As an ADC what is the counterplay to assassins?

HeartPalpitation·Mar 19, 2018·7 votes·7,263 views

I get ADCs are "so broken right now" but i struggle so hard vs assassins. Their one shotting feels unavoidable and honestly feels fucking terrible. Nothing makes me wanna break my keyboard more than winning bot lane only to have the enemy zed, akali, or katarina jump on you and one shot you before you can even press your flash... i feel like you shouldnt just be fucked as an adc just because the enemy decided to play an assassin. Enemy picked zed... well shit mine aswell accept the fact i wont be playing the game after the first 10 minutes because that mother fucker is ganna be on you like white on rice. I'm gold and honestly feel like assassins are incredibly broken in low elo because you cant rely on team play to stop the assassins from just killing you over and over.

30 Comments

DOUBLE TAPPED EMar 19, 201810 votes

I main assassins, and I'll be straight up with you here: The only games where I feel like I'm a real problem for the ADC are the games where they split more than 1 screen past their furthest tower. Yeah that wave looks juicy doesn't it? I know you see it... you know you want to farm it... just a little closer... oh look another wave is coming! Yeah you want that too don't you.

SURPRISE MOTHERFUCKER! Katarina Akali Rengar

Glory97Mar 19, 20188 votes

Having a single teammember that can make every assassin absolutly useless. TahmKench Janna Lulu Karma item 3190 Shen Zilean Taric and any other champion with a player that has enough brain cells to not throw every cc ability onto tanks

HeartPalpitationMar 19, 20182 votes

{quoted}

Having a single teammember that can make every assassin absolutly useless. and any other champion with a player that has enough brain cells to not throw every cc ability onto tanks

i play solo and in my elo (gold) people just pick whatever they want, you'd be hard pressed to get a support that actually thinks about helping you lol. I can't remember the last time i had an actual healing/shield support in my game. Usually just zyra, brand, xerath and stuff.

Glory97Mar 19, 20182 votes

Then you have a bad time against assassins. There isn't much you can do as adc aside from always staying out of their range. But you probably can ask any kind of tanky teammate or your supp to buy locket.

SmashinBobMar 19, 20186 votes

Yeah, some assasins have very little counterplay when they are ahead, loosing mid generally determines the win/loss condition, the only choice is to build defense, ussually what I do is get a Randuin on top of ninja tabis or just a part of it if its still mid/early for more armor against AD, It is generally a much more viable defense item than GA, GA generally just postpones your death by a few seconds, and then is on cooldown for 5 minutes, and you only get 30 armor from it and no hp, so its pretty much useless as defense item, you wanna build a meaningfull defense item like Randuin. For AP defense, I ussually on top of boots get a scimitar, unfortunately there isnt much choices for Adcs to go AP defense.

On top of that, if you in lobby see that there is a lot of assasin types on the enemy team, exchange whatever AS item you would ussually go for Phantom, and Lifesteal item for Deathdance. That will give you extra defense on whatever other defensive item you go with.

Mob PiruMar 19, 20186 votes

[zombie-brand-mindblown] when the assassin is doing their job at assassinating champions who build no HP or resistances

whaaaa? what is this witchcraft?!?!

Dead flag bluesMar 19, 20182 votes

{quoted}

[zombie-brand-mindblown] when the assassin is doing their job at assassinating champions who build no HP or resistances

whaaaa? what is this witchcraft?!?!

the reason Zoe got gutted, adc mains can't dodge skillshots / don't build defensive items and expect to right-click everything to ace the enemy team. And when a burst mage is actually allowed to burst, he's nerfed to oblivion [slayer-jinx-catface]

( Ahri Syndra Evelynn Zoe Anivia Leblanc

TempName74814Mar 19, 20182 votes

assassins have been getting their burst windows lengthened. talon has to fully stack his passive, lb needs to land 2 chains, kat has to pick up daggers, fizz has to wait on his w, etc.

