Intro

Patch 8.11 dropped, and needless to say, it has been an interesting patch. There has been a bunch of shakeups in the meta and, most importantly, bottom lane has been changed greatly. Instead of being known as the ADC position, where crit and Guinsoo’s Rageblade-using ranged champions ruled, it’s now basically a free-for-all, where tons of champions never before seen are becoming viable in the bottom lane. Champions such as Irelia, Yasuo, and Jax are seeing viability in the bottom lane for basically the first time. Additionally, mages such as Brand, Vladimir, and Ryze are also seeing play, including a ton of play in the LCK, LPL, and LCS. In this article, we are going to take a look at why these champions are being played in the bot lane, and how they can be played to competitive success.

Why Are These New Champions Viable in the Bottom Lane?

The Conqueror Keystone

In Patch 8.6, a new Keystone was introduced into the game. Before this patch, bruisers had been struggling to fight their way through the big, beefy tanks in the top lane. Riot's solution was a new Precision Keystone that made your next basic attack after reaching 4 stacks grant you bonus AD and convert 20% of your damage to true damage. You were able to build up stacks by either taking or receiving damage. Now, this Keystone has been insanely powerful since its release and has allowed many bruisers to be able to shine once again. Champions like Yasuo, Irelia, and Jax all finally had a Keystone that they had been lacking since Runes Reforged. This resulted in a major meta shift and saw most of the tanks take a backseat to carry-oriented top laners.

Because of the sheer strength of Conqueror, it has allowed many bruisers to be able to find a home in the bot lane. Although getting bullied out of lane is still a problem, Conqueror allows these bruisers to be able to kill the ADC extremely easily, and because of the snowball state of the game, a kill lane is that much stronger. But killing the ADC wasn't usually this easy, until Patch 8.11 hit and nerfed ADCs quite hard.

8.11 ADC Nerfs

There are a few parts to these ADC nerfs. Firstly, every single ADC had their armor reduced in exchange for health and increased health growth. Additionally, every ADC had their base AD nerfed and their health regen nerfed. Finally, critical strike items had unbelievable nerfs.

First, let’s talk about the ADC nerfs. The armor reduction of the ADC means that these bruisers are able to do damage that much easier. Despite having more health to work with, the nerf to health regen means that when the ADC does take damage, it ends up sticking more often than not. This means that bruisers are not only able to deal much more damage because of the armor nerfs, the damage they do deal is able to stick because ADCs do not regen as much HP as they did before. Only ADCs were nerfed in this way, so on top of ADCs getting hit harder, they are not able to do the same to bruisers whose armor and HP regen was not hit at all.

Secondly, the major nerf to crit builds. Universally, crit items were increased in cost, most by 200-300 each. If ADCs built the same as they did last patch by going Infinity Edge, RFC, and Statikk Shiv, their build costs 900 more gold. On top of that, Zeal and Brawler's Gloves got increased in price by 200 each, making buying either much more cumbersome. Although 900 gold isn’t an extreme price increase, it’s enough to basically drive extinct most of the ADCs who built these items. Additionally, Infinity Edge got major changes, which makes it a non-viable first item choice. The new Infinity Edge now builds out of two BF Swords. It doubles your critical strike chance and converts 15% of crit damage to true damage. This makes Infinity Edge much harder to build, and worst of all, makes you waste some of your crit if you go the usual Energizer build. If you build one Zeal item and Infinity Edge, you’ll get 60% crit, while if you build two Zeal items and Infinity Edge, you’ll get 120% crit. This obviously feels awful because wasting stats is essentially throwing away the gold you have earned. No doubt, all these nerfs and changes combined have made crit ADCs difficult to play and not great choices in the current meta.

Inability to Punish Bruisers and Mages

I talked about this a little in the Conqueror Keystone section, but this is an important aspect to talk about. The AD nerf to ADCs has made their damage potential significantly lower. Also, the fact that crit ADCs have to build a Zeal item first because building Infinity Edge first is non-viable due to the fact that Infinity Edge doubles your crit chance, the amount of damage ADCs are building early is even less. This allows not only bruisers to be able to duke it out and fight evenly in the bot lane, mages like Ryze and Vladimir are also able to survive and withstand the damage that ADCs are able to do. It actually makes them much safer because the mages are able to build very greedy builds like Tear + RoA without the danger of getting destroyed in the mid lane by aggressive mid laners like Zed.

Closing Remarks

Despite all of this, some ADCs are still able to be played. Lucian is one of the best characters to play in the bot lane right now due to his insane synergy with Essence Reaver, and his ability to output tons of damage while not getting bullied out by other ADCs. Ezreal is another great pick because of his immense safety and ability to lane. Finally, Kai’Sa still remains a great ADC to pick in the bot lane due to her great damage output and ability to scale in the late game. While these are definitely the three best ranged ADCs to play in the bot lane right now, crit ADCs can still be played because if you are able to get to the late game without falling 5-10k gold behind, the new passive of Infinity Edge that now grants you 15% true damage on your crits grants you absolutely insane damage that is basically unmatched. However, I wouldn’t expect too many crit ADCs to be played competitively until crit is buffed because right now it takes too long to build up and there are just much better options to pick from. This is one of the craziest metas that has ever existed, and bot lane has been thrown into complete chaos. For now, expect some bruisers and mages to dominate the bot lane, and watch closely to see what Riot does to bring crit ADCs back into the meta.

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