Hello TL community my LoL name is GGod and i main AD bot.
I have been doing AD bot at high elo for about 6-8 months now. I started playing this game more seriously during season 2 (season 1 i still played dota 1 and SC2 primarily). In this guide i hope to cover alot of the basics and subtleties to the role. I feel i have a pretty strong grasp on AD and hope to share this knowledge with you, the best community in the gaming world, TL.
In this guide I will not explain the heroes' movesets or passives, or what the described items do. I expect most of you have played this game, know the items, and know the heroes. I instead will explain the thought process of WHY things are done, what they plan to achieve, and certain build orders / tactics / strategies to use.
1. Farm / maintain high CS 2. Deal most of the consistent dps during team fights / objectives
That's really it. The job is simple in text, but much more complicated in nature. The AD carry builds next to no base resistances and is fully reliant on their own kit and team to stay alive while also slip in the needed amount of auto attacks and damage to turn the tide of teamfights in your team's favor.
1. In explaining on how to maintain farm / high CS it is critical that you build up your core mechanics of the game. Last hitting and map awareness become key with step 1. The best thing to do is practice. You want to ideally kill the creeps when it would only take 1 hit to kill it. BUT it is not uncommon to wittle it down to a certain health to where you have control on when and how it dies. It is important to recognize WHICH CREEPS YOUR CREEPS are focus firing and how they are spreading their dps so you do not miss CS that is maybe being wittled down at the same time. 1 way to prevent missing cs when 2 are losing hp at the same rate is to hit 1 twice, so it is sure to die first, leaving enough time for the second one to die by your next auto attack.
2. This is harder to explain through text, but I will try to lay down some simple ground rules and things to pay attention to.
a. Positioning is KEY. Be sure to never be in the front of the fight, and be sure to get a read of who will want to kill you, and who your team is going to be focusing. Typically team fights go one of 2 ways (if the fight is not a landslide). Your team peels real well for you and its a giant defensive crawl to see if you can wittle their bruisers / ap away before you die. OR Your team is doing their best to instantly kill their ap / AD while you maybe have your support and jungler to help peel for you. You should also recognize where you are in the power scale of your team. If your AP mid has most the kills and is most of your dps it would be wise to stay near them and do your best to protect them.
b. You do no damage if you do not AUTO ATTACK. There is a reason AD bot is called AD carry, and its because your auto attack damage scales the hardest in the game. The inclusion of attack speed and crits just makes AD carries down right scary as they get more items (This is why its important to get PD, no crit effectively makes you scale terribly and you do considerably less DPS. And attacks peed feeds the amount of crits). You must learn to kite and hit / run at the same time. Be sure to recognize when you can just go in and auto attack. Find any opportunity to just slip in attacks. If you spend literally the entire fight running, your team will lose. This is a reason why well timed flashes can win the game. If bruisers dive you, you flash, that 1-2 seconds of distance from them can be enough to kill them with auto attacks (So try not to burn flashes on stupid moments of getting caught while farming, remember map awareness!). This step is also very reliant on your team peeling and protecting you. But make it easy for them by not suiciding into their carry, being split off, or putting yourself in easy to reach areas by the enemy AP.
c. Never face check. Maintain red buff (in the mid / late game). Be aware when you are farming lanes in the mid - late game if there is ANY ward coverage behind you. If the river is dark and you have no vision, just leave the creeps. Odds are the enemy is after you (this is assuming there is no vision of where the enemy is on the map).
This is what i typically run. This page uses progressive MR blues over flat MR because I feel the difference is minimal as you typically don't encounter their AP until level 9ish anyway in most standard games, and most burst lanes at bot would kill you anyway. The progressive helps mitigate aoe damage in fights.
This is the same page but with MR flat blues. This allows for more magic resilience in the early game giving you more ability to shrug off support harass or early AP dives / ganks. Both are good imo.
This is a good mix of AD and ArmPen, typically for urgot games, or when I verse tarics or a team with characters that typically build little armor.
Notice how neither page uses Armor Pen. AD flats overall are better as the DPS difference between armor pen and AD is barely noticable where as AD flats have the added bonus of making last hitting easier and making abilities with AD scaling stronger.
This is your standard mastery page, especially if you are running ignite on your carry (which is almost every carry except for maybe ashe / kog / Cait/ vayne / Urgot on occasion.
This is a page used when the enemy lane has a considerable power advantage over you and you want that early survivability bonus., or if you just want to be beefier to make good trades and survive early ganks better. Pick either 3/3 in MR or Armor to better fit your situation. This is the page i use when wanting defense + im using heal or cleanse. If you want this page, but are using ignite, just take the 1 point out of the defensive summer and put it into the improved offensive summoner in the offensive tree and take out the 1/2 slot for +2 damage to creeps. Its real flexible that way.
This is my typically Ezreal / Corki page. Utilizing their mix of magic / ad damage early, some CDR. Although sacrificing 3% lifesteal, and 20% longer buff time.
This page is used when i am playing characters that i get defensive summoners on (heal or cleanse) but also need the mana to harass / make plays.
This is a page I use when i do heal / ignite on Tristana. I only suggest this build for under 1800s.
This is the urgot page i rune, getting some CDR while staying beefy..
The main downside to AD carry is that there is next to no variability in your item builds. You typically build the same thing every game. There is a reason for that though, and it is because the raw dps power the same build gives is just uncomparable. But there are subtleties on build orders, and item timings that can vary from carry to carry.
IE = Infinity's Edge PD = Phantom Dancer LW = Last Whisper BT = Blood Thirster QSS = Quick Silver Sash GA = Guardian's Angel FH = Frozen Heart Vamp = Vampiric Scepter BV = Banshee's Veil Boots 3 = Boots + 3pots (or 4 pots if you wait until 1:30 sec), NOT swiftness boots
The Holy Trinity of AD: Infinity's Edge / Phantom Dancer / Last Whisper
This is basically the core of what you want entering the late game. These 3 items will effectively kill anyone with any amount of items, if you're given enough seconds / breathing time to actually hit them. Now to go into main openers.
This is your cookie cutter opener and is very safe. This typically happens on both carries if there is NO kills or any big early fights in the bot lane.
Basic opener 2: Boots 3 ----> Dorans Blade / Early big item (BF sword, pickaxe, zeal)
This typically happens when you get first blood, early double kill, or whatever. OR if the early farming goes for so long that you go back with about 2k gold, allowing a dorans and a BF. Now typically you want to get BF as early as possible, and if you are confident in your ability to not get too phased by harass then get the early BF.
This opener is used when you are either a.) being heavily harassed in lane and need wriggles for added sustain / advantage in trades or b.) want that early power push to win trades easier. This build delays your core damage by a decent bit and if you don't score early kills or zone them with the added strength of wriggles then your dps will be much farther behind theirs entering the mid game / late game.
What both openers 1&2 will do is then go into
Opener ---> BF sword ---> IE ---> zeal ---> PD or LW first then PD(if they went LOTS of early armor) --> QSS / GA (QSS if they have dangerous CC that MUST avoided, or GA if they just dive hard and you need that small window of extra life to do damage) ---> BT is last. BUT you grab BT right after PD if and only if they show no signs of really building into armor. You do this because BT is a much larger dps increase than LW if they are not armor heavy. Or, if you feel Attack Speed and Crit will benefit you more, get another PD instead of BT or LW if they are low on armor. But get LW if their main divers have like 115 armor or more.
Typical midgame items to have are:
Zerkers / Dorans (1 or 2) / Vamp / IE / Zeal
Zerkers / Dorans (1 or 2) / BT / PD
Zerkers / Dorans (1 or 2) / TF / BF Sword (or about to get one) / Vamp
If it is not one of these three by the midgame, odds are you are playing very uncoventional, behind, or doing a sub optimal build.
Note you always start Boots 3, if you want success you do this. VERY RARELY i will start dorans blade when i have a soraka. But even then, its very risky. Boots 3 allows you to rectify mistakes in trades, allow more farm time when under harass, support your jungler if hes goin big, and mobility to dodge harass / make engagements.
Typically you only want 1 defensive item, whether it be GA / QSS / or BV. Any more and it wittles your dps too much. Get QSS if you keep dying to 1 or 2 core CC's that always result in your death, or if the enemy has Warwick, Malzahar, Skarner, or Urgot. Get GA if you are dying alot to excessive dives or focus fire. If the peel on your team is weak, or they go balls to the wall on you, GA is a good choice. BV is a good inbetween, giving decent MR and hp. If GA isn't cutting it because you are resurrecting in shitty situations anyway, i'd suggest BV.
Now to get more hero specific:
Ashe: Open either 1 or 2 and build standard (IE / PD / LW).
Caitlyn: Open either, preferably 2 though. The faster she gets BF, the better her sick early game harass damage is. Also if you have to choose between getting a second dorans or berserkers on her, get the berserkers. This is because that movement bonus + atk speed bonus allows you to better auto attack harass with less worry about retaliation.
Corki: Either openers are great. Now alot of people like to open Boots 3 ----> double dorans, phage, vamp. This obviously leads into the Berserkers / Trinity / LW / IE or BT build. Now I would like to clarify that trinity DOES NOT do as much damage as IE / PD, PD gives more raw damage output through the attack speed and crit. What trinity does is allow you to become better at small skirmishes and duels, and gives a bit of added utility. You pick trinity if you want a stronger mid game / plan to roam a bit. Another variation of the strong mid game / dueling build is to go Boots 3 ---> Dorans x 2, Phage, Vamp, then Black Cleaver. This leads into Trinity / Black Cleaver / IE, a build for mid game dominance. But the enemy AD will scale harder and WILL out dps you in team fights if not put enough pressure on. I always go IE -> Pd -> LW. But if you want to BT / trin / LW, or trin / BT / LW just be aware of this note. Now, to clarify, Trinity over IE shouldn't be suggested, but Trinity as a replacement for PD is typically ok (although its ~1500 gold more expensive). I typically like to open Boots 3 / Phage / Vamp / IE / Trinity.
Ezreal: Very similar to corki. It depends on the lane, but if i go back and have enough for phage, i get that first in place of 2 dorans, and then build IE, then trinity. They have basically identical builds, but corki is better consistent dps where as Ezreal has slightly stronger burst, a steroid, and better escape. On both Ezreal and corki another thing I like to do, after i get my Zerks/vamp/IE/Trin, i tend to get a PD afterwards if i can forgo the LW. The reason is because Trin only has 15% crit, where PD has 30%. The added crit and attack speed /movespeed allows for great consistent damage and mobility. So if they aren't stacking armor, i'd suggest that.
Graves: Open either 1 or 2, get IE as quick as possible, then build into PD / LW / standard. This is the standard, but recently i've been liking getting BT first, PD, then LW or IE (depending on their armor). The BT gives graves amazing push ability, dueling skill, survivability, and adds numbers to his QR combo. It also abuses his unbeatable midgame. So if i can get away with it, i go BT PD, but if I get behind or way ahead I just rush that IE and go standard, because its still the most DPS.
Kog'maw: This is where builds diverge. I consider Kog / Vayne very different because their built in DPS is so sick with on hits. I open boots 3 ---> double dorans and then get zeal first and vamp if needed. Slip in Beserkers when money allows. Now from zeal i gauge the flow of the lane. If I need some mobility and then havent gotten BF yet i go PD. If they got their BF then i also get BF, then finish PD, THEN finish IE. PD just scales so well with Kog'maw and is honestly his best item imo. It allows you to hit more with your W, and gives your obnxious range the ability to crit. It also allows you to kite harder with W range and E.
Miss Fortune: Open any of the builds and build standard (IE/PD/LW)
Sivir: Open either 1 or 2 then build standard
Tristana: Open either 1 or 2 then build standard. As trist do your absolute best to NEVER get wriggles. Her mid game is already awful, getting wriggles just makes you basically obsolete until deep late game.
Twitch: Open either 2 and then build standard.
Urgot: He builds the strangest of them all. Typically its Boots 3 ---> 2x Dorans Blade, Brutalizer, Glacial shroud ---> FH. GA, BT, LW. That is standard urgot. Ente made a good argument for getting Black Cleaver and Frozen Mallet as opposed to maybe LW and GA, this is fine too. Some go manamune, i think that item sucks personally. The main reason you get brut / FH is 1. great harass and inherent tankiness, 2. it comes real close to maxing your Cooldown Reduction, allowing you to get in as many missles in during an acid splash.
Varus: Open either 1 or 2 then build standard.
Vayne: Same as kog'maw. The exception is that i like to often build BT on her first THEN zeal ---> PD. This is because she has so much damage built in, and has to be in the thicket of the fight, that bonus damage / lifesteal helps her to stay alive. But going standard IE --> PD is fine too, but BT first has been too dependable on her.
This is primarily playstyles in laning phase / midgame. Because when objectives and team fighting starts the general playstyle of almost every carry is do not die, auto attack, kite, and focus fire / positioning. All carries will have Flash, except for 1 specific trist build.
I'm going to add a specific note here in that Exhaust / Flash both on the AD carry and support can be ok IF the enemy is running 2 very hard bruisers that cannot be dealt with otherwise, or if that small bit of relief would save you. Typically you do not want it as you shouldn't be that close to the bruisers, but if your team thinks double exhaust is fine, then go ahead. Your support should never have heal, as the aoe heal makes next to no difference when it comes to life or death for you.
Ashe: With Ashe you primarily want Heal / Flash or Cleanse / Flash. Ashe has no inherent escapes and is fully reliant on her kite ability and her team to keep her alive. Ignite is real akward on her because you never really want to be that close to use it, and she is really bad at finishing combos compared to Graves/Corki/Trist, etc. In lane you typically want to control the flow of the lane with your W, manipulating whether you want it pushing or not. W also makes for good cheap harass, especially under level 4. At level 1 if possible try to use your first hit crit passive on the enemy to gain a steady HP advantage over them, giving you some temporary lane dominance. Ashe typically wants to avoid aggressive plays in lane as she has a poor ability on closing kills. In team fights you must abuse your ability to kite and are expected to help initiate with your arrow. A money arrow wins games. Ashe has that added advantage of having such great utility with mid / late game damage. Her early laning phase should focus on farming. At 6 you can begin to make plays.
You want to max W first, then Q, then E. Be sure to get first rank of E at either lvl 2 or 4.
Best Supports: Alistar (kill lane / peel), Soraka (super sustain, spam 4 sec volley), Janna (super slow, kite, and peel ability), Sona (Good kite, poke)
Caitlyn: You want to usually run either Heal / Flash or Cleanse / Flash because her range makes it so that ignite won't be very useful. Caitlyn needs you to start abusing her range and auto attack harass enemy bot lane starting at LEVEL 1. You need to constantly be pecking at them while balancing cs-ing at the same time. The goal is to use the harass to make them so weak so they CANNOT engage you directly. The harass isn't meant to kill them, but to make it so that if they engage they lose and to zone cs. Use traps to either give you an easy disengage opportunity while harassing or to zone the enemy carry from last hitting (really good under their tower). Typically do not use traps to act as pseudo wards in river / tribush. These are wasted and should be used in lane. Your support should have ward coverage already. Traps can also make great anti-gank locations. Refer to trap pics later in the guide. Caitlyn has a weak mid - early late game because she has no steroid and is pretty pathetic damage wise until she gets IE / PD. Even then her kit is pretty mediocre in team fights, but her passive and built in escape / range makes for good late. She is an amazing kiter though, so abuse that, and use her range to stay safe while chipping away squishies in team fights. Its hard to catch a good Cait in a teamfight.
You want to max Q first, then its preference. I max W if laning phase goes on forever, but if not i then start to max E second then W.
Best supports: Nunu (makes up for her having no steroid, and kite), Janna (great poke power and peel), Soraka (super sustain and endless harass), Sona (Strong poke and zoning power), Taric (Good stun / set up burst)
Corki: You want to use Ignite / Flash for strong aggression. Corki has a strong early / mid / and late game. His passive makes it easy to last hit and gives huge dps bonuses as the game progresses. You have a good escape, an armor shred, and amazing poke with R. Corki can dominate early game by abusing his kit to burst down enemy bot lanes. Corki works best with an aggressive lane due to his high kill potential. His combo is typically EQRRR with auto attacks in between R shots. Never use your W to enter into a fight unless you can score a quick kill and get out, the exception is laning phase when you can score kills, though beware of river counter ganks when your W is down. Always save it to fly away.
You want to max Q first, then E then W. Some people max W second for shorter cooldown on escape, thats fine too.
Best Supports: Blitzcrank (great kill lane), Alistar (also great kill lane), Soraka (great sustain and can abuse corki's mana intensive harass kit). Leona (Amazing kill lane going with his aoe spells).
Ezreal: On Ezreal you want to use Ignite / Flash. Ezreal focuses alot on early aggression and has a great early game. His E is also strange in that it takes priority over many spells. Example: If blitz grabs you and you use E, your E overpowers grab and you instead land where you used your E. This has also worked with things like nautilus hook. Ezreal wants to try to dominate the early game with his bursty kit and focus on zoning if you can't land kills. Your mid game is rather strong and you are also hard to kill. Your late game is strong as your ult does TONS of aoe damage, instantly applies 50% steroid, and your E makes you real slippery in a team fight. The amazing thing about Ezreal is that he has an anti-steroid, which allows you to come out ahead in most trades. Not only does his W go through creeps, it is aoe, and hurts the opponents chance to do early auto attack damage to you, guaranteeing at least 1-2 more hits for you. Be aggressive, hit them with W / Q whenever they try to last hit, and abuse your decent range.
Max W, Q, then E.
Best Supports: Taric(Good kill lane), Leona (Great kill lane, works well with his aoe kit making it easy to proc her passive), Blitzcrank (Good kill lane), Soraka (Super sustain and endless farming with Q), Janna (AD steroid, adds to his slipperiness).
Graves: You want to get Ignite / Flash. Graves is very dominant and arguably has the strongest laning phase of all the carries. You have the strongest burst, an escape, and your W effectively shuts down auto attacks from the enemy for a few seconds. Your passive also makes trades easy. Your E allows to fix positioning mistakes and unlike other AD carry escapes, your E's cooldown is decreased when you hit enemies. So you can E in, do damage, and E out pretty quickly. Your W is very very overpowered, do not underestimate it. Always start team fights with tossing W on either their AD carry or their AP carry, this minor bit of disruption could decide doom for them very quickly. In lane you typically want to coordinate with your support on doing one HUGE burst blast, instantly killing them by using W ---> EQR + ignite to their face.
Max Q first, then E, then W.
Best supports: Blitzcrank (great kill lane), Leona (great kill lane, works well with his aoe), Soraka (super sustain / zoning power through your Q, and can push like mad), Taric (Super strong burst, and his armor shred works well with your full AD burst spells).
Kog'maw: You want Heal / Flash or Cleanse / Flash on Kog'maw since you are a mid/late game king with weak early game and no escapes. Your early game is pretty mediocre as you have no ad ratios except your R, have weak range when W is not on, and are sort of easy to bully. BUT the lane changes pace almost immediately when you turn 6. Your R does HUGE damage to enemy heroes, and if you are good at it, can make for great burst with your QWER / auto attack combos. It also allows you to start harassing / zoning. Mid / Late game you have amazing range and damage with W, so just use that to stay safely in the back and have your team peel for you as you eat the enemy alive.
Max W first, then max Q, then E.
Best Supports: Janna (since i like to go PD first, janna's shield gives you nice AD and great peel for "protect the kog"), Nunu (Kog scales AMAZINGLY with attack speed, blood boil and kite ability come with nunu), Blitzcrank (surprisingly strong burst when you hit 6), Soraka (super sustain, he has 3 nukes).
Miss Fortune: You want Ignite / Flash or Heal / Flash on MF. MF is a very aggressive laner with a strong presence. You decide the pace because of your speed and zoning potential. Your auto attacks are always stronger cuz of W, you get an auto reset due to Q, and you get heal reduction on your auto attacks making enemy pots / heals less effective. Abuse your speed and constantly peck at them with your increased damage from W, this forgoes armor runes and almost always guarantees advantage in trades, especially with health reduction. Hit em once or twice, use Q, hit em again, then back off. Sometimes i'll not even put points in E until level 13. Your ult is powerful for pushing and team fights, and can make funny plays when abusing bushes or towers during lane phase. You have a good steroid and your movement speed makes you tricky to engage in teamfights during mid/late game.
I max W first, then Q, then E. Many max Q first then W, but i like W better. Honestly its preference, maxing Q has slightly better burst, but i just use it as an attack reset, W allows me to have more consistant harass, better last hitting, and not have to waste mana on harass.
Best Supports: Alistar (good kill lane), Blitzcrank (Great kill lane), Leona (great kill lane, works good with ult too), Nunu (super movement / attack speed and kite), Janna (strong engages and disengage due to both of your speeds, slows, and shield.)
Sivir: On Sivir you want Ignite / Flash, Heal / Flash, or Cleanse / Flash. Sivir is strange because she has an AMAZING kit, but her only downside is her attack range. Her passive makes it so if you want to dedicate into a fight its easy, but disengaging or fighting off harass can be awkward due to your low range and low mana pool. If you are good with your E, you can make very smart trades by negating a buckshot or some spell and getting mana. A fun trick is using E to swallow Cait traps for free mana. Your boomerang makes for STRONG burst, but be careful with harassing with it as it is pricey. Your R is great, and i prefer to use sivir in comps with a bruiser jungler and bruiser top lane. Her W is also great because it resets your attack, making good auto attack burst.
Max Q first, then W, then E.
Best Supports: Leona (amazing kill lane with your Q), Soraka (super sustain and super push), Taric (his stun and armor shred make your boomerang terrifying, and both your ults are auras).
Tristana: You want either Ignite / Flash or Heal / Ignite on Trist. The Heal / Ignite build is risky, but because her W resets on a kill, and if you play smart, you can be SUPER aggressive and will almost always win every lane trade. Tristana has a very aggressive kit and has a heal reduction making her dangerous in lane. To play her in lane you gotta act similar to graves, in where you coordinate with your support to do one giant burst. Your support will go in with a stun / grab, then you jump on them with W (and while in mid jump you can STILL CAST), then cast E and auto attack them. Try using R as either a finishing move, or using it to knock them into a wall for longer CC or backwards so they have farther to run. You also have the best steroid for mid / late game and your ult is a great built in peel. You also have the best AD passive with free range. You want to do your best to abuse your early game burst until you're like level 9-10, then start maxing Q to prep for mid / late game. Your mid game is weak due to no AD ratios, but your Q and passive makes for a monstrous late mid game / late game.
Max W first, and get E to level 2. Then max Q after that. If you are winning lane easily do this.
W-E-W-E-W-R-W-Q-Q-Q-R-Q-Q-W-E-E-E
If the lane is sorta even, or if you are starting to win / slightly winning do this
W-E-W-E-W-R-W-Q-W-Q-R-Q-Q-Q-E-E-E
Best Supports: Alistar (A terrifying kill lane), Blitzcrank (also scary kill lane), Taric (decent kill lane), Leona (Kill lane).
Urgot: On Urgot you want either Ignite / Flash, Exhaust / Flash, or Heal / Flash. Now urgot i have the least experience with as I play him the least. He just isn't my style. But from what I know you aren't are "true" AD carry, and instead work like an AD caster with tons of tankiness. You have HUGE lane dominance early and can typically out harass or bully the other bot lane with acid splash / missiles. When harassing in lane toss your E on them and spam Q on their target. At levels 1-6 you'll only be able to get like 1-2 rockets off in 1 acid splash, but as you get brutalizer / glacial shroud you can then do 3.. Also when fighting turn on W so your attacks slow them. Your ult makes for great initiations and is one of the reason you want an early GA, so that you can start fights with ult (swapping in preferably their Ad or AP), then survive and continue the fight. Urgot is very much like Ashe in where you are very reliant on your team, you truly become less of the "carry" and more of a core part of the team working as a whole. Urgot becomes a dps monster who disrupts the enemy with his slow, heavy armor reduction, gradual damage, and his amazing ult initation. This is why GA is important to get as your next big item after glacial or FH, because it makes it so focusing you is just suicide on the enemy team's part.
Max Q first, then W, then E.
Best supports: Leona (great kill lane / zoning), Blitzcrank (great kill lane), Soraka (super sustain and crazy harass), Taric (tons of armor shred, and good kill potential), Janna (Good Ad for missles and MS)
Varus: You want Ignite / Flash on Varus. Varus has some pretty good burst and has the added perk of having an immobilizing R that can spread in a team fight. The main downside is that he has no built in escapes. His burst is strong, but sort of awkward. What makes him amazing is the reason why i like MF, is his W's poke ability. Utilize this and his decent range to poke your enemy to death, acting like a cait, to where if they engage you head on they will lose because you wittled them down. In lane you act like Cait from 1-6, but when 6 happens the lane changes. Then pretend your graves, coordinate with your support. You open the fight with your Ult, then hit them 3 times, use E, then keep hitting them, and hit them with a quick Q (don't charge it, just use it to proc your W), you can slip in ignite during this. If they stun or grab or whatever AFTER you ult, the CC is like 4 seconds, the enemy is typically dead. He has amazing team fight presence due to his R, and his passive makes him snowball in teamfights after 1 kill. Your W makes you a good tank killer and strong lane presence.
Max W first, then E, then Q. Some prefer Q over E, but the charge time loses auto dps, so i prefer E.
Best Supports: Alistar (good kill lane), blitzcrank (good kill lane), Janna (strong poke power / peel), Taric (good kill lane), Nunu (good kite / poke power), Sona (Strong poke and good ult combination).
Vayne: You want Ignite / Flash or Cleanse / Flash on Vayne. Vayne is the definition of a hyper carry. She has the weakest early game but has the most POTENTIAL late game. She is, in my opinion, fully dependent on your team. If your team dives and ganks for your lane, feeding you, you become an unstoppable monster. If they can't peel properly for you, you are useless. Vayne has some rough subtleties to her. Always have your side bushes warded so you can use your Q to position for your E's wall stun. When you see your opponent has overextended and you and your support can score a kill, pop R and try to use Q to get better positioning and set up stuns. Otherwise just farm and prepare for your late game.
Max Q first, then W, then E. Some max E over Q first, but i feel thats too risky.
Best supports: Alistar ( perfect mix of kill lane / sustain), Taric (same as alistar), Soraka (super sustain for farming), Janna (decent mix of defense / peel, and scoring kills with her shield and your Q / R), Nunu (allows for easy positioning and Vayne scales amazingly with attack speed).
Now most of these pictures can be used / abused from both sides of the map (blue or purple). Though as far as Caitlyn zoning goes, I do think purple side has the better angles / lane side to zone / harass from. Also, PLEASE NOTE, that these are NOT THE ONLY WAY traps should be used. I use them in clutch moments to snare a stunned opponent, I will often improvise trap formations depending on how the lane is going and how the lane constantly evolves. However, these are good benchmark locations / techniques that can be used, and don't really have fault (at their intended purpose anyway.
Tower harassing: From Blue Side
Tower harassing: From Purple Side
Also note, at both tower harassing positions. Whichever side Cait is harassing/standing/zoning from, your support (preferablly Sona or Janna) should be on the other side harassing/zoning from there. That way, all portions of the lane are have pressure, so last hitting by the opponent will almost always be met with harass damage.
Also keep in mind that the intent of these traps' positioning is to force the opponent to step into one to get CS, or to funnel themselves to be at the mercy of your harass. If they step on a trap, hit them with an auto attack and a Q, then reset the trap. Your support should always be very aggressive and be forcing them into a position where they step on a trap to cs, or get hit by you. Also, don't forget to cs yourself, or this harass means nothing.
Some simple lane zoning:
Limiting jungle routes:
When pushed to your 2nd tier, this will ease your mind in case your worried about a jungler coming through your own jungle while you are trying to cs or freeze lane:
This is a decent array to set up if you are afraid of being dived:
I'll add more to the guide, but im tired for now. I will add a section on Match ups (lane comps versus other lane comps), a picture section for positioning in lane and when to engage / how to engage, and whatever else.
#Edit - Updated some ezreal stuff, Cait stuff, masteries, a rune page. Will try to get some more picture sections up tonight, and will maybe try to set up lane comps / thought processes when fighting certain lanes this weekend.
