How does one play adc?

Lapis·Mar 19, 2017·4 votes·1,350 views

I just filled into a game and got adc. It, did not go well. http://prnt.sc/elp5fp It probably wasn't the best game to try a new role, but it made me realize that I don't really know what I'm trying to do as adc.

20 Comments

fuffychanMar 19, 20176 votes

You die to all the Khazix Zac Zed

LapisMar 19, 20174 votes

{quoted}

You die to all the

Haha thanks. That's what I thought

AFilthyCaitMainMar 19, 20176 votes

ADC is a complex role, maybe one of the hardest roles in game. You can be shut down EASY, which makes it important to be competent in what youre doing. Heres some of the main things you focus on.

Cs is everything In bottom lane, its a race for better gold. even if you feed two kills, you can make an easy comeback by having way better cs. Playing from behind ties into cs as well, if youre behind, ride as many waves as possible, as long as youve got a safe way to do it. take this, you have 100 cs, each is worth 20. THATS 2000 GOLD! Of course, each minions will probably be worth EVEN MORE! So get that cs, learn to last hit, etc.

Learn your champions playstyle Are they dps? are they burst? so many things to consider, which take time to learn. if theyre dps, theyll probably rely on poking. If theyre burst, all ins are great. Knowing the mechanics of your champion is a great way to excel at ADC.

**You dont make the plays, the plays come to YOU. Unless Youre Ashe ** DONT try to initiate unless you have a clear advantage and its safe to do so. Wait for them to make a mistake, like getting in front of their minion wave, or yours. This will lead to successful trades all around, unless youre like me and happen to misclick and use the wrong spells sometimes.

Minion Damage Youre squishy, dont underestimate it.

Work with your support Never underestimate your support. They can set up so many good kills for you, or save you so many times. Make sure to communicate and to ping to them, and NEVER abuse them, EVER. They might sometimes steal your kill but thats okay, you still won that trade, thats all that matters. But if they keep stealing your kills on purpose then things get fishy, just dont pay it any mind. Dont expect them to jump in with you to make impossible plays though.

Know how you like to play There are so many playstyle of ADCs out there. You have to find one that fits you. You have ones like Ashe who can make plays with her ult, has a lot of utility, and is a kiting goddess. Theres Caitlyn who is a complete lane bully, and does a TON of damage, she has the longest base range in game, and her kit is based around her being safe and having escapes. Draven has a speed steroid on his W, and can deal INSANE amounts of damage. Lucian is very bursty and has a dash. The list goes on and on, find who suits you best.

Stay Safe You should almost never put yourself in a position to be heavily damaged. Because if they can, they WILL. Youre squishy, stay in the back line as much as possible and stay ALIVE. Having you dead will be a terrible time for your team. You will probably be able to be shut down easy if you die in lane.

Take time to learn the role ADC cant just be learned in days, weeks, not even really a few months. Its a hard role with a ton of influence on the game. The ADC can even solo carry their team if they get fed enough. Im an ADC main, ive been playing the role for months, and i still consider myself trashy. Theres just so many ins and outs to the role that it can be very frustrating. Learning the role takes time and effort, but its very rewarding,

Hope i helped!

LapisMar 19, 20171 votes

{quoted}

ADC is a complex role, maybe one of the hardest roles in game. You can be shut down EASY, which makes it important to be competent in what youre doing. Heres some of the main things you focus on.

Cs is everything In bottom lane, its a race for better gold. even if you feed two kills, you can make an easy comeback by having way better cs. Playing from behind ties into cs as well, if youre behind, ride as many waves as possible, as long as youve got a safe way to do it. take this, you have 100 cs, each is worth 20. THATS 2000 GOLD! Of course, each minions will probably be worth EVEN MORE! So get that cs, learn to last hit, etc.

Learn your champions playstyle Are they dps? are they burst? so many things to consider, which take time to learn. if theyre dps, theyll probably rely on poking. If theyre burst, all ins are great. Knowing the mechanics of your champion is a great way to excel at ADC.

**You dont make the plays, the plays come to YOU. Unless Youre ** DONT try to initiate unless you have a clear advantage and its safe to do so. Wait for them to make a mistake, like getting in front of their minion wave, or yours. This will lead to successful trades all around, unless youre like me and happen to misclick and use the wrong spells sometimes.

Minion Damage Youre squishy, dont underestimate it.

Work with your support Never underestimate your support. They can set up so many good kills for you, or save you so many times. Make sure to communicate and to ping to them, and NEVER abuse them, EVER. They might sometimes steal your kill but thats okay, you still won that trade, thats all that matters. But if they keep stealing your kills on purpose then things get fishy, just dont pay it any mind. Dont expect them to jump in with you to make impossible plays though.

