HOW do you lane as an ADC at low elo?

stereal·May 1, 2018·5 votes·3,182 views

I seriously can't take it anymore. It's legit cancer. It's impossible unless I want to play some boring champion like and just play like a bitch the whole game.

I'm in silver and I mainly play . I can actually play them to a decent level, I'm not one of those silver players that think I am some god player. I'm trash compared to pros but I know I can confidently say I can play their mechanics to a good level and I have had some very successful games with them. Team fighting is not the problem I struggle with, it's the laning stage.

Here are my problems I struggle really hard with, please help me:

If I play passive we just get stomped in lane and I get no farm
if I play aggressive my support is too pussy to do anything and half of the time they're behind ME in lane instead of actually helping me and then I just die. (I've had blitz players on my team legit do nothing but afk at the tower while I have to 1v2 and try to cs as Vayne)
I also end up versing some cancer support that isn't really even a meta support but they just dominate me with their poke, like fiddlestick's dark wind, just pokes me to death I need like 3 health potions every time I back. Lux just bullies me, Veigar just presses e when I come up to cs, and don't even get me started with Brand. A lot of these lanes I feel like I can't even win I have to just play like a bitch at the tower and get no cs.
And to top it all off, when I am behind, and I try to catch up and freeze my lane and just cs, my team mates are always wanting to go full 5v5 aram mid like 15 minutes in (most of the time its just them going back and forth doing nothing) and then blame me for not helping them.

I seriously have no idea what to do anymore, please help me guys.

16 Comments

ChalzeMay 1, 20184 votes

If I can chime in on anything, it'd be this, though I do warn you, it's very cliche: 90% of all matchups in LoL do not require you to play either fully passive or aggressive. The majority of lane winners are opportunists.

But anyway, in terms of getting stomped when playing passive, when you do play passive generally you would want to at least have some plan or instinct to retaliate. In most situations when the enemy laner does go aggressive on you, you will almost always get a chance to retaliate in some way or another to make it at least not a one-sided trade.

In terms of playing aggressive, well we can't help you if you put the blame on the support. Though, similar to being passive, always have some kind of plan if things go south. You mention that you play Vayne, Ezreal and Miss Fortune, 2 out of 3 of them have some form of hard escape/peel (Ezreal blink, Vayne roll and knockback). Whenever I do anything, not just being aggressive, I always try keep in mind some form of escape. I guess that's easier for me since I hardly ever play champions with no hard mobility though.

Versing meta-breaking supports (or opponents in general) usually is just a laning setback, outside of laning phase proper supports generally do 'support' the team better. Best advice I can give is simply to survive laning phase, kinda like, accept the fact that laning phase ain't gonna be a breeze.

In terms of the last issue, honestly communication is key, as well as a fair amount of 'knowing your own intentions'. Make sure they know that you're fairly useless without being fed thus you resorting to trying to get farm fed. They cannot reject that without being unreasonable or irrational so in that case you shouldn't burden yourself with what would most likely be incoming insults or flaming.

Hope you can get something from this.

sterealMay 1, 20181 votes

Thanks for your help man, I'm going to try to just wait for the enemy to make a mistake first and then initiate off that, instead of doing it myself, and thus I can choose whether to be passive or aggressive about it.

ChalzeMay 1, 20181 votes

Note that some champions are much, MUCH better at capitalizing on enemy mistakes, which often make them much more powerful at lower elo because of it (a.k.a old Darius)

sterealMay 1, 20181 votes

I'll note of that, but I doubt I'll see Darius in bottom lane, I mainly mean adc match ups.

ChalzeMay 1, 20181 votes

Then I wouldn't really know, I only support and hardly ever ADC so I'm always on the prowl for opportunities rather than trying to look out for myself.

Best thing I like to do is to flash in front of my ADC when enemy Blitz hooks

WitchQueen AnnieMay 1, 20182 votes

I've played tons of MissFortune in low elo, I think she is the best for climbing.

You should be able to zone them off from completely bullying you (even with a passive support) if you land/threaten to land a few bouncing Qs. The damage is still bonkers even after all the nerfs and they'll have to respect the threat of it.

You can't play "aggressive" if your support doesn't/can't back you up in the match up. Don't make a conscious effort to play passive or aggressive... just always think in terms of "how many SAFE autos/Qs can I get on the ennemy ADC... if I can't get them off, then I'll just farm." Everything neatly fits into that paradigm. If the Support makes tons of plays, it will follow that you can a lot of safe and free damage off (and you should do it). If the Support doesn't or is bad, then it will naturally follow that you can't.

Your main power is after laning anyways because R wins team fights. There are several ways to use it but its an extremely overpowered tool at your disposal at this elo.