#Edit 2 - Added a Cait Traps section for some basic trap locations / nice tricks / decent intro to using her traps both for security, harass, and zoning potential. Obviously it is tentative, and changes game per game, but its a nice intro.
Flat MR is preferable in lanes where the support and/or AD has a good amount of magic damage/harass. I recognize that scaling works better later on but coming out of the laning phase on a decent footing feels more important to me than that extra bit of MR lategame. Sona, Leona , alistar, corki, ezreal, trist are examples.
Same deal with Masteries. When going any xx/9/xx, 3 points can be either put into armour or MR, depending on the lane.
On most ADs, when faced with a choice of zerks + dorans or 2x dorans, zerks + dorans is 99% of the time the correct answer
Corki actually matches really really well with leona since with Corki's E up, he can proc every sunlight pretty readily which is why he's so scary with her.
Sona should be one of the supports with varus. They both have scary poke and come 6, they can immobilize one/two person/people for 4 seconds. it's like an ashe sona lane but with actual killing power.
I'm gonna include Sona on a few comps, i forgot to add her simply because at 2k elo almost NO ONE uses her, shes just simply too weak at the moment. And yes i noted the flat MR blues. the small MR is good against some magic comps true, BUT the progressive is just much more worth it. And if their magic damage is much of an issue early, just buy more pots. And if their burst is magic, odds are the 12 MR would not have saved you anyway. But 24 mr at 18 is used to help you from random AOE damage. That, imo, is the core purpose for MR quints, to help agianst random aoe and stray spells from affecting your AD presence in a team fight. And i said corki matches with leona didnt i? thats one of my favorite lanes.
Why do you prefer Flat Armor over Hp per level yellows?
At a level 1 fight, HP per level yellows will only grant 20 hp and that 13 armor boost ashe prevents around 8% more damage with diminished returns if you have other armor skills. Or at 70 damage, that prevents 5.6 damage per auto attack. Around 4 auto attacks worth of damage. Unless you're taking a tonne of physical harass to the face, at which point you're probably not winning your lane anyway, why is that more valuable.
The only time I can see it as valuable is when your opponent is not running any form of armor pen under an AD Carry. At level 1, if you're knocked down to 5 armor due to them using runes and masteries, you're taking a whole 16% more damage than your opponent who used the armor boost to start at 28. Or at 65 damage per hit, around 12 more per shot.
And just by cost, the free 175 HP is generally not covered in any itemization, assists against magic damage as well as physical, and costs more GP worth than 13 armor (475 versus.. around 210). Especially late game when the difference between 70 and 85 armor is 4% less damage (Or realistically, 6% taking into account last whisper). At 400 damage an attack, taking 24 less damage means you gotta tank 8 AA's before the value of the 175 HP is equalled.
Level 1 fight: HP: You start with 20 more HP Armor: You take around 8% less damage. They would deal 16% more damage if they had high armor pen. At attack damage of 70, you take 6 damage or 12 damage less per hit. So if you eat less than 4 attacks, you come out more ahead with HP if they don't have armor pen.
Then at level 2 you have 40 more HP, and the armor prevents 7-13 damage. So suddenly, the bonus HP is better if you eat less than 6/3 attacks.
And for each level progressing, the armor has less impact and the HP has more. This is involving defensive masteries I just realized though.
On June 01 2012 12:39 Fuzzmosis wrote: Serious question time:
Why do you prefer Flat Armor over Hp per level yellows?
At a level 1 fight, HP per level yellows will only grant 20 hp and that 13 armor boost ashe prevents around 8% more damage with diminished returns if you have other armor skills. Or at 70 damage, that prevents 5.6 damage per auto attack. Around 4 auto attacks worth of damage. Unless you're taking a tonne of physical harass to the face, at which point you're probably not winning your lane anyway, why is that more valuable.
The only time I can see it as valuable is when your opponent is not running any form of armor pen under an AD Carry. At level 1, if you're knocked down to 5 armor due to them using runes and masteries, you're taking a whole 16% more damage than your opponent who used the armor boost to start at 28. Or at 65 damage per hit, around 12 more per shot.
And just by cost, the free 175 HP is generally not covered in any itemization, assists against magic damage as well as physical, and costs more GP worth than 13 armor (475 versus.. around 210). Especially late game when the difference between 70 and 85 armor is 4% less damage (Or realistically, 6% taking into account last whisper). At 400 damage an attack, taking 24 less damage means you gotta tank 8 AA's before the value of the 175 HP is equalled.
Hey, I know I'm bad at this game. Just curious.
Armor makes potions more effective. Flat HP doesn't. Armor makes heals from your support (or the summoner spell) more effective. Flat HP doesn't. Armor makes lifesteal more effective. Flat HP doesn't.
Taking HP means you're going to take more damage than your opponent in literally every single trade. If you look at EHP after potions & support heals (or even just potions) you're waaaaay behind the flat armor seals. Not only that, but if you ever take creep aggro you're also taking more from that, too. Not unlikely when you trade using autoattacks.
Coming as a pre-level 30 Leona main, I am curious as to why Leona isn't listed as an amazing kill lane with vayne or varus, and cait too to an extent. Vayne has some pretty decent burst damage, so locking down one of their champions in laning phase allows free reign for a somewhat short range champion.Additionally, Leona's E and vaynes tumble appear to have some pretty good synergy, as it allows Vayne to get in close to pop Leona's passive more effectively and lets her get a good angle to pin the kill target.
With Caitlyn, the ability for Cait to be miles away behind the minions while still being able to auto attack allows some serious synergy with Leona's passive and her "in their face" play style. Since Leona has to commit to a harassment/kill, Cait's ability to keep the lane weak gives Leona some breathing room to disengage a bit easier, as well as make it easier to burst down enemy champs. Plus nothing is more frustrating to get caught in a Leona E+Q+Cait trap especially after cait gets some attack speed.
Varus is similar to Cait in that he keeps the other lane weak and allows Leona to party on their carry/support. Additionally, his ult stun allows a ridiculous chain stun, which makes Leona+Varus level 6 engagements really deadly. Plus while Leona ties up their champ Varus can stack his W, which combined with his volley slow and his ridiculous Q range makes running from fights really, really unfortunate for the other team.
Granted, I am a bit biased, as I ONLY play leona support, so I probably overexaggerated Leona's AD Carry synergy.
Armor over hp/lv because the way you get fed early is by trading with the opposing carry under creep fire and the mitigation on creep shots is SO worth it. I'd even go so far as to take armor/creep dmg redux in defensive over the hp/lv and flat hp.
On June 01 2012 13:08 DeltaBravo wrote: Coming as a pre-level 30 Leona main, I am curious as to why Leona isn't listed as an amazing kill lane with vayne or varus, and cait too to an extent. Vayne has some pretty decent burst damage, so locking down one of their champions in laning phase allows free reign for a somewhat short range champion.Additionally, Leona's E and vaynes tumble appear to have some pretty good synergy, as it allows Vayne to get in close to pop Leona's passive more effectively and lets her get a good angle to pin the kill target.
With Caitlyn, the ability for Cait to be miles away behind the minions while still being able to auto attack allows some serious synergy with Leona's passive and her "in their face" play style. Since Leona has to commit to a harassment/kill, Cait's ability to keep the lane weak gives Leona some breathing room to disengage a bit easier, as well as make it easier to burst down enemy champs. Plus nothing is more frustrating to get caught in a Leona E+Q+Cait trap especially after cait gets some attack speed.
Varus is similar to Cait in that he keeps the other lane weak and allows Leona to party on their carry/support. Additionally, his ult stun allows a ridiculous chain stun, which makes Leona+Varus level 6 engagements really deadly. Plus while Leona ties up their champ Varus can stack his W, which combined with his volley slow and his ridiculous Q range makes running from fights really, really unfortunate for the other team.
Granted, I am a bit biased, as I ONLY play leona support, so I probably overexaggerated Leona's AD Carry synergy.
Caitlyn actually makes for a really poor burst lane. If you want to have a burst lane, why even bother with Cait when you can get far more effectiveness with Graves/Corki/Trist, etc. With Cait lanes you want to utilize her harass and zoning power, Leona forces the fight on them and makes for awkward positioning, but alistar and blitz allow YOU to manipulate zoning and where they are forced to be (like they have to avoid walls or always avoid bushes), and ali also supplies sustain.
Varus/ Leona has potential i agree, and honestly could probably work i just have never done it and i feel it its a two edged sword. It either snowballs real hard, but i also feel if you get behind it has little chance of coming back against a good enemy bot lane due to no sustain and being forced to fully dedicate to fights since BOTH of you have no escapes. I will try out varus / leona tho.
Are you kidding? Most AD's use them, it results in the same mr as flats at level 9...which is about 2 levels before laning phase ends, and by the time team fights happens its already higher than flats...how is that bad? Odds are you won't encounter the enemy ap much until levels 8 +, so no reason to not get scaling.
I see you use flat AD for both reds and quints. Isn't it better to use ArP reds + flat AD quints, considering your opponent probably has armor runes, and maybe 21/9/0 masteries?
On June 01 2012 14:51 jambonkingcool wrote: I see you use flat AD for both reds and quints. Isn't it better to use ArP reds + flat AD quints, considering your opponent probably has armor runes, and maybe 21/9/0 masteries?
It sounds good in theory but if you actually play it out, it makes little difference in the damage you deal early when trading and also gimps your ability to last hit. Flat AD is better since last hitting is the key to playing AD well, since ADs scale so well with farm. The most important part is that with most ADs, you won't have to shoot minions under tower tiwce to kill them, once is sufficient.
Edit:: Another reason why is that most abilities (sivir's boomerang, caitlyn's Q, Ashe's volley) scale off of AD. The added AD does more than any arpen would for a lot of skills.
On June 01 2012 14:23 jcc wrote: Are you kidding? Most AD's use them, it results in the same mr as flats at level 9...which is about 2 levels before laning phase ends, and by the time team fights happens its already higher than flats...how is that bad? Odds are you won't encounter the enemy ap much until levels 8 +, so no reason to not get scaling.
At pro level, most games are decided by 9. And the current pro meta uses more and more multi-man ganks where 4 person teamfights happen at low low levels and make a huge effect on the game
On June 01 2012 14:23 jcc wrote: Are you kidding? Most AD's use them, it results in the same mr as flats at level 9...which is about 2 levels before laning phase ends, and by the time team fights happens its already higher than flats...how is that bad? Odds are you won't encounter the enemy ap much until levels 8 +, so no reason to not get scaling.
Caitlyn + Taric used to be good, but i never see it run anymore and honestly there is no real synergy. Why run Cait Taric when you could do Graves Taric, Corki Taric, or Varus Taric. See what i mean? Cait has better synergy with the supports i put her with in my opinion. Of course this guide is mostly based on my play experience, so take it with some grain of salt .
Ezreal Sona used to be good imo, but its very mana intensive and most good bot lanes will destroy you once your mana reaches like 1/3, i've seen it attempted but it almost always falls through, i'll play test it some in practice though and see if its worth putting in again.
I sort of play it by ear. Typically i always try to get the 2 Dorans first for better survivability, some sustain, and to keep my AD relatively high for when the creeps get under tower i can land every last hit (because they gain HP over time). If my next go back i can get zeal, i get it. But on my first go back if i can get 2 dorans / Zerks, i do that. Basically my rule of thumb, if you can get at least 1 doran and zeal, get the zeal. If not, just get the dorans x 2 and zerks. Going doranless is dangerous though, since it just makes him all the squishier.
And thanks for the compliments, i'm glad it helped ^^. Theres more to come.
On June 02 2012 04:34 jcc wrote: Caitlyn + Taric used to be good, but i never see it run anymore and honestly there is no real synergy. Why run Cait Taric when you could do Graves Taric, Corki Taric, or Varus Taric. See what i mean? Cait has better synergy with the supports i put her with in my opinion. Of course this guide is mostly based on my play experience, so take it with some grain of salt .
Cait has baller synergy with Taric: Stun + trap Most ADs can't even hit Cait during the trap, so it a bunch of free damage. Which I hope you knew already. It sure as hell is more synergy than she has with Soraka.
On June 02 2012 04:34 jcc wrote: Ezreal Sona used to be good imo, but its very mana intensive and most good bot lanes will destroy you once your mana reaches like 1/3, i've seen it attempted but it almost always falls through, i'll play test it some in practice though and see if its worth putting in again.
I could say the same for Cait/Sona. Exactly the same. Because it's the same principle: A zone/poke lane.
Your only argument seems to be "nobody plays it anymore"...
The thing about Cait / Sona is that its far too mana intensive. The thing about Cait lanes is that the whole time you are dancing on a knife's edge. Cait starts out with a considerable advantage from levels 1 - 4, but then her advantage just stays as a small advantage, in that you always get the first hits and decide typically where fights happen. BUT, if the enemy lane lands a kill on you or your support and starts even the smallest snowball a Cait lane has NEXT TO NO WAY of coming back. Cait lanes scale terribly and is fully reliant on early dominance. If you slip up once the lane is over for you.
stun + trap sounds nice but the delay time is pretty long on trap, and the time it takes for the stun to reach them and cast your trap, odds are they already walked out. The traps has a long delay from casting ---> activating. Alistar would suit the combo better as his knock up ends up closer to 2-2.5 seconds. even longer if you hit them against a wall. Cait sona used to be the best lane, but they have no real synergy besides range, and if you dont gain huge dominance early, sona's sustain will not be enough to keep you up. Because her mana costs are so high, she has to pick harass or sustain. If you are forced to sustain before 6, you lost the lane and will have a weak midgame.
Again these are most of my experiences, and Cait is a hero I don't play as often as the others, so if you like Cait Taric go ahead, but at high elo Cait is rarely seen (from my experiences), and the only Cait lanes i've seen work are Cait / janna, Cait / nunu.
Caitlyn Taric still works, the key is that you have to set the trap as the stun from taric is in flight which requires good reflexes or good communication. It can still wreck shorter ranged ADs if they get caught since they're taking 3+ auto attacks and usually a Q from caitlyn as well. The main problem is that there's much less kill potential compared to taric+graves, ali+trist etc. You're relying on being able to pull off the combo two to three times in a short span of time in order to get kills or do it consistently enough to force them out of lane.
Sona is a somewhat situational support. She goes well with any AD that is inherently strong in lane (Graves, Varus, MF etc) since they can generally take care of themselves meaning most other ADs will not want to initiate trades. If the AD does take damage, it's generally enough for them to pot up since they haven't taken enough damage to necessitate healing from sona. If she's forced to divide mana between healing and harass, she runs oom during the time where she's strongest (levels 3-7) and has more frontloaded burst than most AD carries. She's not as good with laners like ashe for example where she'll most likely have to go QWWEW to live the laning phase.
I like this overview a lot, it describes the nature of every ad pretty well and matches with my experience for the most part.
Maybe you could add that bot lane became pretty aggressive in contrast to the past where it was more or less a farm fest. These days, strong laners seem to be the prefered choice to keep the option to go all in when necessary.
What I am trying to say is that (both in solo queue and competitive tournament play) aggressive and strong bot lane combinations seem to be more common. I see Kog / Graves / Corki more often than Ashe / Cait / Trist. The former three are more far more consistent than the latter regarding their power curve during the game which is probably why people play them more.
Another reason why is that most abilities (sivir's boomerang, caitlyn's Q, Ashe's volley) scale off of AD. The added AD does more than any arpen would for a lot of skills.
That is actually wrong thinking it is the other way around. If you have spells Armorpen gets better and if you have no physical spells ad gets better.
With the recent nerf to flat MR those are a bit better in my opinion its still mostly better to use flat. I dont really see a reason to use 21/0/9 often the buff duration is not great imo and if you really want manaregen im pretty sure that using manaregen runes and go 21/9/0 is better (thats what I do atleast the little bit MR you get is not that important in my opinion) If I dont get heal I usually go for less minion damage aswell. That is actually a really good mastery. If im not against heavy magic damage in lane (for example trist sona would be such a lane)
Please use manaregen runes if you want the manaregen on urgot and get 9 points in defense (the hp is just so good esp cause you can get dominated lvl 1/2 which might lose you the lane)
The Holy Trinity of AD: Infinity's Edge / Phantom Dancer / Last Whisper
I dont agree that is the most common build but I think its overrated and the lastwhisper can be replaced by phantom dancer in many situations(in some lw is obv better and for some1 like graves/trist, cause of the as/spells for graves its pretty much always better) if you dont believe me do the maths the cutoff should be around 160 armor and if you get bt the cutoff is around 230 (depends on buffs/debuffs etc)
more for items you are correct with the finished item build but! (at least in europe) it is quite common to go bf -> zeal -> IE or zeal -> bf -> pd or bf -> zeal -> pd -> IE all depends on your money situation
urgot GA, BT, LW.
I definetly disagree in saying that so onesided. Quite common items with Urgot are: BC, Warmogs, Frozen mallet, Randuin, Maw in addition to yours LW is actually not really good on Urgot because of the percentage armor reduction on his e (check the wiki for armor calculations)
for playstyle: with ashe you should say to either skill e at 2 or 4
im not sure how you rate the supports inbetween but I would say soraka is by far the best support for caitlyn
With kogmaw the usual build is w > e > q (maybe onepoint early on but not even that is mandatory)
For MF you max w > q > e personally I like to max w > e > q (obv 1 point early on in q ) because the laning phase is over when you start putting points in your q and in teamfights you will not cast it anyways but thats preference I would definetly rate taric way higher for mf (you didnt even mention him but im maybe a bit weird that I would always prefer taric over ali I know that ali is really high rated in us)
for Sivir you should add that you should keep 75 mana for your e
ah your urgot post was really bad you can get 3 qs in one e all the time when you get above 25% cdr (I actually dont know it 100% how much but glacial/brutalizer is enough) you can get 4 in nothing with 1 or 2. You should add that Urgots ultimate gives him huge amounts of MR and armor. I think that blitzcrank and ali are not that great with Urgot janna is way better then both of these (huge amount of ad + ms buff) should add leona aswell way better then ali.
For Varus I would think that e>w>q is better because maxing e reduces the cooldown by quite a lot. But I might be wrong here cause I dont play him that much.
I dont agree with vayne beeing the best ad carry lategame in my opinion full itemized Tristana/ashe are better then vayne. Corki and Kogmaw(only 50% uptime on his w hurts his real lategame a little bit) can compete (the truedmg is actually pretty much the same) Vaynes true strength is her midgame where the gifted AD trough the ultimate truley shines.
I think overall the guide is okay but not that great. Im currently the ad carry for Millenium, im not saying that to impress anyone, I just say that so you understand that I know what im talking about and that im not someone who just talks without knowing much about that.
edit: some people ask when to get this when to get that. I know if you are knew its nice to have some kind of guideline (I have this problem when I play dota atm ) but at least for me and im pretty sure thats the case for most ad players it always depends on your money situation. I want to get my Phantomdancer, I want to get my Infinity and in between I want to get farm in lane without dying. So I get 1-2 dorans (I think 0 dorans is really bad) 0-1 vamp scepter(sometimes this just isnt needed) as boots (yes I think you should most of the time get them during laningphase). After that I get the items for IE and PD. One thing which I need to "learn" or do better is to get the cloak of agility when I have bf sword and a zeal so I can either get PD or IE depending how much money I have when I have to recall.
Usually (at least at higher levels of play) there is not a situation where you want to recall. There are situations where you have to recall to keep up with your laningopponent to get ready for drake/baron/pushing etc etc.
@ Ente alot of your stuff, especially like how you say to go frozen mallet or warmogs for urgot are more for real organized ranked 5v5's, alot of this guide is more centered for solo queue true so i do appreciate the opinions you posted and will take some of it for consideration in my builds (i still think BC on urgot sounds awful though).
And yes i know that builds are actually very flexible and that you can get items in many different orders, and its all situation dependent BUT to describe that in absolute full detail would be nothing short of taxing. I did the best I could so forgive me if its sub par. And i didn't meant o say vayne was the best late game, i don't think she is either, but she has some of the highest potential dps in the late game.
And i dont clarify that urgot's ult gives defensive stats and stuff because i say at the begining that i expect most people to know the abilities, i just kind of described situations. I personally don't agree with mana regen runes, I used to use them but found the effect was small. I do know that alot of urgots use 21/9/0, but i've been play testing both and that is my current urgot page. I'll try out the one you suggested though. Thanks for the input.
And ya i typically only recall if i absolutely have to, or after a good gank / trade and they recall first or i have a decent advantage.
Couple things. First, Soraka/Ezreal is about my favorite lane ever. I can spam all day with pretty much no care, it's really great zoning and poke against most lane comps.
Secondly, I'd like to ask when you all use Heal as a Ranged AD summoner spell. I generally like it when my support is a healer already, it allows for some very cool baits and survival fights that you wouldn't think. Also, when I'm playing Ez and go Sheen early or generally anyone where I skip out on Vamp Scepter (which I do occasionally), I like having Heal in my back pocket, since I don't find myself using Ignite far too often. What about you?
ok explaining how armor works ^.^ we have 4 different types of negative armor changing they are getting applied in that order: Flat armor Reduction (for example BC Nasus e etc), thats the only thing which can get the armor to negative Percantage Armor Reduction (for example Urgot E) Flat Armor Penetration (Runes, Mastery) Percantage Armor Penetration (LW, Mastery)
Yes I usually dont get BC either but I dont like lw either so I will show you the dps which you would get if you have a lw and no lw. the stats I will take: 20% Armorreduction (maxed e) 46 Armorpen (armorpen red/quint/mastery/brutalizer) 10% Armorpenetration(mastery) or 46% Armorpenetration (with lw and mastery) I assume 200 Armor which is highly unlikely because you will mostly hit squishies anyway. 102.6 armor without lw 61.56 with lw (with a full stacked bc it would be 70.2) so the armor difference would just be 40 and 200 armor is a target which you will most likely not hit and as Urgot you will not be able to kill them anyway.
One thing which I forgot to mention is exhaust. I think exhaust is a summoner (again ) which the ad carry can take. Yes I think double exhaust on botlane is not wasted. Sitation where I would take exhaust on ad carries: the enemy has 2 dangerous bruisers for example Poppy/Jax (played against that in solo q was really annoying) and you play an ad carry which is either not dependand on the ignite debuff (I played MF this game for varus would be ok aswell) or you cant pick heal and want a defensive summoner (if you play vs MF/trist/varus) I think for URgot exhaust is pretty good aswell because hes insanly close to the opponent. I mean that for urgot you shouldnt only use the ultimate to initiate it should be used in pretty much every fight you take to give you armor/MR and to slow down your oponent (for example you, or your support exhausts and after your exhaust is over you swap to get the armor)
Edit: about the thing with organized premades. I dont see a big difference in item build for me between premade/non premade. In playstyle yes but why items? Drake mostly gets timed aswell mostly you should be there when it spawns etc.
Another reason why is that most abilities (sivir's boomerang, caitlyn's Q, Ashe's volley) scale off of AD. The added AD does more than any arpen would for a lot of skills.
That is actually wrong thinking it is the other way around. If you have spells Armorpen gets better and if you have no physical spells ad gets better.
With the recent nerf to flat MR those are a bit better in my opinion its still mostly better to use flat. I dont really see a reason to use 21/0/9 often the buff duration is not great imo and if you really want manaregen im pretty sure that using manaregen runes and go 21/9/0 is better (thats what I do atleast the little bit MR you get is not that important in my opinion) If I dont get heal I usually go for less minion damage aswell. That is actually a really good mastery. If im not against heavy magic damage in lane (for example trist sona would be such a lane)
Please use manaregen runes if you want the manaregen on urgot and get 9 points in defense (the hp is just so good esp cause you can get dominated lvl 1/2 which might lose you the lane)
The Holy Trinity of AD: Infinity's Edge / Phantom Dancer / Last Whisper
I dont agree that is the most common build but I think its overrated and the lastwhisper can be replaced by phantom dancer in many situations(in some lw is obv better and for some1 like graves/trist, cause of the as/spells for graves its pretty much always better) if you dont believe me do the maths the cutoff should be around 160 armor and if you get bt the cutoff is around 230 (depends on buffs/debuffs etc)
more for items you are correct with the finished item build but! (at least in europe) it is quite common to go bf -> zeal -> IE or zeal -> bf -> pd or bf -> zeal -> pd -> IE all depends on your money situation
I definetly disagree in saying that so onesided. Quite common items with Urgot are: BC, Warmogs, Frozen mallet, Randuin, Maw in addition to yours LW is actually not really good on Urgot because of the percentage armor reduction on his e (check the wiki for armor calculations)
for playstyle: with ashe you should say to either skill e at 2 or 4
im not sure how you rate the supports inbetween but I would say soraka is by far the best support for caitlyn
With kogmaw the usual build is w > e > q (maybe onepoint early on but not even that is mandatory)
For MF you max w > q > e personally I like to max w > e > q (obv 1 point early on in q ) because the laning phase is over when you start putting points in your q and in teamfights you will not cast it anyways but thats preference I would definetly rate taric way higher for mf (you didnt even mention him but im maybe a bit weird that I would always prefer taric over ali I know that ali is really high rated in us)
for Sivir you should add that you should keep 75 mana for your e
ah your urgot post was really bad you can get 3 qs in one e all the time when you get above 25% cdr (I actually dont know it 100% how much but glacial/brutalizer is enough) you can get 4 in nothing with 1 or 2. You should add that Urgots ultimate gives him huge amounts of MR and armor. I think that blitzcrank and ali are not that great with Urgot janna is way better then both of these (huge amount of ad + ms buff) should add leona aswell way better then ali.
For Varus I would think that e>w>q is better because maxing e reduces the cooldown by quite a lot. But I might be wrong here cause I dont play him that much.
I dont agree with vayne beeing the best ad carry lategame in my opinion full itemized Tristana/ashe are better then vayne. Corki and Kogmaw(only 50% uptime on his w hurts his real lategame a little bit) can compete (the truedmg is actually pretty much the same) Vaynes true strength is her midgame where the gifted AD trough the ultimate truley shines.
I think overall the guide is okay but not that great. Im currently the ad carry for Millenium, im not saying that to impress anyone, I just say that so you understand that I know what im talking about and that im not someone who just talks without knowing much about that.
edit: some people ask when to get this when to get that. I know if you are knew its nice to have some kind of guideline (I have this problem when I play dota atm ) but at least for me and im pretty sure thats the case for most ad players it always depends on your money situation. I want to get my Phantomdancer, I want to get my Infinity and in between I want to get farm in lane without dying. So I get 1-2 dorans (I think 0 dorans is really bad) 0-1 vamp scepter(sometimes this just isnt needed) as boots (yes I think you should most of the time get them during laningphase). After that I get the items for IE and PD. One thing which I need to "learn" or do better is to get the cloak of agility when I have bf sword and a zeal so I can either get PD or IE depending how much money I have when I have to recall.
Usually (at least at higher levels of play) there is not a situation where you want to recall. There are situations where you have to recall to keep up with your laningopponent to get ready for drake/baron/pushing etc etc.
Trying to squeeze out an extra PD isnt going to help you at all late game. you're going to be hitting for so much less than if you had LW with its 40 damage and 40% armor pen, which i think with the 10% mastery is like 47% or something?
I dont think ive ever seen a situation where an extra PD would be better than LW
as I said the cutoff for Ashe (I just checked it) for PD PD IE AS boots vs PD LW IE AS boots is ~150 Armor for PD PD IE BT as boots vs PD LW IE BT as botts it is ~230 Armor not included are external buffs/debuffs For example if you have a nunu which buffs you getting a second PD is always bad and if you have a Janna PD gets better (even with aegis/redpot pd gets better) with champs which reduces the enemy armor further like Karthus, Renekton, Jarvan, Rammus etc LW gets worse. In addition PD gives you way more utility with easier kiting because you have more as and ms.
