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After some research, I found a disturbing statistic about bot lane.

Daizumi·3/11/2018, 8:23:16 AM·102 votes·6,956 views

Context: I take breaks from time to time but over the last weekend( since the snow storm) I played maybe 20-50 games of ranked between my alt account and my main account. As usual, I won some, lose some, gained divisions and lost them, but as I kept losing I started noticing something strange. No matter how often Id get an early lead, (First blood, first dragon or first tower maybe a couple of kills) I'd still end up losing unless if I played perfectly or basically 1v9 carried the game. I'm not the type of person to take L's for free so I started doing research into my games, looking for any trends that come up such as champions i consistently lose to, or builds that don't work out or match ups that I need to aid sooner (being a jungler). Nothing was really consistent except for one trend. If my bot lane lost, we lost, even if I was fed, or if my top laner or mid laner was fed.

Is it really true though?

Well first I checked my match history in detail. (for my match history specifically I only checked my Udyr games because thats my One trick and sometimes I do pick other champions either due to boredom or because my champ is banned / another champ might fit the situation better.) Up to this point I checked and found that in the games I won my bot lane was ahead and/or smashed the enemy bot lane. in the games I lost it was the exact opposite. I couldn't believe it so I checked my friends match history and even random players (like Trick2g's account) and found the same trend.

Does it happen 100% of the time?

The short answer is no. But from what I saw its about every 4/5 games which feels too often if I'm trying to carry or Say if I want to help top lane who's facing Darius or Illaoi. If this statistic is true, then I'd have a way higher chance of winning getting bot ahead even if Darius gets fed or if the enemy mid laner gets fed. I will say there are some games where 1 -3 players (IF top mid and jungle per example) do really well they can carry the game despite their bot lane, but this doesn't happen that often.

What I conclude from the little digging I did If you play top lane, jungle or mid, going even in that lane or winning isn't enough. You either have to pub stomp your lane / opposing jungler so you can oe shot or murder their bot lane, or get your bot lane ahead if you can't smash lane super hard. It feels pretty bad to me because I love jungling but it feels like going ADC instead of jungle despite not being super good at the role by any means could net me more wins because I'm pretty good at not feeding at the very least even if I lose lane which should give the ones on my team trying to carry the maximum chance to do so.

**Additional context: ** http://na.op.gg/summoner/userName=%20Rengar%20Mustang http://na.op.gg/summoner/userName=D%C3%A0izumi

Above are my Op.gg's for my accounts if you wanna check them out. My alt I mainly use it to practice Rengar because He's my second most favorite champion right now.

Conclusion I'll end this post by asking a favor to whoever reads this and cares enough to respond ( I doubt many will). Can you check your match history and see how often this trend happens? I'm hoping that its just me that's making too many mistakes in my games because then I could identify my mistakes and fix them to improve my chances of winnning (although I don't feel like you should have to play PERFECT every game to climb but that's besides the point).

154 Comments

Toxicate133/11/2018, 8:28:19 AM60 votes

I don't need to check my match history to know that this shit happens. I play top and bot usually. If I win bot lane, 9/10 times I will win the game, even if other lanes feed. And if I'm top lane and their bot lane wins, they will be at our inhib tower at 10 minutes and I can't do anything about it. But if my bot lane wins, they will carry the game and I feel bad because I don't have to do much. Riot is making the game more and more focused around bot lane, and it's annoying for everyone else because it's basically a coin flip whether or not you will lose the game based on how your bot lane does.

Sire Hippington3/11/2018, 1:49:40 PM24 votes

It feels pretty bad to me because I love jungling but it feels like going ADC instead of jungle despite not being super good at the role

i feel like that's the main mistake most people make. Yes, matches get decided mpst of the time by which bot is ahead, but getting bot ahead is not as much in the hands of the adc as people think. Support usually has more impact on the early lane(if the adc atleast is somewhat decent), and they synergie between adc and supp is even more important. if they are on the same page and their opponents are not, they will stomp that lane even if they are worse players individually. Jungle and Roaming mids can also have really high impact on botlane, though they need to play around it rather than playing for them selfs. Only Top is really left out and relys on the heavily telegraphed TP to get any impact on bot side.

It sounds paradox, but botlane(especially adc) beeing more impactfull for the game than other positions doesn't mean that the adc-player has that much impact and can easily solocarry(though grabage adc's can solo loose)

Silverjust3/11/2018, 1:40:15 PM20 votes

In my experience the better jungler decides the game, bot has still a greater influence than mid/top. Also it seems to be more like the worst player decides the loss and not the best player decides the win

Malix Farwin3/11/2018, 12:48:28 PM10 votes

Well i think everyone has agreed at this point that Bot is reaching their power spike way too fast and a lot of that has to do with how well adcs wave clear is compared to other roles and, how fast they can spike because of how cheap and strong their items are. Mix htat with the fact that ADCs are the role that's main job is to push objectives creates a recipe for disaster.