Truli91Nov 21, 20192 votes

[{quoted}](name=Dead flag blues,realm=EUW,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=xzNtzRfq,comment-id=000a0000,timestamp=2018-03-19T16:41:27.249+0000)

the reason Zoe got gutted, adc mains can't dodge skillshots / don't build defensive items and expect to right-click everything to ace the enemy team. And when a burst mage is actually allowed to burst, he's nerfed to oblivion [slayer-jinx-catface]

(

Adc didnt complain about zoe. The mid did. As an adc i have no trouble against ap assassins. I found no counter thou to assassins like : zed rengar or kha zix. The burst is too much. They delete you before your sup can do something. They have no counterplay. Thats not ok.

Ahri BakaMar 19, 20185 votes

Sadly no one will give you a real answer , in low elo adc can't rule since most of picks there are assassins while most of supports are either Brand/Zyra or a Lulu that has no idea what she is doing here they think it's hard for an assassin to kill an adc , what a joke.

Sp33d Zer0Mar 19, 20183 votes

Ezreal item 3025

Tristana Xayah

item 3812 item 3026 item 3047

JoB0bMar 19, 20182 votes

Keep wards up and watch map

saltranMar 19, 20182 votes

Your position and most of all is about your team peeling for you. Everyone has sometimes this games when everyone hates the adc of his own team and play 4vs4. It sucks but this is far from being the worst place where adcs have been against assasins. Find a duo if you don't want troll supps that wanted mid so they play X full ap botlane.

KatarinintMar 19, 20182 votes

[{quoted}](name=Our Last Hope,realm=NA,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=xzNtzRfq,comment-id=,timestamp=2018-03-19T12:10:21.339+0000)

katarina jump on you and one shot you before you can even press your flash

Just give up when you see katarina coming

ZeraonMar 19, 20182 votes

As a mid laner if there is a fed enemy assassin ill just stand on my adc late game and burst whoever comes for him and you just cant let your ad leave the team you have to let him have the farm, if your team sucks as an ad your at the assassins mercy pretty much but like guy said somewhere, one non brain dead teammate can cc him for the half second it takes to kill him with 2 autos

SasogwaMar 19, 20181 votes

Positioning Kit's innate selfpeel Defensive items, lifesteal Having a support with at least one and a half braincell

l MrD lMar 19, 20181 votes

its really based on champ but an assasin is exzcatly that... theyre designed to kill so try not to be alone unless yioure a fed adc and theyre behind but yeh just stick with your team so that you can be protected in a way ... best way

FurriesAreHotMar 19, 20181 votes

Im perfectly fine with assassins right now. As long as your support is with you, and you position yourself properly, they have a hard time getting to you unless they are fed to all hell. Assassins are the definition of counterplaying Marksman, if assassins couldnt nuke Marksman, they would truely be OP.

NekoniClawsMar 19, 20181 votes

Xayah Tristana Vayne are your answers.

Or duoqing with an actual support main, who seeing an assassin or assassin heavy comp, will actually pick Lulu Janna and play peel bot for you.

Assassins are a gamble. They counter themselves by being so niche. If they can't assassinate targets, they're absolutely useless.

So they're countered.... and balanced.... but they'll never be fun to be targeted by.

HópeMar 19, 20181 votes

Vs an Assassin the most important things are

Vison, Having vision allows you to know where they will be and if you can see them then you wont get killed by them or atleast can kite better until someone knocks them out with ccs/dmg

Support, if your support didnt pick Lulu Janna or Tahm Kench when he saw that mid pick Zed or Akali then he should be killing that assassin for you or atleast damaging him hard enough to where you're safe. Or atleast warding good enough.

Items, Dont build zerker greaves that shits a noob trash on every adc, build tabi/merc treads depending which assassin it is.

For the most part, ADCs will never win a 1v1 against an Assassin, Akali has too much sustain + damage with gunblade , Zed should never miss his Q because his E slows unless you flash it which in that case he did his job of taking your sums, Katarina gets to you extremely well and thanks to gunblade, with ignite + gunblade active + electrocute she will chunk you atleast 50% without her skills ( thou she will need to do skills to proc electrocute ), and Fizz can miss his ult but still kill you without it

You need to watch your positioning. Thats the negative part about ADC though, you are reliant on your team and if your team fed the assassin that assassin is coming straight for you. Some games you wont even be able to feel like you're playing because you're just nothing to the enemy mid laner. You have to stall and scale. Get a Maw + merc treads against that fed Katarina.

