What Happened to ADCs?

The ADC/Support bot lane has been a League of Legends staple since Season 2. While solo queue will always have outliers, the professional scene had very stable roles for years. This started to crack with patch 8.11. In May of 2018, Patch 8.11 introduced sweeping changes to the marksman role to smooth out their power curve. “Stormrazor” was introduced, giving marksmen a one item power spike at the expense of slot efficiency. These changes made marksmen much harder to pilot in the mid game, allowing for teams to put their carry power into other lanes. With a power vacuum create bot lane, the pro scene exploded with innovative substitutions.

Swain, Ziggs, Brand, Heimerdinger, and Morgana were able to be flexed into the bot lane role. Funneling became a viable strategy: playing multiple support champions and giving all resources to a single player. The patch also introduced Pyke, adding more carry potential to the support role. This further allowed bot players to draft for utility over raw damage.

While the 8.11 marksman changes were largely reverted in the following preseason, they had left their impact on the scene. G2 Esports was able to win 2019 LEC Spring and MSI with Luka "Perkz" Perković being able to flex champions like Yasuo, Neeko, and Syndra to the traditional marksman role. There are several reasons that these picks work, and players must understand them to succeed with their own strategies in solo queue.

Keys to Success for Non-traditional Bot Lanes

1. Turret Plates: One of the more impactful changes in Season 9 has been the addition of turret plating. These “plates” hold 20% of an outer turret’s health and grant gold when broken. The turret, in change, gets bonus resists for each plate destroyed. This extends laning phase by keeping turrets alive while rewarding players that can force an early siege with gold. ADCs by design will rely on items more than levels to deal damage. They are weaker early game than most other classes, allowing opposing laners to collect plate gold if they can bully the ADCs under turret.

2. Shorter Game Time: While Riot has extended laning phase with their changes, the mid game is more accelerated than ever. Turret Plates, Rift Herald, and larger bounties have allowed players to hit item break points earlier than previous seasons. If a support can reach their item power spike before an enemy ADC, they can have higher dps in fights. Baron buff is more potent at sieging than before, and both Baron and Elder Dragon give stronger buffs on subsequent kills. If a non-traditional botlane can get ahead by the time Baron spawns, they can often force the objective and win off pure momentum.

3. Less Reliance on the ADC Role: Marksman champions have many quirks to them, but they share one goal: do as much damage as possible with basic attacks. They were such a staple because they allowed teams to reliably siege towers and defeat epic monsters. In Patch 6.9, Riot added magic damage to towers: if 50% of a champion’s AP was greater than their total AD, this damage would be dealt to turrets on auto attacks instead. This allowed for many AP champions to become effective split pushers: Kennen, Singed, and Kayle were just some of the champions taking advantage of the change. Mid lane mages are also valuable in sieges. Dragons and Baron are also easier to take than previous seasons, with the Mountain Drake buff giving low DPS teams massive true damage boosts to all objectives.

4. Support Item Strength: “Frostmancy” is the name of a strategy that first emerged from the top lane in Season 9. This strategy involved starting with Spellthief’s Edge and taking the Kleptomancy keystone. This gave the Frostmancer several benefits:

• They could generate their gold by harassing their lane opponent with spells and auto attacks instead of farming. Potent ranged bullies like Kennen and Karma terrorized their opponents, zoning opponents off waves with no potential to break a freeze.
• Whatever farm their opponent managed to get could force a bounty onto them. Riot only included kill and farm gold for bounty calculation to not punish players for build choices or structure kills.
• When the support quest was completed, teams had a stranglehold on vision with two sightstones. After completion, laners can shove wave without penalty, keeping their lead from laning phase.

Riot was quick to gut this strategy: removing the ability to proc Spellthief’s Edge while away from ally champions. Rather than eliminating Frostmancy from competitive, this moved it to the bot lane. Most non-traditional bot lanes will utilize two support items to generate extra gold and strengthen their vision control after laning phase, while ranged champions will often take Kleptomancy to supplement their income.

5. Kit Synergy: There are bot lane synergies as old as time: Lucian/Braum and Kog’Maw/Lulu are just two examples. With the introduction of non-traditional bot lanes, there was room for new synergies to be explored.

Sona/Taric: One of the first to pop into pro play was Sona/Taric. One of the few lanes expected to be behind in gold at 15 minutes, this pair is meant to survive laning phase with potent heal spam. It becomes an unkillable threat after they get to two items, giving a Lich Bane’d Sona unlimited sustain. It has the advantage of protecting fragile divers in teamfights, allowing things like AD Hecarim to cut through opponents.

Sona/Tahm Kench: An adaption of Sona/Taric, this combo gives Sona more agency in lane. She is protected by Devour from early levels rather than relying on a Taric ultimate. Devour also has more uptime in the late game. Tahm Kench helps punish opponents that let themselves get poked down, having much stronger early all-in after his 9.9 changes.

Taliyah/Pantheon: Imagined by Korea’s bbq Olivers and Griffin, this lane is created to kill and kill more. Pantheon has some of the most potent all-in pre-level 6 roster wide, and his stun is perfect for setting up a Taliyah combo. Coined the "Avengers" lane, this pair can roam onto unsuspecting victims with a Weaver's Wall and Grand Skyfall combo. Unlike most non-traditional pairings, neither part of this lane runs Kleptomancy. Taliyah instead takes Electrocute for extra kill threat, expecting to earn her gold through takedowns.

Pyke/Yuumi: The LEC’s G2 has proven that Pyke can play nearly any role on the map, with bot lane carry being their newest contribution. Pyke’s ability to regen health while hidden synergizes well with Yuumi’s missing health heals. She can pop her heal before he starts regenerating for maximum value, only for him to restore his health normally. Yuumi also has ability to hide her ultimate particles when she casts it while attached to a stealthed ally, Ghostwater Dive giving her this chance on a low cooldown. Pyke is able to rapidly reposition with his dash and execute to ensure maximum root coverage. Pyke’s gold sharing on execute shores up his propensity to drop early farm and not take a support item. Lastly, Yuumi's adaptive stat boost can raise Pyke's AD to absurd numbers.

By playing a non-traditional bot lane, you either plan to smash the laning phase and snowball the mid game (Taliyah/Pantheon) or survive the laning phase to outscale (Sona/Taric). You will have much more vision and mid game power to play around game-turning objectives like Baron and the Elder dragon. While Sona/Taric are taking the spotlight, here are many more combos to be discovered. Solo queue has started to see the rise of Poppy/Veigar, Lux/Taric, and Lux/Tahm Kench. Remember that ranked is a lot more forgiving than pro play: if you can find synergy in a duo, you can likely succeed with it. Be creative and have fun!

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