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Why do you play ADC?

LVL 5 PORO·1/17/2017, 4:29:34 PM·4 votes·3,524 views

Since the buffs, I've been playing a lot of Kalista. Mostly because I like the champ, not the role. And it has been a rather painful experience.

Which has made me wonder, why do people play this role? Genuinely curious, if you are an ADC main could you tell me why?

Playing ADC feels so unrewarding, stressful, and pointless. As you can tell by my name, I main mid lane. Mid lane is a far more forgiving lane than bot. I feel like I'm in control of everything and the better player inevitably wins lane (most of the time).

However, this is not the case with bot lane. I almost never feel in control of the lane as an ADC, whether I get to play aggressive, free farm, or play passive largely depends on my Support. If my Support does not know how to play the role, matchup, or champ the lane is basically over right there. I cant play aggressive because I know he or she cant reliably back me up with trades. So a large part of laning and being an ADC is out of your control, you have to pray to God your support is good (which most aren't) and doesn't troll pick (which most do). Its very defeating, having to deal with this.

To further exacerbate the problem, a single misplay can cost you the lane. You misplay and the enemy gets a double early? Well gg, because if you dont have your jungler come relieve a lot of pressure you're screwed. You cant out trade the enemy ADC when they have a BF and you have a pick axe. Either they misplay or the lane is heavily in their favor, forcing you to play passive.

Its frustrating how little control I have as an ADC. Assuming I survive laning, teamfights are another beast. You have to have perfect positioning or you just get focused and die. No peel or support from your team? Well you're just dead.

Are ADC mains just masochist?

27 Comments

Popstar Ahri1/17/2017, 11:43:10 PM3 votes

downvoted purely because of your name

Hige1/17/2017, 4:45:21 PM2 votes

I play as the adc because I enjoy using range as a mechanic, mages do have range also but their damage doesn't comes from clever positioning but more from using their skills in the right order, of course a badly positioned mage is a dead one but for adcs it's far more important to know where you're going to be attacking from.

there's also something that I like a lot about being kinda squishy but packing a punch, specially the outplay potential for a bunch of conceited melee players who believe that they can simply walk to you and kill you

DiShanTheRage1/17/2017, 5:08:37 PM2 votes

Are ADC mains just masochist?

Im adc main, playing by Kalsita from S7 start. And i hate S7 and what riot done with ADC. Just look, every game shit like this. http://plays.tv/video/587e4e20359846e42c/-season7

Illâoi Evê Siôn1/17/2017, 4:40:57 PM1 votes

If I ever play Marksman I play Tristana because the Dragon Trainer Tristana skin is the coolest skin ever!

Too bad she doesn't feel very powerful in comparison to other Marksmen (at least, when I play her). Trying to fight Caitlyn, Draven, Corki, Jhin, or Ezreal is horrible. I often just get Cull as second item and farm in lane / jump away whenever the enemies get too touchy (One: Personal Space; Two: Personal Space; Three: ... Stay out of my Personal Space).

MLDzXnRRR1/17/2017, 4:44:28 PM1 votes

Quinn is broken OP, if you can play her... Just fly around the map and gank non stop.

Aptest1/17/2017, 4:47:37 PM1 votes

I am a support main. Ive tried ADC a couple of times earlier this season and I've come to the same conclusion. I just could not do shit. I was overall completely outside of controlling the game in the slightest manner. I also want an answer to the OP's question.

llnd1/17/2017, 4:47:57 PM1 votes

Kalista relies on her team a lot of times. Go for someone who is not particularly strong, but someone who is relevant throughout the game. Ashe is pretty good, and Varus. Both have great ccs. Tristana, also, if you are struggling against any assassins or jgers or anyone who's going after you. Caitlyn is really good right now.

Hauling Ashe1/17/2017, 5:03:04 PM1 votes

Storytime!

I guess my playstyle was just always about patience and, well, the thrill of being able to do your work from a distance but having to be super careful about positioning so that the enemy doesn't get too close. By comparison, playing tanks tends to bore me.

And I saw this cool (haha, puns) character named Ashe and tried her out. One game with her (even though I sucked, built two swifties, thought her W was her primary damage, and didn't even know how her Q worked for a good ten games) just made me the slabbering Ashe main that I am now. It was all about patience. My supports wanted to go in but I wanted to stand back and wait for the right moment. I knew it was better for me to not go for kills than to die. Just patience. I will get kills someday. And when I got to level 6 and got to use that arrow! I lived for that shot.

The next champs I picked were Caitlyn and Sivir. I picked up Katarina as well for a little variety, but I already knew I was an ADC player and was going to learn the role as best as I could. It felt so much more of a tactical game as an ADC than whatever it was the top laners were thugging out.

The hardest lesson I learned as an ADC was to never save my teammates. I used to try to save my support or my mid laner all the time when they made bad plays. I'd try to poke the enemy out of chasing my 7hp Akali or even run up to them to use my heal. I think I died more times trying to save dumb teammates than I did just playing my role.

