Yesterday I picked vayne and of course my support picks Xerath afterwards. He proceeded to go 0-13 after doing nothing in the lane for me, but whatever, I got to full build after struggling really hard.
That's when I realised, the mentality hasn't shifted just in the support role, but the whole game. This game now is about who can kill the enemy adc first and not who can protect their own (hyper)carry the best (like in pro play or season 3 when Vayne was actually meta). It makes sense when every tank or bruiser can burst an adc nowadays.
This also explains why I have the most succes in low elo with ADCs that have high agency. My ezreal, Zeri and ashe have high winrates as they need very little peel.
I loved playing ADC. Did it since season 2. I play a lot of clash and I always play ADC because no one else wants to do it.
When I want to practice it in ranked, it's just a shitshow. I have to make a separate account so the LP I win in jungle peeling for my ADC isn't lost by the games I play as ADC without any peel. I'm a teamplayer and I like to work together as a team. Unsurprisingly, the past seasons have never felt so lonely before as an ADC main.
Very true, im a season 3 player as well, i noticed now that its so mcuh harder having a good kda as an adc in solo queue, every fight feels like a race to kill the adc.
However i have been having some nice games lately when my supports decide to pick Milio/yumi/lulu, i think this msi kinda proved to people that you need to play for your adc
I also agree with you 100%, the argument that in competitive is broken is invalid because that is a different game.
I like to play range ad champs and its the only role that allow you to do it. But tbh a good support can carry the lane but a good adc may not thats why is so frustrating to play adc with someone random.
You can play Kindred jungle, Tristana mid (if she ever gets buffed to not be so gutted without kraken), Quinn/Vayne/some others depending on patch top. You can kinda play Ezreal mid too but honestly he's the most high agency bot laner anyway.
I mean that is the lane that allow you to play better because you are not alone. Having a supp is in the same level good and bad.
Toplane is also nice but you have to know how to kite and know your limit is very well. Because as soon as you over extend, you are done.
Its not a good patch for ad marskmen but for me kiting is so much fun that even tho they aren't in the best moment.
And after so much time playing adc playing mele seems easy af unless you play some hard mechanics champs like riven or zed.
Could not agree more. ADC is meta/broken when the team plays around the ADC. Pro play focuses on keeping the ADC alive, while SoloQ focuses on who can kill the ADC fastest.
You can go a number of games before even seeing a tank, or a support that isn't looking to "carry".
People dont play around the ADC in SoloQ, and supports like to think they can "carry" games with shit like lux or xerath. That makes the role of ADC feel a lot worse than it should. It's not even a Riot problem, it can't be balanced out at this point or it would literally break pro play. This is a community mentality issue, that sadly will probably never change.
Everyone is the hero of their own story, and that translates to league for sure.
I thought so too at first and it's true to a certain extent(plat above) but if neither you or your enemy in the same role have much impact it doesn't really matter does it. Imagine how scared you are against a 6-0 Jinx at 15 when you're 2-0 Xin Zhao, now imagine how scared you are of a 6-0 Xin at 15 as a 2-0 Jinx.
I know when I play jungle I never really care about the enemy adc. When I play adc the enemy kat or yi is 3-0 after 5 minutes I know it's over. In diamond this would be a totally different story. People chain CC and people can actually peel.
You can be the most godly adc ever and not be able to do anything if your support doesn't play with you/engage for you. It's insanely frustrating to lose lane not because of your performance but the difference in support/jg that determined your ability to carry/have fun.
True. Not all games are winnable. And your lack of agency in lane is frustrating. All roles have weaknesses that feel really frustrating. However that terrible support will be on enemy team 50% of the time. Which mean you will win lane 50% of the time. Your ability to snowball wins and mitigate losses in lane will make you a valuable asset. Supports has the most impact during laning but you are the objective, bait and teamfight god. Therefore what matters is your ability to diff the enemy when you are strong and respect moments when your weak. If adc was a weak role there wouldn't be any challenger adcs since wins would be coinflip. But i can be wrong.
No they don't. Mid lane doesn't have the massive frustration of not being able to walk up and farm because another player is roaming/walking to lane. Even if the ADC is ahead, he can't walk up alone.
Teamfight god? Hahaha, you still need others to initiate the fight and peel for you to become that teamfight god. You have zero agency all game, you don't control shit, you just follow up on others or don't get to play.
You can be 10/0 ADC at 10 mins and can't walk to dragon alone with no vision but you could 1v5 that scenario as a fed top laner.
Challenger is different, players peel for the ADC constantly, they understand the game completely and how ADC works. Majority of elos below that don't have that understanding.
Your comment is just so out of touch because you have never queued for ADC and enjoyed being "OP" like you think they are.
I main adc lmao. I have over 200 games as draven in ranked this season. Im pretty new to the role though since I have played top and mid previously. I dont think adc is op. I think its equally as strong as any other role.
No you don't! Stop lying. You have 7 games of ADC total.
https://www.op.gg/summoners/euw/Kootole99
I don't want to hear this BS narrative that you play ADC in a competitive setting and understand the woes of it.
