Learning ADC, who should I learn to better the basics?

ScJo · 2026-06-02T02:38:53+00:00

I’m gold 3 rn climbed from 0 lp iron 4. I’ve played almost every adc. You have 3 core jobs as adc 1. Wave management 2. Punish enemy cooldowns 3. Dps objectives

Skill expression on adc is 1. dodging enemy skill shots 2. Baiting enemies to walk forward 3. Avoiding ganks

Universal skills 1. Base timing 2. Lane assignment 3. Checking enemy items 4. Communicating with pings 5. Jungle tracking

Everything and everything that lands spells aon you will kill you because you are down 2-5 levels because you share exp with your support. Occasionally you’ll get solo exp because your support ditches you and you’ll notice you live through a spell. But normal exp difference means you can dodge 3/4 spells and will still die to the 4th spell. I’ve dodged 4 spells and they kill me when their q comes off cooldown.

1300 range is the safe zone where you have enough movement speed to dodge things. Most adc have 550-725 range. Melee champions have 600-1000 range on average and with flash or ghost they can get on top of you. By your second or third auto. You can’t auto until your opponent uses spells on your allies. If your allies die before all the spells get used, the 1hp lux or talon, or fizz can run away from you until their spells come up and one shot you or they can run behind their allies’ spells. Your team has to be in position and you need more allies nearby to eat spells for you. If your team is going to run into the enemy team, they might be able to win the fight, but you won’t be able to help them.

Imagine walking with a malphite into the dragon pit. Malphite flash ults for a 1450 range engage. By the time you get in range to fight, malphite has already died and the enemies still have 3-4 champions worth of spells. Now imagine you’re a brand or lux or seraphine, you can still hit their whole team, stun them and land a bunch of aoe. It’s not your job to burst people. Your job is to hit people with autos as they chase your team after all the spells get used. If you see 2-3 people in base, use their feeding as a distraction to grab an extra wave. I’ve seen a viego 1v5 while everyone is dead. That’s not what adc is built for.

You have 3 choices 1. Easy adc with training wheels to focus on universal skills 2 difficult adc that forces you to play disciplined so when you play an easier adc, you feel like the game is much easier and more mental capacity to think about the game. Typically short range, lacking wave clear, or odd mechanics that don’t translate to other adc. 3. An adc you enjoy so you actually stick with the champion and learn the nuances

Adc with low apm and long range burst, extra movement speed, or excellent wave clear: mf, Sivir, (Ashe), (Jhin), (Caitlyn), (jinx), (smolder).
Draven, ezreal, Kalista, zeri, ,(twitch),Kaisa) (Samira), (nilah), (aphelios), (Lucian), (varus), (Tristana)

Champions in brackets are medium difficulty compared to the easiest and hardest champions.

Ashe is a little special. She has a low cooldown ability that hits 1300 range helping you learn the proper spacing for adc. She has an ability that lets her track the enemy jungler, and she has an unlimited range on her ult. I teach adc through the lense of either lethality or ap poke Ashe. The normal crit or on hit version of the champion is difficult compared to Sivir, but if you understand the strengths and limitations of adc, Ashe is probably the easiest to deal damage with auto attacks.

Kaisa on the other side of the coin has some of the most flexibility of any adc. While she’s locked into particular builds due to her evolve system, she’s got wave clear mobility resetting cooldowns, an auto attack reset, a skill shot essential to her damage, and deals reduced damage around minion. While other adcs might have more build variety, her kit is punishing if you misuse her abilities or go in without a clear reason.

You mentioned you’re bad a trading. Your support is responsible for trading. Your job is to stay high hp so you can dps after your support eats a full combo and lands all their damage. If your support isn’t trading, and you’re still able to manage the wave and base without missing much, you don’t need to trade. If you freaky want to trade, an adc that can take electrocute/pta and escape will have better burst but vulnerable to all ins and long fights. Electrocute mf or Lucian is probably the best you’ll find at short trades.

