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An honest discussion about the state of ADC's (Wall of text sorry)

Hensetsu·8/14/2017, 4:44:05 PM·25 votes·1,471 views

Hi guys, Hensetsu here. I'm going to try and be as civil as I can here!

I'm an ADC main now, but I agree with you guys that IE/Shiv/Censer is an OP combination. It's not insanely broken, but it definitely needs some toning down.

On the other hand, I don't believe that ADC's are running around one shotting people, at least not in my games.

Here are a few of my personal thoughts that I'd like to bring up!

1: The people who complain about being one shot are typically playing extremely squishy champions from a massive gold deficit. Imo, if a Mage is 8k gold up on you, they will one shot you. If a Fighter is 8k gold up on you, they'll obliterate you whilst losing 20% of their max HP. The same rule applies for ADC's. If someone is 8k gold up on you, don't expect to survive very long if you let them get that fed.

2: Control Mages outburst ADC's. ADC's deal more consistent DPS, but Mages burst way harder. A lategame Mage will one shot an ADC if they absorb one rotation. For example, as an ADC, I won't survive a lux Q/E/R combo if we both have 6 items. The only way I can survive this is to Qss as soon as the bind lands, at which point Lux can back up and try to bind me again.

3: Tanks soak up a fair amount of damage before they die. Most Tanks can soak up an ADC's damage for about 6-15 seconds midgame, and about 4-10 seconds lategame. This is a fair amount of time and if you play your Tank right and position well then you give your carries time to kill their frontline. Randiuns omen is also an item that doesn't seem to be very popular, but it provides great damage reduction alongside Ninja Tabi.

4: Assassins one shot ADC's faster than the other way around. Unless it's lategame, any duskblade assassin should be able to one shot an ADC. Talon/Rengar/Kayn/Kha'Zix/Wukong can all one shot an ADC easily at many stages of the game. It's usually only lategame when this stops, which is the stage of the game where the ADC is supposed to shine.

5: Fighters and Yasuo are our bane. Kayle/Jax/Trynd/Fiora/Camille will out 1 vs 1 at all stages of the game. They're much tankier than we are and often provide a reasonable if not high amount of damage in exchange for their low range.

We deal an insane amount of damage yes, but we're not so broken that we're an unstoppable force of pure damage. I feel like the forums have begun to exaggerate the strength of ADC's at this point.

I'd love to hear your honest thoughts on why you may think that ADC's are insanely broken, and why they may be the ones who dictate which team is going to win regardless of the other roles!

43 Comments

AbiwonKenabi8/14/2017, 5:17:24 PM11 votes

I think Ardent Censer is the main culprit here. What I think happened (in my humble gold ranked opinion) is:

  1. Support items fell into place - the coin changes made it the clear best support item especially for more traditional supports. You get a lot more money a lot faster and hardly ever run out of mana. Combine higher support budgets with Ardent Censer rush and effectively the ADC's budget has expanded too. Having super powered shields and heals is only going to benefit ADCs even more. On top of that, items like Locket and Redemption were already support must buys and you've got a pretty souped up ADC in most situations. And champs that take the most advantage of Ardent Censer also have great peel, so hyper carries like Jinx and Trist have a way to make it to late game faster and stay safe. (versus before where everyone was playing support Zyra to bring some damage to the table, or Rakan for the engages)
  2. Tanks are back - Tank items have been getting steadily buffed and it was only a matter of time before all the problem bruisers and assassins got nerfed and the tanks were able to be played to great effect again. The natural answer to tanks is ADCs because of their consistent damage. On the reverse side, Tanks provide protection and soak up damage for ADCs so they can be played more in a world where most teams have tanks.

In order for ADCs to be strong (usually. We don't talk about the time they reworked ADC items and Marksmen were played in literally every role), other roles have to be strong first, namely peel supports (like Janna, Soraka, Nami, Lulu, etc) and tanks (Maokai, Naut, many others). So I think we have a situation where changes elsewhere in the meta have necessitated ADCs stepping up again to great effect. It may also be that other ADCs that were pushing out variety have been nerfed, thought I'll be honest and say I forgot if any marksmen were nerfed recently.

