On range, mobility and damage balance...

So, today I was playing as Varus and realized he's still quite viable, I was actually teaching a friend how to use him and though I don't use him much either, I'm supposed to be an adc main so technically you have knowledge enough as to maneuver with any adc. What I realized was that, aside from the need to count your autos in order to maximize your blight damage, Varus, much like Ashe, is a Champion that needs to take advantage of his range and stay as far away as possible all the time since his kit allows him to.

This brought me to a comparison with another ADC who happens to function similarly and that I just mentioned, Ashe, she happens to have more range than Varus but she's way more effective at keeping the enemy at bay thanks to her volley, frostshot and to some degree ECA. At this point I couldn't help but wonder why Ashe has more range than varus if both are pretty immobile and both of them must use their range in order to survive? more importantly, why does Ashe has more range than Varus when all that Varus has is a measly 45% slow Area and a less than 10 seconds difference on his ult?

There's also a couple ADCs who seem to fit the criteria as well but they must pay something in order to achieve their range, it's like they earn survivability through range but never for free, these would be: , , and , they must invest levels, mana, uptime or even attack speed. Their survivability though is not entirely tied to their range since they don't have huge range ALL the time. They must balance their range with their damage and that's when steroids come in, we can consider an steroid as ANYTHING that increases your damage output, no matter if it's an armor debuff, an attack speed buff, true damage DoT, on-death explosion, or just HUGE a huge dmg skill. This is what balances the equation for these guys when they don't have huge range on. and have LESS steroids in their kit than these guys, probably because they have greater range all the time, instead their steroids manifests as utility, that's right, CC, they can keep the enemy in one place and apply damage from safety.

This in theory sounds really nice and we start soaking ourselves with many of the levers Riot uses for balance. There are a couple ADCs that stand out too much when we start thinking about mobility, range and damage as means to survive and I'd like to point them out as much as my knowledge of the game allows me to.

This lady right here is the epitome of damage and range, but not happy with it she has mobility as well plus a slow, she has a great reliable steroid on her passive, plus an snare (Admittedly hard to apply but hey, it's there). When you start thinking about balancing things out you reach Cait and think: wtf Riot?. She has greater range than Ashe and Varus, she's way better at surviving, she's way better at killing, she's way better at poking, she's WAY better at chaining CC and she has more damage overall... If anything I'd expect her to have the same range as Ashe if not less.

This one must "invest" levels in order to achieve her range, but until then she has one hell of a escape, a huge AS steroid, a knockback and her new explosion. Compared to Ashe and Varus she's not that far off, she became the queen of steroids with her rework and that's pretty cool, you have to know what you're doing in order to maximize her damage but once you reach lategame you surpass any other ADC in damage thanks to how Attack speed scales exponentially, you also gain range and keep your mobility, she becomes even better than cait at lvl 17 I think.

This lady has crazy mobility, If the game counted how much units you moved in a game, Kalista's numbers would be off the charts. Her damage is not that bad either but honestly her kit is nothing without rend. So she's too mobile and has good damage, some small utility and that's it. Compared to Ashe and Varus she's way better at poking, escaping but perhaps not at killing as fast.

This guy has more damage than anything you've ever seen, his mobility is ok but his range is low, that's how balance should work, you can be good at one thing but you pay with something else, in Tristana's case you pay with not being THAT good during most of the game for example and Kalista pays with having not that much damage (upfront) or Range.

These guys earn survivability through different means that aren't included in Range, damage or mobility. Graves is tankier, Lucian threads his AA for more dmg and mobility, Corki has 3 types of damage and Ezreal is a tad more mobile and has more range through his skills only.

These ladies are the short ranged ADCs, they get situational mobility, situational damage and situational range... since they have many many moments on a game they can adapt themselves and beat pretty much anyone given that the person using them is skilled in positioning, orbwalking and/or ambushing

TL;DR: I got distracted and started talking about all ADCs x_X sorry about that, this post should be about Varus, Ashe and Cait mostly, the 3 ADCs who has more range but in relation to each others there's a huge imbalance, why does Cait has more range or damage or mobility? what's Cait's payoff? is there even one? who did Cait sleep with to be this good? xD