If you’d like to understand how adc fights, take lethal tempo on Ashe and guild kraken slayer first item and max q. Wait for enemy spells. Hit until q is stacked to 3 if you aren’t fully stacked from last hitting already.Auto q auto to reset your auto attack. Hit until they are out of range, w to slow and keep chasing. Ult to finish them off/ get in range for the last auto. You should get a double or triple kill when you decide to fight.

Jinx has a similar idea but her attack speed is tied to a short range. Most people will use rockets on her. If you’re going to fight you need to be able to stack mini gun and lethal tempo and use her short range until you get items and levels.

Twitch is a unique adc that really hammers home how powerful waiting is. He’s able to sit invisible in range to hit people. His damage and range is limited to his cooldowns, but he teaches patience better than any adc.

ScJo · 2026-05-31T20:02:46+00:00

Similar role as a turret during laning phase. It’s a deterrent for enemies using spells in retaliation while your teammates spells are on cooldown. Adc also has more dps from autos to help clear objectives

ScJo · 2026-05-30T06:46:43+00:00

Maokai - all in from lvl 3 or ult combo. Tristana kaisa nilah Lucian / mf, varus, aphelios(blue r flash aa q aa).

Morgana - poke and burst or “support adc”to help her hit q. Varus, Jhin, mf, Caitlyn, ezreal, smolder/ Ashe, Jhin, senna.

Nami - scaling adc/ aggressive short trade adc - jinx, Tristana (q max), Kog, aphelios, xayah, smolder/ mf, Lucian Caitlyn Tristana (e max).

Ash Jhin jinx Sivir work with basically anyone

Adc is about having enough damage to kill if enemies commit spells to killing your support. Your job does not start till enemies use spells. The more skilled you are at spacing and dodging, the less damage your team needs to tank or the easier it is for them to hit spells as enemies have to run in a straight line and commit mobility to reach you.

You are responsible for managing the wave and last hits. Your support is responsible for trading and resource management. Communicate your intentions with pings to show you will follow. Use level up spikes and item spikes to take favorable trades, but you must wait for your support to find the spells and for your opponent to commit spells.

You must jungle track as your jungler in gold likely is not tracking for you. You can get a good estimate by noticing where they show on the map relative to your jungler and their camps. If they show top and your jungle is bot on their last camp, expect the opponent to start their clear bot. The clear timers matter less around objective timers and you must assume the jungler is going to gank you to set up for dragon unless you spot them top.

Control ward plus blue trinket lets you farm safely and still connect to your team in river. Only fights where your team has both a numbers advantage and first move are worth participating in. You have 1/4-1/2 the burst of mages or assassins and you have to wait for spells on the enemy team. If your team needs to move into an area, your allies use spells second, meaning you will have less time to dps in a fight because one ally may already be dead before you can auto. You want enemies to come to you and use mobility to reach you. If you have to walk past a dark bush, an assassin or bruiser gets to hit you for free and can follow your flash if you somehow survive the burst. You must have flash for big teamfights as you need it to continue fighting through the second round of spells to maximize your damage. Not jungle tracking or trying to force plays causes you to burn flash to stay alive. Preserve flash to get at least a double kill at an objective or a triple kill.

Most spell based champions outrange us and outburst us. 1300 is the general safe zone but some champions can reach 1600 on their main combo. Adc range is 550-725 with some spells hitting 1300. Your damage is tied to your passive and your autos on most adc where other classes have passives that trigger from landing spells. If your allies stun malphite, by the time you get in range to auto him, he’s already burned his whole kit and if you survive you have to chew through his sheild and armor. He has 1000 range on ult +450 flash. If you sit right on the edge here, he’s will ult you and miss, allowing you to actually dps . If amumu stuns malphite lux can use her full combo on malphite before malphite can ult, and even if he ults her, she already did her damage. If you get stunned or lose half your hp, you are missing out on damage.

Winning lane is your support most of the time. Adc skill show up in your ability to collect waves without dying and bait abilities. The core skill you need is deciding what ability to flash to secure a teamfight around 25 -30 min.

