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The problem with ADC from someone who plays a lot of ADC

Unironic SJW·6/24/2017, 6:12:51 PM·17 votes·1,666 views

Basically ADCs are very polarizing because there is a best case scenario and a non best case scenario

Best Case: You have a coordinated team with a balanced team comp, your team is even or ahead, you have a support reacting well to enemy engage and disrupting and protecting you with their abilities, you've been allowed to farm, get your items and hit your power spikes.

Worst case: Your team comp is a clownfiesta, your support is autofilled and they instalocked first time Brand with Doran's Ring and Ignite, your top and mid are doing well but bot is getting camped due to no wards, you're underfarmed for teamfights and the most you can do is plink their tank or bruiser for 80 damage an auto and the game is already decided before you get to late game.

Riot pushed down ADC build costs to make scenarios trending towards "Worst Case" more bearable, but that means ones trending towards "Best Case" become frustrating if your job is to kill the ADC because they become more powerful earlier.

What's the solution? It's actually obvious but Riot is absolutely against it and is actually moving in the opposite direction: longer games. If I pick Vayne or Trist or Kog, I want the option to play for late game. But guess what, that option doesn't exist because if I pick Kog, unless the enemy team ints me kills we'll lose even fights because I don't come online for 10 mins. And because having HOTS like objectives in a game not designed for it was a BAD IDEA, losing fights for objectives means the game ends before I come online. Other than that, I don't know. Especially since you have to have some kind of physical DPS we can't have strong melee carries because they get whined about and nerfed into the ground so no matter how frustrating ADC gets to play they'll still be played.

34 Comments

PrinceOfStorms6/25/2017, 12:20:54 AM6 votes

Especially since you have to have some kind of physical DPS

No you don't, at least not for taking towers. AP Champions are perfectly capable of doing that because they get a % of their AP as bonus damage to structures. You can also pick stuff like Ziggs, who will push down two towers faster than a pair of planes.

Spoofghoul6/24/2017, 8:43:26 PM4 votes

The solution isn't just longer games but you hinted at that already

Objectives need to be better balanced, i like the drakes for example since it's a permanent buff thus very worth and more so if games last longer

Games need to be longer ofc but early game powerhouses need a way to make their earlygame count, this is where drake like objectives come in, the ability to get an advantage the enemy can't just gain by stalling. which wasa problem in previous seasons because any sort of gold lead became less effective as time passed.

New herald is a pretty decent objective too and could be tweaked for when towers are to be more buff as a means to break the turtle, similar to baron

There are plenty of improvements to be made though but riot went into the right direction with those changes

First turret gold isn't bad either it gives incentive to go and get that first turret down

But the weakened botlane turret needs to go.

Adc are indeed very polarizing they wield too much power as a class and need to be more in line with other classes. with good lategame options and good earlygame options and possibly itemization changes to tone down their absurd point and lick lategame damage but keep their strenght at shredding objectives to keep them valuable as a class when objectives get stronger Furthermore i think it would be better if some of their dps power got shifted into actual abilities you can outplay, dodge or block with a tank etc For losing some of their lategame power i think it would be best to buff their midgame and utility they could offer

Best princess EU6/24/2017, 6:45:38 PM2 votes

to be fair melee carries get whined as much as ranged carries

we already have viable melee carries, they can do their job really fine, and mages are able to siege too the problem is that melee carries have no tools to lane against ranged carries

yasuo is the only one who has them, and his win rate in the adc role is somewhat decent even if the pick rate is low, there are also some yasuo otps like yassuo who plays it sometimes

Unironic SJW6/24/2017, 7:02:15 PM2 votes

"I see where you're coming from, especially with the HOTS-objective point (Rift Herald comes to mind as the offender on that regard)."

