Why do Marksmen go Bot with a support instead of Mid?

HalcyonDweller·Oct 19, 2017·9 votes·1,595 views

Saw another discussion talking about supports roaming and supporting in other lanes besides Bot and it got me thinking.

There has to be some sort of reason Marksmen are usually played Bot with a Support. I understand about dragon being important, so I'll not ask about top-lane... But why do they duo Bot instead of Mid?

What is it about Midlane that makes it less suitable for marksmen and what is it about Bot lane that makes it more so?

EDIT - The post that I referenced above: https://boards.na.leagueoflegends.com/en/c/gameplay-balance/QEtNGabP-can-the-meta-send-support-mid

49 Comments

The Yetii RiderOct 19, 20176 votes

Okay so what you should be asking is not "why do marksmen go bot?", it's "why do mages and assassins go mid?"

The reason for this is because mages and assassins have quite a bit of power in one of their abilities. They hit a serious power spike not from hitting a certain gold amount, but from hitting level 9 and achieving max ranks in one of their abilities.

Mid lane is the shortest, and thus it has access to waves more quickly than other lanes. That's why mages go mid.

HalcyonDwellerOct 19, 20174 votes

I don't think I've ever heard that reason before, thanks for adding to the discussion! That makes a lot of sense :)

My Waifu VanillaOct 20, 20171 votes

It's also the easiest one to seige (hardest to flank around and dive) and having a champion with waveclear CONSTANTLY counters this weakness. You know what happens when you send 4 people to seige Ziggs? Nothing. He kills the wave off screen.

RavenMagusOct 20, 20171 votes

It's less about the quicker waves and more about the lane length itself. Most mages are very easy to gank, especially if they have a long lane to go down - one CC or slow and they're dead. They have a much quicker escape path in mid since the tower is much closer to them.

The Yetii RiderOct 20, 20171 votes

If that were true, you would see Akali or Yasuo mid more. Both of those champions are very easy to gank.

RavenMagusOct 20, 20171 votes

They have tricks to help them get away (wind wall, shroud) and are not as squishy as many of the ranged mage cast. They're not as easy to gank as someone like Anivia or Malzahar.

The "access to waves quicker" doesn't really matter that much either - the first wave arrives 10s or so earlier, and that's the difference for the entire game. The midlane doesn't spawn waves any quicker than the other lanes.

Zero Skill TankOct 20, 20171 votes

That's where they were originally played, until changes to the game allowed them to outstat most fighters (PD and Akali's new passive).

Also, they are not as easy to gank as a mage, they have good mobility and other defence mechanisms. I.e. even if Yasuo can't really dash away from jungler, he windwall to block some pick abilities and movespeed far superior to any of mages.

101100111000Oct 19, 20172 votes

The mid lane isn't as safe as bot lane, since mid lane can be ganked from at least 4 different ways naturally, ignoring tower dives and terain-crossing gapclosers. This means putting your squishy dps class in mid lane makes no sense since they typically don't have and dashes of their own and are twice as vulnerable as they would be in bot lane.

HalcyonDwellerOct 19, 20172 votes

That makes sense, but I'm still perplexed as to why other factors wouldn't make it work.

Would it be practical to put them midlane if they had a support to ward and peel for them?

101100111000Oct 19, 20171 votes

I was speaking under the presumption you had a duo mid with an ad carry. It makes no real practical sense and consumes many more vision resources to provide the same amount of safety to your adc in midlane than it would in either side lanes. You're better off using lesser vision resources protecting your adc in the sides and using the remaining resources on vision control on objectives.

HalcyonDwellerOct 19, 20171 votes

I see, that makes a lot of sense. Thanks!

FooDangOct 19, 20172 votes

ADC goes bot with support because its a long lane.

If you duo mid that leaves the bot lane a solo lane that has to fend off the inevitable 3-4 man gank.

ADC tends to scale with items to enhance thier primary source of damage which is Auto attacks. So being behind in levels in fine they just need items.