I personally like metas where teams center mainly around ADCs, as long as they aren't so dominant that they inhabit nearly every role. When ADCs are the focus, tanks have a role on the team to soak the enemy ADC and protect their own, more heal and shield focused supports have a role, assassins are useful because of their ability to quickly dispatch an ADC, engage Champions are important for ADCs that excel in a team fight environment (like Twitch or Jinx), mages can provide extra magic damage and peel, bruisers can be used as pressure for the enemy ADC similar to assassins but can soak more damage...overall, I just think it provides more opportunity for a wider variety of roles. Generally speaking anyways, there have definitely been metas where Marksmen were strong that just blew for everyone else.

BobaFlautist8/14/2017, 5:16:01 PM10 votes

ADCs as they stand right now are completely balanced - on their own. An adc generally cannot 1v1 until very late without significant outplaying.

The problem is that supports have been repeatedly buffed to feel more impactful without being changed to benefit other classes alongside adcs (on the contrary, Lulu got a huge attack-speed buff, ardent censor changed to specifically enhance auto-attacjing, windspeaker's was created to specifically enhance adfs, etc...) and other classes have been repeatedly watered down to reduce their abuse cases.

ADCs of today are perfectly fair, balanced, and tuned - to season two. They have their own powerful defensive options, flexible build paths, and rewarding play patterns - they've been changed to give them the tools they need to deal with pre-assassin-update assassins, pre-mage-update mages, and pre-tank-update tanks even when their support is focusing on helping someone else - and their supports have been granted the tools to protect them from all the threats even when they misplay once in a while, as well as tied even more securely to their adc's hip.

Mages and assassins no longer have nearly the raw burst they used to, ADCs have been given more anti-burst tools as well as an immunity to poke, and supports have massive, repeatable shields that they didn't have before.

Tanks have weaker scaling defense (item 3193 being a notable exception that doesn't actually help against adc's massive sustained damage and neuters the tank's damage), with the slot efficiency of their items reduced time and again, as well as having their base damages, cooldowns, ability to lane, sustain, and damage scaling nerfed again and again, forcing them to focus on midgame power. Then tanks were deemed op midgame, every powerspike available to the was crushed, AND ADCs were given more midgame power. There is no longer a stage in the game were a tank can threaten an equal gold adc for being out of position 1v1, and in a teamfight a tank is a fraction of the threat to an adc they used to be.

Divers - not even gonna talk about divers. Everyone knows their problems.

You know what I blame for 90% of this (except all the specific neutering of champs that could kill adcs, of course)? item 3139 It is absolutely essential to cc an adc to kill them in this day and age of reduced burst, and they have the best tool in the game for dealing with cc. Really makes you think

Paroe8/14/2017, 8:33:58 PM6 votes

@thread This thread makes some assumptions. some of them are EXTREMELY WRONG. For starters; the marksmans job is not to 1v5 solo carry 360 hyper 720 69 noscope oneshot everything. **Their job is to siege and take objectives. ** Some ADCs like draven and ashe have good team fighting, but as a whole the class isnt supposed to be capable of reaching the same level of BURST that a mage is. "sustained burst" shouldnt be possible, and yet a standard ADC does more damage with ten times the survivability of any mage.

On a training dummy, an Ashe with item 3031 item 3508 item 3046 item 3085 item 3006 item 3812 has 315AD, 1.82 attack speed, and 414 movement speed does 7117 damage in ten seconds WITHOUT flurry. it goes up to 13000 WITH flurry. Meanwhile on a training dummy a Brand with item 2139 item 3040 item 3027 item 3165 item 3089 item 3285 item 3135 (950AP!) does 5242 damage in that same ten seconds.

Keep that in mind. TWO rotations of brands abilities + an ultimate did ALMOST TWO THOUSAND LESS than a marksman. The only way brand out damages that is if he has an isolated pair and lands every ability twice (including his passive)... The damage then bumps up to 7948.

A marksman should NEVER out burst a mage. EVER. It makes the mage class as a whole redundant because their only niche is "peel for the marksman and do as much damage to as many as possible so the marksman can actually kill them".

MLDzXnRRR8/14/2017, 4:49:28 PM5 votes

ADCs are not broken, but when you add the shields from the supports and the locket + gargoyle combo, they are too good compared to the other classes. Lol is the only moba with the same meta all the time.

Kloqdq8/14/2017, 6:15:43 PM4 votes

The problems with ADC can be broken down into 3 main groups that also bleed into out places in league.

The first being the already mentioned Support items. They have all be massively buffed and they are at the point of being waaaay to cost effective. They need to be toned down for sure.