Later on, things started to get less fun. I felt like I wasn't just prey for assassins and mages, but now even the top laner wanted a piece of me. Poppys hurt, Olafs are unkiteable, Shens feel unkillable. And people always blamed me for not doing enough damage, even though I had 4 people in my lane to ward off and only one support who was trying their dang hardest to keep me alive. 10 minutes of laning and my support and I had a combined 5 kills, 75 cs, and their turret would be just a few autos away from a won lane. But then 2 other people come to bot lane just once, and in 30 seconds we've gone from dominating our lane to getting double-killed by Darius and the enemy tears down our turret like it was made out of Lego bricks.

Still, every now and then, I can play my game and steer my own destiny. It makes me proud when people "/all ashe mvp"

Maybe I am a masochist. But I still main ADC because of why I've always mained ADC, and that is because I am patient and know my time will come eventually.

Truly Prideful1/17/2017, 5:16:38 PM1 votes

I actually play ADC because it is stressful. Nothing makes me play a game better than being put under a lot of stress / pressure. I like having to maintain good positioning for long periods to execute my job. I like the mechanics of kiting, it just feels good to do. My favorites champions all fall in the role, so there's that too. Lategame ADC is very fun if it gets there, just the massive hits are very satisfying.

Rebonack1/17/2017, 5:18:39 PM1 votes

I love Kog and hate the Farmer lane position.

That's why I used to play Dominion and play Treeline now.

Summoner's Rift can go die in a fire.

Rayject1/17/2017, 5:26:30 PM1 votes

I used to main ADC years ago (S2-S3) before I had to quit the game for a couple years. Part of it was that the team my roommate was trying to have represent our college needed an AD so I agreed to fill, and part of it was that I only liked playing squishy backline champions because I was still new-ish and didn't have good enough game sense for things like knowing when to engage, or making ballsy frontline plays like diving the other squishies.

So I was content sitting back and farming while being taken care of by my support and frontline, though it also meant I stayed away from confrontational champs like Vayne/Draven in favor of the more passive Kog'Maw/Ezreal, and even Ashe on a smurf. Needless to say I couldn't be relied on to carry without a spine (back when ADCs were still relied on to carry late-game), so our team never got anywhere and I decided to stay out of ranked on the whole. I branched out to Mid and Support eventually, but now I'm content just Autofilling in Normals.

TL;DR I was a spineless cuck and felt most comfortable playing the cushiest role.

Ambient Snow1/17/2017, 5:27:56 PM1 votes

I like ADC cause it used to be a lane where you could carry yourself and your team if you were good enough, And because it was fun to show off that I know how to dodge skill shots.

now not so much, it has lost its luster.

theArtifacts1/17/2017, 5:39:52 PM1 votes

I like playing Marksmen simply cause I enjoy ranged damage. Don't get me wrong, I love a good game of Shyvana/Udyr (Dive the enemy and punch to death) too but I've always enjoyed ranged fighters in games (Diablo in particular). I play bot lane though only cause I feel like I need a break from other roles and am tired of seeing really bad bot lane players in my games. But then I have a bad game and go back to mid/jungle.

Slazll1/17/2017, 11:42:14 PM1 votes

Nothing quite like getting the item threshold and just being able to melt everyone and just win a team fight by positioning well. That being said in the current state of LoL that pretty much never happens and a lot of it comes from poor item choices having very linear path, bot being by far the best lane to camp and gank, and mage supports being better than actual supports. http://boards.na.leagueoflegends.com/en/c/gameplay-balance/UA1YhFzw-adc-possible-fixs

Laxfan521/19/2017, 2:44:06 PM1 votes

I got a quadra with twitch and I didn't even realize it. Ever since then I've always enjoyed it.

4631/17/2017, 4:32:12 PM1 votes

I'm climbing as a Solo AD player.

It seems tough in comparison to other roles, but I've been playing it since the beginning.

I'm not gonna quit on my work just because it seems hopeless for now. There are players in the top 300 who play AD as well, I want to be one of them.

If your goal is Silver > Gold > Plat > Diamond

go ahead convert for the quick easy LP gain.

If you're trying to prove you're a top 300 player in your respective role, then it's a little different.

420 grams1/19/2017, 3:02:22 PM1 votes

I like it because I like to take towers, and that feels easiest as adc. Everytime your lane crashes into tower, you can usually get a couple shots off in it since you're ranged. The bot towers a weaker. Plus building full ad and as is the best way to do damage to Structures.

Kaioko1/17/2017, 4:34:41 PM1 votes

ADC used to be my second main role which I've actually replaced with top this season just because of how awful the experience is. What was enjoyable as an ADC is having sustained damage and essentially being a ticking time bomb that if you let reach the end game would become a huge problem.

With how snowball this season has been however, there's no such thing as late game anymore and quite frankly the sustained and burst damage other roles offer is simply better and more reliable.

Riot is slowly addressing that, but like always it will take them forever to actually fix the simple issue. They argue that it's because they don't want to make a drastic change and ruin the balance of the game. I find that funny considering they've released several changes which players pointed would be way too strong, didn't listen and released them anyway and then the game was a mess until they fixed it.

DJ Lucio1/17/2017, 4:35:10 PM1 votes

I've climbing as an ADC as well as 463. I find using MF, Jhin, Jinx, Lucian, etc. Are some of my strongsuits, as I also like to midlane Mage and jungle Vi, but ADC seems very rewarding if done properly. Very fun with MF and Jhin.