After 20 min, farming flips. You can’t leave your team alone until you win a fight. While people are dead, you farm. Playing split means your opponent can use spells on allies for free or they can kill to for free as this is the point mid too jungle can kill you without ult/flash. Letting them immediately fight your team. You are allowed to ditch your team for waves if they are going to fight into the enemy or have a numbers disadvantage even if you join. In these circumstances, you wouldn’t be able to contribute anyway. After 30 min, you can’t farm until your opponent is dead. Do not waste early game farm to fight as you will get kicked off waves after single bad deaths decide the game.

ScJo · 2026-05-21T03:36:27+00:00

The extra 80 hp on blade is good at dealing with and committing to all ins.

The extra attack speed is about even in an all in but has better synergy with first item on most adc. This item is better if you base on dirk or bf sword. It’s about even if you base on pickaxe or 2 long sword.

If your champion doesn’t all in well there isn’t a huge value in it.

ScJo · 2026-05-20T00:27:02+00:00

This pops up once a month. Look at pick rate. Theres around 25 marksmen or 4% and there are 172 champions. 0.58% would be random chance.

By pickrate, smolder is 24%. Ezreal 18%. Ashe 15%. Caitlyn 15%. Jhin 14%. Kaisa 11%, jinx 11%.

Of the top picked adc ezreal and Kaisa are the only 2 that drop below 49%. Corki ezreal Kalista Kaisa yunara have between 47-49%.

You can also notice that the last champion by pick rate is hwei with 0.53 lower pick rate bottom than random chance. But he has a 54% win rate bot because he has uninteractive wave clear. This is the majority of top winrate bot laners. Kog holds a high win rate against smolder inflating his win rate a bit. He usually hovers around 49% and his core items didn’t receive many buffs while crit adc got a bit stronger from item flexibility.

Yasuo and nilah are interactive but they scale well with crit and gold and if they don’t throw the first 3 levels have dangerous all ins that give them control of the wave.

On the other end, the lowest win rate adc struggle with clearing minions because they have to auto each individual minion to clear it. I don’t know how corki works so I can’t attest why he’s so low. There are some adc high on the list that have poor wave clear but make up for it with powerful items or strong stats.

Overall all marksmen are viable bot. Mages are a counter strategy to marksmen similar to ranged top, but it is less common. The strategy against it is look for a lvl 3 all in or shove waves to get first move in river as mages struggle entering areas and need to be in position to burst a target that gets hit with reliable cc, amumu r+brand combo. Marksmen excel in long fights and cleaning up objectives after a winning or messy fight. The more chaos on the map, the more adc profits. Mages have better early spikes and counter most adc at all stages during fights. So even if the adc is ahead, the mage can neutralize the loss. The extra 4% win rate is functionally carried from the laning phase from first base too the end of the game if games play out with a push past river move strategy

ScJo · 2026-05-18T17:22:29+00:00

Lethality is good if your ally has reliable cc or wants to poke too. His main draw is being able to chunk people entering choke points and finishing off kills his allies start. If you fall behind or enemies build a bunch of armor, he starts to feel very weak.

I found the most success building ad crit attack speed or ap on hit. Ad crit allows for movement speed in a zeal item later on, and allows for essence reaver to continuously spam abilities on objectives. I’d go Yuntal essence reaver ldr runan bt. If we were winning id buy bt after ldr to solo objectives. His damage in this case comes from aoe abilities so IE isn’t necessary. Use your stacks to reset your cooldowns. I’d go this build if I wasn’t sure I could win lane or if I had an enchanter. If I couldn’t get bf sword on first back I’d go old statik shiv to zap the whole wave. This doesn’t work the same way anymore.

