Boards›Gameplay

Riot, we need more ways to Counterplay ranged ADCs beyond burst for the health of the game.

MrSc0tty··12 votes·2,260 views

Question: why are Maokai, Braum, and Yasuo incredible picks right now?

Answer: they're....broken OP? No, maybe the meta has shifted to favor carries with huge crazy sustained damage, and they are three out of a very very small subset of champs who have a non-burst answer to a long ranged Carry's sustained damage firehose.

"B-but they're squishy, the Counterplay is Burst!"

Burst as an answer to squishy champs has been traditional for a long time. But should it be the accepted answer? Is it fun, does it feel like a contest of skill, for a carry to be brought down by burst, or alternatively hard cc into sustained damage?

I say, and from their nerf history I infer that riot agrees, that it is unsatisfactory and anti-fun for everyone except the person instantly 100-0ing the enemy. So what's the issue here? We already have a cc type just for this kind of thing: attack speed slow. A targeted %damage reduction sounds like just what the doctor ordered.

Well, historically those have had issues. Like blinds and silences, they are largely being removed rather than added in and they suffer from a host of issues which, I would argue, are due to the outdated kits on which they're found more than with the cc type itself.

Nasus has a point and click attack speed slow coupled with a powerful MS slow. Ditto with Nunu. Coupling a ms slow decreases the Counterplay available to the target-can't simply reposition and move away while slowed.

Gragas had an instant very hard to avoid AOE, and so does Malphite, which lacked a strong visual indicator that the target was slowed. This clarity issue lead many to not understand they were reduced in effectiveness.

So what would be a healthy way to add attack speed slows back into the game? They would be most healthy on a tank, support or non-burst Mage, the traditional damage mitigation classes and the least likely to simply follow up with burst. A few ideas:

-on a Zilean rework. Slow down/speed up is a great time theme, but there are so many champs with MS manipulation that Zilean seems bland. I would give him the ability to create a large tear in the fabric of time. Allies passive through the tear gain increased attack speed, and enemies auto attacking into or through the tear have attack speed briefly slowed, refreshing if they keep doing it.

-a Taric rework. In place of a heal allow him to place "dazzling crystal armor" on himself or an ally. The armor slows attack speed by increasing amounts with successive hits, breaking after three autoattacks and causing AOE damage. If the same enemy attacked all three times, they are blinded (with the Counterplay being multiple targets attacking or waiting out the duration of the armor)

-a skillshot on a gravity-based tank that also disallows the use of dashes for a time but DOES NOT slow Movespeed.

Riot always talks about meaningful interactions. It's time we had them with ranged ADCs.

23 Comments

SirTezla5 votes

First of all amazing post; you're doing it exactly right.

I do believe that we need someway to counter AD carrys other then burst especially since they're nerfing all the bursty champs (LeBlancLeblanc ). I main jungle where this isn't usually a lot of burst unless you're playing Diana Diana or Sejuani Sejuani. Unless you can get CC on them, which is very unlikely because of their mobility and ability to dodge skill shots, that in teamfights, and even in some 1v1s you cannot get them under your CC such as Thresh Thresh's Death Sentence or Blitzcrank Blitzcrank's Rocket Grab.

AD carry is just a really easy role to play which is why most of the top players on the ranked leaderboard are AD carry or mid mains. If you have a support with pretty good reflexes and enough mechanics to know when to do what then you can basically carry the game with no chance of the enemy counter playing you.

Yasuo Yasuo is a good pick mostly because of his Q, ult, and passive. If there's a Malphite Malphite on the team with said YasuoYasuo , MalphiteMalphite can just ult the whole enemy team with the follow up from YasuoYasuo . By that time the AD and AP carrys have already killed everyone before they can counter play the Yasuo. In addition, YasuoYasuo just has the early game mobility with his E that makes him very deadly even at level 2 or 3. BraumBraum is a good pick right now because anything he does can turn team fights or even little skirmishes in bot lane. If BraumBraum can get a Q or even a punch when you have an AsheAshe or VayneVayne basically the enemy is dead in a few seconds. I don't know what makes MaokaiMaokai a good pick due to not playing him.

In conclusion, we do need another way other than burst to counter play carries on the enemy team because there aren't that many bursty champions left.

MrSc0tty2 votes

Actually, I believe that Braum, Yasuo (his strong damage potential aside, there are plenty of champs who can match Yasuo's damage output) and Maokai are top picks is that they are rare ADC counters in an ADC meta. Alistar as well to some degree.

