Items for ADC are too expensive

Hikkupz·8/22/2014, 7:31:54 PM·1 votes·1,032 views

I was wondering why ADC items are so expensive compared to other roles. For example, the most expensive AP item that I know is Death Cap which only costs 3400 Gold while Infinity Edge for ADC is 3800 Gold? 3800 Gold for IE was actually fine before before the game changes where you targeted IE to be the first item in the game.

UPDATE: That was a comparision to another role. Here's the comparasion to the previous patches. We had 3200 for BloodThrister and now it's 3500. IE was from 3700 to 3800. Before they were at perfect price in my opinion and now they're more expensive even though the stats remain the same except BloodThirster got even worse.

5 Comments

67chrome8/22/2014, 7:51:14 PM4 votes

ADC itemization is so expensive due to how it scales - there's so many multipliers available that it will surpass all other builds pretty much no matter what.

Attack Damage multiplies attack speed which multiplies critical strikes which multiplies armor penetration. In each case you can easily increase your damage by 80%, so you see ADC damage increase exponentially as the game goes on.

AP is mostly limited to AP and ~30% damage increases in Void Staff, DFG, Lich Bane, and Rabadon's.

Defense is limited largely to just HP and armor/mr.

So the break-down is generally ADC's kind of fall into a 2 x 2 x 2 x2 = 16 pattern, where tanks and mages fall more into a 3 x 2 x 1.5 = 9 pattern. They're stronger early, but ADC's beat there scaling pretty convincingly late-game.

So that's the trade-off. ADC's are the most gold dependent class and as such most of their damage is placed in itemization, but they're also the strongest class with lots of gold.

redniwediS8/22/2014, 7:47:47 PM2 votes

The items are pretty expensive, but they are also very strong. It's one of the many reasons ADCs scale so well into the late game. Lowering the price wouldn't be a horrible idea, but you would have to decrease the stats as well, which wouldn't be a good thing for ADCs.

Shrikesnest8/22/2014, 8:13:16 PM1 votes

The point of the ADC is that they need a lot of gold to be effective, but if they get that gold they're the strongest. That's actually where the term "carry" originates; they were a teammate that needed to be "carried" into the late game on the shoulders of their teammates, with success leading to victory. I have no idea when the definition almost completely inverted itself into "someone who carries the rest of their team."

HigeR8/22/2014, 8:17:51 PM1 votes

only the mana sucking one ._. as for the rest it's ok, AD damage is more sustained than AP which tends to be burst, meaning that with high amounts of AD you'll be a threat all the time while with high amounts of AP you'll be a threat as long as you're not on cd

Linna Excel8/22/2014, 8:50:47 PM1 votes

That's why shutting them down is important.