Mages are typically mid and their primary source of damage is their abilities so they scale with levels. Thats why they solo mid because the shorter lane is safer for them to scale.

HalcyonDwellerOct 19, 20171 votes

{quoted}

ADC goes bot with support because its a long lane.

If you duo mid that leaves the bot lane a solo lane that has to fend off the inevitable 3-4 man gank.

Doesn't Top lane have to worry about the same problem?

ADC tends to scale with items to enhance thier primary source of damage which is Auto attacks. So being behind in levels in fine they just need items.

Mages are typically mid and their primary source of damage is their abilities so they scale with levels. Thats why they solo mid because the shorter lane is safer for them to scale.

I kind of understand but I'm also kind of confused. If the ADC is mid with a partner they still lose out on XP while keeping their farm advantage. And if the mage is bottom lane they have less areas they have to ward and they have a larger lane to see ganks coming in.

FooDangOct 19, 20171 votes

{quoted}

Doesn't Top lane have to worry about the same problem?

You mentioned you didnt want anyone bringing it up. But since you asked, Drag control

And if the mage is bottom lane they have less areas they have to ward and they have a larger lane to see ganks coming in.

Good question that brings up a point I forgot to mention.

Longer lanes you are prone to getting zoned out of experience if you are solo. If the enemy controls the wave and gets it pushing towards them. You are screwed, you cant CS and you cant get close enough to get XP when the minions die.

Also you can ward and see a gank, but if you dont leave you will get tower dived and die because you will be lower level from getting zoned and its a 3v1.

The Yetii RiderOct 20, 20171 votes

{quoted}

Doesn't Top lane have to worry about the same problem?

Absolutely. The main reason top laners do not have to worry about being ganked often by multiple champions (though it still does happen!) is because they have extremely durable base stats (usually if you commit to a dive against a top laner, you WILL lose a champion from turret shots because of how long it takes to kill them) and because they run Teleport, which means they lose a lot less from being killed in lane. No one wants to gank a lane if the laner is going to TP right back, preventing a tower from falling and not falling too far behind in XP. There are many valuable things to be gained in a successful gank, but Teleport offsets almost all of them.

I kind of understand but I'm also kind of confused. If the ADC is mid with a partner they still lose out on XP while keeping their farm advantage. And if the mage is bottom lane they have less areas they have to ward and they have a larger lane to see ganks coming in.

At the beginning of the meta, back in Season 1, Ashe was the primary mid laner. People would take Ashe mid and try to farm as quickly as possible with her. They quickly realized, however, that Ashe's power came mostly from buying Infinity Edge. So they moved her to the 2v2 lane because if Ashe won a fight, she would get gold from killing two champions instead of 1. This became the standard.

SpecterVonBarenOct 20, 20171 votes

If the ADC was mid with their support instead of bot then people would 4 man mid lane, especially since it would mean you could have your choice of dragon OR rift herald.

FooDangOct 20, 20171 votes

If it was a 4 man mid, support would shift to midlane from bottom. Since its a short lane you cant really zone xp and it will be 4 man sharing xp vs your 2 with friendly jungler nearby just in case of tower dives. You will have 2 solo lanes getting solo experience vs a solo lane and 4 sharing.

You cant 2v4 tower dive without being at least lvl 3 and you will be vs 2 guys lvl 4-5 and a jg backup. Meanwhile ADC bot lane will be smacking the tower.

Rift herald spawns @ 10 minutes so thats irrelevant.

GigglesOOct 20, 20172 votes

You missed one of the most important parts of your discussion. Mid is a short lane = = safer, also unless it started to work where champions could actually 2v1 in botlane again everyone would have to do this.

Back in s2-s3 a melee bot could actually just sit and farm botlane 1v2...

FooDangOct 20, 20171 votes

Yea, i know. I'm typing from my phone and theres so many good talking points I dont have the time or patience to discuss it all.

