Marksmen's state 5 days after the patch

D357R0Y3R·Jun 4, 2018·19 votes·11,933 views

https://lolalytics.com/ranked/worldwide/current/platinum/plus/grid/

49.5% win rate 49.9% win rate 52.5% win rate 50% win rate 50% win rate 49% win rate 51% win rate 50% win rate 53% win rate 49% win rate

Marksmen who always had a low win rate: 48% win rate, didn't change

Marksmen who dropped hard: 47% win rate 48% win rate 46.7% win rate 47% win rate 48% win rate

Kalista tier: 47% win rate from 43%

So far, only Mordekaiser Ziggs and Quinn are seeing plays bot lane with ~~0.1% pick rate (did not count quinn because she's more an assassin than an adc to me, doesn't kill tanks but only dive squishies)

89 Comments

ModKnightsKemplarJun 4, 201821 votes

In a sense, the patch was successful, then. The whole point was to make sure that crit marksmen weren't getting to late game so quickly that they were overbearing. They certainly aren't, so that's good.

Seems like there might need to be a bit more tuning back up; for me, not getting to rush an AD item has been the biggest problem. You can go stormrazer, but then you're further delaying your scaling (I was playing a lot of Ashe, for the record).

Instead, I've been going item 1038 into a item 3086 item just so I can farm. It's working... sort of. But it's definitely sub-optimal, and you can see it in the win rates.

HethaleanJun 4, 20187 votes

I thought for a long time before the marksmen update that BF into Zeal into IE was the best way to go

ModKnightsKemplarJun 4, 20182 votes

I think a lot of people did that, and I see why they did. But before, rushing IE wasn't nuts, especially if you were ahead, because you could grab attack speed pretty quickly with boots (and runes like alacrity).

Now you can't rush IE because it won't do anything by itself. And the problem compounds on itself because your non-optimal build plays right into the hands of the enemy lane bullies like Draven, Lucian, and MF, who can rush a strong item quickly and make your life miserable. So I've been running overheal, legend: bloodline, and fleet footwork just to stay alive in lane and try to get some cs.

I even went for secondary domination in some games yesterday so I could grab taste of blood, but I'm still a walking sack of gold for all the assassins running around until I hit 100% crit. Again, goals achieved, but I think it's relatively clear that it went too far in the other direction at this point. We are back in an assassin meta, so grats to everyone who wanted that!

(sidenote: it does make Taric a bit more valuable than usual, so that's good for me selfishly)

Death RexJun 4, 20183 votes

...why did I read your name as CreampiePirate...

RocketRelmJun 5, 20183 votes

I think part of the issue is that they buffed the lane bully and assassin options at the same time as they nerfed crit. Individually these would have been less impactful than together.

The Yetii RiderJun 5, 20181 votes

That's correct. Everything that changed has been aimed at making mages better in bot lane and marksmen worse in general.

SpoofghoulJun 4, 20182 votes

Well right now they aren't as strong as they used to be but many are still doing well

The main issue for some of them is that games end so quickly these days or are decided very early on If snowball was reduced and objectives were made tougher and games would end later

Well then most adc's would still end up overbearing i think just a bit later

I think while a somewhat decent bandaid this didn't really fix anything

I think adc's/marksmen need to trade late game dominance for better mid game power and increased utility would make them a lot less of a balance problem then they have been and would be healthier for the class itself imho

ModKnightsKemplarJun 4, 20186 votes

Crit marksmen are doing poorly across the Board. So it did achieve Riot's goal of making them less dominant. Whether or not you think that's a "fix" is subjective; whether or not Riot's goal was met is pretty clear.

Lots of people have said before that marksmen shouldn't be late game focused carries, but I don't agree. Part of the MOBA genre is having characters that scale up into the late game. For League, that's primarily marksmen (and some other champs, too).

Yeah, you could flatten out the curve for marksmen, but you lose something there. A game where all of us play the same champ is easier to balance, but that doesn't mean it's better. There's no variety. The differing power curves for different classes have been part of this game since the inception; changing it at this point would really alienate some players, and possibly ruin the game. I would want really solid justification for changing something that fundamental to the game.

SpoofghoulJun 4, 20182 votes

My justification would be that it would increase diversity overall, different options for bot lane become more viable sinc eyou do not autoforfeit the game past 30 minutes. And allows for more individual power curves, therefore more diversity in the class itself as well so you can pick different carries according to team needs as well as picking them for more diverse individual win conditions like better enabling team or having the stronger mid game Rather then asking yourself the following questions

Has it been 30 minutes?
Am i playing better then the enemy carry?
Is my support playing better then the enemy support? If yes to all i won the game, pretty much every marksmen ever.