Maokai has a way to mitigate damage to himself and his whole team with his ult. Braum can use his tankiness to the fullest advantage with his shield. Yasuo can get rid of a ton of damage potential thanks to his wall. All those Counterplay options have one thing in common: they reduce carry damage output without necessarily needing to kill them entirely.

That makes fights more fun for everyone. Let's say a team with a Lucian fights a team with a Leblanc. Lucian wins if Leblanc gets peeled off, Leblanc wins if Lucian dies before he takes any actions. Lucian gets no chance to counter if LB doesn't screw up and LB gets no chance to counter if Lucian has a good support/frontline. Not fun for whoever loses for sure.

Now, take that same fight but with a Yasuo.

Lucian moves in. Yasuo may dash to him, but he only gets one, and Lucian has one dash as well. A frontline bruiser moves in, Lucian kites back while ulting. Yasuo uses windwall to block the ult-Lucian has to decide whether to dash to get around the wall or conserve the dash for dodging Yasuo's tornado. Decision points, play-Counterplay, chances for skill to make a solid difference, and all it takes is a way to reduce Lucian's ability to pump out damage without burst or hard cc.

Stephenizgod1 votes

Maokai not only brings a lot of CC and tank to a fight, he also bring a lot of damage. I dont really know why he does so much damage, but i tend to burst squishies with him fairly easily. He also has a gap closer, passive life steal, and ranged abilities.

I agree that this is a great original post also

REMagic423 votes

First off, great post.

Secondly, I thought about this myself and encountered a major problem in the design of ADCs.

  1. The core identity of an AD Carry is to be the highest single-target sustained damage dealer in the game.
  2. AD Carries deal their damage with point'n'click, a low-interaction, unavoidable (except for very specific skills, more on this later), low-skill activity

Removing one of these two identities from the ADC would break the role, as their damage has to be both right-click based (since they itemize for it) and scaling multiplicatively (because they have to deal the highest damage).

The problem with 1) is, that their damage output is so large, come late-game, that two crits in a row can cause more damage than a mage could deal in the same amount of time. That means ADCs don't just have high sustained damage, they have sustained burst damage, which is an inherently flawed mechanic. On the other hand, they need to have this damage, because the tanks would murder them if they didn't. This forces bruisers to itemize like tanks too (since ADCs are such high damage threats), which causes the common "Melee vs. Ranged" dilemma, since the only viable way to play the late game seems to either be extremely tanky (to withstand ADC pressure) or have enough burst to get rid of Rangeds before they outdamage you. Assassins or tanks, that's the way to go. And since Riot has done a great deal to keep Bruisers viable, the Bruisers just itemize like tanks and strictly outclass THEM instead (except Mao, Ali, Mundo). As long as tanks and bruisers are forced to take up the same role in teamfights (be tanky), one class will always make the other redundant. This whole problem is caused by the nature of the AD Carries being such a large threat in terms of unavoidable damage and it makes the game revolve around the ADC that gets rid of the enemy tanks first. It's very telling that LW, in theory a very specific "anti-tank" item, is by far the most important item on an ADC.

The other option to get rid of ADCs at the moment is to burst them. See, Assassins have high damage, too, but their burst goes on a high CD after it is applied. After about 2 seconds, ADCs start to outdamage assassins with critical hits. So the Assassin only has 2 seconds to apply his burst, and while Riot demands that Assassins need to have counterplay, it seems like ADCs don't need that. When counterplay means "kill me before I kill you, but you only have 2 seconds. After that I will kill you no matter what you do, since you can't disrupt my damage", something went wrong, design wise. So the Assassin vs. ADC Interaction is very short, and in its shortness it is a binary mechanic, i.e. has two possible outcomes.

With all that being said, you can balance around these problems and I think Riot has done a great job at doing so. But should the game be balanced around a broken interaction?

The problem with the second point is: There are only very few options to avoid ADC damage other than killing them or ccing them. This becomes especially important in the melee vs. ranged interaction, where a Melee Champion has the option to either close the gap or die trying. I think the solution to this problem would be creating more skills like Jax E, Yasuo W, Maokai R, Sivir E, Master Yi W… These are all spells that do not disable the enemy directly, but bring a lot more interaction to the teamfight than burst does. With Yasuo's Windwall, you have the option to reduce the AD Carries damage in a way that he can still do something about it (attack from a different angle), but Yasuo isn't forced to instantly jump to the enemy backline or lose the teamfight. This is a very elegant solution to fix the melee vs. ranged problem, since it gives a third outcome: ADC dies, Yasuo dies, no damage is dealt. Sadly, Yasuo has a gapcloser to the enemy backline which defeats the purpose of an anti-ranged spell.

