Ahri is a mage assassin. She deals magic damage and has a lot of waveclear, but also has the mobility and pick potential of an assassin. She is extremely fun to play but is having a tough time in the current meta. However, when ahead Ahri is extremely good and deals insane damage.

Pros
When ahead, deals a massive amount of damage.

Extremely good wave clear

Good poke

Very good pick potential and CC with her E

Extremely good mobility and roam potential with her R

Cons
Very weak early

Very mana hungry

Very ult reliant. Her ult has a long CD early and she's very vulnerable without it

If you miss your E your life is going to be difficult

Can easily become behind and be useless

Your friends think you're a weeb

I hate to say this but Ahri isn't the strongest champion at the moment. Her mana sustain and early damage just ins't enough and she is very ult reliant. I have been an Ahri main since season 4. None the less, I love playing her and will still play her.

She is very easily behind but when ahead, you have great carry potential.

Early
Early in the game you want to look to farm and harass while not using up all of your mana. Try not to blow all of your abilities because you will be useless with no mana. Use your Q to poke from range and W if they are too close. Using your Q+W+AA will proc your electrocute. Only poke if you are sure you will land it, figuring out when you will land it will come with experience.

Levels 1-3 I usually won't use my charm, even if I see a good opportunity to. This is because charm is only worth if you use the rest of your combo, but your early damage isn't significant enough, and your full combo will cost you too much mana, meaning you won't have resources to farm and keep the wave pushed.

For reference, a full E+Q+W combo will cost you 175 mana. Her base mana at level 3 is 454.9. That's 38% of your mana on one combo that doesn't deal enough damage for it to be worth.

Playing around your jungler is an important aspect of being a mid laner. The spawn timer for scuttle was recently increased, meaning you have more time to get levels and push out the lane, so you can be there to help get scuttle priority for your jungler. Know your match up. Sometimes your match up won't give you lane priority early which means it will be harder to contest scuttle. Know your jungle match up. Some junglers are weak early, meaning they will need help contesting scuttle. You don't have to leash, but hover close to the side your jungler is, so that if he needs help you can be there.

Mid
Post 6 you want to use your ult and good mobility to roam around the map and help other lanes and your jungler. Ahri is different from most mages, because most mages don't roam. They have waveclear and can push you into tower to prevent you from roaming. Do your best to waveclear, roam, and be back in time for you to catch the next wave. Sometimes this is difficult and you may lose minions, but it may be more worth for you to help out other lanes, than for you to stay and farm. Figure out what is more worth.

It is important to be able to move around the map. I am very guilty of being lazy, and sometimes choosing to stay mid and farm because I don't want to risk roaming and getting nothing out of it, but sometimes you need to take that risk. Analyze the situation and see if it's worth roaming.

Ahri has extremely good mobility. Use this to your advantage. Don't back when dragon is spawning soon. Be there to help your team contest objectives or siege towers.

Mid
By late game you should have your core items. This includes Deathcap. At this point in the game you're going to be doing insane amounts of damage. Your going to want to try and group with your team if you have a good teamfight comp.

If you're defending a tower you want to use your Q to waveclear.

All the while you want to be looking for good charm opportunities on enemy carries, as this allows your team to follow up. If your team has good engage you want to look to assassinate carries using your ult and charm.

Q - Orb of Deception
Orb of Deception is the majority of Ahri's damage. Early on you're going to want to use it to wave clear and poke. Ahri's Orb of Deception will come back to her after max range and deals true damage. You want to do your best to hit enemies with both parts.

Tips
Since your orb will always come back to you, you can use movement, flash or ult to choose the orbs path. Players that get hit by the first part will try and sidestep to dodge the second part but if you follow their direction you can hit them with both parts

Once you learn the range, you can try and have your orb hit an enemy with the very tip. This makes it impossible to dodge.

Never Q and Ult through them. This is pretty no brainer but if you ult through an enemy after you Q the second part won't hit them. However, if you can ult right next to an enemy it makes it harder for them to sidestep the second part.