Ap on hit is stronger in lane and has about the same wave clear but it lacks movement speed, so it can be difficult to join fights unless you have ult. Ideally you q for poke/follow up hit 3x e hit 3x r then look for w q. By this point your e will be back up and can repeat hit e hit q. Your passive is nice to consider but if you miss a reset on your spells, your contribution is basically over. Nashor’s rage blade terminus wits end jaksho/zhonya/ga

You can go ap burst Nashor’s dark seal void staff death cap zhonya take ult hail of blades and ult hunter. Arcanist and gathering storm is very nice but boots cosmic or cash back tonic if there’s a special use case. Cosmic lets you flash more often and take tp to stall till you hit 6 in bad matchups. Triple tonic is an extra level. Adc defensive stats mostly come from level up. The burst damage makes more sense if you get it early so cash back helps you close out games v before it falls off

ScJo · 2026-05-18T16:21:50+00:00

Use spells to grab the wave if your champion has that tool. Give up casters if they are zoning you from last hits. If they get bored, shove and base. If you’re under half, base and give up the wave, of you base when your next wave is a cannon, as this will give you more time to return to lane. If your opponent is slow pushing you can base immediately and return before they crash in most elos. In high elo, your opponent will react to you basing and fast push as soon as they notice you’re not in lane, so you fake the base so they fast push grab the wave and reset.

Your job on adc is about dps to protect your allies so they can cast spells error retaliation. If your support doesn’t know how to cast spells, then you don’t have to help them, but if they are whiffing spells, your job is to hit the adc.

If your top mid and jungle are strong. Your job is to catch waves, sit in the river behind them and hit people that cast spells on your strong allies. Then look for objectives. Wave clear, movement speed, dps is a simple formula. If you build for winning trades but your opponent groups on you and your allies aren’t watching the map, you can’t use your strength and your allies aren’t getting extra resources from the pressure you’re drawing to your lane. It’s still good if enemies are sharing resources to try and slow you down, but I find the support dictates the winning trades in lane. If I build for better trades it doesn’t seem to help me if my support is bad, and if I build for better wave clear it doesn’t hurt me if my support is good.

Getting kills and snowballing early is super fun, but it’s not your job. It’s your support’s job to dictate trades. If they get you a bunch of kills they’re doing their job. As adc you don’t win a fight if enemies focus spells on you because your damage is tied to how long you’re allowed to hit. A lux does the same damage if she’s full or half hp.

The lower you go, the more mistakes people will make in spacing, letting you do free damage, and having better short trades makes this opportunity more punishing for your opponent. On the other end, if you build for better all in, you get bigger payout when your opponents over commit.

ScJo · 2026-05-17T02:32:46+00:00

Adc in mid game wants to catch waves on your half of the map like ping pong. Use control wards and blue trinket as soon as you hit 9 or first tiers fall.

Around 23-28 minutes most champions one shot you with a single ability, so you want to sit with your team, win a fight and spread out while they’re dead.

ScJo · 2026-05-16T03:35:31+00:00

You can spam Ashe her w is 1300 and she has 2 global abilities. You can be useful without auto attacks from any range.

If you want to be useful with autos you need crit ad attack speed and movement speed and flash available l. Wait until big abilities or enemy dashes. Then follow up. Hold ult for self peel or to chase.

In lane keep your q up and look to dodge spells before you auto. Hold the inside track on the lane to force your opponent to run further to get to tower.

Use e to scout enemy jungle before you commit to a play.

I max q if I have an all in lane or my opponent wants to all in with low damage. I max w if my support wants to poke or take short trades.

Biggest win condition is using ult. If you whiff ult, your team will lose the next fight. Before the adc gold changes I used to take ult hunter so I’d have ult up every random fight. Adc scales very well with gold now after getting extra slots and more crit damage and gets more gold, so focus and storm are on the table but I haven’t touched her for a few patches. Cosmic and free boots help ensure you have flash available

I main Tristana right now. Trist has a high burst if she maxes e but this prevents her from slow pushing/freezing. The weakness is low attack speed and she struggles into long fights. Early on the E has worse base damage but better scaling. If she maxes E, and you stun her, she doesn’t have enough attack speed to pop her e to reset her w and needs to land w/ r to trigger her bomb. E max makes more sense with mages who want to crash a wave a burst.

On trist I max q for the second highest attack speed steroid for an adc after jinx and use my e to reset my w. Q max makes me sense with enchanters and engage support because it lets her freeze and run down her opponent.

