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Did the ADC update work?

Stillname·3/31/2016, 6:22:06 PM·36 votes·4,741 views

So I think it has been enough time since the Marksman update to evaluate whether or not the goals of the update were achieved and I was wondering what boards thought about it.

Why is it worth discussing for non-marksman? Well the mage update is "soon" and I think it would be helpful to think about what went right and what went wrong in the last big class update before jumping into a new one if Riot is willing to take our feedback.

The original goals were to add build path choices to all Marksman so every game isn't building the same thing and to add diversity to the marksman role by giving each ADC their own niche.

What worked (imo):

  • There are more than 2 viable buildpaths for all ADC's. Individually there may only be 1 with small changes but as a whole it's not just build botrk path or build IE path.
  • ADC's do feel different from each other.
  • item 3087 anditem 3094 actually serve different purposes. This is one of the biggest wins because it is very difficult for two similar items like these to co-exist in the game and I am very surprised riot pulled it off.
  • Build paths on any given ADC are somewhat game dependent. Usually building 2 core items every game then deciding what 3rd and 4th items should be depending on enemy champions and current game-state which didn't exist before.

What Failed (imo):

  • Graves Let's face it he got reworked right out of the marksman role and he is a bruiser now. Even worse he is a bruiser with some range. It's not just his balance either he could be nerfed to the point where he doesn't see as much play like the other bruisers but he would still be a bruiser disguised as a marksman.
  • item 3078 This item is barely used by anyone anymore and a lot of the champions that do use don't use everything on it with the exception of Corki and he abuses it.

It is worth mentioning some of the bruiser items like item 3156 and item 3053 being op on marksman but I am not going to include those as a part of the marksman update because they are their own separate balance problem and marksman aren't the only ones abusing them.

TLDR; marksman update had some success and some failure. What are your thoughts on it?

104 Comments

L0ve Is Blue3/31/2016, 6:32:31 PM25 votes

Failures:

  1. item 3078 used to be a hybrid damage item now it's just used by Corki Lucian

  2. A lot of champions came out of this update OP and they still are today Corki Graves Vayne Ezreal Lucian Quinn KogMaw

  3. AD itemisation is now better than AP, one of the WORSE mistake made on this update was making every AD/crit item better while making every AP item cost more on the same patch.

  4. Turrets, death timers and minion changes were probably the worst thing that happened to this game and I think they should be reverted even now.

  5. Ranged ADs are still the most oppressive champions in the game and doesn't fill their role as late game carries, most of them are strong at any stage in the game while they shouldn't.

Success:

More build diversity (only for ADCs)

Robbit Mang3/31/2016, 9:44:36 PM14 votes

what i liked about it

Lucian is actually viable now, even if i have to see him EVERY GAME its good hes not just awful anymore

Caitlyn traps arent total garbage now, even if her ulty is still trash shes much better

Corki deals a lot more magic damage than before and forces tanks to build MR. his W is currently broken with the package but im sure that will be balanced out eventually

Sivir her ulty is much better utlity, and lategame spellshields at 6 second cooldown is pretty awesome.

MissFortune her ulty is awesome and actually deals damage now when going AD

Quinn quinn can be helpful to other lanes if your jungler cant be exerting pressure and your other lanes are losing, even if she lacks a lot of tank killing power

Graves graves is literally an assassin now. item 3142 item 3147 item 3009 item 3156 item 3812 item 3072 gives him good damage WITHOUT THE SHITTY RNG OF OTHER ADCS! (but also gives him a bit TOO much damage once hes level 16)

Vayne this champion cant 1v1 most adcs with literally just bork anymore even if theyre almost an item up, thank god

Twitch runanns and youmuus changes benefitted him so much, hes DEADLY now

item 3156 AD champions FINALLY have an option vs AP burst champs, even if its a bit too good right now still good to have SOMETHING.

what i hated about it

Kalista no niche besides strong early game. nerfed into the ground and only good in skilled hands

Ashe swifties make her slow worthless still.