Yep, definitely Rift Herald (the old Rift Herald was fine, maybe needed a buff or two or a bit more global gold but it should have been more niche) but also the Baron change in season...5 if I recall correctly? Basically replacing Baron's HP and MP regen with the Baron pushing power, which meant if you got Baron and got most of your team out alive, it's very hard to lose the game because you can just siege all the way to the inhibitor. _In general, objectives in League should enhance your ability to fight and kill people. _

Stuff like Rift, elemental drags, and current Baron don't work because HOTS is very, very siege oriented compared to League, and the objectives reflect that, and it works because the objectives ARE the snowball due to no gold (you can get XP leads but they're almost never as insurmountable as a League gold deficit). With League, adding strong siege objectives compounds the snowballing from gold where before, if it was gold from Dragon or etc, you still snowballed but you can still throw, or you can still get outscaled (but you can NEVER outscale 8/16/24/48% damage).

Furthermore:

1: If you stole the drag as the losing team you could actually push back into the game while even if you steal Infernal it's not enough to even out the gamestate 2: If you're the winning team, you don't get an immediate advantage out of Drag - you still have to back and buy, you may still not have enough for that item power spike, whereas Infernal basically gives you 300-600 gold in stats immediately if you're a damage dealer, mountain gives you more siege power immediately, etc.

As for melee carries, if melee carries were consistently strong and viable (also I forgot Yi who can basically only jungle) then you don't have to lane them directly against ranged carries, you can take your mage/bruiser bot with the support or something like that (let's say, Zyra + Syndra or Brand + Veigar) , or run something like Kindred just in case you need that ranged AD carry. Even now, you could run shit like Leona + Darius since double relic shield is really strong and you have so much CC, damage and kill pressure (if you ever try it, take as many penetration runes/masteries as you can get), but unless you took that Kindred jungle or maybe Corki mid (but he's not a late game champ), your game is basically on a timer especially if the enemy support is Janna/Soraka/Lulu.

Yasuo and Morde were specifically designed to be able to lane against ranged + support and everyone hated it.

With that said, I mentioned HOTS but one thing that they do that League should do is let abilities work on towers. That means you can siege without picking an ADC, which opens up so much more design space for the class while making them not mandatory.

Unironic SJW6/24/2017, 7:32:24 PM2 votes

Also a note on HOTS/DOTA - there is just a lot less raw burst in those games, especially HOTS. You either have to get hit with a long range slow skillshot, walk into combo range of something like Kerrigan (and honestly her full combo doesn't actually oneshot), or the ranged assassin/ADC has to misplay badly. But if you get on a ranged hero you can bodyblock them, your CC is more reliable, etc. So we a situation where if ADCs aren't super overbearing, they're frustrating because again, suboptimal play (by other people than the ADC to boot) get you destroyed, while the same play in DOTA just gets you chunked.

Executioner6/24/2017, 7:42:51 PM2 votes

Back in the day it was harder to gain that advantage. However nowadays it's not hard to grab that advantage. Though back then adcs didn't really come online till 40 minutes, or they were stupidly fed. Now it feels like 30 minutes they come online. Why is that? Made the game faster of course. It's easier to grab turrets, and marco play in general is bigger now.

Kaìju6/26/2017, 5:10:08 AM1 votes

Honestly wouldn't mind less late game for more early game on ADCs. Their job is to be DPS not Crit 7 times for 600 damage each time. Example, Ashe. If you do not go hyper crit carry on her and instead go for a more utility oriented build, you do enough damage to win fights without just four shotting people. I think ADC at the moment has this late game fantasy of burst DPS. Crit for 700 an auto on Twitch? Weird, it's almost like Anivia does 700 dmg on her E crit. Or Karth doing 800 on his Q crit. I think ADC should have a more linear curve then exponential, because it would make them more simple to balance. Riot has even stated that they want bot to open up to more then just marksman, and they want more marksman in other roles. If they scale linear, they can have good enough early game to survive, but not grow out if hand with a good early game like Cait can.

And before anyone jumps on me for not knowing what I'm talking about: I have 700k mastery on Ashe alone.

LightIsMyPath6/25/2017, 12:23:34 PM1 votes

Totally agreed (even posted something about game lenght and balance recently feel free to pass by even though it's way too long xD). Up here hope so much some rioters see this posts

EbonyBladeJ886/24/2017, 6:40:56 PM1 votes

I see where you're coming from, especially with the HOTS-objective point (Rift Herald comes to mind as the offender on that regard).