AlienPrimate3/11/2018, 8:45:59 AM9 votes

https://matchhistory.na.leagueoflegends.com/en/#match-details/NA1/2737087006/209287161?tab=overview

I had the opposite happen in my last game. I started 6/0/5 on support but my top and mid got destroyed so bad that it didn't matter. Once we started grouping there was absolutely nothing we could do against the fed Swain.

MuffledGarbage3/11/2018, 12:45:34 PM8 votes

I wish Riot would fix this and give agency back to midlane and toplane but Riot's official statement is pretty much: "Naw, toplane doesn't deserve anything more than tanks and midlane mages JUST got some items so we're gonna leave those alone while we keep buffing ADCs who just got nerfed cause ADC players might not feel good about how much damage they do"

The Toplane keystone isn't gonna change that much either, it just stops tanks from being able to deal the same amount of damage that most Fighters deal(which was a problem that Riot still isn't fixing)

In the end it probably means we have to wait 2 years, sadly

Also this happens in 4/5 of my games

NekoniClaws3/11/2018, 1:37:11 PM8 votes

Bot-lane is the canary in the coalmine. There's always going to be a lane that's the most rewarding to assault- that provides the easiest gold, kills and best objectives... and that's bot.

It's easy to freeze a lane / be frozen out (unlike mid), it's obviously next to dragon, is unfortified, provides 2 kills for the effort of 1, and puts the ADC behind. You can stop the support from roaming. You can access it with TP, you can have more health bars and often a tank to towerdive with. There's guaranteed a squishy for you to dive- sometimes two (unlike top) It's a long lane so your targets are easy to cut off and press towards a wall, as they have to break cover to escape from tier 2 towerdives, even if they know a 3 / 4-man is coming.

And my point is- everyone's in bot, not just the botlaners... but everyone's going to be in the weakest lane anyway. And it's not enjoyable, not for the ADC or the support, we don't feel like we have extra 'agency' over the game. You have to specifically look at what happens in the game--- did the botlane carry? Or did the team carry botlane?

LocatedEagle2323/11/2018, 12:42:24 PM8 votes

I Main ADC for this reason ONLY. Except I main Draven, so my late game impact is usually either killing a tank and dying or I get really fed and pentakill to wipe their team and end...

FilDaFunk3/11/2018, 1:14:07 PM6 votes

Chi squared test may be appropriate, here.

DragonShea3/11/2018, 8:34:20 PM5 votes

True, I just played a few ranked games and you got a good point, look at my match history unless we got a good ADC or if Me, mid and jungle stomp together then the game is lost and that happened in one of my games. The big issue that I see is that ADC's are required to carry and that carrying should be split between all the laners and junglers because relying on one role to carry is a shitty design as having multiply carry lanes allows one to have a better chance at winning.

BestPudgeNA3/11/2018, 7:45:03 PM4 votes

League games can basically be won in 2 ways First Snowballing and completely blowing your opponent out Second Winning important mid/late game team fights around Baron and other objectives In the first scenario bot is the best lane to be snowballing cause it's the best lane at taking towers In the second scenario ADCs dominate teamfights so bot is obviously again the most important role

Riots been buffing ADCs for a year and a half while nerfing every other roles besides support, which has been getting buffs mostly in terms of wards and click effects ex item 3050 item 3504 item 3109 item 3107 that protect/buff the ADC.

It's an ADC game now the rest of us are just along for the ride.

sphinxthelion73/12/2018, 1:09:49 PM3 votes

I figured this out in pre season. i started playing ADC and rose 4 ranks. I can carry 15/2, take 3 turrets, a dragon, an inhibitor and still lose because my bot lane is trash and feeds 25 deaths between 2 of them. What you are saying absolutely true.

Raiyza3/11/2018, 3:51:17 PM3 votes

Its not entirely true, but bot lane is a huge factor. Bot lane is supposed to be your teams highest damage output. If rhey are way behind, so is your teams damage. It does correlate.

But if you ask me, i put blame on the jungle. Whichever jungler provides the most prrssure, wins games because of how valuable first tower/objectives are. EDIT: This is and always has been rhe purpose of the jungle, but i remember when blue/red buff did not give you level 2.

xJLx MCHammer3/11/2018, 6:18:51 PM2 votes

you only used your own game to facilitating a "statistical fact"

Wild Geese3/11/2018, 10:34:55 AM2 votes

Do you think bottom lane is just too hard to gank? If it was easier to gank do you think it would be a good thing? (Mid and jungle would have more ability to win)

gabetheguy3/11/2018, 5:39:16 PM1 votes

it's almost as if AD carries GASP CARRY!?!?!

Leaf on Bush3/11/2018, 3:24:41 PM1 votes

Play around your ADC... you are on the same team. It's called ad CARRY for a reason and it's not a new term. If you only noticed this now then you finally understood the meta that this game had for years. GJ!