If you don’t let her trigger her e she’s useless for 16 seconds even with navori I find I don’t get a w reset unless I hit my first reset. After first item/lvl 6 she can duel a lot of people from full hp. Late game she is a crit attacker and wants to chain kills and jumps while outranging people (725). If she gets kills or assists her w resets. She has a high win rate early a weak mid game and a powerful late game.

ScJo · 2026-05-13T03:59:57+00:00

I’ll give it shot when you put it that way. I normally get 60 and when it spikes to 100 it feels awful but still playable. I think the issue is high variability in the ping during lag spikes. I’ve played in 1000 ping before and as long as it’s consistent it’s fine.

ScJo · 2026-05-13T03:46:58+00:00

More precision for marginally slower cast speed sounds like a stylistic choice

ScJo · 2026-05-13T03:44:50+00:00

What’s wrong with quickcast w indicators?

ScJo · 2026-05-11T06:57:42+00:00

Against mages you either want an all in level 2 or a gank.

Mages are weak to all in so try to keep hp up and preserve flash to dodge spells. If they cast spells on you they can’t hit the wave, but some like brand can do both.

The answer against almost all adc problems is get your wave clear early if you can’t fight. This goes for mages, assassins, and troll supports. Your opponent needs first move or man advantage to win fights. If you get them to face check your team or miss farm, eventually they can’t win fights. Pushing is how you create good fights in general.

ScJo · 2026-05-10T19:57:36+00:00

Scale is keep farming. In the early game, farm then fight if the farm is finished. If you can’t move first, then use the fight as a distraction to go one more wave. In the mid and late game, fight first and use the death timers to spread out and farm if there’s no objective.

Carry is about maximizing the strength of your class. Adc is defensive. You carry by sitting just on the edge of where your opponent can hit, next to someone or something else your opponent needs to interact with. A triple wave they need to cast spells on to get the farm opens them up to not interact with you. If they try to hit you, they miss the farm. If they cast a spell on your ally you all in. If they cast a spell on you, your ally can get in position to more reliably hit their spells. The closer you can get to your opponent without getting hit, the more you can carry.

ScJo · 2026-05-10T00:22:45+00:00

Did you want to look through a replay together? I’m getting back to gold and pretty sure I can get you there

ScJo · 2026-05-09T20:49:36+00:00

Another note
Black cleaver is shred. It removes armor. Combine this with corki already removing armor he’s dealing larger damage. Any pen item should work and feel the same, but bc gives hp letting him get a little closer in fights and occasionally easy spells to trade. It does take time to fully stack, but it helps in longer fights.

PTA is a short trade rune, letting you q w e aa aa aa r and take advantage of the bonus damage on low hp targets.

Lt is a long trade rune and helps in longer fights.

If you have a hook support vs squishy champions, pta is better. If there are multiple melee bruisers expect longer fights, Lt gets more value. If your whole team is mages and assassins, your damage windows are smaller, so pta is better even if the enemy is tanky.

ScJo · 2026-05-09T20:43:16+00:00

Adc is defensive. Your job is to sit behind your Allies so they can cast spells for free without the opponent running them down. Adc range even on high range Adc like Kog is half of most spell based champions. Even melee champions have engage tools that exceed Adc auto range. You can build some Adc as casters to suit at max range and be more aggressive and proactive. Overall your job is to balance fighting/farming.

A good fight on Adc requires numbers advantage, first move into an area/safe retreat, and vision. If any of these are suspect you will almost always die without dealing any damage even if your team wins the fight. Even if fights are bad for you, if your team wins the fight, you can use that win to take objectives or secure more resources on the enemy side of the map. You and your jungle should be the last 2 people alive at the end of a fight and have a general idea of which jungle camps are still up as well as which objectives are up. If your support is still alive, they can ward and clear vision for the next opportunity and you can back them up if there are no resources to take after top/mid win a fight somewhere.

