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ADC Meta

Zhugan·9/7/2014, 6:30:31 PM·8 votes·2,566 views

I'm not going to comment on how boring it is to watch due to the other roles largely being forced onto types of champions that benefit ADCs. I'm not going to talk about how an ADC meta revolves around dragging the game out. I want to talk about how this meta invalidates certain kinds of champions because of the champions that are either made stronger or necessitated by the preponderance of strength given to ADCs.

  1. Burst Mages. I understand some people might take exception on this one, but bear with me. Yes, Syndra is an obvious exception. Yes, I could understand a person trying to argue that Ziggs/Ori are exceptions (although you'd be wrong on those two).

First off, Syndra is the exception because she has the potential to assassinate someone from fairly long range through a stun-flash-ult combo. That means that, while Syndra is a burst mage, she can function like an assassin when she has flash and her 1100 range stun up. This particular play pattern is why Syndra gets to be an exception.

Second, Ziggs is a waveclear mage (not a category that I believe is recognized, but it surely should be) and Orianna is a utility mage (shield/movespeed/slow/knockback/vision). Neither of these fit the normal category of a burst mage.

When I am talking about burst mages I mean mages like Viktor, Brand, Annie, and Veigar. Its not that they lack damage, but that they lack the other things provided by waveclear/utility mages that prevents them from being viable and this meta encourages the types of mages that are most viable. ADCs want a drawn out game and to benefit from as much team protection as possible.

That prevents burst mages from being viable because they simply cannot provide what ADC centric comps want within the meta. Without the safe, consistent waveclear to drag out games or the high amounts of reliable team utility (most of which is to benefit the ADC or the tanks defending the ADC) burst mages fall by the wayside. This is double enforced because while burst mages are the second high consistent DPS within the game, why would you choose that when you can have an ADC which will always do more? Simply by existing as the dominant class and therefore controlling the meta, burst mages are invalidated.

  1. Damage Focused Top Lane Bruisers This one is less easy to contest as there are no real counter arguments.

First off, to clarify, I do not mean bruisers like Irelia. Irelia can build just Trinity Force for damage and be perfectly content. I am talking about bruisers that want to achieve a roughly 50/50 split between damage and tank items. Bruisers that want to dish out as much as they can take and not just be slightly higher damage tanks. Bruisers like top lane Jarvan IV, Lee Sin, and Rumble.

Simply put, by not being as effective in a full tank build with these types of champions, they are less effective in a meta that is devoted to protecting one or two carries. Why would I ever pick a top lane J4 when I can have Maokai or Mundo to act as either physical walls for my carries or massive CC machines that are impossibly hard to kill due some of the strongest defensive ultimates in the game?

The focus on ADCs within this meta completely removes damage focused top lane bruisers from consideration because they are not as effective at protecting the only person on the team that matters for sustained damage because they can't afford to build like an ADC due to their constrained ranges.

  1. Short Range ADCs This one might seem counter-intuitive with Lucian and Corki both being viable, but they are viable for very specific reasons. Lucian because he is very, VERY mobile and has decent range on his abilities. Corki is viable because he has very high range on his ultimate, doing a lot to negate his lower AA range due to how quickly and frequently his ultimate can be used.

I am speaking more about ADCs like Sivir, Vayne, Quinn, and Graves. They are invalidated because, quite honestly, what does kit matter if when AAs deal more damage? The only parts of a kit that really matter are parts that either augment range, are a steroid, or provide mobility. And then, those aspects only matter in so much as you can compete with the carries that have the longest AA range (Kog/Trist).

By simple virtue of how strong AAs are on champions like Kog'maw and Tristana, the differences in kits between ADCs matter far less, with differences in attack range mattering far, far more. This disparity invalidates Short Range ADCs just as much as it invalidates any other role.

  1. Melee ADCs The only exception is Yasuo because he can also function as a high mobility burst assassin, which is obviously viable in a meta dominated by 1 or 2 carry teams.

Fiora, Master Yi, Aatrox, Tryndamere, and Gangplank all come to mind for this. Even with mechanics that hypothetically allow them to build lower defenses and higher damage, these champions cannot function within their intended roles because they would be dead before the fight really started if they tried to.

Simply put, why would you want to build like an ADC and attack from anything less than 600 range when that is an option?

Once again, the mechanics built into their kits don't matter because of the focus given to making the longest ranged ADCs more powerful. Their ability to survive is negated by the need to close the gap to the enemy carries to kill them and the inherent difficulties of doing that with AD itemization as it currently stands.

Conclusion: I'm not saying I know how to fix it. I am saying that it is obvious that the meta we are in right now creates a situation where entire classes of champions are invalidated. I think this has just as much to do with the items available to ADCs as it does the range of the ADCs that are most dominant. I don't care that some parts of the game are relatively boring. I don't even really care that the game gets dragged out so that ADCs can get more of their itemization. I do care that entire classes of champions are invalidated because of a need to build specific kinds of comps around either quickly killing ADCs or protecting them at all costs.

14 Comments

Xenohaz9/7/2014, 7:42:10 PM8 votes

I agree with you, but I wish I didn't. If this is truly a team game and teamwork is so important (virtues Riot loves to talk about), then one single role's success or failure shouldn't consistently be the thing that determines whether a game is won or lost. That's not teamwork, nor is it balance, and it makes many other roles --and the people who play them-- feel completely insignificant.

