[Guide] Specific Role: Marksman (Part 1)

Sir ArmaMalum·3/28/2014, 5:20:05 PM·3 votes·144 views

####Last Updated: 4/11/14

Hello, and welcome to my semi-weekly [Guide] post. I’m just your friendly neighborhood Gold player that wants to impart some knowledge about general League knowledge through tips, tricks and experience to hopefully help you or maybe a friend of yours through your games. This guide will be on the general role and actions taken by the Marksman Role.

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Under level 30? Happy to have you! I’m impressed you’re already looking through the forums. Take a look at my League Basics guide if you want a lighter (and much shorter) list of basic skills to learn, in-game terms, etc.

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######Trying out a new standardized format for the role guides here, tell me what you think! Do you like this way of presenting the information? or do you prefer the less organized more spontaneous format of the previous role guides?
####Part 1 ####1) Marksman?
####2) Who is a Marksman?
####3) What do?
####4) Runes/Masteries ####5) Champ Select
---Bot-lane synergies
---Priorities, damage vs. utility
---Considering the enemy team ####Part 2:
####6) Laning Phase
---Farming/Last hitting
---When to push
---When to go back ####7) Teamfights
---Preparation
---Positioning
---Kiting
####8) Items
####9) Tips and Tricks

#1. http://i.imgur.com/siNU8Gu.png Marksman?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l9DA-uobJsk
Also known as AD Carry (ADC), Marksman is a tag assigned to a champion that is focused on increasing their autoattack damage and focuses on maintaining a high level of sustained physical damage. The purpose of this is to have the highest potential of total damage, essentially to hit hard and keep hitting.

#2. http://i.imgur.com/4JEB3Wp.png Who?

There are a good number of Marksman in the game currently, but not all marksman are created equally. A marksman’s playstyle can play a big part in how they play, as well as separate specific strengths and weaknesses. Marksman focused on building for their auto-attacks, but some kits ‘define’ where a champion’s buffs and steroids come from. Are their abilities separated and relatively disconnected from their autoattacks? Or do they directly affect your primary damage mechanic?

####Ability Defined

These marksmen have active use of their kits at least somewhat tied into their damage. In other words, getting the best out of the damage of these marksmen require to use abilities and are much more readily dependent on mana and cooldowns. These marksman have to work on mana management, smart trading and aim to work well.

####Auto-Attack Defined

These marksman have their active kits not directly tied in to their auto attacks, and while still useful for damage and utility, auto-attacks themselves are not affected by the use. Because of the autoattack’s independence, these marksman are much less dependent on mana, as they can still function on their primary role without active abilities up.

#3. http://i.imgur.com/8mkePTT.png What do?

As with any role, there are a lot of things to worry about, watch out for, and act on. But luckily we can focus on three major areas to work on to function well. ####Staying Alive stayin alive, ha ha haaa ha, stayin alive!
The marksman is dependent not only on damage but on the amount of time one can inflict it. Staying alive usually helps this area. A team’s marksman is a very high priority target, and if you are that target you have to be very aware of the threats around you and the option you have to avoid them. Remember what escape mechanisms your champ has, and to make sure you don’t use it too early. Watch for who can dive you and make sure you stay out of their effective range, or that you can get out of it in a blink. You may even have to trust your team to run interference for you, don’t panic, it can happen sometimes.

####Farming/Gold holla holla, get dolla
So in order to do the very best in physical damage one needs to have the very best in equipment. Which in turn means a stupid amount of gold. More gold->more items->more powah->more gold, etc. Sounds easy right? Well it’s not! Last hitting is the skill to prove here, and it will always be important to work on. There’s a few tricks to know that can help here on top of a lot of practice which will be covered later in the Laning section.
####Damage Take him down Legolas!
A marksman’s whole purpose in life is to hurt the enemy team as much as physically (hehe) possible. A marksman’s damage is completely dependent on length of time they’re hitting something and who they’re targeting. Focusing a tank and staying within range of cc and other de-buffs will specifically work against a marksman’s damage output. For best results, stay at the edge of cc-heavy divers’ and tanks’ range and focus down targets with little to no armor. Sounds easy right? Yeah…….no. That’s the ideal situation, but as any LoL player will testify, ideal never happens. It will all hinge on split second decision of risk assessment. The question to ask every second is “am I contributing right now, and can I be contributing a second from now (not be dead, positioning)?”

#4. http://i.imgur.com/o1UIhFC.png Runes/Masteries

Pre-game decisions like runes and masteries can vary in a lot of different ways, but as far as role goes you can focus on specific stats. In other words, I'm going to tell you good runes to get and your masteries should follow the same thought process. Let’s go over the thought process to decide.
######Keep in mind it is usually not a good idea to mix and match stats within a category. I advise to choose a stat for a Seal/Mark/Glyph/Quint and use all 9 (or 3) runes for that stat if you have the option. ###Quints
The big ones. These can be used either to massively complement a stats you want (i.e. AD) or to get more of a stat you can’t get otherwise (Movement speed). Those listed below are the latter, as the other stats will be discussed later. Make sure to give them a try if you can.

##### Movement Speed
My personal favorite, but there are better. Movement speed quints are very useful as they give a somewhat unfair advantage very early and keep you just a hair faster than most of your counterparts without ms steroids. If you find yourself poking often, kiting often and otherwise living your life off of close calls and butt-clinching, get these. Or at least try them out.

