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ADC meta is the worst it has EVER been in the history of this game

StoryDuck··85 votes·11,833 views

I just had a game, got my ADC fed to high heavens. He was 1v2ing the bot lane by 10 minutes I got him so fed. I roam mid get them fed, I go top get them out of lane. We must have had a 10-15k gold lead pre-20 minutes and had 100% of neutral objectives. Then we move to mid/late game and teamfights.... Our hyper fed ADC could not position himself in ANY teamfight and was always deleted. I could peel for him all day but it didn't matter as he wanted to be a front line ADC and I can't peel if my ADC is always in front of me. Okay, well at least mid is fed and top has a lead. Jungle pretty fed too. NOPE! SCREW YOUR PLAYS! SCREW YOUR LEADS! SCREW YOUR ROAMING! SCREW YOUR STYLE! If your ADC is shit you auto lose. Simple as that. Sad part was he was okay in lane but as he couldn't position for teamfights so it meant auto lose for entire team. Where is the balance in that? Our ADC is missing one skill and that means that no matter how good we play, no matter how big our lead, no matter what we do it's irrelevant to the positioning skill of the ADC?

Look, I know ADC is an important role but this is ridiculous. If your team has a huge lead it should not be a loss just because the ADC can't position themselves. There are so many possible solutions its insane that Riot won't try or do any of it. I don't care how it's fixed just fix this shit storm of a completely unbalanced meta. I don't care how it's fix; buff assassins, nerf ADC items, make AP itemization better, remove crit, grant more AS slows on items and abilities, buff armor, nerf armor pen, reduce life steal on ADC items, buff every other role, or just remove ADCs altogether. I don't care how it's done just fix the damn meta!

161 Comments

RiotNot Surrendering49 votes

Is this any different to a really fed mid laner trying to catch people out and dying in the process while you're supporting them?

Sometimes you just have teammates that don't play optimally; that's the game.

However, there's something to be said about having multiple roles be supported in lane, we just haven't been able to achieve it in the attempts we've tried internally - not to say we'd never do it, but it's a hard problem to solve and takes time. AD/Support in the current landscape feels a lot more statchecky out of the early game than I'd personally like, but that is almost an expected effect if Ardent is the only offensive support option.

LankPants90 votes

Is this any different to a really fed mid laner trying to catch people out and dying in the process while you're supporting them?

Yes, the very fed midlaner doesn't become immortal through Lifesteal, QSS and GA.

SociopathFriend16 votes

I find this a bit misleading- the midlaner has much more on-command Crowd Control and range compared to an ADC and in most cases never has to get nearly as close to pull off their abilities.

Zerenza7 votes

? Marksman? Hello, the class is called "MARKSMAN" as in "VERY LONG RANGED"? The issue is unlike a Mage an ADC lacks skillshots that actually matter to their kit, some ADC's do have skillshots but most right-click from almost double the range of any other champion and those auto attack's deal just as much, if not more than the Mage's skillshot's, while being undodgeable and moving MUCH faster, especially with ADC's stacking Attack Speed and Crit now. Mage's are the WORST example to use at the moment.

ModAcademy Kayn19 votes

Xerath "550 is long ranged? Amateur"

Best princess EU7 votes

lmao

Let's see who's meta atm

Twitch Kog Trist cait

550 range xd only one with 550 range is vayne that has 20% pick rate

TeCoolMage4 votes

All you're doing is proving his point. Range is an important and under appreciated stat, and champions like Xerath are really powerful if done right. There's a reason why short ranged marksmen aren't particularly meta.

Zerenza10 votes

Yeah but what's easier? Right-Clicking on someone, no cost, un dodgeable? Or having to aim a skillshot from an extremely long range that does roughly the exact same damage as a Marksman auto attack?

It's the Right-Click, right-click all the way, so much easier to kill someone when there isn't jack shit they can do about it.

MLDzXnRRR3 votes

{quoted}

lmao

Let's see who's meta atm

Twitch Kog Trist cait

550 range xd only one with 550 range is vayne that has 20% pick rate

Vayne is the third most popular overall now. Only Ashe and Trist are more popular. Thresh, Yasuo, Xahayah, Janna, Lee, Ez, Kayn, Cait, Twitch, Zed, Lulu, Jinx, Soraka come after them... Yeah, noone plays ADCs, right. This is counting all ranked and normals (the stats are from lolking), so it is pretty good overview of what people actually play. Meanwhile, Skarner , AurelionSol , Ivern , Udyr Aatrox Karthus Nunu

Dextix LT4 votes

The midlaner will have more cc and range, but he will be reliant on actual skill and outplaying (Most of the time) because of skillshots. An adc will just right click to victory, and there is no way to dodge or stop that.