MrBuffington9/8/2014, 1:12:02 AM6 votes

It can be pretty frustrating having a teamfight decided (more or less) by who kills the other ADC first. It sucks when you're playing most roles, where you have to tunnel the ADC to some degree; don't want to put yourself in too much danger, but if you're like Vi/J4 or something, diving the back line and deleting the ADC, even if you die, is super worth, which is really, really, stupid. You can basically ignore the rest of the team (for the most part) and kill the ADC, and you win.

It sucks when you're playing ADC too; you have this gigantic target on your back the entire time. It can somewhat be an advantage, when the enemy team will blow three ults just to kill you and your team can just clean them up, but you either have to play really safe and have sub-optimal impact on a teamfight, or just get deleted.

The whole game gets more stale as a result. Because an ADC is meant to be a team's DPS, it really just forces you onto certain types of playstyles. It's harder to play Ashe in this meta because she is a utility ADC, same thing with Sivir or Varus. Most players champion pools are geared towards this too, so if you play a utility ADC, your team will probably lack DPS because everyone is expecting the ADC to do that.

I don't think it's so much that other roles feel insignificant, it just feels like other roles have to be built around the ADC; there are more rigid team compositions that are built with the ADC as the only/major source of DPS for the entire team. And that gets pretty dull.

Worgslarg9/7/2014, 7:01:13 PM4 votes

I disagree that entire classes of champions are invalidated, just that they are at a severe disadvantage.

Cloud Potato9/8/2014, 6:49:55 AM3 votes

You're overplaying the effect ADCs have on those champions. Are ADCs too important to the meta? Yes. Do certain types of champions become weaker in an ADC focused meta? Oh yes. But there are other factors at play here:

Burst mages: Assassins do their job better. Dropping a huge payload on the enemy team is a very strong thing to have, but you mainly want to drop it on specific targets. Assassins have the tools necessary to catch people off guard whereas burst mages don't. Burst mages also have had periods of weakness when there is a low amount of squishy targets in the meta; all that AoE burst doesn't help much when there isn't many recipients for it. Also the ones that don't have counterplay get nerfed.

Damage focused bruisers: Teamfights. Trying to live against 5 enemy champions is a mostly futile effort unless you devote yourself to defense. Building full tank is also far less risky; farming in lane is less likely to get you killed if you're tanky. Protecting ADCs is something damage focused bruisers can still do, by distracting the enemy front liners. If they could survive, that is. The issue is that a healthy amount of survivability in lane and survivability needed for teamfights are way too far separated from one another.

Short ranged ADCs: A lower threat range is a disadvantage regardless of whether it's autoattack or ability range. Is this in part to how powerful basic attacks are? Yes, definitely. But if you're facing an Annie and her threat range is larger than yours, you're going to suffer. This is a game wide problem related to counterplay. You should never go 'well, I got too close. Now I'm in for pain' because it leads to binary situations for the lesser ranged people. Range needs counterplay so lower ranged champions can compete. ADCs have to pay for this because their basic attacks are targeted, but they are not the only ones.

Melee ADCs: If ranged ADCs did not exist, they would still not be viable. You cannot get in close range of a deathball because you will die if you don't have survivability. There are still DPS mages and AD assassins who would burn you down while you get CC chained. The reason Yasuo survives where others don't is because 1: he has something to do while waiting for a safe opportunity to fight, and 2: he has counterplay options that exist in lane, but disappear later on in the game to make up for the fact that melee champions are easier to deal with as the game goes on. Getting double scaling from an already powerful offensive stat helps too.

If you need a tl;dr, it's that this game is complicated. ADCs being a permanent fixture warps the game much like Flash does. But it's not the source of all that is wrong in the game. There are so many factors that go into this game that you can't blame it all on one source. Unless you're talking about Preseason 3's Black Cleaver. That was something special.

FantasySniper9/10/2014, 4:31:20 AM2 votes

Sadly it's true.

I've drawn out games as a strategy for letting my carry scale past theirs. Who was usually any one of the roles you had mentioned.

Doogmi9/8/2014, 5:41:41 AM2 votes

Vayne and Cork have the standard marksmen range of 550...

giraffiti09/8/2014, 6:55:45 PM1 votes

You say that burst mages re invalid in an ADC meta but what if Annie dfg ults the enemy ADC completely killing him. Thn your ADC can clean up gg you win. How is this an invalid pick? If your tram decides To try a different comp rather than an ADC centric comp why not just burst the enemy ADC with say, annie then have Jax as your ADC clean up while maokai tanks damage?if a burst Mage can blow up th adc of a team who is focused on their ADC dealing most if their damage I don't see how burst mages are invalid.

ValyrianBlade9/7/2014, 11:22:55 PM1 votes

except many of these "invalidated" champions might Excel at ganking an early kill on bot Lane and making the enemy adc fall behind. If the game were really so adc centric then junglers would always be at camps near the adc to pressure the enemy adc and protect their own from ganks. The fact that the jungler focuses on top and mid as well all but proves that all lanes are important.