I challenge you to the "ADC's Overrated" Challenge.

Apoz·6/24/2015, 8:15:37 PM·14 votes·2,419 views

Following my 7/0 win streak as APC bot I decided to make a post to let others know of this (currently) impenetrable strategy. (Obviously not 100% guaranteed wins, but did I get your attention?) Facing off against many popular botlane comps and winning most of them with a relatively large advantage, I'm curious if I am the only one experiencing this feat?

Thus my challenge, or rather request is for you guys to also test this strategy out in botlane. I will give you some standard advice to go along the way, and am interested in other strategies and tactics you guys come up with.

Champions I have tried as APC:

Swain: Works really well in bot lane, make sure you have a support with pressure, some damage. Since you don't need the sustainability. I built a catalyst or blasting wand early, to follow up with ROA. Late game you can build highly counter intuitive, anything works really. If you think you need to be tanky, magic resistive or armour- go for it. Or if you want to go full CDR and rabadon, to follow up on the "carry" aspect of this strategy go for it. Try things out, but keep in mind, as swain you will be someone the enemy cannot ignore, just like an ADC but with more pressure and you need less protection. So either you build tanky or squishy, or tank penetrative, a lot of things work. For the early game I use my fizz pages focussed on 26/0/4 masteries, movement speed, base attack damage, base AP, scaling AP and take Hybrid runes (4.5 armour pen, 6.5 mpen). Keep in mind swain's E also increases your auto attack damage and your ignite's true damage. Early game you will win trades, but lose longer fights. If you are not confident you can kill your target in one go with some basic attacks and your E>Q>W + your supports pressure/damage, go for trades until you reach 6 and 100% win your 2v2 or if you reach your catalyst/blasting wand early before 6.

Either way try things out, other champions I have tried are ezreal (ap ofcourse, but with hybrid start for early auto attack damage just like swain) Orianna (same early level hybrid principle). Casseopia might work I can imagine, ryze, maybe xerath.

Of course there might be some things to be said against this strategy; "your team might not have enough AD"> remember AP>Magic resist, Armour>Attack damage (by a small margin), but still a valid point. "You won&'t have enough siege potential"> not necessarily true, remember the more AP you have the more damage your auto attacks will do on towers. If you really lack siege you can always choose to build a lichbane, which provides a lot of siege- if not the same as a normal low AS ADC build. It is true though that you will have to manage your mana and cooldowns when doing drake or baron, this is one of the setbacks. Any other problems you might encounter? Let us know in the suggestions below!

Yours sincerely, Apoz

PS. APC = Ability Power Carry, not AP burst, not AP nuke. (Champions with lower cool down abilities e.g. Cassiopea, ezreal, orianna. Ofcourse there is a debate on whether it’s an APC or AP burst (swain) but bear with what you think makes sense for now!)

45 Comments

IcyPepper6/24/2015, 8:18:46 PM7 votes

I can see apc bot working, of course. It used to be meta a long time ago, while the adc went mid.

Of course, you'll want a ranged AD somewhere on your team, for objective control and tower siege. But an apc bot lane can delay the enemy adc's late-game with superior early/midgame damage and cc. Coupled with a support with cc... well, that Vayne's not going to hit lategame for a long time.

It's my personal philosophy that there is nothing wrong with meta-breaking if there's a purpose to it, and an apc bot has a clear purpose and objective.

Aaravos6/24/2015, 8:28:00 PM6 votes

You might win bot lane as an apc but you will miss your main dps source in late game. Also your pushing power will be weaker doesn't matter what you buy. Doing baron is very hard without heavy ad dps also. You will need an adc in your team otherwise it is very difficult to win. Possible but hard. You can send your adc to the mid lane (like a lane swap), but they most likely will lose against bursty mid laners in 1v1, they can't roamwell, and more vulnerable to ganks. There is a reason why adcs on the bot lane are paired with a support. You can break the meta like this and might win a few game with it, but won't work for a long time.

AMYS GRAVE6/24/2015, 8:47:20 PM2 votes

Yeah, I've often thought about doing this myself. The only reason why mage mid and adc bot is better is because the mage typically scales better with levels while the adc needs farm and is fine with splitting the experience. If your team has already picked an all ad comp and you are last pick for a bot lane carry i could see doing this. I think Cassiopeia would be my pick.

FalconPawwwwnch6/24/2015, 9:29:44 PM2 votes

No competitive team would ever miss out on using an ADC because the class is overpowered as a whole.

You can't win the game without safe sustained dps and tower pushing, and only ranged ADs can do that

alcatrazEscapee6/24/2015, 11:30:27 PM2 votes

I've been playing ap zac "support" occasionally with my friend, and that works really well in the early levels. Zac's E-Q just chunks people. His W also shreds tanks, doing like 20% max hp on a 4 second cooldown at max rank with full build

The off-strat that I have been having the most fun with however is the FULL SPLITPUSH COMP. You get four friends, and then pick five champions with splitpush (trynd, yi, twisted fate, twitch, udyr etc.), and then all take teleport. Kills? what are those. Teamfights? Get the heck outta there. Towers is all we care about.

#ADCOverratedForever

Mandang06/24/2015, 8:40:53 PM2 votes

So happy to see someone challenging the "ADC is mandatory" hivemind, and even happier to see that you're using your head to do it. Most people try to do double bruiser bot, fail at it, and then decide it's impossible to lane anything besides an ADC, but ranged APCs do quite well bot lane.

