I miss botlane ADC/Support :c

In S2 I joined this game. I immediately picked up Xerath, Malz and Leona because they looked like badasses. Anyway, I played Leona AD mid like an idiot thinking I needed to buy a sword, shield, armor, boots, necklace and sunfire cap facepalm. I played MMOs before LoL forgive me. Anyway, once I learned she was a support I moved to bottom lane with her, I also bought Soraka and Taric. I grew to love support, so much that when I bought two ADCs it was the ones who were high utility, one secondary labeled as a support, Ashe and Sivir.

Now mostly I liked mid, because Xerath and Malz were badasses. But being the accommodating gal I am, I have always played a ton of support and ADC as I was always willing to fill, and still am. I have to say, some of my favorite games in LoL have been playing as a support or ADC, the feeling of mutual benefit, cooperation and team play. Both of these classes count on their teams, and if their teams protect them(in the case of ADC and squishy supports) or bring the hurting for them(in the case of peel/tank support), they return a lot of value to their team.

To date, my favorite bot laners are Ashe, Leona, Sivir, Soraka, Nami, Morgana and Nautilus.

That said, during S6 I played almost no bot lane, because I was trying to do some stuff in ranked and earn my mastery points on Shyvana I missed out on due to a 1 year break from LoL during late S5 and early S6. Now returning to bot lane I am utterly miserable. Here are the things I have found frustrating.

1. Jhin has been excessively meta since post release buffs, we went through this with Lucian, only Jhin hasn't been gutted. I am glad for that because I dislike champion gutting, but for the love of Urf he wins 25% of all LoL matches, he is present in 50%+ of all League games and wins 50%+ of those. Thankfully this appears to be being addressed, I sure hope it does enough considering most lanes right now are Jhin/Brand, Jhin/MF, Jhin/Malz, Jhin/Vel'Koz, Jhin/Zyra, Varus/Janna(Except when I have a ban as I always ban Jhin or Varus). Which brings me to the next reason I hate playing bot lane anymore.

2. Mage supports. So I love niche things and off meta, I was all for defending that Singed support guy even though I'd never want to play with him. I tried silly crud like AP Shyvana and I have played 4 games as Ashe mid recently, winning 3 of them. But the mage support thing bugs me, here is why. Mage supports trivialize real supports while also adding to damage bloat. Real supports, with the exception of some niche off meta picks, don't do well in other lanes. Even when they do, Riot nerfs that gameplay style(Lulu top, Janna mid, Sona mid, Bruiser Soraka etc). Supports are mutually beneficial with ADCs as they do well sharing lane, covering one another's weaknesses and while one is the most gold hungry class in the game the other needs almost none. Mages however, go mid, top, jungle(lol). No mention of Ziggs ADC because that is a specific niche. These mages should be balanced around scaling instead of base damage so they can go in their intended lane, instead of pushing supports out of bot lane. Because why pick Soraka who can keep her ADC topped off, has a nice teamfight heal ult and a decent poke. When you can pick Vel'Koz and still have peel, harass so hard the enemies practically cannot farm, get free kills post 6 with your ult because many ADCs are too slow to get out of it(god forbid you buy a Rylai's) and be super relevant carry late game without even having to farm and risk solo laning. Supports deserve a place in this game, if Riot isn't going to remove mages from bot lane, they better plan on letting Lulu go top again.

3. Absurd Snowball. This was always a thing in bot lane, but with damage creep and issues such as mage supports above, plus the Caitlyn. Playing safely at your tower to farm is harder than ever. In the old days if I was behind in bot lane as ADC or Support we could retreat to our tower and neatly farm up, now the enemies could dive us but it was high risk, they could poke us but as strong as Sona and old Caitlyn's power was it doesn't compare to dancing around 5 traps while trying to dodge flame pillars and stuns from Brand. So at this point the high snowball in botlane has become absurdly high, especially when jungle has so much influence over bot lane and can dive those towers at 1/2 the risk it use to be. Previously we could also sacrifice our T1 tower(a normal strat if you gave a few kills and could not sustain your lane back then) so we could farm at T2 and partake in team objectives. Due to FTB and the overall snowball in League sacrificing a tower is now just as suicidal as defending it when behind has always been.

