Ability Power, or AP, is one of the main offensive stats in League of Legends and functions as the counterpart to AD (attack damage). Instead of empowering basic attacks, AP increases the damage of abilities that have AP ratios and often enhances utility components like shields, slows, healing, or movement speed bonuses. Champions who rely on spellcasting gain most of their power from AP rather than physical scaling.
AP does not interact directly with stats such as AS or critical strike chance. This means that AP champions generally rely on abilities for their damage output, and their basic attacks tend to fall off as the game progresses. Some champions, however, include unique attack modifiers or AP scaling auto attacks that give them partial hybrid functionality.
Every champion begins the game with zero AP. Unlike AD, AP does not increase naturally through leveling. All AP must be acquired from items, runes, or temporary buffs. Since Ability Power stacks additively, each point contributes consistently to spell damage and utility scaling, making AP essential for burst mages, battlemages, and champions whose kits revolve around spell impact rather than sustained DPS.
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