TL;DR: Melee vs. Ranged is broken, the outcome of a teamfight is binary at the moment. Melees need more options than CC or Burst to deal with ADCs.

MrSc0tty2 votes

Hit the nail on the head. In my eyes, Maokai vs Ranged is the healthiest ranged vs melee interaction in the game at present.

Now, I'm not saying that ADCs aren't currently deserving nerfs-they are meta right now because they have the best itemization which is why all the ADC counters are such contested picks. But ADC countering picks that do not instantly kill or set up the ADC to be killed are few and far between and the point of my post is to ask riot to add more of these options within kits.

Mages have natural Counterplay inherent in their kits-the ability for a portion of their damage to be dodged and this reduced. Mobility becomes a natural counter to mages. Same with AD caster type carries with dodgeable skills like Varus and MF. But autoattack focused carries need more available counterplay. And my hope is with the reworks of several traditional tanks and anti- carries like Poppy, Sion, Urgot, and Taric Riot will consider putting some of these kinds of levers in the game for an overall improvement in game health.

The All Tomato2 votes

So... Randuin's? Frozen Heart? Exhaust?

MrSc0tty3 votes

Exhaust is an anti-burst measure. It is an option particularly early but usually is better used targeting the people attacking your carry than targeting the enemy carry due to the risk associated with it's low range.

Randuins is and generally will be the go to selfish defensive item, but it is a 3000 gold investment and only helps the user.

Frozen heart, besides only working on champs with mana, is a 20% slow against a class that generally at bare minimum sports twice that. The meta champs, particularly Trist with her 90% steroid, kind of laugh at that. Imagine if the only Movespeed slow in the game was Rylais Crystal Scepter-would it be considered adequate Counterplay to Rammus?

ProfDrDeath3 votes

A. Frozen Heart is 15% AS slow.

B. Frozen Heart's slow is multiplicative, not additive. Meaning, it will always reduced the enemy AS by 15% - independant whether that AS is 0.5 or 2.0.

The All Tomato1 votes

Randuin's helps the user, who in turn helps their team. That's why it's the go-to tank item. ADs can't just ignore the Maokai / Renekton / Shyvana etc. in their face and hit the back line; proper positioning forces ADs to hit the Randuin's user.

ProfDrDeath corrected you about FH already, so nothing for me to say there.

It doesn't make sense that you label burst as un-fun and un-skilled, but ask for a targeted attack speed slow in the beginning. However, your ability ideas at the end are creative.

MrSc0tty1 votes

Sorry, I didn't mean targeted as in point and click. I meant targeted as in "causes an enemy affected by the ability to deal less damage" rather than "user of ability takes less damage."

Like exhaust, but not necessarily point n click and in a kit or item.

Marthian2 votes

Bruisers are a common counter to ADCs. Nothing irritates me more as an ADC than a Pantheon with just a Black Cleaver jump-stunning me and blowing me up or a Renekton with Hydra dash stunning me and dead.

MrSc0tty1 votes

Did you even read through the whole title of the post?

The point: being bursted sucks. Therefore burst should not be the only answer to carries. We are nerfing burst left and right. Therefore we need non-burst Counterplay to ADC.

Would it feel as bad to you as an ADC if a skillshot hit you, slowing your attack speed? Your damage would be reduced but you'd still have all the options in your kit and movement to respond and you could've dodged it in the first place. That to me seems like healthier Counterplay than "boom Panth ult flash stun you're dead "

Marthian1 votes

CC also shuts down carries and many of them have counterplay.

MrSc0tty2 votes

There are two tactics that can be used to best autoattack focused carries.

  1. burst them before they can do anything at all.

  2. hard cc them and kill them before they regain control of their character.

As the carry do either of those seem fun? Obviously not. But you can't dodge autoattacks, shields and heals aren't strong enough to stop them and there's no other way to stop them from shredding your team.

Therefore we need more methods of nonfatal Counterplay.

