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Marksman viability should not be a zero sum game

Moody P··45 votes·15,651 views

I haven't been more than a casual ADC player since around season 5 when it stopped being my secondary role, but I've played bot lane from season 4 to mid-season 7 and I think I can at least throw some thoughts on the lane/role out there. Keep in mind, entirely opinion based, I won't try to pass my thoughts and suggestions off as facts. This isn't trying to take current balance or past balance into consideration, I'm trying to be more 'big picture' about it.

  • Marksman designs and itemization are shit and constantly lead them to being heavily overlapped by each other in function and purpose. Some ADCs are specifically designed to just be the best ADC if they're pickable at all Kalista Kaisa

  • Riot's current Marksman design is suffocating to the rest of the game because the 'glass cannon' ideology doesn't hold up in a 5v5 game unless the entire game is catered to it. The game has only shifted away from that since around season 5, with the exception of Ardent meta. It feels terrible for the rest of us to have to worry about 1 person being what our team depends on, but it feels even worse for the person who's used to that suddenly playing a game where they have to fend for themselves because even their support is playing an assassin now Pyke

  • Too many marksmen are 100% power with 0% agency. There's a balance that should be given more attention than it has. The marksmen who do have agency tend to end up incredibly lacking in utility and become balance issues because of it (Lucian, Kai'sa).

  • Marksmen are extremely volatile to patch notes and can swing from god tier to dog shit upon completely indirect changes like which type of supports become meta. We consistently see bot lane being dominated by 3 to 4 marksmen standing well above the rest of the roster because of this, only changing hands when they're forced to.

  • Marksmen don't offer enough to their team besides increasingly generic strengths like objective control, ranged DPS, and tower taking/tower siege. There's exceptions to this in the ADCs specifically listed for their utility -- Ashe, Sivir, Varus - but there's overall a bit of a design gap. (This is very opinionated and I can't really fault marksman for this because I think there's much more interesting utilities to implement for MANY champions that Riot has glossed over entirely in favor of skillshots and outplays. But I think it's relevant in the discussion.)

  • Almost all (traditional) marksman are incapable of existing outside a duo lane; the ones that are Corki Ezreal will get nerfed if it becomes their main role.

  • This design flaw also affects other classes; enchanters are effectively shackled design-wise onto their marksmen outside of those ridiculous funnel strats, and bot lane diversity is forced to stagnate to keep ADCs alive.

  • Marksman cannot coexist with other classes in their bot-farmer position; you either pick a champion who can all-in from lvl 2 and just murder them repeatedly (read: mages+Mordekaiser), or you do not lane bot. If bot lane starts filling up with champions who can do the former, then marksmen are left homeless.

Because of the above, now that Riot has pushed more champs into doing those things that marksmen are meant to do(read: mages), marksmen are struggling to justify their existence. It doesn't help that mages can dump on them early and scale just as meaningfully, while ALSO providing much more impressive utility (and better base damage, too) so that they can still contribute even when behind. In addition to that mages do not need a whole team built around them and playing for them just for them to function past 20 minutes. Mages are slowly getting more popular in the bottom lane as farmers, and I suspect that without direct influence that popularity will only grow and most marksmen will find themselves phased out of the game.

In my opinion, a lot of problems could be solved - across the board, not just for bot lane - if Riot dedicated a midseason or next preseason to addressing marksmen for real. Some issues that I would tackle:

  • Glass cannon should be a risk, not a requirement. I still regard marksmen as being their healthiest when they invested into defensive items like GA and Banshee's Veil with some lifesteal too, instead of the current Stormrazor, then 3 crit items, then pen and boots.

  • Marksmen itemization should either include some team assistance (even the 2nd most selfish class - fighters - have Black Cleaver to assist other physical damage allies) or should prioritize personal safety, rather than raw damage and LOTS OF DAMAGE. Having super-powered crits and wiping everyone out in 3 autos each doesn't actually do much for you if Irelia can kill you with a cough or if Brand can wipe you out without even targeting you directly. We actually had an item that tried to accomplish this in Black Market Brawlers, that added a modest bit of self-peel for marksman to gain some distance in a pinch:

http://leagueoflegends.wikia.com/wiki/Mirage_Blade

I think items like this are a good foundation for what I'd like to see. Granted, I'm apparently a minority of people who wants more items with actives in LoL, but I hold them as a strongly underused aspect of the game.

  • Marksmen should not be shackled to bot lane; you should be allowed to take them there if you want, but running them in a solo lane should be more feasible than it is. A change like this would likely be best performed with base stats, which Riot is not keen on changing in such an extreme value. I'm aware this simply isn't possible for all of them, but there's plenty of designs that I feel could easily find a home in another lane or the jungle with the right nudge. (Obviously, care needs to be taken for top lane, lest we get another Quinn.)

  • Marksmen should offer more to their team besides raw damage. This actually isn't as bad as I made it sound, most marksmen have some non-damage contributions, but I think those utilitarian strengths need to be played up more than they are for some of them. Ex: Kog'Maw could stand to be more about softening up tanks and having his artillery than duoing with a Lulu and auto-winning with W if the game lasts long enough. Jinx's W could be less of a dog shit spell. And so on.

  • Nerf mages.

Thanks for reading. Let me know how you feel about it. I'd like to have a real discussion about it as a contrast to the mud-flinging of "Oh le Meddler's gonna buff ADCs ecks dee." Tell me if you think I'm wrong or why I'm wrong.

88 Comments

SweedishGunner22 votes

The reason marksmen don't work when they come to other lanes is that they become extremely lame dominant and bully out other champions with ease.

Corki mid is hell to deal with when he's strong, same with Lucian.

MLDzXnRRR4 votes

{quoted}

The reason marksmen don't work when they come to other lanes is that they become extremely lame dominant and bully out other champions with ease.

Corki mid is hell to deal with when he's strong, same with Lucian.

It's funny, but Lucian mid had awful winrate. I guess that people that were picking were just trying to copy LCS games and were mostly failing

Moody P3 votes

that's a balance issue, not a design flaw.

Champions are balanced differently according to solo/duo lanes. Corki was annoying when OP but Lucian, statistically, was awful in mid for everyone in soloQ.

I think Corki could probably be balanced by having his magic dmg conversion not kick in until later. Physical is easier to deal with early than magic.

DerPunkt5 votes

As are mages when they come bot lane? Your point? ADC are strong against laning assassins. Due to assassins being meele. But ADC themselves are usually quite bad facing caster and other mages due to their lack of Burst and utility (an Ahri Charming and ADC hurts him more than another mage. The mage can but out his rotation to retaliate, the ADC basically can AA a little but has to GTFO before the next rotation is ready.) I always wanted a healthy stone paper scissors concept for lol.