I personally have done it w/ Zyra, Kennen, and Karthus farming bot instead of an ADC, and it worked fine. I've always wanted to try Swain comboed with a reliable stun so he can land his W, but hadn't gotten around to it. Was thinking Swain+Annie or Swain+Maokai (Swain's extra hard to kill when in Maokai's ult!)

Davy Crockett6/25/2015, 3:34:55 AM1 votes

Anivia + Trundle Wall Comp

killd0zer6/25/2015, 3:43:36 AM1 votes

ADC biggest advantage is the ability to siege. They are perfect for taking down towers.

Even a high AP lichbane champ isn't going to be able to take them down as fast realistically.

Rico Nasty6/25/2015, 3:45:36 AM1 votes

I played APC Cass with my friend as Sona a lot back when I didn't really know that an ADC-Support was meta (lvl 15-20) and it worked really really well I wanna try it again tbh (maybe not with Sona though.. considering she was nerfed into the ground)

Xonra6/25/2015, 3:52:09 AM1 votes

I can see Ziggs works well with this because of his passive and wave clear, despite his burst.

Same goes with Ori and her passive and farming ability and wave clear.

Both of them because of their passives help them with towers and you can build just a little different if you are going 2v2.

Would just be a matter of trying it without your team throwing a hissy fit.

Drunk Rummate6/25/2015, 2:16:04 PM1 votes

I find that when I try a mage bot I end up going oom and losing my ability to farm while the enemy ADC sustains back up from targon charges, support heals, and doran blade. It's really hard to stop yourself from getting constantly pushed in with puny little mage autos, especially because they can trade autos with you every time you try to CS.

It's not impossible, just doesn't seem efficient to me.

Felixphaeton6/25/2015, 2:51:00 PM1 votes

I've been sporadically taking Azir into the duo lane. It's actually perfect.

Strong laning from lvl 2? Check. Siege potential? Check. Burst and all-in? Check. High sustained damage? Check. Self-peel and escape? Check. Various CCs? Slow, knockup, knockback: Check, check and check. Siege and poke? Check. Tower killing power from range? Big check.

Take an extra AD elsewhere on the map, and you have everything you want from an ADC without the ADC. In fact, Azir actually outperforms ADCs in certain ADC duties. No ADC in the game has 1075 range autos.

Just start a flask/3pots instead of Doran's Ring, sustain is much more important in the bot lane. Once you grab your Morello's, no standard duo lane combo will be able to survive your soldier poke.

straight4free6/25/2015, 9:57:21 PM1 votes

As long as you have AD elsewhere, Cassiopeia botlane could work well.

Meep Man6/25/2015, 10:02:27 PM1 votes

You would need a sustained damage Mage that doesn't need to stay in one spot to function (sorry Heimerdinger).

So... the likes of Azir , Cassiopeia , Evelynn (?), Karthus , Kayle , Lulu , Ryze

IlIIllIIllIIlIl6/26/2015, 6:04:23 AM1 votes

Solution to all of you saying "but you miss the late game adc dmg" or "no pushing power" Varus mid Corki mid Quinn top Ez Mid Urgot mid/top there are other options for adc's and still have an apc bot people.

Sozan56/25/2015, 2:54:01 AM1 votes

I actually do this with my friend from time to time.

We go Teemo (obviously full AP) / Jarvan (supportish) bot lane and just win lane and game afterwards. I think we lost less than 15% of games we played like this. HOWEVER, the imporant factor here is the element of surprise (see what I did here? Probably not) - the enemies don't know how to handle a lane like this properly and they lose because of that.

3tyson6/24/2015, 8:34:15 PM1 votes

Yeh i denied an annie brand in teambuilder once Than funny enough i get to play them and they raped my bot lane

depending on who the enemy jg is id could make twitch jungle work to have your team not lack the adc

7ha7guy7776/24/2015, 8:50:44 PM1 votes

I like taking malzahar botlane occasionally. He can build ad if the team needs it and is one of the best mages for taking turrets and dragon. I wanted to try adc malz with nunu support but i had to go ap since the other 3 people on the team were ad. It was pretty effective and the ult synergy is decent.

I've also done tank maokai with ap blitz botlane. The cc lock is insane. You typically win because the enemy team surrenders because the lategame is bad unless the enemy team has no tanks.

Vel'Koz and Xerath botlane is pretty fun.

LaserDeathBlade6/25/2015, 12:05:50 AM1 votes

As far as I'm concerned, ADC is just there so the enemy can't stack MR

Considering how AP Top + AP Mid is meta right now, I don't think putting another AP Bot is very good for your team comp.

commit an hero6/25/2015, 12:10:28 AM1 votes

If you went Swain bot they would just push you in and you would be denied a bunch of CS. Or you would be using mana a ton.

Mecha MaIphite6/25/2015, 2:28:34 AM1 votes

Azir is pretty good provided you don't go oom. He still has decent pushing power and very good dps late game. He also has a lot of self-peel and zoning potential.

Apoz9/7/2015, 2:05:56 PM

Seems like a good moment to bump this post, seeing mordekaiser and more of such APC's as relatively high META right now.

Something along the lines of "Did I not tell you?".