Anyone want to help me think up possible duos to replace a ranged ADC?
I realize people like to think of the meta as set in stone, but I think this shift of Lucian from botlane bully to what looks like an awesome toplane bully duelist, and the success of Vayne and Quinn in top is indicative that an alternate team comp may potentially exist to compete with Bruiser top/Bruiser or tank jungle, Mage or assassin mid, support and ADC bot. That comp being standard mid+jungle+support, with ADC solo top and something else bot farming. But the question is, what? I have a couple ideas on the subject.
Idea 1) Mana building or Manaless DPS Mage with traditional support
Examples: Swain, Vladimir, Kennen, Ryze, Casseopia paired with Janna, Nami, Sona The big problem that any alternate comp runs into is the huge poke potential of a standard ADC/supp composition. I believe a traditional support dedicated to dealing out and mitigating poke is the absolute key to the success of any lane that isn't a pure and simple kill lane. Pairing up with a support is a great way to unlock the potential of hypercarry champions who lack strong early games, and with mitigation from the usual harass frees up champions like Swain and Ryze to pursue their mana heavy builds on earlier backs rather than having to worry about trading 1vs1.
Idea 2) Melee carry+anti-poke support.
Examples: Yasuo, Fiora, Aatrox paired with Janna, Lulu, Thresh, or Braum Aka the one the community REAAAAAAALLY wants to see. The trouble is, it's hard to have a team comp without a rADC to siege late game. Well, lucky for us we've stuck ours top so the question is would this kind of comp work at all? My gut reaction is yes, but it would have a different set of counters and strong matchups than you'd expect. The key would be to successfully unlock the level six power spike without being extremely behind due to early harass. Lanes like Sona/Cait would be a nightmare, but traditional ADC/support kill lanes wouldn't stand a chance against, say, the raw engaging power of a Yasuo+Braum where Yasuo can E in, Braum can follow him and they can lock someone down with two projectile blocks and over four seconds of hard CC post level six. Surviving to that point and farming is just a matter of managing wind wall and bulwark to avoid harass.
Idea 3) Champions who lack a level 6 power spike
Examples: Elise, Jayce, Nidalee, Teemo paired with any support but particularly Karma ADC/support lanes are strong because their early potential is huge even pre-six. Their level 2 or 3 spike, on average, trumps their 6 spike in terms of game impact. To compete with a 6-reliant champion, you need heavy amounts of turtling to avoid the fullisade or harassment or the deadly all ins. Or, you need to find a duo with a similar cadence to compete at their own game. Early bullying, mana efficient all ins and level two and three power spikes is what the form-shift champions (and Teemo, who has a great deal of his power budget in his blind+poison level 2) do, for the most part, and usually they do it toplane as early denial bullies or jungling as heavy duelists. But why wouldn't it work just as well bot? The harass potential of a Jayce+Sona lane, or the hard engage of a Leona+Elise is an unexplored bit of game space because of how hard those kinds of "cheese comps" fall off late game without a ranged ADC. Thoughts? Ideas? Again, to reiterate, the idea here is to send a duelist ADC like Quinn, Lucian or Vayne top to deny CS from the enemy top and free farm, while another champion takes their place farming up bot.
bot lane I always have decent success with this and I recommend givin it a try.
