Attack Damage Carry. I am sure you have heard that term more than a couple time over your career of playing League of Legends, but what is an Attack Damage carry? Who are they and what makes them have that title? Attack Damage Carry, or ADC, is a champion that uses mostly Attack Damage to kill to your enemy. Does this mean that your champion mainly uses auto attacks for their source of damage? Not entirely. In fact, we can split ADCs into two different classes; Caster and Traditional. We will be going over the difference here today and what makes each of these two classes unique and strong in their own sense.

Who fits what category?

So what is the difference between these two styles of ADCs and who makes up each category? Traditional ADCs deal a large portion of their damage with auto attacks and have spells/passives that support or buff their auto attacks. The Traditional are Ashe, Caitlyn, Draven, Jinx, Kalista, Kog'Maw, Sivir, Tristana, Twitch, and Vayne. The other group of champions we are going to be talking about are Caster ADCs. These champions are also Attack Damage based but majority of their damage comes from their spells. The champions that you can give the title of Caster ADC are Corki, Ezreal, Graves, Lucian, Miss Fortune, and Varus. Lets break these down a little bit further.

Traditional ADCs

If you look over the kits of these champions you can see they all have a spell or passive that makes their auto attacks do more damage, damage over time, or increase attack speed. With these abilities these champion excel in a situation where they can get multiple auto attacks off in rapid succession. This allows them to do a massive amount of damage when it comes to the late game but these champions do have trouble getting to the late game point.

Since they are almost completely reliant on the ability to get multiple auto attacks off in a short period of time they need both damage items and attack speed items. In order to get these items they need to be able to stack up gold by getting large amounts of farm and kills. In most cases, these champions do not have a strong middle game, they haven't had time to build up their damage and can easily be killed before they can get enough damage out to kill anything.

Caster ADCs

The champions classified as Caster ADCs also use auto attacks for damage but a majority of their damage comes from hitting their spells. These spells scale almost entirely off Attack Damage and can be used to harass your opponent out of lane. When the mid game comes around these champions excel in dueling, small skirmishes and team fighting. Since these champions use mostly abilities to deal their damage they don't rely as much on items as the Traditionals do.

Yes, they still need items but once you have one or two big damage items they are able to use their spells to burst an enemy champion down very low and finish them off with their auto attacks. The issue with these types of ADCs is they once the late game rolls around, it is hard to keep up sustained damage. Unlike their counterpart, their damage over time is reliant on how many rotations of spells they can get off.

Overview

So, what are Attack Damage Carries? Well I say it depends on who you ask. While most people like to think that Traditional ADCs are the power houses of the rift, I would like to think that Caster ADCs bring just as much damage to the table, if not more. In the end, it all depends on how you want to play! Do you want to be nice and safe, sit back and auto attack from a far and get the easy penta? Or do you want to go be a little more adventurous and jump in spamming spells and bursting everyone down for the flashy ace? Either way, I hope I was able to teach you a little more about the two style of ADCs and I hope to see you on the rift!