Boards›Gameplay

Do mages and ADCs still have distinct power curves?

CupcakeTrap·10/18/2015, 8:06:18 PM·4 votes·1,830 views

I'm a noob, hence this thread being phrased as a question.

http://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/wizardsandmelees_9442.jpg

When I was introduced to the game, a friend referenced the D&D "linear warriors, quadratic mages" trope: in other words, warriors start out strong and get gradually stronger as they level, whereas mages start out comically useless but (as they level up) become ungodly powerful. (Leading to jokes about why merc mages are hard to hire: low-level mages are worthless—"what are you gonna do, cast color spray on them?"—while high-level mages have no interest in your petty mortal wealth.) He reframed this for League as "linear fighters, quadratic mages, cubic carries." This was, you see, back when the word "carry" meant "AD carry", before the advent of the term "AP carry".

The theory, as presented to me

The theory struck me as pretty sound. It's a matter of basic mathematics: the more synergistic factors you can multiply together, the more scaling potential you have. (It's like that old math problem about maximizing the area within a fence per unit of material: you make a square. If the goal is to maximize volume within a cage, you make a cube.)

We can start with (traditional) supports, who don't really scale off Gold, but have a lot of base power to compensate. (Or so it used to be, anyway.) Blitzcrank is a classic example, IMO: sure, he can scale on gold by getting more damage or tankiness, but a huge chunk of his power budget is in that Rocket Grab. A Level 1 Blitz with no items has a Rocket Grab that's very, very similar to that of a Level 18 Blitz with a full build. Sure, you can amp it up with CDR or AP or whatnot, but a big chunk of that power is "make the enemy who was over there suddenly over here and stunned".

SupportPower(gold) = BasePower + (a bunch of other stats with mediocre multipliers)

This explains why traditional supports bought wards. A ward has about the same value, no matter who bought it: it provides X minutes of vision somewhere. So naturally the Champions who don't really scale on Gold bought most of the wards, because there was a lower opportunity cost.

Let's say fighters mostly scale on AD, which costs a certain amount of gold per point. They can also scale on Health and Armor and such, but these things don't really multiply each other. (I think that's debatable, as more durability means more time in the fight, but it's arguably not as direct or powerful a multiplier as we're talking about here.) The warrior fighter function is something like:

FighterPower(gold) = BasePower + AD + Health… (etc.)

(With BasePower being a stand in for things like stun abilities, or base ability damage, or whatever.) (I'm omitting coefficients for the sake of clarity.)

Meanwhile, mages have both AP and MPen, which multiply each other's effectiveness:

MagePower(gold) = BasePower + AP*MPen

Graph y1 = x against y2 = x^2, and you'll see y2 overtake y1 as time goes on. (That doesn't mean mages are better than fighters, just that they have a different "time to shine". Mid-game power doesn't help if the other team has used their early-game power to knock down all your towers and score a ton of gold.)

(AD) Carries have even higher-order scaling. AD and AS multiply each other. Crit multiplies them as well: more AS means more crit chances, and more AD means more crit damage.

ADCPower(gold) = BasePower + ADASCrit

(I'm omitting ArPen there, because whereas mages can pretty easily buy MPen on a bunch of items, it's a bit trickier to pick up ArPen for ADCs. But arguably that's another synergizing multiplier.)

That's the theory, anyway.

So how accurate is this?

But sometimes I wonder how true this is nowadays. I think the theory is pretty sound, but it relies on certain assumptions. There are all kinds of constant multipliers at play. You can definitely set up the specific values so that you never reach the point where xyz spikes up above x*y, for instance. And I notice a lot of ADCs nowadays have quite a bit of AD-scaling ability damage, which seems more magey than traditional carry. AD abilities don't usually scale on AS or Crit, for example.

Anyway. That's my attempt to frame the topic. I'm nowhere near qualified to offer a final opinion on the subject, but I'd value the community's comments. I want to be less of a noob! Teach me, Boards.

13 Comments

TehNACHO10/18/2015, 8:10:56 PM7 votes

I think the biggest problem with this sort of thinking is time. Your calculations do not incorporate time properly.

I firmly believe in the damage triangle for general application (DPS beats Tank, Tank beats Burst, Burst beats DPS), and it makes more sense because the damage triangle actively uses time as a measurement for explaining why DPS beats Tank.

Rebonack10/18/2015, 8:32:19 PM1 votes

A Level 1 Blitz with no items has a Rocket Grab that's very, very similar to that of a Level 18 Blitz with a full build.

You're only saying this because you haven't ever seen a fully stacked Muramana Blitz before.

