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How to Fix Bot Lane

WitchQueen Annie··1 votes·780 views

Right now there is the perception that Bot Lane decides the game: a good ADC/Bot Duo becomes impossible for a team to shut down ("Mid is useless," "Top is useless," "JG is useless" except to the extent of the first 15 mins where they set up oppertunities for Bot). ADCs deal "too much" damage and get there too quickly.

I propose the following solutions:

  1. Massively buff the health of Bot Towers (like at least double it)
  2. Massively decrease the amount of gold/exp you get for taking Bot tower
  3. Introduce new attached mechanics to force the ADC to CS in bot and the Support to Support in bot.

What are these attached mechanics? Support gold generation items have a new attached effect where they generate MORE gold/exp in the Bot Lane (less gold/exp elsewhere). The game keeps tabs on how much Gold is earned in Bot Lane and how much gold is earned Elsewhere. When buying Support/ADC items there will be a discount in gold based on how much gold was earned in the Bot Lane. In practice the discount will be SLIGHT but it will be there to try and dis-incentivise lane swaps in pro play.

The following gains would be made:

  1. There is less incentive for the JG, Top, or Mid to make plays in the Bot lane (they will consider other lanes instead) because the reward and probability of getting that first tower is less. This will increase Bot lane's agency to determine the fate of their own lane.
  2. The Bot Lane that gets ahead will need more gold to hit their power spikes and will hit hyper carry status slightly later.
  3. Pro Play will not default back to lane switching because of the mechanics that "ground"/incentivize the ADC/Support players to stay in the Bot Lane in spite of the increased tower health.
  4. The stronger tower health will give a wider window for the other lanes to impact the game in ways that don't involve a fiesta in the Bot Lane.

Hence the changes would benefit ADC/Support agency while delaying their scheduled giant impact on the game. This gives a wider window for other lanes to shine in ways that don't necessarily have to related to Bot Lane.

Also, the attached mechanics prevent the boring lane swaps that might otherwise happen in the LCS.

6 Comments

webstar11081 votes
  1. and 2. would destroy top lane. It is already an island some games. This would make top lane pointless almost. Rift Herald would be the only thing on that side of the ma[ that mattered. Also what about lane swapping?
WitchQueen Annie1 votes

I would say it helps Top lane.

Since its harder to take Bot Tower, the chances that the decisive play in the first 15 mins will happen somewhere else (maybe Top) will dramatically increase.

Top lane now has the option of carrying from Top lane (by solo carrying against the other laner) or roaming Mid, they are not longer FORCED to impact the game by going Bot. Your island 1 vs 1 in Top will actually have a higher probability of impact on the game.

How many times did you crush top lane only to find that it didn't matter because the rest of your team has already exploded from a fed enemy bot that took Bot Tower in the first 15 mins due to a fiesta there?

Well now with the increased importance of Herald, the increased difficulty of all lanes (not just top) from making plays Bot... there will be more focus on top side objectives and top side 1 vs 1 outcomes (or 2 vs 2 with the respective JGs).

The solo carry could bust out of any lane now and not just more than often consistently from Bot.

FOR JUSTICE1 votes

  1. Would be a legit change, but nonetheless wouldnt exactly stop the meta from simply shifting botlaners to toplane, nor would it stop them from camping bot anyway.

  2. This would simply mean we just group to the lane with the weakest tower and force it down first

  3. This is probably more detrimental, just because youre playing support doesnt mean you belong to the ADC. This would also disincentivize roams from champions who have naturally strong ones like bard or thresh because they lose gold if they decide to help somewhere else. Then adding slight discounts based off of how long you stay botlane would put healers/enchanters through the roof because they are already pretty gold efficient as it is (namely janna, lulu, and soraka)

WitchQueen Annie1 votes

If there has to be a new weakest tower it should probably be Top. The threat of a "fiesta" top would be somewhat counter-balanced by the presence of a Dragon on the bot side of the map (the team has to consider if its worth gang-banging Top) if it means risking an exposed dragon to the enemy.

Furthermore, Top is harder to "gang up" on because bot laners do not take TP so at most you're going to get a JG and a Mid laner show up. The individual plays have more agency in these situations than in bot where the 2 vs 2 dynamic on top of the intruders makes for a giant out of control fiesta.

A Top fiesta would also be less detrimental because Herald has so much health that its highly unlikely one big battle will result in both top tower AND Herald going down.

If you wanted to further decrease this probability you could make Herald spawn even later (and/or increase its health even more, with Baron even later still).

With the above in mind, I think the game could survive with Top as the new weakest tower. It would still be an improvement and there would be some dis-incentives from "gang-banging" top.

This is probably more detrimental, just because youre playing support doesnt mean you belong to the ADC. This would also disincentivize roams from champions who have naturally strong ones like bard or thresh because they lose gold if they decide to help somewhere else. Then adding slight discounts based off of how long you stay botlane would put healers/enchanters through the roof because they are already pretty gold efficient as it is (namely janna, lulu, and soraka)

Yes, playing Support doesn't mean you "belong" to the ADC. However, if you're going to fortify bot tower, then you need a mechanic in place to keep the existing ADC/Support duo there. Otherwise, we would return to the lane swap meta in the LCS and while that sort of thing might not happen in regular play, it would be seen as "boring" by the LCS crowd and Riot wouldn't keep it up.

The discounts wouldn't be based on how long you physically stay in Bot lane, rather on how much gold/exp you soak up WHILE in bot lane. Hence you could still roam to mid, you just need to calculate (as you already do) on how much Exp/Gold you might be missing out from the roam (which you can reasonably predict with good wave manipulation). You're not going to be roaming mid anyways if you've got a ton of minions to farm and collect in bot anyhow right?

Though I suppose you are right in that we would have to further up the numbers for items like Redemption and Ardent Censor to compensate for the bonus from staying in Bot.

And just to be clear, the "Bonus" wouldn't make those items easier to get. It "forces"/"incentives" the players to stay in that lane if they want to even be able to buy those items on a reasonable schedule.

Aptest1 votes

I do not want to return to a meta of top lane being dominated by hyperscaling split pushing duelists.

That being said,

Top lane is in a sordid state and needs a lot of more stuff in a lot of areas. Including more incentive for the jungler and mid laner to go visit top lane.

But mostly, Top lane needs more opportunities to go visit the enemy jungle and the enemy mid. And less punishment from the opposing laner, when doing so.

SmashinBob1 votes

It wouldnt make any sense, and anyways ganking bot lane is not just to get tower, getting 2 people fed+2 enemies behind is often more valuable than getting a solo lane fed, also gives drake control, so your proposed changes wouldnt make any sense, and removing strategic elements from the game such as lane swaps would just make no sense really. People always invent new strategies and this is the current one, learn to deal with it.

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