Hey everyone!
So I've been giving some thought to what Riot said in their last dev diary about messing around with the plausibility of a Marksman-less team. What enables such a thing? Champions made or reworked to be built for the role (
) or just melee champions with strong enough wave clear and presence in lane to make up for their shorter reach (
)
Let me know what you think, I'm trying to parse their thoughts.
-Onwodori
Oh damn, hey man! haven't seen you in a while
EDIT: In response to the actual post, levels. Marksmen rely more on items than they do on levels, while most fighters are way more level depending. Gangplank's Level 13 is a great example here.
Back in season 4 I would do 1v1s with people on my friends list to help push what I was able to do as a one trick Garen main. Back then start of the game lane swaps between top and bot lane were somewhat common, so I wanted to make sure I was prepared for it and give my team the best advantage they could possibly have.
Our ADC main played a ton of Caitlyn, and so I went up against him to see what I could do in a matchup where I have very few early advantages. I stayed around 10 CS down through the entire thing, and he was never really able to push me out of lane without getting jumped by me.
If I had a support with me at the time I could have laned against the enemy bot lane as a melee. Times have definitely changed since then, but buffs to support items like Knights Vow could be all that is needed. The whole goal is to create a zone of threat that extends past your attack range, so supports like Blitz, Thresh, Morgana, and Leona who can lock someone down or bring them closer will be the go to supports.
The main playstyle hurdle would be getting around supports like Janna, who can single handedly keep a melee off of her carry. Couple her with an aggressive mid range ADC and you could stop the pretty much required dive playstyle of a melee bot carry. They could try to bait abilities, or just stall out the lane and wait for someone else to decide the lane, but there's a lot more work to playing melee down there than ranged.
I'll say it again though, I haven't had experience experimenting with this sort of stuff since season 4, and I didn't follow it to it's logical end at the time.