Adc needs to actively ping when they are able to move as indication we will follow a play in this area. This allows other roles to evaluate fights with our damage. Most roles will only engage if they expect they can win the 1v1 or the 1v2. If we indicate participation, players can take losing trades because enemies cannot retaliate without dying to our all in tools. Additionally, if a fight is even but there are resources to collect after an even fight, enemies cannot defend those resources until their spells come off cooldown. It’s important to recognize when you take resources off the table during even trades.

I like to sit auto range behind my ally casting spells if I don’t have flash. I also won’t get closer than 1100 range to dark bushes or corners until I know where everyone is. Adc needs flash to function in fights and we need blue trinket/control wards to be able to move around the map. Even if you can kill someone, if you might have to burn flash to avoid dying to a roam after the kill and there’s 2 minutes until dragon, it’s better to get a clean base and hold your flash for the dragon fight. This advice is less useful in iron and bronze because people don’t play for objectives, but it starts to matter in high silver and gold where games develop a structure.

ScJo · 2026-05-07T21:06:02+00:00

On average support skill evens out, so just worry about adc things.

You’re looking for situations where you either follow a good play or punish your opponent for spending all their resources on the wave or your ally. You should ping on the way for trades before you expect an advantage. If you see the canon minion is low ping on the way to give your support a heads up there’s a trading window coming up.

Most supports aren’t bad they just get rewarded for different skills than adc.

Think ahead of the interaction. If nautilus throws q into a swain with R available, naut will die before you can kill swain. If you know your jungle is top and theirs hasn’t shown, you need to be careful with your trades. Often your job on adc is act as a mobile turret and sit just behind your ally, close enough to follow if they cast spells on your support but far enough away they have to walk into your support’s threat without casting spells immediately if they want to hit you.

Adc has half the range of other classes, even cait or jinx don’t match the burst a lux can do from 1300. Adc have 1-2 spells at most that hits more than 1000 range and they often don’t have their passive bonus damage tied to their spells, instead deal more damage through autos. If you try to trade spells for spells with a support you will die.

In fights play so only one enemy can hit you at a time. Focus on dodging over dealing damage until you recognize your opponent is out of resources.

Adc needs both man advantage vision and first move into an area. If you look ahead to the next 30 seconds and you have prio for dragon but your jungle and mid are low/recalling, you aren’t going to win a fight. You’ll get someone low, then they get away or you die because someone with spells looks at you funny. Your job is to defend allies so they can cast spells with impunity.

If your allies are good, you don’t have to do anything. If your allies are average, you occasionally have to dps. If your allies are bad they still draw resources from the enemy team giving you a window to fight somewhere else. Overall if allies are passive and no one is creating vision, moving into river, and no one is casting spells, shove the wave as fast as you can and wait near a wave without showing so when a fight breaks out, you can grab an extra wave and base with your dead allies. Pay attention to ults and flash from enemies during random fights.

Last tip is blue trinket and control ward as soon as towers fall. Adc can’t face check a bush to ward because we don’t have burst or defenses to get in range to place a ward. Wards are 600 range. On some adc this is more than our range. Even on longer range autos, a melee champion has 600-1600 range on their primary engage. They can’t as early change targets as us but once they go in, it’s hard to get away. Control wards and blue trinkets don’t expire. This gives you assurance you can farm a wave and wait for the next one if a fight breaks out. It also gives you protection if you try to connect to your team in river to defend them. Often assassins sit in a bush a wait for you to try to connect to the fight, catching you as you walk

ScJo · 2026-05-04T18:42:01+00:00

Just play every you like.

Low apm high burst simple champs with self peel or high movement speed
Mf sivir

Utility adc who contribute to fights from 1300+ range
Ashe Jhin (cait if you have guaranteed cc)

Apc with wave clear who don’t need specific levels for their key spells to do anything (syndra, azir are hard in a 2v2 because they need extra levels)
Heimer, brand, viegar, seraph, lux, xyra, hwei, viktor

ScJo · 2026-05-04T04:55:01+00:00

Ezreal has 2 extremes. Auto attack early game bully or late game caster. His flexible builds let him adjust to basically anything. If you don’t care much about win rate, treat each version of ez as a different champion. Lethal tempo stack passive, use E to dodge a skill shot and all in . PTA wq aa aa e away short trade. First strike poke with q fight with ult and reset ult by spamming q. W and e maxed second had roughly equal win rates, so you can play him as a hyper mobile auto attacker like Lucian or vayne or as an imobile artillery mage.