Know how you like to play There are so many playstyle of ADCs out there. You have to find one that fits you. You have ones like who can make plays with her ult, has a lot of utility, and is a kiting goddess. Theres who is a complete lane bully, and does a TON of damage, she has the longest base range in game, and her kit is based around her being safe and having escapes. has a speed steroid on his W, and can deal INSANE amounts of damage. is very bursty and has a dash. The list goes on and on, find who suits you best.

Stay Safe You should almost never put yourself in a position to be heavily damaged. Because if they can, they WILL. Youre squishy, stay in the back line as much as possible and stay ALIVE. Having you dead will be a terrible time for your team. You will probably be able to be shut down easy if you die in lane.

Take time to learn the role ADC cant just be learned in days, weeks, not even really a few months. Its a hard role with a ton of influence on the game. The ADC can even solo carry their team if they get fed enough. Im an ADC main, ive been playing the role for months, and i still consider myself trashy. Theres just so many ins and outs to the role that it can be very frustrating. Learning the role takes time and effort, but its very rewarding,

Hope i helped!

This is super helpful and thorough! Thank you a lot for taking the time to write this! It seems I was on the right track at least. Try not to die, cs the minions (even though that's really hard, being a support main has not prepared me, rip)

AFilthyCaitMainMar 19, 20171 votes

Yeah cs is something that comes with time and knowledge of your champion

glad i could help you out!

Mr KillalotMar 19, 20172 votes

To add to what you said, kiting effectively is vital when playing adc. Knowing how to cancel your auto's and move in between them is an awesome skill to have. I would highly recommend playing Ashe or Caitlyn first. Kiting is essential to playing both effectively and they're good champions to learn ADC on.

SexualsaurusMar 19, 20174 votes

You don't make the plays, the plays come to YOU. Unless You're Ash...

Twitch "SURPRISE ITS ME HAHAHAHA!!"

SexualsaurusMar 19, 20172 votes

If you wanna try to learn the adc role i recommend you look at a british youtuber called Phylol, he plays alot adc and loves the champion ezreal.

here is just an example video

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jol3dIjvwBA

LapisMar 19, 20172 votes

{quoted}

If you wanna try to learn the adc role i recommend you look at a british youtuber called Phylol, he plays alot adc and loves the champion ezreal.

here is just an example video

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jol3dIjvwBA

Thanks man, I'll check it out

SexualsaurusMar 19, 20172 votes

He's got a second channel where you can watch his ranked gameplay vids and they might be more informative, i dunno if phylol will help you but its at least something worth looking at.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4_sRgi-ISXo

I play alot of marksmen and mechanical stuff like kiting will become easier the more you get use to your marksmen's auto attack animation and champ in general. Its a really fun role once you get into it :)

Raven RedeemedMar 19, 20171 votes

Yeah, Phy really knows the adc role. Getting advice is fine but adc is such a mechanical role you probably will see the most improvement after simply practicing and getting used to it yourself. Good luck!

LankPantsMar 19, 20172 votes

You had a garbage team, what you played ultimately wouldn't have mattered, you weren't winning that game.

As for your play it doesn't seem bad for someone new to the role. Considering how hard you were losing lane for most of the game being 20 CS down isn't terrible. So you at least have the absolute basics of the role down.

I can't tell exactly what you did wrong since I can't see the game, but just based off of your low damage I'd say your skill shots weren't quite on point, since 3000 damage is only 15-20 Qs all game, if you hit nothing else. If you're going to be playing Ez specifically you need to be able to land most of your Qs since they're a fairly significant chunk of your damage. Other than that don't be too afraid to try to get in autos, you have your E to get away from CC, as long as you pay attention you should be able to get away from most things, just try to avoid getting scared and Eing away to early, you'll lose a lot of damage for it.

Your runes and masteries also aren't optimal. Move Speed is a very weak stat for Ez since his E serves as in combat repositioning already. If you can you want to sub that out for AD or AS. You also want to run the T2 Ferocity mastery Fresh Blood, it procs on Ez's Q, so it's just 11-38 (based off level) bonus damage on your poke.

LapisMar 19, 20171 votes

{quoted}

You had a garbage team, what you played ultimately wouldn't have mattered, you weren't winning that game.

As for your play it doesn't seem bad for someone new to the role. Considering how hard you were losing lane for most of the game being 20 CS down isn't terrible. So you at least have the absolute basics of the role down.