But that never worked out. Imagine ADC beats Mage beats Assassin beats ADC that could help. Unfortunately it is Mage and assassins shit on ADC and have fun against each other.

Also when Marksman are so oppressive in mid lane. Why don't we see them there more often? Because they actually are not that oppressive apart from the Caster Marksman. Those that can deliver dmg packages in short time additional to their AAs and only when they are out of whack (even for their own lane) a nerf towards mid corki and ez is also a nerf for their AP bot variants. They most of the time could just not shit on the bot lane as hard thanks to supports (e.g. Lulu polymorph or point and click displacement or hard CC blocking the path for skillshots) but would otherwise destroy the other ADC with ez.

I never got why we want more diversity and allow mages to dominate bot but scream when the thought of Marksman in mid arises.

OmegaNITRO12 votes

Because the ideas are mutually exclusive. By design, a marksman tuned to be capable of fighting a mage, fighter, or assassin 1v1 will dominate them in a 2v2 lane. The reason for this is simple. They do consistent, sustained, undodgeable damage from range. No other class in the game would be able to trade with one if they did not NEED teammates to keep them alive.

Marksmen normally have lower base stats or lack escapes to make sure they can't just walk into a solo lane and poke every other class in the game down while staying safe.

So long as they are AA/AS based, if a marksman can match you by themselves, they'll stomp you if they have help peeling for them.

That's why.

Moody P4 votes

this is excluding the melee's support contribution though

a 2v2 lane really doesn't play out in a vacuum and the AA thing isn't the biggest reason melees don't go bot lane. granted, most marksmen have way too high base AD relative to melees at lvl 1 but they avoid bot lane because they're XP-dependent, not gold. They do not have the same hyper-carry curve with exponential scaling items like crit buyers do, so being in a 2v2 lane unless they're a specific counterpick to that lane, or have some contrived XP mechanic like Mordekaiser, they won't want to go bot.

Putting melee carries in bot lane is a matter of shifting their scaling from levels to gold.

OmegaNITRO4 votes

You realize that if we're talking moving ADCs to solo lanes they would need even higher base stats to deter the melee/mage from just all in'ing them at level 3, right? I was explaining why ADCs cannot be balanced around playing in mid while maintaining "diversity" in bot.

Moody P3 votes

not necessarily

base stats philosophy in LoL is fucked though

DerPunkt2 votes

As you see it seems not to be as simple as some believe. As you said the lower base stats are the trade of for the "easy" constant AAing. But it is this downside which I would argue gives most mages an edge over Marksman. Thats why Ziggs is so effective on bot. They out range the AA range with spells (especially Ziggs Q) And brand is such an effective support due to his easy to hit high dmg spells. As an ADC you can not farm at all without being on constant danger of getting chunked away.

So yeah in late game with flash and all the ADC can run at the mage. He can dodge and flash skill shots and kill the mage. But the mage can also flash away and is save and if he is worth his money, he will hit some of his spells putting the ADC at an disadvantage.

I mean as an ADC you learn very quick "never go alone" because literally everybody will kill you in a normal 1v1 where you don't outperform you opponent or have an edge due to sums up. Sure for some mages the same is true like Xerath, he is to slow and his spells easy to dodge but he can use them to prevent the ADC running at him.

So I still wonder why it is that why the argument is ADC are to strong in mid, while the ADC cry their souls out about mages making their bot lane hell for them. Since we rarely see ADCs (apart from specialists) in mid I would say Mages are quite well equiped to deal with ADCs without breaking a sweat in lane.

Also I dont quite get what you are arguing for.

No other class in the game would be able to trade with one if they did not NEED teammates to keep them alive. ADC are nothing without support Marksmen normally have lower base stats or lack escapes to make sure they can't just walk into a solo lane and poke every other class in the game down while staying safe. because they are designed to be beaten in 1v1 so they dont become OP So long as they are AA/AS based, if a marksman can match you by themselves, they'll stomp you if they have help peeling for them. But they will fuck you up when receiving help. That's why.

My question was why they are unwanted in mid under the premise of what SwedishGunner saif

The reason marksmen don't work when they come to other lanes is that they become extremely lame dominant and bully out other champions with ease.

and your answer to that is they are to weak?

So one guy says they are to strong and oppressive and thus not wanted and when asked why though your answer is, because they are to weak to be alone?

Makes no sense to me I am sorry.

What I think and have experienced. ADC in mid can work very nicely bot when your enemy actually knows the game, he will just freez the lane and zone the shut out of you because every time you step into AA range you will catch a spell first, due to gernally higher ranges on spells compared to Marksman AAs.

OmegaNITRO2 votes

I'll try to simplify it.

The way marksmen work, they are the best class at consistent ranged DPS, with the drawback of having low solo survivability. They are Autoattack based, so items scale them harder than levels in general (gold > XP)

This naturally makes them the best class at poking and taking extended trades from behind minion waves. Marksmen have abilities, but their primary source of damage has no real cooldown, so they have little or no downtime in their ranged DPS.

So other classes need to either jump on them and CC or out DPS them, or burst/poke them down in short trades, playing around cooldowns. As marksmen stats are currently, this is easy enough in solo lanes. Marksmen don't have quite enough damage to match a spell rotation, and not enough defensive stats or self peel to survive all ins or tower dive ganks when solo in the early game.

This is because marksmen are balanced around having a support. A support in the lane helps the marksmen survive all ins, sustain short trades and bursts, poke champs down, CC, and zone shorter ranged champs away. Since gold>XP for marksmen, they don't mind the drawback of having to share XP either. So they naturally work best in duo lanes.

If you keep the way marksmen operate as a class, and balance them around playing in a solo lane, sure, they can 1v1 duel mages, fighters, tanks, even assassins in solo lanes. But then what do you think is going to happen in a duo lane? If marksmen become able to trade, sustain and survive against other classes BY THEMSELVES, they'll crush those other classes once the marksmen has constant HELP to mitigate their class weaknesses.

So I'm saying that marksmen can't be both:

  • Designed to play in solo lanes

  • Not dominating Bot lane

At the same time. It's not possible without changing either what the entire class does, or what all the OTHER classes do. Which is something I personally do not want and is not necessary for the game to be fair for everyone.

So let marksmen BE the best choices in bot lane. It's only fair, because none of the classes want them to be the best choices in any other lane.

DerPunkt1 votes

You seem to not understand me. Thats exactly what I am saying. OP of this discussion said ADC arew to opressive so they are not wanted in other lanes. I said, they get shit on in every lane thats why they cannot go there anyway.

