Some ideas for bringing other roles to the Botlane and why we should even care

Hey everyone, I was reading Meddler's new gameplay post when he mentioned something about making some new items to give mages some ability to botlane. That got me thinking about what we could do about moving other roles to the botlane. The best way to do this would definitely not be to shoehorn some champion or some group of champions into the botlane by changing their kits (sorry ) but instead to introduce new itemization and change some game mechanics to ease other roles and champions into the botlane instead of forcing them there artificially. So before we talk about what changes I'd like to introduce, I'm going to talk about what makes marksmen good and why they are the only real class with any presence as a botlane carry. #Why Marksmen are picked Marksmen are currently mandatory for winning games and have been for the past 5 seasons or so. This is primarily because of their ability to safely siege towers from a distance. A safe but strong siege is the most important reason for why marksmen are picked. Note that back when the ADC in 2k17 meme was a thing marksmen were still being picked consistently for their sieging. Even when they were getting 5 man dived by everyone and they were considered a meme role, they were still being picked in 95% of games. So why do Marksmen go bot in the duo lane? The main reason is that Marksmen scale off of gold but not levels, since most of their damage comes from autos which do not scale from xp. Mages scale off of levels and gold, so they rather go solo instead of duo. Because of this, marksmen are the best class to share xp with the support since they lose the least out of any class. This was the reason initially, but as the game evolved, it has only grown more in support of marksmen in the bot lane as opposed to any other lanes. Mainly from supports. Most supports have abilities that specifically benefit ADC's and not other classes. Janna with the AD on her shield. Lulu with her attack speed buff, Nami with her E, and Braum's passive are just some of the examples of this. Itemization has also changed to specifically benefit ADC's and not other classes. Ardent censor gives attack speed, lifesteal, and an on-hit effect. It's basically just an extra ADC item that the support buys instead. And there's no mage equivalent of this item either. In short, nowadays while xp is an important factor as to why other roles go bot, I don't think that it's the only factor. #Getting Mages in botlane Let's start this with mages. Very briefly during the beginning of this season we saw Ziggs become a meta botlaner. The big reason why Ziggs became meta botlane is that he had a much better and safer lane phase than most ADC's, while not sacrificing the siege potential that carries have. This is important, I think that if we want to get mages into the botlane, the best way would be to buff their damage against towers. I know that this is technically another tower nerf, but we can always buff them up later isn't that right riot? Anyways, by simply buffing the ratio of damage that they do to towers, we can get them to be in a stronger place for botlane. However, we need to be careful. First of all, this is technically a buff to midlane mages and a combination of now super-sieger mages and ADC's can lead to towers melting faster than ever. Also, certain champions that build AP and attack-speed would shred towers exceptionally fast (hi ). So instead, let's add an item that increases tower damage but only for botlaners. Also, since mages need levels in order to scale, let's combine it with the xp item to make it something that only botlaners would like to have instead of any other lane. Now, mages may or may not require xp buffs to survive botlane so It'd have to take extensive testing to see if this would be a good choice or not. My first thoughts is that we do need it, but seeing as how Ziggs was able to be successful even without the extra xp makes me doubt my choice. With that said, here's some idea for items.

Starting Item: Doran's Dark Seal Stats: 350 cost 15 AP, 45 Health, 100 Mana Unique Passive: Killing a Unit grants 4 mana and also increases XP gained from killing said unit by 25% (50%? Don't want to go overboard) if near an ally that would share said XP. (Notes: I modeled this item after doran's ring as a baseline. Note that these stats are similar just as a start point since I'm not going to design items but this is just for the idea sake. Even then, since this items stats are unarguably worse than Doran's ring for a solo laner and the main benefit, extra xp, does not even apply for them unless a jungler shows up in their lane, so there's no reason that they would buy this item in place or Doran's ring.)

Item: Upgraded Doran's Dark Seal (really can't name this stuff hehe) Price: 1300 40 AP, 60 HP, 100 Mana Unique Passive: Killing a unit grants 10 mana and also increases XP gained from killing said unit but 50% if near an ally that would share said XP. Unique Passive: Magic Damage dealt to towers is increased by (x)% Builds out of Doran's Dark Seal

Item: Not Morellonomicon Price: 3000 100 AP, 400 Mana, 100 HP Unique Passive: 20% CDR Unique Passive: Magic Damage dealt to towers is increased by (higher x)% Unique Passive: Killing a unit grants 25 mana increases XP gained by killing said unit by 50% if near an ally that would share said XP. Build's out of Upgraded Doran's Dark Seal, Fiendish Codex, and a Mana Crystal (Notes: Wanted to keep this simple. If Riot actually decided to take this idea, It'd probably be in their best interest in adding some weird active or unique effect or something to this item instead of making just Morello version 2 but this is just to get the point across. There'd also likely be a version of this item that would build out of Catalyst and be specifically targeted towards Battle mages like Cass but I'm too lazy to make more items whose stats don't even matter much when that's not the point of this discussion.)

#Getting Melees into botlane This is something that is very difficult to do properly and has been attempted and failed before. There is a way to do this however, and it is a bit unorthodox. Basically, melee botlaners are simply unable to siege towers as safely as ranged botlaners, and also have much more risky teamfights. So what kind of strength do should they have that would warrant them being picked over ranged botlaners? If they can't siege or teamfight as well as their ranged brothers, what can they do? End the game before that becomes a problem. Melee botlaners should be early game powerhouses. Their jobs should be to win the early game so that they can get an early lead and crush their opponents, essentially invalidating their biggest weaknesses since they are so far ahead that they can just stomp every fight and zone the enemy team away from the tower. That's already how it works with Morde ADC, and I believe that other Juggernauts could be taken botlane as well, like Darius. So let's look at Morde, a currently existing example of this. How does he get so strong in the lane to crush ranged opponents that should otherwise beat a melee? For one thing, his passive allows him to get a level advantage over his opponent allowing him to reach key powerspikes faster. But also because Morde usually has the back-up of a support. Supports almost always carry CC and can use this to engage fights for their carry. Late game, while Juggernauts may lack some kind of engage tool, this can be made up for by having a support to soften that weakness by providing cc and engage. So instead of having Morde be the only one to have this XP, let's let all of the melee's have it.

