Marksman has been the only role to always be present

Visigoth·Oct 30, 2015·8 votes·1,012 views

Literally, throughout all the years only marksmen have always been essential. Tanks, Assassins, Peel champs, mages. All of them at one point weren't viable. Never ADCs though. And now, prepare for the 4 marksman meta, because 1 every game wasn't enough. I honestly don't even care anymore about absurd bot lane Morde. At least he broke through the marksman wall. He's the only champion who ever has done it. Mordekaiser finally broke the chain of always having an marksman. And now, he's getting nerfed and marksman getting huge buffs, not to mention itemization is essentially nerfing assassins, the only class that can consistently beat marksman, and that's still only a few assassins.

11 Comments

Reaper ReviewOct 30, 20153 votes

As long as the objective of the game involves taking structures, ranged DPS is always going to be a necessity. Your average marksman just happens to be the best fit for destroying turrets.

Irelia BotOct 30, 20151 votes

[{quoted}](name=Naut A Liss,realm=NA,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=VJGINces,comment-id=0002,timestamp=2015-10-30T03:23:26.992+0000)

As long as the objective of the game involves taking structures, ranged DPS is always going to be a necessity. Your average marksman just happens to be the best fit for destroying turrets.

If it became to risky to run a ranged DPS champ then this would change.

ShonjlOct 30, 20151 votes

Not really. Ranged dps are just better at it. Put say Yi vs Jynx against a tower, sure they both destroy them in seconds, but the difference is one does it at range. The fact they are safer that way, due to escaping tower range quicker, being more away from where the enemy can come from means at the end of the day, ranged are better siegers.

Yi or Tyrn can break towers quicker but still don't have the slightly safer ability of ranged champs...being ranged.

Irelia BotOct 30, 20151 votes

{quoted}

Not really. Ranged dps are just better at it. Put say Yi vs Jynx against a tower, sure they both destroy them in seconds, but the difference is one does it at range. The fact they are safer that way, due to escaping tower range quicker, being more away from where the enemy can come from means at the end of the day, ranged are better siegers.

Yi or Tyrn can break towers quicker but still don't have the slightly safer ability of ranged champs...being ranged.

In turn they should have higher risks in other factors for being ranged to make it an option instead of mandatory. The fact is that they do not.

TehNACHOOct 30, 20151 votes

To be frank, it's more to the fault that their counterparts, the support, exists.

And you can't solve that problem easily because there are literally too many players on Summoner's Rift for the map to properly support.

IcyPepperOct 30, 20151 votes

To be frank, it's more to the fault that their counterparts, the support, exists.

Why?

Supports can support, well, anybody. Their job is to support the team, not just the adc, come mid and late game. How is it their fault that the ADC must go bot lane every game, or there needs to be an ADC every game? o.O

TehNACHOOct 30, 20151 votes

You sort of missed the point.

For a start, the support can't assist the mid lane without ruining a lot of the innate efficiency that solo-mid enjoys, leaving side lane and jungle supports the more viable options.

And before you start on that, jungle support was a dedicated meta for a short while during S4 if you payed any attention to the competitive scene.

In any other scenario, the problem lies in forcing the support into a side lane. How do you maximize efficiency? You can't put most mages or tanks with a support because they scale hard as hell on levels, not gold. Due to how Auto Attacks work in the game however, they scale extremely hard on gold and very little on levels in the majority of cases. It would therefore make the most sense that in the lane you shove a Support into, you let them babysit an auto attack carry. And then there's the case that rADCs are better than mADCs for the majority of practical situations, and you have the ADC as a class begin to exist.

As for the bot lane comment, dragon. Depending on how the new epic monster affects the metagame, we may see ADCs favor mid or top lane.

VisigothOct 30, 20152 votes

{quoted}

To be frank, it's more to the fault that their counterparts, the support, exists.

And you can't solve that problem easily because there are literally too many players on Summoner's Rift for the map to properly support.

But support exists to serve an ADC usually, because they're so essential they need an entire role to guarantee safety. No other role needs a support because no other role is so strong that another player needs to protect them because how high priority they are. The only exception is Mordekaiser who needed protection from a ranged laning opponent and so he could W, and because he needs to be close to dragon.

TehNACHOOct 30, 20151 votes

{quoted}

You sort of missed the point.

For a start, the support can't assist the mid lane without ruining a lot of the innate efficiency that solo-mid enjoys, leaving side lane and jungle supports the more viable options.

And before you start on that, jungle support was a dedicated meta for a short while during S4 if you payed any attention to the competitive scene.

In any other scenario, the problem lies in forcing the support into a side lane. How do you maximize efficiency? You can't put most mages or tanks with a support because they scale hard as hell on levels, not gold. Due to how Auto Attacks work in the game however, they scale extremely hard on gold and very little on levels in the majority of cases. It would therefore make the most sense that in the lane you shove a Support into, you let them babysit an auto attack carry. And then there's the case that rADCs are better than mADCs for the majority of practical situations, and you have the ADC as a class begin to exist.

As for the bot lane comment, dragon. Depending on how the new epic monster affects the metagame, we may see ADCs favor mid or top lane.

I mean, "No other role needs a support because no other role is so strong that another player needs to protect them because how high priority they are." is literally backwards. ADCs are at their weakest in the early game in literally every way, getting stat checked by fighters, lacking the utility of mages and tanks, and not having either burst nor overly substantial DPS. In order for the vast majority of marksmen to even begin to work requires babysitting.

Irelia BotOct 30, 20151 votes

The problem is that there is not real punishment to supports and marksmen for the support spending most of their time in the same area getting exp.

If there was no Exp boost or some clear disadvantage to having the support with the ADC early on then marksmen might not be required every game.

ltmetalOct 30, 20151 votes

Thinking outside the box can still get you really far. You don't have to run a marksman bot, or even anywhere in your team. I've won over 50% of the games I've played with a Master Yi or Rengar bot because you still have sustained damage to take structures (admittedly requiring you to assassinate their team first).

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BI6pVvESotg

Mordekaiser bot worked even before the XP gain from W. Ryze and Azir bot give sustained magic damage instead of the conventional AA damage. Jayce, Gnar, and Kennen ADC have playstyles that are distinctively different from marksmen while still getting plenty of farm and winning trades in lane. Different champions and comps have different strengths and weaknesses. Just because you don't have a ranged AD doesn't mean you are weaker than another team that does.