Overview
Ambessa is a champion that is going to confuse a lot of enemies by virtue of them not knowing what her kit does or the extent of what her kit is capable of -- and this is going to be more and more true the lower in rank you go. She’s a high flying top laner who loves to fight, and when ahead, she has the opportunity to hard carry games thanks to her prowess at killing targets of her choosing. Click here for the latest data on her best builds, including Runes, Items, Summoner Spells, and more.
Keys to Remember About Ambessa
Ambessa is a mechanically intensive champion that's going to require you to play more than a handful of games before you're fully comfortable on her -- but that just means the mastery ceiling is high and if you do master her, you will be rewarded!
Public Execution [R] is great at picking up targets for you to get on, but it also places you directly in danger if your team isn't there to follow-up. In the late game especially, you often need to think of it more as an engage tool to help your team start a fight.
Strengths
Public Execution [R] allows her to jump onto a target of her choosing so long as she’s able to hit it, but it’s the kind of backline access that is otherwise very difficult for champions in her archetype to find. She’s definitely a champion that wants to assassinate priority targets, and her ultimate gives her that opportunity even if she’s unable to find a flank. That said, if she is able to hold her ultimate and find flanks first, that makes her that much more deadly, as her kit contains a ton of outplay potential due to its high mobility from Drakehound’s Step [P] and the multiple different interactions her abilities contain within them. It’s very difficult for enemies to actually escape from her once she’s committed to the all-in.
Weaknesses
Committing to the all-in, though, means you need to be confident in your ability to kill them. That means Ambessas who fall behind early or are unable to constantly land their abilities to kill off their target are just going to be delivering themselves and 300g worth of value (or more) giftwrapped directly to their opponent’s door. It’s also not easy to play her -- between her passive and needing to weave auto-attacks in as much as possible between abilities, she’s a champion with a rather high skill ceiling, and it can be easy to get lost in your own sauce. You need hands to play her, and if we are being honest about the average age of League of Legends players these days… well, you know what, go for it!
Game Plan
Early Game: Her goal is to look for opportunities to commit to all-ins against her opponents. You should look to fight often, especially if you’re able to win some early trades.
Mid Game: You’ll be strong in side lanes -- assuming you aren’t extremely behind, you should have plenty of kill pressure in 1v1s. You can group for fights, but it’ll be easier to approach from different angles from your team.
Late Game: At this point, it’s generally best to continue applying split pressure, but if you must group, you should aim to focus down enemies with your allies. You don’t need to dive backline to get value out of Ambessa, especially as your ultimate can be used to generate picks or to get a fight started if the enemy is even slightly mispositioned.
