[Champion] Ahri - Page 5

Your questions have some really broad answers. Your goals in mid-lane depend on everything ranging from the enemy's mid-laner to your (and their) overall team strategy. For example, pushing your lane and creating opportunities to gank your other lanes isn't as good when your team already has a stronger earlygame. Punishing weaker laners with aggression and zoning is riskier against some junglers than others. If you want to keep it simple, focus on their mid laner, their jungler and your own jungler. I mentioned that ahri should rape morgana but sometimes you just have to bend over and trade farm until you spend money on wards because their shaco has much bigger pressure in lane than your amumu. Knowing which laners you can punish, how and when comes from experience, also factor in both jungler's ganking power. Some champions you punish by pushing the wave to their turret because their spells cost too much early on or they rely on single target nukes or they don't have nukes at all but damage over time, but then if your (or their) jungler is a lee sin or a shaco or someone that wants early kills then you may not want to push to turret. Some other champions push well but are vulnerable to harass, because their aoe is a skillshot or it has a low radius, or their cc is a skillshot, etc. so you can usually resort to keeping the lane static and zoning them. But sometimes your jungler needs blue while theirs doesn't so you will end up using your own skills on the creep wave to avoid losing gold to your turret and prevent them from roaming. The advantage of ahri is that she is a monster in every stage of the game and you can trade farm with most (probably all) mid-laners and still go toe-to-toe lategame with them, or you can be aggressive early on and try to win the lane if the junglers allow it.

Teamfighting also deserves a thread of its own, people in this thread have posted their own builds which go with their own teamfighting style. Honestly I don't think they're wrong in playing ahri that way because many things work and there's no single best way. My style usually (ideally) revolves around poking and peeling from relatively safe distances while waiting for the enemy's formation to break apart and reveal one of their carries (usually the ad), then I immediately ult to her side and cc her and burst her down. Some people will go for more defensive items and dance in the middle of the enemy team aoe'ing it all and that's ok but it's not my style. This is also something that's so good about ahri because of her flexibility.

About malz, you have to be more specific as I never really have problems with them. Keep up with what? His harass? His pushing? You shouldn't get outpushed so terribly if you auto the creep wave as soon as he starts using the dot on it and occasionally using your Q on it as well. Usually malz players use their shit on the creep wave then go back to turret. Those who stay near the creep wave are vulnerable to harass because you outrange them and your w is easier to hit than his wall; and are vulnerable to ganks since they have no defense vs junglers other than trying to burst one of you down. But mostly you will be trading farm with malz since he can force that vs any champion. Abusing your ult is risky and you must time it well. Sometimes him using his dot on the creepwave is not enough if you can't land your e easily after the first cast of your ultimate. If he uses his wall or pool to farm then he is dead meat if he isn't at turret range. But you're gonna have to be a bit more specific. Malz isn't a hard lane, he's just hard to kill.