Heyy everyone!

I just have a few questions about Ashe.

1.)

I've read in a few guides that say ideally you want to have runes that favor mana regeneration in your yellow/blue slots. I was wondering if this is true at low levels as well. Looking at the stats on the tier 1 runes it seems like the amount of mana you're regaining is pretty negligible.

If the cost of your abilities scaled with your level I could see it being worth it to get the tier 1 mana regeneration runes. However, as it stands I doubt I'd even notice the difference, and I think I'd be much better off using Armor Pen runes.

2.)

Could anyone point me to a current/relevant guide to playing Ashe as a DPS/Carry? Basically, from what I've been reading, it seems like the way to play her is basically to try and farm your lane using volley spam until your strong enough to start getting aggressive in regards to attacking other champions (I'd assume you can start once you get your ultimate?) I've googled quite a few guides, but many of them are quite old and I'm not familiar with how the game has been patched thus far. It's possible that things have changed drastically from one patch to another and the guides I'm looking at are out dated. I'm basically just looking for something that gives an idea as to what types of runes and items I should be gunning for.

3.)

In many of the guides I'm looking at I see people saying that "Boots of Swiftness" are the best boots. They definitely look appealing, but wouldn't "Ionian Boots of Lucidity" be better for the 15% ability cooldown since I'm going to be spamming volley so much?

1) I personally believe that buying runes before tier three ends up being a lot of wasted Influence Points (IP). It's really frustrating to get the ability to use tier three runes and have all of your tier 1/2 runes sitting there, useless. However, while you do have those runes, they are sometimes very noticeable. But usually, the set up is something like this for runes:

9x Armor Penetration Marks (Red Slot)
9x Mana Regeneration /5 per level Seals (Yellow Slot)
9x Mana Regeneration /5 per level Glyphs OR Cooldown Glyphs (Blue Slot)
1x Armor Penetration Quintessence (Large Brown Slot)
2x Health Quintessence (Large Brown Slot)

And if those don't fit what you are looking for, play around. You don't always need to follow a guide verbatim, they are just there to assist you in your decision making.

2) Farming until you receive enough "aggressiveness" is essentially what a carry is out to do. You stay in your lane, farm, assist other lanes, and especially as Ashe, send your ultimate where it is needed. Also, yes, spamming volley is ideal, just because it is so efficient at taking out Minion waves as well as harassing and pushing the lane you're in.

3) Stick with Boots of Swiftness or Berserker's Grieves or Mercury Treads, all three are going to be situational, and based on a game by game situation you need to buy what you need. I would sway away from buying the Ionian Boots of Lucidity, because there are better options of boots to be an auxiliary to your Auto Attack, which is really key to winning fights later. The cool down on your volley once it reaches level 5 is so low, that really very much more cool down in my opinion is wasting resources.

That's my too cents on that at least, and have fun playing league of legends

Well boots of swiftness is generally preferred over the boots of lucidity, simply because it allows you to catch up to your targets, and is excellent at kiting (running around without getting hit by your) opponents. Since ashe is squishy (easily killed), making her maneuverable is essential, she doesn't exactly have great move speed. Also spamming volley too often will quickly deplete you mana pool. And in team games its your auto attacks (and ulti) that'll make the most difference. Hence positioning is a key element, faster move speeds allows you to get in to position faster, and makes it harder for enemies to hit you, so long as you make full use of your range and your speed to quickly get in and out of the enemy range.

1) Not familiar enough with tier 1 runes to comment. Personally, I didn't buy any runes until tier 3.

2) You don't really want to "spam" volley when farming lanes with Ashe. Sure, there are exceptions of course, but in most cases, spamming volley will push your lane and put you in dangerous turf. As Ashe, you generally want to play relatively passive in lane, with most of your harassment being your passive granting you crits, volley, or if you're significantly outplaying the enemy then you can just zone them.

General items to get on Ashe are: Infinity Edge, Last Whisper, Banshee Veil, Phantom Dancer or Bloodthirster (usually in that order, but can be interchangeable in some cases). Before purchasing Infinity Edge, you may require a Doran's Blade or two.

General runes are:
Red: Armor Pen
Yellow: mana/mp5/level
Blue: mana/mp5/level
Quint: Armor Pen
There are other possible rune builds, though.

3)Neither Boots of Switfness or Boots of Lucidity are ideal on Ashe. The usual boots to purchase are Berserker Grieves or Mercury Treads, although most high tier players will favor Berserker Grieves (this is usually because Ashe is so squishy that if you put yourself in a position to need Mercury Treads for the CC reduction, then it's highly probable that you're dead anyway).

Thanks for all the replies so far!

I was going to quote individually, but it seems like everyone is addressing the same things so I figured I'd just make another post.

I didn't realize attack speed was so important as Ashe. I guess I figured since the volley CD is so short you're not going to be spending much time using auto attacking in the late game?

Is auto-attack really just there to fill in between volley's in the late-game, or is a great significance placed on it because, no matter how much regen you have, you still run out of mana?

The problem with being a low level player, is not only that tier 1 runes are not-so-good, but also that you have so little rune space, that it will make a small difference to get a single mana regen rune. Nevertheless, the runes are so cheap (15~30 IP), that you might still want to get some. For less than 100 IP, you could gear yourself with an extra 3 magic resist or an extra mana per 5 seconds, if you take all seal/marks/glyphs as the same type of bonus. Would this 100 IP prevent you from buying a new champ or an expansive tier 3 rune in a few weeks? Not likely.

Starting at level 10, things get a bit more interesting, since you get your first quintessence and get access to tier two runes. At that point, having one Quint slot available, and having a few more rune slots could make mana regen runes a bit more interesting. At level 10, having about 2 mana regen / 5 seconds may seem small, but it can help you lane a bit longer.

You can check this site to know the various runes and the bonus they give you. You could better assess which type of runes are most expansive, and whether you're willing to invest in getting low level runes. Some runes are much cheaper than others (MR, Armor, Mana Regen), so this might be interesting to check.

http://leagueoflegends.wikia.com/wiki/Runes (how many runes at which level)
http://leagueoflegends.wikia.com/wiki/List_of_Runes (detailed runes and costs)

Just did a little reading up on how armor penetration works in this game.

Wouldn't it be better to completely forgo any type of flat penetration/reduction and just go for percentage based penetration?

My reasoning is that based off the items I've seen you'll never get a player's armor below 0 with flat reduction/penetration. This is because there doesn't seem to be enough flat reduction in the game, and penetration can't go below 0.

I've yet to see anything with percentage reduction so I doubt it could get anywhere close to 0. (Although, maybe it's possible to reduce the armor enough that flat reduction could possibly bring it below 0? Idk, doesn't seem likely, but I'm a new player so I obviously don't know too much about the items.)

This means that % Penetration is incredibly strong overall because the most damage you're going to lose hitting a character is 20% (Assuming you're using x2 Last Whisper, you could even make it 0% by adding in a Ghost Blade), but on the other hand you're going to be doing MUCH more damage to heavily armored targets.

The wiki article I'm using is here: http://leagueoflegends.wikia.com/wiki/Armor_Penetration

This would also free up a ton of red rune space, right?

So I guess what I'm asking is that would a build with no Armor Pentation/Reduction beforehand be good if you used the item set.

Last Whisper x2
Infinity Edge x1
Ghost Blade x1
Swiftness Boots x1
Phantom Dancer x1

Is this too gold intensive? You could use Zeal before Phantom Dancer?

Auto attacks are the MAIN damage source from all ranged AD champions.

Skills are only there for utility, IE Volley is for mass slow and farming.