
Ambessa is coming to League of Legends, and she has tons of LoL players terrified of the best Ambessa tank and damage builds.
Ambessa is the latest addition to League of Legends, announced ahead of the premiere of Arcane Season 2. The Noxian Warmistress has shocked LoL fans across the globe with her kit that includes a whopping 6 dashes and tons of damage. We’ve assembled all the tactics top-level players are using to make The Noxian General succeed in her skirmishes.
Here’s the best Ambessa builds for both tank and damage in League of Legends.
Here are all of Ambessa’s abilities explained, from her passive to her ultimate.
Passive – Drakehound Step: Entering an Attack or Movement command after casting an ability causes Ambessa to dash in the chosen direction. Her next auto-attack will also deal extra damage, gain extra range, and refund Energy on-hit. Note: Ambessa cannot cross terrain/walls with Drakehound Step’s dashes.
Q – Cunning Sweep/Sundering Slam:
Cunning Sweep: Ambessa slashes her Drakehounds in front of her in a semi-circle, dealing damage. Striking an enemy transforms the next cast of the ability into Sundering Slam
for a short duration.
Sundering Slam:
Ambessa strikes in front of her in a thin line with her Drakehounds, dealing damage to enemies hit, and bonus damage to the first enemy hit.
W – Repudiation: Ambessa gains a shield and braces herself for a short duration, before slamming into the ground in a chosen direction, dealing damage in an AoE. If Ambessa blocks any non-minion damage at all during her bracing animation, Repudiation’s slam will deal bonus damage.
E – Lacerate: Ambessa whips her Drakehounds around her, dealing damage in an area around her and slowing enemies hit by 99% for one second. If Ambessa activates Drakehound Step after casting Lacerate, it will re-cast again upon completion of Drakehound Step’s dash.
R – Public Execution:
Passive: Ambessa passively gains Armor Penetration and Omnivamp.
Active: Ambessa sends out a thing, straight-line skillshot. She teleports to the furthest enemy hit, and suppresses them for a short duration. Ambessa then slams them into the ground, dealing damage, and stunning them.
Ambessa is one of the most highly-mobile champions in the game, reminiscent of Kalista with her staggered dashes. Ambessa’s damage comes from her abilities and her passive, primarily, feeling more like an AD version of Sylas than many of her skirmisher siblings.
No matter how you’re building Ambessa, we recommend essentially the same setup for both tank and damage options in most games. We’ll focus on mostly offensive benefits for Ambessa’s Primary Rune Tree, opting for defensive options in her items and Secondary Tree.
Primary Rune Tree – Precision
Keystone: Conqueror
Ambessa is perfectly suited to abuse Conqueror’s interactions. With four damage abilities, auto-attack resets, and being a melee champion, she’s one of the fastest Conqueror-stacking characters in the entire game. Conqueror will give Ambessa bonus damage and sustain, perfectly completing her all-in playstyle and helping her out in longer fights.
Triumph
Ambessa is unable to dash over walls, so once she commits to a fight, she’s usually stuck there. Triumph will give her additional health on a takedown, allowing her to retreat more safely or keep fighting.
Legend: Haste
Ambessa’s damage comes primarily from her abilities, and the bonus damage from her Passive, Drakehound Step. Legend: Haste will give Ambessa extra Ability Haste as she snowballs, allowing her to cast more, dash more, and do more damage. Given how ability-reliant she is, Ambessa prefers this over Legend: Alacrity’s attack speed.
Cut Down
Ambessa, as a top laner, is likely going to be facing high-health enemies a lot. Cut Down allows her to chip down the tanks and bruisers she’ll be put up against, setting Ambessa up for one furious all-in to claim the kill.
Secondary Tree – Resolve
Bone Plating: Bone Plating is the best anti-trading rune in the Resolve tree, especially against auto-attacking bruisers and skirmishers. Ambessa, with only Repudiate to defend her, will want to pick up additional defensive tools from runes to help her laning phase.
Demolish: Ambessa, as a highly mobile skirmisher, should be able to punish many less-mobile champions in lane. As a result of her latent AoE and significant lane threat, we recommend taking Demolish to increase her structure damage, take Tower Plates, and reward her for building juggernaut items that include health like Black Cleaver.