I remember those days. I miss my 1v2 DrMundo because he can farm with cleavers.

DurzakaOct 20, 20172 votes

There are a lot of reasons, although everyone has done a pretty good job of explaining them, I just want to add one that might be a bit contrary.

A lot of people are saying that mid lane is shorter, and therefore, safer. As someone who plays a lot of jungler, I disagree with this heavily. The lane is safer from a laners perspective. Its shorter so you cant zone someone off the wave as much to prevent xp and CS like you can top or bottom. But it also has about a dozen ways that the lane can be ganked. Whereas 1 or 2 well played wards can stop ganks almost entirely bot lane without help from your bot laners. Therefore the support has an easier time warding to protect their ADC from enemy ganks.

Jo0oOct 19, 20171 votes

Well, bot lane is a long lane, so keeping the support near the ADC provides the ADC with added protection if something goes wrong. Your midlaner is always gonna be only a few quick steps back to tower if they're in trouble.

And since the support is going bot lane already, the ADC might as well be placed there. In theory, Marksmen require more babysitting in the early game, so placing them in a duo lane is a safe idea.

HalcyonDwellerOct 19, 20172 votes

Huh I guess that makes sense then. I still think it's strange. It's like an existential crisis, once you start wondering you just get so off-balance.

Jo0oOct 19, 20172 votes

Oh totally, and of course the answers change all the time. That's why we sometimes wind up with ADCs playing mid, mages in the bot-lane carry position, etc. And there's tons of overlap between top and mid.

HalcyonDwellerOct 19, 20172 votes

Why is it that people are so stuck in the meta then? I know that there are conventional roles, but when you think about it most characters can do lots of different things. Why do people subscribe to the 'meta' and why do they get so upset with others for playing different things?

Jo0oOct 19, 20171 votes

Eh, meta is meta for a reason. It's almost always the best way of doing things. Sending a support to Mid would result in a mage falling behind in XP and a marksman getting jumped on constantly with no easy way to get to safety.

HalcyonDwellerOct 19, 20171 votes

There are things that come into the meta that could have been done months earlier. I have to wonder sometimes if off-meta things are just a new meta that hasn't caught on yet.

AvienalOct 19, 20171 votes

{quoted}

There are things that come into the meta that could have been done months earlier. I have to wonder sometimes if off-meta things are just a new meta that hasn't caught on yet.

Thats basically what "Lethality/Armor Penetration" Lucian was and then followed with MissFortune and other ADCs pulling the same. Caster like ADCs ended up getting shafted and especially utility ones like Ashe(Still workable scum but not as low skill required as a ez auto spam champion with a buncha ez escape/cc tools). Because if a champion these days don't deal damage on all 4 abilities or have some super scummy gimmick (huge attack speed buff, % hp mauling, etc.) they usually get dumpstered by something as simple as a item 1033 or item 1029 .

Sadly it still persists and leads to rather scummy efficency against any ADCs or support who don't bring armor runes to atleast 'negate' the item 3134 so the enemy ADCs end up losing the cost worth of said items vs. more simplistic damage items. Yet somehow said 'builds' can easily be pusher for 'dumpster ez mode killing early game snowball 'strategies'...

[sg-janna]

So i pray for Season 8 rune/mastery system to greatly shut down those build styles and let other champions get 'builds' that let them excel a hell of alot better. ^^

HalcyonDwellerOct 19, 20171 votes

I pray that the runes changes go well too!

AvienalOct 19, 20171 votes

{quoted}

Saw another discussion talking about supports roaming and supporting in other lanes besides Bot and it got me thinking.

There has to be some sort of reason Marksmen are usually played Bot with a Support. I understand about dragon being important, so I'll not ask about top-lane... But why do they duo Bot instead of Mid?

What is it about Midlane that makes it less suitable for marksmen and what is it about Bot lane that makes it more so?