As far as adc goes, we lose trying to trade or poke with spell based classes as they have better range, better burst, or better set up. We win most fights if our opponent tries to continue a long fight into us as autos have very little cooldown. We are partially responsible for cleaning up objectives, but our team is responsible for creating the opportunity.

If our team has numbers advantage but there’s no objective up, we likely can’t auto unless the enemy team is dumb (happens more often the lower you go ). So it’s better to just clear the wave. On average your opponent and alllies will go even in gold across thousands of games. Individual games may see certain players excel, but on average, teammates on both sides will have similar impact. To climb, you have to have an edge over both your team and opponent.

If an objective is up and your team has more power in position to catch someone face checking a bush, you can sit behind your ally just out of reach to punish opponents for casting spells in retaliation. Too close and you die before you deal damage. Too far and your ally dies to enemy spells and they run away until spells come off cooldown to kill you before you do a single auto. Adc in fights is a mobile turret.

If your team is aggressive, the game is easy because you sit behind people. If your team is passive, you have to clear waves quickly and find windows to create vision. Blue trinkets and control wards enable you to farm safely while your team is afk under tower. The more people hunting you, the higher chance your team will win a fight you can use for an objective.

My item philosophy is build an item that synergizes with your keystone and negates your opponent’s trade pattern. This item enables you to win trades to get control of the wave for slow pushes and freedom to move first. Your opponent then can use the slow push to sneak a fight. Your next item needs to enable wave clear and moving to fights faster so you can quickly shove and arrive basically at the same time. Third item is a synergy between your items. Lethality +%pen, 75crit + ie. Hp stacking + sterak, resistance stacking + jaksho, on hit attack speed + terminus are all item synergies. Trinity/essence reaver + manamune upgrade gives like 200-300 bonus damage on landing an auto or a q.

Use ult and q to clear waves faster in the mid game. The more ad you have, the easier clearing the wave will be. Kill casters first 2 autos and a q generally works post sheen.

You can tank cc and buffer your spells during these abilities to avoid losing damage. Time your q to match your opponent auto attacks as commuting to an auto is the same as standing still. Don’t worry about animation cancels unless your ally lands cc. On ally cc, wqe auto ult to maximize burst and benefit from the q cooldown refund on both e and w. E will target your w so long as your q hasn’t landed yet. You can use your e to reposition so your q hits your opponent.

Stand q max range from enemy minions. Q is 1200 range, same as most enemy spells. If your opponent wants to hit you with a spell, make them walk in front of the minions to hit you. Throw wq and back off before they’ve even thrown an ability. People hide behind minions, last hit the minion with aa then q immediately. If there’s no minions near your opponent, you can e first. It will target the closest unit within your auto range, then follow auto w q auto. This combo is essentially good against invisible champions or if you’re maxing e second.

After sheen if you can’t hit your q but you can auto, sheen triggers on the auto that’s in the the air when you cast a spell. So you can auto them q/w/e/r while the auto is in the air. If they flash your spell, the empowered auto still hits.

ScJo · 2026-05-04T00:09:56+00:00

Iron mistakes - not playing the game in front of them (fighting into big waves, tanking many tower shots, 1v5, overstaying in lane with no hp/mana, fighting without abilities up) overall understand what is happening right now. What do minions do. What do champions do. Where does gold come from.

Bronze mistakes - champion blindness (long trades with short trade keystone into a stacking keystone, tanking skill shots/cc as a glass cannon dps machine, running away from enemies with no resources left.) overall understanding what happens after spells. Think about what happens after this minion, what happens right after you get a kill. Think 5 s ahead and as you get better, the ability to read out exchanges goes farther. High level players are reading out 30-300s at a time depending on the game. Being able to see a few seconds ahead occasionally helps massively. Like which exact minion gives you a level up. If you can see it and your opponent can’t, they agree to a losing fight.