Cloud Potato1 votes

Adding more anti basic attack abilities hurts melee champions more than ranged ones. A lot of game mechanics do this. I have an alternate solution. Nerf basic attacks. By a lot. And compensate by giving ADCs better abilities.

Basic attacks have low counterplay. Like instant abilities your only option is to stay out of range. Why are they allowed to be so important, as opposed to abilities, which, you know, actually differentiate between champions? You can add more counterplay through abilities, which increases the differences between ranged champions, and helps melee champions fight against ranged champions.

Ranged champions will still deal damage with basic attacks. Melee champions too. We can still have champions who have more basic attack power. It just shouldn't be the standard. This could let ADCs have more build diversity, choosing more basic attack power, ability damage, or maybe even tank items? We don't have to go that far. There's a lot of homogenization with basic attackers, both melee and ranged. A paradigm shift could help the game out a lot.

Worgslarg1 votes

Simple. Classify melee auto attacks, and ranged autoattacks as different things.

Have some forms of attack speed slows/ damage reductions that only apply to ranged auto's.

Counterplay for point and click ranged damage, while not a nerf to melee fighters.

Cloud Potato1 votes

Somewhat heavy handed, and such things would need to be present in every game unless ranged basic attackers became unviable (and if they didn't do so in the League of Cleavers, I don't know when they will). There's also the issue of how Riot's supposed to communicate that they affect ranged but not melee. Overall it's a messy solution.

MrSc0tty1 votes

How do Yasuo and Braum's attack mitigation techniques reduce the effectiveness of melee attackers more? The key differences I see here are:

-melee attackers, with the exception of Zekes ADCs like Yi and Yasuo, rely more on raw AD than crit and attack speed

-Melee attackers deal more damage with abilities with their pattern being more like Varus than say Trist (exceptions here too of course, see Volibear)

-Melee attackers tend to have more raw mobility available to make up for the lack of range, particularly DPS melees who have two mobility moves standard at least

So, it follows that an ability that creates an attack slowing or mitigating ZONE would be less effective vs more mobile melee, attack speed slows and crit damage reduction would be less effective vs ability and AD centric melee, and abilities that don't affect abilities like the suggested Taric shield would be less effective vs melee.

The reason a champ like Braum shuts down melee isn't his attack blocking shield, it's his slow and stun. Yasuo, with his potent anti-ranged attack windwall, does almost nothing to melee with it.

Maybe a massive overhaul would be healthy. But would it be actually feasible as a suggestion? I'm not sure. That's why I'm suggesting this.

Worgslarg1 votes

Zone migitation would be great, but the overall problem is that ranged autos provide safety,and damage high enough to outclass all other carries lategame.

A simple solution would be to have ranged auto's stack up damage over time in combat(10-30%ish?), but reducing their base damages by 10-20%

Cloud Potato1 votes

Yasuo and Braum's walls are a great example of something that doesn't screw melee champions. Riot really hit the nail on the head with that one. We need more skills like those.

For the new CC types that lower basic attack dps stats, it runs into the issue that it's not universal counterplay. Due to turrets there will always be someone in a game whose basic attacks are threatening (unless they super buff the AP > turret damage ratio or something), so we need to be able to counterplay them in every game. Adding one of those CC types as an item would slightly help (and I mean an interactive item, not Frozen Heart's stupid aura), but it pigeonholes people into building certain items and we have enough of those items already. We also need a way to communicate these CCs. AS slows are already guilty of low clarity, which is a problem which ought to be fixed.

Mjaxon1 votes

First thing Riot would have to do is stop catering to the whims of ADC mains.

Lunnunnunnunnun1 votes

What about introducing an item that applied dmg reduction stacks to a target on-hit? You would have to have a stack limit on the target of course, and balance the item, but it would allow some counter play dmg reduction instead of focusing on bursting a target. Would be best built on support or tank to aid entire team sustain capability.

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 MrSc0tty

When is ANYONE at riot going to address the awful new player experience?
Gameplay634 comments
1,383
votes
Dear Riot: Mobility is not allowed to be what makes a champ unique anymore
Gameplay174 comments
272
votes
Riot, tanks respectfully request another role we are allowed to play
Gameplay149 comments
126
votes
"Oh boy Ekko lore, I'll finally find out how he's connected to the other champions....within the..."
Story, Art, & Sound248 comments
126
votes
And then Riot Spake
Gameplay78 comments
125
votes
Let's compare: Why is Lee considered unfair while Amumu is not?
Gameplay115 comments
121
votes