Botlane and Diversity; How do we do it right?

I want to preface this with I am an ADC main and, while I'm able to play a multitude of ADCs(Jinx, Cait, Xayah, Twitch, Ashe, Varus), I'm primarily a Tristana OTP. I've only been playing since about mid season 5, starting maybe a few patches before the Juggernaut rework. But for most of that time, I've been a bot lane player.

I enjoy playing marksmen; they're perhaps my favorite class. I've always enjoyed characters that can kite back from range using minor mobility abilities and constant and persistent DPS. It's a playstyle that feels very satisfying to play.

So even if there was more champions being played bot, I personally wouldn't be interested in them. That said, I understand where other people are coming from; sometimes you want a change or you want to still be bot but play a different style. Sometimes it feels like your team comp is awful and you know how you could fix it but you're the bot carry and you feel obligated or locked into picking a marksmen. I get those feelings and I understand how diversity would be nice in those cases.

#I personally am not against diversity for bot lane.

However, I am of the opinion that there is a right and wrong way of handling diversity in bot lane.

8.11 and its fall out was the wrong way. Even if I remove myself from the issue as just an "ADC main," 8.11 was a bad patch and ended up being rather hamfisted on Riot's part.

While yes, other champions were now "viable" bot, in the wake of the harsh over nerfs, many marksmen began underperforming. This can be accounted to many factors:

The marksmen class as a whole has been a staple of bot lane for many seasons; as a result of this, Riot has balanced them with the intention that they would be in a duo lane by giving their abilities lower base damage, their base stats being lower, and their scaling defenses, overall, less impressive.

The lower base stats don't even account for the base stat nerfs that Riot plied to the marksmen class during 8.11; the namely important ones here are the lowering of their base AD and the lowering of their health regen. These are important to mention namely because it means, in laning phase, marksmen were hitting weaker and regening less for bad trades(also exacerbated by nerfs to fleet, their primary keystone). This meant that mages who came bot had the damage of their abilities(which already have a higher base damage than many supports and ADCs) sticking more and bruisers-with boneplating, second wind, dorans shield and relic-were able to survive or straight out ignore the weaker ADC AAs.

Harsh price jacks of ADC items also meant that many of them could, potentially, have the same amount of gold in their pocket but still be down an item due to the price and build path of their items. While this did lead to the desired effect of marksmen being "late game," their power curve through the game became more of a sheer cliff side instead of a gentle slope.

All of these compounded into marksmen feeling a lack of agency or importance or even power with in their own games as mages and bruisers(many of whom have always been viewed as early to midgame champions intended to fall off later) completely ran them over with their superior base stats, better sustain, and cheaper builds. They have been since buffed back up and, while none of the previous off meta mages and bruisers have received nerfs(aside from swain), they have slowly slipped back into obscurity.

I fully believe that the favorite picks that cropped up after 8.11 are still viable but at this point it falls more into an issue of what is comfortable or, in some cases, enjoyable for many bot lane mains. Many players prefer to play marksmen as that is the class that they enjoy and feel most comfortable with and this is likely the biggest hindrance to bot lane diversity; the individuals who play the lane simply flat out prefer to play marksmen.

Which leads into my point about how can Riot make diversity bot lane the right way, where no classes are invalidated or feel alienated. One way, I feel would help things along would be to rework some of the more traditional marksmen in a way that they could function somewhere else, perhaps mid or jungle and then do the same with a handful of mages only for bot lane. Another way would be to find a way to make bot lane appealing to top/mid mains and make top and mid more appealing to bot lane mains; as it stands, I feel that interest and appeal is a large part of the problem for diversity.

I am interested in other's thoughts on the matter as a whole; many individuals seemed to believe that the primary complaint of the post 8.11 fall out was simply the diversity bot. I am here to say, as an ADC main, if it was handled well, I would be fine with diversity. As long as it didn't result in the crowding out of one class or another.

Note: Was originally sent in for posting at Gameplay + but was turned down. However, this is still a topic I want to seriously discuss without bias so I am reposting it in Gameplay.