Varus itemization changes did nothing for his actual problems

Jinx still a good champion but no reason to actually pick her over anyone else

Ezreal itemization changes do nothing for him, people still use the ancient bluebuild from thousands of years ago and hes just picked as kitey with horrendous damage lategame. W is still worthless on ad ezreal

Tristana no niche. jinx pushes towers just as good as her but has aoe and cc, really just an inferior pick to jinx

KogMaw increased mana cost on ulty = ap kogmaw is dead forever, youll run oom with 3 ults and an E. The new AD kogmaw as well is exclusively early game focused and actually falls off around lategame, this is NOT what kogmaw is supposed to be, even if his midgame is stupid strong.

item 3053 only potential item vs AD assassins and its a bit too good right now. Id really like an item that helped vs ad assassins while not just giving some small base AD and raw health points, as this synergizes too well with Maws shield and resistances and makes it really difficult for ap bursters to even function if both items are bought.

Lovely Pants3/31/2016, 7:38:53 PM8 votes

There are a couple of things that make it hard for me to really weigh in definitively. I feel like clarifying design goals for marksmen is a good thing that came out of it, and playing with and against different marksmen has a lot more distinctive feeling in terms of cadence and strategy in smaller exchanges.

However, it also feels to me that the top marksmen at the moment are simply capable of covering any of their intended weaknesses with little trade-off.

It's also hard to give a reasonably objective view on things when seeing yet another Ezreal vs Lucian lane in my games makes me want to chain-kick a line of puppies.

Spoofghoul3/31/2016, 9:38:46 PM7 votes

KogMaw is the single biggest failure in the adc update

He was the one champion wo didnt need anything he had everything riot wanted for adc's

He had niche roles as a hypercarry and ultimate poke champion and also had alot of build diversity he had an ap poke build an onhit/AD hypercarry build.

And you could huild almost anyhting on him and make it work yet he was never overbearing

After the rework riot keeps changing him because he is either UP or OP and he only has 1 single build left and only has 1 playstyle left.

Riot literally took a champion who fit allt he goals of their class update and did a 180 on him and to make it worse left him in an unhealty unbalanceable state

Kog And Balls3/31/2016, 8:38:32 PM6 votes

I can't comment on how the update affected other champions, but they completely butchered kog'maw. The update did not provide kog with new abilities, it did not allow him to itemize with the items they were pushing for adcs IE. Mana reaver, Shiv, RFC, and the vision they have for him where he is the ultimate late game carry doesn't even apply to him. I have put a lot of time into kog and whenever I see the game timer roll past 40 mins I know that my chances of winning just dropped severely. Every other adc has some insane ad scaling on ALL of their abilities but not kog. Kiting is one of the most important skills to master for an adc, but you can't even do it on kog anymore without sacrificing damage.

I used to love playing kog before the rework and now I can barely stomach it. It burns me up that they didn't even think to give him a decent passive to tie his kit together, while MF got her passive moved to her W and got a bright new shiny one. I don't know who to hate more the person who worked on the kog rework or the person who let it go to live.

TLDR: I could write a Pulitzer prize winning book on how big of a failure Kog update was

MrBuffington4/1/2016, 1:54:42 AM4 votes

Right now, I do feel like most ADCs have a niche that feels good to play, though there are still some outliers. Blue Ezreal is really annoying. Apparently, Graves is still OP (I never see him in my games though).

And then there's Lucian. To me, as an ADC player, it feels like the meta is really choking out other options. Lucian is actually one of my favorite champions right now, so I don't mind playing him, but so many times I just find myself defaulting back to Lucian since he's so well-rounded. A lot of champions feel like their niches' are too narrow that if just one pick goes against the plan, then it's just safer to play Lucian. Or just in general, since there are a lot of champions (ie. MF, Sivir, Ashe, Caitlyn) that work really well in a coordinated team with a suitable composition, but those are hard to come by unless you're 5maning in dynamic, so Lucian is just the default pick.

As far as itemization, I'm pretty happy with it. Your Zeal item does feel like a legitimate choice that you vary depending on the game. You also have options as far as lifesteal, at least Mercurial vs. BT. LW doesn't feel as oppressive as it was before. You have some options as far as boots, depending on your champion (I get ionian on Lucian). ER does open some cool options for caster style ADCs. There are, of course, still problems, but overall itemization feels much better than before.

