Boards›Gameplay

ADC Starting items: Long sword+3 pot or Doran's+1 pot?

5000000000000000··1 votes·1,249 views

At early laning phase, additional health and potion are essentially the same. So is lifesteal. So which is worth more: Doran's Blade start, or Long Sword start?

Common defense for Doran's Blade is its high gold efficiency, but you have to realize that potions are extremely gold efficient (35 gold for 400 gold worth of health), at least in laning phase. Each health potion restores 150 health total, if you don't take utility masteries. This is as much as a ruby crystal. Doran's blade give you 70 health and 3% life steal. The life steal shouldn't be calculated as gold efficiency of the stat, but rather how much health it can grant over the course of laning phase. We'll get to that later.

Just from potions and extra health, here's how much health you get from each start. item 1036 + 3item 2003 : 450 item 1055 + 1item 2003 : 220

So in order for Doran's start to be worth more, life steal will have to grant more than 330 health. Since it's granting 3% life steal, you have to do total of 11000 damage from AAs. It's difficult to calculate how much that is, so I'll guesstimate. Assuming average of 100 AD, you'd have to autoattack 110 times. That's slightly more than the number of minions (in 10 minutes), and since you'll probably fight each other at some point during laning phase, that's enough damage for lifesteal to be worth more than 3 potions. But it's important to note that potions can give you health anytime you want, whereas lifesteal gives you health slowly. Having 150 more health when you need it rather than later can save your life.

Another argument is that Doran's Blade+IE will grant decent sustain. Well, so would Vampiric Scepter+IE, and Vampiric Scepter builds out of Long Sword and 440 gold. And you don't have to sell your Vampiric Scepter since all the lifesteal items build out of Vampiric Scepter.

Final point I want to make is the support. If you have a healing support, you don't need the early lifesteal, since at early point of the game lifesteal just serves as a form of slow sustain. With a healing support, it's best to use Long Sword+3 pot start because you don't have to sell Doran's until much later.

I probably overlooked a bunch of things (stacking Doran's Blades comes to mind), but I personally prefer Long Sword+3 pot start for the extra AD and not having to sell Doran's blade. What do you get, and why?

9 Comments

bad manner kid1 votes

The decision is really:

Doran's Blade + 1 pot: Sustain, extra HP, AD: Tougher in lane to burst damage, sustain though life steal during downtime, etc.

Long Sword + 3 pot: Oh shit their support pokes hard pot pot, Ow I got CC'd, oops I'm dead. Other ADC gets gold, you get dead.

70 hp makes a big difference, also they see that long sword and go extra hard on you.

50000000000000001 votes

Unless they go all-in without poking (which is a possibility, although it's more likely to be unsuccessful), a potion can restore 150 health, so having 70 more health isn't an advantage.

Poked as a Long Sword +3 pot ADC-> use potion and get back up to 450 health (total 450 effective HP) Poked as a Doran's Blade +1 pot ADC-> use potion to restore 150 health and have 70 extra health (total 220 effective HP+lifesteal)

IcyPepper1 votes

Problem is that potions restore health over time, not just at once.

You have more effective health with longsword+3 pots, but if someone sees your longsword and goes hard on you with an extended trade, you're not going to come out ahead.

However, this strat can work with the right adc, support, strategy, and experience. You can also take a lifesteal quint or two with attack speed marks to make up for longsword's lack of it, and you're only disadvantaged by the 70 health. If you're playing a lane bully (MF, Caitlyn) or the counter to your lane opponent, this is less risky. If you're, say, Vayne playing against Graves, it's probably better to take Doran's.

Aeolian Melodies1 votes

if you start sword + pots I'll find you and make you write down "I will start with item 1055 as ADC every game" until you actually do it

(yes you will need to draw the item 1055 every time!)

Leaf of the lake1 votes

Long sword start is only good if you're planning to snowball early. You play hella aggro, spam your pots, and if you don't manage to get a kill within the first 2-3 minutes of lane phase, you've officially compromised yourself.

Your math is wrong, btw. You need to sustain 230 hp from lifesteal for it to be equivalent. Since your lane opponent will most likely be pushing, you'll be pushing back. That means you need to AA about 70 times, and on average every minion will be hit twice, for 35 minions. That's 6 waves or about 3 minutes.

50000000000000001 votes

Shoot, you're right. I don't know how I came up with 330.

The Fast1 votes

On ranged champions, that can use the lifesteal, and scale up with the lifesteal, generally doran's blade is better in the long haul. On melee ADs is basically always better to get longsword, as their build paths uses the longsword more often, and will probably instantly build into something like a Brutalizer or a Cutlass. Since bot laners tend to go for big first items that skip longswords in their build path, its generally better to get a Doran's blade. In the case of bot lane trinity force users, I'd still recommend Doran's Blade becuase of how often they auto attack. The only time where I think Doran's blade is better on a melee than longsword, is when the longsword won't build into anything for the melee. An example would be, say, and offensive Shen start.

RocketRelm1 votes

A general note with these kinds of discussions is that if you want sustain with the Vamp after your first back, you still need to upgrade the actual Longsword into it, whereas you get the doran's blade effect all in a compact single-item. This allows you to hit your IE rush faster, while still having sustain.

50000000000000001 votes

What if you're rushing bloodthirster or blade of the ruined king? Would long sword start be better in that case?

More from Gameplay

3 Refunds per season, upvote if you want 3 refunds per season.
Gameplay764 comments
7,167
votes
3 Refunds per season, upvote if you want 3 refunds per season.
Gameplay156 comments
3,510
votes
UPVOTE FOR URF
Gameplay606 comments
2,440
votes
Yes plz.
Gameplay456 comments
1,721
votes
3 Refunds per season, up vote if you want 3 refunds per season.
Gameplay114 comments
1,716
votes
When is ANYONE at riot going to address the awful new player experience?
Gameplay634 comments
1,383
votes

More by 5000000000000000

Veigar is actually not that short
Memes & Games44 comments
163
votes
Tutorial should now replace Ryze with a simpler mage.
Maps & Modes95 comments
139
votes
Gromp is too OP to be a monster. Make it a champion.
[ARCHIVED] Miscellaneous52 comments
115
votes
What if Ohmwrecker interacted with various structures, not just towers?
Gameplay55 comments
114
votes
Proxy Singed walks into a bar
Memes & Games9 comments
113
votes
Can crit be reworked into ramping up DPS?
Gameplay157 comments
110
votes