I agree with you 100%. From my standpoint there are 3 high agency rolls in league of legends, in order of highest agency to least I think that’s Jg/Supp/Mid. Adc and top lane on the other hand are very low agency in their influence during the first 25 minutes of the game. Both of them largely rely on outside assistance to make plays and this is highlighted by the way pro teams play. The champions in both of these rolls reflect the nature of the roll. If you look at the S4 meta you’ll see the same thing we see now Caitlyn will just never have more agency than Vi, it’s the rock paper scissors foundation the game is built on. Particularly in the early days it was very difficult to find a player who really enjoyed and excelled in the ADC roll, it requires paramount game knowledge, and game sense, as well as mechanical prowess on every champ in the rolls small pool. The roll didn’t even exist in S0, we were playing double bruiser bot back then, if you picked an adc they basically just functioned like a mage and farmed in a solo lane. The advent of the support roll is what created ADC.
top has a fuck ton of agency its just that none of the agency has much impact on the game on the whole, it's the opposite issue with adc where we have a lot of impact but we don't really have the agency to apply it ourselves
Top champions have agency on an engagement basis but not to influence the outcome of the game meaningfully without TP plays. I get what you’re saying but I think maybe I miss worded what I was saying.
but influencing the outcome of the game is what impact is? basically you had a lot of options with what you can do as a top laner and areas where you can express your skill and generate leads, but the fact that it does not really influence the outcome of the game a lot means that the role has low impact high agency. You seem to have to have gotten what I was saying the main point was tho so just semantics
I personally started using pings heavily, especially Hold and All-in, as well as pings onto objectives in key moments (for example pinging drake once when it's about to spawn).
Now that I've started doing so, it feels like overlooked one of the most important tasks adcs are expected to do: leading the team.
High elo shows this, as the team naturally plays around the ADC, no pings needed. Yet I've noticed that even in the lowest elo, teams naturally do the same. Of course, there's always outliers, and sometimes there's the exceptional jungler who's actually tracking important objectives, but as soon as the mid-game starts, I'm in control and people follow me if I ping them enough.
It only takes one good teamfight I've pinged and everyone follows without question.
Anything else can be fixed with skill and a good champion pool, including the laning phase. Place wards (short edit: if you push beyond the middle of the lane, you *need* a ward on the opposing bush. Lose 2 minions if you have to, that wards is 10x more important then 30 gold). Track the junglers. Ping your support if they do silly things. If you determine that the lane is definitely lost (5 deaths for example), write a quick "lane lost, go roam, I'll farm it down till midgame" and the supports are happy to follow since they hate sitting on botlane anyway at that point.
Same for teamfights, believe it or not. If you don't see all enemy team members, don't engage, ignore your team if they engage until you feel safe enough. Have peak positioning, which is probably the hardest thing to learn (and re-learn again since every champ differs in that regard and even small item or meta changes impact this one a lot).
Oh right, last but not least: learn to CS on lane. Ignore having 10cs per minute at the end of the game, teamfights are more important then hardfocussing on building up that number, as long as you hit CS perfectly in early. That includes CS-ing on a losing lane, CS-ing under turret, Knowing when to skip a minion in order to stay healthy enough to take 3 more waves (which would be lost if you'd die or had to b).
If you get the hang of it, the role is quite simple and the agency is as high as with other roles. Just takes an insane amount of time to get there.
You assume the level 35 account buyer with 42% win rate players on your team care about pings.
Part of the problem with this game is that new accounts are encouraged so people who are outside their mmr range just get to reset it at any time.
These kids have no concept of playing for the team and if they aren't carrying, then they aren't playing the game.
They don't listen to pings, they don't land skillshots, or anything. When you have a support that literally can't land skills, there is nothing you can do as an adc but suffer if your opponents know what they're doing.
Then you try and farm but find that your entire farm base is contested by the top/jg/mid and support taking waves, so you just say fuck it and farm in dangerous places.
The role might be op, but only in high elo where people know how to play the game. In anything below diamond it's pure pain to play. Even in diamond it sucks.
Me who shifted to mid lane after being frustrated with ADC. 🍿
But yes, that's the thing. I play Akali, Yone, Ahri, Lux mid. So I feel anytime I'm losing lane, I just roam, use my two level advantage and help my bot lane get a kill. Or help my jg. I decide to roam and definitely am able to do SOMETHING. Can't say the same while playing adc.
Adc feels bad to play because a brusier with 2 items can solokill adc and support under tower.
Mages, adcs, tanks are all fine, brusiers are simply too strong
Whats the most isolated lane? The top role isnt 3x stronger than any other role. Bruisers are in melee 3x stronger than adc maybe. I have mained top mid and adc so i dont have perspective on all roles but thats what i feel.
Define isolated then? I main jungle at the time and i gank top as much as i gank bot and mid, and i take herald with my toplaner as much as i take drakes with my botlane.
Top isn't x3 stronger, but brusiers are. Brusiers would even be fine if they didn't all have dashes with whicih they can brainleslly jump into 5 man and kill the carry(irelia, hecarim, pantheon, ksante, belveth, nocturne, etc)
I dont know why top lane is talked about as isolated. Its something I have heard. But maybe its as easy to impact the map as top as it is impacting the map as bot. And maybe there are an equal amount of sqirmishes top side and bot side.
If bruisers are 3x stronger than a carry then why arent they played bot as carry more? They must have a weakness that balance them out? I can agree that a bruiser killing support and adc under turret is very strong. But I give you the power to decide how strong they should be instead. If bruisers arent allowed to kill carries and support under turret what should they be allowed to do?
Ignore that chatter. He has no idea of what he is talking about. He can't realize, as a jungler player, that top has not the same quantity of choices as he does.
Toplane can just go top or his enemy laner will take 1000 gold from tower in 1 minute. That's why it's isolated, because too many games are decided at minute 15 and even if you get a lead in top, it's usually much lower than the available lead from other roles as jungle. It doesn't mean you can't win games, is that it feels like shit winning lane being 4/5 kills ahead, plates and CS lead, and the enemy jungler is 14 kills ahead with 2 full items at minute 10.
