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Would ADC benefit more from telegraphed abilities?

xJLx MCHammer··13 votes·1,186 views

I noticed Riot really going towards the route of adding telegraphed abilities that have somewhat decent amount of counterplay.

Darius has a Q that is delayed and it can be dodged if you have enough mobility/distance. Maokai Ultimate is pretty easy to dodge, but getting hit by it is somewhat rewarding and it's something that you can see coming. Galio Easy to dodge ultimate, and taunt. Great counterplay. Illaoi Easy to dodge tentacle. If you understand the champion, there are ways to fight her Sion Decent enough delay in almost all his abilities XinZhao His new W can be dodge, instead of what was one a guaranteed ability. Xayah Feathers is something you can actively work around, although it's not easy

These are not the only champions. Most of their champions that have been balanced on, or reworked have included some changes that give them some sort of telegraphed abilities. Do keep in mind, i'm not saying the champions are in good stated or better off.

It seems riot wants to add some extra telegraphed ability that you can somewhat dodge, work around, or see coming.

Do you think Riot should do something similar to ADC champions? Perhaps push them more towards giving the abilities more delay or power so that they can work around that rather just doing AA's as most of their damage? Corki is a decent example. Quite strong with AA but a lot of his power comes from his abilities as well.

21 Comments

Teridax687 votes

While marksmen should always be strong autoattack-based damage-dealers, I think they do need to have less power placed into their autoattacks as a baseline, as contrictory as that might sound. Right now, the main issue with the class is that so much of their power is put into just autoattacking, irrespective of their abilities, which leads to issues where they can just right-click and already output a lot of power that way. On top of that, many marksmen like Tristana, Twitch, Vayne, etc. have abilities that are themselves exceptionally unreliable, in that they mostly serve to provide even more unconditional power through steroids and/or undodgeable self-peel. Because of this, I agree that many more marksmen could do with more telegraphed abilities.

With that said, I feel telegraphing is but one tool out of many that can be used to add unreliability onto a kit: one kind of effect that could potentially work very well for a carry is the idea of double-edged effects, where you could access great power on demand, but at the cost of something else that the enemy can exploit. Jinx's Q is a good example of this, where she gets either good range or good attack speed, but trades off the other factor for it. Another possible example could be a temporary steroid that could boost your autoattacking power by a ton, but that would cause the next hit against you to stun you.

Another mode of counterplay that could be added could simply be more conditions to the power of marksmen: Miss Fortune's attack speed steroid is a good example of this, as it is conditional upon her attacking multiple enemies at a time, and so can't be used to out-duel targets for too long. Having a condition the enemy could activate to make an effect fail could also preserve the proactive nature marksmen, and the on-demand nature of their power, while still maintaining interactivity (having a disable that only lasts while you don't take damage could be one example).

Point being, telegraphing I think is but one of the many tools that could be applied to marksman kits to make them more interactive and a little less reliable. This doesn't just apply to marksmen, either, and I think many more classes could also have more variety to their counterplay, as often delays have been the only means of making certain champions more interactive. Enchanters in particular could benefit from the above kind of counterplay even better than delays, as they need their abilities to be responsive more than any other class.

Doozku4 votes

IMO Marksmen are the most dated class in the game. While every other class has had champions be designed around windows of power and counterplay, marksmen still get designed with most of their damage being put into point and click undodgeable cooldownless resourceless nukes. IMO Jhin was the best marksmen they ever designed because his auto attacks actually have a cooldown, giving you a window to actually go in and punish him even when he's strong. But them Xayah came out and she had all her damage in point and click auto-attacks and her feathers which is better than most ADC's, but are still auto-attacks.

They need to move marksmen out of just auto-attacks and more into auto-attacking + spellslinging. Maybe say instead of just getting a free steroid on Trist Q, she needs to land a certain skillshot or get close enough for her Q to trigger and for her to get the attack speed. So she needs to either land a skillshot or put herself in risk to get all of that extra power. Of course, that was just one idea, and I don't think that they should slap mechanics like that on every ADC, but ADC rn is an unhealthly class rn, and is part of the problem why Assassins are impossible to balance. How do you outplay a class that deals completely point and click damage with no windows of weakness and a class that gets free healing from every attack? Either ADC's just drain-tank you or you just kill them, making Assassins very binary vs ADC.

Champion Skin1 votes

IMO Jhin was the best marksmen they ever designed because his auto attacks actually have a cooldown, giving you a window to actually go in and punish him even when he's strong.