Only question that stays for me. Why do we want ADCs to stay like this? I wouldnt mind having them be a weaker class there for a little more durable so they could actually be played solo. Can be healthy to have some change. Like Graves when he was redesigned to be a jungler. I'd say that was a good choice it allowed player who are not bound to lanes but like certain play styles to leave the bot lane, when Marksman was all they wanted to play. Same with Quinn on top (though I found her to be to strong) and with Ez when he was first played mid in the early seasons, the later rejoins of hin into that lane were kinda op and thus nerfed out of the meta quite fast.

OmegaNITRO2 votes

Well, using Graves as an example, once they changed him he didn't even function as a regular ADC anymore. If we are in agreement as to why ADC are balanced around bot, then the answer is easy.

Let mages be a suboptimal choice bot, just like ADCs are in solo lanes.

We are looking for different solutions to the issue of ADCs getting shit on. You seem to want the class to be redesigned into something different. I just want to play my favorite class of champions and not be at an unfair disadvantage in the lane my champs are balanced around.

Like Graves, if ADCs were reworked to play as solo laners, they wouldn't operate the same at all anymore. What ADC main is asking for that? We just want our champions to WORK, as they are. I don't need to take Jinx into Top lane, I just want Jinx to be a decent pick, and no, you don't have to change how Jinx plays as a champion to achieve that.

Hibeki1 votes

Its almost like having a class balanced around the highest range no cooldown attack is fucking impossible.

Melee vs range matchups have been cancer since like season 1, worse when its an adc.

ModCaptainMårvelous10 votes

I think the main problem comes down to Riot's pigeonholed design of Marksmen as well as the community's insistence that they can't be bad at any time.

8.11 (despite its flaws) was actually a great first step in loosening Marksmen from the bot lane and start working on improving them for other areas. Were marksmen bad? A good amount were, yes, but that should be the starting point to improve them and put them in other lanes rather than keep them stuck bot. Plus with these changes you can free up design space (As seen with Karma W now restoring mana/CDs, which is much better for mages than ADCs)

However, this wasn't to be and everyone screamed for Marksmen to go back. Frankly, they need changes slowly and for those times yes, they will be bad. This is because no other role is as cemented in their position as ADCs. To get them out, you're definitely going to have to break concrete and make some cuts. But frankly, if we want ADCs to be free, they're going to need to take a hit and be bad for quite some time before we can see the good ol days of Ashe mid or feed.

OmegaNITRO8 votes

{quoted}

8.11 (despite its flaws) was actually a great first step in loosening Marksmen from the bot lane and start working on improving them for other areas. Were marksmen bad? A good amount were, yes, but that should be the starting point to improve them and put them in other lanes rather than keep them stuck bot. Plus with these changes you can free up design space (As seen with Karma W now restoring mana/CDs, which is much better for mages than ADCs)

https://memegenerator.net/img/instances/68548092/how.jpg

I have yet to see a suggestion that would make marksmen suitable for other lanes that would not just make them better bot laners.

A marksman is a DPS champ that gets the majority of his/her damage from ranged auto attacks.

What exactly would you have them do differently?

And consider this: I'm an ADC main. If I WANTED to go mid, or function as well as a midlaner in mid, I'd play mid and pick midlaners.

But you're suggesting that the vast majority of my preferred champion class just suck ass for a long time so they can be turned into entirely different champions with no inherent laning advantage or disadvantage against other ranged champions in an attempt to make them playable in solo lanes WITHOUT dominating duo lanes.

Why should any of us want that? Homogeneity is NOT diversity. And what IS ideal, which is that solo lanes and ADCs have relatively even chances to carry a game, does not mean that those champs can't just stay in their lanes.

ModCaptainMårvelous6 votes

And consider this: I'm an ADC main. If I WANTED to go mid, or function as well as a midlaner in mid, I'd play mid and pick midlaners.

This is perhaps the biggest problem and why ADC is such a problem so thanks for highlighting it.

Midaners are massive and varied. You have mages (Lux, Ryze, etc.), You have assassins (Zed, Leblanc, etc), you have the occasional bruiser/diver (Irelia, Aatrox), you even have the occasional oddball like Galio or Malphite. Hell, ADCs have been played mid before ala Corki or Varus. Not always, sure, but it's there.

You see similar deviation for almost every role....except ADCs. Of course, I don't blame you. This was because Riot has pigeonholed them into only being good based on their scaling and how well they can farm up. There are a few exceptions to this ignoring the obvious ones of Kindred, Graves and Quinn (Namely Caitlyn's powerful early game or utility ADCs) but the predominant problem have been ADCs always need to be glass cannon scaling people.

But you're suggesting that the vast majority of my preferred champion class just suck ass for a long time so they can be turned into entirely different champions with no inherent laning advantage or disadvantage against other ranged champions in an attempt to make them playable in solo lanes WITHOUT dominating duo lanes.

"Different champions" isn't what we're aiming at here. I can't think of many ADCs who need reworks to any degree save for maybe 1-2 skill tweaks and a visual update. What we can do is start working on giving ADCs some ability depending on their class of character. Namely:

  • We can move some to being lane bullies that you can pick to win lane hard at the cost of a late game in other lanes.
  • Some can keep their hypercarry status but need babysitting.
  • We can move some to be the duelist/1v1 lane type like top or mid that are more reliant on getting ahead with range before being best in 1v1s.

But the fact is that barring the obvious exemptions, all ADCs are focused around bot lane. No other class as this problem and because of it, it stifles both what ADCs can do and forces Bot role to not be "I'm a bot lane player" but "I'm an ADC player".

Why should any of us want that? Homogeneity is NOT diversity. And what IS ideal, which is that solo lanes and ADCs have relatively even chances to carry a game, does not mean that those champs can't just stay in their lanes.

Because homogeneity is how we got here. As OP stated; ADCs are shackled to bot lane. No other class of champion is as shackled as they are. Mages can go top, mid, support and sometimes jungle. Assassins can go top, mid and jungle. Tanks can go top mid, support and sometimes jungle. ADCs can go...bot. This is the more pressing issue.

If you're going to fix it, you need to be proactive about it. And yes, there will be a time where ADCs suck be it a handful that need tweaks or a large majority. Yet to erase around 8 years of design stagnation, it's a necessary pain that needs to be solved.

Paroe2 votes

{quoted}

Snip

A traditional marksman should be a champion who excels at taking objectives and providing sustained damage in team fights, not bursting down the enemy tank in 2 seconds.

Crit itemization needs to be changed, entirely. In order for marksmen to divest into other lanes with different powers they need to have that yoke of "the build" removed - the cookie cutter needs to break. Crit from itemization being removed in favor of small amounts of AD would be amazing in unschackeling marksmen.

item 3086 --> item 1051 replaced with item 1036. Zeal now has 15AD instead of 15% Crit All of the zeal items have 30% crit, so they would instead have 30AD. A small increase in attack speed on marksmen items (daggers becoming 15% from 12% and completed items getting +10%ASP) would go further in helping and further cement their role as objectives and sustained damage. With crit gone and marksmen itemization firmly AD/AS, They would also be more effective against tanks due to the open item slot for the often forgotten last whisper.