New Item: Doran's Jeans (we need more pant items in league damn it.) Cost: 450 G (Melee Only) Stats: 60 health Passive: Restore 6 health every 5 seconds Passive: Basic attacks deal an additional 5 damage to minions on hit. Unique Passive: Regain an additional 20 health over 10 seconds after taking damage from an enemy champion. Unique Passive: Last hitting a minion grants you 50% bonus XP when near a friendly champion. (Notes: Just like the previous items, I just took Doran's Shield and reworked it slightly. I think that it's important that this item provides some kind of resistance to early poke since ADC's have an advantage in lane from level 1 due to their range and poke. Once most melees hit level 3, however, they should be able to all in with their support and win.)

#Supports and Support Itemization. As ADC's became more ingrained in the meta, Riot began designing supports and support items with ADC's in mind, leading to champions and items that heavily favor being paired up with an ADC as opposed to any other role. This is especially true of enchanters, who often rely more on giving buffs and stats to their carries as opposed to hindering or stunning the opposing champions. Now, reworking each and every enchanter with extended ADC synergy is ridiculous and just idiotic. It's fair to have certain wardens and enchanters to have synergy with ADC's, just like how some champions synergize well with other roles. But I think it's important that some of the easier stat-checky champions get some fix for this. Example: Make Janna's shield give and AP buff as well as an AD buff. But I think for the future, Riot should design new supports to specifically be well fitted for other roles like melee's or mages. Since there are already several supports designed specifically for ADC's, I think that the next few support designs should be specifically to help mages especially, and maybe melees (although catcher's and other aggressive supports are already perfect when paired with any melee carry.) As for itemization, I think that the solution isn't to change all of the itemization, but instead to offer new items meant to help melees/mages. Maybe having an item that functions like an Ardent Censor for mages could work, as well as an item that gives melees some kind of speed boost could be effective for them (if not a little op.) All in all, it'd be up to riot to look at these things on a case by case basis. I'd take way too long to write down everything here in a case by case basis, so I'd leave it up to them.

#Moving Marksmen into other lanes. I'm going to address this briefly. One argument I see for when people bring up moving different roles to botlane is that marksmen don't have anywhere else to go. First of all, several Marksmen have been moving out of the botlane, especially recently. In the past, we've seen Quinn as a toplaner, Graves as a Jungler, Corki and Varus as Midlaners, Kindred as a Jungler, and more recently, MF as a support, Lucian as a mid laner, and Ezreal as a Jungler. There are even some niche picks like Twitch jungle which I'd say has the same kind of effectiveness as a Tryndamere Jungle. But of course, that isn't every ADC. So where would they go? The answer is bot. The fact that other champions would be viable bot doesn't cause ADC's to just migrate somewhere else. They'd stay primarily bot, but they'd have presence in other lanes as well as not being in every game. This is already happening to many of the classes in this game. For example, Skirmishers are a subclass that almost exclusively exist in the toplane. They have some niche uses in the jungle or maybe mid if you are Yasuo (I'd say there are more ADC's in the jungle than skirmishers. The only Skirmisher that primarily goes Jungle is Yi.) but otherwise are a class that is exclusively toplane. Even then, they aren't in every game. ADC's would obviously have much more presence than Skirmishers since there are more ADC's and more ADC players, but they wouldn't necessarily have to be in every game.

#Why even bother? I know that this is going to pop-up somewhere in the comments so I'm just going to tackle it here. Yes, that does seem like a lot of work for what is essentially bringing more diversity into the botlane, but these changes (if they work) wouldn't just be effective for diversity but also for general game health. Remember when ADC's were considered generally weak by the community and many people cried out for buffs? Well riot essentially overbuffed ADC's and caused them to reach the state that they are in today. But that overbuffing was intentional. Think about it, ADC's are the only role in the game that are MANDATORY. If they feel bad to play, then at least 1 person in every team is going to have a bad experience. If Assassins are garbage, then only the core assassin mains are really hurt. People that play midlane as a whole won't be feeling bad though, because they can pick mages instead. But if ADC's feel bad to play, everyone playing botlane feels bad to play, period. That's why ADC's are overbuffed. They are the only role viable botlane, so they'd better be good. Simply put, if ADC's weren't mandatory, and the focus of every game, we would have a game that would be much more easy to balance in the long term.

#Edit 1 I've changed my mind about mages needing bonus xp for botlane. What I didn't know was that the xp spread was changed recently to be a 60/60 split as opposed to a 50/50 split. What mages need is A: buffs to their itemization, B: The item that allows them to siege better that is exclusive to botlane (would likely have some stat that would require being next to a support to activate) C: Supports to have more tools to help mages D: ADC's to be weaker than they are right now (because they are overpowered right now and would be drowning out mages if mages were a viable option.) I'll stand by xp on melee's tho. They need that to compensate for their lack of late game power especially against ADC's who spike hard with a few items now. They need to get their strong powerspikes in lane faster so that they can compete because otherwise they'd naturally lose lane due to the nature of a melee vs ranged matchup.