I dont say that LW is worse then PD I just say that LW every game is not that great in my opinion. LW obv has some advantages: its cheaper a full build LW is obv better then a half build PD. LW works on spells (so for example for graves q r ashe w etc its great) you can get pretty fast more then 2.5 as (with trist or graves for example)
One interesting thing for Kogmaw the cutoff is actually over 400 armor (with the w on)
@Ente, Yeah alot of the deep mathcraft i don't exactly know, though i did know armor reduction precedes armor pen percents. And yes i agree, i tend to get more PD's if i have janna, and BT or LW or something when i have nunu. I suppose i can add some more of these subtleties to the guide, it makes sense to. Some of these things are just common sense since i been doing AD for a while lol.
Appreciate the effort jcc. If I were to make one recommendation though, it would be to focus on more overarching principles (such as in your Role section) and not so much on small individual champion guides - those champions should have their own threads already that can/should go into greater detail than you can here.
Questions of general, overall knowledge of roles that I think would be interesting to put in the guide:
-Why AD bot? Under what circumstances could ranged AD carry work top/mid/jungle/support? How does playstyle/build differ in these situations?
-Why is it that flat AD is better than armor pen? You make claims, but don't offer any evidence.
-Why do you choose each mastery point? What are the tradeoffs involved? In what situations should (if at all) you choose less popular mastery set-ups?
-Discussion on seemingly useful but rarely used runes (+lifesteal, +crit chance, +crit dmg, atkdmg/lvl, +exp, +mvspd), masteries (minion dmg reduction, +dmg to turrets, havoc, +minion dmg, movespeed in utility, -death timer, 22+ mastery points in offense, health regen), and items (wriggles, black cleaver, brutalizer, trinity, atmas, frozen mallet, hexdrinker/maw , bloodrazer, tiamat). Why are they rarely used? What are the costs/benefits of their use? Are there any situations where they should be used?
Personally, those are the questions that I would like to be answered in an "AD bot" guide - more of a mindset and detailed overview of options. Don't make assumptions/dismiss things (e.g. tiamat always worthless), instead, try and imagine situations in which it could be useful (e.g. um....if you have a team w/ aoe cc that can force teamfights in jungle for some reason?) in order to expand options/possibilities rather than limit them. Unless you have proof (mathcrafts!), dismissive assumptions just don't feel right to me. And a bunch of the answers to those questions are prob. also floating around in Gen. Discussion somewhere, and compiling all the pertinent knowledge that's dropped in those threads could be nice as well.
Mmk, i like those thoughts. This was primarily done to help guide people that are interested in trying AD, which i why I focused on a hero to hero basis of what to do and how to approach it.
But I do like your suggestions and I want to do those, it'll take time though, and alot of my thought processes on those may be simpler than what some want. And I personally am real bad at mathcrafts and don't have the patience to go deep into those, so i'd appreciate if anyone else did that and i will add it to the main post and credit you.
The conclusion from here is that against champions, Arpen is better than AD throughout the majority of the game. This conclusion has NO bearing on how good either is against minions. One interesting thing to note here is that flat AD is very similar if not identical to any arpen builds for level 1 fights.
If you're at an ELO where last hitting minions is irrelevant compared to killing champions, by all means run arpen marks, AD quints.
For the first 9 minutes of the game, all creeps have 6 or less armour. Keep in mind that with AD marks/quints, you still have 6 arpen from masteries, meaning you deal true damage to creeps for the first 9 minutes of the game. This is effectively +15 damage to minions for the first 9 minutes. For the first 20 minutes of the game, AD marks are straight up better than arpen for last hitting, which is the most critical part of laning. Flat AD will outdamage arpen on creeps until very late game when it barely matters at all.
You are free to agree or disagree with any of the conclusions made within the two souces I provided (Both argue in favour of having some arpen), however, my opinion sides with doublelift in that the ability to last hit better for the first 10 minutes of the game and thereby get items faster outweighs getting a bit more damage later.
The final point is that after a last whisper is purchased, flat AD marks outscale arpen marks against ~180+ armour targets, meaning you deal more damage to tanks with flat AD instead of arpen.
Edit:: Tl;DR; grammar/spelling; clarity; other reasons
AD or Arpen are largely equivalent in level 1 fights, with the exception of shooting someone running armour seals + cloth armor
AD is much better at last hitting minions during the first 10 minutes of the game (+10 - 15 damage to minions during this phase or in other words +30% at level 1). It also allows for much better last hitting under tower (One shot vs Two). No source but experience.
AD is much better at last hitting minions throughout laning (+15 damage to minions during the first 9 minutes of the game) and deals more damage than arpen until 20+ minutes when it actually does not matter anymore. (You have 6 arpen from masteries). It also allows for much better last hitting under tower (One shot vs Two) which is hugely important if you're getting pushed hard.
Looking at the graphs, you deal more damage to squishies with arpen marks, however, flat AD is better against tanks.
Summary: If you're farming champions, arpen, otherwise, flat AD.
The reason that +10-15 AD to last hit with is so important is that if you are ever forced to CS under your tower, you are going to miss WAY fewer CS if you only need 1 hit after the tower in order to pick up the kill.
Also, super late post-LW AD marks are back to being roughly even or slightly better compared to ArPen marks. This is so late it doesn't matter much (technically crit damage marks would be best at this point of the game.)
Also, super late post-LW AD marks are back to being roughly even or slightly better compared to ArPen marks.
pretty sure in usualy circumstances that is never the case. For always AD quints I disagree a bit I sometimes take lifesteal quints (mainly on Kogmaw) if you do that you would have to get AD reds though
Also, super late post-LW AD marks are back to being roughly even or slightly better compared to ArPen marks.
pretty sure in usualy circumstances that is never the case. For always AD quints I disagree a bit I sometimes take lifesteal quints (mainly on Kogmaw) if you do that you would have to get AD reds though
Usual being ~180+ armour, it's rather common actually to have happen.
200 ad is pretty low is crit calculated? im pretty sure its not
edit: with my dps calculation it appears to never exceed armorpen runes in reechable armor ranges, the calculation goes to 400 armor(which im quite confident is true)
On June 02 2012 19:34 Ente wrote: 200 ad is pretty low is crit calculated? im pretty sure its not
edit: with my dps calculation it appears to never exceed armorpen runes in reechable armor ranges, the calculation goes to 400 armor(which im quite confident is true)
I've done 0 analysis of the lategame implications. I don't really intend to as the early-mid game transition is largely determined by your ability to last hit. Experience has told me that if I get an IE, PD, LW, everything will die. At that point, proper positioning is many times more important than the 3% or 5% extra damage that arpen would give you.
A cursory examination:
Also, lategame, most squishies have ~90 armour and 2k health. Your luck with crits determines how fast they die. The 5% damage either way makes no difference. I will agree that you are weaker until you get the LW but if the other team is indeed tanky enough to require the LW, you should have no problem buying a zeal > LW instead of a PD > LW.
Edit:: adding reply to above
On June 03 2012 04:19 the_fixxer wrote: Question: In Items section the OP says: Boots 3 --> x2 Dorans/ berserkers/ Vamp. Does that mean one of those?
It means to buy them all in some order. The 2x Dorans give you some sustain, damage, and tankiness. Boots are a necessity and the vamp sceptre allows you to never buy a pot again for the rest of the game.
Generally, you always want to get at least one dorans the first time you back, with the second item determined by the lane. My thoughts are that zerks are never a bad choice since they facilitate easier last hitting with the increased attack speed and much more choice over when and where to trade.
I'd add that Leona is AMAZING with Varus, the double proc bonus damage and the ability to hold someone down for hours with him eating them alive is just too stronk.
I've done 0 analysis of the lategame implications. I don't really intend to as the early-mid game transition is largely determined by your ability to last hit. Experience has told me that if I get an IE, PD, LW, everything will die. At that point, proper positioning is many times more important than the 3% or 5% extra damage that arpen would give you.
I am confused with that I just wanted to tell you that armorpen runes are better then ad lategame (that doesnt mean that I dont use ad runes on champs which needs the help early game like trist) maybe to simplyfy armorpen vs ad reds armorpen vs champs is better after aprox level 4 or when you grab a dorans(it will be better to the end of the game) Ad is for better farming(including more lifesteal because you deal more damage) might add that for corkis passive ad is way better and for spells which deal magic dmg but scale off of ad (kogmaw ult, Corki missiles)
I will agree that you are weaker until you get the LW but if the other team is indeed tanky enough to require the LW
Again Armorpen is ALWAYS better then ad (excluding the first few levels) doesnt matter if you have lw or not (ok if the enemy would have like 10 armor then not but that is not the case, ever.
Alright. I'm actually tired of trying to argue for or against either side of this.
I took ashe's base armour values with armour seals and 3 points in the armour masterie (+6 armour) and just boxed the relevant areas in paint. the 50/75/100 AD are before any runes or masteries are applied. 50 AD is representative of the beginning of the game until your first B.
75 AD is a little lower than what you'd have with double dorans + levels. Around here AD/Arpen are similar with arpen growing stronger as you level. Keep in mind that the two rune sets are +/-3 damage all the way to 100 AD.
Flat AD is straight up better than arpen against minions until past the point at which it doesn't matter (BF sword+, melee minions do not have 19+ armour until ~20 minutes into the game).
My final statement is that skills are sometimes better than 1.0 scaling (cait's Q is 1.3, Sivir's is 1.2, up to 1.98, varus is 1.0 to 1.6 on his Q) so it may depend on which champion you're playing.
I want people to make informed decisions via showing them the math and numbers. I will not say either is straight up better unless it truly is.
On June 03 2012 08:57 zulu_nation8 wrote: so what runes would you recommend on ADs that are not ez/kog/corki? Also what do you think of getting pickaxe + crit cloak before BF?
This is a far more interesting question to me than runing. I mean yeah, you get 20 more damage with BF sword but 18% crit chance is pretty huge. Unless you happen to back and can buy the BF sword out right I think more often than not it makes more sense to buy pieces of IE rather than buying nothing.
Also would not be surprised if the dps between BF and pickaxe + crit cloak is pretty close to even.
edit: Out of curiosity, does anyone think that Ashe is going to see a resurgence? The change to her Q is noticeable imo and her laning while still not as good as practically any other AD is still crazyyy safe if you play smart. Not to mention I honestly am starting to feel like she might be the best AD carry late game. Sure she doesn't have the dps that practically any other AD has but I feel like she more than makes up for it with her kit. I'm wondering if she feel off in popularity more due to the fact that people valued winning lanes and mid game a lot more than trying to drag games out to late game where Ashe shines.
On June 03 2012 08:57 zulu_nation8 wrote: so what runes would you recommend on ADs that are not ez/kog/corki? Also what do you think of getting pickaxe + crit cloak before BF?
This is a far more interesting question to me than runing. I mean yeah, you get 20 more damage with BF sword but 18% crit chance is pretty huge. Unless you happen to back and can buy the BF sword out right I think more often than not it makes more sense to buy pieces of IE rather than buying nothing.
Also would not be surprised if the dps between BF and pickaxe + crit cloak is pretty close to even.
edit: Out of curiosity, does anyone think that Ashe is going to see a resurgence? The change to her Q is noticeable imo and her laning while still not as good as practically any other AD is still crazyyy safe if you play smart. Not to mention I honestly am starting to feel like she might be the best AD carry late game. Sure she doesn't have the dps that practically any other AD has but I feel like she more than makes up for it with her kit. I'm wondering if she feel off in popularity more due to the fact that people valued winning lanes and mid game a lot more than trying to drag games out to late game where Ashe shines.
You always want the BF if possible but it's better to go pickaxe into crit cloak if you can't get the BF. It's really important to have some item(s) for the first dragon fight beyond just dorans.
Quick calculation, assuming you have 100 AD before buying either BF or crit+pickaxe and 1 attack per second BF will do 145 dps
Pickaxe + crit = 125 *1.18 =147.5 dps
BF is guaranteed damage, crit cloak is random. Getting crits will win you a trade outright against a BF but an unlucky streak will lose you trades.
Ashe lately has been considered one of the top 3 ADs since her kit is so damn good. With a volley every 4 seconds, her dps is actually much higher than you would expect. She was already seeing a resurgence around the time they reduced the cooldown on her volley at lower levels and buffed her base stats. Now that her frost shot has been buffed she's got everything. She has long range, is the best kiting AD, has a hard initiate and also has a line+area CV.
can you give me the calculation behind those graphs because for my spreadsheets those calculations are incorrect (and if you would have seen some threads on reddit where exactly this is calculated you would know that it is incorrect). and no I dont want to say that armorpen are the best and always to go runes I use ad aswell. And with the over 1.x scaling that doesnt mean ad gets better because usually you will have more ad then armorpen anyway and the more damage your spells do the better armorpen gets and the less ad you have the better ad gets. This is the case with every damage increase like as/crit etc.
I dont use ms quints ever I dont think that they are very powerfull
so what runes would you recommend on ADs that are not ez/kog/corki? Also what do you think of getting pickaxe + crit cloak before BF?
pickaxe/crit would only be the case if I cant afford anything else. For me everything depends on my money situation if I get zeal or just straight bf or sth else. Which I should probably do more is get critcloak instead of pickaxe. Honestly I dont know the math behind that but if you do it you could still finish your PD (if you already got a zeal) for my runes Ashe: ad/ad manaregen or magicresist(depends on the botlane matchup) Corki: same as ashe Ezreal armorpen/ad manaregen/mr Graves armorpen/ad same as before Kogmaw ad/ad manaregen/mr or ad/lifesteal manaregen/mr sometimes I actually use utility masteries on him(21/0/9) for the double buff lategame this is the only champ where I would use 9 in utility Mf armorpen/ad mr rarely manaregen but happens aswell. Sivir amorpen/ad mr/manaregen Trist ad/ad mr sometimes flat AP(no not ad!) if I want to be insanly agressive usually not in soloq though Urgot armorpen/armorpen magicresist/manaregen Varus no clue probably armorpen/ad manaregen/mr vayne ad/ad mr with vayne I like to have both in ad because you will mostly lasthit at the tower
On June 03 2012 18:30 Ente wrote: can you give me the calculation behind those graphs because for my spreadsheets those calculations are incorrect (and if you would have seen some threads on reddit where exactly this is calculated you would know that it is incorrect). and no I dont want to say that armorpen are the best and always to go runes I use ad aswell. And with the over 1.x scaling that doesnt mean ad gets better because usually you will have more ad then armorpen anyway and the more damage your spells do the better armorpen gets and the less ad you have the better ad gets. This is the case with every damage increase like as/crit etc.
I dont use ms quints ever I dont think that they are very powerfull
so what runes would you recommend on ADs that are not ez/kog/corki? Also what do you think of getting pickaxe + crit cloak before BF?
pickaxe/crit would only be the case if I cant afford anything else. For me everything depends on my money situation if I get zeal or just straight bf or sth else. Which I should probably do more is get critcloak instead of pickaxe. Honestly I dont know the math behind that but if you do it you could still finish your PD (if you already got a zeal) for my runes Ashe: ad/ad manaregen or magicresist(depends on the botlane matchup) Corki: same as ashe Ezreal armorpen/ad manaregen/mr Graves armorpen/ad same as before Kogmaw ad/ad manaregen/mr or ad/lifesteal manaregen/mr sometimes I actually use utility masteries on him(21/0/9) for the double buff lategame this is the only champ where I would use 9 in utility Mf armorpen/ad mr rarely manaregen but happens aswell. Sivir amorpen/ad mr/manaregen Trist ad/ad mr sometimes flat AP(no not ad!) if I want to be insanly agressive usually not in soloq though Urgot armorpen/armorpen magicresist/manaregen Varus no clue probably armorpen/ad manaregen/mr vayne ad/ad mr with vayne I like to have both in ad because you will mostly lasthit at the tower
yellow ist armor every game.
I don't have the original calculations. I was just researching information behind AD vs arpen and found those graphs.
The formula I'm basing the caluclations on will be based on this article
I'll remake the graphs in the next little bit though to confirm the numbers though.
Edit::
Remade the table, not going to graph them.. The formula I'm using is
100/(100+((Enemy Armour - 6 - Arpen)*0.9))*(BaseAD+4+AD from runes)
I'm neglecting the AD per level in masteries as it's a variable that actually won't affect the final value by very much.
The chart is accurate now for all armour values. + Show Spoiler +
The one thing to note is that the numbers are incorrect for armour values below 21 and 31 for these charts. Arpen does not reduce armour below 0 and will be incorrect until I update the numbers.
seems to be alright I actually use this spreadsheet when im interested in something: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0AmbP2YECOLZ6dC1iNkZrRDM4MEZNUmlqaGlLeGVIeFE&hl=en_US#gid=2 I didnt see a mistake here and those numbers are probably closer to reality (you will not attack a target which has over 100 armor when you have less then 100 ad for example unless you fed an urgot and then you have other problems )
edit: Out of curiosity, does anyone think that Ashe is going to see a resurgence? The change to her Q is noticeable imo and her laning while still not as good as practically any other AD is still crazyyy safe if you play smart. Not to mention I honestly am starting to feel like she might be the best AD carry late game. Sure she doesn't have the dps that practically any other AD has but I feel like she more than makes up for it with her kit. I'm wondering if she feel off in popularity more due to the fact that people valued winning lanes and mid game a lot more than trying to drag games out to late game where Ashe shines.
Few minutes ago Lamia scored just another Pentakill with Ashe in that in2lol tournament or what it is called vs AL.
She's still the lategame carry she has always been (your post pretty much summed it up) but her popularity decreased because of more and more gap closing bruisers and her comparatively not so strong laning phase.
If you manage to stay in the game and 'only' lose lane by 20-30 CS, you're still going to be the beast with Ashe like it always has been.
Just checked Lamia's rune page. If he hasn't switched it (so the one he used in the game is shown first) he ran ArPen runes on Ashe despite the fact that her low base damage would profit from full AD runes to help last hitting. Comes down to preference it seems.
It means to buy them all in some order. The 2x Dorans give you some sustain, damage, and tankiness. Boots are a necessity and the vamp sceptre allows you to never buy a pot again for the rest of the game.
Generally, you always want to get at least one dorans the first time you back, with the second item determined by the lane. My thoughts are that zerks are never a bad choice since they facilitate easier last hitting with the increased attack speed and much more choice over when and where to trade.
Just a question, sometimes I see ADs rush a BT instead of BF > zeal > IE, any reason why? Is it situational or you only do it on certain champs (I know you wouldn't rush a zeal on Urgot for example).
On June 04 2012 19:23 vertigo1 wrote: when running AD i run a mix of AD and armour pen, but i run a sort of hybrid max efficiency type
for instance rather than 3 arpen quints and all AD marks, i run 3 AD quints, 3 AD marks, and 6 arpen marks
the former gives 10 arpen, 8.55 AD the more efficient one gives 10 arpen and 9.6 AD
something to consider if you also like to run both
Well yeah, AD marks are just less efficient than AD quints. If you're running any AD on runes at all, it should be the quints. I like the idea of a little more arpen than you get with the typical 15 AD setup.
@Schmutttt - Typically when the BT build is done, its done for one of a multititude of reasons.
1) The AD could be lazy and had enough money to get it, making their big purchase faster and giving them maybe 1-3 minutes of dominance in the lane while the other AD just has his BF / vamp, or only a BF / pickaxe / vamp, whilst your AD keeps climbing.
2) It allows for decent snowballing in lane because you have a huge advantage in trades now (especially when you get the zeal) because you have more AD and you have more lifesteal to outsustain the other AD in a slightly extended trade.
3) It's a decently common build for Trinity's. Since Trinity's lacks alot of hard damage, BT is often gotten first and then Trinity's is finished, giving it lots of damage, utility, and just lacking large amounts of crit.
4) Also on Vayne, BT is a very common item because she is forced to be in the thicket of the fight so it allows for easier sustain, and it gives her a huge power boost in lane.
These are most the reasons i typically would get BT first, or if you see others go BT. Sometimes its just playstyle or preference. Do know this though, your overall dps in a team fight (and even sometimes in trades) will be lower than someone who went IE, because IE gives a base 25% crit, and the bonus crit damage. So if he has IE / PD, and you have IE / PD / Pickaxe (thats about equal price, BT is 3000 and IE is like 4280) then he will do more dps due to his 55% crit, where you only have the 30%, but you slightly harder per hit. Typically the crit and bonus crit damage wins out. But BT first can be a great snowball item and gives typically for a strong entrance into midgame, and if you can ride it you'll get your IE befores its detrimental anyway.
I used to rush IE religiously because I've always how much better it is. Then I started reading a bit and saw some other opinions on how BT was better because at full stacks, it also helps scale damage from champion skills. So I tried, and found this that I did better when rushing BT. Except, that the reasoning wasn't what I had read. Most skills only scale marginally compared with BT and IE. Actually, since you lose stacks on BT when you die, you actually do less damage with 0 stacks.
How I explain why BT is better over IE (on most champs I play anyway) is similar to what jcc said about snowballing. When you do the math, IE vs BT + Zeal is about the same. Except you're sinking your purchases into bigger items when buying an IE. Most times, I'll be in lane with Boots, 3 Dorans, and BT, and the other AD Carry will only have Boots, 3 Dorans, BF Sword, and a Pickaxe. Even if they can afford a Cloak and not quite the entire BT, I am already repeaing the benefits of the BT, whereas they aren't repaing the benefits of a completely built IE. You can abuse this very easily, as you will essentially come out heavily on top in trades (lots of damage, plus 3x more life steal). By the time they come out with a finished IE, you will already have a Zeal, in which case you still have somewhat of an advantage, because again, you will do similar damage, but have more movement speed and lifesteal.
Some people forego getting double or triple dorans so they can get IE faster. Unless you get a lot of ganks or just play really passively while farming like a beast, this will work against you so badly. So, I just feel that rushing BTs is safer over all.
I dont agree jacosajh. To be honest my goal as an AD carry is ALWAYS to try to stay in lane until I have that BF sword gold in my pocket and even if farming well until my zerker greaves are done. Stacking Dorans is something I would do if I was losing my lane but you have to trust your support and your ability to play smart.
I see it as if you go dorans youre either losing you lane heavily or youre not comfortable with your supports ability. And if youre not doing so well in lane I think you should even forgo dorans and attempt to get a pickaxe if possible. The most important part of bottom lane is your supports ability to ward and the #1 most important thing your map awareness to avoid ganks and all ins from aggressive bot lanes.
You should always have at least 1 dorans, 2 is ideal because of the 1) sustain 2) bonus ad 3) bonus hp, probably the most important. Dorans allows for better trades, easier last hitting, and its arguably the most cost effective item in the game.
On June 08 2012 12:14 socommaster123 wrote: I dont agree jacosajh. To be honest my goal as an AD carry is ALWAYS to try to stay in lane until I have that BF sword gold in my pocket and even if farming well until my zerker greaves are done. Stacking Dorans is something I would do if I was losing my lane but you have to trust your support and your ability to play smart.
I see it as if you go dorans youre either losing you lane heavily or youre not comfortable with your supports ability. And if youre not doing so well in lane I think you should even forgo dorans and attempt to get a pickaxe if possible. The most important part of bottom lane is your supports ability to ward and the #1 most important thing your map awareness to avoid ganks and all ins from aggressive bot lanes.
I hope you don't forgo dorans completely. If you are playing passive and farming like a boss, that is all well and good, but 2 dorans is a staple on any tournament player for the simple reason if you just save for that pickaxe/bf sword, you find it really hard to last hit under tower, and you are such an easy gank target. The first 6 levels or so, the bonus 160 hp from dorans is a lot. If they have a jungler like lee sin, rammus, nocturne (once six), etc who can close gaps insanely quickly and you have no dorans they can often kill you even if you flash.
That said, I like to get 1-2 dorans in lane then rush my IE (but very very rarely do I get there with just 1 dorans/boots, normally at least bezerker's greaves + 1-2 dorans).
I don't know how you could ever win most botlanes if you completely skip dblades. AD carry versus AD carry if you have BF sword and I have two dblade I will out trade you. Straight up, not even close lol.
The question isn't about going dblade vs not going dblade, that's not even an argument. Dblade is completely necessary, the real question is 2 or 3 dblades. I feel 3 dblade is only good if laning phase is going to go long.
On June 08 2012 13:51 wei2coolman wrote: The question isn't about going dblade vs not going dblade, that's not even an argument. Dblade is completely necessary, the real question is 2 or 3 dblades. I feel 3 dblade is only good if laning phase is going to go long.
Like three posts above you someone was suggesting not getting dblade at all unless you're losing your lane.
After the HP nerf I go 2 dblade + vamp scepter into core. If dblades still gave 100 HP instead of 80 I'd probably still do 3 dblade stack every game though.
On June 08 2012 13:51 wei2coolman wrote: The question isn't about going dblade vs not going dblade, that's not even an argument. Dblade is completely necessary, the real question is 2 or 3 dblades. I feel 3 dblade is only good if laning phase is going to go long.
Like three posts above you someone was suggesting not getting dblade at all unless you're losing your lane.
After the HP nerf I go 2 dblade + vamp scepter into core. If dblades still gave 100 HP instead of 80 I'd probably still do 3 dblade stack every game though.
The problem is you can't get away without getting dblade.
so lets say you're up 1 kill in lane. The enemy comes back with dblade. you're automatically behind, if you didn't back after hte kill and not getting a dblade yourself. Unless you can completely out play your opposing lane by a fucking mile, there's way you can get away without getting dblade. don't get me wrong, there have been cases where I feel fine going straight to BF + vamp instead of doran blade, but those cases are far and few between.
the only scenario I could see my self going straight to core build is if I get early double kill in lane, and I know that the enemy AD simply doesn't have the gold to buy a dorans blade, and therefore I can get away without having to purchase one myself.
For BF rush I would NEVER recommend it (I would do that maybe once in 200 games) if you dont feel 100% confident with going it you will probably get raped (most of the time you get dorans afterwards anyway and its wasted). 2 Dorans AS boots beat lvl1 boots BF sword in a fight (expirience not math ) I do not go 3 dorans pretty much ever usually 2 dorans + sometimes lifesteal.
For BT rush I like to do it against Urgot lanes so I dont have to worry THAT much about the poke. One thing which some could try are lifesteal quints they are quite nice and in my opinion the best quints for lategame (I know that hp/5 outsustains lifesteal)
Doran's blades are cheap, effective stats. Just crunching some numbers (I just used a level 9 ashe vs level 9 ashe for a quick check), zerk boots + 2x dorans on one, just a BF on the other.
The BF ashe will have ~5 dps over the dorans ashe. However, due to the extra 160 health on the dorans ashe, the dorans ashe would kill the BF ashe first. (6% lifesteal = ~70 extra health over the duel). Shot for shot, the BF sword will do much more however, dorans ashe is going to win from 100-0.
Another comparison:
BF + zerks vs triple dorans + zerks,
BF does ~15dps more. However, the 9% lifesteal and 240 health means that again, the dorans ashe wins.
My conclusion: BF rushing is a bad idea, especially since dorans are so good. There may be times where rushing for the BF will win you the lane harder than grabbing dorans (Caitlyn where you got an early lead and want to continue smashing their faces in with free shots etc) but boots 2 are just too strong, both defensively and offensively to put off until after your BF sword.
Also, while I have the spreadsheet open, I just checked zerks+dorans vs double dorans. Zerk boots+1 dorans gives ~10-15% higher dps across reasonable armour ranges. I've always preferred the attack speed+MS since a single dorans is usually enough to last hit under tower until quite a bit into the game and the math backs me up that it does more damage.
Nice guide. Really looking forward to the match specific addition to the guide and lane positioning. I'm always having trouble positioning against kill lanes that try to/do zone me.
I mostly prefer dbl dorans over dorans/zerk because of lifesteal and if you have to buy with that amount of money you are most likely in trouble and want extra health/lifesteal (and the 10-15% are probably around 10 dps or sth which is not that high and durin that period of time you will deal most of you dmg with casts anyway) But that is probably preference
On June 08 2012 19:57 Ente wrote: I mostly prefer dbl dorans over dorans/zerk because of lifesteal and if you have to buy with that amount of money you are most likely in trouble and want extra health/lifesteal (and the 10-15% are probably around 10 dps or sth which is not that high and durin that period of time you will deal most of you dmg with casts anyway) But that is probably preference
A lot of it has to do with my preferred AD carries. I play Kog/Caitlyn/Ashe far more than most other AD carries and I feel that they benefit much more from the boots since their range allows for free shots and general outplays. On others that I play (sivir/graves mainly) I always grab the double dorans first. I agree though that if you back without enough money to get double dorans + boots 2 + pots, you're doing something wrong in lane.