Optional (Swap with Demolish): Overgrowth: If you’re in a lane where you’re worried about your ability to stay alive in fight later into the game, we recommend possibly swapping Demolish’s side lane pressure and structure-taking power for Overgrowth’s scaling Max HP.
Rune Shards: Attack Speed, Adaptive Force, Health.
Ambessa’s Rune Shards are pretty stock-standard for a top laner, letting her CS more easily and boosting her abilities and auto-attacks.
Ambessa’s item build start similarly based on where they want tank or damage, but quickly specialize from there.
Starting Items: Doran’s Shield or Doran’s Blade
Ambessa is a base-damage machine, and generally won’t be purchasing a starting item that isn’t either Doran’s Shield or Blade. Doran’s Shield offers her survivability, while Doran’s Blade offers more offense and damage early on. This is going to be matchup-dependent. If you’re scared of their early damage or will be poked down, opt for Doran’s Shield. If it’s a straight-up fist-fight, and a player likes their odds, they ought to go for Doran’s Blade.
Boots: Ambessa should, generally, be building one of Plated Steelcaps or Mercury Treads. Prioritize Plated Steelcaps into auto-attack-heavy teams, and build Mercury Treads into teams with lots of CC like stuns, roots, etc.
First Item (Tank): Black Cleaver
It’s hard to overstate just how well Ambessa makes use of Black Cleaver. Offering stacking armor shred that’s more powerful on melee champions, she’s the perfect user with rapid spell and auto-attacking sequencing and the ability to chase down fleeing foes. Black Cleaver offers Ambessa defensive help with its significant health pool, and offense with its attack damage and armor shred.
First Item (Damage): Eclipse
Eclipse is the damage-oriented first-buy for Ambessa players looking to lean into her fast-and-deadly skirmisher nature. Ambessa can quickly get the three-hit passive, damage, and shield in a trade, making her quick exchanges even more brutal. Eclipse excels into squishy teams whose carries Ambessa can get onto and execute quickly.
Tank Build: Black Cleaver, T2 Boots, Sterak’s Gage, Iceborn Gauntlet, Titanic Hydra, Overlord’s Bloodmail
Damage Build: Eclipse, T2 Boots, Profane Hydra, Serylda’s Grudge, Voltaic Cyclosword, Edge of Night
Players looking to learn how to play Ambessa should start with the best ability combos, which look something like this.
Q1+Dash Auto+E+Dash Auto+Q2+Dash Auto+W+Dash Auto
Most of Ambessa’s damage will come from her enhanced auto-attacks from her passive, and from her Q. For this reason, lead with Q1 before looking to slow the enemy with a Lacerate while chasing them down with the passive dash and securing the slow. Once slowed, you can hit Sundering Slam, the follow-up auto, and Repuditiate with much more ease.
It’s important to remember that apart from your Ultimate, the slow on Lacerate is Ambessa’s only tool to lock down enemies. So, landing your Lacerate is crucial to setting up the rest of your combo, particularly the thing hitbox on Sundering Slam, and the delayed damage of Repudiate. Using Repudiate further into the combo will also allow you to nullify the enemy trading back onto you after you’ve already used most of your cooldowns. Remember, Ambessa passive is a huge part of her damage and Energy regeneration, so make sure to be weaving Drakehound Step autos in at the same time.
If you’re building Tanky Ambessa, she’ll feel like a more-skirmish-focused K’Sante. Focus on using your durability and damage to sow discord in the enemy lines, shredding carries and tanks apart with equal alacrity.
Damage Ambessa should play more like a typical assassin, focused on finding exposed enemies and killing them before they or their team have time to properly react. Sweep out enemy wards, and lurk in the darkness, finding flanks on teamfights to attack vulnerable characters.
That’s everything we have for our Ambessa build guide, you should be more than ready for the Noxian General’s arrival in two weeks.
Players must be 21 years of age or older or reach the minimum age for gambling in their respective state and located in jurisdictions where online gambling is legal. Please play responsibly. Bet with your head, not over it. If you or someone you know has a gambling problem, and wants help, call or visit: (a) the Council on Compulsive Gambling of New Jersey at 1-800-Gambler or www.800gambler.org; or (b) Gamblers Anonymous at 855-2-CALL-GA or www.gamblersanonymous.org.