I can't tell exactly what you did wrong since I can't see the game, but just based off of your low damage I'd say your skill shots weren't quite on point, since 3000 damage is only 15-20 Qs all game, if you hit nothing else. If you're going to be playing Ez specifically you need to be able to land most of your Qs since they're a fairly significant chunk of your damage. Other than that don't be too afraid to try to get in autos, you have your E to get away from CC, as long as you pay attention you should be able to get away from most things, just try to avoid getting scared and Eing away to early, you'll lose a lot of damage for it.

Your runes and masteries also aren't optimal. Move Speed is a very weak stat for Ez since his E serves as in combat repositioning already. If you can you want to sub that out for AD or AS. You also want to run the T2 Ferocity mastery Fresh Blood, it procs on Ez's Q, so it's just 11-38 (based off level) bonus damage on your poke.

Thanks for the advice! Yeah, my damage was garbage because I was mostly focused on trying to cs. I threw out a couple of Qs when there was an opening, but for the most part there wasn't really trading going on. I think that's something I'll have to work on. I changed my mastery page to fit your suggestion, but the runes will have to wait a bit. Movement speed quints are actually all I have at the moment, because most of my champs roam a lot and runes are expensive. I should really buy more, but I keep forgetting to and end up buying new champs instead whoops ^^;

LankPantsMar 19, 20171 votes

It may be worth buying the 1IP T2 AS runes. They're not the greatest thing ever, for most ADCs I'd say T3 MS is probably better but for Ez specifically the AS from a T2 is better than the MS from a T3.

The problem then is only rune pages, but you're probably going to need more than 2 of them eventually anyway so it's worth saving for one now IMO.

Trap or a TrickMar 19, 20171 votes

Despite what most people tell you, a lot of people think that ADC is the highest mechanical role in the game, I do agree, kiting isn't a very easy mechanic to perfect, neither is orbwalking or last hitting, unlike something like maybe top lane, you cant just get filled into it and do really well (just picking something like Malphite or whatnot) you actually have to put a lot of hours into playing it

-An Aatrox, Nunu and ADC main <3

Corvo AttanoMar 19, 20171 votes

Fellow Oce person, you bring a tear to my eye

RainXBladeMar 19, 20171 votes

~~You're meant to be the bag of gold the assassin or diver is waiting to collect, over and over again.~~

Nah I'm just, but really you are one because no matter how underfed you are because of the Zac, Zed or Leblanc on the enemy team, a good ADC pulls through in bad situations.

Now I might as well make a few points as an Ezreal main and a guy that has tried other ADC's as well.

Positioning This is by far the defining aspect of the ADC. The way you position in skirmishes or teamfights dictates if you can live in a team fight or not. Bad positioning often gets you killed while good ones can net you a lot of rewards. Use any mechanic possible to keep your positioning stable in teamfights whether it be orb walking, attack moving or using a blink or a dash to escape sticky situations or to catch someone off if you know it's safe to go in.
Target Selection Picking a target in teamfights as an ADC is crucial as well. The priority of targeting is in this order: The enemy ADC or mid laner, the tank or the closest target available.
Your style of play ADC's aren't just right-click all the time, there are a variety of ADC's you can choose to play like utility ones (, ), traditional/lane bully ones ({{champion:51}, , ), pure duelists (, ) and caster ADC's (,, ). Pick one to practice on, learn and understand the mechanics of that ADC along with the standard mechanics needed to play ADC.

DankstinMar 19, 20171 votes

When it was said don't underestimate minion aggro, that was downplayed a lot. The importance of minion aggro and the manipulation of it is extremely downplayed. When the lane phase starts as an ADC, you are the weakest you'll be all game, and that means caring about the damage minions deal to you. As soon as you use an auto attack against an enemy champion, minions near that champion begin to target you. They will target you by the 6's, and that damage wracks up faster than you will realize before you've taken 30% of your hp in true damage. You have to regard minions. Don't run up to an enemy in a swarm of their minions to harass them. They will win 90% of the trades. I can't tell you how many times I've gotten free kills from aggro from my minions nearby me. It's hilarious, and tragic.

no to toxicMar 19, 20171 votes

Guide to adc: 1) Take this one serious. Dont join the fight until you see that the fight aleady started. You gotta wait for your team to get their faces mashed into the ground and then come in since its less likely that the enemy still got a gapcloser or ult that way. 2) Dont expect anything from your support. Dont even except them to play the game just expect them to breath. 3) Dont play Ezreal if you wanna learn adc he teaches you bad habits like: Thinking your Q is replacement for auto attacks, thinking your E allows you to go in melle range of everything and anything, he is a champion wich rewards hitting skillshots but doesnt punish you for missing them making you become a skillshot pressing monkey who throws spells without thought or care, You also need to be good to play Ezreal and with all these bad habits you will never git gud.