Honest question here; Why are people defending draintank ADCs?

Paroe·Jun 13, 2017·1 votes·164 views

Since we "hate" draintanks as a concept, why are so many people claiming that draintank ADCs are balanced?

1 Comments

bloodybadger1Jun 14, 20171 votes

honest answer: before a lifesteal item adcs should lose to every assassin and most bruisers and tanks without solid peel. After the lifesteal item (4th or 5th item-maybe third -some exceptions lately: DD rush, and BOTRK-but i dont believe botrk is that good compared to your roles purpose and compared to what you could get but that is another rant), the adcs should be doing the most damage on both teams every fight. Draintanks are annoying but they have counterplay. I don't hate draintanks, they are just annoying.

deaths dance is the main exception, but adcs are forced into building tankier because of 2k17 -aka dd,pd, botrk, tabis, etc. Now that adcs dont die instantly to everyone, people can see what they are capable of in the late game especially with peel.

Imagine taking out all ranged lifesteal. What happens in a teamfight?

typically ads are down 2 levels on top and mid. 3 if you are in low elo. 1 if you are in higher elo. Lack of levels is extremely important for understanding why an adc has to play so safe.

APCs get their cds off. Have much better itemization than ranged adcs - they have much better defensive options and can afford to build a defensive item second or third (ranged ads shouldn't, gimps them alot esp in lane, imagine a first item ga on caitlyn vs draven- note that lifesteal IS the ADCs defensive option). APCS usually dont need to care as much about positioning. Doesn't matter if they die as long as they can take out a problematic enemy player.

Tanks against non lifesteal ads are problematic. Ones with low base damages and no item damage are ok. They are fine. The ones with high base damage and/or bruiser items will do a ton of damage to an adc if caught out. So counterplay adds up to positioning. Now normally this is ok. Assuming no lifesteal, this sounds ok on paper. Its not. If you play adc you know that if you get malph ulted after 30 min in a proper teamfight your team loses the game. No positioning errors are required. Malphite will save ult just for you 90% of the time. Same with many other intitator tanks. (AS THEY SHOULD). The problem comes in if you don't have lifesteal. As an ad you will want to avoid the enemy malphite at the front line, but you need to do damage otherwise you probably lose the fight. So lifesteal like a bloodthrister allows you to be at half health after the malphite combo and lifesteal and kite off of him and eventually join the actual fight. ALSO NOTE THAT IT IS LITERALLY THE ADCS JOB TO KILL TANKS. if they cant kill tanks then there is no place for them. You can argue that its the adcs job to kill towers, which technically is his primary role, but assuming a teamfight breaks out in a game (100% likely), they also need to kill tanks. So to sum up, without lifesteal, an adc should feel so damn scared of autoing in a late game teamfight that the entire fight is a 4 v 4 or 4 v 5 depending on comps. This is also why adcs LOVE having a tank on their team no matter the comp. The adc feels safer and feels like they have a few more seconds to safely aa. Top laners and junglers don't often realize this, but whatever. However, I wouldn't blame you if you went fiora top or shaco jungle (or whatever).

Lastly assassins will get their combos off much like an apc with better precision, but maybe at the cost of lower aoe. The only class that really NEEDS lifesteal to be a vauled member of a teamfight is ranged ADCS and squishy melee ads (fiora, yas) and maybe the occasional slow moving, no gapcloser brusier (Darius).

/rant