This suggestion to do away with crit as a stat does not remove IE and storm razor from the game, as they do not have flat crit chance as an item stat.

Also... Speaking from experience as someone who mains support as casters/tanks; My favorite games as tanks are the ones where i feel like a tank because draven has 400AD, no crit, and i im not behind so i can actually tank by being a CC threat and not get blown up because conqueror+storm razor+600 damage crits from a champion with no penetration vs 200 armor.

ModCaptainMårvelous4 votes

A traditional marksman should be a champion who excels at taking objectives and providing sustained damage in team fights, not bursting down the enemy tank in 2 seconds.

The problem there is that is what ADCs were for a long time. And yes, this is all the way back to Season 1. Nobody could take objectives as quickly or as safely as an ADC (especially with a melee trying to step up to a turret in a siege situation).

That said, I'm not gonna discuss crit because that's a hugely complex problem that doesn't just affect ADCs and my brain way too small to try to work on all the solutions to it. That said: As much as I know people like it, I don't feel that just a static % increase to overall damage is a good idea.

Also... Speaking from experience as someone who mains support as casters/tanks; My favorite games as tanks are the ones where i feel like a tank because draven has 400AD, no crit, and i im not behind so i can actually tank by being a CC threat and not get blown up because conqueror+storm razor+600 damage crits from a champion with no penetration vs 200 armor.

Well there's your problem, it's Draven. And apparently it's late game because he's got 400 AD. Still, this seems more like hyperbole than actual experience.

OmegaNITRO2 votes

Yes that does remove IE from the game. What is it gonna give 20% true damage to? What crit chance will it double when there are no crits?

And I guess Razor would just not be picked up by scaling ADCs at all.

In this scenario, how is, say, Jinx ever supposed to outscale Draven or MissFortune? Or Lucian?

Paroe1 votes

{quoted}

Yes that does remove IE from the game. What is it gonna give 20% true damage to? What crit chance will it double when there are no crits?

And I guess Razor would just not be picked up by scaling ADCs at all.

In this scenario, how is, say, Jinx ever supposed to outscale Draven or MissFortune? Or Lucian?

Champions besides marksmen crit. Leaving IE as it is would allow for champions in the future to have inherent crit - perhaps it could even synergize with runes and we could have a 10-25% crit chance rune added? Ive always liked the idea of freedom of choice, and if we added a crit shard then reworked legend:tenacity into legend: Critical eye for another 25% crit... Well, ever since the IE rework ive wanted tenacity removed from the marksman tree in exchange for 20% crit. Storm razor would still be purchased on any champion who buys it now, and its crit scaling could simply be moved to a per-level increase.

My main point is to remove crit as a stat from itemization, not from the game as a whole. If Crit remains, it should most definitely be something that is either built in to the champion (as is the case with some assassins and tryndamere) or is available to everyone behind some kind of gating. Another thing is that if crit is moved to runes it becomes a stat usable by everyone and not just people who make the best use of attack speed.

And the answer to your last question? Attack. Speed. MF, Draven, Lucian, Quinn, Corki, Ezreal, etc will be buying the same front loaded damage they always have. A good team around a good marksman will help absorb their burst damage and let their own marksman - designed to scale - pump out the DPS. Remember, marksmen are not intrinsically burst champions. They are meant to be sustained damage champions, with exceptions for kit synergy as is the case with casters and Draven.

OmegaNITRO2 votes

You said to substitute crit chance with AD on Zeal items, as well as increase th e AS on them. So AD caster marksmen can build into AS and not lose out on their front loaded damage either.

The early game champs would have their cake and eat it too, and likely be stronger than champs that used to rely on crit for the entire game.

OmegaNITRO5 votes

{quoted}

You see similar deviation for almost every role....except ADCs. Of course, I don't blame you. This was because Riot has pigeonholed them into only being good based on their scaling and how well they can farm up. There are a few exceptions to this ignoring the obvious ones of Kindred, Graves and Quinn (Namely Caitlyn's powerful early game or utility ADCs) but the predominant problem have been ADCs always need to be glass cannon scaling people.

You sure about that? I don't exactly think so.

What we can do is start working on giving ADCs some ability depending on their class of character. Namely:

  • We can move some to being lane bullies that you can pick to win lane hard at the cost of a late game in other lanes.

Draven MissFortune

  • Some can keep their hypercarry status but need babysitting.

Jinx KogMaw

  • We can move some to be the duelist/1v1 lane type like top or mid that are more reliant on getting ahead with range before being best in 1v1s.

Lucian Ezreal

But the fact is that barring the obvious exemptions, all ADCs are focused around bot lane. No other class as this problem and because of it, it stifles both what ADCs can do and forces Bot role to not be "I'm a bot lane player" but "I'm an ADC player".

And here's where I think you misunderstand. As I pointed out above, we already HAVE those different, varied roles in the marksman class, including where they spike and fall off. ADCs are confined to bot lane because that is where they work best, because AAs scale better with items than level.

They are tuned to fight each other in bot because AAs are a source of damage that can't be dodged and have no cooldown. ADCs are tuned to need supports because if they WEREN'T, NO other class in the game would be able to lane against them, in ANY lane.

Best believe if I WANT to play Ahri/Sion/Velkoz/Karthus bot lane I could, and ALWAYS could, but why should I when they work better solo?

Because homogeneity is how we got here. As OP stated; ADCs are shackled to bot lane. No other class of champion is as shackled as they are. Mages can go top, mid, support and sometimes jungle. Assassins can go top, mid and jungle. Tanks can go top mid, support and sometimes jungle. ADCs can go...bot. This is the more pressing issue.

And is such because they HAVE to be so OTHER classes can lane. Changing that would require Marksmen to not be able to put out more sustained resourceless AA damage from range than all the other classes. Which would make them NOT marksmen, or just shitty marksmen.

If you're going to fix it, you need to be proactive about it. And yes, there will be a time where ADCs suck be it a handful that need tweaks or a large majority. Yet to erase around 8 years of design stagnation, it's a necessary pain that needs to be solved.

No thanks. I really don't need tanks to not be tanks, or mages to not be mages, or assassins to not be assassins. Marksmen aren't solo laners (for the most part) for the benefit of everyone else. And that's OK. When you take this too far you get to the point where they aren't crowding the others out the lane they are best in, which means there is no way they can work in a solo lane.