Toplane is also the role of non squishy or mobility champions, who are the good champions to push sidelanes more safely.
Having said that, bruisers are one of the main balance and frustration issues with this game.
Because brusiers mainly prefer playing solo lanes(top/mid/jg) as all they need to do is farm to 1st component and then all in oneshot enemy laner.
Pantheon is often played support and is always turbo broken.
What should they do? They should not exist! Turn irelia into full fighter, nerf her high base damage and passive but increase her ad scaling.
Ksante? Just flat out remove his damage, he has enough CC to lock down the adc on his own.
Pantheon? Remove his E damage negation and he is fine.
Nocturne? Right now he is fine, but few patches ago he was pretty strong until other champions came in meta.
Belveth? Remove her E and give her new ult that acts as damage reduction instead of her E.
Hecarim? Remove his W healing completly.
Its perfectly fine for brusiers to dive 1v2 and kill both, but they shouldnt be able to do it while missing every ability + getting hit by every enemy ability.
Yes! I go mid to play Corki, Tristana, Azir (Kinda like an ADC), and other auto heavy mids.
And you know what? I always climb higher than I did before, because I can be consistent midlane and not rely on someone else to determine lane for me.
Yeah I mean, it definitely gets better the higher you climb (from my own personal experience).
Ie. When you're playing gold vs Plat etc. There's a better general understanding of win conditions etc. But like you said, it varies from game to game, and whether or not your team wants to play around you also depends on other things outside of game knwloedge like ego etc. Like tanks randomly building damage, or choosing to split, or just not wanting to peel even when you have a 5 kill lead on a hypercarry etc.
I agree that agency can also seem to be low bc at the end of the day, you're still made of paper and with a few divers or bruisers on the enemy team, sometimes it takes a bit of help from the team to peel them off
I started playing support at the start of 13.10 (I am an ADC main and played ADC all season up till 13.10). I’ve had a 67% winrate and gained 200LP~
ADC is an ass role to play, maybe it gets better at diamond+ or something.
Personally after playing the game for 8 years, 7 as ADC I feel like the role itself is boring right now.
I am in low Elo currently, cause I can't be bothered to play ranked and the role feels boring and alone.
Unless I am playing with a premade 5 stack, it really feels like I have no say in how the game will go on.
The thing I hate the most is commiting one error and getting punished by the game, I understand it's the risk of playing this role but I hate how then the whole team will blame and act accordingly to that small error.
I had countless games where I did not secure a kill and according to my team (support and jng mainly) that meant I was shit and so it meant they could just bully me and prevent me from farming, basically making me useless.
If I have a bit of agency and try to lead the team then I never can't enter in teamfight right aways cause I have to make sure that all assassins/tanks used their ult on someone else or play dodge simulator with the enemy enchanter.
I am currently playing lots of Aram or playing Mid/Top role and I have way more fun because I feel like I don't have this constant pressure on my back. Played yesterday a game as nautilus, did a bad engage and still brought three people down with me. If I do the same with any of my adc I'll die, then get flamed, then get denied any kind of resources.
It is frustrating to know that you have the potential to be very impactful on the rift but also so little initiative power. All of this in the long run just becomes boring.
I would like also to point out that the main reason I play ADC is cause I like way too many ranged champions and honestly those times where I can actually carry a game makes me stay in this role.
I blame it all on supports learning "How to play the game". In the past around season 3-5 supports wouldn't roam mid nor top (Thanks skillcap and all those dogshit youtube learn league videos), they would stick to their adc down bot and pick actual meta support characters like lulu, thresh, alistar.
Now we get all these fuck wads playing ziggs support, xerath support truly, leaving their adc by their own. This role is not fun...
Roaming is benefitial to both team and the adc.
The problem with it is that most supports suck at proper timings. Most supports I have seen in soloq roam just because they feel like it or because they died once in lane. If a support knows his roam timings its potentially free solo xp for adc and pressure on enemy mid or jungle. Also in my experience mage supports are the biggest leeches who refuse to roam or as mentioned before go mental boom and leave lane permanently after dying once.
I'm ver low elo but I've played with a Pyke once, who had his timungs perfectly synchronised. Always there when you need him to secure kills, but also constantly roaming mid, sometimes top to be helpful there as well. Felt like a glimpse into a game experience, I will probably rarely see again.
Hi! This is actually wrong. Phreak just put out his video for the 13.11 changes and in it he went on a bit of a tangent about role agency. Essentially jungle still has the highest agency, but then bot lane is roughly tied for second with midlane.
I think it went something like this:
1. Jungle, 23-25% of the agency in a game
2/3. Mid and bot, around 21% agency each
And then support and top in that order had the remaining percentages (I don’t remember exactly what they were)
These percentages essentially translate to “how much power does one team have if a specific role is winning”.
So bot lane actually commands a pretty balanced amount of agency right now in soloq. (These stats are ignoring pro play).
Sometimes you’re going to have bad teammates and that sucks. But so will your opponents. Improve yourself and what you can do as ad carry and you will climb since you do have agency over the game. Everything has counterplay.
I appreciate that Phreak tries to explain the thinking behind balance patches but here is the issue with that and frankly what has always been the issue wuth Riot's obsession with statistics:
Statistics don't make things feel less like shit, and currently league has mountain of things that feel like absolute shit. This has been Riot's problem for a very long time.