On Cait specifically I often (like 3 out of 10 games) happen to b with more than 2100 gold; in which case i just buy BF + vamp + pots If you get that, I feel like the sustain you have is so high, the 160 hp you're missing don't even matter. But that's Cait, and smashing the other ADs face in is so easy with her..
On any other AD, double Dorans is probably the way to go, either with +vamp or +zerkers
Go into lane with the goal of farming 1300g, enough for either
a. 3 Dorans if started Boots + Pots b. 2 more Doran + Boots, if started Dorans
After getting 1300g, push lane and go back to buy.
The other AD Carry will get crushed in trades if they're still trying to save up for a BF Sword. Even if they manage to get the rest of the farm to buy a BF Sword, they will still have no sustain and less life.
i've seen Chaox (on Ashe mainly) do this a lot lately but once he's got 2xDBlade + Zerks + Vamp, he usually goes Zeal. that makes no sense to me. wouldn't it be better to get the Pick Axe? what's the purpose of getting Zeal early? does it provide more DPS than Pick Axe in the short run?
i've seen Chaox (on Ashe mainly) do this a lot lately but once he's got 2xDBlade + Zerks + Vamp, he usually goes Zeal. that makes no sense to me. wouldn't it be better to get the Pick Axe? what's the purpose of getting Zeal early? does it provide more DPS than Pick Axe in the short run?
Ashe has no innate escapes so increased MS is nice.
Plus being able to kite and chase is also an added bonus.
But yeah, on Ashe, it's one of the champs I would actually prefer to have an IE on first.
IE on Ashe synergizes well with her passive. It's cumbersome if you don't have good lane control; something I'm still working on, but was really terrible with before. With some practice you can really harass someone well once you get an IE.
I mean, you almost guarantee an IE proc, and a W immediately after almost guarantees they can't retaliate for some major free damage. Even if they do hit you, an IE proc + W for one AA is a good trade off.
Problem is, once you have IE on Ashe, laning phase is most likely over or nearing the end; and a lot of other things would have already more than likely had a deciding factor in the game's outcome.
At that point, I usually wish I had a Zeal + BT for better sustain and manuverability.
So I'm an unconventional bot lane player. I play both AD and support. By unconventional, i do not mean Zilean AD carry or other pub stomping troll builds, but rather, I mean that the typical AD carry builds for late game domination, while allowing the support to babysit. I prefer to dominate the lane early by using flat health runes (and sometimes masteries) and armor pen runes to ensure that I scale into late game.
This is extremely effective on heroes such as MF who like to trade constantly, as you will be 100 hp flat larger than the enemy. This makes it difficult for jungle to gank you, as their AD carry who you have been trading with will be hesitent to engage when they are low enough to be burst down. Trist is another example where flat HP + armor pen can be obscenely difficult to play against.
This has an added benefit that ganks on you are more likely to be turned around, and you can often skip a Doran's blade. Effectiveness late game is dropped slightly, though I have never had an issue with this because the AD carry scales SO hard.
I've done 0 analysis of the lategame implications. I don't really intend to as the early-mid game transition is largely determined by your ability to last hit. Experience has told me that if I get an IE, PD, LW, everything will die. At that point, proper positioning is many times more important than the 3% or 5% extra damage that arpen would give you.
I am confused with that I just wanted to tell you that armorpen runes are better then ad lategame (that doesnt mean that I dont use ad runes on champs which needs the help early game like trist) maybe to simplyfy armorpen vs ad reds armorpen vs champs is better after aprox level 4 or when you grab a dorans(it will be better to the end of the game) Ad is for better farming(including more lifesteal because you deal more damage) might add that for corkis passive ad is way better and for spells which deal magic dmg but scale off of ad (kogmaw ult, Corki missiles)
I will agree that you are weaker until you get the LW but if the other team is indeed tanky enough to require the LW
Again Armorpen is ALWAYS better then ad (excluding the first few levels) doesnt matter if you have lw or not (ok if the enemy would have like 10 armor then not but that is not the case, ever.
Isn't it true that arpen is worth more then more you have of it (or rather, the closer the enemy's effective armor is to 0)? I've always run arpen on Corki because of his E, because at that point LW is not really necessary over another BF item unless the enemy team is extremely tanky. He'll already be doing massive damage against squishies, and his true damage means he won't be useless against tanks. If the game went on long enough I'd prefer BC over LW.
Corki is the only AD carry I play, though (because I used to solo lane him), so I haven't put too much thought into my AD builds.
On June 09 2012 03:43 RoyGBiv_13 wrote: So I'm an unconventional bot lane player. I play both AD and support. By unconventional, i do not mean Zilean AD carry or other pub stomping troll builds, but rather, I mean that the typical AD carry builds for late game domination, while allowing the support to babysit. I prefer to dominate the lane early by using flat health runes (and sometimes masteries) and armor pen runes to ensure that I scale into late game.
This is extremely effective on heroes such as MF who like to trade constantly, as you will be 100 hp flat larger than the enemy. This makes it difficult for jungle to gank you, as their AD carry who you have been trading with will be hesitent to engage when they are low enough to be burst down. Trist is another example where flat HP + armor pen can be obscenely difficult to play against.
This has an added benefit that ganks on you are more likely to be turned around, and you can often skip a Doran's blade. Effectiveness late game is dropped slightly, though I have never had an issue with this because the AD carry scales SO hard.
I think using Flat HP is silly on an AD Carry when it is negated by several factors. One crit and that advantage is gone.
Also, it doesn't scale well into the game (which is even a reason why I don't use flat damage).
Even if you compare flat damage or flat arpen, you will get continual returns on that in a lane trade compared to losing 100 HP and never getting it back. Unless you're getting healed, in which case it just puts you slightly below the contending AD carry.
I'm not all that great by any means, but if I see an AD carry with anything other than arpen/ad and armor, I immediately think they're food.
EDIT: I guess I mirsread a little bit. You're saying Flat Health on just Quints and Blues. I still like to get the ArPen Quints and Scaling MR Blues, because if the AP mid gets out of control, that 100 extra AP is going to be neglible.
On June 09 2012 06:02 jacosajh wrote: I think using Flat HP is silly on an AD Carry when it is negated by several factors. One crit and that advantage is gone.
Also, it doesn't scale well into the game (which is even a reason why I don't use flat damage).
I've never really understood why people try to justify not using certain runes just because they don't scale into late game. Obviously there are exceptions but I pretty much only value runes for making me stronger in lane. (Not saying flat hp runes are good on AD ^_^)
On June 09 2012 06:02 jacosajh wrote: I think using Flat HP is silly on an AD Carry when it is negated by several factors. One crit and that advantage is gone.
Also, it doesn't scale well into the game (which is even a reason why I don't use flat damage).
I've never really understood why people try to justify not using certain runes just because they don't scale into late game. Obviously there are exceptions but I pretty much only value runes for making me stronger in lane. (Not saying flat hp runes are good on AD ^_^)
I'm not just talking about late game or even past level 12-13. I'm talking about the minute you walk into lane.
I already posted that in GD but than I noticed it actually fits much better in here. So:
How do you play against super aggresive bot lanes early lvl? I just had a game were I corki + janna got horrible zoned from a graves + taric lane from level 1 basically. Like the second the melee minions died taric zoned me from the ranged minions with his stun and q from graves. Should i just go for the trade (i would horrible lose I guess) and hope the minions do it worthwile? does my support have to do something about taric? If i AA or Q taric I get stunned and Q'd from graves and since graves doesnt get any dmg himself I can't do shit in lane anymore.
It's really difficult to deal with a very aggressive lane like that. You cannot give up complete bush control on your side and it's up to your support to ward it At level 1, phos bomb actually does more damage than graves' buckshot at long range. One trick that I do is to use normal cast on corki's Q. It actually has a pretty large range (600+150 AoE, pretty much equal to buckshot at 750) and outranges taric's stun by 125, enough that you can get off a free Q every once in a while. If you hit 2 or more Q's for free, they should play more passively allowing you to get the ranged minions. The key is to sacrifice the ranged minions if you have to in order to get an easier lane.
On June 20 2012 03:47 Keniji wrote: I already posted that in GD but than I noticed it actually fits much better in here. So:
How do you play against super aggresive bot lanes early lvl? I just had a game were I corki + janna got horrible zoned from a graves + taric lane from level 1 basically. Like the second the melee minions died taric zoned me from the ranged minions with his stun and q from graves. Should i just go for the trade (i would horrible lose I guess) and hope the minions do it worthwile? does my support have to do something about taric? If i AA or Q taric I get stunned and Q'd from graves and since graves doesnt get any dmg himself I can't do shit in lane anymore.
You get denied, aka just don't last hit until creeps get to tower so you can farm safely. If you trade back or last hit, you'll keep the creep line towards the center, giving them more opportunities to engage with a superior comp, and the creeps will push to you slower f'ing you up even more.
Zeal on ashe is not worth it. You're already playing an inferior lane, why gimp yourself further from getting a high tier item by getting a zeal. And we all know that IE farmed first AD wins. I don't see the advantages of getting that zeal to outweigh farming high tier item.
I play AD against the scrubs who still suck at 2-2.3K level. And pretty much, I go one dorans max most of the time and go straight for that BF. There's a time and place for heavy dorans stacking. And that's when the enemy lane is a burst lane or a kill lane. To not get 100-0 in one burst, you need dorans stacking. Or you go for that phage for tri if you're ez or corki, or whatever, (and maybe the dorans too). Like if you've won lane, won it hard, or you're the bitch 100-0 the other guy, you don't really need dorans. Straight teching to that high tier item just gives you so much power and control in solo queue. But you can only skip dorans if you're good because otherwise it's so easy to get your ass 100-0'd in fights and a mistake in lane/u getting ganked means u go crying and saying how shitty it was for you to listen to some1 on the forums.
IMO, part of the problem at lower ELO is no matter how good you are, you still have to rely on support.
At higher ELOs, it seems there is much less quarreling about who will play support, and as a result, those supports will be a lot better.
You can not make any mistakes at all at lower ELOs, but if your support feeds 2-3 kills, isn't in proper positioning, etc. you won't be able to do anything with 1 doran vs 3 doran. Even if you are playing much better than both the other AD Carry / support, all it takes is for your support to be playing much worse than them. I feel like having 3 Dorans mitigates that a lot, like you were saying. So what you're saying makes sense, and is 100% right; just that it's not as clear cut and dry in lower ELOs because you're having to rely on even bigger scrubs than at 2-2.3k ELO who at least have somewhat of an understanding of what they're doing.
I mean, even at 1450 ELO, people will say "I never play support before" and stupid crap like that.
i've seen Chaox (on Ashe mainly) do this a lot lately but once he's got 2xDBlade + Zerks + Vamp, he usually goes Zeal. that makes no sense to me. wouldn't it be better to get the Pick Axe? what's the purpose of getting Zeal early? does it provide more DPS than Pick Axe in the short run?
Ashe has no innate escapes so increased MS is nice.
Plus being able to kite and chase is also an added bonus.
But yeah, on Ashe, it's one of the champs I would actually prefer to have an IE on first.
Chaox said that he likes to rush PD in competitive games because it lets him farm more while being able to get to teamfights or to lane faster even though he'll be weaker in midgame skirmishes than the other ad carry. I think the utility on ashe alone is enough to justify getting movement speed faster than damage for those reasons.
On June 21 2012 03:22 jacosajh wrote: IMO, part of the problem at lower ELO is no matter how good you are, you still have to rely on support.
At higher ELOs, it seems there is much less quarreling about who will play support, and as a result, those supports will be a lot better.
You can not make any mistakes at all at lower ELOs, but if your support feeds 2-3 kills, isn't in proper positioning, etc. you won't be able to do anything with 1 doran vs 3 doran. Even if you are playing much better than both the other AD Carry / support, all it takes is for your support to be playing much worse than them. I feel like having 3 Dorans mitigates that a lot, like you were saying. So what you're saying makes sense, and is 100% right; just that it's not as clear cut and dry in lower ELOs because you're having to rely on even bigger scrubs than at 2-2.3k ELO who at least have somewhat of an understanding of what they're doing.
I mean, even at 1450 ELO, people will say "I never play support before" and stupid crap like that.
elo doesnt matter there are always people who don't know what they're doing lol. 3 dorans is too much unless you're vs leona lanes or some shit.
I just played a lane as Leona support with Ashe as my AD, and it worked very well. It seems to me that once Ashe and Leona are both 6 the other lane has to play super passive as the stunlocks last forever. Also has great gank assistance. Before 6 I just played brush control. It was vs Ali/Ez.
On June 21 2012 09:35 Bladeorade wrote: I just played a lane as Leona support with Ashe as my AD, and it worked very well. It seems to me that once Ashe and Leona are both 6 the other lane has to play super passive as the stunlocks last forever. Also has great gank assistance. Before 6 I just played brush control. It was vs Ali/Ez.
Ooops forgot to actually as the question:
Is this a solid lane lineup or not too great?
Compared to pairing leona with corki, trist, ezreal etc, it doesn't have the same kill potential pre-6. When leona hits her zenith blade, ashe can get one volley off and then auto-attack. Not too bursty. If you want to stunlock indefinitely at 6, varus would be a better pick since he has a good deal more burst.
First competitive Draven game that I've personally seen, Dignitas vs RoMg in OGN. Not as entertaining as doublelift stomping 1700 ELOs but still cool to see.
To get high quality, between the volume and the wrench buttons in the bottom right, click that and then click 超清 -〉bottom left button.
It's mandarin commentary.
Edit::
First full-on teamfight at 22 minutes. If you watch qtpie, he focuses on getting cooldowns out to nuke someone, not catching axes.
I had to finally register to TL after lurking for years after reading this. I am trying pretty hard to get higher ELO as AD lately, and I'm doing it with a friend of mine who supports Janna (he refuses to do alistar, leona, soraka, taric because he believes Janna is the best) and I run 90% of the time with Vayne. Now we started from around 1100 rating, having bad cs and bad opponents.
We gradualy got better and now I am on 1550 elo while hes on 1450ish because I play a few solo games each day. So heres the problem I have:
He's always forcing to make plays, and fails to realise that people are not as bad as they were on 1100 to get caught by my stun and killed, especialy if they have a Taric with 85 armor on lvl 3 with, or Leona Ezreal premade. So we rush in mostly trade kills or even come out with us dying and it goes downhill from there.
How do I convince him to just protect me while I farm with Vayne and not go suicidal? It's ok to make plays with a super tanky / burst comp like Leona Graves sometimes but still, not 3 times a min like he wants to.
How do I convince him to just protect me while I farm with Vayne and not go suicidal? It's ok to make plays with a super tanky / burst comp like Leona Graves sometimes but still, not 3 times a min like he wants to.
Janna/vayne is really weak in laning phase if he doesnt understand that he is most likely not good and you might have carried him while playing duo q. Tell him to stop doing it if he doesnt do it... you might consider stop playing duo q with him and maybe play normals every now and then with him (if you want to increase your elo further)
On July 12 2012 19:52 Tilorn91 wrote: I had to finally register to TL after lurking for years after reading this. I am trying pretty hard to get higher ELO as AD lately, and I'm doing it with a friend of mine who supports Janna (he refuses to do alistar, leona, soraka, taric because he believes Janna is the best) and I run 90% of the time with Vayne. Now we started from around 1100 rating, having bad cs and bad opponents.
We gradualy got better and now I am on 1550 elo while hes on 1450ish because I play a few solo games each day. So heres the problem I have:
He's always forcing to make plays, and fails to realise that people are not as bad as they were on 1100 to get caught by my stun and killed, especialy if they have a Taric with 85 armor on lvl 3 with, or Leona Ezreal premade. So we rush in mostly trade kills or even come out with us dying and it goes downhill from there.
How do I convince him to just protect me while I farm with Vayne and not go suicidal? It's ok to make plays with a super tanky / burst comp like Leona Graves sometimes but still, not 3 times a min like he wants to.
Sry for semi long post!
Honestly, I just say I'm not going. and if he still goes, let his dumbass die. Also, either you or he could change up the characters because vayne doesn't really do that great compared to others in lane.
Well it's not that he's bad, he's just really subborn and fails to realise that people actualy know how to not die, since we stomped previous 400 elo pretty hard, and I really like Vayne, her skill set and damage is really fun to play with, I pick Graves if their lane has some sort of a kill lane or Caitlyn (dat zoning).
Graves is not that great vs Caitlyn (hes ok though) and if he just wants to play Janna that is kinda a bit of a problem. Janna is good but not always the best choice. And yes Vayne gets crushed by kill lanes
On July 12 2012 20:50 Tilorn91 wrote: Well it's not that he's bad, he's just really subborn and fails to realise that people actualy know how to not die, since we stomped previous 400 elo pretty hard, and I really like Vayne, her skill set and damage is really fun to play with, I pick Graves if their lane has some sort of a kill lane or Caitlyn (dat zoning).
Thanks for the replies.
People still die really stupidly in gold elo. That includes me.
Also if the Caitlyn isn't bad (read: most Caitlyns are TERRIBLE), graves is a poor choice since you will end up harassed out of lane in no time, 525 range feels really bad, However, most Caitlyns decide their character is good for brawling... .
Also tell your friend that Vayne is super lategame. Actually, why not learn trist? She has an arguably even better lategame with a great early game (although a notoriously bad midgame)
Also tell your friend that Vayne is super lategame. Actually, why not learn trist? She has an arguably even better lategame with a great early game (although a notoriously bad midgame)
I would value vayne as a midgame carry which has a decent lategame (yes decent by FAR not the best) Vayne gets a lot of free stats (AD from the ultimate extra dmg from the w) which makes her less item dependend then lets say Ashe Tristana or Caitlyn(notice lategame caitlyn is very item dependend and has a weaker early game). Vayne lategame suffers a bit from not having a real escape (esp with the nerf on the q its not as good as it used to be ) and compared to Trist/Caitlyn/Ashe low range. But with the general idea in that post I agree Vaynes early game is not great (even though she snowballs like crazy if she gets the upper hand in the lane) so you want to play defensive (esp before the ultimate which is a huge boost for vayne)
Tristana always felt like 0 dmg AD to me, yeah the atkspd steroid is great and a free ignite is cool (does it work on summoner heal?) but meh, she really has 0 play making possibilities (putting it bluntly, ofc she does, but not as much as Vayne or Graves in terms of possitioning or punishing). But she's cheap if I remember correctly, so why not?
On July 12 2012 23:01 Tilorn91 wrote: Tristana always felt like 0 dmg AD to me, yeah the atkspd steroid is great and a free ignite is cool (does it work on summoner heal?) but meh, she really has 0 play making possibilities (putting it bluntly, ofc she does, but not as much as Vayne or Graves in terms of possitioning or punishing). But she's cheap if I remember correctly, so why not?
Do you know what trists ult is? Do you know what trist does at level 18 with full build? Do you know how strong rocket jump is?
Unless you are talking about her midgame, which is terrible
On July 12 2012 23:01 Tilorn91 wrote: Tristana always felt like 0 dmg AD to me, yeah the atkspd steroid is great and a free ignite is cool (does it work on summoner heal?) but meh, she really has 0 play making possibilities (putting it bluntly, ofc she does, but not as much as Vayne or Graves in terms of possitioning or punishing). But she's cheap if I remember correctly, so why not?
Do you know what trists ult is? Do you know what trist does at level 18 with full build? Do you know how strong rocket jump is?
Unless you are talking about her midgame, which is terrible
yeah but she doesn't amount to a vayne or a graves as far as raw damage if you put the same items on a vayne or a graves you're going to get more damage from either of those champs than tristana. She's still a really good champ and can still deal the damage out. She has a different set of utility than a graves or a vayne and I personally prefer trist simply because she has her ult to push back anyone trying to stick to her but also rocket jump to reposition and also buy herself another couple seconds, which isn't including a potential flash. Trist is a really hard champ to kill and with her range scaling endgame she's very fearsome. Where she lacks in damage she makes up for utility.
Trist early game is pretty much just as strong as a few other of the strongest picks. It's just that when she goes in she has to commit being her only problem. I find a good way to engage with trist is to pick taric up and get a slight minion advantage and just smash them :D.
I'm mainly talking about on average, vayne can put out more consistent damage than tristana can. Comparing skills is completely situational, because essentially you can get stunned by a vayne and you have 0 damage output. So~ I'm not talking about a 1 on 1 fight mainly because this isn't a 1v1 game but more or less through out a team fight or through out a game vayne/graves is going to have more raw damage based off of the items. Using the character is more situated to how good of a player you and/or your team are.
Tristana always felt like 0 dmg AD to me, yeah the atkspd steroid is great and a free ignite is cool (does it work on summoner heal?) but meh, she really has 0 play making possibilities (putting it bluntly, ofc she does, but not as much as Vayne or Graves in terms of possitioning or punishing). But she's cheap if I remember correctly, so why not?
Yes Tristanas dmg is below average in the mid/lategame her early game damage is really good though cause you play her basically as an AP carry (your casts are your most damage) Her Midgame is just straight up weak compared to other ADs in the real lategame with 3-4 offensive items she really starts to shine again due to her superior range (703 only topped by Kogmaw during w with 710 and twitch with ultimate with I believe 1100)
Thanks for the nice guide. I just started to play AD carry (also new to the game in general) and I found it helpful to get an idea over what items I should get and when to get them.
I am encountering some problems though that you perhaps can help me with:
1 - I am that annoying noob that only have 1/2 rune pages with AD carry runes etc so I usually pick my char and lock in. (I am usually the first one to appear in the char selection screen also). Anyway - more then often I pick like Vayne first and then the other ones joine and pick Ashe, then one pick Graves and all say 'me bot'. How do I make the best out of it? How will that affect me and my plan for the game/items etc.
2 - Can be connected to above; Sometimes I end up bot with other players that also need to get them cs. This is extremely annoying but unavoidable, specially with melee chars I am having trouble with getting the last hit as it seems they can hit the mob with more HP then me. (yes I have the AD dmg runes too!). Do you have any tips for situations like this? I have started spamming skillshots all the time and it helps a bit, but still I feel i get the short end of the stick.
3 - I struggle against ultra offensive laners, Nidalee with that throwing arrow comes to mind. Even though I do my best to avoid all of these things (and have the def runes/talents) I just end up taking too much damage and I quite frequently need to teleport in order to buy more potions, wich ruins all my cs and gold. Do you have any tips for this occation?
Besides that I have a lot to improve on general game knowledge, map awareness, getting enough CS etc in any case I found your guide very helpful!
I will just throw in a quick one at the end; Why is everyone getting Trinity Force for Ezreal? I've seen it daily on some streams I have been watching. IE looks much better for any situation?
On July 19 2012 04:31 ArcTear wrote: Thanks for the nice guide. I just started to play AD carry (also new to the game in general) and I found it helpful to get an idea over what items I should get and when to get them.
I am encountering some problems though that you perhaps can help me with:
1 - I am that annoying noob that only have 1/2 rune pages with AD carry runes etc so I usually pick my char and lock in. (I am usually the first one to appear in the char selection screen also). Anyway - more then often I pick like Vayne first and then the other ones joine and pick Ashe, then one pick Graves and all say 'me bot'. How do I make the best out of it? How will that affect me and my plan for the game/items etc.
2 - Can be connected to above; Sometimes I end up bot with other players that also need to get them cs. This is extremely annoying but unavoidable, specially with melee chars I am having trouble with getting the last hit as it seems they can hit the mob with more HP then me. (yes I have the AD dmg runes too!). Do you have any tips for situations like this? I have started spamming skillshots all the time and it helps a bit, but still I feel i get the short end of the stick.
3 - I struggle against ultra offensive laners, Nidalee with that throwing arrow comes to mind. Even though I do my best to avoid all of these things (and have the def runes/talents) I just end up taking too much damage and I quite frequently need to teleport in order to buy more potions, wich ruins all my cs and gold. Do you have any tips for this occation?
Besides that I have a lot to improve on general game knowledge, map awareness, getting enough CS etc in any case I found your guide very helpful!
I will just throw in a quick one at the end; Why is everyone getting Trinity Force for Ezreal? I've seen it daily on some streams I have been watching. IE looks much better for any situation?
Thanks!
1 - It'd be best if you learn to play top lane as well as bottom lane on a champion like udyr/leesin/jax, characters that can also use the AD carry page as well so you aren't forced to instalock. The other solution would be to play normal draft. You get a lot of instalocks in blinds so that happens quite a bit, if you're familiar with vayne, you shouldn't have too much trouble taking her top in a 1v1 lane. A 2v1 lane would be rather difficult for vayne.
2 - Don't spam skillshots, you'll run oom rather quickly on every AD without soraka. There's always a creep or two that the melee cannot possibly get without getting shot by the enemy bot laners. Take those and try for the melee creeps. Melee laners only do ~10 more damage than ranged ones at most, if you're last hitting correctly, you should still get some. Try to get every cs you can and most likely, you'll wind up with a 70/30 split between you and the melee you're with.
3 - Nidalee and most aggressive laners you have to rely primarily on positioning to deal with. Her spear does more damage the further it travels before hitting you so similar to blitzcrank, stand between your creeps and nidalee. If you ward the bush, you can both abuse her proximity to the wall with condemn and avoid her spears more easily.
Triforce makes ezreal's Q/W hit like a truck at the expense of some autoattack damage. It's a difficult argument either way as to which is definitively better since the utility that triforce gives is hard to compare to the raw damage of an IE.
How about Twitch AD carry? Is it normal? (In this patch Twitch was remade). I played Ezreal while he was free champ. And he is pretty good for me. So many saves. But in terms of consistent damage i don't tink that Ez is good. I am deciding now between Ez, Twitch and Kog Want to know opinion of TL community.
Ezreal the safest pick you basically cant counterpick him Kogmaw a bit harder to play due to not having an escape and you need to position better a bit more situational in perfect scenarios the best pick (no real great gapcloser and so on) Twitch is in my opinion just worse then kogmaw with a skillbuild which is not too different.
I talked about those 3 ads and yes you can "counter trist" by winning ~20-30 mins in where tristana is fairly weak but yes tristana is one of the safer picks aswell (with corki + to a bit lesser extend Graves)
On July 26 2012 23:41 zulu_nation8 wrote: do you think vayne is the best AD vs ezreal?
maybe sivir because of his ability to spam so you gain a lot of mana or he wont do any damage... and you could harass him aswell, even though he will flash to dodge your Q
I think a soraka + sivir bot lane stops all the damage of his spells, atleast it works in lower elo
I dont think that you can "counter ez" there are some lanes which are pretty safe: Corki Graves Sivir even ashe and kogmaw can work decently (even though the as slow is pretty hard for them) I wouldnt suggest vayne because she suffers a lot from the as slow + is relly weak in lane
On July 30 2012 11:29 101toss wrote: So, is the general consensus here that caitlyn sucks dick?
I thought she had the best lane phase of any AD with her range + poke, so you should leave lane with an advantage, but her lategame is really bad as a trade off
On July 30 2012 11:29 101toss wrote: So, is the general consensus here that caitlyn sucks dick?
I thought she had the best lane phase of any AD with her range + poke, so you should leave lane with an advantage, but her lategame is really bad as a trade off
it's not her lategame but her lack of presence in midgame similar to trist. cait still has the 3rd highest range for ad carries (if including kog w) so her lategame is on par or better than most ad carries
On July 30 2012 11:29 101toss wrote: So, is the general consensus here that caitlyn sucks dick?
I thought she had the best lane phase of any AD with her range + poke, so you should leave lane with an advantage, but her lategame is really bad as a trade off
it's not her lategame but her lack of presence in midgame similar to trist. cait still has the 3rd highest range for ad carries (if including kog w) so her lategame is on par or better than most ad carries
But the shitty steroid, escape, and ult make her garbage lategame (and mid) :s
Why play cait when you could play trist, have a similar shitty midgame, but have a stronger early (debatable) that helps you avoid the shit midgame as well as a great late presence?