The stagnation is the fact that ADC has been the optimal win condition for a TEAM, not that they can't go mid. But then, if they aren't then there becomes little reason to pick them over other DPS classes.

This also HAS to be this way, because you can't really outplay an AA from beyond your own range.

The fantasy of picking marksmen in other lanes while simultaneously not needing them in bot is exactly that - a fantasy. This will never happen because of how marksmen fundamentally work.

You might as well just be asking to delete them from the game.

ModCaptainMårvelous2 votes

snip for champs.

While those examples do work, is it because they're designed that way or because of itemization? More importantly, despite these situations, they're still stuck bot save for the occasional lucian pick. (Or Ezreal breaking an item). This falls back on how these champions, while different, still require a support to function and keep them save. Plus the fact that of the picks listed for lane bullies, it's mostly because they synergize the best with bullies. Caitlyn is technically one but she can't hit with the force Draven/MF can or work as well with Leona/Thresh/etc, so she falls to the wayside.

Best believe if I WANT to play Ahri/Sion/Velkoz/Karthus bot lane I could, and ALWAYS could, but why should I when they work better solo?

Just as I could want to play Caitlyn in another role, but why would I when she's garbage? We've actually seen situations from 8.11 and onward (after ADC buffs) where mages can still work bot lane. As an additional note, champions like Yi/Yas/etc. scale harder with AAs than your ADCs but don't see the same level of play. This is mostly because they're unsafe while ADCs still have the same level of play.

ADCs, again, are the only role as hampered to their position. The "AA scaling" argument doesn't work when there are situations where a mage can fulfill a similarly sustained DPS role/turret taking. It comes down to design forcing ADCs to be in that role unless they're so radically different in gameplay style (Graves, Kindred, Quinn) or have an abuseable mechanic/self-peel tool. (Lucian, Varus, etc)

And is such because they HAVE to be so OTHER classes can lane. Changing that would require Marksmen to not be able to put out more sustained resourceless AA damage from range than all the other classes. Which would make them NOT marksmen, or just shitty marksmen.

I mean, as an example, DOTA does this. Missiles have different travel speeds and makes it so early game it's much harder to harrass and last hit due to your auto having a travel time. It's not a perfect example for league but something like this could be an example of keeping strong auto-attacks but not making it so overbearing. Hell, you could even give ranged champions more range at the cost of "slower" autos to make ti safer for them to lane/harass but not increase the overall power.

The stagnation is the fact that ADC has been the optimal win condition for a TEAM, not that they can't go mid. But then, if they aren't then there becomes little reason to pick them over other DPS classes.

Completely disagree. As an example, Nocturne is a psuedo-assassin/diver (according to his heavy AD build path) but can go both mid and jungle. This is because Nocturne being able to opt into two different areas of play allow him to have both flexibility if one role isn't good for him at the moment as well as having the ability to be played by two types of people, junglers and mid.

A lot of characters have this but the best ones often are able to make do in multiple roles. ADCs don't have this. If an ADC is bad in bot, they're most often bad period. Because of this, it makes the ADC class extremely volatile and can make the whole roster fall apart save for the outliers.

Point is, Marksmen outside of bot can work. The problem is that it's just that: It needs work. Most people would rather persist in the notion of defeat that they'll always be confined to the bot lane rather than say "I'm willing to take a hit to make my class and by extent, the game, better." If Riot had approval from players and could work on this without fear of ADC backlash, overall the game and ADCs would be in a far better place.

Until that point, however, we're going to be forever stuck with a very static bot lane and design hampering what ADCs can do.

saltran3 votes

If Riot had approval from players and could work on this without fear of ADC backlash, overall the game and ADCs would be in a far better place.

You seem to talk about the adc mains backlash but somehow you seem to forget that other roles dont want adcs to leave botlane too, I mean we can talk about Vayne top being absolutely garbage and yet getting a lot of hate from toplane mains that find fighting a marksman in lane extremly unfunny. (and I understand them to be fair)

But hey we can also talk about the tale of a brave knight called Lucian who dared to be meta on midlane for some patchs and was gutted as an answer from Rito, then he proceed to be garbage for like 9 months after that.

I honestly think that you are a encourager of diversity and that's fine imo, but most ppl are not.

Botlane being only adcs have issues, but lets not pretend that reworking all of them in order to be able to go on a solo lanes in a healthy way it's factible option, because you just cant make champs like Caitlyn or Ashe better on a solo lane than on botlane without being absolutely cancer for the opposite side since the only way they can be viable is by non stop poke and enough defensives tools to not be runned down by anyone or free ganks that are the major issues of why these champs right now dont work as solo laners.

What you want it's not impossible, but literally needs Ashe Caitlyn Corki Draven Jhin Jinx Kaisa Kalista KogMaw Lucian MissFortune Sivir Tristana Twitch Varus Vayne Xayah to be reworked into basically AD mages. And that it's very unlikely to happen.

D357R0Y3R3 votes

vayne top has absolutly no counterplay she has insane poke, insane dueling, self peeling, no cost on W

a healthy solo laner would be mid lane caitlyn and mid lane ashe to me both high ranged good 1v1 champions, that can bring pressure

both unable to go mid because riot gutted their base movement speed to 325

saltran1 votes

Honestly I dont think there's a single way to make Ashe meta on Midlane that doesn't involve reworking her or gutting the rest of midlaners and heavy engage junglers, and in that case she would probably be still better on botlane.

Like, imagine playing against a Zac as Ashe midlane lmao

Paroe1 votes

{quoted}

Honestly I dont think there's a single way to make Ashe meta on Midlane that doesn't involve reworking her or gutting the rest of midlaners and heavy engage junglers, and in that case she would probably be still better on botlane.

Like, imagine playing against a Zac as Ashe midlane lmao

Ashe is relatively capable as a solo laner, actually. If we could make it so her W passed through minions she killed, ashe would be a potent competitor.

saltran3 votes

But if Ashe W passed through minions she would just be broken as a botlane adc, why would you even play her on midlane?

D357R0Y3R1 votes

{quoted}

Like, imagine playing against a Zac as Ashe midlane lmao

cherry picking a single jungler doesn't make an argument and junglers are never involved into "is this midlaner good"

vel'koz is also shit into zac, but he got played last year a decent amount of time in pro, and is viable in soloq

ashe midlane would be good once again with 330 base ms

M Dragon143 votes

Velkoz also has incredible waveclear and range, something ashe does not have. She has her W, but would so easily get zoned. So many other jungles would exploit that. Any jungler that would give Vel issues, would give Ashe issues too, except it would be much harder for ashe to farm.

Paroe2 votes

{quoted}

You seem to talk about the adc mains backlash but somehow you seem to forget that other roles dont want adcs to leave botlane too, I mean we can talk about Vayne top being absolutely garbage and yet getting a lot of hate from toplane mains that find fighting a marksman in lane extremly unfunny. (and I understand them to be fair)

Because ranged vs melee and the fact that marksmen are very, very, very oppressive lane opponents.