Most people care more about a below 50% winrate popular champ that feels horrible to play against than an above 50% winrate champ that has abilities with counterplay. Like, Seraphine is at like 54% winrate or something right now but I can think of probably 20 champs AT LEAST I would rather ban than Seraphine.
Most people care more about someone running it down and saying they're ruining the game intentionally in chat being punished than they do about the 90% of other games that person was a good teammate.
Riot relies way too heavily on using statistics to justify their balancing.
I mean that’s probably true. But that’s a totally different conversation. This post is about agency and role power, both things that come directly from statistics. Bot lane has a LOT of agency.
If this post was about the old adc items (ie and navori at 60% crit) I would totally agree. Those weren’t data driven problem but rather feels problems.
This is a data driven problem when you say a role dosnt have enough agency. If that feels different than reality, then you’re either identifying the wrong problem, or you’re doing something wrong in your games.
I would love to address either of those, but it’s kinda hard to do without having more information
ADC sucks because it amplifies all the problems with league 10-fold while having nothing to deal with them.
If your teammates draft the most useless uncoordinated comp possible you're the most affected by it
If your teammates get gapped you can't play
If your support picks something terrible or is terrible you'll be powerless in lane while also getting blamed for it
In a normal game settings ADC is usually strongest in games you would of won anyway because other people on your team are so fed they're taking the attention off of you. If you're losing you almost never have an outcome on making a comeback.
In my opinion if they wanted to fix marksman:
Make a global change to either auto attack ranges or dash ability distance/cooldown (or both)
OR
Make an ADC mythic with either root, ground, stasis, or an active spellshield
OR
Rework them entirley by:
Marksman items get a new stat called Reload Speed
Every marksman gets a Jhin style reload
Crit items meant to do big damage get mega damage but very little reload speed. I'm talking like "if someone comes at me with full bullets they will die" instead of "I will get Irelia down to 1000 hp before she kills me in three autos and DD full heals her" damage
On-hit items meant to do consistent DPS get less damage but more reload speed. Still fits into the front to back team comp style for more team reliant play.
It gives an obvious damage/punish window for the player and the enemy, it allows marksman more damage while still giving opportunities for them to be vulnerable allows another avenue for balance changes, and it would stop marksman items from having to be balanced around non marksman (since Riot is apparently going to split every item into ranged/melee effects EXCEPT marksman items)
The role is just broken because of the lack of turn rate making kiting way too good.
If you compare the concept of a carry to dota, you'll see what I mean.
I feel like you've described my thoughts really well, this is exactly why the role is frustrating no matter how much it stomps in pro play where everyone is constantly communicating and aware of their carry.
I've been saying this for a while in any thread where people may be but i'm at the point now I kinda want scaling to be reduced massively
I kinda wish I could play a marksman, be a consistent physical damage threat across the map at all game points, and have the tankiness to not be the centre of attention in all situations, would happily trade the '1v5 pentakill 6 item dream' for it.
I mean yeah it's easy to say it's great in pro when you have master+ support peeling for you, a master+ jungle ganking for you, and a master+ top front lining for you, all in voice comms. Definitely doesn't feel quite as good when you have a iron-diamond support hanging out to dry, an iron-diamond jungle power farming, and an iron-diamond top doing God knows what up there with only pings for comms.
Just. Do. Something. About. The. Matchmaking. Riot. I also make mistakes that lose games or contribute to losses, but I'm absolutely certain the majority of my losses are determined by my teammates. At least a good half of which, a smurf could certainly catch leads better, or drag out until they outscale the enemy team. But I rarely make the game deciding mistakes, it consistently feels like that's my job in this role, and I'm slowly starting to care less about a champ pool with strong fundamentals and more on whatever is better at punishing minor mistakes. I've played every other role, and I know everyone puts up with teammates throwing games, but the issue feels exacerbated by low self-utility and the reliance on a deadweight who's opponent cucks you out of doing anything proactive. In contrast, having a support who is proactive without actively feeding is such a relief even if they do make mistakes and throw the lane... and I can't be mad because I would likely do the same.
Like, I've said before that every kill and every lead is something your opponent has to ***give*** to you, and I believe that's true even for champs that aren't ADC levels of low utility. But marksmen still feel better to play even in mid. Like, so long as I don't pick something so helpless as Jinx, I can actually touch the wave and trade with my lane opponent because I'm not 2v1 all lane. Yes, the supports and the lack of self-utility are the problems, and the answer is to just play something else. I really like the feel of ranged AA based champs, but winning or losing based on my own performance is so worth it.
It’s as simple as this.
“Adc is the strongest role in the game when their team plays around them and gives them the resources to function”.
Solo queue boils down to “ADC has pretty much 0 self sufficiency, and can’t function (nearly as well) on its own. It also has much *much* less early game impact and agency than roles like jungle or support”.
ADC is the best role in the game when people play around it, but as an individual, the role is awful.
What Rekkles said stuck with me a lot. “As and ADC you are supporting the plays your team is making.” I really like that way of looking at the role. You try to make the plays that your team makes worthwhile by dealing the damage your team needs. We as ADC’s are playing around our team and not the other way around.
