Itemization changes the way you play League of Legends. Depending on what you buy, it alters the way you can play out fights and the contribution you can have to your team’s success. Due to this, it is important that you have a good idea of what to build in different situations to give you the highest probability to the game. Here are many of the general situations in which you build different items as ADC.

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First Item

There are about 3 viable options when it comes to building your first item as an ADC.

Infinity Edge: The first and most built option is Infinity Edge. IE packs the most punch out of all the choices you can pick early, and it also gives you a really nice spike when you pick up your second item. The only problem with it is that it gives you a little drought period between that second item but the power once you get it is well worth it.

Trinity Force: The early spiking item that is favored by Corki, Kog’Maw and Ezreal. Has great synergy with caster AD’s because of its Sheen passive, and makes these carries hit really hard early on. It gives incredible stats for its price, and if you are a carry that can make good use of all the stats it should be heavily considered. The only real weakness is late game; the item has lots of inefficient stats for an ADC.

Blade of the Ruined King: Favored by only Vayne and Kalista, this is the higher sustain and more defensive start. Bork does significantly lower damage than the other two starting items, so it’s only good to get on people that really benefit from having higher attack speed. The item gives good dueling power early because of the extremely powerful active, but lower health values also hurt the passive early.

PD, Shiv or Ghostblade?

Most of the time you will have to make the decision between which of these items to pick up. Here are the situations in which I prefer them.

Phantom Dancer: Pound for pound the best item of the trio. This one gives you the best raw dps, holding the highest attack speed and crit. If I find myself ahead I almost always get this because of just how efficient the stats are after IE. If you are not sure what to get, PD is almost always correct, and is the overall best buy for your gold.

Statikk Shiv: Very similar to PD, Shiv is prefered purchase for many AD’s. Shiv has a lot of synergy with high mobility carries because of how quickly the passive charge stacks up. If your team lacks waveclear it also give you another nice way to fend off sieges. Getting an early shiv gives you a good amount of burst with the passive as well, making the item more of a mid game item relative to PD being a late game item, which is why you always sell shiv for PD late game.

Youmuu’s Ghostblade: Rarely built in this meta because of how inefficient it is against super tanks, it can still be a practical item to get in certain situations. Flat armor pen is really good against squishy targets, so if the enemy lacks any form of a tank this can be really good. Ghostblade is the best item of the 3 when you use the active, but sadly that only lasts for 4 seconds so this only makes the item great in a dueling scenario where you can kill the opponent in those 4 seconds, but much weaker especially against tanks. I tend to only get this item as Lucian or Graves against really squishy teams but if you are a splitpushing AD like Vayne it could also be really good.

BT or Bork?

Sometimes the choice can be so obvious yet I see many AD players pick the wrong option. Here are the situations you pick either.

Bloodthirster: This might seem weird to some players, but Bloodthirster should be seen as the more defensive item when picking between these two. It gives you more lifesteal and a shield, increasing your survivability by a substantial amount. It also has a lot of synergy with caster ADC’s because of it’s high ad, but it lacks the synergy that bork has with high attack speed carries. In general late game, when most carries have high attack speed, it usually gives you overall lower dps than bork.

Bork: The tank killer of the two items. If the enemy team has one tank this item should be 100% considered, and if they have 2 it should be bought most of the time. Bork gives you great kiting so against low mobility tanks like Sion and Volibear it should be bought on every ADC in the game. If you feel you don’t need the defensive stats that BT gives then that’s another reason to consider bork as an alternative. Bork has great synergy with auto attack focused AD’s; Vayne or Trist being two that benefit greatly.

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Defensive Items

There are a few options that you can choose when it comes to your defensive item, and if you are someone that thinks ADC’s shouldn’t build defensively, then wake up and start building these so you stop throwing games.

Banshee’s Veil: Primarily build because of its passive, this item is incredibly good against high impact long range cc that can 100-0 you before a fight. If the enemy team has someone like Annie or Blitz this can be an absolute life saver and win games just because they can’t go for their flash plays on you. So make sure to pick this up against explosive cc threats and high ap damage.

Mercurial Scimitar: The brave man’s Banshee’s. This item is almost the same as buying Banshee’s except you have more offensive power and you choose when to break the cc. The big advantage that this item holds over Banshee’s is its surprise factor, many people will forget that you can break the cc and over commit to killing the carry they thought was stunned. I highly recommend if you are below platinum to skip this item entirely and just build Banshee’s, because forgetting to press the active can lose you the game.

Guardian Angel: One of my favorite items in the game, incredibly powerful on full build AD’s. If utilized properly this item will literally give you an entire second life during a fight because you’ll be able to lifesteal back up to full after going down. The only thing that sucks about this item is that it is awful when the passive is down, and it sells for garbage money. It also lacks the safety net that Scimitar and Banshee’s give you to cc. The passive doesn’t matter if you come back to life with 5 goons in your face.

Randuin’s Omen: No this isn’t troll, although it is rare when I find myself building this, if the enemy is nothing but AD threats, this item can be the best possible thing for you to build with it’s incredibly efficient stats against those threats. It’s niche, but don’t forget about this item when you have a Lee Sin, Talon and Wukong trying to take your head off in the teamfight.

Conclusion

I hope that you managed to learn something about itemization for ADC’s. No game is the same, so that means that your build is never going to be static, use your brain to build intelligently and it will improve you as a player. There are so many hard things to get better at as an ADC, like farming and orbwalking, but if you don’t get the basic stuff right you will find trouble climbing the ladder.