I've changed my mind about bot lane

DR34DN0UGHT··1 votes·380 views

So, as a guy in Bronze 3 who sticks primarily to norms, I never really got why people were always complaining about ADCs on the Boards. Sure, I've seen Twitches and Lucians deleting entire teams in the span of seconds before, but I always thought "Eh, it's their job" and "Eh, I'll just make sure we can get a pick on him later." And all seemed fine in my little Bronze bubble of obliviousness. Life went on, Xayahs deleted teams and were deleted BY teams, and everyone seemed happy.

Then this game happened: http://matchhistory.na.leagueoflegends.com/en/#match-details/NA1/2600658898/205490363?tab=overview

Kassadin got legitimately raped in mid. Irelia lost top hard. Diana wasn't doing too hot.

And me and MF were pounding Karma and Kindred into the dirt.

I remember Yasuo saying somewhat earlier on in the game as the two of us took down their bot tower, "gg bot lost, its over" and I was skeptical. To me it seemed real easy for Xin and Yas to just hop on us and pop us like balloons. I told him that three of them were fed off their asses, and he replied that bot was the most important lane. Once again, I was skeptical.

After I got to see MF get a Quadra, and after seeing her 3-shot Kindred? I changed my mind, FAST.

It didn't matter that I gave First Blood. It didn't matter that we had no dragons. It didn't matter that MF went Lethality instead of the Crit that makes the people on the Boards drink. It didn't matter that I decided "Fuck it" and went full AP Sona support, without even buying a Censer. It didn't matter that three enemy champions, a Yasuo, Kayle, and Xin Zhao, who are some of the most late game-oriented champs in the game, were fed as all hell. It didn't even matter that that the two gold leads we had in the entire match were both less that 300 gold and lasted 30 seconds each. We still pulled the win out our ass solely because our bot lane won. It wasn't even a matter of us being able to hold them off of me and MF, since we had 3 stuns across the entire team comp and one source of healing and shielding, with no heal/shield boosting items to boot. We just managed to delete them before they deleted us. And that's pretty easy with a 22/8 MF.

It's honestly sad. The fact that three of my team members did less damage than I did over the span of half an hour, and still managed to help us pull off a win is genuinely depressing and tells me a lot about the current state of the game. I don't know if its an OP champ or an unhealthy kit or a broken item, but all I know is that if a game is decided solely by which team's bot lane wins, it's not okay at all.

If a Bronze 3 0 LP player who pitifully abused Janna for the scraps of ELO that he has so far can acknowledge this, I am certain that Riot can too.

3 Comments

SchmidttyGames2 votes

So instead of giving credit to the person who played carry in that game, and carried you to victory, you decide to blame the entire meta for a win you probably didn't deserve?

This is what I don't understand about most of you on the forums. You refuse to give credit where it is due, opting instead to lay a blanket of blame on the cast as a whole. One example doesn't make the mold. It never will. I've seen games like yours go the completely other direction. It has more to do with the ten individual players in that specific game than anything. Players with higher game knowledge or more experience would have used their early gold lead to take a crap on your bottom lane and negate your advantage. Your opponents did not do this. That is why you won.

DR34DN0UGHT1 votes

[{quoted}](name=RAMP Schmidtty,realm=NA,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=LpdLWoxi,comment-id=0000,timestamp=2017-09-17T22:11:40.535+0000)

So instead of giving credit to the person who played carry in that game, and carried you to victory, you decide to blame the entire meta for a win you probably didn't deserve?

This is what I don't understand about most of you on the forums. You refuse to give credit where it is due, opting instead to lay a blanket of blame on the cast as a whole. One example doesn't make the mold. It never will. I've seen games like yours go the completely other direction. It has more to do with the ten individual players in that specific game than anything. Players with higher game knowledge or more experience would have used their early gold lead to take a crap on your bottom lane and negate your advantage. Your opponents did not do this. That is why you won.

I never said that I don't give MF any credit for her or her performance, because I do. A lot. The reason I made this post is because, like you said, I didn't deserve this win. I don't think I deserve it at all. All I'm saying is that I don't think the concept of "better bot = win" makes the game healthy or enjoyable, and that I've ascertained that a concept like this does indeed exist.

SchmidttyGames2 votes

It's not always that way though. The bot lane does hold a great deal of power, having 40% of both teams there fighting for dominance, but most of the game is going to revolve around which team of 5 people is going to make the fewer number of mistakes.

The major mistake I see most teams make is not helping a suffering bottom lane, allowing them to get repeatedly crapped on until the opponent carry and support are just untenable. At higher elos, you'll see that a lot of the time, the team that supports their bottom laners more generally win. This includes Mid/Jungle presence and other factors like winning your own lane and drawing pressure to yourself.

If you feed me four kills in five minutes, you've created a monster. If you feed me one kill and play smart enough to farm away while I attempt to abuse my new advantage, that advantage vanishes. Once back to even, we have to start all over again. I've been accused of being "too passive" as an ADC, but that is done for a reason. I'd rather win on farm and give up no kills to my opponent because I am fully aware of how useless I am going to be until I hit two items. That's just how it is. If I'm losing, I call for help. If I get none, I just play safe to not make my opponents stronger.

In lower elos, this doesn't happen. Everyone has a huge "fight me" boner and they become very, very easy to exploit because of it. You'll even see it in higher elos, but it tends to go away after they die once.

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