On July 30 2012 11:29 101toss wrote: So, is the general consensus here that caitlyn sucks dick?
I thought she had the best lane phase of any AD with her range + poke, so you should leave lane with an advantage, but her lategame is really bad as a trade off
it's not her lategame but her lack of presence in midgame similar to trist. cait still has the 3rd highest range for ad carries (if including kog w) so her lategame is on par or better than most ad carries
But the shitty steroid, escape, and ult make her garbage lategame (and mid) :s
Why play cait when you could play trist, have a similar shitty midgame, but have a stronger early (debatable) that helps you avoid the shit midgame as well as a great late presence?
i prefer female breast over small yordle. ot: cait has nice ability to zone with traps late game when tower pushing so it all depends on team comp i guess
On July 27 2012 00:08 Ente wrote: I dont think that you can "counter ez" there are some lanes which are pretty safe: Corki Graves Sivir even ashe and kogmaw can work decently (even though the as slow is pretty hard for them) I wouldnt suggest vayne because she suffers a lot from the as slow + is relly weak in lane
Also vayne can't outtrade ezreal if he lands his W on her. Even late game, if you can't stun ezreal, he's very hard to 1v1 as an AD carry - even vayne. (Same problem happens for Autoattacking bruisers - AS slow stronk)
On July 30 2012 11:29 101toss wrote: So, is the general consensus here that caitlyn sucks dick?
For Caitlyn it's really important to win lane, and ride that advantage into the mid-game. I feel that her range late-game makes up for her lack of a steroid, with proper positioning one can truly abuse her 650 range, and she is really good vs double-AP or AOE team comps.
On July 30 2012 11:29 101toss wrote: So, is the general consensus here that caitlyn sucks dick?
For Caitlyn it's really important to win lane, and ride that advantage into the mid-game. I feel that her range late-game makes up for her lack of a steroid, with proper positioning one can truly abuse her 650 range, and she is really good vs double-AP or AOE team comps.
In the early game, caitlyn paired with an equally aggressive zoning support like alistar, blitz and taric or janna can literally stand between your ranged/melee creeps shooting you and because you're zoned so far that the creeps don't aggro onto cait. Sure, once it hits the 12-15 minute mark and you're going for dragon her skills will generally do less damage but that doesn't matter too much if she has double dorans, BF, zerks, vamp and a pickaxe against your double dorans, zerks BF. Good caitlyn's will zone you out of 50+ CS by the 15 minute mark, a pretty huge amount of money that compensates for her weakness later.
In the Varus-section, you might want to add Leona as a great support. Comboing those spells with the varus E into R is a 100% kill.
Actually max E on Varus first, the ratios are pretty damn good and for trades it shuts down all the healing. Also, the first instinct of alot of people (lets say 90%) when hit by Varus E is to just run away. During that you can autoattack 2/3 times and follow with a Q for more damage.
E is just such a huge chunk of damage in lane, I wish I maxed it when he came out instead of W/Q
good guide sir!
edit: my opinion on the whole caitlynn discussion. I think its alot dependant on the support you have. You have to be aggresive and you need a support who can aid you in that goal. I play alot of AD carry and I really like the ranged poke of Cait early on. My normal support usually plays aggresive support, so she doesnt play much soraka for example. We have a good chemistry and we are allways trying to be as aggresive as the enemy team lets us be (junglers, global ults).
However her sister also sometimes plays support but shes waaaay more passive. As a result I cant go aggresive as much since basicly im alone vs their 2 players, with my support helping where needed but not for a kill/zoning.
This could be 2 seperate games with the exact same setup where one works and one doenst, purely on how aggresive the support is willing to play next to me in lane.
Caitlyn is definitely not as bad as most of you are making her out to be. The reason you would pick her over someone like Tristana is because of her zoning presence. She's very safe in lane and has very good burst with Q + R combos to finish people off as they attempt to escape. The decreased cast time on her E has helped her mid to late game a lot because it adds to her time auto attacking and also allows her to reposition herself faster. Traps at dragon/baron will also influence the enemy's movements, allowing for zoning/poking, which is something that other ADs don't really provide. Yes, late late game tristana and kog do more damage from marginally longer range, but she still does good damage with her passive and is very hard to run down as she peels for herself very well.
Overall, she's very unique and is probably my favorite AD. People see her as the "easy AD" but she is definitely one of the harder ones to master imo.
On July 30 2012 11:29 101toss wrote: So, is the general consensus here that caitlyn sucks dick?
For Caitlyn it's really important to win lane, and ride that advantage into the mid-game. I feel that her range late-game makes up for her lack of a steroid, with proper positioning one can truly abuse her 650 range, and she is really good vs double-AP or AOE team comps.
Although CLG.na lost, you can see pretty clearly what a good Caitlyn player (Doublelift) is capable of and how to abuse 650 range lategame. With 650 range + Flash + Cleanse + QSS + the improved 90 caliber net he was nearly untouchable while dishing out the usual 5/6 item ad carry damage.
Unfortunately the rest of the team did pretty poorly and couldn't peel for him in the very last teamfight so in the end he died to Malphite (who is considered OP anyways as of now and was pretty fed) and Ahri jumping on him.
Edit:
Many people play Caitlyn just wrong which is why the majority of the community thinks she sucks. They play her too passive and use 650 range only to farm safely which eventually results in a lost lane for them which is not acceptable when playing Caitlyn (unless you get camped and globally ganked like mad, but even then...).
Caitlyn has a very good lategame no idea why people complain about it the reasons are: decent steroid (the passiv really isnt that bad around ~10% dps increase a bit less if not in brush more if in brush) great range with 650 3 have more Tristana, Kogmaw (during W) Twitch (during R). Caitlyn is the best champ for towerpoking due to having 3 trapps and constantly high Autoattack range. Her midgame sucks though due to not having any usefull dmg spells (her traps are probably her best spell) In addition to that you can lane 2v1 decently with caitlyn (after a certain point) so if you want your support to gank a bit (not full roam) caitlyn is good for that aswell.
Caitlyn is a great AD carry to punish not-so-good-at-laning ADs such as Vayne. When you play Caitlyn, like Lions said, you basically want to ride your advantage to the mid-game, so mostly you have to pick a team with a lot of pushing potential.
Her late game is good if you have a decent CC/peeler like Ali, Skar, Leona, etc, but in that case, they'd be better peeling for Kog or something. She has her strengths, sure, but she just lacks superpower that other carries bring.
I still play her a lot, as I like the safe and strong laning phase and very few low-elo games get to super late as it is (and even if they do, one side is usually way ahead anyway), so it's less of a big deal for me. If I want to go super tryhard as ADC (generally doesn't happen, as it's my second weakest role), I'd probably pick Trist and just ride her to endgame victory.
The problem with Caitlyn in late game is that her steroid is not so great. Compared to Corki, Caitlyn's passive does not work on her crits... otherwise it's almost the same passive. However Corki has a much better gap closer and poke than Caitlyn's.
I wish Caitlyn could gain passive stacks when she hits a champion with her spell. I think that will actually make her pretty strong... but so far, the statistics seem to suggest that she is pretty weak right now.
I think the real issue with cait is kinda the same as trist. Your spells are really good in lane, but when you build towards IE you NEED attack speed to really get from the "i use both auto attacks and spells to deal damage" to "i auto attack you and you die". This is why ezreal and corki is so good mid-game imo, because their spells make sense to use. It just feels akward using caitlyns Q in team fights mid-game.
On July 31 2012 02:16 Sponkz wrote: I think the real issue with cait is kinda the same as trist. Your spells are really good in lane, but when you build towards IE you NEED attack speed to really get from the "i use both auto attacks and spells to deal damage" to "i auto attack you and you die". This is why ezreal and corki is so good mid-game imo, because their spells make sense to use. It just feels akward using caitlyns Q in team fights mid-game.
Cailyn's Q is only a little slower than an additional autoattack with zerks in the midgame now. It's pretty well worth casting until you get your PD if you hit one or more targets with it. The way I see doublelift use caitlyn, he either casts it right at the beginning when you can't autoattack since you're not in range anyways and people are still gap closing or saves it for when he has to cast E and does the E>Q combo since you aren't going to be autoattacking during your E anyways.
On July 31 2012 02:16 Sponkz wrote: I think the real issue with cait is kinda the same as trist. Your spells are really good in lane, but when you build towards IE you NEED attack speed to really get from the "i use both auto attacks and spells to deal damage" to "i auto attack you and you die". This is why ezreal and corki is so good mid-game imo, because their spells make sense to use. It just feels akward using caitlyns Q in team fights mid-game.
Cailyn's Q is only a little slower than an additional autoattack with zerks in the midgame now. It's pretty well worth casting until you get your PD if you hit one or more targets with it. The way I see doublelift use caitlyn, he either casts it right at the beginning when you can't autoattack since you're not in range anyways and people are still gap closing or saves it for when he has to cast E and does the E>Q combo since you aren't going to be autoattacking during your E anyways.
I think her Q could use a buff. Considering how many instant skillshots around there are from other ADs around that power level (Graves Buckshot, Sivir Boomerang, Varus uncharged Arrow, Ezreal Q, Urgot Acid Hunter), it just seems underwhelming in comparison. Which would be fine if her range still made her godmode, but it rather doesn't.
On July 30 2012 23:20 Requizen wrote: Her late game is good if you have a decent CC/peeler like Ali, Skar, Leona, etc, but in that case, they'd be better peeling for Kog or something. She has her strengths, sure, but she just lacks superpower that other carries bring.
On July 31 2012 02:04 Sufficiency wrote: The problem with Caitlyn in late game is that her steroid is not so great. Compared to Corki, Caitlyn's passive does not work on her crits... otherwise it's almost the same passive. However Corki has a much better gap closer and poke than Caitlyn's.
Of course, If you need a glass cannon that 3 shots squishies lategame and shits steroids, Caitlyn is obviously not the AD you're looking for, I'll give you that.
But both your arguments are based on the assumption that the team comp in your scenario needs the AD for damage. It's obvious that Kog and Corki can be dealing more lategame damage, but that's not the point of Caitlyn. You have done something seriously wrong during picks/bans if you complain about your team's missing lategame damage but picked Caitlyn as an AD.
That's like saying "omg Ashe so weak lategame damage no steroid she's too weak". Just like Caitlyn, you don't pick Ashe for her pure DPS output but rather for her utility and #1 initiation.
Ridicoulus lane domination, traps and constant 650 range are the signature characteristics of Cait. If you can make good use of her laning, tower sieging and nice kiting ability and have another main DPS source in your team (some super endgame carry like Vlad / Jax / Karthus etc.) she will get the sustained DPS job done, too, because then there is no reason to complain about your team's lategame DPS.
She doesn't dominate lane as hard anymore, though. I couldn't really tell you when it switched (bot never really was my area of expertise, and I'm not that great anyway), but nowadays it's less and less likely to see her just win lane. Even with her range advantage, people like Graves/Ezreal or certain supports make her go even or can even crush her easily with the right setup.
She's one of the best laners for an AD, but she's not the end-all-be-all lane queen like she used to be, and the whole "win lane win game" mentality is somewhat shifting in bot lane as it is.
The issue there though is that in solo queue you're rarely going to have a team to coordinate early pushes and base their picks around you wanting to play Caitlyn when you could just as easily play any of the AD carries that don't require a team to plan around your pick. Even in arranged 5s Caitlyn's strengths are rarely utilized. The only team that runs her with any amount of regularity is CLGna and their track record with Caitlyn is not entirely stellar.
I don't think she's necessarily bad but she's certainly behind most of the other AD carries in this game. That's not necessarily wrong either, it's probably fine for LoL to have niche champions like Cait. I just mean that if I wanted to have a safe laner I'd rather pick Ezreal, if I wanted to harass and zone my opponent I'd rather have Urgot, and if I wanted to siege towers I'd probably rather play Kog'Maw because while he isn't quite as good as Caitlyn at sieging I think his damage output makes up for it.
Sure, if you can get your team to base their picks around you and then siege earlier and thus essentially base their entire game plan around you, Caitlyn can be pretty good. But that's a huge stretch in solo queue and it's a pretty huge stretch in arranged 5s too. Why play an AD carry that requires such a big investment when I could just play practically any other AD carry and then my team can play standard?
edit: Ezreal and Kog were the de facto anti-Caitlyn picks back when she was considered #1 AD carry due to their relative safety against her. What hurt her were some slight nerfs and the addition of Graves along with Urgot becoming popular. No reason to run Caitlyn for lane domination when Urgot is definitely better than her at it and Graves is arguably better than her at it.
Hey guys good Cait discussion. Honestly she has grown ALOT on me, and i've really learned to abuse her zoning / harass potential in poke comps. Also her slipperiness in certain teamfights rivals even ezreal with the right team comp. Her E not only gives distance, but slows, and agravates bruisers to no end. Her R is more often used to maintain enemy LOW HP at towers while you are sieging than to secure kills in poke comp. Although at the end of certain fights it comes up and you can maybe clean up a kill. With Cait its all about lane dominance, lane safety, mid game pushing, and then late game sustain dps / zoning / survival.
Also I just added a Cait Traps picture section, any comments or improvements are appreciated. Im gonna add a section on where Graves can dash, and maybe where Tristana / Corki can jump / fly over. And how to address how buggy Trist's jump can be. I want to make a detailed section on match ups, but the more I think about it, the more daunting and rediculous it will be to actually do lol, so gimme more time on that....
Is going straight BT on graves worth it? Get more AD for Buckshot/Collateral Damage (since its higher than IE) and i feel like he could use the lifesteal since his range isnt that big
On August 01 2012 03:26 jcc wrote: Hey guys good Cait discussion. Honestly she has grown ALOT on me, and i've really learned to abuse her zoning / harass potential in poke comps. Also her slipperiness in certain teamfights rivals even ezreal with the right team comp. Her E not only gives distance, but slows, and agravates bruisers to no end. Her R is more often used to maintain enemy LOW HP at towers while you are sieging than to secure kills in poke comp. Although at the end of certain fights it comes up and you can maybe clean up a kill. With Cait its all about lane dominance, lane safety, mid game pushing, and then late game sustain dps / zoning / survival.
Also I just added a Cait Traps picture section, any comments or improvements are appreciated. Im gonna add a section on where Graves can dash, and maybe where Tristana / Corki can jump / fly over. And how to address how buggy Trist's jump can be. I want to make a detailed section on match ups, but the more I think about it, the more daunting and rediculous it will be to actually do lol, so gimme more time on that....
On the caitlyn traps, when actively pushing creeps INTO their tower, I find the best overall combination of traps involves zoning them from the sides of the tower in either a horizontal or a vertical line. If they want the ranged creeps, they have to walk around the far side of the lane opposite the tower, giving you an easy time shooting them.
Instead of the
oo___Oo spacing, I like the __ooOo spacing, forcing the enemy AD to go in the _'s.
Level 1 trapping is also something that might be good to add. Good places to trap are the bushes by red, level 2 gank protection for your top laner (primarily on purple side), anti-invasion traps (Along paths that people like to take to invade, tribush by blue, river bush behind blue)
On August 02 2012 19:43 arb wrote: Is going straight BT on graves worth it? Get more AD for Buckshot/Collateral Damage (since its higher than IE) and i feel like he could use the lifesteal since his range isnt that big
Think its sort of as getting a sheen on some champions. If you are ahead, get more ahead. If you are ahead with graves, get a BT to get more ahead. If not. get dorans, zekers
On August 01 2012 03:26 jcc wrote: Hey guys good Cait discussion. Honestly she has grown ALOT on me, and i've really learned to abuse her zoning / harass potential in poke comps. Also her slipperiness in certain teamfights rivals even ezreal with the right team comp. Her E not only gives distance, but slows, and agravates bruisers to no end. Her R is more often used to maintain enemy LOW HP at towers while you are sieging than to secure kills in poke comp. Although at the end of certain fights it comes up and you can maybe clean up a kill. With Cait its all about lane dominance, lane safety, mid game pushing, and then late game sustain dps / zoning / survival.
Also I just added a Cait Traps picture section, any comments or improvements are appreciated. Im gonna add a section on where Graves can dash, and maybe where Tristana / Corki can jump / fly over. And how to address how buggy Trist's jump can be. I want to make a detailed section on match ups, but the more I think about it, the more daunting and rediculous it will be to actually do lol, so gimme more time on that....
On the caitlyn traps, when actively pushing creeps INTO their tower, I find the best overall combination of traps involves zoning them from the sides of the tower in either a horizontal or a vertical line. If they want the ranged creeps, they have to walk around the far side of the lane opposite the tower, giving you an easy time shooting them.
Instead of the
oo___Oo spacing, I like the __ooOo spacing, forcing the enemy AD to go in the _'s.
Level 1 trapping is also something that might be good to add. Good places to trap are the bushes by red, level 2 gank protection for your top laner (primarily on purple side), anti-invasion traps (Along paths that people like to take to invade, tribush by blue, river bush behind blue)
I typically don't like trapping those early invade areas because typically we always know where they ate ad where they are gonna invade from. We also tend to throw down a ward at our blue and camp in our red or vice versa. But ya I think I'll add a few of those pics, it's what I used to do before we used wards.
On August 02 2012 19:43 arb wrote: Is going straight BT on graves worth it? Get more AD for Buckshot/Collateral Damage (since its higher than IE) and i feel like he could use the lifesteal since his range isnt that big
Early BT is fine, Chaox does it often. Just do it if you're already ahead, I woulnt suggest it if you're behind.
On August 03 2012 01:58 wei2coolman wrote: Glad TL still loves Cait. Doublelift's caitlyn is disgusting to watch, it's fucking impeccable.
She's probably my favorite to play behind Ezreal, but I think she could use some tweaks to get her in line with other ADs. I don't think she's totally trash, though, just bad later on compared to others. She can (and does) still carry the hell out of games if you know how to lane well with her.
On August 03 2012 01:58 wei2coolman wrote: Glad TL still loves Cait. Doublelift's caitlyn is disgusting to watch, it's fucking impeccable.
She's probably my favorite to play behind Ezreal, but I think she could use some tweaks to get her in line with other ADs. I don't think she's totally trash, though, just bad later on compared to others. She can (and does) still carry the hell out of games if you know how to lane well with her.
Doublelift makes Caitlyn looks op'd as fuckkkkkk. Then again, doublelift makes every ad carry look op'd as fuck~. I think the only real change I want on caitlyn is to make her Q a bit more in line w/ graves Q and sivir's Q.
Maybe if she didn't have the worst ult ever she'd be more viable. Having something so unreliable as an ult is really bad. I wish it worked like a souped up targetted version of her Q -- it'll blow through targets who try to block it and reduce damage on the way through to the target, but it ALWAYS hits the target. She's a sniper, why is she constantly missing all of her shots? >:[
On August 03 2012 02:07 TwoToneTerran wrote: Maybe if she didn't have the worst ult ever she'd be more viable. Having something so unreliable as an ult is really bad. I wish it worked like a souped up targetted version of her Q -- it'll blow through targets who try to block it and reduce damage on the way through to the target, but it ALWAYS hits the target. She's a sniper, why is she constantly missing all of her shots? >:[
She doesn't miss her shot, people just block it.... I think i've mentioned in the GD, that it's one of my favorite ulti's from a design perspective~
Eh, it's fine I think. If it were more reliable (or couldn't be blocked or something like that), it'd be absurd. As it is, it's still a huge chunk of damage to anyone not stacking armor. You just need to know when and where to use it, can't always save it for that one perfect shot where the almost-dead squishy is running away by himself. I find that it's always useful as long as you don't horribly waste it: either it chunks a squishy (hopefully forcing them away from the fight), or it forces a bruiser/tank to get out of position, something your team can and should exploit.
Could it be better? Yes, by a good margin. I just don't think it's as completely useless as people make it out to be.
On August 03 2012 02:15 Requizen wrote: Eh, it's fine I think. If it were more reliable (or couldn't be blocked or something like that), it'd be absurd. As it is, it's still a huge chunk of damage to anyone not stacking armor. You just need to know when and where to use it, can't always save it for that one perfect shot where the almost-dead squishy is running away by himself. I find that it's always useful as long as you don't horribly waste it: either it chunks a squishy (hopefully forcing them away from the fight), or it forces a bruiser/tank to get out of position, something your team can and should exploit.
Could it be better? Yes, by a good margin. I just don't think it's as completely useless as people make it out to be.
Most of the time I use it in laning phase just to force people out of lane, rather than as a kill shot. There will be times when enemy AD's are at half health, under their tower, and there's no obvious way to kill them if your junglers not there to help w/ the tower dive. So I usually just ulti them, and usually it'll force them to back, allowing for a) you to back or b)take tower.
On July 30 2012 23:20 Requizen wrote: Her late game is good if you have a decent CC/peeler like Ali, Skar, Leona, etc, but in that case, they'd be better peeling for Kog or something. She has her strengths, sure, but she just lacks superpower that other carries bring.
On July 31 2012 02:04 Sufficiency wrote: The problem with Caitlyn in late game is that her steroid is not so great. Compared to Corki, Caitlyn's passive does not work on her crits... otherwise it's almost the same passive. However Corki has a much better gap closer and poke than Caitlyn's.
Of course, If you need a glass cannon that 3 shots squishies lategame and shits steroids, Caitlyn is obviously not the AD you're looking for, I'll give you that.
But both your arguments are based on the assumption that the team comp in your scenario needs the AD for damage. It's obvious that Kog and Corki can be dealing more lategame damage, but that's not the point of Caitlyn. You have done something seriously wrong during picks/bans if you complain about your team's missing lategame damage but picked Caitlyn as an AD.
That's like saying "omg Ashe so weak lategame damage no steroid she's too weak". Just like Caitlyn, you don't pick Ashe for her pure DPS output but rather for her utility and #1 initiation.
Ridicoulus lane domination, traps and constant 650 range are the signature characteristics of Cait. If you can make good use of her laning, tower sieging and nice kiting ability and have another main DPS source in your team (some super endgame carry like Vlad / Jax / Karthus etc.) she will get the sustained DPS job done, too, because then there is no reason to complain about your team's lategame DPS.
TBH, Caitlyn can peel for herself quite well. Standing on your own traps, having E to use on bruisers who dive you, and great range all contribute to this. Peeling isn't her problem.
She doesn't dominate lanes the way she once did, however - which is why she fell out of favor. Even though she has great range, between her Q taking a hefty damage hit and her MS being lowered, she has a harder time doing enough free harass as she wants without a fight being forced upon her. Currently, there are just better picks for "I want lane dominance" and "I want a good poke comp."
She might be good if you want to take out early towers fast, or send your support to roam heavily and leave the AD carry to often be 1v2 (Hard to zone vs 650 range + traps) or some other weird niche situations, but she just is hard to justify as a pick given the current state of other AD carries vs her. Right now, I think ezreal fills the role Cait once did (strong harass lane, good poke for fights... he doesn't have the Towerpush power she does though.) She also has a very hard time against the hyper aggressive botlanes which are commonplace now but were not when she was in her prime (She never had to lane against stuff like Leona+Corki or anything involving Graves) and sustaining supports were king. She could put out enough harass to outmatch even the once-stronger sustain from Soraka/Sona while being able to lean on similar sustain herself to shrug off the harass she'd receive in return. The game is different now, there are too many lane combos that will just look to try and 100->0 Caitlyn or her support and it just won't matter how much harass she can put out when one good Leona/Blitz/Taric/Alistar + whatever AD carry kills her.
Also remember that when Cait was in her prime, she was picked to lane against Kog and Vayne very often - two champions she still does well against. It wasn't important that she got farmed and got a great late game, it was more important to the teams who picked her that she DENIED that farm and late game to the opposing carry. Now that carries like Ezreal, Corki, Graves are more popular, it takes a different type of laner if you want to shut down a carry who doesn't take as long to get to be terrifying (hello, Urgot.)
The problem with Caitlyn is just that she is a niche pick for a niche that isn't as common currently.
I think your concerns are more valid in a well thoughout high level 5's tourney, as far as solo queue goes, I don't really see any major matchups up on bot where I go "hmmm, cait sucks here". she'll always win her lane, if played properly, there's no such thing as an "anti-cait" botlane. the best the enemy can get is "if i go even or close to even, i'll win out in lategame"
The main issue with cait in current meta, is that midgame favors extremely strong burst ad carries, as opposed to consistent damage.
The thing is, most ad players aren't good enough to constantly auto attacking in a teamfight, thus making full auto attacking AD carries a lot less popular than spell casting/burst ones. Doublelifts ability to position/micro his ad carries is shown by his champion pool that is far more micro intensive/ auto attack intensive champions, such as cait/vayne.
It's just a matter of stylistic play choice on your ad carry.
Er, there are plenty of lanes that beat Cait. Ezreal beats or goes even if he has anywhere near the same amount of skill, Graves should beat her a good amount of the time just by pushing hard, dashing to close the distance, then out-bursting her. She's not unbeatable in lane, by a long shot. She beats most, but she doesn't auto-win lane by any means.
On August 03 2012 04:27 Requizen wrote: Er, there are plenty of lanes that beat Cait. Ezreal beats or goes even if he has anywhere near the same amount of skill, Graves should beat her a good amount of the time just by pushing hard, dashing to close the distance, then out-bursting her. She's not unbeatable in lane, by a long shot. She beats most, but she doesn't auto-win lane by any means.
Cait easily shits on a graves lane.... have you seen doublelifts stream a lot of cait games, because of how popular graves was, a few months ago? he was having a field day against it. it was fucking hilarious.
Ezreal can go even because he's a duelist, better in a skirmish, but then late game comes around, and I'd say caits late game > ezreals lategame.
You can't use Doublelift as an example of how a champion works for most people. He could probably play AD Viktor and go 15-0. I can't really name any other ADs that can nearly play at his level, so it's kind of a silly example.
Late games between Ez and Cait is a toss up. Ez will still do really good burst and has better AoE for teamfights, and has one of the best blinks in the game. Cait has the range, of course, and can siege those late game turrets. Neither are who I'd want on a long-term focused team, though.
On August 03 2012 04:37 Requizen wrote: You can't use Doublelift as an example of how a champion works for most people. He could probably play AD Viktor and go 15-0. I can't really name any other ADs that can nearly play at his level, so it's kind of a silly example.
Late games between Ez and Cait is a toss up. Ez will still do really good burst and has better AoE for teamfights, and has one of the best blinks in the game. Cait has the range, of course, and can siege those late game turrets. Neither are who I'd want on a long-term focused team, though.
I would give Ezreal the advantage in any isolated case. However, the way we've been using Cait in TL B games is just as a safe, easy to lane AD. We have been transitioning our poke comp incredibly well into the mid game (excluding games where I derp and play the LET'S ENGAGE ALL THE THINGS game). It becomes a very calculated, controlling comp that is extremely devastating and hilarious when done right. Cait contributes to that comp beautifully.
Oddly enough I find Cait's mid game her real strength imo, even when i don't win my lane, I still feel my mid game when playing cait is stronger than the enemy ad's mid game. She offers so much control in mid game engages. Her late game is not that great, but it's definitely one of the best when it comes to taking tower after baron~ ,dat tower poke op'd. Her ability to zone while poking at towers are so strong, it can really fuck up enemy teams when they want to hard engage on you (with trap set ups).
BTW I figured out how Riot should buff Caitlyn. Give her the Darius treatment. Make her ulti do True damage, and reset when it gets killign blow. LOL!!!
On August 03 2012 04:46 wei2coolman wrote: Oddly enough I find Cait's mid game her real strength imo, even when i don't win my lane, I still feel my mid game when playing cait is stronger than the enemy ad's mid game. She offers so much control in mid game engages. Her late game is not that great, but it's definitely one of the best when it comes to taking tower after baron~ ,dat tower poke op'd. Her ability to zone while poking at towers are so strong, it can really fuck up enemy teams when they want to hard engage on you (with trap set ups).
BTW I figured out how Riot should buff Caitlyn. Give her the Darius treatment. Make her ulti do True damage, and reset when it gets killign blow. LOL!!!
