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Anyone else think that Lucian and Trist (pre-recent nerfs) were good baselines for the ADC class?

Secimius·10/23/2014, 3:29:04 AM·2 votes·849 views

I felt before the IE/adc itemization changes, ADCs were mainly there to siege turrets and HOPE to be somewhat relevant in fights. For a good portion of S4, it felt like that even if an ADC got kills, he still wasn't much of a force to be reckoned with outside of bot lane.

Then came the itemization changes, buffs to Tristana, a couple reworks of Lucian, and somehow Kogmaw - and suddenly we had 3 ADCs that were relevant for most of the game and relevant for more than just shooting turrets/dragon/baron. They struggled in a lot of solo lane match ups and thus were largely confined to bot lane with a support, but their power curve was such that if they played right and were ahead of their opponents they could fight mids/tops/junglers as the game went on.

Kog - nerfed within a month of him starting to gain popularity, and from what I can tell, it drove him out of popularity just as quickly.

Trist - received several medium-nerfs. Now probably under the power level of where she was before any buffs.

Lucian - Still strong compared to the rest of the ADCs, but his power curve has been shifted enough that he needs a large amount of kills/farm to be strong outside of bot lane.

So now we're back to a state where ADCs are there mostly to siege objectives. I really think this is the wrong way for the ADC class of champions.

In my opinion, if you play well and get a lead, you should be able to compete with other champions. Before the above champions were nerfed, if you got a lead with one them, you could fight enemy champions who weren't as fed/farmed as you -and you usually had a good chance at winning. Now, it's a real struggle to have influence outside of bot lane if you're ahead - you can pressure turrets, but you can't really do much in fights. When a mid laner gets a lead, they are typically strong enough to roam bot with good results, but it certainly doesn't seem that ADCs can roam on mid for much effect. Maybe's this is Riot's goal for the ADC class, but I don't find it to be very fun.

It's true that for a time, there were only 2 or 3 viable/tier-1 ADCs, but nerfing them doesn't make ADCs more balanced and certainly not more fun. It might make them more balanced relative to other ADCs, but other ADCs are largely too weak to be played in any serious game. Who is scared of fed Cait, Ashe, Ezreal, Graves, Sivir, MF, Quinn, Varus, Urgot? Unless your team got crushed in all lanes, you probably can handle any of those champs. There's the tier-2 ADCs - Corki, Draven, Twitch, Vayne, but they're still well below where Trist/Lucian/Kog were pre-nerfs and still struggle to apply influence outside of bot lane when ahead.

Someone (if anyone actually reads this) will say that no class of champions should be able to do everything well - and that's a fair point. That would just lead to every lane filled with ADCs. But every class of champions should be able to influence the game when they're ahead, and no class should be solely there to shoot turrets. ADCs are being pushed back to farming and objective-taking being their sole purpose.

All other things equal, 5/0/0 Riven can destroy 0/0/0 Corki remarkably well. All other things equal, 5/0/0 Corki should be able to put up a good fight against 0/0/0 Riven and win most of the time.

tldr: Let ADCs stay relevant - buff weak ones, don't nerf strong (NOT OVERPOWERED) ones.

6 Comments

shppy10/23/2014, 3:53:11 AM3 votes

If ADcs were EVER in a state where 'they're just there to siege towers and hope to be useful in fights', they would have been replaced by Lich Bane mages a long time ago; mages would be able to siege towers comparably well with Lich Bane and contribute with AoE/cc/burst in fights (not to mention the better teamfighting capabilities would contribute to more dominant aces, resulting in uncontested tower-taking). But that's never happened, because ADcs have never been anywhere near such a state... the claims that they are or ever were is just a half-assed attempt to get ADcs buffed up to be even more relevant in all facets of the game than they already are.

'Let ADcs stay relevant'... I've been playing this game for over 5 years; there's NEVER been a time when ADcs weren't relevant. Hell, beyond Beta and some of the first preseason there's never been a time when ADcs weren't considered outright necessary. Meanwhile every single other role has pretty much always been in a state where it's reasonable to have a team without their type, with some brief times of exception (mostly due to imbalanced items).

disregardable10/23/2014, 3:57:08 AM1 votes

I honestly think these "Tristana is amazing" posts only come from people that don't play ADC.

AK47WOLF10/23/2014, 4:14:02 AM1 votes

"Ezreal with a late-game", aka Lucian, I don't think is a good baseline.

Marthian10/23/2014, 4:24:13 AM1 votes

more work to buff weak ones than nerf strong ones.

And considering all adcs have their own strengths and weaknesses, would be hard to do. And even if it did happen, then we'd just see some other characters become top picks/bar of adc power. It's not a perfect system, but some actually do have notable problems that should be touched.

Dar Raksada10/23/2014, 9:24:52 AM1 votes

Not sure if you're serious, but adcs were never in the state where they are "just there to siege towers and hope to be useful in fights". If you, as a fed lucian/ez/cork/graves can't handle a 0/0/0 riven (provided you actually farmed and are not 5/0/0 with 3 farm) then it's probably a problem on your end as a nmber of the adcs you mentioned have strong burst as well. (or with riven specifically. Ad carries are there to provide the highest dps late game, they don't actually struggle as hard as people say in early game, they just scale harder into late making them the best role to recieve a support, as is shown by succesful ezreal/sivir (when she was played)/lucians mid and a number of adcs (quinn, vayne) toplane. They also are not designed/should not be able to 1v1 everything without effort because of the ridiculous amount of damage they put out, they have a role dedicated to helping them kite/keeping them alive because their damage is so over the top. However, the damage is not the problem here, the reason why tristana and lucian are terrible baselines for adcs is because of their mobility/self peel. Tristana has a long ranged jump with a reset and a knockback aside from insane damage, Lucian has a dash on very low cooldown (properly using skills makes the first dash has no cooldown) as well as pretty high burst. A slightly buffed varus/ashe would make a better baseline (as you should be trading damage for mobility). If they buffed lucian and tristana back then other lanes would not be relevant because bot lane would just be too important.

AnomalousChimera10/23/2014, 6:01:42 PM1 votes

If anything, the bar for power for ADCS should be 4.18 Tristana. She is balanced after the nerfs.