Marksmen

Whatever you think about adcs, I know most of the boards think that they are ridiculous op, broken, whatever, most would agree that they need an overhaul to have a healthier place in league going forward. I think that most adcs, even weak ones, have unhealthy play patterns. The combination of the safety of ranged and the immense damage of crit builds makes it so that adcs can melt anyone in a few seconds if they are not locked down. Now, I think that it might be okay for a characters counterplay to be to lock them down and destroy them, but for a whole class to have that as a condition, either lock them down and kill them, or don't and insta-lose the fight, isn't a good thing.

So my proposed solution? Model future adcs after the likes of Cassiopeia. Yes, Cassiopeia. What I mean is that I think that adcs need another form of gating. Cassiopeia has mana gating and a good portion of her kit is gated behind having her enemies poisoned by one of her other skills. Cassiopeia can destroy a teamfight, but she needs great positioning, a mana pool, and to land some of her skill shots on priority enemies. This makes it so that she is manageable with clear counterplay, though certainly very strong in the right situations. Keep out of her poison, lock her down, fight her when she has low mana in lane, etc.

A current adc fits this description is Ashe. She has to build up focus, has a clear window of power when she has focus, has some mana gating early, etc. I think that other adcs could benefit from getting a similar treatment. Example, someone like Twitch could be reworked slightly to be more focused on his poison so that he becomes less about farming to the right items then coming out of stealth on an enemy carry and deleting them, but more about hitting a particular condition in a fight that makes it so that both the player and the enemy player a chance to consider multiple conditions and potential plays that they can do against each particular enemy. With adcs in their current state that just isn't there. For most adcs there is one thing to consider. Can I lock them down and kill them while they can't kill me? If yes, then I win, if no, then I lose. If your an adc it is the question of, can I kill them before I get locked down and killed? If yes, then I win, if no, then I lose. For most adcs there is little thought of other conditions.

I want to recognize that playing the adc position well takes skill. People focus you harder, you are often punished more for mispositioning, if you don't get the right items at the right time you can get a case of caster-minion syndrome, etc. I play adc secondary right now (I used to play it primary but I didn't like the meta of current adcs and didn't feel like I was doing well in the position). I still understand some of the struggles that adc's go through. But the play pattern that adcs have is unhealthy no matter their current game state. In the loladcin2k17 meta their game state was unhealthy. This meta their game play is unhealthy. I see very few situations where the state of most marksmen is healthy, even with the goal that Rito has to put other champs in the bot lane.

Now, I want to make sure that it's understood that I don't think that all adcs have to have this particular play pattern like Cass or Ashe. I think that some adcs can definitely have other play patterns and still be healthy. I think that Jhin, whether strong or weak, can be healthy. Graves (who is only kind of a marksmen) can be healthy, whether or not he currently is. Even champs like Lucian and Ez, even though they are perennially broken in some way, have theoretical worlds where they can be healthy and balanced. But traditional marksmen like Twitch, Jinx, Vayne, Tristana, Xayah, etc. will never be truly be fixed by simply tuning or small changes.