##### Life-Steal
Although slated to be nerfed. LS Quints won’t be too noticeable early, but can make your life much better of you can rush a vamp scepter quick enough. This will mean the difference between 10% lifesteal and 14.5% lifesteal (after nerf). This may not sound like much, but after you itemize some AD, this will become much more visible.

##### Hybrid Pen
Now before you freak out, remember there are a select few champions (i.e. Corki, Kog’maw) that deal a respectable amount of magic damage. Getting some extra spell pen can actually noticeably increase your damage against the lvl 1 MR of your laning opponents. Try it out and you may actually like it, provided you’re actually doing magic damage.

###Marks

##### Attack Damage The bread and butter of a marksman, this base stat is never a bad thing. However, one thing to keep in mind is Flat AD is almost always preferable than AD/level runes, because as a game continues more AD will be itemized and the runes/masteries bonus will be more and more diluted as time goes on. Flat AD marks give a noticeable advantage in early game (lvl 1-3) and can also make last hitting easier and more reliable. Keep in mind AD is most efficient on marks (the red ones).

##### Armor Pen
Armor Penetration from masteries and runes is a great thing for marksmen to have as armor pen is somewhat limited in-game. The key thing to remember, however, is that armor pen amplifies physical damage, so armor pen with very little AD behind it will flounder. As well as not be nearly as effective on champs that deal decent amounts magic damage or true damage (Corki, Ezreal, Vayne)

##### Attack Speed
Focus Attack Speed when you have a page for AA-defined Marksman. Ability-defined marksman, while attack speed isn’t bad persay, do not use it as effectively. These are also slated to receive nerfs soon.

###Seals

##### Armor
Flat armor will give you a good bit of an early game boost when it comes to staying power and trading power. Scaling will not be as drastic or effective, becasue once they pass flat seals (level 6) you shouldn't be taking much damage at all.

Health
Flat health can be the deciding factor in a lvl 1 fight, and health in general complement lifesteal to a certain extent. Personally I have not used them much, but I've played against aggressive, short ranged marksman (Draven, Graves) that have used this bonus to a scary degree.

###Glyphs
There aren’t many obvious choices here. Primary (most efficient) choices that can work is flat/scaling cooldown reduction or scaling magic resistance. There are less efficient glyphs that you can play around with for min/max’ing and if you have some leftover IP hanging around. If you’re going to experiment anywhere first, experiement with glyphs.

#5. http://i.imgur.com/fZDAJrq.png Champ Select

###Bot-Lane Synergies Partners in crime
#####List in the works! [Guide Resource]

So a decent factor to consider in choosing a marksman is how well that champ will max with the support, this is known as synergy if you didn’t already know. There are a large number of good possible combos in bot lane (hence the separate [Guide resource]) but it will always come down to your own decision in champ select, so here’s what to look for.

#### Chain CC lock ‘em down and burn ‘em out
Any marksman+support combo that can chain their cc together can do exponentially better than pairs that cannot, because it turns one cc into 3, or 4 cc abilities that work with each other and make it incredibly easy to land another.

#### Effective Range Boom, headshot
With this in mind you will also be making the decision of how you can ideally play. Will you stack your range on top of your support’s range (i.e. long range + long range or opposite)? If you do your teamwork can really go far, but it will usually leave a range where you both are weak which can be abused by a decent player, it’s a risk, but it can be worth it. Alternatively you can address the other end of effective range as your support to let you as an individual to have a better time, but while this leaves few weaknesses it does rob you of a string effective range as well.

###Priorities - Damage vs. Utility
Damage is damage, and some marksmen deal more than others, but the ones that don’t hit as hard stay alive more often due to their increased utility (blinks, dashes, slows, snares, etc.). Let’s compare Jinx and Sivir for example. Jinx has a snare and a situational MS boost, but Sivir has a consistent small MS boost, a spellshield, and a teamwide MS boost. Both are relatively strong marksmen but accomplish contributing to a team in different ways. While damage is a marksman’s calling, there are teams that will benefit from an increased utility presence. ###Considering the Enemy Scanning for real threats, none detected
Enemy strength and weaknesses can be accounted for in your champ choice (provided you’re doing draft pick of course) but is most often accounted for in your itemization. An easy example is a lot of enemy armor = armor pen. Knowing what the enemy team can do best and where you can hit hardest is a great advantage. For example, enemy Taric, J4, and Malphite on the enemy team? That’s a metric arse tonne of armor, so why no pick Corki? Or Kog’Maw? Both deal a respectable amount of magic damage and can keep their range well. Kits can play just as much of a factor in what you can do as your own gameplay.

##Part 2

##Current and Upcoming [Guides]

So just to reiterate, Part 2 will be coming shortly and as you can tell from the Table of Contents that's where a lot of the meat is (Embeds, examples, items, etc.). I am very sorry about the delay for those who voted for this [Guide] three weeks ago. I'll be polishing off this post as I work to put out Part 2, so please feel free to tell me where I can improve, if I'm wrong anywhere, hell I'll even take typos. =)

And like I said before, I'm trying out a more standardized order to the guides to possibly be used on my future role guides. For anyone who's checked out my other guides, vote in the poll below to tell me which one you prefer!