And while in flight, the bullet silently whistles "BALANCE"
On August 03 2012 04:46 wei2coolman wrote: Oddly enough I find Cait's mid game her real strength imo, even when i don't win my lane, I still feel my mid game when playing cait is stronger than the enemy ad's mid game. She offers so much control in mid game engages. Her late game is not that great, but it's definitely one of the best when it comes to taking tower after baron~ ,dat tower poke op'd. Her ability to zone while poking at towers are so strong, it can really fuck up enemy teams when they want to hard engage on you (with trap set ups).
BTW I figured out how Riot should buff Caitlyn. Give her the Darius treatment. Make her ulti do True damage, and reset when it gets killign blow. LOL!!!
And while in flight, the bullet silently whistles "BALANCE"
Oh man, I could just imagine how fucking mad the community would be if they actually did that. You gotta admit, it'd be pretty fucking awesome, it'd be sorta balanced too, imo, considering the failure rate of her ulti and her channel time.
On August 03 2012 04:46 wei2coolman wrote: Oddly enough I find Cait's mid game her real strength imo, even when i don't win my lane, I still feel my mid game when playing cait is stronger than the enemy ad's mid game. She offers so much control in mid game engages. Her late game is not that great, but it's definitely one of the best when it comes to taking tower after baron~ ,dat tower poke op'd. Her ability to zone while poking at towers are so strong, it can really fuck up enemy teams when they want to hard engage on you (with trap set ups).
BTW I figured out how Riot should buff Caitlyn. Give her the Darius treatment. Make her ulti do True damage, and reset when it gets killign blow. LOL!!!
Oh god. You would get a double kill bot lane every time.. so terror.
On August 02 2012 19:43 arb wrote: Is going straight BT on graves worth it? Get more AD for Buckshot/Collateral Damage (since its higher than IE) and i feel like he could use the lifesteal since his range isnt that big
Early BT is fine, Chaox does it often. Just do it if you're already ahead, I woulnt suggest it if you're behind.
It feels like with his kit, and his pretty short range it would be safer than just straight rushing IE
I got rolled yesterday by ezreal / sona bot, playing as graves (me) / janna. Granted this ez / sona seemed to have been playing for a long time together, and I just bought Graves that evening.
Any tips on Graves vs ezreal? I was thinking I didn't abuse my W enough, nor did I use my E enough to dodge, but I was wondering if any of you guys could give me some tips.
Edit: Also wanted to add in that I usually play Ashe or Graves. I prefer ashe for all of the control she provides late game, but graves can just snowball out of control against randoms in normal queue.
Don't do extended trades against Ez. Essentially you should buckshot, then run away, don't try and fight it out for more than 1 auto attack. Ez's W will always win an extended skirmish.
I got rolled yesterday by ezreal / sona bot, playing as graves (me) / janna. Granted this ez / sona seemed to have been playing for a long time together, and I just bought Graves that evening.
I would say Ezreal Sona is the strongest botlane right now, just insanly good. There is a reason you basically only see Corki vs Ezreal at the moment and that is: Corki can decently lane vs Ezreal because he mainly casts aswell and doesnt get outranged like graves does. Other then that: try to evade fighting at all costs and somehow farm they will kill you in lane. You might try to oneshot Sona but thats about it.
1- Why did Ez become so popular recently (besides the pulsefire skin)
People realized that he is a good champion and people started maxing w on him.
2- Any advice on how to lane as Vayne?
lashit/get kills if possible.. not really a question you can answer tbh maybe dont pick her against ezreal? or dont pick her vs nunu. In my opinion the easiest lane as vayne is probably against graves but all lanes are kinda hard. Try to get an advantage somehow if you get that you have won it because you will be able to rush the enemy down when they come back to lane.
W got its mana cost reduced by 10. R's mana cost was reduced by 50. Then people started going max W and realized, "holy shit Ez can pretty much out trade everyone with this AS debuff!" Combine with the fact that Ez was already one of the safest laners due to his blink and his ability to Q farm from 1100 range...not to mention he has a global ult.
While new skill order is partly to blame for his recent popularity his full rotation of spells costs 60 mana less which is pretty huge too.
Oh one thing which many people overlook and I forgot to mention every single other AD got nerfed: Sivir Q + ult nerf Kogmaw W E R nerf (he was so fun after the intial buffs sadly permabanned in europe )= ) Graves Q W R stats nerf I believe Corki got some nerfs aswell Vayne got several nerfs on basestats passive q ult Urgot recently everything. Caitlyn a while ago with traps and basestats Kennen got nearly removed as ad (some still play him though) Just a few ADs got untouched/barely touched: Ashe Tristana (one fix with the e which actually nerfed her quite a bit
Twitch Varus Draven are considered weak right now (some start playing Varus a bit)
These traps positions are, for most of them, obvious, but still very interesting to see on theory Ty, I'll try some of them! (but yea, support also needs to be good!)
What are some benchmarks for CSing for 10, 15, 20 minutes?
I've always gone by 75 at 10, 100 at 15, 150 at 20 and counted kills as roughly 15cs, are these cs scores good for an ADC, obviously higher is better, I just want to know what is average?
I know that I could do a lot better. This is generally what I do is just passive farm til 75 asap get my double dorans/serk boots and then from there play way more aggressive which is why i only get 25 cs from 10 to 15, while i'm doing trades so bot lane is easier to gank and from 15-20 i'm just going back to heavy farming to get my ie as quickly as possible.
I've always gone by 75 at 10, 100 at 15, 150 at 20 and counted kills as roughly 15cs, are these cs scores good for an ADC, obviously higher is better, I just want to know what is average?
that seems a bit weird. 75 at 10 mins is decent 100 at 15 is meh 150 at 20 is decent (but less decent then 75 at 10 ) at 15 mins you kinda want more then 100 (100 isnt that bad though) if I have around 100 I always ask myself did I just fail horribly or is there a reason for that (insanly high agression on either side obviously reduces your cs)
and counted kills as roughly 15cs
yeah kills probably are around that if you just look at the cs
Idk I think I get hyper aggressive once i get my duo dorans and serk boots so I can get ie a lot quicker than my opponent, rather than just afk farming. I either have like 100 cs at 15 with 2 or 3 kills or 130-140cs with 0 to 1 kill, but i'm mainly trying to deny at this point.
Idk it might be because of my positioning but I feel even if i get my ie quicker than my opponent, I still dont deal enough damage to the rest of the team or I get focused really hard. [I mainly solo que] So i find that just trying to shut my lane down works a lot better than trying to farm really hard quicker. If that makes sense. i should just be running corki and afk farm til 200 cs. xP
its not always optimal to start IE first. with high burst lanes (corki/leona, corki/sona, ez/sona etc) I actually like a Triforce start, and it also depends if you can abuse the other carry's midgame (if they're playing tristana for example). If I'm ahead of them (early kills, big cs advantage) or if the game is very "low-econ", then I often like to go BT, because this means that you'll have at least BT/zeal by the time they only have IE. There is also a timing when you have BT and they're stuck with a BF sword, and this is a very good timing to abuse.
Yeah, I realize it's not optimal to start always IE first, but for the majority of players that have trouble making plays, it is. I'm going to add an update soon on kinda when to open BT, or TF, or IE, or like whatever. But all that is just so tentative, it's hard to put it into writing.
Well, to be fair, every time Draven appears in a tourney he almost always loses. He's barely ever picked though and the tip top teams haven't picked him up. Iirc, only Evo and Crs (?) have ever played him in a tourney.
On the other hand, I'm starting to think Ez is overrated if tourney performances are anything to go by. At IPL Faceoff, Ez was picked in 16 games and had a 12.5% winrate (compared to Graves in 17 games with 58.82% winrate) out of 65 games total. At MLG Arena, Ez did better with a 50% winrate, but had a smaller sample size with only 8 games (20% of all games). At ECC Poland, Ez was played in 11 games with a 45.45% winrate out of a total of 41 games. So basically, at the last three major tournaments, Ez has been played in 35 out of 146 games (23.97% of games) but only has a 31.4% winrate.
It's probably important to note that in solo q ez has a winrate of about 53%.
On August 13 2012 15:27 Ryuu314 wrote: Well, to be fair, every time Draven appears in a tourney he almost always loses. He's barely ever picked though and the tip top teams haven't picked him up. Iirc, only Evo and Crs (?) have ever played him in a tourney.
On the other hand, I'm starting to think Ez is overrated if tourney performances are anything to go by. At IPL Faceoff, Ez was picked in 16 games and had a 12.5% winrate (compared to Graves in 17 games with 58.82% winrate) out of 65 games total. At MLG Arena, Ez did better with a 50% winrate, but had a smaller sample size with only 8 games (20% of all games). At ECC Poland, Ez was played in 11 games with a 45.45% winrate out of a total of 41 games. So basically, at the last three major tournaments, Ez has been played in 35 out of 146 games (23.97% of games) but only has a 31.4% winrate.
It's probably important to note that in solo q ez has a winrate of about 53%.
The more i fall in ELO, the harder it seems to be playing AD carry. At 1300 it was relaxed, the team peeled, you kited and the opponents died, every teamfight was a double or triple kill and every game i ended up with at least a 3:1 K/D ratio. Now i dropped 150 ELO again and now it's not just that your supports often turn the lane into 1v3, in teamfights you have to run from the whole enemy team - not kite, run - while your team chases the enemy AD and which team wins depends on which AD carry gets caught first by the 4 players chasing him. I now end up with less kills than deaths in most games.
How can i deal with that? Should i just start playing Ezreal?
Probably play only AD carries that have mobility and/or escapability like Corki, Ezreal and Graves and tell your team to protect you. I kind of have the same problem and haven't found a solution yet...
This is a detailed breakdown of itemization path on AD carries.
Taking into account steroids, abilities etc. over the course of a short skirmish.
I'm guessing that it might be a little off for the characters that have skills that interupt autoattacking but it seems rather reasonable.
Essentially, the conclusion is that PDPD vs PDLW is only viable on certain AD carries. It left out the thornmail thing but that's a niche scenario.
edit::
Top post on reddit. One point which I hadn't thought about, the more you attack the greater the chance of procing randuins.
I've done this analysis in detail before, so I will go ahead and verify that you are correct. Double Phantom dancers does infact outdamage Last Whisper over time, even as much as 200 armor or more. I think some of that is due to the crit value item costs which is strange and RNG. If you do a similar analysis with crit runes, you'll find that crit runes out damage armor penetration/attack damage runes on auto attack. There's many reasons why you shouldn't get double PD though. For one, the burst damage on Last Whisper is much higher (which is the fundamental reason why it's better.) Secondly, you have to be extremely efficient with PD to have higher damage over time. If you do not utilize every second of auto attack, but instead, are kiting/walking and not attacking, that's time that favors Last Whisper. PD is only better over a long period of time and that discourages kiting and possibly wasting milliseconds between auto attacks. Third, Last Whisper favors burst. The first attack is always instant cast, so that puts Last Whisper Far ahead in the lead from the onset, that's something you need to account when analysing. What this means is, anyone that can reset their auto attack with their spells and attack twice without relying as much on attack speed (Vayne Tumble, Ezreal Q, etc.) means Last Whisper will GREATLY outdamage double PD by a lot. Fourth, double PD is damage over time and better on lower armored targets/squishies (although still pretty good on higher armored targets too). What that means is, you'll be killing squishier targets in 4 quick auto attacks, you won't get the luxury of attacking them 20+ times for the damage to normalize. That heavily favors burst damage too. For the calculations to make sense, it has to be damage over many successive hits over time. Fifth, because you're doing less damage per hit, Randuin's Omen and Thornmail more negatively impacts double PD. More hits on Randuin's = more AS/slow procs. And of course, Sixth, if you have skills that do physical damage and benefits from LW, it's better there as well. Crit and AS are only good on auto attacks. Double PD is definitely better if you're planning on doing Baron where your damage is over time. In Pvp combat, I think LW is better because burst is more favored over less damage per hits but over time.
taric+graves and ezreal+leona are pretty strong against my usual janna+draven.. taric+graves just has a butt-ton of armor and amazing burst and it is just a nightmare lol. ez+leo has become easier to deal with but i was looking around for a aupport better suited for draven than janna o-o he has like no escapes so tornado, ult, and slow are really nice but graves is just so difficult >_<
Essentially, the conclusion is that PDPD vs PDLW is only viable on certain AD carries. It left out the thornmail thing but that's a niche scenario.
That is correct and basically what im saying
Secondly, you have to be extremely efficient with PD to have higher damage over time. If you do not utilize every second of auto attack, but instead, are kiting/walking and not attacking, that's time that favors Last Whisper. PD is only better over a long period of time and that discourages kiting and possibly wasting milliseconds between auto attacks.
That is highly inaccurate yes obv you need more autoattacks to do dmg but its easier to kite with more ms and as (being able to shoot faster and run faster away is huge)
Third, Last Whisper favors burst. The first attack is always instant cast, so that puts Last Whisper Far ahead in the lead from the onset, that's something you need to account when analysing.
That is a good point and the reason why I go LW on sivir/graves etc
Fifth, because you're doing less damage per hit, Randuin's Omen and Thornmail more negatively impacts double PD. More hits on Randuin's = more AS/slow procs.
honestly I kinda forgot that thats a good point but I dont think that this point is that big that you shouldnt go 2 pd
I've got a question for you. My friend is a somewhat new player (he's level 23, but has been playing with my level 30 friends and I since the beginning so he has SOME experience over other players at his level), and he has decided he likes ad carry. The problem is, however, that he never really "carries". He's got the rune page set up, as well as masteries, so I don't think it's a "stat" issue.
His main weaknesses as far as I can tell are last hitting. He tends to have about 100-110 at the 20min mark, and usually says his auto attacks don't do much damage (due to not having items). Also, his positioning in team fights isn't too solid (it has improved, but he still spends more time running away from someone and not putting out too much damage, even with peels).
I guess what I'm trying to ask is -- how do I help him improve his mechanics and his positioning? He's a pretty casual player, but he can be pretty competitive and hard-headed at times. I don't think he would sit in a bot game and practice last hitting minions. Any advice to help him improve?
Thanks in advance!
Edit: One more question -- which AD carries would you recommend to start? I've recommended Trist and Graves as those seem to be his favorites, and he kind of likes Caitlyn but I feel like she is weak other than in lane.
If he's lvl 23 he won't have full rune page setup yet. The +15 AD actually gives a significant boost for last hitting. But really if he wants to learn how to last hit, try it in a bot game. Make him set a goal (100 cs by 12 min, 200 by 20 min etc.).
He should play the AD carries he enjoy. Trist, graves and cait are all viable.
On August 16 2012 01:11 Mondeezy wrote: Hey jcc/TL,
I've got a question for you. My friend is a somewhat new player (he's level 23, but has been playing with my level 30 friends and I since the beginning so he has SOME experience over other players at his level), and he has decided he likes ad carry. The problem is, however, that he never really "carries". He's got the rune page set up, as well as masteries, so I don't think it's a "stat" issue.
His main weaknesses as far as I can tell are last hitting. He tends to have about 100-110 at the 20min mark, and usually says his auto attacks don't do much damage (due to not having items). Also, his positioning in team fights isn't too solid (it has improved, but he still spends more time running away from someone and not putting out too much damage, even with peels).
I guess what I'm trying to ask is -- how do I help him improve his mechanics and his positioning? He's a pretty casual player, but he can be pretty competitive and hard-headed at times. I don't think he would sit in a bot game and practice last hitting minions. Any advice to help him improve?
Thanks in advance!
Edit: One more question -- which AD carries would you recommend to start? I've recommended Trist and Graves as those seem to be his favorites, and he kind of likes Caitlyn but I feel like she is weak other than in lane.
Last hitting is just a mechanic. Feeling for it comes over time. He should practice it over and over in bot games. Goals like 60-70 at 10 minutes or 150 at 20 minutes are good for a beginner. But to be honest, I really think 100-110 CS at 20 minutes is pretty good for a lvl 23 player. I have lvl 30 mates that don't hit three digits in 20 minutes neither when playing solo lanes nor when playing AD carry.
And very important: remind him that these marks only apply when playing a standard game with 20 minute lane phase and without too much pressure. I used to be disappointed while learning AD carry and not reaching the marks in a real game. But when there is a lot of action going on the lane (constant ganks from both sides, you're losing because the enemy plays better or you picked an AD with weak laning capabilites, laning phase ends early etc.) your goal is to get as many last hits as possible in the time you're given the possibility to farm.
Maybe you can show him the OGN vids from the latest CLG.na matches where even famous carry players like Doublelift don't even scratch 200 CS at 20ish minutes because the enemy korean team played so aggressively (even the best don't have this impressive numbers at any given time when shit's going down for you team, it's only natural).
Positioning: I'd say spam as many games as you can and make him learn by doing. Certain situations occur again and again and once he found out what works he will remember and apply next time.
Some high end pro shit like perfect orbwalking / attack animation cancel and a-move can be ignored until he got the basics (staying in the background, only attack what's near and when it's safe etc.). Next big thing after that is kiting IMO. If he has achieved this stage he is probably better at AD carry than 90% of people that play LoL.
€dit: slap him in the face whenever he becomes greedy. He has to be patient and is NOT the one that's diving for kills. Make sure he realizes he is the big damage dealer that should never die.
Some time ago a friend of mine scored a pentakill at the 50ish minute mark and ended the game as 12/12 Vayne. He just couldn't believe that it was a bad score for an AD carry although he got a pentakill. Many people have that wrong mindset.
On August 16 2012 01:11 Mondeezy wrote: Hey jcc/TL,
I've got a question for you. My friend is a somewhat new player (he's level 23, but has been playing with my level 30 friends and I since the beginning so he has SOME experience over other players at his level), and he has decided he likes ad carry. The problem is, however, that he never really "carries". He's got the rune page set up, as well as masteries, so I don't think it's a "stat" issue.
His main weaknesses as far as I can tell are last hitting. He tends to have about 100-110 at the 20min mark, and usually says his auto attacks don't do much damage (due to not having items). Also, his positioning in team fights isn't too solid (it has improved, but he still spends more time running away from someone and not putting out too much damage, even with peels).
I guess what I'm trying to ask is -- how do I help him improve his mechanics and his positioning? He's a pretty casual player, but he can be pretty competitive and hard-headed at times. I don't think he would sit in a bot game and practice last hitting minions. Any advice to help him improve?
Thanks in advance!
Edit: One more question -- which AD carries would you recommend to start? I've recommended Trist and Graves as those seem to be his favorites, and he kind of likes Caitlyn but I feel like she is weak other than in lane.
Last hitting is just a mechanic. Feeling for it comes over time. He should practice it over and over in bot games. Goals like 60-70 at 10 minutes or 150 at 20 minutes are good for a beginner. But to be honest, I really think 100-110 CS at 20 minutes is pretty good for a lvl 23 player. I have lvl 30 mates that don't hit three digits in 20 minutes neither when playing solo lanes nor when playing AD carry.
And very important: remind him that these marks only apply when playing a standard game with 20 minute lane phase and without too much pressure. I used to be disappointed while learning AD carry and not reaching the marks in a real game. But when there is a lot of action going on the lane (constant ganks from both sides, you're losing because the enemy plays better or you picked an AD with weak laning capabilites, laning phase ends early etc.) your goal is to get as many last hits as possible in the time you're given the possibility to farm.
Maybe you can show him the OGN vids from the latest CLG.na matches where even famous carry players like Doublelift don't even scratch 200 CS at 20ish minutes because the enemy korean team played so aggressively (even the best don't have this impressive numbers at any given time when shit's going down for you team, it's only natural).
Positioning: I'd say spam as many games as you can and make him learn by doing. Certain situations occur again and again and once he found out what works he will remember and apply next time.
Some high end pro shit like perfect orbwalking / attack animation cancel and a-move can be ignored until he got the basics (staying in the background, only attack what's near and when it's safe etc.). Next big thing after that is kiting IMO. If he has achieved this stage he is probably better at AD carry than 90% of people that play LoL.
€dit: slap him in the face whenever he becomes greedy. He has to be patient and is NOT the one that's diving for kills. Make sure he realizes he is the big damage dealer that should never die.
Some time ago a friend of mine scored a pentakill at the 50ish minute mark and ended the game as 12/12 Vayne. He just couldn't believe that it was a bad score for an AD carry although he got a pentakill. Many people have that wrong mindset.
Thanks for the detailed response man, I appreciate it
On August 16 2012 05:58 zulu_nation8 wrote: i think only thing you need to be a good AD is manning up in fights, CS isn't that big of a deal.
I'd tend to agree. Worst thing you can do as an AD is run away at the first sign of a fight. Kiting/escaping from a bruiser is one thing, but leaving a fight altogether because you got initiated on is probably the #1 reason for losing teamfights in solo queue.
Not saying it's only ADs that do it, but they seem to be the most common for some reason.
On August 16 2012 05:58 zulu_nation8 wrote: i think only thing you need to be a good AD is manning up in fights, CS isn't that big of a deal.
I would say it's a pretty big deal..if you're 100 cs behind the other AD at the 20min mark, that's pretty much a BF sword ahead of you, and between two equally skilled players that damage is what's gonna help in the team fight.
I definitely agree with you though on the manning up. Not like diving in, but not bitching out when your team is fighting and you have one guy on you.
its obv bad to be down by a lot of cs with no trades but if youre bad at lasthitting to begin with chances are you'll focus too much on lasthitting and give up trades. At all elos you should prioritize trading over lasthitting meaning if you have a chance to poke the other AD out of lane you should do so instead of going for creeps. Like if you get an auto in but a ranged creep is dying but youre not taking too much minion damage you should go for another one instead of killing the creep. When you reach a certain elo the other AD won't take more than one autoattack of harass, then you'll need to learn to position yourself to zone and just lasthit.
On August 16 2012 06:59 zulu_nation8 wrote: its obv bad to be down by a lot of cs with no trades but if youre bad at lasthitting to begin with chances are you'll focus too much on lasthitting and give up trades. At all elos you should prioritize trading over lasthitting meaning if you have a chance to poke the other AD out of lane you should do so instead of going for creeps. Like if you get an auto in but a ranged creep is dying but youre not taking too much minion damage you should go for another one instead of killing the creep. When you reach a certain elo the other AD won't take more than one autoattack of harass, then you'll need to learn to position yourself to zone and just lasthit.
Yeah, I tried to teach him how to trade and he kinda gets it. Sometimes he gets too aggro though and not only misses CS, but ends up overcommiting to the trade and gets outdamaged/out-traded.
I feel like learning to trade will come with experience as he has to learn all of the bot lane champs and their abilities, where as learning to last hit is a more "safe" way to be effective and easier to learn early on. I'm sure he'll get the hang of it in time though.
just tell him to trade in short bursts and back off. You can back off from creep line and only lasthit if youre a hypercarry like kog/ashe/vayne. You'll be stronger than the other AD if given equal farm.
On August 16 2012 08:58 FakeSteve[TPR] wrote: how does ashe qualify as a hypercarry
Cause lategame a 3s stun on their out of position ad without qss is game winning! CARRIED SON!
She's not truly a hypercarry in the way that vayne/kog are. She just happens to have very good base attackspeed endgame and volley is still really really good lategame. She has the most utility and best kiting ability of any AD lategame but not anywhere near the damage that kog/vayne can dish out.
Did i say Ashe was a hyper carry? She has some of the best late game utility and shines in the late game due to kiting potential and initiation potential, but that isn't really a hypercarry. Though I suggest she get the same summoners as the hyper carries, defensive summoners just fit her better.
Ashe is scary late game, but getting her there is quite difficult. Ashe can be shut down very easily esp with all the Korean 4 man gank bot recently. She can't trade well with some one like Graves, has to rely on summoner spell to actually get away if someone sticks to her face. In theory, Ashe can kite forever but its not true with some many bruiser/jungler has gap closer and stun/slow themselves. If both teams are equal at 35 mins mark, Ashe will shine cos her OP ulti is a risk free initiator.
I still think Graves is better than Ashe, as you can see most games nowadays has a Graves in it.
On August 16 2012 11:02 Caphe wrote: Ashe is scary late game, but getting her there is quite difficult. Ashe can be shut down very easily esp with all the Korean 4 man gank bot recently. She can't trade well with some one like Graves, has to rely on summoner spell to actually get away if someone sticks to her face. In theory, Ashe can kite forever but its not true with some many bruiser/jungler has gap closer and stun/slow themselves. If both teams are equal at 35 mins mark, Ashe will shine cos her OP ulti is a risk free initiator.
I still think Graves is better than Ashe, as you can see most games nowadays has a Graves in it.
Is that really true? I see Corki vs. Ezreal in at least half of my games, and it would probably be more if Ez weren't starting to get some ban attention. Graves is probably still third, though, ahead of Ashe for sure.
@upperbound: I meant in competitive play esp with Korean teams Graves is very popular due to Korean really like to micro with him and his kits are built for that. And yeah, Corki and Ez probably has the same usage percentage as Graves if not higher internationally.
@Mondeezy: Biggest two types of nub AD carries that piss me off to no end:
1. They have the biggest vaginas on the team. When a teamfight starts, they're dancing around on the edge of the fight not doing anything. They're too scared to auto-attack an enemy and literally don't do shit except dance around in circles and maybe auto-attack once or twice.
2. They have the biggest balls and smallest brains on the team. They blow their gap closing abilities or simply just walk straight into the bruiser v. bruiser AP aoe fuckfest in to try to hit that squishy in the backline. Kiting is also a nonexistent skill and they love duking it out in melee range with anybody. These guys tend to be Tristana players for some reason.
As an AD carry, you just have to stand on the outskirts of the teamfight and rightclick something. Always be attacking SOMETHING, even attacking the 300 armor Rammus is better than not attacking anything. Don't ever, EVER use your gapclosers aggressively in teamfights unless you've already won the fight and are cleaning up (there may be exceptions to this rule, but very few and unless you're high elo just don't do it). Hit the highest priority target possible w/out exposing yourself to the bruiser on bruiser AP aoe burst fuckfest.
Has anyone been running Jayce bot? I'm going to be playing down there a lot, I'd like to mix him in with Cait/Ez if I can. I wonder what his good matchups are as AD, other than running kill lanes like Leona/Jayce or Ali/Jayce for mega knockbacks.
On August 16 2012 13:29 Requizen wrote: Has anyone been running Jayce bot? I'm going to be playing down there a lot, I'd like to mix him in with Cait/Ez if I can. I wonder what his good matchups are as AD, other than running kill lanes like Leona/Jayce or Ali/Jayce for mega knockbacks.
No. Jayce is not a good AD bot. The reasons are:
1. No steroid. His only steroid is his W, which nullifies his other AS bonuses. Not very useful. 2. Short range. 500 is unacceptable. Sure, Sivir is at 500 too, but she kites really hard with her passive and she has spellshield. 3. Jayce's kit is not too useful as an AD carry. First of all you probably don't want to switch to hammer stance if you are playing the AD carry role... it's just way too unsafe and in the melee form you will do little damage. So you are limited to your Q, W and E in the cannon form. W is described as before, his Q as a poke is merely passable, and his E can only be abused for so long. 4. Escape. His only non-situational escape is his E in cannon form. Speed boost is nice, but it's not good enough against most bruisers who typically have a way to CC you. Once you are CC'ed you are in major trouble... Jayce is actually pretty squishy in cannon form.
Speaking of Sivir. Am I the only one who finds her AA animation really clunky? I feel like out of all the ADCs I lose the most last hits on her because of a canceled AA. Like, she swings her arm, and is in range, but I move "too soon".
On August 16 2012 15:19 cLutZ wrote: Speaking of Sivir. Am I the only one who finds her AA animation really clunky? I feel like out of all the ADCs I lose the most last hits on her because of a canceled AA. Like, she swings her arm, and is in range, but I move "too soon".
Trist is my favorite AD but I hate her animation. Her abilities also suck.
Speaking of Trist do you guys think of her in a kill lane? Her mod game sucks but if you win early game you break even, and late game you just shit on everything.
On August 16 2012 15:19 cLutZ wrote: Speaking of Sivir. Am I the only one who finds her AA animation really clunky? I feel like out of all the ADCs I lose the most last hits on her because of a canceled AA. Like, she swings her arm, and is in range, but I move "too soon".
Trist is my favorite AD but I hate her animation. Her abilities also suck.