Yes there are differences between them but really they are not that different as a whole

It would also allow for more room to other classes power curves which could be tweaked individually as well Like if you have a late game scaling tank and they picked a midgame carry whos strong point is utility then suddenly you as the tank player get a late game win condition So it opens up more diversity for other classes too

This would literally open up all champions to become more unique

BestPudgeNAJun 4, 20181 votes

{quoted}

Crit marksmen are doing poorly across the Board. So it did achieve Riot's goal of making them less dominant. Whether or not you think that's a "fix" is subjective; whether or not Riot's goal was met is pretty clear.

Draven is the number two WR% ADC with around 10% play rate and his most popular build is Stormrazor>Zeal item>IE

Lots of people have said before that marksmen shouldn't be late game focused carries, but I don't agree. Part of the MOBA genre is having characters that scale up into the late game. For League, that's primarily marksmen (and some other champs, too).

Problem with marksman is they're the only ones that get to do it and be safe because of range. Other champs that get to do this are like jax/yi ect but they can be locked down much easier cause they don't get to do this from the backline

Yeah, you could flatten out the curve for marksmen, but you lose something there. A game where all of us play the same champ is easier to balance, but that doesn't mean it's better. There's no variety.

Marksman literally kill variety for other roles so hard. Moreover they have literally murdered all variety in bot lane since before i started playing this game. I know from having playing DoTA when it was new that this isn't a Moba thing, it's a LOL thing and it really needs to changed if Riot wants the game to ever be truly healthy from a role balance standpoint.

Other roles have variety in scaling. Making marksman less oppressive in teamfights isn't gonna change the fact YI hard outscales Rek'sai or something like that.

ModKnightsKemplarJun 4, 20186 votes

it really needs to changed if Riot wants the game to ever be truly healthy from a role balance standpoint

I don't agree. I think it's cool that they have a different take on it from other MOBAs. All MOBAs have carries, right (that's the point I was really trying to make there)? For League, it's a class of its own; nothing wrong with that if you are okay with having 1 of that class in every match. We pretty much have that.

Other roles have variety in scaling.

So do marksmen. Lucian is stronger early game than Vayne, but Vayne outscales him hard.

If you give marksmen the variety that, say, fighters or mages have in scaling, you would really shake up the meta. Like, maybe it doesn't even make sense to have marksmen/support in the bot lane anymore.

Lots of players would like that. I get that. But, and I'm speculating here, I think that consistency is part of LoL's advantage over the MOBA competition. People can play off-meta, but you know what the standard is. This is why the game took off in Season 2 after the marksmen/support botlane meta got cemented. The more predictable nature of the game appealed to a more general audience.

It's easy to believe that changing that up would be an intelligent move, from a player perspective. It would really help freshen the experience for those of us that want that. But, from Riot's standpoint, that doesn't make a lot of sense. You risk alienating a lot of players who value that consistency. Why take that risk?

If we actually saw League's playerbase start to decline, I think we'd know it because the balance team would take risks like that to try to get players back. Since they aren't, the safe assumption (imo) is that they are growing at a pace that they are comfortable with, and they are on track.

Again, it's a smart analysis by the people who are making the decision selfishly; I, too, would find the game more interesting with bigger changes. But from a business standpoint, it really doesn't fly. There too much money (and people's jobs) at stake to do something like that in League. I think it's a neat idea that someone should do (if DOTA2 doesn't already, I wouldn't know), but not Riot. Riot has this, and this is good.

SasogwaJun 5, 20181 votes

{quoted}

Well right now they aren't as strong as they used to be but many are still doing well

The main issue for some of them is that games end so quickly these days or are decided very early on If snowball was reduced and objectives were made tougher and games would end later

Well then most adc's would still end up overbearing i think just a bit later

I think while a somewhat decent bandaid this didn't really fix anything

I think adc's/marksmen need to trade late game dominance for better mid game power and increased utility would make them a lot less of a balance problem then they have been and would be healthier for the class itself imho

Before the patch adc's scaled earlier and had a lot of midgame power. And clearly people didn't like that, so... I don't really agree. Adc's need to have a powerhole at some point in the game to compensate for their overbearing lategame. And with how mulitplicative autoattack scaling works, you can't really make so that adc's are good midgame while not being extremely powerful lategame. Delaying powercurve is a really good move, and if outliers with other itemizations take over, maybe on-hit/letha itemization or the raw champion kits concerned should be looked at. So far I'm really glad the patch went through and the game isn't solely decided by bot most of the time and have been having a lot more fun since the patch. Also it felt like I could carry again.

