User blog comment:Willbachbakal/(Champion Rework) Ashe, the Frost Archer/@comment-25673970-20150110072108

Y'know, I've been looking at coming up with an Ashe rework myself, and while I like some of the changes you made here, there's a couple issues that need to be resolved, some of which still linger from her old kit.

1) Her passive is still useless once she starts to build crit chance. Sure, she can guarantee a crit every two seconds or whatever lategame, but why does that matter AT ALL when every other attack is a crit anyways?

2) Ashe's current kit has next to zero damage--she's got her ult, her W, and autoattacks. Instead she's super dependent on being able to kite for herself, which is why she's got the nearly infinite array of slows right now. I agree that a permaslow is toxic, but your version of her Q takes away a ton of her ability to kite, since it's not guaranteed to land and is on a relatively long cooldown for a kite-based ability lategame. Plus, it does zero damage. Sure, 100% AD, but your autoattacks do 100% AD, and they can crit up to 250% AD with an infinity edge. Even with your new E passive...well, 25% AD is a suprisingly small amount. Just look at Lucian's new passive (don't even get me started on the old one). 30% bonus damage guaranteed on your next auto-attack after EVERY ability cast (even if the ability misses), at level 1, and a double-proc of on hit effects. And it scales up to 50% in the late game.

So basically, here's what I get out of your version of Ashe. She has a very good early game burst combo, especially if you allow her Q and W to function as Attack Timer resets. A focus crit-w-AA (e)-q-AA (e) would do, in total, 200% + 20+100% + 125% + 40+100% + 125% = 60 + 650% AD. With rougly 80 AD at level 3, that's a total of 580 physical damage. That's good, yes; but it's still not enough that I would be trembling in fear, because once she's done that, she's a complete goner. She has hardly any base damage even at level eighteen, except for her ultimate. She would be, in other words, an auto attack reliant champion with only one auto-attack steroid. She's an immobile self-peeling ADC with only two easily accessible kiting utilities (one of which is hard to land). I can see where you're going with this, but it doesn't feel very Ashe-y. I perceive Ashe as this slow-laden ADC that's impossible for your frontliners to reach, with the compensation that she doesn't do as much damage as other ADCs.

I have solutions to both of the problems I mentioned above. First, her passive: A simple addition. I like your method of stack generation more than the one currently on her; I also find the current out-of-combat mechanic interesting, since with Ashe being originally intended as a new player's champion, it's a good way of teaching new players to not attack a minion until it takes only one attack to kill it. That's fine either way. The important thing is this: instead of resetting her base stacks to her crit chance, give it a scaling modifier that lets Focus's guaranteed crit do BONUS crit damage late game. In other words, at level one she has a guaranteed crit after 20 seconds out of combat for 200% AD; and late game, since the guaranteed crit is worth absolutely nothing, instead she is guaranteed to crit for 250% AD. This way it retains some usefulness into the late game without just being a useless crit-giver for a champ with high crit anyways.

The second is her Frost Shot. I like Volley, Hawk Shot and Enchanted Crystal Arrow as they currently stand in her present kit. They need very little tweaking to retain their value. But her Q has the toxic permaslow and also does nothing for her already super-low damage. So my solution I came up with was this: Name it, instead of Frost Shot, "Frozen Quiver." Frozen Quiver works on a charge system (think Corki's Missile Barrage, or Vi's Excessive Force). I was thinking she could probably store up to 3 charges, but that could change. By activating Frozen Quiver, she consumes a charge and some mana; then, her next basic attack will do a little bit of bonus damage and apply a relatively strong slow (I was thinking about 40%) for a relatively short time (probably 1.5 seconds). The cooldown before she can consume another charge would be longer than the slow time, but short enough that she can keep an enemy slowed roughly 50% of the time until she runs out of charges.

With that modified Q, several major changes occur. One, she can build Trinity Force to do obscene amounts of bonus damage, which compensates for her decreased kiting ability; if it feels like too much, the system could be tweaked so that doesn't occur. Aside from that, she loses her Permaslow in exchange for shorter bursts of stronger slows. This way she has a bit more control over exactly when she needs a slow and exactly when she doesn't. An Ashe player would have to learn to decide exactly when to use a charge to slow an enemy and when she would rather walk away from them. Plus the stronger but more temperorary slow would be better at kiting enemies that have a fast gap close but shorter movement speed after it's used, which is most assassins.

Anyways, that's my opinion about your rework and my suggestion for what I would do if I were to rework Ashe. It doesn't mean anything and you clearly have a ton of experience at champion design and balancing (way more than I do at least). In summary my main issue with your kit is that in a teamfight this Ashe would have a ton of trouble chasing or kiting... whereas her current kit is literally entirely about chasing and kiting. I can see how this Ashe would have different goals, but I think you can better preserve her current playstyle whilst still dealing with her permaslow. The theme of her lore and her kit is that she runs until she makes the critical strike she needs to keep her alive, whereas this feels like the story of every teamfight would be "Poke and cc from range. Huzzah, you can't fight, you're rooted. Oh god here comes the fed Shyvana crap I can't move at all and I used all my cc already." That's what I think needs to be resolved.

Whether these ideas are brilliant or complete crap, I'd appreciate the feedback! I probably started rambling by the time I entered the second paragraph and I bet my focus shifted like three times while I was writing this... I have a tendency to do that... anyways. Here you are.