Well to be fair it can be a bit difficult to get onto Jhin when his auto attacks are on cooldown because of the 4th AA giving him MS (+10% +4% per 10% bonus AS) well he actually gains the ms on crit and his 4th attack always crit

GrandpaTheGreat2 votes

The tricky thing would be that you'd still need to find ways to preserve their machine-gun aspect (A lot of sustained damage), as well as taking into account that the auto attacking has no inherent counterplay in itself. I'm not saying its impossible, I'm just saying its harder to do for a marksmen than something more ability focused

xJLx MCHammer1 votes

{quoted}

The tricky thing would be that you'd still need to find ways to preserve their machine-gun aspect (A lot of sustained damage), as well as taking into account that the auto attacking has no inherent counterplay in itself. I'm not saying its impossible, I'm just saying its harder to do for a marksmen than something more ability focused

Yeah I agree but we have champions like Jhin who are arguable nowhere close to being a machine gun but does the role decently

GrandpaTheGreat3 votes

While Jhin doesn't have the machine gun aspect, he still has some similar issues (The Auto attacks themselves are super consistent and don't have too much in the way of counterplay aside from running from the fourth bullet)

Teridax682 votes

Indeed, the focus on autoattacks is what gives marksmen such a high baseline amount of reliability. At the same time, though, members of other classes do tend to have a (much smaller) minimum of reliability on their own effects, whether it's through proximity-based effects, point-and-click abilities, or just their own autoattacks, so the issue with marksmen isn't so much that they're the only reliable class, imo, but that they're the only class that has so much power focused into an innately reliable effect.

I think one way to preserve the machine gun aspect could be to just make whichever steroids they have much less reliable. Ashe's Q is a good example of this, where she has to land a few shots first before empowering her damage, and even something like Jinx's Q, where each of her steroids carries significant tradeoffs, could allow marksmen to remain powerful while being more interactive overall. The fact that they have so much reliability through their autoattacks, though, to me suggests that they shouldn't just be given the same kinds of skillshot nukes or effects as other classes, who get to have moderately unreliable effects precisely because they don't have anything else that's innately reliable.

GrandpaTheGreat2 votes

The first paragraph there really gets at what I was thinking about, its hard to make marksmen as conditional as Riot likes their champions when so much of their power is in this reliable mechanic. As you talked a bit about, adding unreliability to their steroids could be a very good path to go. Making it more difficult to control when it goes off (Like a Vlad Q), or requiring some kind of build-up like Ashe Q. However things like Ashe's Q and on-hit passives such as Vayne w tend to lose counterplay as the game goes on, since they get proc'd so quickly there isn't any feasible way to play around it.

Rick Yiordan1 votes

if adc had telegraphed abilities there is no reason to play them anymore since assassins would instantly dominate them

xJLx MCHammer4 votes

[{quoted}](name=Rick Yiordan,realm=NA,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=AV88vP1p,comment-id=0000,timestamp=2017-10-01T17:41:38.326+0000)

if adc had telegraphed abilities there is no reason to play them anymore since assassins would instantly dominate them

Care to explain? A Xayah and Corki have telgraphed abilities. They don't get dominated against assassins.

GrandpaTheGreat1 votes

There are already plenty of ADCs that do get instantly dominated by decent assassins, but still manage to function well because of their other strengths. Miss Fortune, Jhin, and Kog'Maw come to mind

Wildlife11 votes

Ezreal is another one that can fall in that category, even quinn can be considered for that

BALDG1VEN BOOMER1 votes

Yes, one of the things I like about Xayah R E combo is that you see it coming and also know it’s going to crit.

Same can be said for Jhin 4th shot.

Chembaron Yamada1 votes

There are quite some telegraphed abilities in marksmen kits already....

Caitlyn Passive: Headshot is telegraphed, so you should avoid getting hit by it. Q: Telegraphed with her stance W: Arming time and visible R: Highly telegraphed, roots her and shows the line it goes through so you can body block

Draven Q: Landing spot of his axes, showing you where he is most likely going to move

Graves Q: Second impact is delayed, if it doesn't hit a wall

Jhin Basically everything he does is delayed, telegraphed or other forms of counterplay

Jinx W: Telegraphed and roots her E: Arming time delay R: Roots her and telegraphed

Tristana E: Has to charge up by attacking, that is telegraphed

Twitch E: has to stack his passive for the full damage, telegraphed

Varus Q: Telegraphed With stack mechanic just like Twitch.

In your OP it sounds like ADCs don't have any delayed skills with counterplay at all, but that is not true.

xJLx MCHammer2 votes

{quoted}

There are quite some telegraphed abilities in marksmen kits already....