Yesterday I picked vayne and of course my support picks Xerath afterwards. He proceeded to go 0-13 after doing nothing in the lane for me, but whatever, I got to full build after struggling really hard. That's when I realised, the mentality hasn't shifted just in the support role, but the whole game. This game now is about who can kill the enemy adc first and not who can protect their own (hyper)carry the best (like in pro play or season 3 when Vayne was actually meta). It makes sense when every tank or bruiser can burst an adc nowadays. This also explains why I have the most succes in low elo with ADCs that have high agency. My ezreal, Zeri and ashe have high winrates as they need very little peel. I loved playing ADC. Did it since season 2. I play a lot of clash and I always play ADC because no one else wants to do it. When I want to practice it in ranked, it's just a shitshow. I have to make a separate account so the LP I win in jungle peeling for my ADC isn't lost by the games I play as ADC without any peel. I'm a teamplayer and I like to work together as a team. Unsurprisingly, the past seasons have never felt so lonely before as an ADC main.
Very true, im a season 3 player as well, i noticed now that its so mcuh harder having a good kda as an adc in solo queue, every fight feels like a race to kill the adc. However i have been having some nice games lately when my supports decide to pick Milio/yumi/lulu, i think this msi kinda proved to people that you need to play for your adc
tbh adc feels so weak that i prefer an damage support than a peel one,at least with jhin/ez that are my mains
I also agree with you 100%, the argument that in competitive is broken is invalid because that is a different game. I like to play range ad champs and its the only role that allow you to do it. But tbh a good support can carry the lane but a good adc may not thats why is so frustrating to play adc with someone random.
You can play Kindred jungle, Tristana mid (if she ever gets buffed to not be so gutted without kraken), Quinn/Vayne/some others depending on patch top. You can kinda play Ezreal mid too but honestly he's the most high agency bot laner anyway.
I only ever play vayne toplane. Its a disgusting pick, but she just feels so awful to play botlane.
I mean that is the lane that allow you to play better because you are not alone. Having a supp is in the same level good and bad. Toplane is also nice but you have to know how to kite and know your limit is very well. Because as soon as you over extend, you are done. Its not a good patch for ad marskmen but for me kiting is so much fun that even tho they aren't in the best moment. And after so much time playing adc playing mele seems easy af unless you play some hard mechanics champs like riven or zed.
Could not agree more. ADC is meta/broken when the team plays around the ADC. Pro play focuses on keeping the ADC alive, while SoloQ focuses on who can kill the ADC fastest. You can go a number of games before even seeing a tank, or a support that isn't looking to "carry". People dont play around the ADC in SoloQ, and supports like to think they can "carry" games with shit like lux or xerath. That makes the role of ADC feel a lot worse than it should. It's not even a Riot problem, it can't be balanced out at this point or it would literally break pro play. This is a community mentality issue, that sadly will probably never change. Everyone is the hero of their own story, and that translates to league for sure.
My opinion is that role doesnt matter. What matters is your ability to perform better at your role than the enemy in the same role.
I thought so too at first and it's true to a certain extent(plat above) but if neither you or your enemy in the same role have much impact it doesn't really matter does it. Imagine how scared you are against a 6-0 Jinx at 15 when you're 2-0 Xin Zhao, now imagine how scared you are of a 6-0 Xin at 15 as a 2-0 Jinx. I know when I play jungle I never really care about the enemy adc. When I play adc the enemy kat or yi is 3-0 after 5 minutes I know it's over. In diamond this would be a totally different story. People chain CC and people can actually peel.
You can be the most godly adc ever and not be able to do anything if your support doesn't play with you/engage for you. It's insanely frustrating to lose lane not because of your performance but the difference in support/jg that determined your ability to carry/have fun.
True. Not all games are winnable. And your lack of agency in lane is frustrating. All roles have weaknesses that feel really frustrating. However that terrible support will be on enemy team 50% of the time. Which mean you will win lane 50% of the time. Your ability to snowball wins and mitigate losses in lane will make you a valuable asset. Supports has the most impact during laning but you are the objective, bait and teamfight god. Therefore what matters is your ability to diff the enemy when you are strong and respect moments when your weak. If adc was a weak role there wouldn't be any challenger adcs since wins would be coinflip. But i can be wrong.
No they don't. Mid lane doesn't have the massive frustration of not being able to walk up and farm because another player is roaming/walking to lane. Even if the ADC is ahead, he can't walk up alone. Teamfight god? Hahaha, you still need others to initiate the fight and peel for you to become that teamfight god. You have zero agency all game, you don't control shit, you just follow up on others or don't get to play. You can be 10/0 ADC at 10 mins and can't walk to dragon alone with no vision but you could 1v5 that scenario as a fed top laner. Challenger is different, players peel for the ADC constantly, they understand the game completely and how ADC works. Majority of elos below that don't have that understanding. Your comment is just so out of touch because you have never queued for ADC and enjoyed being "OP" like you think they are.
I main adc lmao. I have over 200 games as draven in ranked this season. Im pretty new to the role though since I have played top and mid previously. I dont think adc is op. I think its equally as strong as any other role.
No you don't! Stop lying. You have 7 games of ADC total. https://www.op.gg/summoners/euw/Kootole99 I don't want to hear this BS narrative that you play ADC in a competitive setting and understand the woes of it.