Masteries feel pretty good as well (Warlord's is stupid right now, ty for incoming nerfs)

IM SURE ITS FINE3/31/2016, 8:24:42 PM4 votes

Graves' role as a "ADC/bruiser" is fine, he just needs a numbers nerf somewhere.

Other than that, just delete Lucian from the game and AD's are balanced pretty well.

Jefftiffy3/31/2016, 7:22:04 PM3 votes

It was a success in the a way that they didn't even imagine. Instead of fixing the outlier ADCs and giving them niche's, they gave them the dominant spot. They even reworked items to force them that way (whether they meant to or not). In fact they screwed up itemization so hard the base power level of most ADCs shifted upwards even ones that weren't touched. So yes it was a success for their goal, but it had so many negative consequences that we are at the state we are at now. They did too much at one time. They screwed up wit masteries by almost doubling their power and then increased the average ADC's power by about 10-15%.

They need to look at the problem that is ADC's obtaining 70+% crit chance with no hinderance to AD and also how durable ADC's are as well as how many items were made to favor them and then turned out to be better on someone else. Like Atma's Impaler was meant for them but was used by ADCs but turned into a tank item. The meta shifted the average ADC to burst ADC over a DPS ADC which is showing some problems with the game (ADCs are meant to DPS not burst).

Teridax684/1/2016, 12:30:47 AM3 votes

What I liked about the marksman update:

  • More viable options, as you mentioned. Caster ADCs are no longer forced into awkward builds to get the CDR they need, on-hit builds are back (and probably a little too strong), and marksmen generally have more than one item set they can work with.
  • More diverse playstyles and contributions. Marksman viability is now more reliant on the contributions each individual champion can make, rather than just whether the game as a whole favors early game bullies or hypercarries.
  • Balance issues aside, the marksman changes were overall very successful. Graves is finally a proper shotgun champion (even if he's a bit too strong), Corki now has a well-defined role and Quinn/Miss Fortune's kits make sense.

What I disliked:

  • Crit wasn't reworked. The marksman update was a golden opportunity to overhaul a stat that is not only core to the class, but also out of place in the current state of the game. Crit should be a stat that adds gameplay to the marksman class, plus power that feels appropriate for them, rather than just additional, RNG-reliant damage. Instead, its numbers were shifted around to take randomness as much out of the equation as possible, effectively turning it into a relatively boring autoattack damage multiplier. If the stat had been redone, there would've likely been even more opportunities for cool new items, new builds and interesting per-champion synergies besides the artificial crit scalings that were added.
  • Item builds are still pretty static. Marksmen got items more tailored to their unique playstyles, but each individual marksman still ends up building pretty much the same 3-4 items every game. Even though there are a lot more reactive picks than before, marksmen as a class still have far more proactive builds than anyone else, which still limits their itemization diversity.

Overall, I feel the update did its job pretty well, which was that of bringing some much-needed diversity to marksmen and their items, but there are a lot of deeper issues regarding and surrounding marksmen that still need to be addressed. Aside from marksmen still not being all that diverse relative to other classes in terms of gameplay or contributions, the core problem with marksmen is that they feel far too important to the game compared to everyone else: whereas any other class is interchangeable (except for supports), marksmen are impossible to dislodge, and come late-game pretty much everything boils down to protecting them, even when there's another hyperscaling champion on the team. Perhaps this isn't something that can be solved by addressing marksmen directly, but it's definitely a problem they're heavily involved in.

kirbyzama3/31/2016, 11:31:04 PM3 votes

Sure there is more impact coming from adc and they have more agency in the game which is good. Marksmen have more viable lanes options as well which is also good.

