Marksman subclasses

Ralanr··6 votes·1,480 views

So a while back when Riot released their classes and subclasses list they had nothing to divide up marksmen. I honestly found this odd as not all marksmen function the same (though they perform the role in similar ways).

So in my boredom, I've made three subclasses for marksmen that help explain the diversity in the class.

Gunslingers: these are your duelist marksmen. The kind that get close (sometimes too close) and unload everything on you while trying to juke your own plays with their mobility and/or positioning.

Marksmen in this category are: Lucian, Draven, Graves, Ezreal (arguably I think), Vayne, Urgod, Corki, and MF (though MF has the ability to harass like a sniper).

Snipers: they don't like interacting with people. Their kits are built to harass from a distance and keep people from getting in close to them. They normally lack mobility, but that's not always the case.

Sniper marksmen: Jhin, Caitlyn, and Varus. Arguably Sivir.

Shredders: dumb name, but I couldn't think of a better one to describe heavy attack speed/high dps late game marksmen. These are your hypercarries, the ones who are mostly mocked for just right clicking for easy pentas. While they normally have a great late game, they (hopefully) have a terrible early game.

The key difference in shredders is that they are much more attack speed reliant than other marksmen.

Shredder ADCs: Vayne (because she's both), Twitch, Jinx, and arguably Ashe (idk where to put a heavy utility marksman)

If you disagree with the listings or have a better name for shredders, please share in the comments.

14 Comments

Hanthony1 votes

You forgot to put Kalista in gunslingers.

Ralanr3 votes

She has her own place: Garbage.

Joking aside, yeah she'd probably be a gunslinger if not a shredder.

HeeroTX1 votes

item 3070 Tristana item 3070

Ralanr1 votes

Probably a shredder.

kasfas1 votes

Casters: marksmen who use primarily spells as their main source of damage while weaving in some autos in between

Blasters: marksmen who use primarily auto attacks as their main source of damage with a few spells

How I would separate them

Ralanr1 votes

{quoted}

Casters: marksmen who use primarily spells as their main source of damage while weaving in some autos in between

Blasters: marksmen who use primarily auto attacks as their main source of damage with a few spells

How I would separate them

Those names sound very uninspired. At least call casters "Trickshots" or something.

50000000000000001 votes

I'm not sure if that's a meaningful distinction. There are no main strengths/weaknesses inherent for each subclass, and many within the same class play very differently, and even similarly to a marksman of another subclass.

Caitlyn and Ezreal for example are both marksmen that focus on long range and safety for damage output, but Ezreal would be a caster whereas Caitlyn would be a blaster. And there are also instances like Cassiopeia who play essentially like an AA carry, but would be classified as a caster since she technically doesn't AA.

50000000000000001 votes

I think it's okay to not have subclasses for Marksmen. Not because marksmen as a class isn't diverse, but rather because using hybrids as a descriptor work pretty well.

Here's the official list of Marksmen Vayne Caitlyn Ashe Corki Draven Jinx Kalista Kog’Maw Lucian Miss Fortune Sivir Tristana Kindred Ezreal (hybrid Artillery) Twitch (hybrid Assassin) Quinn (hybrid Assassin) Jhin (hybrid Burst Mage) Graves (hybrid Skirmisher) Kayle (hybrid Enchanter) Azir (hybrid Disruptor) Mini Gnar

Vayne is a hybrid skirmisher with all her mobility, strong duel potential, invisibility, and %HP true damage. Caitlyn would be a marksman/disruptor, due to the strong zoning with her traps. Ashe would best fit a Marksman/disruptor with her stun and AoE slows. Corki would be marksman/artillery Draven would be pure marksman

Not everyone fits into the hybrid categorization, but then there are many others like that too.

Pentium21 votes

Draven is a duelist, skirmisher, burst carry.

50000000000000001 votes

Duelist and burst carry aren't champion subclasses, and I don't think the way you use skirmisher is how Riot is using the word.

