Melee vs Ranged AD: Equivalent of Exchange

When it comes to a discussion of "Melee vs. Ranged AD; who is more viable?" The answer usually comes to Ranged champions winning against melee, despite given circumstances. But why?** The reason is their lack of equivalent exchange.**

To what I understand, *Riot has attempted to balance these two types of carries through a form of mobility. Melee champions are more mobile than ranged champions; allowing them to get in close as fast as possible to dish out damage. But this is flawed: ----------------------------- As we know; most melee champions have a form of dash, slow, or a speed boost to get them closer to their victims. This system works and allows melee carries to get into an even fight against ranged carries while taking as little damage from afar as possible to simulate a fight of "Who crits, scales, or hits hardest?"

Recently, this has changed. Riot has given more and more ranged champions different forms of slows, dashes, roots, and knock-backs to prevent melee champions from getting too close or causing these champions to waste their forms of gap-closing. This allows the ranged carries to dish out damage while taking little to no damage when the melee champion reaches them. While this can be called "Kiting" and can require skill of the ranged champion player (And fault of the melee player), these two instances cancel each other out in the long run in terms of even skill and strategy. -----------------------------* Let's put two random League champions,* one melee and one ranged; and have no abilities or passive*, against each other. Who will win? The ranged champion. Why? The ranged champion attacks earlier than the melee champion, usually just as fast and hard, if not faster and harder. This is where the equivalent of exchange needs to be placed. To make both ranged and melee champions have consideration in play, you need to give one type something greater than the other, as well as take away the opposite. This is where my theory comes in:

When AD carries are picked, they usually are looked at for three main things; their kit, attack speed, and attack damage scaling. In the current situation, both melee and ranged AD carries have similar scaling per level in both areas while their kit's utility cancels each other out, making ranged champions a priority. To balance the pick out, melee carries should scale significantly well per level in either attack speed or damage while scaling less in the other stat chosen. As for ranged carries, the opposite must be taken into account. If melee carries scale better in damage per level than attack speed per level, ranged carries should scale** better with attack speed per level and less in damage per level.** -----------------------------* "But what about being hit before melee champions can reach the attacking ranged champion? How does this help?" While I know ***Riot *** understands higher armor scaling should be given to compensate this situation; the above theory allows for both champion types to have consideration when being picked. But let me flesh it out a bit for those still asking.

Let's place these two champions without abilities or passives against each other again. The melee champion now has significantly more damage but less attack speed, and the ranged champion the opposite. The ranged carry will hit very fast and possibly knock the champion down to 2/3 or 1/2 HP before the melee champion reaches them. When they do, he is going to take less time taking the ranged carry out to 1/2 HP by hitting them harder, while the melee carry is taken down to 1/3 HP during that time. Given that the melee carry has higher natural armor scaling, they both will eventually hit near-equivalent levels of Hp as the deciding factor comes from critical hits or the ranged champion's ability to kite or the melee's ability to avoid being kited which, given their kits, comes from the player's skill and not the used champion. -----------------------------*

I hope to hear feedback and opinions on this from both the players and Riot staff. -----------------------------*

The fact is they intentionally keep melee worse because they believe ranged takes more skill than melee. Ask ghostcrawler

This is accounting for games which players of equal skill are matched against each other, which is how the current system works. If the ranged carry is less skilled on the champion than the average player of that skill level, the melee carry will have the advantage. ***But over time, this evens out as the ranged player grows in skill and understands stronger plays. ***

Cost + Effort = Reward, this is the balancing equation, your input must match your output, you can't get something for nothing, High Skill = High Reward, I would say champions like Riven or Syndra fall into this category, meanwhile champions like Ryze exist, Low Skill - High Reward, He can 1v1 and even if you land every hit, you win, skill is not a factor, cost is not a factor, it's very simply press the buttons and do the damages. Why play Riven or Syndra if you can play Ryze? The only answer which is not good enough, is flexibility, the one advantage is the fact that this game is not a 1v1 all in tournament, because if this was a 1v1 all in tournament Ryze, Jayce, Pantheon, would all be pick or ban, and champions like Riven would be deleted to make room for Ryze's father and Bizzaro Jayce, the new champions, similar to the current editions but less effort and mana costs.

Low Risk- High Reward is a foo strategy to get new players invested into the game. It allows newer players to feel good about themselves when playing, and wanting to keep going. But what Riot might already not know, or what us players currently do not know, is that a champion like Ryze has a strong counter-play (Or should have) against him. Balance in this part of ANY game should allow higher-skilled players to be able to hold easy victory over these Foo Strategies. Thus, making this strategy useless in higher-tiered gameplay.

Jinx is an excellent look at a Foo Strategy gone right. Her kit allows newer players to get a feel for an R-ADC without having to get thrown into hard kiting or positioning. But champions like Vayne or Twitch easily knock Jinx out of the park because they have a higher risk-reward factor for them. Jinx will eventually be dropped by a player for another of better reward like Vayne and Twitch.