The second major issue is Crit. Crit is the way with which adcs are gated. As the game goes on, they get more crit which allows them to scale. The major problem with Crit is the inherit burst factor of it and the overall cost of Crit items. Crit is one of the few RNG elements in league and it has been an unhealthy factor forever. Ashe, or Jhin are the best examples of Crit being windowed or being merely a ramp of damage rather then a random number that completely changes the outcome of a fit. There isn't skill involved with Crit. There isn't knowledge. There is merely a chance of hitting a critical hit. In PvE games, crit is fine but in a PVP game? No. The only time it is even remotely fine is in something like Overwatch where a headshot is a critical hit, rewarding for skill.

Onto the final issue; lifesteal. Just like Crit, lifesteal is a very flawed system that has no true element of skill within it. Darius heal requires some skill and works. WW gets healing from autos but it's mainly from his Q and Ult. Vlad's Q and R both provide a heal. You get the general point. In some way, every heal is gated behind either an ability or some time. Lifesteal on the other hand is survivability places on a 500-1000 auto that heals for a large amount. Sometimes it is just possible to watch an adc just drain tank people and not even die. This is a problematic case that may not happen often but it isn't healthy either. Lifesteal is almost always flawed and only tanks, brusiers, juggs, etc should have some form of sustain, as it is their job to stay in the fight for as long as possible.

To a smaller degree the raw survivability within the Marksman tool kit like item 3026 item 3155 item 3022 item 3140 etc, can also cause some issues as they often get the best of both worlds at the cost of sometimes only small damage. This is a small issue however and not apart of the main problem.

As you can see though, all these factors play into the grand problem that is Marksmans. League would need to completely rethink the class to fix it if they ever worked on it.

Painted Celt8/14/2017, 6:54:26 PM3 votes

This may be a separate subject, but I will always consider marksmen out of control until another class can reliably and viably compete with them in the bot-lane carry role. They are the definition of crushing gameplay diversity.
Right now, we have: Top: Fighters, Juggernauts, Tanks, Marksmen, and Mages Jg: Fighters, Assassins, Juggernauts, Tanks, and Marksmen (and one Utility: Ivern) Mid: Assassins, Mages, Marksmen, and Fighters Bot: Marksmen ...and extremely rarely Mages Support: Utility, Mages, Tanks, and rarely Marksmen

There is clearly one class in the lists above which is disproportionately represented...

Drynin8/14/2017, 8:45:01 PM3 votes

I definitely agree that the biggest issue is with how crit and AS work in this game. Mathematically, these can both be treated as flat Percentage multipliers to a DPS score in a game (statistically speaking that is). The fun part of % multipliers is they can compound with each other, adding up to insane levels the more you get. This isn't a problem in itself, except for the fact that ADC's essentially have 3 different multiplier stats like this (AS, Crit, and Crit Damage), and typically they are going to be the only ones able to utilize these stats since they're exclusively based on AA's. In contrast with spell users, except for a few rare exceptions, the only % scaling stats for them to use is CDR, for both AD spell casters, or AP spell casters.

Now, AP users have the benefit of getting more AP for damage, obviously, and so they do have the one item that gives the % scaling with item 3089 , but then there's numerous controlling factors surrounding this.

  1. It's the most expensive item in the game.
  2. Most spells can miss.
  3. the 35% AP increase is only indirectly added to the DPS because no spell has just flat AP ratio damage with no base damage. So you're essentially increasing damage by 35% to only 50-70% of the damage source.
  4. Spells are often tricky to calculate DPS effectively as they then vary so wildly between champions, as opposed to AA users like Marksmen, since everyone can AA, you can always have that direct comparison to fall back on.

Basically, what I'm starting to believe is that Riot focuses so heavily on the ADC's and marksmen because honestly, they're the easiest to adjust and be able to see the direct calculation to how the number crunching will affect the game. So they have to use this class as the base class to compare balance issues to with other classes, and if this class is wildly problematic inside itself, then they need to focus on it first.

But now that Marksmen are getting to be a pretty decent place as a whole group amonst itself (although Ezreal kind of needs some attention), I'm hoping Riot starts shifting their focus to really trying to match the other classes to Marksmen power base, or what a certain class should be in their minds when compared to the Marksmen class, I mean.