If you have Engage and the Engage is good... then its a simple matter of hitting R when your Engage gets on top of them and starts the fight
If you have no Engage and your team is bunch of clowns... just wait for the enemy team to make a Pick. Wait a few seconds for 2+ people to jump on the Pick (its low elo so they will). Then Ult all of them and win. Rinse and repeat. Its low elo and they will never learn.
If you are focused every team fight by a smart player on a champ like Hecarim, Rammus etc... just don't Show until they Show. After they Show, then you show up to Ult. Its low elo and you'll always win the patience game.

Also, don't go with the Crit build. It takes too long to spike and doesn't load enough AD and CDR into your build fast enough. Lethality is hidden OP (you almost immediately get to 40% CDR and tons of AD so you can Ult over and over and over):

item 3006 item 3147 item 3142 item 3071 item 3031 item 3036

If you get fed early, you have the option of substituting 1 item for item 3072 so you can kite and life steal back too but I would just go straight damage and close it out.

sterealMay 1, 20181 votes

Thank you so much for the MF guide. I really enjoy her a lot, I have heard Conqueror is actually strong on her atm and even some challenger players have been having successful with it? I usually always pick her except when there is a Khazix . Because he always waits and then invis/jumps on me. Maybe the waiting game might work.

need a namexDMay 1, 20181 votes

G is my most used keybind

sterealMay 1, 20181 votes

am I missing something or? how's that helpful whatsoever?

y0r1ckMay 1, 20182 votes

ping more

need a namexDMay 1, 20181 votes

ping more

Velzard of KozMay 1, 20181 votes

If I play passive we just get stomped in lane and I get no farm

How? That is the first question I'd ask.

Shíníng DíamondMay 1, 20181 votes

I'm pretty sure he means that he doesn't force the wave past their own turret. Any trades are one-sided without retaliation, and because you're behind on health and minions you slowly lose any relevance in the game even if you haven't died (which is just a matter of time at that point).

Side note, I personally would like to know what to do in this situation as well. My answer at the point is usually "don't get forced under tower" but I feel like there should be something that you can do.

Velzard of KozMay 1, 20182 votes

If you are pushed under turret, you don't usually trade so you can't lose trades. You can be outpoked but that's kind of different problem. Also that is also problem of a jungler and support. The support could try to pose threat and zone so that you can freeze lane in way where you don't lose farm while you are safely near turret. The jungler should gank If the lane is overextended 24/7.

If you are confident you can dodge poke and farm well under turret, then it may be just problem of your support and jungler being bad.

If you play Vayne like OP mentoined, then even If you lose lane, the enemy bot leaves so you can farm freely to catch up as long as you don't go beyond river and Vayne is supposed to suck early in lane but excel with 2-3 items in teamfights. The team just needs to def and wait for you to scale. If the enemy bot doesn't rotate after destroying turret they ought to overextend in such way they are free food for jungler and If the jungler doesn't show up anyway, yet again, that's not something you can change.

Many of these things are things easy said than done, though, and many of them require capable teammates. You can't change mentality of your teammates, and many of these things fail in low elo because it requires all five players at once to know what to do. Some people may not want to wait for Vayne to catch up in low elo, don't focus the fed ADC in teamfight, lose it hard and that's not something you'll do much about as it requires others to do something.

I lose a lot of games in this elo, too, because either I don't know how to react to my ally's needs or they don't, that is natural, we are in low elo for a reason. But it doesn't happen every game, and it seems to be the OP's problem. Also many of these problems stem from what others do. If the enemy has Blitz support that lands every hook while you have 0-damage 0-supportitem Lux Support that feeds him, you are bound to lose without you being able to do much, but the question is, does this really happen every game?

EleshakaiMay 1, 20181 votes

I see a few warning signs in your post... you're falling into a trap that I see and hear a lot of people do.

I am not an ADC player, I can't offer you specific advice. I play support, so I'm just the person who is trying to help you get CS. I don't know what types of bad supports you've gotten, but communication goes a long way. If you want a really passive lane, tell your support as early as you can, they may change their intended pick to someone who can roam or someone who doesn't need to go aggressive. But communicate. Let your support know that you're really hoping for x and would like them to work around that. It may not go perfect, but it'll go better than just assuming (s)he's going to understand what you want.

Additionally... keep your internal focus on yourself. It's EASY to blame others. And others DO make mistakes. So surely those mistakes are what matters, right? My support keeps screwing up, my jungle's not there, my midlaner fed, etc. It happens. People play poorly. But the reality is that you will never have a perfect game. Ever. Every game you play you will make at least one small mistake.

Which is a GOOD thing. Because it means there's something you had agency over that could have improved the outcome of that game. It means there's something you can focus on to improve! To get better! So do so, focus on yourself. If it helps you, watch your VoDs to see what mistakes you made and learn from them.

As a final thought, back when I was much more active in the game than I am now, I wrote a thread. It's long since been buried by time... but I thought it might be helpful:

https://boards.na.leagueoflegends.com/en/c/tips-tricks/tg1cxnOB-advice-for-enjoying-and-succeeding-in-ranked-play

sterealMay 1, 20182 votes

Thank you for your time for creating this post, I'll have a look at it.