EDIT - The post that I referenced above: https://boards.na.leagueoflegends.com/en/c/gameplay-balance/QEtNGabP-can-the-meta-send-support-mid

That's really a stupid question in general. Its mainly because of the kit setup. Marksman basically need a butt buddy because most 'normal' ones tend to demand itemization to get the spikes and usually their kits are not made for duels less again your some bastardly scum champions ( Vayne with Cleanse and MR stacking items is just a dicker move in mid lane where mages usually roam).

There used to be plenty of times where you could have some marksmen in the mid lane like Tristana KogMaw Ezreal just to name a few because back in those earlier seasons, League didn't have as much bs when it came to insanely ez mode gap closer champions with a bunch of CC gimmicks and could also be tankie and yet still melt the face off of a champion who has no health/armor/Magic Resist items built at all. Hell i used to be the kind of person a few seasons ago that could do something like Ashe Mid and actually win lane because junglers were more like Gragas then the over'tuned shenigans we have these days.

But with Riot having a blend of ignoring champions and letting them stale and barely getting a champion 'rehaul' done and usually have 3~5 more overtuned champions churned out before that is done, plenty of those champions end up losing the capability to play in fanciful ways till ridiculous cheese like Ezreal jungle magically appears viable again because of nerfs to particular items and champions gave a indirect buff to those odd styles.

Seriously Riot, Give Annie and Tristana the slice of life upgrades so they don't have to deal with bs like the former being shatted on because the enemy got a item 3139 or the latter even though should devastate in late game gets utterly melted too easily due to lack of trade power in the early game because all the 'broken meta ADCs norms' never get screwed over when they should get some range/attack speed or even damage scaling downsides to compensate for EZ mode early game snowballing. Which early game champions in my opinion need to seriously fall off harder even if they get a 'few' kills to fuel them, with a 'even' few death/kill laning phase should demand them needing to play more risky and get likely have a higher chance of getting screwed over instead.

[sg-syndra]

Smite the overpowered or buff the underpowered, its one or the other Riot, not tap nerf the over powered and DEFINITELY not buff the overpowered and write it off as a 'shifting the power excuse' fix, because that never works.

HalcyonDwellerOct 19, 20171 votes

I'm confused are you answering my question or ranting about Riot?

Jo0oOct 19, 20171 votes

Yes.

HalcyonDwellerOct 19, 20171 votes

Ahaha I see.

[sg-lulu]

AvienalOct 19, 20171 votes

{quoted}

I'm confused are you answering my question or ranting about Riot?

Mix of both.

[sg-lulu]

HalcyonDwellerOct 19, 20172 votes

Ah, okay then. Thanks.

Variks the LoyalOct 19, 20171 votes

There's a lot of reasons. One of them is that mid is easier to roam from; better to have your Taliyah, Twisted Fate, Aurelion Sol, Talon, or whatever roaming-focused champion be able to go from mid to top or mid to bot, instead of only being able to go from bot to mid.

HalcyonDwellerOct 19, 20171 votes

I suppose that makes sense then. What about the other reasons? I'm trying to get a better understanding of it all.

Variks the LoyalOct 19, 20171 votes

I'm echoing other people I think, but one important thing is lane length. Generally, you want your solo player (The one without a Supp) to be the safest, since they have no help. Mid is the shortest lane, so a mid laner doesn't need to flee as far to reach a tower. If you put a duo in mid, you're doubling down on safety but putting your other solo laner at risk, and bot, in that case, would probably become home to more tanks or bruisers that can survive in an extended lane like top, and mages would drop off dramatically.

This will sound counter to what I just said, but bot is easier for two people to defend. Between an ADC and a Support with Sightstone, you can cover all of bots weak spots and ganking paths, but mid, there are a lot more; through the bushes, behind the bush walls, from the raptor camp, the little nook beside raptor camp (This was in worlds last night, raptors were warded so a jungler ganked from the little nook by raptors), and the jungle entrance behind the tower. It would be too much for even two people to keep track of.

