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If you don't peel for your ADC: Don't expect them to survive.

CloakAndGrenade·6/14/2019, 7:16:31 AM·70 votes·18,256 views

If the enemy team has a Pyke, Zac, and Cho, don't expect your ADC to be able to dodge them all. If the enemy team has a Kayne and an Ekko, don't be surprised when your ADC gets popped. If an enemy Tahm Kench flashes on top of your ADC and he is allowed to proc his passive damage, don't even bother pinging when your ADC becomes fish food.

In a Meta where complaints of high damage and low cooldowns the class with the least mobility and utility still catches the most flack for getting dove on. Even Ezreal with his ability to rush an Iceborn and dash away with his E is not immune to assassins. In the current meta assassins are cutting through tanks like butter and tanks are designed to counter them specifically. Meanwhile, assassins are built around the idea of blowing up the ADC. Not to mention bruisers, divers, and other class ranges that can effortlessly blow up an ADC if they managed to get to them unless the ADC is unimaginably fed.

So if your team doesn't lock in a single CC heavy champ in the entire lineup, expect your ADC to die. If the only dive stopping CC in your line-up is a Pantheon stun and he's using that to engage, expect your ADC to die. If you've locked in Karthus support and are using your slow-wall to engage rather than to peel the Pyke off your ADC, expect your ADC to die. If the only CC on your team is being used to engage, expect your ADC to die.

The best marksmen in the entire world, sitting on the worlds and MSI stages, cannot survive fights without CC and frontline to enable them. Every composition at the pro level has CC of some form because it makes or breaks fights. Positioning can only get you so far; if the best players in the world can't get by on just positioning alone, how can you expect your ADC to?

I don't play much ADC. I'm a fill main so primarily I play Support, Jungle, and Top; Depending on the current meta and which roles people just don't want to play. However, when I do, it seems I'm guaranteed to be stuck with a lineup without a single ounce of peel. I keep quiet and I keep calm. As a fill player I don't mind playing at a disadvantage as long as my team is ahead. My team though, always seems confused when we don't have the CC to keep a Diana or Katarina off me that I die. Even the safest ADC's do not match the mobility on their own, they need peel or damage from their team to burst the assassin or diver down. The team engages hard in the enemy ADC, I'm positioned towards the back-middle of my team as I should be (since it offers the most protection and access to the enemy team, specifics situational of course), when the enemy Zed slips past the team and ults me. Not a single member of my team turns, I dash, flash, and heal away but in many cases the raw base damage from the ultimate is enough. Even if it's not, the Zed has another hop and his own flash remaining to finish me off. This does not necessarily bother me. If I get taken out, but my team wins the 4v4, we are golden.

But then the MIA pings start to fall. "Trash." "Garbage" "Silver" "Bronze" "Are you for real?" "Did you buy your account?" The team manages to lose the 4v4 and they blame the fact that I am not doing damage. Me. The ADC they didn't even make an effort to help surely should be able to 1v1 a Zed or a Kayn on his own right? No. That's not how this game has ever worked. In no elo, during no patch, in any season has an ADC who is not absurdly fed been able to 1v1 an assassin or diver unless the assassin/diver misplays the fight so horrendously they were earning their way to a demotion to begin with. You need CC to pop these people and you need the team to focus.

When I play support I often pick up Lulu, Janna, Zilean, or Taric for the very purpose of denying the enemy diver the kill. If Zed can't pop my ADC, we win the fights. The difference just one peel focused, anti-assassin oriented pick makes is enormous. Even the likes of Shen and Thresh can get the job done, allowing the ADC to get off their DPS and making fights competitive.

TL;DR? If you don't stop assassins, don't be shocked when assassins do their job.

Thank you for coming to my TED Talk.

86 Comments

Woodakoodashooda6/14/2019, 7:35:00 AM27 votes

I play a lot of support and I personally do not expect my ADC to survive every fight. Hell, I don't expect them to be intelligent enough not to front line the enemy without vision.

What I can expect from my ADC is to complain when I get out of a lost fight and they wonder why it is they died and I didn't.

DOUBLE TAPPED E6/14/2019, 10:32:03 AM27 votes

Don't listen to this guy ADCs don't need peel he is trying to trick you.

...as a Kat main I know these kinds of things :)

The Kombinator6/14/2019, 9:45:43 AM20 votes

I will not, if he is an idiot. I play mainly protector support, but there are rules, that the ADC needs to understand.