GigglesOMar 19, 20181 votes

I'm most curious about what the counter is to anyone that has damage. Tank items aren't gold/slot efficient enough unless they are also paired with a tank to be useful. We wouldn't want anyone but the tankiest champs to be able to utilize tank items.

DOUBLE TAPPED EMar 19, 20181 votes

{quoted}

I'm most curious about what the counter is to anyone that has damage. Tank items aren't gold/slot efficient enough unless they are also paired with a tank to be useful. We wouldn't want anyone but the tankiest champs to be able to utilize tank items.

If I'm ahead and the enemy has a lot of AD: sometimes I'll build item 3068 on Katarina after item 3020 item 3165 item 3135 The triple pen really buffs the passive damage and she actually becomes quite tanky.

GigglesOMar 19, 20182 votes

{quoted}

If I'm ahead

So how are you supposed to stall out/counter when you are behind?

DOUBLE TAPPED EMar 19, 20181 votes

{quoted}

So how are you supposed to stall out/counter when you are behind?

It should be obvious that item 3047 and item 3111 are good early buys if you need resists RIGHT NOW. But let's assume your boots are a key part of your build... Armor: item 3191 item 3076 MR: item 3155 item 3211 item 3001 item 3102

Or, if you aren't TERRIBLY far behind and you don't need specific resists, but you still want some tankiness: item 3812 item 3814 item 3022 item 3046 item 3151 item 3165 item 3027

Admittedly there aren't a lot of AD / Armor options aside from GA, but we all know what would happen then: that AD / armor item would be a guaranteed first buy for every ADC, and if their opponent doesn't build it, they lose because they can no longer win fights.

TempName74814Mar 19, 20181 votes

in league of shields, merely existing is counterplay to assassins. Janna item 3190 oops adc has 3k health now

iPooUnicornsMar 19, 20181 votes

You have to acknowledge that Assassins are countered by Macro play far more so than Micro play.

Assassins have one job, pick off enemies that are separated from their team. They generally achieve this by gaining vision control of the jungle. So to counter this, your team needs to be very proactive in keeping vision control of the map, if you know where the enemy assassin is, it becomes much harder for them to do their job.

Additionally, if your team can't keep you safe during teamfights, your team deserves to lose.

Also, if the enemy has an AD Assassin, item 3047 will single handedly negate their lethality.

MalfectiousMar 19, 20181 votes

Positioning and awareness

iiRebsMar 19, 20181 votes

Tabis and zhonya or ga completely counter any assassin as long you are not solo farming

CalabokMar 20, 20181 votes

just tumble over and over . you win all

ﬂooNov 21, 20191 votes

I've been maining adc for a long time now. What really helps is to play jungle/mid yourself and get a feeling for how assassins play. I did so with Eve since I feel she has some of the strongest ganks in the game and a lot of surprise potential.

Some very important aspects:

fuck . Go tabis/mercs depending on matchup. This will also help you a ton against enemy adcs.
additinal itemization: invest in defensive items. Yes you want that 100% crit, but it doesnt help you against a fed Zed. For example on Jhin, if against a fed enemy that can jump on me, I always go or , and/or . Don't undersestimate the impact of Stopwatch as well. Lifesteal is also an option.
stay back. I've had Zed's who burned flash W R just to reach me in the backline, only to die in seconds because of their greed. Try to participate in the fight, but don't be open to them. If they try to engage you your teammates are there while you can tank some damage and render them useless.
don't greed for farm. What few people do is freeze after laning phase. You force enemies to come to your lane but you're not out in the open. DON'T do this when there are objectives under pressure. Only go split if you have vision.
that makes the last point, vision. Make sure your river isn't dark and you can see that midlaner roaming/jungler in the bush.
part of this as well, buy 2 control wards, even if you can get a dagger instead. Make sure when you cross the map in dangerous spaces, that the enemy doesn't have vision on you. People tend to set 1 control ward in tribush per game and that's it, don't be that person. Vision play is very important.