And then there's Teleport. The ward placements in bot lane are very preferential to Teleport plays. Not only is bot easier to gank in this way than mid (Because of the lane length), but you're getting more efficiency out of it by traveling a further distance. That sounds like a reason why you wouldn't want two people there, but in this same scenario, it'd be easier for the top to TP to a bot with one person than to TP to a mid with two. Two people can defend themselves from a gank easier than one.

And this all goes back to lane length. Mid is shorter, so it fits a solo player inherently better than a longer lane because they can defend themselves without needing a Support to help them.

And then there's the very short distance from dragon, like you said in the OP.

AvienalOct 19, 20171 votes

[{quoted}](name=Variks the Loyal,realm=NA,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=pTEmAjAM,comment-id=0003,timestamp=2017-10-19T22:32:43.534+0000)

There's a lot of reasons. One of them is that mid is easier to roam from; better to have your Taliyah, Twisted Fate, Aurelion Sol, Talon, or whatever roaming-focused champion be able to go from mid to top or mid to bot, instead of only being able to go from bot to mid.

Don't even remind me of the scum known as Pantheon TwistedFate mid because just like a Gangplank , they will utterly pull 'kill secured' or 'dicker 'lane jump in measures where you have to usually waste a CC based ability or flash to escape that that EZ mode roamer champion which gets back up twice as fast (MUCH sooner for something like Aurelion or Talon) usually then a Flash Summoner spell.

I've noticed insanely often where mid champions tend to also be those roaming scumbag types and will gladly jump another lane if they get free lane for more then a minute, especially Bot to get that early first tower since bot towers don't get super damage reduction which might as well of been left on for a shorter while but include a gimmick on bot lane where if 3+ enemy champions are near your turret, the turret gets extra damage reduction till the timer for the 'damage reduction ticker' goes off. That or maybe give turrets a little 'anti diving feature' (Disable summoner spells and movement based abilities when a enemy champion dives under your turret and takes damage to punish EZ mode diver killer type champions better).

Riot may of 'lighten up' a few things on LoL to ensure faster games, but they need to backpedal a few measures since most games seem to be decided for the most part when one team can tower dive you in the early game, get away with not dying or even just plain 2+ man turret dive you and in the worst case only really have one person die to turret shots. Hell, maybe they could add a 'penalty' system where if a enemy champion dies under your team's turret via turret shots, they could get punished with extra time on the respawn timer to 'penalize' this yolo mindset that is becoming too much of a thing on champions like Vayne Jax Nocturne Ekko and so on.

[sg-jinx]

Because LoL feels more like a action spaz these days of button mashing, cluster screwery, run around kite troolery then how i remember it used to be like a few seasons ago. Its why i hope with the season 8's changes will lead to people who play like suicidal yolo pigeons and get away with the cake will get utterly shit on by more reserved playstyles because the pigeon champions that allow the yolo in this season atm get insanely damage shafted in the process of pre-season's arrival.

SasogwaOct 19, 20171 votes

All the reasons quoted before where why botlanes usually went bot instead of mid, but the main reason right now is that bot tower has no fortification and is the easiest to take forcing botlane to go there or concede tower first blood to the other team. This measure was taken by Riot to prevent the laneswaps that were very common in proplay but kinda sad we saw toplaners with like 3 cs at 10 min

HalcyonDwellerOct 19, 20171 votes

So the bot tower fortification nerf was a band-aid to their ranged vs melee balance problem? If that's the case then I am severely disappointed.

BALDG1VEN BOOMEROct 19, 20171 votes

They are the main carry.

They will do the most damage and consistent amount of damage compared to mages that play around cool down.

Also they don’t have much defensive items only thing that offers a bit of armour and MR is QSS/GA.

