ADC is starting to make sense now

Randomonium··2 votes·344 views

When I first started playing League my worst role by far was ADC. I had trouble last hitting, I always seemed to be out of position and I never seemed to be able to do enough damage. It was particularly frustrating to me because I usually pick up video games pretty quickly so I went to custom games and just practiced last hitting and harassing for hour on end. After months of doing this and watching high level streamers I finally feel like ADC is beginning to click for me.

Above is a recent video of a game I played. I'd love to get feedback on in. I feel like I played well but I definitely still made quite a few mistakes. My CS score could have been better, there were times when I didn't use my abilities optimally, and I also wasted some time trying to figure out where to best apply pressure once I took my first tower. That said, I did wind up going 15/0/1 with a triple kill and a quadra kill so I can't be too upset with myself. Please check out the video if you have some time. I think its a pretty entertaining game and I'd love to get feedback on my play and also my commentary to make sure that everything I'm saying and doing isn't completely messed up.

6 Comments

bloodybadger11 votes

Yeah it took me forever to start "clicking" as an adc. Granted sometimes i still feel like i have no idea what im doing, but it has definitely gotten better. much easier in higher mmr because supports just carry my butt to mid game and late game teamfights where i know i can dominate. silver was so hard for me as adc so i played vi till i got out. (note the following is completely observation and/or suggestion; from what i can tell your mindset is on the right track, not that i am one with the credentials to judge)

tbh its easier to do what you did in your video to graves since he has a low range. better caits will trade the heck out of you and you will have to adapt your playstyle accordingly.

as you rise in mmr and rank try to focus more on cs. I doubt you'll ever get 15 0 1 in a plat or diamond game as well (still watching your video as well so forgive me if you did farm well). also be careful of heavy harassing because losing too much mana means a free kill for jungle should they see you playing crazy aggro. however, in this case since you were dominating your lane and their was an enemy ww who has bad ganking potential till 6 maybe pushing to tier 2 tower mightve been better. just ask your jung to come with you bot side enemy jung then you ward that side of the jungle up and if need be you 3 v 3 them which you should win if you are dominating. I feel pushing to the tier 2 tower is harder at 20min+ with only you and your support so at around 10min pushing to tier two isnt too threatening unless you see enemy mid roam down.

also ~9min you took tower. not always the best idea. If you are dominating your lane you may wanna keep it up to keep the wave around river midway through the map and just zone the enemy bot lane. then you have 4ish kills and out cs the enemy adc hard in both levels and gold. Its good that you roamed after but sometimes roaming too early causes people to get less farm in the long run. games i have ~20 min of lane phase i almost always have or get around 200 cs by 25-30 min on most games. however, if i take turret it seems harder to control my farming later on ( i get distracted by the aram mid lane mentality teamfight phase).

you'll see the zoning technique in higher mmr games like ones that are featured in the client. watch a cait game to look at harassing and the zoning she does. then apply this zoning control when you get 1-2 kills up in your games even if you aren't a caitlyn. Ive noticed that when i would go hyper aggro when i first started ranked I got ganked constantly. There would ALWAYS be 4 enemy champs at bot lane after like 9 min or so if i was playing really aggro. I have started to balance my wave control and my heavy harass to keep me safer. you seemed to be essentially zoning when you were harassing the graves but in other matchups or against/with other supports may make it harder to do. ex: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8WvOq1urZ7c

I saw you use tristana jump aggressively when you were ahead in lane. very good. sometimes lower mmr plays too passively when they shouldn't (myself included).

1650 not good to get charmed like that. much better to play it safe and wait for the next wave. as adc you have to play like a pansy once the teamfighting starts especially if you are the one with the most kills/gold. I seem to notice this alot when i play as adc against malphite because malphites always seem to save ult just for the adc. if i was that ww at that point i woulda waited till you attacked turret like that and ulted. i wouldnt even care if i died cuz the shutdown and objective control we woulda got after woulda been insane with you off the map which would be when the enemy team coulda got back into the game if they even had a chance at all.

Playing patiently as an adc and yet aggressively is the hardest thing about adc imo. A game like this is easier watch and understand what you did well, but when the game is more even mistakes are much easier to notice.

Overall, very good mindset and core philosophies. I think there is improvement in many things, but as an adc the most important ones i see that aren't in the video or at least mentioned are positioning, zoning, wave control, when to back, itemization (goes hand in hand with backing), and many little things such as walking to edge of fountain when you shop. Also, learn to attack move to get better at kiting and prevent needless trade damage by accidently walking forward when csing.

wall of text op

tl;dr i thought it was good, continue to play adc and you will surely rise!

