How to Counter Ambessa in League of Legends

6 Tips to Counter Ambessa in LoL

Ambessa will be the last champion Riot Games release in 2024. She will be released on patch 14.22 and is one of the most mobile champions they have ever made. She is a mix of Kayn, K’Sante, Zed, and many other champions in the game.

This Mobalytics guide will explain several tips and tricks to help you play against her. Knowing how to play against any champion in League of Legends is essential because if you don’t understand what she wants to do, you will struggle to beat her. If you read this guide and take this information and advice into your games against her, you will limit her strengths and prevent her from overtaking the game.

For more tips and tricks for any champion in LoL, head to the Mobalytics Champion Page for more, including matchup-specific advice.

1. Keep Minion Wave Closer

She has quite strong all-in and can quickly kill anybody who is squishy like Teemo, weak early like Kayle, or low on health. To reduce her all-in potential, which subsequently reduces her kill pressure, you should try to keep the minion wave closer to your side of the map.

By keeping the minion wave closer to your side of the map, you will severely reduce her kill pressure as she has fewer opportunities to all-in you and chase you down the lane. In hard matchups, you can stay alive and safe by keeping the wave closer to your side of the map.

Not only will this protect you, but when playing as champions with strong all-ins such as Renekton or Darius, you’ll also be able to zone her away from the farm and all-in her when she walks too far forward.

To do this, ensure she has more minions than you do in the lane. You can ensure this by just last-hitting and not auto-attacking minions too much. Also, avoid letting her push the wave into your tower, as the wave will bounce. We have made a separate in-depth wave management guide, which you can find here. It outlines the specifics if you want to manage waves successfully.

2. Limit Overextending

We briefly touched on it in our previous tip, so I’ll keep this short. Still, if you can limit over-extending by playing respectfully in the lane, you can increase your survivability and reduce her chances of getting killed or going for an all-in.

Keep the wave close, and stand back after last hitting. You can walk forward, last hit, or trade, then back off so she can’t trade with you. If you’re low on health, it is better for you to just recall instead of overstaying your welcome and trying to pick up farm. As she has strong all-in, she can kill you, and you’ll start falling behind.

Champions such as Camille may want to keep the minion wave closer early so they can farm up. They can then start pushing or playing a little more aggressive when they have some levels or items.

3. Play Around Her Energy

Most champions in League have mana, but for Ambessa, that is not the case! However, something she has in common to those champions is that her abilities do have costs and cooldowns!

Keep an eye on her resource bar and her cooldowns. If you want to trade with her, then you should wait for her to use an ability first and then play around its cooldown. If you’re able to dodge one of her abilities, you could also use this as a chance to trade and fight her. Doing this will make trades far more favourable, and she will be unable to all-in combo you in return.

4. Shut Her Down Early

If you want to stop her from snowballing and getting a huge advantage as the game develops, you must shut her down early. There are multiple ways you can do this, and we will break down several things you can do:

Get Jungle assistance

• Junglers play a huge part in League of Legends. A good Jungler can make or break the game. Assuming you’re using everything else in this guide, then your Jungler will want to gank you.

Abuse range

• When playing as a ranged champion, you need to abuse her as much as possible by hitting her with auto-attacks whenever she walks up to last hit minions or secure farm. Make sure you harass her, but don’t over-commit to doing so and keep your distance so she cannot all-in you.

Get armor pen

• Most bruisers who are AD build armor items or get defensive items. So if you’re playing as an AD champion, invest in armor penetration (or lethality), or if you’re playing an AP champion like Teemo, make sure you get magic pen items.

5. Get Defensive Items

Defensive items are really strong against skirmishing champions who deal a lot of damage. Ambessa is a champion who can soak up a lot of damage and also dish out a lot too. Make sure that you get early defensive items to help protect you.

Getting some early armor items will keep you alive and stop her from dealing soo much damage to you. Getting some early armor can be beneficial if you’re a tank, or someone who is weaker than her early on.

If you’re unsure what items you can buy to help you, make sure you head over to the Mobalytics Champion Page for your favourite champion to know what items synergise well with them.

6. Avoid Splitting Up in the Mid and Late Game

Now it is time to talk about things to help you outside the laning phase. Ensure you don’t forget these things, as they will ultimately cost you your life and allow her to be a major threat in the mid and late-game team fights.

As Ambessa has really good control and take down potential with her Ultimate, it is really important that you limit over extending and splitting up in the mid or late game. Lets suggest you’re the ADC. You shouldn’t be left alone as she can easily all-in you and take you down.

Alternatively, if you’re the tank and you’re no where near your team, she could all-in your allies while you’re gone as they will lack a tank to soak up the damage.

In Conclusion

And that about sums up our basic guide on countering Ambessa. She is out very soon, so we hope that these tips will help you deal with her early on. Remember that she has a ton of dashes, so she will be quite annoying to play against. Avoid over stepping and getting frustrated as she can capitalize on it to get kills.

If you’re looking for more tips, tricks or articles to help you counter Ambessa or any other champion in League of Legends, head over to the Mobalytics Blog as we have a lot of Ambessa related articles coming soon.