KimutoOct 20, 20171 votes

Here are my thoughts about this. Mid is just stronger in terms of 1v1 or small teamfights in early game than marksmen. Marksmen literally get one shot by a lot of mages due to huge burst of damage. Having a support with a mid laner will reduce hell a lot of exp and leave the adc unprotected. In high elo people know how to dive. Adc just extremely squishy so it's basically a free kill and mid laners usally harder to dive due to beter cc or survival in their abilities. This sounds like tactics that GAM would do tho :P I guess it is not a problem in low elo since sliver and below just too afraid to make plays like diving, especially when they don't have that much trust toward each other. But prepare for loads of reports if you do this with a duo... I'm sure you can get ban for that. :S

Darkdemon653Oct 20, 20171 votes

{quoted}

Saw another discussion talking about supports roaming and supporting in other lanes besides Bot and it got me thinking.

There has to be some sort of reason Marksmen are usually played Bot with a Support. I understand about dragon being important, so I'll not ask about top-lane... But why do they duo Bot instead of Mid?

What is it about Midlane that makes it less suitable for marksmen and what is it about Bot lane that makes it more so?

EDIT - The post that I referenced above: https://boards.na.leagueoflegends.com/en/c/gameplay-balance/QEtNGabP-can-the-meta-send-support-mid

If the RAD and support went mid, there would need to be another champion on the team who could handle a long, solo lane. Pretty much every champion who currently goes mid is bad at long, solo lanes (and for blue side, that champion would lose easy access to blue). Additionally, champions who currently go mid lane are much better at ganking than a support or RAD would be, and mid lane is the best lane to be to gank or assist in the jungles.

Yara0Oct 20, 20171 votes

Well we started lane swaping with top then riot made bot tower have shit for defence and added the first tower gold so now we have to sit bot and defend that shit 2v5 all game.

kagepaladinOct 20, 20171 votes

before stupid bot towers not having armour the reason why they won't ever be mid is mainly cause their is way too many pathways for them to get ganked and screwed by the enemy jungler or even the enemy top laner meanwhile bot lane they are restricted in how they gank since mostly only the support buys heavy wards.

StairCasexdOct 20, 20171 votes

Also the matches where the support plays in a different Lane feel very inconsistent, ever played a match where your teams support goes top? All the really happened that happened that game was the enemy top laner being annoyed and our bot Lane being unable to farm. Supports in other lanes would be cool but I wouldn't play something like zed mid with a support since it share the exp and be a bit lower on levels which is something you don't want to do as zed, idk about you, but I wouldn't want to have a support soaking up my exp when I play Kat and lose my early game power. Also when the support moves to a different Lane, bot Lane becomes pretty easy to gank unless you're playing Tristana. Personally, I wouldn't want supports in other lanes because I don't want to duo Lane, playing adc/support sometimes feel like those two roles are dependent on both the players knowing about the game, pretty hard to win Lane when your thresh doesn't know what the enemy xayahs feathers do, or your partner doesn't understand the concept of poking and the all in. I wouldn't want that implemented into the other lanes.

JackMcSnipeyzOct 20, 20171 votes

Because marksman are weak early levels, and require supports to peel and set up for most of them (lucian and corki are outliners). When they are alone their sustain isnt enough to cover long range poke from mages, or all in from assassins.

Also, mages and assassins who go mid benefit more from XP since their power is reletive to their abilities, while marksman benefit from gold for items for AA. Mages and assassins also have easier time roaming (long range abilities, mobility, map wide spells) so in mid they can effect both bot and top.

Support PositionOct 20, 20171 votes

The discussion for supports to roam and such was probably mine. Which I got a lot of hate for. Which was pretty dumb as I spend hours figuring out things on it. Ooh well.

QuephaOct 20, 20171 votes

Bot is a long lane so it's both farther from base if you have to back and makes you more vulnerable to ganks if you try to deal damage to the enemy turret. If a mid laner takes a bad trade or runs out of mana and has to back then they will lose relatively few minions compared to if they were bot or top lane. Going duo in a long lane helps mitigate these risks.