  1. You are not frontliner. I can't save you, if you get pulled into the middle of 5 enemies. And there is no support, that can.

  2. If we lost botlane, then we lost. Get over it. Pushing, and dying 5 more times will not make us stronger than them. Play safe, and wait for jungler. We can try again after 6. Also if they are 6, and we are not, then don't go fighting.

  3. If you are weak, and another teammate is strong, then i gona protect him instead, if possible. A 4/0 Yi worths more, than a 0/3 Jinx.

  4. I'm not on you 24/7. There are certain circumstances when i abandon you for shorter/longer times. I always ping, if i do, and if you ignore it, then that's your fault. For example helping out our jungle against counterjungling, or warding, or if i'm low health.

OtterlyLost6/14/2019, 2:05:57 PM11 votes

As an ADC Main, Thank You. :( Everyone just assumes when you're frustrated and complain that you're just being whiney when in reality, you're just frustrated that no one on the team wants to do the bare minimum to allow you to play the game. Its extremely frustrating to win lane but know it won't matter because the support is playing someone like Brand or Lux or, lately, Yuumi and your jungle/mid/top all picked carries. It never fails that the game is lost because it doesn't matter; you can't 1v5 no matter how fed you are and even if your support is a Yuumi, I often find I don't see her after laning phase; she's usually attached herself to one of the solo laners who usually need the least amount of protection.

Another thing to mention is that I don't think that most people realize just how large some of the enemy gap closers are. Just for a frame of reference, at level 18, Tristana has the highest normal AA range of any ADC in the game at 661. That is her normal AA Range with no abilities or RFC increasing it. 661 units away. Now compare that to the ranges of several assassins and diver's dashes/engages:

Zed His W's Target range is 650 but the effective radius of it is 1950. His Ult range also is 625. He literally only has to W forward and then ult and he is range of a Tristana at her max AA range. Camille Hookshot has an affective combined range of 1200. She can just Hook shot from behind her team and the Tristana will never know and even better, will be stunned. And that is while being inside her team. This isn't even acknowledging her ult which gives her an additional 475 range. Akali Shruiken flip is fairer than other assassins, I will readily admit but as a skill shot, it has a range of 650 and getting hit with it makes it a global dash. Her ult also has a range of 600 on the first cast and a range of 700 on the second. Diana Her ult range is actually fucking huge. 825 is her ult range and if she hits you with her Q(which is weird to dodge in general and has a range of 900), she literally gets to do that twice. Khazix Not only does this fucker have stealth so he can literally just free walk up and nab Tristana with no warning but he also has a jump with a range of 700 to 900. So once she blows her jump(which is a longer CD than Kha'zix's as well; 14 seconds compared to the bugs 12) to get away from his stealth, he can literally free jump her with no real counter play from Tristana herself.

And these are just a few examples. If you want you can compare these to less safe ADCs like Jinx or Kog who use abilities to extend their range further than Trist(Jinx gets up too 700 range in rocket form and Kog gets up to 710); it still doesn't look amazing. There's only so much an ADC can do when everyone champion has a dash or blink larger than their AA range.

Ragnaveil6/14/2019, 1:31:30 PM8 votes

Kinda hard when tanks, the class known to help provide a frontline that keeps ADCs safe, are paper thin objects in this meta. % Pen's been jacked so high that even Assassins will cut them (as Pika mentioned) like butter. Here's what needs to be done for tanks to come back:

  • Give them better mr and armor stats than Juggernauts. Juggs right now hold the highest, with some support exceptions like Pyke and Ali. Why does Maokai have 39 armor when someone in the tank class like Ali has 44 base armor? Just doesn't make sense regardless of if they have sustain in their kit or not.
  • Give them some waveclear bonuses on their waveclear spells. Not something high like 50%, but 25% would go long ways. Damage dealers can easily waveclear nowadays, and with how minions changed, it makes it impossible for tanks to really clear waves without having to spam their spell 5 times.
  • Lower % Pen amounts. Since base is now added into the equation, there's no reason to keep them at this high amount.
D357R0Y3R6/14/2019, 11:01:34 AM7 votes

{quoted}

If the enemy team has a Pyke, Zac, and Cho, don't expect your ADC to be able to dodge them all.

literally wtf?

are we talking about a 1v3 scenario or a 5v5 scenario?