Caitlyn Passive: Headshot is telegraphed, so you should avoid getting hit by it. Q: Telegraphed with her stance W: Arming time and visible R: Highly telegraphed, roots her and shows the line it goes through so you can body block

Draven Q: Landing spot of his axes, showing you where he is most likely going to move

Graves Q: Second impact is delayed, if it doesn't hit a wall

Jhin Basically everything he does is delayed, telegraphed or other forms of counterplay

Jinx W: Telegraphed and roots her E: Arming time delay R: Roots her and telegraphed

Tristana E: Has to charge up by attacking, that is telegraphed

Twitch E: has to stack his passive for the full damage, telegraphed

Varus Q: Telegraphed With stack mechanic just like Twitch.

In your OP it sounds like ADCs don't have any delayed skills with counterplay at all, but that is not true.

Yes, some are telegraphed. The problem is, most of the abilities you mentioned is not damaged related.

Chembaron Yamada1 votes

Actually, the opposite. Most of the skills I mentioned are damage related.

Caitlyn Q, W and R are all damage related. Draven Q is pure damage. Graves Q is pure damage. Jhin has damage related skills with Q, E and R. Jinx R is pure damage for executes. Tristana E is pure damage. Twitch E is pure damage. Varus Q is pure damage.

So, I don't get the point here. If you mean that these skills are not the main damage source for these champions, that's something else. But Juggernauts have that unreliable damage, since they are allowed to have tankiness on top of that. The damage of a marksman doesn't have to be highly unreliable. That's the main point you bring them in the game in the end.

xJLx MCHammer1 votes

{quoted}

Actually, the opposite. Most of the skills I mentioned are damage related.

Caitlyn Q, W and R are all damage related. Draven Q is pure damage. Graves Q is pure damage. Jhin has damage related skills with Q, E and R. Jinx R is pure damage for executes. Tristana E is pure damage. Twitch E is pure damage. Varus Q is pure damage.

So, I don't get the point here. If you mean that these skills are not the main damage source for these champions, that's something else. But Juggernauts have that unreliable damage, since they are allowed to have tankiness on top of that. The damage of a marksman doesn't have to be highly unreliable. That's the main point you bring them in the game in the end.

Sorry, what i meant to say is damage related to their AA

Outside of Varus, whom I already said has telegraphed abilities.

Jhin I already said is solid Graves isn't really considered an ADC, is he?

Champion Skin1 votes

Tristana E: Has to charge up by attacking, that is telegraphed

Well to be fair not like you are likely to avoid it being charged up if Tristana is strong since she can just jump in with her W and not like you can do much to avoid her AA's... but then again outside early game Tristana isn't particularly reliant on her E (late game it likely will only deal 1 AA worth of damage while requiring 4 AA's to charge up so it is more important to just keep auto attacking rather than caring about the little damage that E adds)

Kaìju1 votes

Part of the issue is how Riot struggles to design Marksmen. They once mentioned in a QnA session that a lot of the time they start with the goal to design a Marksman, give them this really cool kit, and then say: "Shit, we designed a mage." They struggle to find new and meaningful ways to make Marksman new because in the end all Makrsmen have a very similar kit set up. Taking MF, Ashe, Tristana, Twitch, Kog, and Lucian into view, they all have some sort of auto attack steroid, and some kind of trade tool/poke. MF is a lethality assassin/burst mage style caster with crits if you're a doof like me, Ashe is a utility carry with tons of CC and vision, Tristana is a mobile hyper carry, Twitch is a semi mobile hyper carry, Kog is a super immobile hyper carry, and Lucian is a hyper mobile early game bully. But in all, despite being bullies, caster, carries, and utility centered champs, they all have fairly similar kits. Compare that to burst, zone control, and DPS/DOT mages who all fill a similar role but do them in very different ways. I love ADC, Ashe is my favorite champ, but I kinda think that maybe Riot should explore removing their auto attack steroids and giving them something else. Maybe scaling range with level, or more utility, maybe just more delayed damage with windows of opportunity. What to I know, I'm not IWD.

Naqel1 votes

More marksmen should be like Varus and Jhin, where their AA's are mostly a setup for their abilities or vice-versa. Special shoutout here goes to Graves who would make for an interesting champion in lane, were he able to compete there at all.

Caitlyn has some untapped potential, but her headshot mechanic is a glorified steroid rather than a proper point of mastery.

Draven and Xayah are about what a pure AA champion should target in terms of mechanics, where the interplay between all the passives makes it so that you can actually deny them damage through more than just staying out of range, but shutting that output down should be more meaningful.

Every other marksman is a rather boring variation on the same few risk/reward ratios based on range and mobility cooldowns. They might play differently on a superficial level, but which one is flavor of the month is a matter of tuning, not the team-comp meta.

Acheron161 votes

You mean like Caitlyn Caitlyn or Graves Graves?

Literally every skill on Cait's kit except her E is telegraphed, yet for like 3 months she was the Devil incarnate in these forums. Graves the same (well less telegraphed).

There are already a LOT of telegraphed marksmen, people just don't like when they do their job right.

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