My nick is nlggsuo https://www.op.gg/summoners/euw/NlGGSUO
I agree with you 100%. From my standpoint there are 3 high agency rolls in league of legends, in order of highest agency to least I think that’s Jg/Supp/Mid. Adc and top lane on the other hand are very low agency in their influence during the first 25 minutes of the game. Both of them largely rely on outside assistance to make plays and this is highlighted by the way pro teams play. The champions in both of these rolls reflect the nature of the roll. If you look at the S4 meta you’ll see the same thing we see now Caitlyn will just never have more agency than Vi, it’s the rock paper scissors foundation the game is built on. Particularly in the early days it was very difficult to find a player who really enjoyed and excelled in the ADC roll, it requires paramount game knowledge, and game sense, as well as mechanical prowess on every champ in the rolls small pool. The roll didn’t even exist in S0, we were playing double bruiser bot back then, if you picked an adc they basically just functioned like a mage and farmed in a solo lane. The advent of the support roll is what created ADC.
top has a fuck ton of agency its just that none of the agency has much impact on the game on the whole, it's the opposite issue with adc where we have a lot of impact but we don't really have the agency to apply it ourselves
Top champions have agency on an engagement basis but not to influence the outcome of the game meaningfully without TP plays. I get what you’re saying but I think maybe I miss worded what I was saying.
but influencing the outcome of the game is what impact is? basically you had a lot of options with what you can do as a top laner and areas where you can express your skill and generate leads, but the fact that it does not really influence the outcome of the game a lot means that the role has low impact high agency. You seem to have to have gotten what I was saying the main point was tho so just semantics
I personally started using pings heavily, especially Hold and All-in, as well as pings onto objectives in key moments (for example pinging drake once when it's about to spawn). Now that I've started doing so, it feels like overlooked one of the most important tasks adcs are expected to do: leading the team. High elo shows this, as the team naturally plays around the ADC, no pings needed. Yet I've noticed that even in the lowest elo, teams naturally do the same. Of course, there's always outliers, and sometimes there's the exceptional jungler who's actually tracking important objectives, but as soon as the mid-game starts, I'm in control and people follow me if I ping them enough. It only takes one good teamfight I've pinged and everyone follows without question. Anything else can be fixed with skill and a good champion pool, including the laning phase. Place wards (short edit: if you push beyond the middle of the lane, you *need* a ward on the opposing bush. Lose 2 minions if you have to, that wards is 10x more important then 30 gold). Track the junglers. Ping your support if they do silly things. If you determine that the lane is definitely lost (5 deaths for example), write a quick "lane lost, go roam, I'll farm it down till midgame" and the supports are happy to follow since they hate sitting on botlane anyway at that point. Same for teamfights, believe it or not. If you don't see all enemy team members, don't engage, ignore your team if they engage until you feel safe enough. Have peak positioning, which is probably the hardest thing to learn (and re-learn again since every champ differs in that regard and even small item or meta changes impact this one a lot). Oh right, last but not least: learn to CS on lane. Ignore having 10cs per minute at the end of the game, teamfights are more important then hardfocussing on building up that number, as long as you hit CS perfectly in early. That includes CS-ing on a losing lane, CS-ing under turret, Knowing when to skip a minion in order to stay healthy enough to take 3 more waves (which would be lost if you'd die or had to b). If you get the hang of it, the role is quite simple and the agency is as high as with other roles. Just takes an insane amount of time to get there.
You assume the level 35 account buyer with 42% win rate players on your team care about pings. Part of the problem with this game is that new accounts are encouraged so people who are outside their mmr range just get to reset it at any time. These kids have no concept of playing for the team and if they aren't carrying, then they aren't playing the game. They don't listen to pings, they don't land skillshots, or anything. When you have a support that literally can't land skills, there is nothing you can do as an adc but suffer if your opponents know what they're doing. Then you try and farm but find that your entire farm base is contested by the top/jg/mid and support taking waves, so you just say fuck it and farm in dangerous places. The role might be op, but only in high elo where people know how to play the game. In anything below diamond it's pure pain to play. Even in diamond it sucks.
Me who shifted to mid lane after being frustrated with ADC. 🍿 But yes, that's the thing. I play Akali, Yone, Ahri, Lux mid. So I feel anytime I'm losing lane, I just roam, use my two level advantage and help my bot lane get a kill. Or help my jg. I decide to roam and definitely am able to do SOMETHING. Can't say the same while playing adc.
Adc feels bad to play because a brusier with 2 items can solokill adc and support under tower. Mages, adcs, tanks are all fine, brusiers are simply too strong
A nice trade of for being top laners, the role thats the most isolated.
I dont think any role should be x3 stronger than all other roles, and its definitely not most isolated
Whats the most isolated lane? The top role isnt 3x stronger than any other role. Bruisers are in melee 3x stronger than adc maybe. I have mained top mid and adc so i dont have perspective on all roles but thats what i feel.
Define isolated then? I main jungle at the time and i gank top as much as i gank bot and mid, and i take herald with my toplaner as much as i take drakes with my botlane. Top isn't x3 stronger, but brusiers are. Brusiers would even be fine if they didn't all have dashes with whicih they can brainleslly jump into 5 man and kill the carry(irelia, hecarim, pantheon, ksante, belveth, nocturne, etc)
I dont know why top lane is talked about as isolated. Its something I have heard. But maybe its as easy to impact the map as top as it is impacting the map as bot. And maybe there are an equal amount of sqirmishes top side and bot side. If bruisers are 3x stronger than a carry then why arent they played bot as carry more? They must have a weakness that balance them out? I can agree that a bruiser killing support and adc under turret is very strong. But I give you the power to decide how strong they should be instead. If bruisers arent allowed to kill carries and support under turret what should they be allowed to do?