Because aside Zac's E an adc should have no troubles surviving against anything else, cho's Q is heavily delayed and pyke cannot channel Q inside a teamfight to reach an adc without it being blocked / him getting struck by a cc.

Truly Prideful6/14/2019, 1:55:13 PM6 votes

I like getting slammed with ? pings after a fight I spent running for my life since my team forgot I existed. FeelsGoodMan

Saezio6/14/2019, 2:35:39 PM6 votes

Yeah kinda true, but adcs need to stop commiting if they don't have a clear escape plan in mind. Just stay outside of the enemy champions range, just don't auto anyone until you have a clear plan of how to navigate the fight.

Zac has a huge ass shadow bellow you, cho Q takes 5 years to erupt, and if my adc is hit by pyke Q the adc is an idiot.

Also,

PSA!!! ADC PLAYERS 600g for a stopwatch is a great investment! you don't need to upgrade it, if it wins you a teamfight the investment was worth it. LEARN TO USE THE FUCKING THING, especially if your flash is down, just sacrifice the 600g it's nothing

Sodeb Lacudomite6/14/2019, 4:24:42 PM5 votes

If you don't peel your ADC, don't expect them to do damage.

There I fixed it for you =) You should stay safe and damage who you can, if you can. But if you die, it's still your fault. Team don't peel you? Well them you have to stay 3km behind and be useless... but don't die for nothing.

Or hey, that's my non professional humble opinion =)

Jane Darby6/15/2019, 3:20:17 AM5 votes

Hahahaha you're actually expecting people to play this game as if they were a team lmao. The game is all about who can get fed the fastest and do the most damage to snowball and carry. Riot took that ability away from marksmen last season when they removed them from the game. I don't even know why people still play them.

Also to people's comments about marksmen "split pushing", well maybe it's because they need the gold, and if they group mid, the jgl and mid take all the cs, and if the marksman doesn't split, no one else will so the waves just get pushed into tower basically forfeiting the game because no one else in low elo understands why waves need to constantly be pushed.

New players just want to do a ton of damage and solo carry.

Let's face it no one cares about marksmen anymore because they DON'T want to have to protect them. When in reality marksmen players are probably the smartest players on the team and know better than to go into jungles without vision. Know not to engage when they are alone. Know when they are able to help and not help. But everyone just lives on an island in their own little world and wants to pass blame on everyone else for their own mistakes. If one more person tells me not to shoot their front line when that's the only target I have access to (because no one peels or protects and their front line isnt just gonna let me walk by them to hit a squishy) and marksmen are dps tank killers, I'm gonna flip some tables.

No one that plays this game respects marksmen. When in reality they should be following their lead more often than not. So many people complain about marksmen "not helping" so they just spam ping the player. How about you go help the marksman do whatever their doing? Hmmm? Ever thought about that?

Hemulen Magi6/14/2019, 5:11:15 PM3 votes

Some champions are actually impossible to peel. item 3147 MonkeyKing Rengar Kayn Sorry, but unless they're terrible and not fed, the only way you're keeping these guys from 1-shotting you as a marksman is to ward the map and keep a full lane's gap with your team between them and you, or retreat to the other half of the map if you see them approaching... Your best bet is item 3026 if you want to make it possible to peel for you.

Minimac20006/15/2019, 7:04:15 AM2 votes

Counterpoint: if I'm playing an engage support and have a 2/7 adc with a 9/3 enemy adc. I'm not peeling for you. It is more useful to the teamfight to keep the enemy adc not doing damage and then dead, than it is to keep you alive. Happens sometimes

2.There is often not much that can actually be done to keep the kill from happening against champs like blue Kayn Evelynn and Rengar Quinn Khazix. Zed can be easily peeled if you know his ult timing but these other obnoxious turds come out of nowhere and one shot everything in .0001 seconds bringing cc isn't real useful. Bring damage to save the fight with no adc instead

3.Applies mostly to the ezreal case. A ezreal is trash rn. B, it is often really hard to cover the 1200 units that you and the assassin both flashed, blinked and ran through before you die if you go away from everyone. Try creating space by going perpendicular to the fight instead of straight backwards so that your immobile support who doesn't have 3 dashes like every other champ in the game can actually help you

Thanks!

Pika Fox6/14/2019, 11:14:17 AM2 votes

In what world is an assassin slicing through tanks like butter?