If anything, things need to be done to amplify game time (just increasing tower health doesn't seem all too bad to me), but the changes to ADC's were really damn fine/good for me.

SpoofghoulJun 5, 20181 votes

{quoted}

Before the patch adc's scaled earlier and had a lot of midgame power. And clearly people didn't like that, so... I don't really agree.

But did they lose out on late game power for that mid game power? See the issue here?

SasogwaJun 6, 20181 votes

{quoted}

But did they lose out on late game power for that mid game power? See the issue here?

Uh no they were busted in lategame, so this was a problem and the patch solved the problem by granting them a less powerful midgame. Is there something I missed in your reasoning?

Imo the issue has nothing to do with adc's (at least crit adc's) anymore, it's more about general Riot philosophy about "let's have garbage towers, weaker waveclear, and more snowbally games to lower game duration" which is I guess a good solution to lategame+waveclear comps autowinning, but maybe a bit too extreme. In other words, the problem is the fact games end too fast, not that adc's powerspike is too late. You put adc powerspike earlier and they become busted instantly. Let's not forget that as ranged autoattackers their first levels are really good, by the virtue of base stats + sheer range. Putting powerspike earlier would make the midgame powerhole of adc's almost non existant. Another thought process would be to butcher adc's early game, by cutting their base AD by like 10 and compensate in growth. But ADC's would complain too much and lasthitting would become hard. Overall, probably not tried because the outcry of the community would be immediate

The Yetii RiderJun 5, 20181 votes

If marksmen were better in the mid game there would be nothing to differentiate them from mages.

And if marksmen were worse in the late game nothing could kill a late game tank.

SaibboJun 5, 20181 votes

In a sense, the patch was successful

you serious? oh yeah 50% win rate they did it, now they are balanced. no they are not, the only reason they don't drop that much is because every game is decided by the other 4 player on the team and not them anymore, they feel like gar- to play, all the games i had with my champion pool was me doing nothing to contribute to the team.

The Yetii RiderJun 5, 20181 votes

Yeah so stop playing ADCs. Play Heimer bot. Ziggs bot. Malzahar bot. You don't have to play a marksman. Literally every other lane in the game trains themselves in multiple roles. Bot can do it too.

SaibboJun 5, 20181 votes

Did you check my history? It's literally what i did, just playing zyra/brand as ADC and they are pretty decent, so far 90% of the time I win lane, those ADC have no sustain they drop dead at the 3rd wave from the poke. http://oi64.tinypic.com/r7rkt1.jpg

The Yetii RiderJun 6, 20181 votes

Great. We need more of that.

Linna ExcelJun 4, 201818 votes

{quoted}

Marksmen who dropped hard: 48% win rate

He can't drop hard enough and should be below Kalista tier.

NorthernRedStarJun 5, 20186 votes

[{quoted}](name=Linna Excel,realm=NA,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=G23xNynK,comment-id=0005,timestamp=2018-06-04T17:00:53.765+0000)

He can't drop hard enough and should be below Kalista tier.

[zombie-brand-clap]

Sexy Jack RabbitJun 5, 20182 votes

You watch him be the first ADC to be hard buffed tbh

Calling it now

SelecJun 4, 20189 votes

It's the same thing that previous post, delaying the ADC build without delaying the game ending, it's making a class completely unviable.

StonePlatypusJun 4, 20188 votes

Wonderful! We can have other classes matter besides the ADC.

Looks like MF needs a nerf though, her win rate is above 50%.

cPXt3JHpf4Jun 4, 201815 votes

boards in a nut shell a marksman stands out a bit

boards: NERF THEM THEY SO OP

Alex h8721Jun 4, 20187 votes

Need to make a new meme with the "Change my mind" table template that says

"New Infinity edge is trash: Change my mind"

Because it really is garbage imo.

D357R0Y3RJun 4, 201812 votes

item 3153 powerspike is insane why do we care about infinity edge

Alex h8721Jun 4, 20186 votes

Of the adc's you mentioned (whose winrate benefitted from the itemization changes) only Kalista and Lucian build item 3153 MF, the highest winrate on your list, builds lethality into black cleaver, and first item item 3142 is just as strong of a powerspike, for 300 less gold than .

But both these issues stem from new item 3031 being trash, it is a pure garbage 1st item (like it used to be on Tristana ) because you are only getting the ad, and the more expensive zeal items delay a item 1038 item 3087 powerspike as well, and because of these nerfs, adc's that are able are turning to the more effective early/midgame options of lethality or item 3153 ]. Also I would argue that the crit adc powerspike at item 3031 is significantly weaker than pre-patch, which is all the more motivation to play adc's who can build something different and be effective.