What you want it's not impossible, but literally needs Ashe Caitlyn Corki Draven Jhin Jinx Kaisa Kalista KogMaw Lucian MissFortune Sivir Tristana Twitch Varus Vayne Xayah to be reworked into basically AD mages. And that it's very unlikely to happen.

You have all three archetypes of marksmen on your list here. You have the right click to win champs traditional crit champs; Sivir, tristana, Draven, Jinx, Kai'sa, Caitlyn, twitch You have the AD casters; Luscian, Jhin, Corki, Draven And you have the Onhit champions; Kalista, Kog'maw, Ashe, Varus, Vayne.

And then you have the hybrid champ Xayah. Among them, only Xayah really needs a rework to become either a caster OR a marksman because as she is the bird lady is a twitch on steroids with invulnerability instead of stealth.

saltran1 votes

Okay but saying that they are AD casters, On hit ADCs or Crit ADCs in which moment helps to make them good without being cancer on a solo lane and also not being just a worse copy of their botlane version?

Because if their botlane role is better than their solo lane role they wont be played as solo laners you know that right?

Paroe1 votes

{quoted}

Okay but saying that they are AD casters, On hit ADCs or Crit ADCs in which moment helps to make them good without being cancer on a solo lane and also not being just a worse copy of their botlane version?

Because if their botlane role is better than their solo lane role they wont be played as solo laners you know that right?

My second section was about you saying those marksmen should be reworked into AD casters. Marksmen already have pretty stable archetypes, with most (by definition of role) being able to play either onhit/caster OR traditional marksman.

saltran2 votes

Because saying that they are AD Casters right now doesn't mean they can be healthy on a solo lane.

Take Draven since you listed him as an AD Caster: why is he played botlane and not on solo lanes ?

Do you think that this Draven as he is can be meta on a solo lane in a healthy way without being just a worse version of the botlane Draven? Because if he's as strong to be played mid against mages and assasins plus survive witout a supps peel the ganks and mores stuf I can tell you that botlane Draven would be 10 times stronger which would lead into ppl only playing him bot.

M Dragon142 votes

Point is, Marksmen outside of bot can work. The problem is that it's just that: It needs work. Most people would rather persist in the notion of defeat that they'll always be confined to the bot lane rather than say "I'm willing to take a hit to make my class and by extent, the game, better." If Riot had approval from players and could work on this without fear of ADC backlash, overall the game and ADCs would be in a far better place.

Until that point, however, we're going to be forever stuck with a very static bot lane and design hampering what ADCs can do.

There's a reason ADC mains main ADCs. Not because they want to play mages, assassins, or any other boring champ. Its because they want to play ADCs. While I agree having over classes bot lane would good to have for the sake of lane diversity, pushing adcs out of the meta bot would kill the game for so many people, myself included.

OmegaNITRO2 votes

Not sure why it makes a difference between design and itemization. But regardless, yes some are designed to be strong in lane and other are designed to be strong 1v1, others hypercarries. Cait has fallen to the wayside because they nerfed her into the ground and crit items are trash.

Of course mages can still work in bot lane. Some could pre 8.11. Yi/Yas situation, you answered your own question as to why marksmen are usually the preferred ADC.

And there are plenty of champs in mid/top/jg that are relegated to where they are, so I'm not sure why ADCs have to be shitty and then drastically change so they can ALSO be used somewhere else, especially since some already can be. Massively reduced attack speed would feel terrible, and missile speed wouldn't make much difference if you still can't dodge the autos.

And yeah, if ADCs are bad bot, they're bad everywhere, because the marksman play pattern and scaling capability are best suited for a duo lane. On the converse, if they're good enough to compete in solo lanes, they'll easily dominate bot too.

For this to not be the case, you want marksmen to be gutted and then fundamentally changed. But Marksman players don't WANT an entirely different playstyle. Mages didn't need to change their identity to be injected into bot lane, and instead of moving to mid or top, ADC mains just want to be effective IN THEIR OWN LANE.

And like I initially said, I don't see any suggestion you or anyone else have made that would make the ADCs that already exist more viable in other lanes without completely breaking them in bot lane. It's not defeat, because marksman players don't particularly WANT to go to mid lane, or top. In fact, the idea only came about in response to how hypocritical it was that solo laners wanted more presence IN bot when marksmen aren't allowed to be solid solo laners. So it makes no sense to want to share lane space with marksmen when there are 2 solo lanes that marksmen barely touch already.

But we should just sacrifice the class efficacy, and then identity, so you can say Ashe mid is a good pick?

Yeah, no thank you.

saltran3 votes

8.11 (despite its flaws) was actually a great first step in loosening Marksmen from the bot lane and start working on improving them for other areas

The problem is that you make up the second part, 8.11 didn't helped in any way to move adcs to other lanes, that patch just made them way worse on their only viable lane to the point that some of them had no role to fill in the game.

And did they said something about moving adcs to other lanes back then? Because Rito wasn't even aware of what changes would have 8.11 and if you read the patch notes there isn't even a single word about opening botlane, because they had legit 0 idea of how the meta would be after that.

Or maybe I missed the part where they said that, do you have some source about Rioters talking about starting to work on improving them (ADCs) on other areas or you just assume that it's what they wanted to do?

ModCaptainMårvelous1 votes

It was an actual goal made from the start (Positional Diversity):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G9flvYe_DOA

It's in the tail end of the video but a goal of 2018 was to increase positional diversity among more characters, hence the 8.11 changes. While not explicitly said, it's pretty obvious that the goal was less about "Fuck ADCs remove them from the game" and more about taking some lane strength out of ADCs to open up bot lane to other champs, which in turn lets others appear. From there, once adcs aren't mandatory bot, you can start working on ADCs in other positions.

https://boards.na.leagueoflegends.com/en/c/developer-corner/2ykqAkNa-marksman-changes-coming-to-pbe-in-the-next-couple-days for the whole patch note but generally, there's one of two thoughts as they didn't explicitly say that "ADCs can be worked on in other areas"

A.) Riot knew ADCs would be bad and were totally happy to let them rot. B.) Riot knew ADCs were bad after the patch and wanted to work on them.

The problem though, as I outlined above, is that making ADCs work in other lanes is a much more involved process than just putting them back in bot. Which means that to satisfy the ADC players who felt isolated, they had to do the latter rather than the former.

saltran2 votes

The problem though, as I outlined above, is that making ADCs work in other lanes is a much more involved process than just putting them back in bot. Which means that to satisfy the ADC players who felt isolated, they had to do the latter rather than the former.