Over in Dominion land, where Supports actually get gold, Mura, Heart, Odyn's, Whisper is a pretty common build for Blitz. The range of champions who can effectively duel him if he catches them out is very small.

See, problem is Rift tends to skew things pretty dramatically because all the players on the map are rarely, if ever, on equal footing when it comes to gold and levels. Rangers do fine against most Mages provided they don't blunder into skillshots. Mages seems like they're stronger early on because they typically have a level advantage over most of the map. Late in the game, it typically comes down to a skill matchup. Can the Ranger avoid the Mage's burst and chew them down while they're waiting on cooldowns? Because if they can't, then the Mage is playing Rocket Tag and the ADC won't last long.

Rangers by and large aren't weak early game. Items like Lichbane, Echo, and Wooglet's Witchcap all ensure that Mages aren't slouches late due to each multiplying the effectiveness of the others. Even Tanks have items to multiply the effectiveness of their purchases now (more defense from Sterak's, more damage from Titanic, ect).

Rebonack10/18/2015, 8:49:44 PM1 votes

Would you agree? (That's a genuine question. But if you think Blitz scales harder than Xerath, it does seem to me that Blitz is pretty OP.)

For the record, I'm mostly just saying that the trend you brought up in the opening post is (partly) supported by the way levels and gold are gained in an uneven fashion over on Rift. On equal footing, things change dramatically.

A great deal of Fighter Blitz' (as opposed to Support Blitz') power comes from Muramana's toggle. His grab triggers it, his autos trigger it, and his Ult passive triggers it. He can get off about 5 ticks in the span of a second if he plays his cards right. In this hypothetical situation, if the 5k Blitz has Mura rather than just Mana, then I would heavily shove the fight in his side's favor.

Similar situation with Sona. Or Karma. Or many of the traditional Support picks. Riot has tried to balance them around low income. With equal income they are terrifying when compared with many of the traditional Mages who are balanced around Solo-lane gold income.

Asayake 5150glow10/18/2015, 10:10:12 PM1 votes

The damage triangle is based off who's doing good, secondly. It doesn't take into account Gold, CC, or hybrids. Example: Bruiser vs ADC. Both are sustained damage, yet one is generally more bursty, one has generally more CC. Yet 9 out 10 times, I'd put my money on the Bruiser.

Back to the theory.

I don't think this is a great representation of LoL. In early game, ADC's are really weak. Referencing the "weak early, strong late." They have alright skills, but they usually scale on bonus AD, to encourage building AD.

On the other hand, fighters are generally the strongest: They have Ad scalings, meaning their auto attacks are strong, and high bases on their skills. A fighter spell does about the same amount of damage as a mage spell. This is also generally because fighter spells scale on Total AD, and at lvl 1, you have a good 70-80 total AD (fighters also having the highest base AD's). On the other hand, you'll have about 40 or so AP, and all of your damage is centered in your skills (unless you're like me, and use AD runes for everything, therefore having lower AP, which only really matters in early game, but higher AD, which helps in last hitting and auto-attack poke. And also wanna save up IP for champions.)

Mages are generally in the middle - they'll win trades with ADC's, lose trades to fighters, but in a sustained fight, fighters come out top, mages usually last (if AP runes), and ADC's in the middle. However, there would be no plausible reason for a mage to ever try and outduel an ADC/fighter, instead backing off after each spell rotation.

Gigahappytown10/18/2015, 10:47:10 PM1 votes

The line between melee carry and fighter or bruiser is blurred and some of them are both which make abominations like fiora

ProfDrDeath10/18/2015, 10:47:46 PM1 votes

That trope does not particularily apply to League.

Generally, in this game, there are two kinds of offensive scaling, as far as DPS is concerned:

  • Scaling based on abilities: Spell DPS generally scales on their primary stat (AP/raw AD), Cooldown Reduction and Penetration => Cubic scaling

  • Scaling based on auto-attacks: Auto-attack DPS scales with AD, AS, Crit Chance, Crit Damage and Penetration => Quintuple scaling

Burst damage usually comes from spells and actually only scales quadruply, on the primary stat and Penetration.

See the posts by TehNACHO for more in-depth relations between burst, sustained DPS and tankiness.

The scaling of a champion is limited by two factors: gold and available item slots. Of those two, the number of available item slots puts a hard cap on the maximal power of most champions. Gold, on the other hand, determines the rate of progress towards this maximal power.

Generally goes, the more factors contribute to the type of scaling, the higher this maximal power will be. However, the number of factors also influences the point at which a decent degree of power is reached. This is especially obvious with ADCs, who need to have at least three core items to feel really powerful compared to other roles - whereas a mage or assassin feels powerful with just two.