Skorch3 votes

But they also have double the range of ADCs, and if its an assassin mid oh boy.

LankPants5 votes

The most cancerous ADCs at the moment are Twitch, Trist and Kog'maw, are you noticing a pattern with these champs? They are incredibly long ranged and actually outrange the majority of mages.

Troxic2 votes

[deleted]

AirKingNeo2 votes

I mean the main post itself is pretty bad.

DoktorKaiser11 votes

I don't want to argue because I don't know much about balancing tbh, I don't study the numbers or put nearly enough time to fully understand every aspect of this game, I am talking as an average veteran that has been playing regularly since season 1 - the game never, literally NEVER felt worse in every single aspect. I honestly have no idea why I am still playing, its that bad and every game is frustrating af. If I keep playing I will get a heart attack. It has been getting worse last 2 years, but it has culminated last few patches - ADCs are insane, censer is the worst designed item in history imo, healers feel like cancer to play against, lethality is beyond broken with full lethality champs killing people from 1 autoattack, generally damage creep is just out of control, yesterday I got 1 shot by a full tank Rammus during his taunt and also got 1 shot by a full lethality Zed as a 6 armor item Nautilus. You need some major changes or I honestly feel you will destroy the game completely, I am speaking as someone who wants this game to last forever - change something NOW, not tomorrow, not next preseason or class update, N O W.

Automated Riven2 votes

It is literally impossible for zed to 100-0 a full health naut with 6 armor items if zed only builds lethality. I would maybe believe it if naut did not use shield and zero bonus health, and zed had the power of a 6 item jhin stolen and a last whisper item. Otherwise this is just exaggerating. Please post a video. (fyi i dpnt really see why this is worse. Leblanc used to do 80-90% of a full tank with a full rotation. Plus zed has always beaten tanks later in the game)

DoktorKaiser7 votes

He just caught me out near my base and 100-0 me with his ulti rotation, I had around 3500 health and god knows how much armor, he hit everything yes but I never remember Zed 1 shotting a tank since his release if they are both full build, i coulndt believe my eyes. Tank stats are just in the gutter atm, the only reason some tanks are broken is because they deal as much damage as mages with their rotation while building full tank. The tanks that deal no damage are imo the worst champions in the game right now. Its really sad. I love Zed and I think he is the most balanced assassin in the game but lethality is just beyond broken and is so unfun, I would give my left arm to have armor pen back because this is just pure bullshit...

Thryale5 votes

exactly this. we are in a damage meta, not just an adc meta. every champ and their grand mother has to do damage nowadays or they aren't relevant. and tbh, it's really annoying to see the 3k+ hp tank with massive amounts of armor and/or MR do just as much damage to a squishy as my full build mage.

also, can anyone explain to me why GA provides AD now? Like, that's a major FU to all mages and AP assassins that'd like to use the item come late game.

EinarUlfar2 votes

As a S1 Veteran, you should make a post regarding the state of the game and why things need to change. I could see it potentially getting some visibility on the boards.

I bought Overwatch recently to have something to hold me over, awaiting the change of Ardent & this meta - assuming it's going to come eventually. But I don't want to see League die because it changed in a similar fashion to every other now-dead-once-popular online game.

DoktorKaiser3 votes

I dont know anything about balancing details and I dont bother learning nor am I a particularly good player since I am usually gold-plat-low dia, depending on how much I play, plus there are many many season 1 vets so I am nothing special. I am just stating my opinions but lately it seems that RIOT just doesnt give a damn, they just gave us our meme skins and called it a day. Fuck gameplay amirite ?

GrievousFetus37 votes

Reminder that ADC is the only role that's mandatory. Top has swung between tanks, fighters, melee carries, roaming assassins, even ranged cancer like Quinn. Supports have had enchanters, tank supports, and mage supports strong at different points. Mid has seen mages and has seen assassins, and the mages have been burst, DPS, artillery, utility etc. Jungle has been as diverse as top, with tanks, assassins, bruisers, and sometimes Malzahar and Twitch.