Athenes Lulu8/15/2017, 10:20:51 AM2 votes

I came here expecting another generic rant about how much OP would hate ADCs, but I was wrong. Instead, I see a reminder on how to deal with them, which is something we should be reminded with. [slayer-jinx-catface]

One thing to add is whatever your support can't peel from is whatever can shit on ADCs easy. Looking at you, mages. Killing their supports first can mean a free double kill for you, especially if the ADCs are bad and don't know that their support getting killed = free kill for them. Most mages have the burst and range to outrange even the ranged supports, and late game your burst can still catch up with their DPS.

ADCs who can't position for shit are everywhere, and so are supports who overlook the importance of peeling for their carries. Unless you have a huge money deficit, you should be able to kill any of them easy. Which is also why the "unkillable oneshotting bullshit" doesn't really come every day.

xToxicOsirisx8/15/2017, 6:42:37 AM2 votes

Holy shit- a post that actually says the truth wasn't downvoted. Bravo dude

AirKingNeo8/14/2017, 6:02:18 PM2 votes

Hey! You can't be intelligent! That's not allowed on the boards!

Hensetsu8/15/2017, 2:02:01 PM1 votes

[deleted]

Hensetsu8/14/2017, 5:32:04 PM1 votes

Ah, interesting, these points make sense.

I've definintely seen the strength of Ardent Censer/ Locket + Stoneplate myself.

It seems like it's actually more of an itemization issue rather than a balance one.

Locket/Stoneplate provides insane shields and Censer provides such an insane amount of gold value that the carries don't die.

Thank you for clearing this up a little bit guys, I thought that people thought that it was only the ADC's that were broken, and not how well items syngergise with them to make them unkillable.

A Censer/Locket + Stoneplate/Knights Vow ADC is definitely very hard to kill!

lolipopevelynn8/14/2017, 8:06:58 PM1 votes

ADCs use to have clear seprations from each other. you had your early game ADCsDraven Ezreal and you had your late game ADCsJinx Vayne KogMaw . the problem right now is certain ADCs never fall off and only get stronger as the game goes on on top of some of them still having a strong early and mid gameLucian Vayne (yes vayne, despite what people might tell you she only needs shyv and IE to start bursting people down.)

OHminus8/15/2017, 1:38:19 AM1 votes

The issue isn't really ADCs - it's supports and their itemization (well, lifesteal factors into this too, but lifesteal wouldn't matter as much if I could just beat down the ADCs initially without going through all the bs) I play Vi/Warwick pretty exclusively, and basically my team wins the fight if I can get to the enemy ADC, lock them down, and eventually kill them.

Supports with Knight's Vow/Redemption/Locket + heals and shields (with buffs from windspeakers, censer, and redemption) make that really, really hard for me to do. I basically groan when I see Twitch/Jinx/Draven/Trist + Braum/Janna/Maokai on the enemy team because of how hard it is for me to do anything in fights. Divers aren't really meant to fight the front line, they're meant to dive onto the enemy carries and beat them down. Champions like Maokai, Braum, and Janna make task herculean.

Here are the specific issues I have:

  1. Censer draining health on hit is basically a big no-no. It basically allows ADCs to rush Shiv/IE because they'll essentially have lifesteal. The item itself is overtuned, giving too much in the way of raw stats while giving the buff to healing and shielding WHILE having that unique passive for a fairly low cost.

  2. Coin allows supports like Janna to get Censer insanely quickly. Gold gain from coin has to be nerfed (40 gold for simply walking near a coin is insane. I've seen Braums using Coin instead of Shield just because they could reach Knight's Vow more quickly)

  3. Knight's Vow is too superior to other HP/Armor items. Thornmail needs buffs to it's base armor (not the damage, but how much armor it gives) and Sunfire ... just needs something massive at this point. The item is straight trash.

  4. Tanks. Tanks are the true culprit (or unsung hero, to tank mains) of this ADC meta. ADCs are good against tanks, but there's also the fact that tanks protect the ADCs really, really well (this is also the relationship with divers/assassins, imo). So whenever tanks are strong, ADCs will be strong as well. Maokai, Gragas, Cho, and Sej are some of the strongest champions this patch, and ADCs, especially those with self peel/long range (Trist, Twitch, Jinx) do great with/against these champs.

BoilTheOil8/15/2017, 2:58:20 AM1 votes

I mean Draven Twitch are half assassins