Listen, i am as much of a critic of the "adc centered" meta as anyone (where everything revolves around the crit adc hypercarry and they do 50% of the damage in the game), but I'm just trying to point out the obvious that when crit itemization gets nerfed like this (and also "rebalanced" in IE's case) adc players are going to gravitate toward options that havent been nerfed.

But please, downvote me more for calling out the new item 3031 for being trash (when clearly the winrate stats show it to be true)

D357R0Y3RJun 4, 20184 votes

which win rate stats show what?

You can go to any adc's stats they still have IE as their highest item win rate Ashe still builds it and her win rate did not change it's unfortunate for tristana that she got nerfed because she can't burst a squishy anymore, but some marksman like ashe loves the new DPS from IE

KaìjuJun 4, 20183 votes

Actually Ashe does less damage than before unless she gets 100% crit. The true damage only activates on crits, and Ashe crits randomly. However her random crits are not for 200%, they are for whatever X% crit chance she has. That means that even if she does crit, she doesn't do as much damage as everyone else. Most Ashe players I see are rushing ER to just get out more R's as games don't last long at all.

IfnethJun 4, 20181 votes

Ashe does her Critical Strike Chance as %Bonus Damage on Frosted Targets. Her critical strikes, instead of doubling her damage, triple her slow.

KaìjuJun 5, 20181 votes

I know, I have over 900k mastery on her.

SalsonJun 4, 201815 votes

item 3089 is trash because you can't rush it as well then.

item 3031 is now a mid/late game item, just like item 3089 and is fine if bought as a 3rd item.

AirKingNeoJun 4, 20184 votes

except IE requires 2 other specific items to be effective. Deathcap just requires any AP item.

SalsonJun 4, 201811 votes

IE is effective with rush item > zeal item > IE. Deathcap is also only really good after 2 AP items, as penetration is far more effective as am early purchase.

BLIGHTBRINGERJun 4, 20185 votes

https://i.redd.it/kqxte2s7g1v01.png

CryotronJun 4, 20185 votes

LOL Kalista tier.

LauchmelderJun 4, 20182 votes

What else should we call it? There's only 3 possibilities: Kalista tier, Azir tier or Ryze tier

FlashesJun 4, 20182 votes

Plz. Azir tier at least has viability in professional play. Ryze tier is like the 40-60% range, but never near the middle.

Mute Me Im MeanJun 4, 20184 votes

Ive been playing Zyra and Twisted fate bot and we win the game before the enemy adc can even buid their first item... Great patch

D357R0Y3RJun 4, 201814 votes

you inted in all your twisted fate games and you have a 3/5 ratio on zyra

HàrrowRJun 5, 20181 votes

lol

The Yetii RiderJun 5, 20181 votes

Awesome. This is what the patch is all about. Mages can function in bot lane now, and teams can win without a marksman at all.

D357R0Y3RJun 5, 20182 votes

no they fucking can't stop the lies

then again, life in silver 3 must be like this where you can play anybody you want

Bouncemaster ZacJun 5, 20184 votes

So aside from a few outliers, adcs are balanced now. Good patch.

RexxieeJun 4, 20183 votes

Jinx is at 47% on kr servers.

Put her on the dropped hard, specially since even at 49% thats a 4% drop from 53%.

OtterlyLostJun 5, 20183 votes

To the people saying that the point of Crit ADC's is to be good at 3 items, what is the justification then for allowing the late game skirmishers and bruisers to be good at one item. I'm talking about champions like Fiora, Jax, Camille, Irelia. They all literally only need one item to get a massive powerspike and they don't fall off in the least. How is it fair for Crit ADC's to get the shaft just because they're "late game hyper carries" but to ignore these bruisers who have the same issue? How is it remotely fair for these champions to be "good" with just one item?

All the marksmen update did was literally kill diversity for the role; its the same gutting that they did to jungle. Only the ADCs that are good early and midgame are being allowed to even play the game. Before this patch, there was a much bigger variety of ADC's that could actually exist, despite whatever delusions the board has to the contrary. There were top ADC's, sure, but there are top champions in every role. The difference is that these top champions aren't the only option you have; you can play someone who is less good and still win if you're actually good at the champion. The same existed for ADCs before this patch. Before this patch, Kai'sa, Ezreal, and Varus were the top ADCs but you could still play Tristana, Vayne, Jinx, MF, Draven, Kog'maw, Xayah, and Ashe and still have a decent chance of winning. Now you might get reported for inting just for picking a Crit ADC; these changes were far too harsh.