[TEXT WALL] I feel like there's better ways to go about ADCs scaling into lategame rather than crit.

#For a TL;DR, CTRL-F "tl;dr" without the quotation marks.

By nature, ADCs - both ranged and melee - are - mostly - the lategame hypercarry scaling class that spits out DPS to take out tanks and towers the quickest. No one else - except for a few DPS mages like Cassiopeia even have a chance of matching the necessary DPS to kill tanks. Weak early into strong late. DPS over burst. Standard common sense. Except it doesn't really work out like that in reality.

However, crit is inherently a burst-related stat by doubling the damage on autoattacks which is a massive spike of sudden damage, as opposed to DPS. In addition, crit is unreliable until 100% crit which no one gets anyways. With Infinity Edge and two Zeal items, the other two slots after boots tend to have to be a source of lifesteal and then one of the Last Whisper items (most commonly Lord Dominik's), sometimes sacrificing another slot for situational items such as Maw of Malmortius.

Attack speed is fine because that is a definite way to scale just by the inherent property of continuously gaining more and more as the game goes on. However, crit is completely contrary to the design of the ADC itself. Getting random spikes of crit burst as opposed to just better DPS is counterintuitive to a class that wants DPS over burst in the first place. Crit itself is also just arguably unhealthy design that should have been removed waaaaay back in early League History along with Dodge, but that's a different argument.

ADCs shouldn't ever be bursting harder than a mage or an assassin in the first place because their burst is just burst as DPS, as opposed to one rotation on a long cooldown, like the classes actually specifically revolving around bursting. That is not their right to encroach upon. In addition, the whole point the latter classes have burst is because they have next to no DPS which makes them useless at both taking towers and killing tanks as opposed to ADCs.

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Yeah yeah, mobility, untargetability, AoE, CC, and all the other arguments I'll foresee people will bring up to defend the ADC class who is in contrast, immobile, single-target, and usually lacks significant CC. However, in return, they also A, gain the ability to synergize with Runaan's extremely well for said AoE, B, don't need to be mobile in the first place with the current strength of supports and their itemization, C, have massive synergy with lifesteal to effectively draintank anyone and everyone that doesn't obliterate them in half a second or CC them while they're safely in the middle or back of their team out of the range of said champions with CC.

Now, as for the things they must go against.

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Mobility is nice and all except it doesn't matter when the assassin's mobility is always pretty much predetermined. You know they will HAVE to go for the ADC (or the mage, if they're a harder carry and/or the ADC hasn't scaled enough yet). The vast majority of assassins that can even risk going into a team have clearly shown routes. Zed's Death Mark always puts him directly behind the target after 1 second, painting a bullseye on himself on anyone who can wait a fraction then aim behind the target. Fizz, Talon, Akali, and others have to either go full on frontal (because Talon's Q drags him in front of the target always) or have no way to avoid being seen to jump in such as Shaco might, for example. So they just go on in whatever direction they first approach from.

Once they're in there, they will most likely be forced to either A, near instantly use their next safety ability, or B, get the hell out instantly. The first case happens because if the assassin is in the middle of the entire enemy team, they're not just going to sit and watch the assassin try to kill the carry. The latter can happen if the support just presses Exhaust and turns the assassin into a training dummy.

"But Joxcab, the assassin should wait until the CC is blown!" Yeah except if the assassin is actually relevant enough to deal damage, the enemy team will always save at least 1 to 3 different things that they could use against the assassin. If their comp doesn't have enough to allow for that and manage other potential threats, then that is just a shit teamcomp and they deserve to be punished anyways for that. Also, the other CC spells aren't going to be blown until people already try and go in and the fight is well under way which pretty much defeats the whole point because they're not going to use them first until someone engages. And the whole point of the assassin is to take out the carry at the start or prior to the teamfight so that they don't have a chance to do their said massive lategame hypercarrying, not after the fight's already done and/or people are getting chunked.

"So are you saying the assassin should be able to just 1v5 and kill the ADC every time and get away safely?" Yes and no. If they can actually successfully avoid everything from the other 4 members, or at least enough, then sure. If not, then of course not. However, the ADC themselves should almost never be a relevant contributing factor because the time from engage to attempt of assassination should never ever be a window long enough for the ADC to kill the assassin - unless of course, the ADC is super far ahead and the assassin is just so behind he has no meaningful damage anyways, but if that's the case, he wouldn't go in anyways. That window is only short enough where to kill a squishy, it would take burst. Which ADCs should never be allowed to have without giving up a massive amount, if not almost the entirety of their DPS (think Lethality Varus).

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"REEEE Untargetability is so unfair!" Out of all assassins in the game, only 4 of them (Fizz, Ekko, Zed, and Shaco) have true untargetability that is relevant (LB's usually isn't for the purpose of assassination). Out of those 4, all of the latter 3 have them tied to long cooldown ultimates, and in Ekko's case, he cannot ult immediately anyways unless he's just giving up on the engage altogether. Fizz is the only one who has a shorter cooldown untargetability ability, however, the cooldown is still long enough that there is a clear window for retaliation once he uses it in the said middle of entire enemy team. Fizz cannot use it to engage because then he dies the second he gets there. He probably can't use it for disengage either unless he's just giving up on the attempt because of the cooldown. So pretty much the only option is to use it during the time he is in there to stall long enough he can kill the ADC. Also, with Fizz, his is the easiest source of damage to arguably mitigate, as the vast majority of his damage is tied to his W empowered and his ultimate. The ultimate can just be bodyblocked altogether, and without it, he cannot reliably get the empowered W because of the delay it requires and the activation requiring him to be melee to start it and end it both without the use of his ultimate. The case is the same. You force out the untargetability through one way or another, then just hit them after they appear again.