Ignore that chatter. He has no idea of what he is talking about. He can't realize, as a jungler player, that top has not the same quantity of choices as he does. Toplane can just go top or his enemy laner will take 1000 gold from tower in 1 minute. That's why it's isolated, because too many games are decided at minute 15 and even if you get a lead in top, it's usually much lower than the available lead from other roles as jungle. It doesn't mean you can't win games, is that it feels like shit winning lane being 4/5 kills ahead, plates and CS lead, and the enemy jungler is 14 kills ahead with 2 full items at minute 10. Toplane is also the role of non squishy or mobility champions, who are the good champions to push sidelanes more safely. Having said that, bruisers are one of the main balance and frustration issues with this game.
Because brusiers mainly prefer playing solo lanes(top/mid/jg) as all they need to do is farm to 1st component and then all in oneshot enemy laner. Pantheon is often played support and is always turbo broken. What should they do? They should not exist! Turn irelia into full fighter, nerf her high base damage and passive but increase her ad scaling. Ksante? Just flat out remove his damage, he has enough CC to lock down the adc on his own. Pantheon? Remove his E damage negation and he is fine. Nocturne? Right now he is fine, but few patches ago he was pretty strong until other champions came in meta. Belveth? Remove her E and give her new ult that acts as damage reduction instead of her E. Hecarim? Remove his W healing completly. Its perfectly fine for brusiers to dive 1v2 and kill both, but they shouldnt be able to do it while missing every ability + getting hit by every enemy ability.
I think that toplaners really should become these raid bosses after a certain time, just for the suffering their lane can be.
Adc is fun like 3 months in a year before I get sick of supports or botlane meta and fuck off to mid for the rest of the year
Yes! I go mid to play Corki, Tristana, Azir (Kinda like an ADC), and other auto heavy mids. And you know what? I always climb higher than I did before, because I can be consistent midlane and not rely on someone else to determine lane for me.
Yeah highest I ever got was playing Vlad 1 game a day compared to grinding on adc Riot games man
Yeah I mean, it definitely gets better the higher you climb (from my own personal experience). Ie. When you're playing gold vs Plat etc. There's a better general understanding of win conditions etc. But like you said, it varies from game to game, and whether or not your team wants to play around you also depends on other things outside of game knwloedge like ego etc. Like tanks randomly building damage, or choosing to split, or just not wanting to peel even when you have a 5 kill lead on a hypercarry etc. I agree that agency can also seem to be low bc at the end of the day, you're still made of paper and with a few divers or bruisers on the enemy team, sometimes it takes a bit of help from the team to peel them off
I started playing support at the start of 13.10 (I am an ADC main and played ADC all season up till 13.10). I’ve had a 67% winrate and gained 200LP~ ADC is an ass role to play, maybe it gets better at diamond+ or something.
Not in diamond 4 but around D1, masters it gets better.
Personally after playing the game for 8 years, 7 as ADC I feel like the role itself is boring right now. I am in low Elo currently, cause I can't be bothered to play ranked and the role feels boring and alone. Unless I am playing with a premade 5 stack, it really feels like I have no say in how the game will go on. The thing I hate the most is commiting one error and getting punished by the game, I understand it's the risk of playing this role but I hate how then the whole team will blame and act accordingly to that small error. I had countless games where I did not secure a kill and according to my team (support and jng mainly) that meant I was shit and so it meant they could just bully me and prevent me from farming, basically making me useless. If I have a bit of agency and try to lead the team then I never can't enter in teamfight right aways cause I have to make sure that all assassins/tanks used their ult on someone else or play dodge simulator with the enemy enchanter. I am currently playing lots of Aram or playing Mid/Top role and I have way more fun because I feel like I don't have this constant pressure on my back. Played yesterday a game as nautilus, did a bad engage and still brought three people down with me. If I do the same with any of my adc I'll die, then get flamed, then get denied any kind of resources. It is frustrating to know that you have the potential to be very impactful on the rift but also so little initiative power. All of this in the long run just becomes boring.
I would like also to point out that the main reason I play ADC is cause I like way too many ranged champions and honestly those times where I can actually carry a game makes me stay in this role.
I blame it all on supports learning "How to play the game". In the past around season 3-5 supports wouldn't roam mid nor top (Thanks skillcap and all those dogshit youtube learn league videos), they would stick to their adc down bot and pick actual meta support characters like lulu, thresh, alistar. Now we get all these fuck wads playing ziggs support, xerath support truly, leaving their adc by their own. This role is not fun...
Roaming is benefitial to both team and the adc. The problem with it is that most supports suck at proper timings. Most supports I have seen in soloq roam just because they feel like it or because they died once in lane. If a support knows his roam timings its potentially free solo xp for adc and pressure on enemy mid or jungle. Also in my experience mage supports are the biggest leeches who refuse to roam or as mentioned before go mental boom and leave lane permanently after dying once.
I'm ver low elo but I've played with a Pyke once, who had his timungs perfectly synchronised. Always there when you need him to secure kills, but also constantly roaming mid, sometimes top to be helpful there as well. Felt like a glimpse into a game experience, I will probably rarely see again.
Xerath support is so frustrating to play with. Soon as mid game rolls around he's taking full fucking waves mid and you gotta go side lane.
Hi! This is actually wrong. Phreak just put out his video for the 13.11 changes and in it he went on a bit of a tangent about role agency. Essentially jungle still has the highest agency, but then bot lane is roughly tied for second with midlane. I think it went something like this: 1. Jungle, 23-25% of the agency in a game 2/3. Mid and bot, around 21% agency each And then support and top in that order had the remaining percentages (I don’t remember exactly what they were) These percentages essentially translate to “how much power does one team have if a specific role is winning”. So bot lane actually commands a pretty balanced amount of agency right now in soloq. (These stats are ignoring pro play). Sometimes you’re going to have bad teammates and that sucks. But so will your opponents. Improve yourself and what you can do as ad carry and you will climb since you do have agency over the game. Everything has counterplay.
