League of Legends Patch 10.18 Includes A Major Overhaul To Ahri’s Kit
Following a much appreciated visual effects update in 10.15, patch 10.18 is bringing even more changes to Ahri. It’s not clear how these changes will affect her playstyle or statistics, but with a new KDA skin coming up it’s likely that Riot is trying to switch things up for Ahri players.
The first change is a decrease to her health regeneration, from 6.5 to 5.5. This small nerf likely won’t be very noticeable, but will make Ahri’s sustain slightly weaker in heavy poke matchups. The big changes though are to Ahri’s abilities, specifically her Passive and W, Fox-Fire. Her old passive ‘Vastayan Grace’ has been removed and replaced by ‘Essence Theft’.
Click to enlargeVastayan Grace was an important part of Ahri’s identity as a kite mage, granting 20% bonus movement speed for 3 seconds whenever Ahri landed 2 ability hits against a champion in a short period of time. Her new passive, Essence Theft, is taken directly from Ahri’s ‘Orb of Deception’ passive, allowing Ahri to heal a small amount after using her abilities to hit enemies. The big difference is that the healing is no longer limited to Orb of Deception, but can now also be used with Fox-Fire.Since Essence Theft has been taken from Ahri’s Q, Orb of Deception obviously no longer has the Essence Theft passive.
Click to enlargeWhile this change gives Ahri more skill expression when choosing the ability to use her passive on, losing her movement speed steroid is a big hit. Fortunately, Fox-Fire has been changed to compensate for it, as the ability now grants a burst of 40% movement speed decaying over 1.5 seconds. This steroid is twice as powerful as her old 20% movement speed passive, but lasts half as long, making it much better for dodging skillshots and quick trades. As the movement speed is decaying though, it may prove worse than Vastayan Grace for extended fights, chases and escapes.
Click to enlargeThat’s not all though, as Fox-Fire now deals 200% damage to minions below 20%. This nice quality of life change will improve Ahri’s wave-clear and pushing power, while also making it easier to last hit minions without your Q. The trade-off is a mana cost increase from 40 to 55 and a cooldown increase of one second across all levels. The small cooldown increase is negligible, but the higher mana cost may come back to bite you if you’re spamming it in the early game.
Overall, it’s hard to tell how these changes will influence Ahri’s win rate once they hit live servers. It’s likely that her 51.3% win rate will drop temporarily as players get used to the new changes, but with a new KDA skin on the way her play rate will probably go through the roof too.
Stay up to date with all the latest esports and gaming news by checking out our social channels here: Twitter | Facebook
Image via Riot Games