Randomonium1 votes

Yeah, my whole mentality in that game was to ask myself "how can this Graves hurt me and how can I hurt him?" Once I realized that I pretty much had free harass as long as I dodged his Q and stayed behind the minion line I tried to punish him as much as possible. I think he could have countered me if he used his smokescreen and dash offensively since his short range burst was way higher than mine but thankfully he didn't do that. I agree that I would have had to use different strategies with a longer range ADC but I think my thought process still would have been sound.

I farmed OK but not great (5.7 CS/min.) My goal for this game was to focus on denying the Graves a much CS as possible even if it meant I gave up a few CS as well.

I agree the Warwick had completely the wrong focus and really hurt his team's chance at winning. If he had ganked bot lane early, even if it was a failed pre-level 6 gank, it would have changed the whole tone of the lane and forced me to play more conservatively and constantly worry about a possible gank.

Very good advice about not taking the tower too early. My whole mentality with Tristana has always been poke out the enemy ADC, knock down the tower when they are forced to back and then rotate and knock down the other outer towers to get a ton of global gold for your team and hopefully snowball the mid game. I can definitely understand how it could be useful to drag out the laning phase longer (as long as your other lanes aren't getting smashed) and bleed the enemy ADC some more. Freezing the wave under your tower can completely shut him out of gold and EXP and also protect you from most jungler intervention.

I agree that going too aggro can draw unwanted attention. When I jungle I always look for the most aggro players and camp their lanes. I felt pretty safe though with the constant ward coverage and the combination of my rocket jump, my ult for disengage, Kayle's slow and her ultimate.

Yeah, I used to always save my rocket jump for escapes and then I had a eureka moment where I was like "why am I so conservative with rocket jump. If I get max stacks on explosive charge the cooldown resets so I can use it to escape again if I need to."

One of my biggest mistakes is I definitely got a bit cocky and impatient when I transitioned to mid lane. Luckily that mistake didn't cost me too much.

Good advice on what else I should talk about in the games. I'm definitely thinking about all those things I just need to work on vocalizing them better and explaining why I'm doing what I'm doing.

For key bindings I've set it up so attack move is set to my left mouse button and normal move is set to my right mouse button. I find this really helps me kite. I think my more common mistake is I misclick on minions or don't use the "target champions only" button.

I know it can difficult to see some mistakes when I stomp as much as I did in this game. I try to upload as many of my games as I can, even ones I lose. Feel free to check out some others if you want. https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC2EZm50wNGmfJal7IHM_b8Q

Wall of text OP but I will overcome!

bloodybadger11 votes

Completely agreed with everything you just said. I wasn't exactly sure what all was going through your mind at the time in the video, but it is definitely on point in the explanation above.

In regards to what to do after taking your first tower I would have done the same thing and pushed mid lane and got mid tower and drag mostly because I always think its the safer thing to do. However, my post was just to give you some alternative options that you may consider trying in different situations.

Completely agree with this: "I can definitely understand how it could be useful to drag out the laning phase longer (as long as your other lanes aren't getting smashed) and bleed the enemy ADC some more. Freezing the wave under your tower can completely shut him out of gold and EXP and also protect you from most jungler intervention."

The best thing to do in bot lane is definitely situational, but with experience and trial and error I think you will come to find what works best for you. I have checked out some of your other videos and I have to say you do give very sound advice and I appreciate the effort made in your videos. Keep up the good work.

Randomonium1 votes

Thanks man. I'm still very new to this game (season 5 was my first ranked season) but I've watched pretty much every LCS game and high level stream I can get my hands on. It feels good to finally have things clicking again. I used to be a diamond level Starcraft II player but I really haven't been able to play video games for like 3 years. Hopefully I can be as successful at this game as Starcraft.

PabloMaster543211 votes

Yeah, i hated playing adc with all these champions that rek them no matter what, "adc killers" "worst nightmares for adc" there are things even adc's can't kite no matter what.

Randomonium1 votes

Yeah, it got really difficult for me to get used to that. I usually play tanks and bruisers who can get hit with a mac truck and keep on going. Now an assassin jumps on me and half my health (or more) disappears in the time it takes my monitor to refresh. My first instinct was to panic when that happened but I've started to figure out how to stay calm, use my abilities to get some distance and trade back with the assassin. Yeah I'm squishy but so are they and as long as you can survive the initial burst as an ADC you can usually turn the tables on them and pick up the kill.

I had some decent luck against assassins as Graves, maybe it was luck though. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TlZWyFPof5M

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