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AoE is mostly the thing of mages, but the vast majority of AoE are skillshots which makes them completely avoidable altogether, as opposed to targeted damage such as autoattacks. Sidestep.

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CC is also mostly the thing of mages (the soft CC assassins have is hardly relevant enough to be a threat against more than just the ADC wandering alone). However, again, those are mostly all skillshots that can be avoided altogether. Sidestep.

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Now, time to move on. What about the ADC's side? Attack speed slows, crit mitigation, and Grievous are somewhat of ideas to tackling the ADC. However, the only two items with AS slows in the game are Randuin's and Frozen Heart, Randuin's only working if they attack the owner. Both of those are solely for tanks/juggernauts and are unviable on other champions without greatly sacrificing damage such as on fighters. Grievous works except Morello has a health requirement ADCs will almost never get to as well as Executioner's being useless in terms of other stats and only appearing on other ADCs because assassins don't want a tank-killer item anyways that they can't effectively use due to lack of DPS.

"You forgot CC" ADCs shouldn't be in range of CC in the first place because they should be properly behind or in their team anyways both out of range and out of chance of being hit because of just the frontline bodyblocking everything. Also, Mercurial.

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#Proposed changes

1. Remove crit. It's just an unhealthy and bad game design of a stat.

2. Increase/Give towers BONUS armor and more health. Should be fairly self-explanatory with how anyone can rip them apart anyways regardless of the ADC, who just does it a bit faster. Would help push for longer games, reduce the snowball, and make ADCs more relevant in one of the two jobs they're supposed to do.

3. Give squishy champions more base armor (around 100-200 at level 18 or so rather than like 70-80?). This stops the nonsense of ADCs being able to just nuke squishies, while not affecting them if they're just simply ahead against a behind target because then said target will still have low armor.

4. Give the assassin items a lot more Lethality to compensate. For instance (numbers don't matter, can be changed), 40 Lethality or 50 Lethality instead of 18. Change the scaling formula or speed if needed. This will keep assassins relevant against squishies because their Lethality will appropriately chop through the base armor at whatever level provided the assassin isn't behind, while also rewarding people a lot more for keeping them behind now because of the scaling on their own level.

5. To help tanks actually stay relevant to the squishy armor now, give them a ton more armor on their items (which is all part of their BONUS armor). Something like 100 Armor standard, with Thornmail being something like 150-200 or so. Tanks will probably have around 250 or so armor from items alone provided they balance out MR and armor rather than focus one.

6. Increase the bonus armor penetration on Lord Dominik's in return. Should be self explanatory as it is a lategame item and usually one of the last to help ADCs beat tanks. This will also work against the newer towers.

7. On the other standard ADC items such as Zeal items, Infinity Edge, or perhaps new ADC items, give them a bonus-armor targeting form of Lethality. This will also add up as they eventually level up and scale into lategame and thus help against the new massive amounts of bonus armor tanks will gain in lategame. This will also work against the newer towers.

8. To make up for the loss of crit, increase attack speed on items if necessary and/or remove/raise the cap as needed.

9. Replace the lost crit with a stat of ramping up (just calling it Ramp here for ease of referral for the purpose of this thread). Ramp will be a stat that buffs the ADC's AD instead for every autoattack they deal (not including on-hits or such from Runaan/etc if it ends up being too strong that way). There will be no limit unless necessary for balance purposes, meaning ADCs can effectively infinitely scale. Also, the amount of gain in AD should most likely be exponential or logistical (the latter being if balance is necessary). In addition, it should scale with levels even with the exponential gain per autoattack stacked. This way, they will be still stronger lategame than early and give them a clear motive to work towards. The first few autos, ADCs will not deal that much. However, as they continue to autoattack, with the exponential gain, they will lead up to massive damage against any target regardless of whether it is a tank or a squishy, but most effective against tanks because of their loads of bonus armor penetration. In addition, the new higher base armors that tanks have at full level will stop tanks from bullying in ways they shouldn't able to do unless the ADC is just severely out of position, while not affecting their NECESSARY NEED TO BULLY at earlier levels. In addition, this will also stop people from just nuking the ADC instantaneously to defeat the whole chance of ramping up unless said opponent is an assassin or mage who is supposed to try. This way, ADCs cannot nuke squishies instantly at the start without repercussion, but they will also not just instantly die which feels bad to just play as, but they must still rely on positioning. In addition, this will make it actually necessary to protect the ADC longer than just a split second so that they have a chance to ramp up rather than just spam shields and other tools from the start and the ADC just obliterates whoever's left in the dust. ADCs should not be able to solo carry unless massively fed and ahead because they are INHERENTLY a team-reliant role and have ALWAYS been, outside of abusive specific ADC cases.

10. Give tanks more percent health and/or percent health true if necessary to successfully punish ADCs out of position if they end up being too weak against ADC players lacking in the intelligence to properly position or the like in lategame.

11. If necessary, give lifesteal a soft cap of maximum health healable per second to touch upon their draintanking potential if their new armor and tankiness end up being too much.

12. On a separate note, tone down shields and such IF AND ONLY IF those still end up being too strong due to their lack of pretty much any counterplay except to wait it out - which is unviable - or to break through it - which wastes almost all of your damage unless you're a DPS also making it unviable. Perhaps things such as decaying faster would work. Alternatively, items that deal bonus damage to shields specifically could potentially be implemented if necessary.

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tl;dr - You want me to summarize over 2,400 words in just a few sentences? Just take a read if you even care about the topic. Or just read the Proposed Changes list, I guess.