloodthirster for a big damage boost and also look at picking up a Last Whisper to eat through the enemies armor.

Alternatives:
-2nd Bloodthirster (For a large chunk of raw Attack Damage with some added Lifesteal)
-Black Cleaver (Great against a squishy enemy team, also gives some attack speed)
-Madred's Bloodrazor (A must have for high health targets)

General Ashe Tips

• Make sure you toggle Frost Shot on for champions and off when you are not attacking champions.
• Use Hawk Shot when you are worried about an enemy that is missing, also consider the casting placement as it also becomes a temporary ward.
• Ashe has a map-wide ultimate making map awareness very important on Ashe, you can turn battles into your teams favour from the other side of the map very quickly.
• Ashe is squishy like most carries, consider your position carefully. Use your range, slows and speed to poke at the enemy.
• Hawk Shot is extremely effective for battles in the jungle and around bush areas, as it gives your team full vision of the enemy, a huge advantage.
• Consider your angle when using your ultimate, its much easier to hit an enemy coming towards you or moving away.

Early Game

• Save your first attack for the enemy champion, due to your passive it will be a guaranteed critical, giving you some strong early lane dominance.
• Harass the enemy with Volley, you can also use Volley to farm multiple minions quickly.
• You can activate Frost Shot and follow up with several auto-attacks for strong harassment.
• Try to slowly wither the enemy down, often you can score a guaranteed kill with Ashe at level 6 if you hit your Enchanted Crystal Arrow.

Mid Game

• Be sure to farm lanes and the forest when applicable, Ashe is a very item dependent carry. (She still has great team utility when not farmed up but she is no where near her potential)
• Volley's cooldown drops very quickly as it approaches max level, use it to poke and harass the enemy, your mana regeneration runes will handle the associated mana costs.
• Be careful to not over extend in a lane, Ashe has no strong escape skills (that is why Flash/Ghost are so important summoners).
• Consider building a Banshee's Veil at this stage of the game if you need more survivability, if you don't need the added defense, hold off on building it till late game.

Late Game

• At this stage of the game it is all about poking and positioning yourself correctly.
• Using your ultimate on an enemy should result in a guaranteed kill for your team, use it to pick off the dangerous enemies (carries/supports).
• Enchanted Crystal Arrow is great to initiate with (both before or after the tank has initiated), it can take an enemy completely out of the fight and apply slows to any surrounding enemies.
• Late game you may need to save your ultimate for stopping enemies with channelled ultimates, this may turn the battle into your teams favour. 

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