Poppy (Warden) is a duelist, Trundle (Juggernaut) is a duelist, Irelia (Diver) is a duelist, etc. "Being good at 1v1s" doesn't really describe how a champion fights. Same goes for skirmisher (which I assume you mean "good in small fights"). Pantheon and Camille are also good in small fights, but we wouldn't group them together with Draven or Ekko. Burst carry just means they have a lot of burst damage. You wouldn't put AP Malphite and Draven together as a subclass.

By "pure marksman," I just mean that he's not a tank, fighter, mage, controller, or slayer.

Pentium21 votes

Well I'm not a native speaker, so I guess it's my bad. Yeah indeed, that's exactly how I thought about those things

But my problem with theese names then is that, they make less sense to me this way.

I call every champion a skirmisher which is better (or easier to perform with) in skirmishes, than in teamfights.

So if battle mages are mages with sustained dmg, bust mages are mages with burst dmg.

Draven has sustained burst dmg, so that's why I thought he could be called a burst carry, and because of mainly having burst dmg he has a harder time to deal with tanks, so it should fit there.

Actually I'm getting a bit confused.

A lot of theese offical subclasses don't really make sense to me, how is Jax a skirmisher and not a Diver? (almost every bruiser was listed as a diver)

Then what does skirmisher mean exactly? Does it have to do anything with not having to build tank items in order to be tanky? I mean is that the connection between those champs?

Skirmishers

Fiora
Riven
Yasuo
Tryndamere
Master Yi
Jax
Ekko
50000000000000001 votes

I think the "skirmisher" was a poor name chosen on Riot's part, when the term was already being used to describe something else. Right now, Skirmishers are described as following: "Unlike Assassins, Skirmishers aim to shred through any nearby enemy that approaches. Because Skirmishers lack high-end burst damage or reliable ways of closing in on high-priority targets, they are instead armed with situationally powerful defensive tools to survive in the fray, along with extreme sustained damage to cut down even the most durable targets."

Skirmishers have powerful but situational defensive abilities that must be well timed, coupled with high damage output. Fiora has Riposte, Riven has all the little dashes, Yasuo has wind wall and dashes, etc. Jax's Counter Strike and ultimate was good enough to make him a skirmisher, I guess? He doesn't feel like a skirmisher imo. He's definitely a diver.

I guess I see your point on burst carry, though. That may be a meaningful distinction, since not all Marksmen are good at killing tanks.

Pentium21 votes

All right, thanks for the explanation.

Teridax681 votes

I agree with most of these subclasses, specifically the Gunslinger and Shredder subclasses. However, I'd personally swap out the Sniper category for a utility marksman subclass, which would include Ashe, Kalista, Kayle, (somewhat) Sivir, Urgot and (somewhat) Varus, and would basically represent marksmen who sacrifice a portion of their consistent damage output in exchange for utility and crowd control that benefit their entire team. The idea behind this is I think Snipers can all technically qualify as hybrids between Gunslingers (Jhin and Caitlyn are both cooldown-based and have tools to quickly reposition) and Artillery, whereas utility-centric marksmen are a category of their own. I'd put both Sivir and Varus in as Shredders as well, since they have a lot of AoE/quick-fire damage.

When I thought about marksmen subclasses a little while back, the names I had in mind for Shredders were Eradicators (Exterminators?), and the idea behind it was that they were the subclass of marksmen with the most consistent DPS and often a lot of AoE as well, which made them the best in teamfights, as they could eradicate the entire enemy team given a proper setup. I called utility marksmen Commanders, and duelist marksmen Skirmishers (Gunslingers work, and I took the name mainly because I thought it was more appropriate for marksmen than for light fighters).

One big reason why it's difficult to separate marksmen now, though, is because there's still so much overlap across champions in the class that you could easily fit them into two or more of any "standard" category. Marksmen as a class can count objective control, tank-shredding, mass DPS and pushing power among their strengths, but even on champions who aren't meant to be great at one of those factors, e.g. Caitlyn or Vayne with waveclearing, they're still stronger there than most other champions. On top of that, several marksmen possess strengths usually reserved to other classes, e.g. large amounts of burst, which makes defining their strengths and weaknesses even more difficult. All of this is after the entire class got the biggest update it ever received since the start of the game, which suggests there's still a long ways to go before it'll be in perfect shape.

More from Gameplay

More by Ralanr