Bot has always been strictly ADC, save Morde and Ziggs. When it's a tank meta carry tops don't get played. When it's a mage meta assassins don't get played mid. When its an assassin meta ADCs are still played theyre just shitty to play, becsuse theyre mandatory.

The first step to fixing the role is to make it non-essential.

StoryDuck8 votes

I would like that. Really, I would. I would like to have fun as a support playing with an AP mage but gotta have insane ADC apparently. Some of the best games I had was when it was with Ziggs, Morde, Kennen, and Vlad. I wish they would make a set of support items to support AP and not just AAs.

ProfDrDeath12 votes

Bot has strictly been ADC for a simple reason: These champions suffer the least efficiency drop when sharing XP.

And Riot could (possibly even should) design a few new (and/or reworked) non-marksman champions with bot lane in mind. The issue with that is, you then hear the bitching and moaning of people who want to play the champion somewhere else. And designing a non-ADC for bot lane is not a piece of cake, either - they'll need to make the champion work well enough sharing XP while, at the same time, somehow restrict how said champion performs when have access to more XP.

BobaFlautist7 votes

That's easy enough. The more power you put in item scalings and the more you leave out of base damages, the more gold dependant a role is.

A mage with decent flat bases, modest base damage/level, and high ap scaling will flourish both bot and mid without being too overbearing in either role, as long as their kit is tuned appropriately.

GrievousFetus3 votes

The mage would either need an ability that damage towers or would have to partially scale with AS to take towers in order to siege well.

I wouldn't even mind ADC being mandatory if we had meaningfully different ADCs. Illusion carries over crit carries when?

Maszii5 votes

{quoted}

The mage would either need an ability that damage towers or would have to partially scale with AS to take towers in order to siege well.

I wouldn't even mind ADC being mandatory if we had meaningfully different ADCs. Illusion carries over crit carries when?

You realise that AP do a lot of damage to turrets aswell, but since they have no as they do overall less.

Sire Hippington7 votes

If that was the only issue, Yasuo would have been a common sight bot. He gains rather little benefit from levels whie he scales massively with gold. It also would be a rather easy issue to solve by adding xp shareing mechanics for the gp/10 items.

THe main issue is that adc have a stupidly strong early due to their consistent AA harras and pushing, and the only thing that holds them back in sololanes is that they are somewhat vulnerable to all-ins and mostly ganks(there's a reason that in 1v1 tournaments, adc usually are the god tier pics). But this is where the support comes in and just denies those weaknesses, leaving support+adc near impossible to beat. If you design a champ that is strong enough in the early lane to take on adc in the duo lane, it's very likely that that champ becomes a monster in solo lanes, or that that earlygame is justifyed by falling off later while the adc just hyperscales.

The natural strong earlygame of adc due to how potent ranged AAs are in the early lane paired with their inevitable godmode come to lategame makes them just a must have that is supperior to any other duolane.

ProfDrDeath1 votes

Yasuo is melee - that alone makes him unsuited to sharing XP. Even more, his flow generation and shield strength (which are his passive defensive tools), windwall cooldown and E cooldown all scale rather well with champion level.

Sire Hippington3 votes

Even more, his flow generation and shield strength (which are his passive defensive tools), windwall cooldown and E cooldown all scale rather well with champion level.

Guess what, adc also have lots of stuff that sclaes with level, and his shields scaleing curve makes it so that lvl don't matter much early(the difference between 1 anf 8 is only 50 shield), it's onlyin the later stages whenit picks up pace which is when lvl differences aren't that high between solo and duo lanes anymore. His damage values hardly increase with rank but rather with items. Actually, most adc gain much more power from levels than yasuo does(exept late when his shield starts getting huge)

Yasuo is melee - that alone makes him unsuited to sharing XP

What has melee to do with shareing xp?

KoKoboto12 votes

I don't think it's a problem of ADCs. It's a problem of early game meta. ADCs just take the most advantage because their a late game class but now have access to way too much gold early. If Rito changes the game to slow down ADCs will also slow down because they scale the best with the amount of gold and leads you can get in this early game meta.

ProfDrDeath11 votes

It is less about the gold gain and more about how the cheap the ADC items have become. Revert the IE price decrease and make Zeal items 2900-3000 gold, and that problem should be taken care of.

Buzzkillington02 votes

And then what? Make the non dominant adc's even worse to play? Lategame still starts at 20 min when the average game length is 30 min. Nobody wants to be useful in a 5 minute window. Costs were decreased due to the game becoming too snowbally. The real problem relies in tower first blood in botlane and towers being trash.