Speaking of Trist do you guys think of her in a kill lane? Her mod game sucks but if you win early game you break even, and late game you just shit on everything.
Nah, I don't see Trist fit in any kill lane. Surely her Q is good but early on in lane phase you don't have enough damage to make the AS count. Her truly strong point is her passive which make her a good carry late game with nearly maximum range. Problem with her is she can't really trade early on with Graves/EZ/Urgot. Shes better than Ashe at getting away if being stuck in the face by bruisers but her ultility late game is no where near Ashe level.
Still, once you farmed enough to get to late game, a trist can melt anything at a very safe distance.
Wat. Trist has one of the highest early game bursts in the game. W+E+Auto does massive amounts of damage. E active is also a lot of damage at low levels and can be reasonably spammed for harass. At 6, Trist out-brusts a lot of other AD carries except maybe Graves if he can get a full buckshot.
On August 16 2012 15:19 cLutZ wrote: Speaking of Sivir. Am I the only one who finds her AA animation really clunky? I feel like out of all the ADCs I lose the most last hits on her because of a canceled AA. Like, she swings her arm, and is in range, but I move "too soon".
Trist is my favorite AD but I hate her animation. Her abilities also suck.
Speaking of Trist do you guys think of her in a kill lane? Her mod game sucks but if you win early game you break even, and late game you just shit on everything.
Nah, I don't see Trist fit in any kill lane. Surely her Q is good but early on in lane phase you don't have enough damage to make the AS count. Her truly strong point is her passive which make her a good carry late game with nearly maximum range. Problem with her is she can't really trade early on with Graves/EZ/Urgot. Shes better than Ashe at getting away if being stuck in the face by bruisers but her ultility late game is no where near Ashe level.
Still, once you farmed enough to get to late game, a trist can melt anything at a very safe distance.
wtf?
You don't play trist at all do you?
She is one of the absolute strongest ADs in a kill lane. Her level 2/3 burst is insane when paired with leona/ali/taric. She continues to be one of the strongest kill lane ADs until around level 7 when she begins transitioning from AD carry/caster to more of a pure AD.
Trist is my favorite AD carry and amazing in kill lane, I particularly like a Ali/Trist lane. I do really wish she would get some QoL buffs like making her e range equal to her current AA range and maybe making her AA animation a bit smoother. I also feel her jump is a little slow to start up. I hate getting caught mid jump by a stun or getting knocked up mid jump and then dropping to ground without going whole distance. Also while I'm ranting, her skins blow especially now that Firefighter isn't for sale (overpriced anyways).
On August 17 2012 04:07 YouGotNothin wrote: Trist is my favorite AD carry and amazing in kill lane, I particularly like a Ali/Trist lane. I do really wish she would get some QoL buffs like making her e range equal to her current AA range and maybe making her AA animation a bit smoother. I also feel her jump is a little slow to start up. I hate getting caught mid jump by a stun or getting knocked up mid jump and then dropping to ground without going whole distance. Also while I'm ranting, her skins blow especially now that Firefighter isn't for sale (overpriced anyways).
I agree with you on the E changes (although a 703 range ability would be maybe too strong?!), but her W is fine right now. Just like Corki's W, a gap closer that covers a decent range (more than a Vayne Q or Graves E) should have cast animation and thus be interruptable. If it was instant you could make full use of Trists superb AA range and just "super flash" away in the blink of an eye. Wouldn't be belanced IMO.
On August 17 2012 03:31 jcc wrote: Trist is an amazing kill lane, as described in the guide.
Also i feel Jayce would be really strong in a Jayce / Leona lane, similar to Jarvan Leona.
I agree that sivir's attac animation is a little clunky, but it has quick responsiveness, just an awkward release animation.
But you can cancel the release, its seems like. I can post a video of it happening if you want, all i have to do is DL a recording program, make a custom, and demonstrate it.
anyone else playing varus these days? if your support understands how varus works you can do pretty good. i think hes one of the more interesting ad carries to play for several reasons. his range is 575, which lets you poke many of the other ad's. the way his w works (AAx3 then pop an ability on them for % health damage), also makes things a bit more involving then just right clicking. i had been maxing q first, but once i started maxing w my win % with varus has gone up a lot.
the lack of escape and true steroid probably hurt his viability for some, but your r and e both are useful for defensive purposes and varus passive also is not bad. the buff to his ult width makes the skill feel a lot better, imo. it was so goddamn small before this recent patch, now it is still on the small side but much more workable.
i havent vs a cait or ez yet but i could see those being his tougher matchups.
On August 17 2012 08:01 Vaporized wrote: anyone else playing varus these days? if your support understands how varus works you can do pretty good. i think hes one of the more interesting ad carries to play for several reasons. his range is 575, which lets you poke many of the other ad's. the way his w works (AAx3 then pop an ability on them for % health damage), also makes things a bit more involving then just right clicking. i had been maxing q first, but once i started maxing w my win % with varus has gone up a lot.
the lack of escape and true steroid probably hurt his viability for some, but your r and e both are useful for defensive purposes and varus passive also is not bad. the buff to his ult width makes the skill feel a lot better, imo. it was so goddamn small before this recent patch, now it is still on the small side but much more workable.
i havent vs a cait or ez yet but i could see those being his tougher matchups.
I've been supporting my buddy's varus a lot lately Its a very interesting lane, but melts compared to the current graves+taric/ez+whoever lane.I wish he could carry harder late game, but he wants vayne-like blow up encounters, but doesnt have an AA reset to get the three stacks off fast enough.
One build that has really been wrecking house on him is getting a black cleaver early and snowballing from there.
To be honest, his play feels a lot like mf. good range, hasa magic damage AA supplement for ez last hitting. Big long range aoe ult that is always dissapointing damage. an aoe slow useful in escaping, and his passive feels the same as her W. Frightfully similiar play, actually.
On August 17 2012 08:01 Vaporized wrote: anyone else playing varus these days? if your support understands how varus works you can do pretty good. i think hes one of the more interesting ad carries to play for several reasons. his range is 575, which lets you poke many of the other ad's. the way his w works (AAx3 then pop an ability on them for % health damage), also makes things a bit more involving then just right clicking. i had been maxing q first, but once i started maxing w my win % with varus has gone up a lot.
the lack of escape and true steroid probably hurt his viability for some, but your r and e both are useful for defensive purposes and varus passive also is not bad. the buff to his ult width makes the skill feel a lot better, imo. it was so goddamn small before this recent patch, now it is still on the small side but much more workable.
i havent vs a cait or ez yet but i could see those being his tougher matchups.
I think he needs a true steroid, his % damage isnt true damage or done by something derpy like auto attacking like vayne, and you wont be able to rely on his passive until a while into a teamfight no like graves or trist where you hit a button and right click atleast
ive been going bt first as your q and e both scale on ad, and the sustain is good. i could definetly see him getting wrecked by some matchups, and i have lost bad more then a few times (usually to graves it seems like).
the point u made about the stacks and proccing them is so true. varus is just kind of clunky to play. theres no getting around it.
his late game is worse then kog, vayne, trist, etc, but i imagine that is built into his design as his 575 range is on the long side. i find i can carry satisfactorily on varus if i have a good enough early game, or get my farm on. i wouldnt necessarily try to 1v1 anyone late game like a vayne, but its not bad all the same. with 4-5 items i expect to wreck dudes and that happens well enough.
i dont think his ult was designed for the damage, having a long range immobolize on an ad carry is kinda nuts. its probably my favorite part of his kit, especially late game when you can turn on someone and melt them, and in team fights a good ult can win you the fight.
On August 17 2012 08:01 Vaporized wrote: anyone else playing varus these days? if your support understands how varus works you can do pretty good. i think hes one of the more interesting ad carries to play for several reasons. his range is 575, which lets you poke many of the other ad's. the way his w works (AAx3 then pop an ability on them for % health damage), also makes things a bit more involving then just right clicking. i had been maxing q first, but once i started maxing w my win % with varus has gone up a lot.
the lack of escape and true steroid probably hurt his viability for some, but your r and e both are useful for defensive purposes and varus passive also is not bad. the buff to his ult width makes the skill feel a lot better, imo. it was so goddamn small before this recent patch, now it is still on the small side but much more workable.
i havent vs a cait or ez yet but i could see those being his tougher matchups.
I think he needs a true steroid, his % damage isnt true damage or done by something derpy like auto attacking like vayne, and you wont be able to rely on his passive until a while into a teamfight no like graves or trist where you hit a button and right click atleast
thats all true. but there are few things more satisfying in LoL then sniping someone with a max range q. once every few games you get the perfect q off and it makes varus shortcomings all worthwhile.
Looking to improve my adc mechanics, its all about last hitting but the only problem is that at lower levels [I'm currently level 17] all people do is try to kill you, should I just get 10-15 cs ahead and then fight back? So that way I'm always ahead even if I die?
On August 20 2012 06:21 D u o wrote: Looking to improve my adc mechanics, its all about last hitting but the only problem is that at lower levels [I'm currently level 17] all people do is try to kill you, should I just get 10-15 cs ahead and then fight back? So that way I'm always ahead even if I die?
Get ahead in CS but don't be afraid to trade back while they are going aggro, buy more items than them because you're ahead in CS, now that you have more gold than them whenever they come to kill you, kill them back.
On August 20 2012 06:21 D u o wrote: Looking to improve my adc mechanics, its all about last hitting but the only problem is that at lower levels [I'm currently level 17] all people do is try to kill you, should I just get 10-15 cs ahead and then fight back? So that way I'm always ahead even if I die?
May I ask which adc you're using? because certain champs can out lane others during the early game so knowing what your champ can do and what the enemy champ can do is important as it helps your assessment in whether u can take them or not. Overall the priority is farm and aiming to win the lane so focus on the global objective.
Is there another AD other than Corki that can consistently beat a Ez lane, regardless of the support champ you're playing with? Kind of bored of playing Corki every other game lol.
Also, how do you stop Ez+Taric or Graves+Taric? Ali and Blitz are usually banned out and I normally get stuck with a Soraka or Sona, and I feel like I definitely can't out-trade them nor go up to CS without getting dunked on.
On August 23 2012 01:15 Mondeezy wrote: Is there another AD other than Corki that can consistently beat a Ez lane, regardless of the support champ you're playing with? Kind of bored of playing Corki every other game lol.
Also, how do you stop Ez+Taric or Graves+Taric? Ali and Blitz are usually banned out and I normally get stuck with a Soraka or Sona, and I feel like I definitely can't out-trade them nor go up to CS without getting dunked on.
Vayne is pretty good vs. Ez, too. But if you can't rely on your support for whatever reason (standard solo q dumbness I assume) the only real adc that can lane most independently on its own vs Ez is Cait.
Generally, hard CC melee support (Ali, Leona, Taric) + bursty adc matchups focus on the 2-3 seconds of immobilization. You have to respect his stun and try to outplay them / harass back when stun is on cooldown. Just never be in stun range when the enemy adc can follow up easily. Brush control is very important, too. You can also abuse the fact that Taric's stun has a relatively slow travel time (quickly executed escape's work wonders) and 'only' moderate range (CC on Taric before he reaches you).
On August 23 2012 01:15 Mondeezy wrote: Is there another AD other than Corki that can consistently beat a Ez lane, regardless of the support champ you're playing with? Kind of bored of playing Corki every other game lol.
Also, how do you stop Ez+Taric or Graves+Taric? Ali and Blitz are usually banned out and I normally get stuck with a Soraka or Sona, and I feel like I definitely can't out-trade them nor go up to CS without getting dunked on.
Vayne is pretty good vs. Ez, too. But if you can't rely on your support for whatever reason (standard solo q dumbness I assume) the only real adc that can lane most independently on its own vs Ez is Cait.
Generally, hard CC melee support (Ali, Leona, Taric) + bursty adc matchups focus on the 2-3 seconds of immobilization. You have to respect his stun and try to outplay them / harass back when stun is on cooldown. Just never be in stun range when the enemy adc can follow up easily. Brush control is very important, too. You can also abuse the fact that Taric's stun has a relatively slow travel time (quickly executed escape's work wonders) and 'only' moderate range (CC on Taric before he reaches you).
Ez shits on Vayne super hard...
Vayne does beat Q max Ezreal but against one that maxes W, no chance.
The thing I don't like about bot lane atm is that there are really only a few viable ADs. Vayne/Kog/Ashe all get shit on so hard by Corki/Ezreal/Graves. Trist and Sivir can do okay and I haven't seen enough Varus/Urgot to know but like 95% of games it's Corki, Ezreal, and/or Graves.
On August 23 2012 01:15 Mondeezy wrote: Is there another AD other than Corki that can consistently beat a Ez lane, regardless of the support champ you're playing with? Kind of bored of playing Corki every other game lol.
Also, how do you stop Ez+Taric or Graves+Taric? Ali and Blitz are usually banned out and I normally get stuck with a Soraka or Sona, and I feel like I definitely can't out-trade them nor go up to CS without getting dunked on.
Vayne is pretty good vs. Ez, too. But if you can't rely on your support for whatever reason (standard solo q dumbness I assume) the only real adc that can lane most independently on its own vs Ez is Cait.
Generally, hard CC melee support (Ali, Leona, Taric) + bursty adc matchups focus on the 2-3 seconds of immobilization. You have to respect his stun and try to outplay them / harass back when stun is on cooldown. Just never be in stun range when the enemy adc can follow up easily. Brush control is very important, too. You can also abuse the fact that Taric's stun has a relatively slow travel time (quickly executed escape's work wonders) and 'only' moderate range (CC on Taric before he reaches you).
Ez shits on Vayne super hard...
Vayne does beat Q max Ezreal but against one that maxes W, no chance.
The thing I don't like about bot lane atm is that there are really only a few viable ADs. Vayne/Kog/Ashe all get shit on so hard by Corki/Ezreal/Graves. Trist and Sivir can do okay and I haven't seen enough Varus/Urgot to know but like 95% of games it's Corki, Ezreal, and/or Graves.
Maybe in Solo Queue, but we still see Vayne, Kog, and Ashe picked in competitive play because if you get past the lane phase on even terms, you have more potential to crush teamfights. They require more coordination from your team, that doesn't mean they aren't viable.
On August 23 2012 01:15 Mondeezy wrote: Is there another AD other than Corki that can consistently beat a Ez lane, regardless of the support champ you're playing with? Kind of bored of playing Corki every other game lol.
Also, how do you stop Ez+Taric or Graves+Taric? Ali and Blitz are usually banned out and I normally get stuck with a Soraka or Sona, and I feel like I definitely can't out-trade them nor go up to CS without getting dunked on.
Vayne is pretty good vs. Ez, too. But if you can't rely on your support for whatever reason (standard solo q dumbness I assume) the only real adc that can lane most independently on its own vs Ez is Cait.
Generally, hard CC melee support (Ali, Leona, Taric) + bursty adc matchups focus on the 2-3 seconds of immobilization. You have to respect his stun and try to outplay them / harass back when stun is on cooldown. Just never be in stun range when the enemy adc can follow up easily. Brush control is very important, too. You can also abuse the fact that Taric's stun has a relatively slow travel time (quickly executed escape's work wonders) and 'only' moderate range (CC on Taric before he reaches you).
Ez shits on Vayne super hard...
Vayne does beat Q max Ezreal but against one that maxes W, no chance.
The thing I don't like about bot lane atm is that there are really only a few viable ADs. Vayne/Kog/Ashe all get shit on so hard by Corki/Ezreal/Graves. Trist and Sivir can do okay and I haven't seen enough Varus/Urgot to know but like 95% of games it's Corki, Ezreal, and/or Graves.
Maybe in Solo Queue, but we still see Vayne, Kog, and Ashe picked in competitive play because if you get past the lane phase on even terms, you have more potential to crush teamfights. They require more coordination from your team, that doesn't mean they aren't viable.
Yeah I meant in solo queue. You can find ways around the lane dominance in a coordinated team but in solo queue those 3 ADs are king.
On August 23 2012 01:15 Mondeezy wrote: Is there another AD other than Corki that can consistently beat a Ez lane, regardless of the support champ you're playing with? Kind of bored of playing Corki every other game lol.
Also, how do you stop Ez+Taric or Graves+Taric? Ali and Blitz are usually banned out and I normally get stuck with a Soraka or Sona, and I feel like I definitely can't out-trade them nor go up to CS without getting dunked on.
Vayne is pretty good vs. Ez, too. But if you can't rely on your support for whatever reason (standard solo q dumbness I assume) the only real adc that can lane most independently on its own vs Ez is Cait.
Generally, hard CC melee support (Ali, Leona, Taric) + bursty adc matchups focus on the 2-3 seconds of immobilization. You have to respect his stun and try to outplay them / harass back when stun is on cooldown. Just never be in stun range when the enemy adc can follow up easily. Brush control is very important, too. You can also abuse the fact that Taric's stun has a relatively slow travel time (quickly executed escape's work wonders) and 'only' moderate range (CC on Taric before he reaches you).
Ez shits on Vayne super hard...
Vayne does beat Q max Ezreal but against one that maxes W, no chance.
The thing I don't like about bot lane atm is that there are really only a few viable ADs. Vayne/Kog/Ashe all get shit on so hard by Corki/Ezreal/Graves. Trist and Sivir can do okay and I haven't seen enough Varus/Urgot to know but like 95% of games it's Corki, Ezreal, and/or Graves.
Vayne has an advantage over Ezreal just because he is skillshot based. Ofc, if you try to beat Ez pre 6 like the standard solo queue player does, you're going to get shit on. But beating in lane doesn't necessarily mean you must go 3-0 in the first 10 minutes, does it?
As long as Vayne doesn't fall behind too far (read: eat every skill shot harass and get pushed out of lane which she shouldn't because of her Q) and Ez doesn't have ungodly anticipating skills and hits her with everything he has while she tumbles into stealth, her lvl 6 all in will own the Ezreal and from there on she can start snowballing.
On August 23 2012 01:15 Mondeezy wrote: Is there another AD other than Corki that can consistently beat a Ez lane, regardless of the support champ you're playing with? Kind of bored of playing Corki every other game lol.
Also, how do you stop Ez+Taric or Graves+Taric? Ali and Blitz are usually banned out and I normally get stuck with a Soraka or Sona, and I feel like I definitely can't out-trade them nor go up to CS without getting dunked on.
Vayne is pretty good vs. Ez, too. But if you can't rely on your support for whatever reason (standard solo q dumbness I assume) the only real adc that can lane most independently on its own vs Ez is Cait.
Generally, hard CC melee support (Ali, Leona, Taric) + bursty adc matchups focus on the 2-3 seconds of immobilization. You have to respect his stun and try to outplay them / harass back when stun is on cooldown. Just never be in stun range when the enemy adc can follow up easily. Brush control is very important, too. You can also abuse the fact that Taric's stun has a relatively slow travel time (quickly executed escape's work wonders) and 'only' moderate range (CC on Taric before he reaches you).
Ez shits on Vayne super hard...
Vayne does beat Q max Ezreal but against one that maxes W, no chance.
The thing I don't like about bot lane atm is that there are really only a few viable ADs. Vayne/Kog/Ashe all get shit on so hard by Corki/Ezreal/Graves. Trist and Sivir can do okay and I haven't seen enough Varus/Urgot to know but like 95% of games it's Corki, Ezreal, and/or Graves.
Vayne has an advantage over Ezreal just because he is skillshot based. Ofc, if you try to beat Ez pre 6 like the standard solo queue player does, you're going to get shit on. But beating in lane doesn't necessarily mean you must go 3-0 in the first 10 minutes, does it?
As long as Vayne doesn't fall behind too far (read: eat every skill shot harass and get pushed out of lane which she shouldn't because of her Q) and Ez doesn't have ungodly anticipating skills and hits her with everything he has while she tumbles into stealth, her lvl 6 all in will own the Ezreal and from there on she can start snowballing.
It's pretty hard to dodge W especially with Vayne's range. Ezreal can just E forward and unload in your face too and you have to run away every single time. You're going to be constantly poked to hell too and even if you do get a chance to all in I'm not sure Vayne wins that one as long as Ez has the W debuff on her.
On August 23 2012 01:15 Mondeezy wrote: Is there another AD other than Corki that can consistently beat a Ez lane, regardless of the support champ you're playing with? Kind of bored of playing Corki every other game lol.
Also, how do you stop Ez+Taric or Graves+Taric? Ali and Blitz are usually banned out and I normally get stuck with a Soraka or Sona, and I feel like I definitely can't out-trade them nor go up to CS without getting dunked on.
Vayne is pretty good vs. Ez, too. But if you can't rely on your support for whatever reason (standard solo q dumbness I assume) the only real adc that can lane most independently on its own vs Ez is Cait.
Generally, hard CC melee support (Ali, Leona, Taric) + bursty adc matchups focus on the 2-3 seconds of immobilization. You have to respect his stun and try to outplay them / harass back when stun is on cooldown. Just never be in stun range when the enemy adc can follow up easily. Brush control is very important, too. You can also abuse the fact that Taric's stun has a relatively slow travel time (quickly executed escape's work wonders) and 'only' moderate range (CC on Taric before he reaches you).
Ez shits on Vayne super hard...
Vayne does beat Q max Ezreal but against one that maxes W, no chance.
The thing I don't like about bot lane atm is that there are really only a few viable ADs. Vayne/Kog/Ashe all get shit on so hard by Corki/Ezreal/Graves. Trist and Sivir can do okay and I haven't seen enough Varus/Urgot to know but like 95% of games it's Corki, Ezreal, and/or Graves.
Vayne has an advantage over Ezreal just because he is skillshot based. Ofc, if you try to beat Ez pre 6 like the standard solo queue player does, you're going to get shit on. But beating in lane doesn't necessarily mean you must go 3-0 in the first 10 minutes, does it?
As long as Vayne doesn't fall behind too far (read: eat every skill shot harass and get pushed out of lane which she shouldn't because of her Q) and Ez doesn't have ungodly anticipating skills and hits her with everything he has while she tumbles into stealth, her lvl 6 all in will own the Ezreal and from there on she can start snowballing.
It's pretty hard to dodge W especially with Vayne's range. Ezreal can just E forward and unload in your face too and you have to run away every single time. You're going to be constantly poked to hell too and even if you do get a chance to all in I'm not sure Vayne wins that one as long as Ez has the W debuff on her.
On August 23 2012 01:15 Mondeezy wrote: Is there another AD other than Corki that can consistently beat a Ez lane, regardless of the support champ you're playing with? Kind of bored of playing Corki every other game lol.
Also, how do you stop Ez+Taric or Graves+Taric? Ali and Blitz are usually banned out and I normally get stuck with a Soraka or Sona, and I feel like I definitely can't out-trade them nor go up to CS without getting dunked on.
Vayne is pretty good vs. Ez, too. But if you can't rely on your support for whatever reason (standard solo q dumbness I assume) the only real adc that can lane most independently on its own vs Ez is Cait.
Generally, hard CC melee support (Ali, Leona, Taric) + bursty adc matchups focus on the 2-3 seconds of immobilization. You have to respect his stun and try to outplay them / harass back when stun is on cooldown. Just never be in stun range when the enemy adc can follow up easily. Brush control is very important, too. You can also abuse the fact that Taric's stun has a relatively slow travel time (quickly executed escape's work wonders) and 'only' moderate range (CC on Taric before he reaches you).
Ez shits on Vayne super hard...
Vayne does beat Q max Ezreal but against one that maxes W, no chance.
The thing I don't like about bot lane atm is that there are really only a few viable ADs. Vayne/Kog/Ashe all get shit on so hard by Corki/Ezreal/Graves. Trist and Sivir can do okay and I haven't seen enough Varus/Urgot to know but like 95% of games it's Corki, Ezreal, and/or Graves.
Vayne has an advantage over Ezreal just because he is skillshot based. Ofc, if you try to beat Ez pre 6 like the standard solo queue player does, you're going to get shit on. But beating in lane doesn't necessarily mean you must go 3-0 in the first 10 minutes, does it?
As long as Vayne doesn't fall behind too far (read: eat every skill shot harass and get pushed out of lane which she shouldn't because of her Q) and Ez doesn't have ungodly anticipating skills and hits her with everything he has while she tumbles into stealth, her lvl 6 all in will own the Ezreal and from there on she can start snowballing.
It's pretty hard to dodge W especially with Vayne's range. Ezreal can just E forward and unload in your face too and you have to run away every single time. You're going to be constantly poked to hell too and even if you do get a chance to all in I'm not sure Vayne wins that one as long as Ez has the W debuff on her.
On August 23 2012 01:15 Mondeezy wrote: Is there another AD other than Corki that can consistently beat a Ez lane, regardless of the support champ you're playing with? Kind of bored of playing Corki every other game lol.
Also, how do you stop Ez+Taric or Graves+Taric? Ali and Blitz are usually banned out and I normally get stuck with a Soraka or Sona, and I feel like I definitely can't out-trade them nor go up to CS without getting dunked on.
Vayne is pretty good vs. Ez, too. But if you can't rely on your support for whatever reason (standard solo q dumbness I assume) the only real adc that can lane most independently on its own vs Ez is Cait.
Generally, hard CC melee support (Ali, Leona, Taric) + bursty adc matchups focus on the 2-3 seconds of immobilization. You have to respect his stun and try to outplay them / harass back when stun is on cooldown. Just never be in stun range when the enemy adc can follow up easily. Brush control is very important, too. You can also abuse the fact that Taric's stun has a relatively slow travel time (quickly executed escape's work wonders) and 'only' moderate range (CC on Taric before he reaches you).
Ez shits on Vayne super hard...
Vayne does beat Q max Ezreal but against one that maxes W, no chance.
The thing I don't like about bot lane atm is that there are really only a few viable ADs. Vayne/Kog/Ashe all get shit on so hard by Corki/Ezreal/Graves. Trist and Sivir can do okay and I haven't seen enough Varus/Urgot to know but like 95% of games it's Corki, Ezreal, and/or Graves.
Vayne has an advantage over Ezreal just because he is skillshot based. Ofc, if you try to beat Ez pre 6 like the standard solo queue player does, you're going to get shit on. But beating in lane doesn't necessarily mean you must go 3-0 in the first 10 minutes, does it?
As long as Vayne doesn't fall behind too far (read: eat every skill shot harass and get pushed out of lane which she shouldn't because of her Q) and Ez doesn't have ungodly anticipating skills and hits her with everything he has while she tumbles into stealth, her lvl 6 all in will own the Ezreal and from there on she can start snowballing.
It's pretty hard to dodge W especially with Vayne's range. Ezreal can just E forward and unload in your face too and you have to run away every single time. You're going to be constantly poked to hell too and even if you do get a chance to all in I'm not sure Vayne wins that one as long as Ez has the W debuff on her.
On August 23 2012 01:15 Mondeezy wrote: Is there another AD other than Corki that can consistently beat a Ez lane, regardless of the support champ you're playing with? Kind of bored of playing Corki every other game lol.
Also, how do you stop Ez+Taric or Graves+Taric? Ali and Blitz are usually banned out and I normally get stuck with a Soraka or Sona, and I feel like I definitely can't out-trade them nor go up to CS without getting dunked on.
Vayne is pretty good vs. Ez, too. But if you can't rely on your support for whatever reason (standard solo q dumbness I assume) the only real adc that can lane most independently on its own vs Ez is Cait.
Generally, hard CC melee support (Ali, Leona, Taric) + bursty adc matchups focus on the 2-3 seconds of immobilization. You have to respect his stun and try to outplay them / harass back when stun is on cooldown. Just never be in stun range when the enemy adc can follow up easily. Brush control is very important, too. You can also abuse the fact that Taric's stun has a relatively slow travel time (quickly executed escape's work wonders) and 'only' moderate range (CC on Taric before he reaches you).
Ez shits on Vayne super hard...
Vayne does beat Q max Ezreal but against one that maxes W, no chance.
The thing I don't like about bot lane atm is that there are really only a few viable ADs. Vayne/Kog/Ashe all get shit on so hard by Corki/Ezreal/Graves. Trist and Sivir can do okay and I haven't seen enough Varus/Urgot to know but like 95% of games it's Corki, Ezreal, and/or Graves.