Or maybe because they nuked adc itemization on 8.11 and crit adcs were lethal garbage until 8.15, and yeah, 8.15 buffs didn't helped them to be solo laners but neither did the 8.12, 8.13 or 8.14 changes

Look at this on dates, 8.11 was on 31 may and 8.15 31 jul, that's 2 months of being utter trash, and it's not like after 8.15 they were fine, that's why Riot is working on crit items again and they acknowledge that they lack something.

Well, the next crit itemization update will be on 9.1, this means that the patch will be on January. (we cant know the day yet)

Look at the time they are taking ONLY to rebalance ADCs into botlane, no joke they will take since 2018 31 May till 2019 January, and you wanted them to not even buff adcs back a bit to work on the idea of rebalancing them to solo lanes that would take an unkown amount of time?

Well that's a good move if you want to lose 1/5 of your playerbase that it's what would've happened if they didn't gave any kind of buffs to adcs after 8.11

And we dont even know if the 9.1 patch will be a success, maybe they update crit items and it turns out to be worse or dont change at all so they have to rework crit items once again 6 months later.

OmegaNITRO2 votes

It's in the tail end of the video but a goal of 2018 was to increase positional diversity among more characters, hence the 8.11 changes. While not explicitly said, it's pretty obvious that the goal was less about "Fuck ADCs remove them from the game" and more about taking some lane strength out of ADCs to open up bot lane to other champs, which in turn lets others appear.

True. The "positional diversity" directive of 8.11 was explicitly stated to be about BOT lane diversity, and opening up the lane to other classes. But here's the problem:

From there, once adcs aren't mandatory bot, you can start working on ADCs in other positions.

There was absolutely NO statement of intent to open up mid or top to marksmen. To say nothing of any attempt to make them playable in other roles. It's easy to say "just deal with it" when it's not your champion pool getting dumpstered, but there was no Quid Pro Quo here, because Riot (incorrectly) assumed the reason Bot lane mains played all Marksmen was because Marksmen were OP.

But since the vast majority of Bot lane players either quit playing the role or continued to just struggle with the champs they WANT to play, Riot realized that "Bot Lane Diversity" was being requested by people who DON'T play Bot lane, and the people that DO play Bot lane mostly just want to play their marksmen.

So this fantastic concept that marksmen players should just eat shit and rot, get our champ pool completely reworked into something else, and eventually we'll be able to take that something else into mid or top is a farce. The idea is not appealing to the vast majority of Bot lane players, and the mage/assassin/fighter players didn't actually want to play in Bot lane specifically because their champs would rather get solo XP and don't actually need a support to lane with them.

saltran1 votes

"Just wait like 2 years till Adcs can be played on Mid or Top while being absolute garbage meanwhile bruh, it's fine for me that I dont play them ha ha"

For the next time that you talk with this mod keep in mind that he would've loved to see most ADCs with 44% winrate for months and months in order to get a diversity that only him wants, because it's not like overall Toplaners and Midlaners want ADCs on their lanes as CaptainMårvelous wants.

ModCaptainMårvelous1 votes

I mean it's not a diversity only I want, considering most people have said before that one of the biggest flaws with league is the heavily stringent meta and nowhere is that more obvious than bot lane where ADC/Support was the meta for over 6+ years.

Comparatively short term problem for a long term goal. And hell, as with the ADC rework, not every ADC will be bad. (See: Kalista, Lucian, MF, Ezreal, Varus who still had good winrates even after ADCgeddon.)

As pointed out: You don't have bot lane players. You have ADC players. No other role has that as hard as bot does.

saltran1 votes

Comparatively short term problem for a long term goal. And hell, as with the ADC rework, not every ADC will be bad. (See: Kalista, Lucian, MF, Ezreal, Varus who still had good winrates even after ADCgeddon.)

Excuse me wtf, Varus was one of the worst adcs after 8.11 on soloQ, he was literally the bottom of the barril along with Tristana and Caitlyn (around 45% winrate), it took this huge buff on 8.13 to make him playable again, Trist and Cait got aswell huge buffs on that patch so they could at least leave the 45% umbral to go to the 47% one:

Varus Q MINIMUM DAMAGE RATIO 1.0 total attack damage ⇒ 1.1 total attack damage Q MAXIMUM DAMAGE RATIO 1.5 total attack damage ⇒ 1.65 total attack damage W ON-HIT DAMAGE 5/9/13/17/21 ⇒ 7/10.5/14/17.5/21 W STACK POP DAMAGE 2/2.75/3.5/4.25/5% target's maximum health per stack ⇒ 3/3.5/4/4.5/5% target's maximum health per stack

And you think that Varus has been great even after that buff? No, I dont think in any of this months he has reached even 50% winrate on soloQ for a whole patch (he can spike in winrate X day, but overall he's below 50%), you can take a look right now https://lolalytics.com/ranked/worldwide/platinum/plus/champion/Varus/ aswell.

And listing Kalista and saying that she was great on soloQ winrate wise after 8.11 is literally something that I cant understand how you do this, how can you flex reallity of a gutted champ that has been garbage on soloQ for soo many months, a champ that even Meddler says that they wont work on her because she cant be balanced and that's why they left her in the trash and you say that she had good winrate after 8.1 ...

But hey, if they followed your design they would've never buffed Varus back on 8.13 and instead of 48% winrate he would be still at 45% as he was on 8.11 or am I missing something?

I have to be honest, it's way easier to open botlane by just nuking ADCs again and make some of them unplayable on every lane and that's something that a huge part of the community would applaude by the cost of some ppl leaving the game on the other hand.

But what you want as an ending, the whole rebalancing the ADCs that couldn't go bot to Midlane/Toplane is where neither Toplaners or Midlaners want that, that's the part where I say that it's almost only you who wants that.

As pointed out: You don't have bot lane players. You have ADC players. No other role has that as hard as bot does.

Yeah, and I'm fine with that.

deadlychuck1 votes

Riot's pigeonholed design of ~~Marksmen ~~ the game

Just look at the rune rework. It was literally a change that was blatantly designed to pigeonhole champions so that newer players didn't feel like they had no choice since the old rune system offered no real direction. You could literally do whatever you wanted with the old rune system, but that left a lot of people, and particularly newer players who could more easily do this, just latching onto 1 or 2 runes pages that they saw in a build somewhere.

ModCaptainMårvelous1 votes

{quoted}

Just look at the rune rework. It was literally a change that was blatantly designed to pigeonhole champions so that newer players didn't feel like they had no choice since the old rune system offered no real direction.