LordGeovanni4 votes

obviously if you nerf the ones who are ending the games early the games will be longer. also Fighters and tanks get to be useful for far less than a 5 minutes over all in a 30 minute game. assassins get about an 8 minute window versus adcs and more versus other classes that are alone

GayFluffyUnicorn1 votes

Well apparently noone asked us fighter players how long we want to be useful because right now you have like two items after you finished trinity because every other shitter already surpassed you after those two mins. Yeah great plan, if the game is too snowbally you just make it more snowbally by making the best lategame items cheap as hell. This will take care of snowball! OOOOOR if adcs are not as good in this meta as before we leave them as they are and let other champs shine until the meta changes again. Every other fucking role had this: tanks not played, fighters not played, assassins not played even mages were out of meta for a short time. None of them got as many compensatory buffs as botlane.

GrievousFetus2 votes

Every time anything bad happens (like assassins being allowed to do the job their role was designed to do) to ADCs, all ADC mains cry their hippy trail of crocodile tears onto the boards and onto Reddit, and demand to have their role buffed. Because they're upset their squishy class got killed by the class that is meant to surgically remove squishies or die trying. Or they're mad that their late game carry isn't strong until the late game. Or they're mad their role is weak despite the fact that it's the only role that remains MANDATORY in a team comp regardless of the meta.

all ADC remains do is bitch that their role's intended weaknesses are working as intended and demand them removed.

Tessel89 votes

I still wake up in cold sweats from dreams of the Tank Meta of 2015

Nik Nikerson20 votes

Because it was so good right?

Disembark7 votes

lol tank meta wasn't "slow fights and control", it was full tank Mundo/Volibear running killing everyone and there was literally no counterplay.

Let's not even mention that every pretty much every champion was built better tanky - and do a butt load of damage too. Oh and let's not even get started on devourer and how we had Yi/Shyv/Jax had 3.5k hp and deleted people faster than ADCs do now.

But yeah man, "tank meta was so good".

iDarkWind3 votes

Dying to a full tank Sejuani because you can't outdamage her and also getting perma CC .... Amazing. Let's not forget the Juggernaunt Rework. Don't defend tank meta. It was also a nightmare.

Ohhh, and Sated Devour, that amazing Item ...

RainXBlade5 votes

Ah Sated Devourer, the item that allowed Yi to have 3K HP, 150+ armor and MR and still have the DPS of an ADC.

RookPusher8 votes

Yeah but you need to show up when everyone is screaming bloody murder about the tank meta. It's clearly the best meta of all of them. But the ePeen commands that there is no self-worth without shit talk and insta kills so the ADC meta always comes back.

StoryDuck33 votes

I liked the tank meta. Teamfights lasted longer, games felt closer, early game could have a meaningful impact and I was having a great time. This meta? I feel like crap most games. Win or lose it always boils down to adc and who's better with very very very rare exceptions.

e46 Fanatic9 votes

{quoted}

I liked the tank meta.

Yeah... Everyone's too busy building 2.0 att speed and 100% crit and playing ap nukers as support

RookPusher7 votes

See the repsonses I'm getting? About people saying the Tank Meta sucked? Those are the people who gave you this ADC meta. Becuase for the "nothing is ever good enough" crowd, they can't figure out that the MAIN-meta never shows up.

rtbf2256182412 votes

I'm pretty sure the tank meta was characterized by extreme amounts of cc and their Sunfire Capes doing everything.

And...oh god the AP Supports became more popular than ever.

https://i.giphy.com/media/wMAokkbg2bt4c/200_s.gif

StoryDuck10 votes

I'm not saying the tank meta didn't have issues but at least I felt like other roles made a difference in the game. Now? It's all about just one role. ADC.

Penns10 votes

a tank meta boils down to tanks vs tanks tho

Spank the Fox4 votes

Tank meta boils down to champ select.

Your teammates are a Yas/Riven top main? Enjoy the loss because the enemy team ran a tank top and tank jungler.

KoKoboto2 votes

Tank meta was when tanks and ANYONE could go sunfire + ice born gauntlet. We haven't been in a tank meta in a very very very long time.

GrievousFetus6 votes

We had one ever tank meta and it was two patches. Cinderhulk meta.

Every other "tank" meta was just "assassins and bruisers abusing tank intems" meta.

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