E - Charm
This is Ahri's most important ability. Whether or not you can land a good charm can affect the outcome of a game. It increases the damage of your other abilities 20% and is a good CC ability. So use it first in the combo. If you miss you charm it makes you vulnerable so don't waste it. Good players will know the cool down and will take advantage of you when it's down. Late game, The most important thing is that you don't waste your charm and are able to pick off the correct champion with it. Don't waste it on the enemy tanks because it gives the enemy carries a free pass to be out of position. The reason why Ahri is an assassin is because of her ability to pick off high priority targets with her charm with the help of her ult to position correctly. Part of being a good Ahri is knowing which champions to charm and landing it. Once you land your charm it gives you an open window for your team to follow up.

Tips
Learn to know when someone is out of position. In a teamfight this is hard, and you have to be quick to react because there is only a small window of opportunity for a good charm. It is easy to charm the enemy front line (because they're in front duh) but if an enemy carry steps out of line be there to punish them. One way you can learn is watch pro streamers. Even if they're not playing Ahri, a lot of champions have the ability to pick off certain enemies for being out of position.

Know which enemies you need to prioritize. This is pretty obvious because it's the enemy carries. Sometimes there are more than one carry so when one of them steps out of position be there to charm. Look for the most fed champions. If you land a good charm it makes it easy for your team to follow up.

Even though Ahri is an assassin, she can also use her E to peel for your ADC. If an enemy assassin jumps in your back line, charming them will peel for your ADC and prevent them from dying.

BE PATIENT. Landing your charm is not easy. The hit box is skinny and good enemies will know the exact range to stay out of it. Use your ult to close that distance. As soon as you ult the enemy will be expecting the charm and will try and side step it. Don't blow your charm instantly. Instead, wait a bit. Watch their movements and predict where they will sidestep. Most people think that charming instantly after ulting will give the enemy less time to react, but your ult is not that fast. If you ult and charm forward they will easily sidestep it and it will.

Sometimes the best charm, is not charm. After you ult don't feel pressured to charm afterwards. They are expecting the charm so you can instead use your Q+W+Ignite. Sometimes it will be enough to kill them, and they will try and trade back or stop sidestepping making it easier to land charm afterwards.

If you miss a charm remember this: For every charm you miss you come closer to landing your next one.


W - Fox Fire
Fox Fire is really useful as it is not a skill shot and makes it easier for you to win trades. Use in laneing phase to get extra damage off but mainly to proc your electrocute. The damage you get from W isn't a lot, but it's really useful for securing the cannon minion.

Tips
Fox fire will target enemy champions first, then recently attacked opponents, so if you want it to target a certain enemy you can auto them to force W to target them.

R - Spirit Rush
Spirit Rush is Ahri's bread and butter it's the other reason why she is an assassin. It has multiple applications and when used properly can give you the upper hand against enemies. It's most useful application is for repositioning. Using her R allows her to position to hit her charm, escape ganks, roam, dodge abilities, and makes you unpredictable to the enemy.

Tips
Don't be afraid to use it. It has a high CD, but be confident. The worst thing you can do is be too protective over your ult, and miss a kill opportunity, so learn when your enemy laner is in kill range and go for it.

Be aware of the cooldown. Contradictory to what I said above, only use your ult when you need to. If dragon is spawning soon you don't want to waste your ult trying to solo kill when you know there is going to be an important fight before your ult is up again. Additionally, be careful when it's down. Without your ult you are extremely vulnerable. Don't overextend without proper vision and don't play too forward.

Similar to a lot of other champions, Ahri can use her E and flash to catch enemies off guard and extend the range of her E. Beginners will flash and then use E, but that will give your an opponent and extra split second to react. The average human visual reaction time is 0.25 seconds, so if you can cut off an extra 0.05 seconds off of your combo that's 1/5 less time to react. Me nerd. It also means that you can charm through a minion wave or flash next to the minion wave to avoid charming the minions.

The way it works is you E and then flash. Yeah.

You want to have your cursor on top of the champion, press e and then quickly flash
By doing so, it extends to range to as if you flashed and then E'd.

Jump into a practice tool just to try it out. The only way to get good at this is to do it, and you're going to screw up 1000 times and look like a complete idiot before you can consistently do this, but it'll secure you so many kills in the long run.

Don't die

Kill people

If you have to pee do it during loading screen