The "Protect the ADC Meta" Is just basic gameplay of role-based games.
I mean it makes sense, people on the boards hate ADC, and hate it when they have to actively try to remember to give them any assistance. Sad and doesnt make any sense, but hey... All i ask is that before blind hate you at least skim or read the last section which is gonna be a TL;DR. I also ask that you really give good criticism here since I do want this to be an ACTUAL discussion of ADCs instead of "LUL Fuck ADCS"
Anyway this argument always comes up whenever ADCs are not straight garbage. Wether they exist at all or are strong is irrelevant this always comes up. Why do i have to rely on my ADC?
This is because in all role based games forever and always the DPS is ALWAYS the most important. And heres why (Note this is not league of legends, ill talk about league comparison after basics); Tanks - You were existed not to tank the enemy, but to protect your allies. You can hold off an enemy till you are blue in the face, but if you dont have anyone helping you kill them, you are simply wasting time. Support - Your job is to keep tanks alive so they can keep DPS alive. DPS - Actually kill shit.
Now whats the difference between league. Afterall Supports #1 concern is the ADC in league. This is because:
- ADCs are reliable. Sure you can make jokes about how ADC is just right clicking, and this is indeed most of their combat. However if you are an idiot and place yourself in an easily killable position, ADC is more assassin than assassin jokes aside, Your ass is gonna be sliced like butter. But as long as they are in proper position they can reliably do damage.
- League doesnt have an aggro system. In most active PVP games, there is little point in attacking a tank, since you will die to the people behind them. Because of this support switches from making sure the tank doesnt die to aggro. To make sure DPS doesnt die to other effects. And this is the same to league. When players can make the concious decision to not throw their rock at a brick wall. They will throw it at other thing instead. So supports need to be mindful of that and protect their ADC.
Now onto why the ADC? Because it is the most DPS based role. Sure Assassins deal damage, but their job is to kill solo squishies, not groups or tanky targets. This is the same in all games. Meaning in league if you properly group, especially lategame you are more useless than usual. The appeal of assassins late game is if they CAN kill the ADC because they get the jump on them they are in a way better position to fight. Assassin job done.
Alt Damage like Bruisers/juggernauts arent reliable enough but can be paired with literally anything to gaurentee a 2v1. They dont need a support. However late game they will do less damage since they are always closer ranges, and as such are more vulnerable. So they need to build tanky and as such deal less damage.
Mages and i saved them for last since they are the closest thing. The reason the mages arent supported as much by healers is because they are burst. That and they are even longer ranged than ADC typically. Meaning they go in, do their combo, and get out. I WILL SAY THOUGH i do think that mages could use more late game damage. Obviously Mages should never 1 combo an ADC late, sorry but thats not good. Mages can and almost always will get their combo off faster than an ADC can kill them, especially do to outrange. Getting 1 combod behind a tank because a mage hiding behing their has all piercing attacks would just be dumb. However at the same time i feel like late they could use at least a bit more power.
The Jungler Why does the jungler have to be a tank in ADC favoring Metas? Because as established Damage is (shockingly) the main way to progress through any game. On non-ADC metas the jungler is usually more damage based. Why? Because they need it. Without a proper damage source the game will slow way WAY down resulting in taking more time, and if the enemy can deal damage faster than you, you lose. Of course this doesnt take into account mains, and other various reasons for picking a jungler since it is for the most part the most diverse role in the game.
Whats to blame? Why is League (and other mobas) so different than other role based games? 2 reasons:
- They are fully PVP. As explained with the aggro thing, Attacking Damage dealers is very important to proceed. As such team dynamics and decisions reflect this. 2 (The biggest one). In Mobas with things like Items character differentiation takes a hit. I will compare characters from Mobas to MMOs here. In MMOs the biggest hate for DPS comes with the fact that their are so many different DPS classes, and as such there are much fewer healers and Tanks and queue times get long for DPS... really really long. However the main thing is what CHANGES in MMOs, The classes, sure in league you have things like artillery mages, and dps mages, and control mages, and caster ADCs, and right click ADCs, etc. But because of Items they all build the same way. And in Mobas Items dictate how you play. Wanna right click? Build Attack Speed, and IE. Wanna do your rotation more? Build CDR. Wanna be tanky? Build tanky ya screw. But MMOs the classes themselves dictate things. Take WoW for example. Another one of the biggest games in the world, also one to really... normalize the whole role system in general. How does it do its classes? Well with minimal importance on stats. In Wow there are 5 stats (Well technically like 9 now, but the 4 new ones are really gimicks and arent really stats at all.) In league there are 10-16 (i put the range because technically lifesteal exists in mobas but its on moves not as a stat.) What WoW does to differentiate its classes is each class has 30+ moves instead of basic Mobas 4. As well as class variants, Which add another 5 to 10 things themselves. Add that to the fact that its PVE, and you can see why it becomes different. You can easily make different specs in your class, do different rotations, etc. Sure there are always some better than others. But you have options. Sure you can build Champions in League off-meta, but that is usually side-added in just so you can fuck around if you want. But it is by far not considered the right thing to do, nor a smart choice as it is usually way less effective. There is usually only 1 effective rotation as well. Because Items exist, even with 140 different champions this causes a lot of similar things, which in turn changes the role system as a whole. Is this a bad thing? Not necessarily but its something you SHOULD take note of when thinking about what makes League League.
TL;DR I was gonna make this longer but instead of typing for 2 hours i decided to type for 35 or so minutes because since this is a post not completely shitting on ADCs the odds of it getting downvoted and dissapearing are too real. So i decided to not waste TOO much time on it, sorry if the ideas arent AS detailed as i normally like. But the actual TL;DR is ADCs and DPS in general have always been coddled since they are the main way to progress in any game. Time is money and as such having a game of nothing but tanks just wastes a lot of time. The reason its ADC in league is because they are more reliable and stable than any other class in league. Also the reason roles are roles at all is because diversity exists in many different stats in items, instead of the roles themselves.
EDIT: Hoo boy, downvote right away. Welp this post might as well be deleted. God i love the boards.