My problem is that the strong adc's feel too strong early and the weak early champs don't have any legitimate pay off for putting up with the weakness. The only exception is Kog and he isn't a "late spiking champ" anymore. He spikes at 2 items and that is about as strong as he gets and aside from just becoming actually unbalanced for a few patches he didn't have the staying power lucian or Ez have had. The is no reason to pick trist when you have jinx and there is no reason to pick Jinx when sivir is safer in lane does aoe crits too and still brings utility if she lost early. Just because Corki and graves can be played in other lanes doesn't mean we don't have the classic 3 adc S tier we have always had. The main thing is why draft a adc with a little more dps than lucian you trade tons of safety and lane strength? If the pay off for picking Trist twitch and Jinx was actually worth it or is supports that help them come back then we would have more diversity. Or we may just go full circle.

I feel like Caitlyn may be the crown jewel of this update as she has a clear niche a well defined power curve with strong points and weak points and is perfectly viable while not being oppressive. That and I love the zeal item changes.

Only Play Darius4/1/2016, 1:47:27 AM3 votes

Marksman update made ADC's better and more distinct from each other, but also increased power levels across the board which is why you see multi-ADC comps being viable which should never happen.

Taric the Gay4/1/2016, 12:39:29 PM2 votes

I'm satisfied with what it did to Ezreal. His gluets haven't looked better since the rework.

http://www.auplod.com/u/ulaopd785ed.png

Critmaster Garen3/31/2016, 8:16:10 PM2 votes

also, the way people are pressuring riot into releasing this mage update as soon as possible, leaves me with the feeling that its gonna completely fail, just because theyre working towards a deadline instead of taking their time until its actually finished.

im worried that theyre just trying to come up with something in the time they have left, instead of doing the best they could do if they didnt have a deadline for their work.

Abyssphere3/31/2016, 6:48:50 PM2 votes

I would say yes in build diversity (new Essence Reaver is an excellent addition to the game) and no to champion diversity (ADC's still aren't taken for unique traits, just which is stronger).

56552559_DEL3/31/2016, 10:04:55 PM2 votes

I am an ADC main and i have to say that i am very disappointed. Not because i think it wasnt enough, oh hell no, i think it was over done. When a single marksman can be played in more than 2 roles, you have gone too damn far.

I love my marskman, i really do, but if i want a change of pace from bot lane, i dont feel like having to face a marksman in any other lane. i wanted a break from that stuff and Riot went ahead and made a few of them pliable no matter where you go.

The moment you see your team or the other team literally have a marksman for top, jg, mid and bot........you went too far.

ValyrianBlade3/31/2016, 10:35:16 PM2 votes

I don't know... I think one goal of the change would have been to promote ADC variety.

Statistics right now actually aren't bad, it's at least 4 (Ezreal, Lucian, Jhin, and Vayne) ADCs that are getting a lot of gameplay.

I feel like just last patch Ezreal and Lucian were taking up over half of the playspace. Given that Jhin was introduced AFTER the rework I don't think his play rate should even count. So I'm still seeing a huge lack of diversity.

Ezreal and Lucian may not win games, but they're insanely safe and annoying to play against. I've had a lot of really frustrating games this season where I'm outplaying the Ezreal (poking him relentlessly, gaining large CS leads) and at the end of the game he literally still has 0 deaths. My team may still win, hell I may still get fed and carry, but killing a cautious Ezreal seems nigh impossible.

ZaNJeTsU3/31/2016, 7:46:59 PM2 votes

I still miss season 5 Draaaaaaaven :(

Saianna4/1/2016, 8:05:08 AM2 votes

Even worse he is a bruiser with some range.

I'd say this instead:

Even worse he has crits in melee range and tankiness of bruiser

aperson13/31/2016, 9:34:59 PM1 votes

IE feels pretty terrible to buy compared to ER. If you die or back with less than 875 gold you're kind of screwed.

As a result IE-reliant champions are weak compared to their all-rounded caster counterparts. If you look at all the current meta ADC's few of them buy IE, and none of them buy it first or second, they usually stack it on top of ER as a third item. I think Riot was originally gunning to make IE and ER be separate, exclusive options, but that really never happened.

Also, they never reworked BotRK which really pisses me off since it'll probably never receive a rework within the year. Rioters have even said that BotRK is overloaded and needs something trimmed off of it, but they did nothing about it and it will forever be "Kalista/Vayne/Kog's item".