Giving More Champions Their Identity

So I recently watched a patch rundown in which they talked about Azir. Apparently, Azir was ready to be sent to live about 2 years ago, but Riot felt that his kit felt plain, like he was just another mage. According to Riot, they've recently been trying to stop doing this, they want to give each champion an identity, a reason you do or do not pick that champion over others. This is very good, and I like this idea. It's why they added neat mechanics like Azir's ability to make turrets, or the wind wall, or how Gnar uncontrollably switches forms. This is an awesome idea. However, what I want to discuss right now is how we will give more relevant and viable identities to our adc's.

Adc's tend to be very unbalanced, not in their own power, but in relation to one another. There will either be a couple of lane bullies, like Caitlyn or Lucian, that hold the spotlight, or hyper carries like tristana will take over and become unstoppable. I feel that this is caused by the lack of variety in what an adc can do.

Playing as an adc feels a bit like a jrpg, and not in a good way. Don't get me wrong, there is a level of skill involved, and there is some room for outplay, but at the end of the day it feels like most of it is about who has the best stats. It's not like duels in the mid lane where you see awesome outplays, or like duels in the top lane or the jungle. It feels more like you're just throwing yourself at your enemy and hoping you win, which, if you have the better stats, you generally will in a 1v1. Hyper carries and good early gamers have taken the stage so often because they have the better stats at those points in the game and how they utilize them is more efficient at their respective points in the game.

That's why I want a bit more for adc's, but not simply higher stats. Take Graves for example. Pretty much every buff I've seen on graves has been buffing his q and his ult. Now perhaps he did need these buffs, but I find that this won't really make Graves his own champion. At the end of the day, he'll either get too strong from that, or he'll be outclassed by other people.

So now, to get to my point. Let's give adc's like Graves a reason you pick them over other adc's. Give them an identity. Graves has a bit of one so far, but it feels unfinished. When you play graves, you want to get in close to do a ton of damage with your q. However, this strategy lacks as much value as the game progresses, because getting too close as an adc will get you destroyed. But I do see potential in this identity.

Wouldn't Graves feel better as a champion, if there was a big reason to pick him? Wouldn't it be cool if Graves was that champion you picked when the enemy tried to focus on close combat champions that can dive you, like Jax? Imagine if Graves was the adc that countered stuff like jax, people who had to get that close to deal a ton of damage. That would give players a reason to pick Graves over other champions.

Now i'm not saying that this is simply about buffing unviable adc's. Stats can simply be changed when someone gets op, but it becomes a back and forth between who is op at what time. Why not add mechanics instead. Graves should get insane burst for being close to people, but should be lacking against people who can burst him without getting that close. What if, to do this, we changed the way his w functioned, make his w a close combat ability. This would add a huge and interesting mechanic and reason to pick graves. it would be unique, not to mention cool.

Every champion should have an identity, a reason you pick them besides the numbers, and adc's are included. Let's give a larger identity to more champions, like varus who frankly has always felt to me like a weaker kogmaw. Seriously, be it ap or ad, kog is still stronger, and does percentage health magic damage every single aa rather than having to use abiliites to pop blight stacks.

So let's do something crazy with adc's, riot said they wanted to think crazy, like with Azir turret and wind wall, so let's do the same for this sort of thing. Make varus that adc you pick when you want a ton of aoe on your adc when you want to have an assassin mid, by changing his passive to something completely different from the passives of all other adc's, like giving him runnan's passive on his passive. Ya it's crazy, but let's go for crazy, let's spice up adc's. What do you guys think? Wouldn't it be nice for some of those adc's that just feel lacking to obtain a purpose?