The bottom lane has always been a fairly strange place in LoL. While the meta shifts and alters in other lanes, fundamentally changing who is powerful at one time or another, the bot lane has pretty much always been the same; marksman+support=win. While we have had some flavors of the month every now and then, such as the infamous kill lane, for the most part, no one has really bothered tinkering with who's good down there. Why? Because it just works way too well to change.

While the system hasn't changed, the champions have. There was a time when Ashe/Zyra was all the rage (You can thank Sneaky and Lemonnation for that one) or when Lucian was pick or ban. Caitlyn was once the queen of the bottom lane, until Jinx usurped her. Champion fluctuations are just a part of being a bottom lane player. Here are a few marksmen, when and why they are good, and how to take over games with them.

Lucian

Gone are the days of the mid-game-tri-force-power-spike on Lucian; now, it's all about damage and crit. Lucian has gone through a long road in his short time as a champion. On release, Lucian was just too perfect; he had TONS of damage, he was mobile, he could farm extremely efficiently, he could siege, he could break sieges, he could kite away in fights, or chase enemies down. He quite literally had it all. Since then, a lot has happened to the Demon Hunter. His Q got a damage and range nerf, all his mana costs were increased, including his dash, which previously cost zero mana. His double shot passive got a decrease in the amount of time that it lasted, meaning that you couldn't just sit on the passive as a trade deterrent.

Now, Lucian isn't nearly the monster he once was, but he can still hold his own. His ability to siege and break sieges still holds pretty true due to his ultimates fantastic scaling with attack speed. He scales fairly well into the mid and late game because of his mobility. He can still jump away from or towards danger with his E, and keep his movement speed nice and high with the passive on his W. While his hay day is long gone, he is far from dead.

Draven

Welcome to the League of damage! Draven has never been extremely popular in the bottom lane, always falling into the category of niche picks with champions like Ashe or MarksGnar. Draven's got damage, kill potential, more damage, and not much else. His movement speed buff is almost negligible, only being all that useful when he's chasing for a kill. He's one of the most aggressive, hard snowballing marksmen around because of his passive. Farm for 15 minutes or so to build up a ton of stacks, then score a quick kill and watch the gold flow in. Once Draven picks up a kill, it's hard to stop him from getting more.

And therein lies the problem. It may be hard to stop him from getting kills after the first, but that first is the hard part. Draven is completely reliant on auto attacks for his damage, so bursting a champion down without a completed damage item is very difficult. Because he's so immobile, it's hard to follow up on friendly ganks or escape enemy ones. If the enemy jungler has half a brain, they'll know this, and they'll sit on your lane for 20 minutes or so. By that time, the enemy marksman has 3 or so kills, you have no stacks, and Draven is basically useless from then on. He is a VERY dangerous pick, but if he can get going, he's hard to stop. After all, this IS the League of Draven.

Kog'Maw

The Poke-King is here! While champions like Lucian are flexible in their role, able to siege, team fight, kite, and chase, Kog'Maw has one role; poke with ult, and right click. Kog'Maw is a Trinity Force marksman, which should mean that he's a mid game champion...right? Wrong. Kog'maw has a mid game power spike when he gets his Tri-force, but unlike other Tri-force champions, his power spike does not go away. At level 16, the range on his ult has increased to the point of absurdity, so if he's got good ward coverage, nowhere on the map is safe.

He can poke before he fights; so what? That poke doesn't mean much if you can't fight. Well, not only can Kog Maw'fight, he can stomp. The range and damage bonus from his W that I mentioned before scales exquisitely with time and attack damage. Combine that with the armor shred from his Q, and you've got a volatile concoction. His one major downfall is his mobility. He has no escape, meaning anyone with the ability to dive a back line can take him down pretty easily. Thankfully, his E has a pretty huge area, which means he can gum up a choke point in the jungle to help aid his escape.

Kalista

The Lady of Mobility, the Queen of Kiting, the Master of Surprise Damage, Kalista is where it's at. She is quite possibly one of the greatest marksmen that have ever graced the bottom lane, but not for free; Kalista has quite a large skill requirement to use effectively. While other champions on this list use their abilities to burst down other champions and their auto attacks to finish them off, Kalista does the opposite. She is all about jumping around fights and applying as many stacks of rend to her opponents as possible, then ripping them all out for tons of burst damage. Being so heavily auto attack and stack focused gives her another, hidden bonus; she can out-smite junglers with enough prep time.

Like all the other marksmen, Kalista is not without her faults. Because she is so reliant on getting auto attacks off, it is easy to jump her right at the start of a fight, kill her or force her out, and make her virtually useless. Thankfully, as I said before, Kalista is the Queen of Kiting, and can easily avoid most back line diving champions and continue to hop around a fight and stack up Rend. However, unskilled Kalista players may be uncomfortable being dove so hard, and tend to run at the first sign. This is where her skill requirement comes in; it takes guts, quick thinking, and fast fingers to make Kalista shine like the star she is. She's a diamond in the rough, and all it takes is your skill to polish her up to perfection.