Not really. You can run a variety of runes and the difference between them is often minimal, at best. Switching some keystones is about a 1% difference. It also depends on position but there are definitely situations where you can swap between keystones and/or paths. Basically: Having the wrong runepage (barring a complete deadend like aftershock on a champ with no CC) is bad but not crippling. In the old rune system, loading up with the wrong runes was 100% a lost game.

You could literally do whatever you wanted with the old rune system, but that left a lot of people, and particularly newer players who could more easily do this, just latching onto 1 or 2 runes pages that they saw in a build somewhere.

Mmm, no. The old rune system was raw stats which meant that you were directly pigeonholed harder than anything the new system offers. If you weren't using the right runes save for the one-in-a-trillion match-up, you were flat-out wrong and a detriment to your team. The reason people latched onto 1-2 rune pages wasn't because they were stifled, it was because those 1-2 rune pages were the viable ones by a mile.

deadlychuck3 votes

Hahahaha wow, are you actually mananaging to type this with a serious face?

You can run a variety of runes and the difference between them is often minimal, at best. Switching some keystones is about a 1% difference.

Somehow in your head, you think that two runes of some of the tiers are somehow within 1% strength of each other on any given champion (as you said bar taking mechanically impossible effects)? Seriously? I don't normally downvote, but you deserve one for this comment.

But at the same time, if you were to exchange out that one 0.95AD marks for a crit mark with 1.7% atk spd, then you've suddenly become a detriment to your team! Rofl No.

Quit talking out of both sides of your mouth. You can't claim that runes are somehow not pigeonholing champions when there are literally some runes, let alone entire keystones, that some champions outright can't use. The old runes were such granular adjustments to champion power that there's almost no way that you'd actually be capable of having mechanically balanced runes within the same margin of error. Let alone how you somehow seem to think that the new runes are both more influential than the old runes, yet taking the wrong ones doesn't completely destroy you... even though you might have taken some who's mechanical requirements are unrealistic for your champion.

The only case of this in the runes, to my recollection was energy max and energy regen runes, which seemed like a fine niche considering that the same is true for itemization anyway. Yet then you have entire keystones which are functionally inert or otherwise worthless on champions because they can't meet the mechanical criteria necessary for the keystone.

ModCaptainMårvelous1 votes

Somehow in your head, you think that two runes of some of the tiers are somehow within 1% strength of each other on any given champion (as you said bar taking mechanically impossible effects)?

I mean....yeah. Check out OP.gg. Most champions run different keystones, usually in the same tree, but different none the less with about a 1% differential in terms of winrate. It's not perfect, mind you, but there are different keystones being picked on a majority of champs and they're not exactly a huge difference. Plus the occasional rune path difference.

Quit talking out of both sides of your mouth. You can't claim that runes are somehow not pigeonholing champions when there are literally some runes, let alone entire keystones, that some champions outright can't use. The old runes were such granular adjustments to champion power that there's almost no way that you'd actually be capable of having mechanically balanced runes within the same margin of error. Let alone how you somehow seem to think that the new runes are both more influential than the old runes, yet taking the wrong ones doesn't completely destroy you... even though you might have taken some who's mechanical requirements are unrealistic for your champion.

No different from the old system, which not only had dead ends that wouldn't change (At least if you take mana band it'll swap vs. loading into a game with AP runes on Garen) but outright bad options (Time spent dead runes except in absolute meme builds).

And see, this whole thing is where the argument falls apart. The granular adjustment absolutely mattered because in many cases, those "small changes" amounted to huge early game advantages. Late game? Sure, nobody is going to miss 10 AD or 7 AP. But at level one, that 10 AD is the difference between landing CS or missing it in certain situations. If you take, as an example, celerity on udyr instead of absolute focus or vice versa? Yeah, it sucks that it's not the right runes, but you weren't hampered. Meanwhile, if you accidentally took magic pen runes instead of attack speed? There goes pretty much your entire early game jungling. I definitely recall games in Season 1-3 where people would afk/surrender because they loaded up the wrong runes.

And frankly, only a handful of keystones are functional dead-ends on champs. Namely Aftershock because it has the most stringent requirement (Hard CC) and PTA/Hail of blades because it's AS reliant. Everything else, however, is pretty loose regardless of if it's amazing or not. Hell, some of the meta changes such as Aftershock fiddle were discovered because people thought they'd be bad but ended up being great.

Can you fuck up with a keystone? Sure. But loading in with aery vs. comet or PTA vs. Electrocute isn't going to nuke your early game to the same extent that loading in with Magic pen vs. armor pen was.

EDIT: As one extra caveat/compromise, I'd also be totally fine with 100% removing all keystones/runes/masteries/etc. I think that's probably the one everyone can agree on but I'd much rather have my game decided by stuff in game than a page filled with stats before the game starts, be it 30 different little stat boosts or 7 runes and 3 stat picks.

deadlychuck2 votes

I definitely recall games in Season 1-3 where people would afk/surrender because they loaded up the wrong runes.

Yes, and the rune rework didn't happen until far after season 3. Point is that runes became less relevant because everything else was increasing in power, but runes were pretty much static since the early days. That said, you also make a good point, that the playerbase hasn't become more competitive. There were always competitive players even to the point of restarting a game because they didn't get every little optimization that they could.

And I'm not in favor of removing all pre-match decisions. I think players should have far more control over how they play their champion not less. Which is precisely why I hate keystones. Runes allowed players to control, with a fine brush, their champion's stats. Which allowed players to amount granular power shifts to achieve a target goal.

Where as the keystones actively pigeonhole players into the range of ways that a champion is best utilized by creating insurmountable disparities between the optimal and non-optimal, even if someone wants to play the champion in a way that is non-optimal.

You don't want to play this mage like a mage? Well then enjoy these auto attack keystones that are WAY better for marksmen auto attacks than for yours. Where as +0.95 AD is an equal buff to all champions who wish to increase their auto attack damage, not disproportionate based on how riot intends for you to play the champion.

Now obviously flat AD is a little bit different with how AD basically gets treated like AP now, with how much AD spell scaling their is, but that's why I specifically said "auto attacks".

saltran1 votes

Not really. You can run a variety of runes and the difference between them is often minimal, at best. Switching some keystones is about a 1% difference.

Okay, I cant take this seriously anymore, it seems that you are also pro diversity in terms of Runes on a straight up illogical way.

Have fun playing Ashe with Aftershock, tell me if the difference between it and Lethal Tempo is 1%

But hey ofc you wont answer.

ModCaptainMårvelous1 votes

I mean by checking OP.gg dude. And yeah, as previously, there are some bad options (Mostly aftershock) but running Ashe with PtA vs. Fleet footwork vs. DH vs. Hail of Blades vs. Electrocute isn't as bad as loading up with AP runes.

Resolve's by fair the outlier but yeah, not nearly as bad as coming into game with Magic pen on ashe.

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