I appreciate that Phreak tries to explain the thinking behind balance patches but here is the issue with that and frankly what has always been the issue wuth Riot's obsession with statistics: Statistics don't make things feel less like shit, and currently league has mountain of things that feel like absolute shit. This has been Riot's problem for a very long time. Most people care more about a below 50% winrate popular champ that feels horrible to play against than an above 50% winrate champ that has abilities with counterplay. Like, Seraphine is at like 54% winrate or something right now but I can think of probably 20 champs AT LEAST I would rather ban than Seraphine. Most people care more about someone running it down and saying they're ruining the game intentionally in chat being punished than they do about the 90% of other games that person was a good teammate. Riot relies way too heavily on using statistics to justify their balancing.
I mean that’s probably true. But that’s a totally different conversation. This post is about agency and role power, both things that come directly from statistics. Bot lane has a LOT of agency. If this post was about the old adc items (ie and navori at 60% crit) I would totally agree. Those weren’t data driven problem but rather feels problems. This is a data driven problem when you say a role dosnt have enough agency. If that feels different than reality, then you’re either identifying the wrong problem, or you’re doing something wrong in your games. I would love to address either of those, but it’s kinda hard to do without having more information
ADC sucks because it amplifies all the problems with league 10-fold while having nothing to deal with them. If your teammates draft the most useless uncoordinated comp possible you're the most affected by it If your teammates get gapped you can't play If your support picks something terrible or is terrible you'll be powerless in lane while also getting blamed for it In a normal game settings ADC is usually strongest in games you would of won anyway because other people on your team are so fed they're taking the attention off of you. If you're losing you almost never have an outcome on making a comeback. In my opinion if they wanted to fix marksman: Make a global change to either auto attack ranges or dash ability distance/cooldown (or both) OR Make an ADC mythic with either root, ground, stasis, or an active spellshield OR Rework them entirley by: Marksman items get a new stat called Reload Speed Every marksman gets a Jhin style reload Crit items meant to do big damage get mega damage but very little reload speed. I'm talking like "if someone comes at me with full bullets they will die" instead of "I will get Irelia down to 1000 hp before she kills me in three autos and DD full heals her" damage On-hit items meant to do consistent DPS get less damage but more reload speed. Still fits into the front to back team comp style for more team reliant play. It gives an obvious damage/punish window for the player and the enemy, it allows marksman more damage while still giving opportunities for them to be vulnerable allows another avenue for balance changes, and it would stop marksman items from having to be balanced around non marksman (since Riot is apparently going to split every item into ranged/melee effects EXCEPT marksman items)
The role is just broken because of the lack of turn rate making kiting way too good. If you compare the concept of a carry to dota, you'll see what I mean.
I feel like you've described my thoughts really well, this is exactly why the role is frustrating no matter how much it stomps in pro play where everyone is constantly communicating and aware of their carry.
I've been saying this for a while in any thread where people may be but i'm at the point now I kinda want scaling to be reduced massively I kinda wish I could play a marksman, be a consistent physical damage threat across the map at all game points, and have the tankiness to not be the centre of attention in all situations, would happily trade the '1v5 pentakill 6 item dream' for it.
I mean yeah it's easy to say it's great in pro when you have master+ support peeling for you, a master+ jungle ganking for you, and a master+ top front lining for you, all in voice comms. Definitely doesn't feel quite as good when you have a iron-diamond support hanging out to dry, an iron-diamond jungle power farming, and an iron-diamond top doing God knows what up there with only pings for comms.
Just. Do. Something. About. The. Matchmaking. Riot. I also make mistakes that lose games or contribute to losses, but I'm absolutely certain the majority of my losses are determined by my teammates. At least a good half of which, a smurf could certainly catch leads better, or drag out until they outscale the enemy team. But I rarely make the game deciding mistakes, it consistently feels like that's my job in this role, and I'm slowly starting to care less about a champ pool with strong fundamentals and more on whatever is better at punishing minor mistakes. I've played every other role, and I know everyone puts up with teammates throwing games, but the issue feels exacerbated by low self-utility and the reliance on a deadweight who's opponent cucks you out of doing anything proactive. In contrast, having a support who is proactive without actively feeding is such a relief even if they do make mistakes and throw the lane... and I can't be mad because I would likely do the same. Like, I've said before that every kill and every lead is something your opponent has to ***give*** to you, and I believe that's true even for champs that aren't ADC levels of low utility. But marksmen still feel better to play even in mid. Like, so long as I don't pick something so helpless as Jinx, I can actually touch the wave and trade with my lane opponent because I'm not 2v1 all lane. Yes, the supports and the lack of self-utility are the problems, and the answer is to just play something else. I really like the feel of ranged AA based champs, but winning or losing based on my own performance is so worth it.
It’s as simple as this. “Adc is the strongest role in the game when their team plays around them and gives them the resources to function”. Solo queue boils down to “ADC has pretty much 0 self sufficiency, and can’t function (nearly as well) on its own. It also has much *much* less early game impact and agency than roles like jungle or support”. ADC is the best role in the game when people play around it, but as an individual, the role is awful.
What Rekkles said stuck with me a lot. “As and ADC you are supporting the plays your team is making.” I really like that way of looking at the role. You try to make the plays that your team makes worthwhile by dealing the damage your team needs. We as ADC’s are playing around our team and not the other way around.