Vayne has an advantage over Ezreal just because he is skillshot based. Ofc, if you try to beat Ez pre 6 like the standard solo queue player does, you're going to get shit on. But beating in lane doesn't necessarily mean you must go 3-0 in the first 10 minutes, does it?
As long as Vayne doesn't fall behind too far (read: eat every skill shot harass and get pushed out of lane which she shouldn't because of her Q) and Ez doesn't have ungodly anticipating skills and hits her with everything he has while she tumbles into stealth, her lvl 6 all in will own the Ezreal and from there on she can start snowballing.
It's pretty hard to dodge W especially with Vayne's range. Ezreal can just E forward and unload in your face too and you have to run away every single time. You're going to be constantly poked to hell too and even if you do get a chance to all in I'm not sure Vayne wins that one as long as Ez has the W debuff on her.
yeah that W debuffs a real pain in the dick
I'd imagine not for Vayne.
? Why would an AS debuff not be?
She has two AA resets, and only wants to trade maximum three shots anyway versus ez.
On August 23 2012 01:15 Mondeezy wrote: Is there another AD other than Corki that can consistently beat a Ez lane, regardless of the support champ you're playing with? Kind of bored of playing Corki every other game lol.
Also, how do you stop Ez+Taric or Graves+Taric? Ali and Blitz are usually banned out and I normally get stuck with a Soraka or Sona, and I feel like I definitely can't out-trade them nor go up to CS without getting dunked on.
I personally like playing sivir against ezreal lanes. pre-6, if you can consistently spellshield harass and return it with your Q, winning the lane isn't too hard. If ezreal engages on you, especially if he E's in, his mobility is pretty bad, meaning he'll eat both ticks of your Q. AA>Q>AA>W>AA generally will outtrade ezreal.
Post-6, you can generally rely on mobility between your passive, ulti, and spellshield to make it difficult for ezreal to hit his ulti and skillshots on you if he wants to engage.
Why don't I ever see MF played, in solo que or competitive games? I'm debating between buying her and Kog'Maw, but I tend to lean toward champs with mobility so I was leaning towards her.
Is she just not as much of a beast as Vayne, Ezreal, etc?
On August 24 2012 00:49 Mondeezy wrote: Why don't I ever see MF played, in solo que or competitive games? I'm debating between buying her and Kog'Maw, but I tend to lean toward champs with mobility so I was leaning towards her.
Is she just not as much of a beast as Vayne, Ezreal, etc?
She's not as strong later compared to other adc. Lack of mobility, meh steroid, situational ulti. People pick her for her strong laning but she doesn't particularly significantly outshine say Graves or Corki in that regard anyways. People used to pick her to crush lanes with Taric mf combo, but graves and ez can do that just as well and scale better
On August 24 2012 00:49 Mondeezy wrote: Why don't I ever see MF played, in solo que or competitive games? I'm debating between buying her and Kog'Maw, but I tend to lean toward champs with mobility so I was leaning towards her.
Is she just not as much of a beast as Vayne, Ezreal, etc?
She's not as strong later compared to other adc. Lack of mobility, meh steroid, situational ulti. People pick her for her strong laning but she doesn't particularly significantly outshine say Graves or Corki in that regard anyways. People used to pick her to crush lanes with Taric mf combo, but graves and ez can do that just as well and scale better
Her steroid is pretty damn good, actually. Adds both AS and damage, and a healing debuff which is just gravy. Her lack of any repositioning power (even vayne has this) coupled with low range makes her rather difficult to use. Her ulti is really situational too, yes. And she doesn't massively outshine the other strong laners (graves corki ezreal) who have better repositioning power for teamfighting.
On August 24 2012 00:49 Mondeezy wrote: Why don't I ever see MF played, in solo que or competitive games? I'm debating between buying her and Kog'Maw, but I tend to lean toward champs with mobility so I was leaning towards her.
Is she just not as much of a beast as Vayne, Ezreal, etc?
She's not as strong later compared to other adc. Lack of mobility, meh steroid, situational ulti. People pick her for her strong laning but she doesn't particularly significantly outshine say Graves or Corki in that regard anyways. People used to pick her to crush lanes with Taric mf combo, but graves and ez can do that just as well and scale better
Her steroid is pretty damn good, actually. Adds both AS and damage, and a healing debuff which is just gravy. Her lack of any repositioning power (even vayne has this) coupled with low range makes her rather difficult to use. Her ulti is really situational too, yes. And she doesn't massively outshine the other strong laners (graves corki ezreal) who have better repositioning power for teamfighting.
And I have been running MF/Nunu with my friend and we have won 100 percent of the time. The MS and AS boost is unbelievably strong and allows her to play a hyper-aggressive lane.
On August 24 2012 00:49 Mondeezy wrote: Why don't I ever see MF played, in solo que or competitive games? I'm debating between buying her and Kog'Maw, but I tend to lean toward champs with mobility so I was leaning towards her.
Is she just not as much of a beast as Vayne, Ezreal, etc?
She's not as strong later compared to other adc. Lack of mobility, meh steroid, situational ulti. People pick her for her strong laning but she doesn't particularly significantly outshine say Graves or Corki in that regard anyways. People used to pick her to crush lanes with Taric mf combo, but graves and ez can do that just as well and scale better
Her steroid is pretty damn good, actually. Adds both AS and damage, and a healing debuff which is just gravy. Her lack of any repositioning power (even vayne has this) coupled with low range makes her rather difficult to use. Her ulti is really situational too, yes. And she doesn't massively outshine the other strong laners (graves corki ezreal) who have better repositioning power for teamfighting.
And I have been running MF/Nunu with my friend and we have won 100 percent of the time. The MS and AS boost is unbelievably strong and allows her to play a hyper-aggressive lane.
MF Nunu is dumb strong, actually, if you're not expecting it.
On August 24 2012 00:49 Mondeezy wrote: Why don't I ever see MF played, in solo que or competitive games? I'm debating between buying her and Kog'Maw, but I tend to lean toward champs with mobility so I was leaning towards her.
Is she just not as much of a beast as Vayne, Ezreal, etc?
She's not as strong later compared to other adc. Lack of mobility, meh steroid, situational ulti. People pick her for her strong laning but she doesn't particularly significantly outshine say Graves or Corki in that regard anyways. People used to pick her to crush lanes with Taric mf combo, but graves and ez can do that just as well and scale better
Her steroid is pretty damn good, actually. Adds both AS and damage, and a healing debuff which is just gravy. Her lack of any repositioning power (even vayne has this) coupled with low range makes her rather difficult to use. Her ulti is really situational too, yes. And she doesn't massively outshine the other strong laners (graves corki ezreal) who have better repositioning power for teamfighting.
And I have been running MF/Nunu with my friend and we have won 100 percent of the time. The MS and AS boost is unbelievably strong and allows her to play a hyper-aggressive lane.
MF Nunu is dumb strong, actually, if you're not expecting it.
Awww...so are you saying it is good as a surprise factor?
It sure surprised me the first time I went against it. You basically can't trade vs MF/Nunu at all, but at the same time, they can't really do much to stop most lanes from passively farming and being more useful than MF later in the game.
On August 24 2012 03:43 Requizen wrote: It sure surprised me the first time I went against it. You basically can't trade vs MF/Nunu at all, but at the same time, they can't really do much to stop most lanes from passively farming and being more useful than MF later in the game.
I am not sure about that, whenever there was a passive lane, I would always grin because we have to force the other two to either get zoned or get in bad trades.
Is there another AD other than Corki that can consistently beat a Ez lane, regardless of the support champ you're playing with? Kind of bored of playing Corki every other game lol.
you cannot say "regardless of the support" and no outtrading isnt really possible (the w is just so damn strong) kog/nunu can kinda outtrade at onepoint but the problem starts there when we hvae ezreal/sona, leona or taric which to really good harrass can oneshot you.
On August 24 2012 10:23 cLutZ wrote: Is the Ez/Graves/Corki triumvirate close to being broken out of any time soon? Or should I ignore tournaments for this weekend?
you should exclude Graves from that hes not picked that often ^.^
not often still means more than all other ad carries together it sucks so hard atm to main ad (I mean corki/ezreal) it used to be the role which had the most viable champs but now not really ^.^
On August 24 2012 11:00 Ente wrote: you should exclude Graves from that hes not picked that often ^.^
not often still means more than all other ad carries together it sucks so hard atm to main ad (I mean corki/ezreal) it used to be the role which had the most viable champs but now not really ^.^
I mean, hes picked pretty often, and seems to win a better % than ez.
I mean, hes picked pretty often, and seems to win a better % than ez.
I really really really raelly dislike this winpercentage stuff for tournements it really comes to what teams prefer and what is popular in solo q doesnt really matter due to lower elo being slower to change stuff, you really rarely see graves at high elo atm (and when I see it im happy that I can pick kogmaw )
I mean, hes picked pretty often, and seems to win a better % than ez.
I really really really raelly dislike this winpercentage stuff for tournements it really comes to what teams prefer and what is popular in solo q doesnt really matter due to lower elo being slower to change stuff, you really rarely see graves at high elo atm (and when I see it im happy that I can pick kogmaw )
I still pick Kog, because, hell, I don't like the AD 3.
On August 24 2012 00:49 Mondeezy wrote: Why don't I ever see MF played, in solo que or competitive games? I'm debating between buying her and Kog'Maw, but I tend to lean toward champs with mobility so I was leaning towards her.
Is she just not as much of a beast as Vayne, Ezreal, etc?
She's received alot of nerfs from back when she used to be a hella strong champion imo.
I have ~60% winrate with Sivir/Kogmaw aswell at 2400/500 elo that doesnt mean that I pick them over ezreal/corki just because I want to have the mobility and I pretty much need to firstpick the AD carry in teamplay due to how the game is played currently. Yes Ezreal might be slightly overrated but not that much one "problem" with him is that mostly lower elo players dont realize that you have to max w (in most cases) and that hes not too great in laneswapping (still okay but many other ads are stronger)
I brought this up in GD, but here is better I would think for a real discussion.
If playing with a Nunu Support, what is the ideal item build for a champ?Just one assumption for now:
A BF item is your first big item. I know this is not true for all ADCs, but I want to assume this because the Triforce builds throw everything for a loop. I don't know if there is a significant difference between IE first and BT first builds with this respect.
this guide is amazing, should be featured on solomid tbh. their Genreal AD guide ois not a good as this one tbh. oh and you could also give more infos about the supports^^
On September 05 2012 15:23 cLutZ wrote: I brought this up in GD, but here is better I would think for a real discussion.
If playing with a Nunu Support, what is the ideal item build for a champ?Just one assumption for now:
A BF item is your first big item. I know this is not true for all ADCs, but I want to assume this because the Triforce builds throw everything for a loop. I don't know if there is a significant difference between IE first and BT first builds with this respect.
Thanks.
A good rule of thumb is to build items accordingly to what your support doesn't give you. So if its Janna, i sometimes get zeal first (if im kog or vayne i almost always do, cuz that janna AD buff). If its Nunu, i almost always rush IE or BT, and sometimes even skip zerker greaves for a long time. If its Taric / leona / blitz, i get BF early to maximize burst damage to ensure kills, so i may skip a dorans or vamp early. Its typical rule of thumbs, but again, its very lucrative.
On September 05 2012 22:00 [N3O]r3d33m3r wrote: this guide is amazing, should be featured on solomid tbh. their Genreal AD guide ois not a good as this one tbh. oh and you could also give more infos about the supports^^
Thanks alot for the compliment! Only the best for TL, and if those solomid guys want the goods, they gotta drop by the best gaming site in the world amirite?
Also this inspired me to try to attempt a subsection on supports. What would you like me to expand on? I may also try to do a 2v1 top lane korean style section.
When you push in a 2v1 lane early, are you supposed to slight push first then wait till 2nd wave comes then push to tower or push to tower asap? I haven't tried it but I'd imagine pushing to tower asap makes the wave reset? Or are you supposed to wait for 3 waves before pushing to tower?
On September 05 2012 15:23 cLutZ wrote: I brought this up in GD, but here is better I would think for a real discussion.
If playing with a Nunu Support, what is the ideal item build for a champ?Just one assumption for now:
A BF item is your first big item. I know this is not true for all ADCs, but I want to assume this because the Triforce builds throw everything for a loop. I don't know if there is a significant difference between IE first and BT first builds with this respect.
Thanks.
A good rule of thumb is to build items accordingly to what your support doesn't give you. So if its Janna, i sometimes get zeal first (if im kog or vayne i almost always do, cuz that janna AD buff). If its Nunu, i almost always rush IE or BT, and sometimes even skip zerker greaves for a long time. If its Taric / leona / blitz, i get BF early to maximize burst damage to ensure kills, so i may skip a dorans or vamp early. Its typical rule of thumbs, but again, its very lucrative.
Yes, I understand this principle. What I'm asking is what is item #2? Still go with PD? Zeal only? Etc.
Yes, I understand this principle. What I'm asking is what is item #2? Still go with PD? Zeal only? Etc.
Which ad do you play? how reliable it is that nunu hugs you? how much armor does the enemy have? how much money do you have? how much damage does the rest of your team have? how strong are you compared to the enemy team?
If you want it "easy" : usually PD sometimes you may go something else but those are rare cases.
Yes, I understand this principle. What I'm asking is what is item #2? Still go with PD? Zeal only? Etc.
Which ad do you play? how reliable it is that nunu hugs you? how much armor does the enemy have? how much money do you have? how much damage does the rest of your team have? how strong are you compared to the enemy team?
If you want it "easy" : usually PD sometimes you may go something else but those are rare cases.
Kog, Ashe, Sivir mostly for these purposes.
I always go PD, got called on it a while ago and was confused. So I asked.
On September 05 2012 22:00 [N3O]r3d33m3r wrote: this guide is amazing, should be featured on solomid tbh. their Genreal AD guide ois not a good as this one tbh. oh and you could also give more infos about the supports^^
Thanks alot for the compliment! Only the best for TL, and if those solomid guys want the goods, they gotta drop by the best gaming site in the world amirite?
Also this inspired me to try to attempt a subsection on supports. What would you like me to expand on? I may also try to do a 2v1 top lane korean style section.
this inspired you? you mean my post? O_O i feel honored^^ about the support thingy, i'd like to have diff bot lane synergies described and what their goal is. would be also cool to have them against bot lane xy. Since there are tons of combinations, i think only the prominent ones should be covered.
Hey there, I'm interested in creating a [champion] thread for Twitch, who currently lacks one and even goes unmentioned in the OP of this thread (in the playstyle section, he's mentioned in the items section).
However, I'm a lower level player (bouncing between 1000 and 1100), and although I've played a good number of games with Twitch (I'm 21-13 in ranked, since his remake), I'm certainly inexperienced compared to most of the good AD carry players here. If anyone is is currently considering making such a thread, or people think he's too complex of a champion for a lower level player to have much to add to a discussion, I'd be happy with just talking about some ideas regarding the champ in this thread.
Unless you're planning to draw the vast majority of your information from high Elo sources, you probably shouldn't make a Twitch thread. But we can certainly talk about him here.
I am, incidentally, of the opinion that Twitch is highly underrated.
On September 21 2012 07:04 TheHumanSensation wrote: Hey there, I'm interested in creating a [champion] thread for Twitch, who currently lacks one and even goes unmentioned in the OP of this thread (in the playstyle section, he's mentioned in the items section).
However, I'm a lower level player (bouncing between 1000 and 1100), and although I've played a good number of games with Twitch (I'm 21-13 in ranked, since his remake), I'm certainly inexperienced compared to most of the good AD carry players here. If anyone is is currently considering making such a thread, or people think he's too complex of a champion for a lower level player to have much to add to a discussion, I'd be happy with just talking about some ideas regarding the champ in this thread.
Thoughts?
No champion is too complex for a lower level player to analyze if the player at least understands how a kit works. It may be difficult for you to comment on his place in the metagame/optimized build. I have faith in you though
Twitch AD carry has a versitile and odd kit that can be played as a weird psuedo-urgot style counter AD carry AD carry (heh). Early game, because of his range and squishiness, he is going to have trouble with the typical trade/farm bottom lane, and everything in his kit screams "burst their champ down before you go down". To add onto this problem, he has no reliable escape, so if you start losing the lane, you can snowball downhill very quickly. This, imho, is why he is considered bottom tier.
Late game, his ult gives him team-clearing powers of which only a few AD carries posses (MF and maybe kayle). Stacked in the right line up (press R to win line-up, amumu/malph/etc) twitch can lay down some serious pain.
That said, my brother (1900) plays a 70% winrate jungle twitch which is horridly effective. Stealth ganks OP. In think in the AD carry slot, he should consider roaming and lane swapping often to try to throw off their metagame plan rather than duke it out and lose playing their game.
from a 1550 twitch player
Also, you wont find many high level twitch players, as most people over 1800 will dodge if you pick him >_<... I guess there's just this tryhard range around 1700-2k where anything that doesnt fit exactly into the current metagame, or that you have less than a 50% winrate with is dodge worthy.
That said, my brother (1900) plays a 70% winrate jungle twitch which is horridly effective.
Jungle twitch is still okayish even though you have to say that prerework twitch jungle was way stronger and beastly
I think twitch just doesnt have the skillset to be without an escape not that great slow /not that great damage if he doesnt have freeshooting field (then he owns everyone though) I think Twitch is outclassed by most Ads but that doesnt mean that hes "autoloss" or anything hes okay but in my opinion outclassed by other no escape ads.
ad carry is my worst role and i've only had real success with mf so far, because I like how fast she kills turrets and her general mobility fits my generally aggressive and teamoriented playstyle.
that said: I had a game where the lane and midgame went very well, but our irelia kept on feeding olaf top and wukong jungle (didn't blame her for it, it's very hard to come back vs olaf and an aggressively ganking wukong). This was pretty much the worst case as MF relies solely on dishing out enough damage to the bruisers without having the luxury to jump out of shitty situations or dodge incomming disables.
After I finished IE and PD I had to consider getting a defensive item just so I dont instantly die vs two insanely fed bruisers. GA came to mind but what does mr and armor help against true damage, so I just made warmogs. I never died after it and farmed kills in every teamfight.
That lead me to this question. Besides IE PD LW it has become very popular to get BT and GA because of the strong synergy as EHP/time items and for the added damage it provides. makes sense. But Instead of getting those two I want to ask if and when it would be viable to get atmogs instead. The two variations have two things in common: they cost about the same and add about the same damage overall. The quesion is now which gives you better survivability. I'd like to think that if there is alot of burst/true damage then atmogs might be a viable variation, what do players think who are actually good at this role (and math). thx
Last time I tried Kog (months ago, when I first started playing) I got owned, and never wanted to try him again. I recently played Varus when he was free and did pretty well, but it was vs low level players, and I'm under the impression that Kog is supposedly better?
What're your guys thoughts on both, for an average player?
I really like Varus, but I don't reccomend him for ranked unless the other team already chose an escapeless ad carry. (For example, you can take him against MF and Ashe, and he'll do well)
Varus in normals is a lot of fun. Especially if you duo lane with a sona or taric.
Kog is not nearly as fun in my opinion, even though he is a really cool champ.
On October 04 2012 12:11 Mondeezy wrote: I can't decide if I want to buy Kog or Varus...
Last time I tried Kog (months ago, when I first started playing) I got owned, and never wanted to try him again. I recently played Varus when he was free and did pretty well, but it was vs low level players, and I'm under the impression that Kog is supposedly better?
What're your guys thoughts on both, for an average player?
Both are fine. Varus is probably better for the "average" player. Kog does have the stronger (strongest) lategame, but he's tough to master, especially in solo queue. Varus has really good poke and surprising damage and is quite good at assisting ganks and kiting in team fights. Both struggle against assassins and divers in general.
On October 04 2012 12:25 w(oO)t wrote: I really like Varus, but I don't reccomend him for ranked unless the other team already chose an escapeless ad carry. (For example, you can take him against MF and Ashe, and he'll do well)
Varus in normals is a lot of fun. Especially if you duo lane with a sona or taric.
Kog is not nearly as fun in my opinion, even though he is a really cool champ.
I love Kog. I initially bought him because he could go AP and AD, and he is like 1 of 3 AP Mids I am (was?) good at. Then they nerfed AP Kog. AD Kog is still super strong, he is weak to Ezreal (Pre-6), of course, but everyone is. I am one of the people that Loves Kog's Ult, and really don't like long CD ults in general (Give Me Ryze/Anivia/Kog/Udyr).
If you like the feel of "ulting" and really feeling like it is a game changer, don't pick Kog, take Varus who has one of the best ADC ults.
What are people's verdict on a double AD team composition with 3 "supports"? I remember reading that TPA did this before malphite, nunu and ez got popular. I feel like it could work in certain situations where u get then chance to actually make a proper setup. An example would be:
shen top, nunu jungle, sona support, tristana bot, corki mid
Shen is a good protector and a good pusher, nunu has good roaming potential and pushing potential when paired with tristana or corki. Corki has a very good early to mid-game, deals physical and magic damage and can be pretty independent in some ways (if people have seen genja play corki they will know what i mean). Sona/trist is a decent bot-lane that has alot of magic damage early on, but as trist gets farmed up she becomes mostly physical orientated.
It probably won't be a meta-changing kinda thing, but i could definitely see this work if the enemy doesn't grab someone like malphite, maokai, skarner or assassins who can shut down carries with ease. With all the hype on taking towers early i hope people will think about something like this.
I have this popular situation and i still dunno how to react,teammates kept telling the team to focus AP/AD carry and I as an AD carry still have to deal with front line like Malphite/LS/Irelia etc.What should i do???
On October 29 2012 10:00 justiceknight wrote: I have this popular situation and i still dunno how to react,teammates kept telling the team to focus AP/AD carry and I as an AD carry still have to deal with front line like Malphite/LS/Irelia etc.What should i do???
Use your own judgement, normally you will have to kite the front line and do as much damage as you can before you can get to their squishies. /ignore anyone who gives you shit about it. Build appropriately - sometimes you need to get a last whisper fast, sometimes you're better off grabbing GA first, depends on how much armour they're building.
After the game, watch the replay and slow-motion any fights where people said you attacked the wrong thing. Were they right? Did you go for the right target? Did you kite well enough? Leave all that stuff for after the game, during it make your best assessment and go with it regardless of what your teammates are yelling at you to do.
On October 29 2012 10:00 justiceknight wrote: I have this popular situation and i still dunno how to react,teammates kept telling the team to focus AP/AD carry and I as an AD carry still have to deal with front line like Malphite/LS/Irelia etc.What should i do???
Use your own judgement, normally you will have to kite the front line and do as much damage as you can before you can get to their squishies. /ignore anyone who gives you shit about it. Build appropriately - sometimes you need to get a last whisper fast, sometimes you're better off grabbing GA first, depends on how much armour they're building.
After the game, watch the replay and slow-motion any fights where people said you attacked the wrong thing. Were they right? Did you go for the right target? Did you kite well enough? Leave all that stuff for after the game, during it make your best assessment and go with it regardless of what your teammates are yelling at you to do.
This. So much this.
As AD carry, your first job is to live for as long as possible because that is what allows you to do the most damage. If that means shooting at the tank while you kite him, so be it. It's better to do less damage initially while shooting the tanks/bruisers but live long enough to kill the squishier stuff later than to go for the AD/AP, kill him, die in the process and then the team has no more damage to deal with the remaining targets. If you happen to be close enough to the AD and no other enemy on you, you should still shoot him but your first objective is to survive.
Sadly, 90% of the teams at my ELO don't know that and scream "go for AD!". Ignore those idiots.
Great read, I can't help but notice under ezreal you recommend maxing W first. Do you still recommend the Ezreal/Corki mastery page for Ezreal, and maxing W after the recent nerf to Ezreal's W anti-steroid? I have always been a max Q->E->W kind of guy on Ezreal, which doesn't affect my current playstyle with him. What would you suggest for the new Ezreal?
I'm going to make changes to ezreal after the nerf. For me it's always been tentative. I would max W if the enemy AD was very auto attack reliant (vayne, kog, varus, and trust if she misses her W), if I had a support that was excellent at setting up (a good Tarik or Leona) or if I had a mana battery. In scenarios of poke wars, safe farming, or if the enemy lane had a heavy engage / burst lane I always maxed Q first anyway to make them keep their distance, poke, and farm. The W does only 10 less damage than Corki's Q, so as a team fighting or 2v2 aoe tool it does good damage, but if you are good at landing Q's, that will do more overall. I would now, in most situations, suggest Q > W > E. E is still your lowest dps, and honestly if you time it right you shouldn't need that early of a CDR increase in early fights. Using it once in combination with flash is plenty. Justifying leveling E just for CDR doesn't trump the fact that W is a team steroid and does more aoe damage with longer range.
W's damage still scales harder than Q with levels, though. While it gets nothing from AD, Q has the same ratio at level 1 as it does at level 5. Probably not enough to offset the lower CD from Q that comes with levels, but is interesting to note.
How do you deal with a harass heavy matchup as a non-sustain lane?
Example: Playing Vayne/Janna versus Ez/Sona. Sona Qs me every time I go to last hit, if I shoot back ez jumps on me + I miss the CS. I trust my late game positioning/kiting ability greatly, but sometimes I have trouble getting there due to lane matchups.
Another thing - directed toward higher ELO players and "semi-related" to ADC... If I main ADC, would it be better to stick to a main champ or two, or vary based on counter picks? Should my duo partner run support for me, or a diff lane?
On November 02 2012 04:32 Mondeezy wrote: How do you deal with a harass heavy matchup as a non-sustain lane?
Example: Playing Vayne/Janna versus Ez/Sona. Sona Qs me every time I go to last hit, if I shoot back ez jumps on me + I miss the CS. I trust my late game positioning/kiting ability greatly, but sometimes I have trouble getting there due to lane matchups.
Another thing - directed toward higher ELO players and "semi-related" to ADC... If I main ADC, would it be better to stick to a main champ or two, or vary based on counter picks? Should my duo partner run support for me, or a diff lane?
Thanks in advance for any replies
Whenever i get into a lane where i notice i can't go aggressive as Vayne - either because the opponents playstyle makes you trouble or the support doesn't really know how to play his role and doesn't create opportunities - i'll sit back and farm under tower, knowing i will be stronger lategame even if i miss a little CS. Then whenever i catch one of them out of position in lane i go all-in, for example when i see one of them backing.
Also, whenever you come back from base with a new item while the enemy stayed in lane, remember that you are stronger now, use that opportunity.
Lastly, since you can let the lane push to your tower, it creates an opportunity for the jungler. Notify him of that and hope that he knows how to do his job.
Vayne has really bad laning while Cait has probably the best laning phase of any AD, so it's not a great matchup to be in.
I plan to do a full revamp / update of the guide soon including new Season 3 strats with all my experimentation (Lol Sword of the Divine OP as balls), new masteries, new runes (if any), and updates to how to play the characters (Twitch being one of my new mains, and he isnt even in my guide lol)
On December 05 2012 16:46 jcc wrote: I plan to do a full revamp / update of the guide soon including new Season 3 strats with all my experimentation (Lol Sword of the Divine OP as balls), new masteries, new runes (if any), and updates to how to play the characters (Twitch being one of my new mains, and he isnt even in my guide lol)
Sounds awesome man, looking forward to it and thank you.
What is everyone starting out with? I've been debating between Dblade+biscuit if I go 21/0/9, and boots3 if I go 21/9/0.
If I get IE first I will follow up with PD, pretty classy (only the movement speed nerf is actually noticeable, didn't expect that and thought it would hit much harder).
However, I tried some Vayne games today and BT into SotD is ridicoulus: you're melting anything even when you lost lane and are behind quite a bit. In addition, it's pretty cheap for the damage it deals.
Generally speaking, I love the 'new' BT a lot. You need Vamp Scepter anyways and once you spend 800g on that I feel like you committed so far that you're temporarily missing too much damage if you go IE after that.
Also, a Garen spinning into the enemy team having a Black Cleaver equipped is your best friend now. So much reduction that your flat pen from runes + Last Whisper makes a Graves Ult hit as hard as an AP caster ultimate during mid game.
EPT![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/tBeA2.jpg)
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in any case I found your guide very helpful!
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