4. Lack of Agency as a traditional ADC until 30+ minutes. This use to not be a problem, as the average game was 35-45 minutes and fewer early game champions existed, ADCs also powerspiked on an IE alone. Now with most games being shorter, I either need an earlier but milder power window or I am useless. This made me resort to playing ranged duelist bruiser Ashe mid(counters the hell out of AD assassins if you rush Tabi, PD and DD lel), just so I feel I have some laning agency. Enemy ADC/Support combo counters you or is a bully? 10 deaths by 10 minutes. Enemy jungler decides to properly gank your lane? 10 deaths by 10 minutes. Enemy playing a Lethality or early powerspike ADC/Mage support? 10 deaths by 10 minutes. Meanwhile if luck favors you or champion picks, the opposite happens. I feel like I have no worth on a traditional DPS ADC until I have completed a minimum of 3 items, which only ever happens if my team snowballs. But if my team snowballs they end by 25-30 minutes anyways so I never get to use said items...

5. Lack of ability to ward. This mostly affects support, and while some supports have a little more early game agency they do not have the ability to properly ward. This is largely responsible for jungle ganks being so strong. As a jungle main I can literally just walk into lane on Shyvana 50% of the time because their wards don't have enough up time. Why even take sweeper? Oh yeh, because if I have sweeper I can basically deny their entire team vision until the support gets a sightstone(which thankfully some supports do). This affects more than just bot lane, but it feels especially bad on support, where I remember games of placing 60-70 wards in S2. Granted, Supports back then were in a worse design state and were basically ward mules mid-late game. That said it is too far the opposite now. Warding trinkets need to be looked at. Control wards are not the answer either, Control wards are a snowball mechanic, the team who is ahead can protect and destroy them, the team who is behind would literally just be being baited if they tried. I buy them, but they are only ever useful in lanes where my team is ahead.

6. I don't feel like I can protect my ADC as most traditional supports. As a support I always use to feel powerful at protecting my ADC early game. Now, supports are propped up by a crutch set of items anybody can buy. Mage 'supports' with low scalings and high base damage can buy the same items as a support, often earlier due to having more gold from harass and kills, and keep their ADC alive just as good as many supports could. Instead of propping supports up with Redemption, Locket and other support items, why don't we baseline buff traditional supports who are weak, they deserve it. In exchange these items could see their actives toned down just a little. Currently however, before the purchase of these items, I feel helpless on Soraka, Leona and many other traditional supports to save my ADC from the 4 man ganks coming bot lane all the time, thank heavens for the teleport nerf or it would be 5 man. I can only do so much pre-six with a single target stun, my E and exhaust on Leona. I feel helpless to do that which is literally my job.

7. Ranged top laners ruining the game Bot also has the same problem as top lane, except instead of short range vs melee, it is long range vs short range. You can be denied out of huge amounts of farm and lane positioning just through the endless basic attacks from an ADC who is longer range than you. I don't blame the players however, the people playing Ashe into shorter ranged ADCs and Caitlyn into Ashe are just doing what they find effective. This is a game balance issue where range isn't counterable enough and/or isn't accounted for enough in power budgeting. It isn't as bad as top lane(because you can still use your range to farm under your tower without minion blocking and some shorter ranged ADCs have high reward mechanics for success) and has always been an issue in bot lane, but I felt it worth noting. Even on Ashe who use to be considered long range, and especially on Sivir or early game Kog'Maw, facing a champion like Caitlyn or Jhin(effective range) or Varus(effective range) is just very frustrating. At least Jinx has to expend mana and power push the lane to use her full range. Again, this isn't a major issue, and would probably go back to being okay if things like snowball, mage supports and junglers tower diving weren't so toxic at this time. But I just threw it in here because I like 7 more than 6.

Overall I am really saddened and disheartened trying to play bot lane right now. Between Jhin(and Varus) in every single game, mage supports, snowball, jungler power, lack of wards, extremely slow scaling and lack of agency. The lane is just miserable, unless you are a meta sheep or somebody who happened to main Jhin, Varus, MF or a mage support prior to this period, you are assured to have a lot of frustrating games.

I really hope Riot looks at bot lane in the near future, between the problems with jungle, top lane still being an island of hard counter wins minimal value and the state of bot lane at this time, I might just return to being a mid laner. It seems to be the only safe place to play the game, as a mid mage with sufficient range to stay safe.

This isn't to say I don't think Riot is trying, or that I feel the situation is hopeless. It is merely outlining some of my complaints about playing bot lane, and why I don't enjoy it anymore.

I just want to see more traditional ADCs and supports again.