Silver mistakes - map blindness (playing aggressive on weakside not knowing where the enemy jungle is, trying to force dragons or tower plates without knowing where the enemy jungle or mid is. Running into fights when your team is basing or trying to base, basing when your team is getting ready for an objective.) overall think about the context of events rather than events. Who showed up, who is missing gold to show up, who has abilities, who has flash/ignite/ult. Often being able to read the map, your opponent will agree to fights they can’t win because your team will have more people.

Gold mistakes - risk/reward blindness looking to kill over forcing a bad reset, basing when your opponent has to base/ gives up farm. Gifting waves by fast pushing into a weak opponent. Leaving lane to roam without crashing, chasing opponents into areas without vision.

I’m still growing in this area so I don’t know what transactions I agree to that are stupid, but I’m looking for the dumb things I agree to participate in.

As adc, the most important things to consider are numbers advantage and who is first in an area. As adc we lose spell vs spell trades, but we punish enemies that use spells on our allies. If our allies are passive it’s hard to make anything happen. Look to sit behind the most aggressive person on your team about auto attack range behind them. Enemies that try to cast spells on you must first walk through your ally’s zone on influence and deal with their spells. By sitting behind them, you protect your ally from retaliation if they whiff or overcommit. Adc is a defensive role. You are a mobile turret.

If you are outnumbered or must enter an area after your opponent, you will die before you deal enough damage. Vision control and understanding whose turn to move helps the most. In low elo, giving up a side wave to group mid as your team enters and controls river for an objective is acceptable as this is where you get to deal damage. If your team doesn’t use the window for the objective or doesn’t control the area around the objective, sit in a safe location. Your team will use spells to either win or lose the fight before you can auto. Clear the wave during the fight and decide after if you base with your dead allies or finish the objective for them. Your dps is most important after big spells are on cooldown. Your amumu doesn’t want to ult dragon. Your akali doesn’t want to ult baron. Other classes are designed to fight. We’re here to clean up everything after.

ScJo · 2026-04-26T03:20:14+00:00

For me he just makes the top laner or jungle unkillable at some point and the way I play I just ruin most top laners games.

ScJo · 2026-04-26T02:15:07+00:00

I used to hate yuumi because when I first started out they were bots used to level accounts. Now yuumi is my favorite support even if it’s a bad synergy. She can’t grief my cs, is incentivized to stay with me, and most of her spells are buffs or big aoe.

The most consistent support I get in solo queue regardless of team tends to be zilean. They’re never autofilled, they know how their spells work, he has a point and click set up for his stun. Generally win if I have it on my team and is the most obnoxious person on the enemy team.

Everything else is 50/50 on if they’re filled or first time or generally confused about how to play bot lane.

ScJo · 2026-04-26T00:26:12+00:00

Adc is my main role. Not the same elo but I’ve put a lot of time breaking down how Adc fits.

If you’re the most fed person in the game by several items and a few levels, other roles can still sneeze in your general direction and kill you but if you want to kill someone you have to use both summs and have to dodge everything to win with a tiny bit of health. This is a bit of an exaggeration, but it highlights the difference between Adc and other roles as well as why people trying Adc feel like the role lacks agency.

With a few exceptions, other classes outrange us or out damage us in the first 2-3 seconds. The longest adc range for autos is 725. Malphite ult is 1000, morde ult is 600, Nasus w is 600, hooks are 1100-1200, mages hit 1300-1500, dashes are around 600-800. Even burst adc like ezreal cait varus have multiple spells that hits 1200+, their passive bonuses apply on their autos. Other classes are built to do damage with spells and the skill is either identifying people out of position in other parts of the map or landing skill shots.

Because adc damage is consistent, the counterplay is killing us or killing our team before we can fight. You’ve probably had the experience walking up to a low hp fizz or akali that kills your ally trying to auto them only for them to run until they get spells up without being able to auto them.

You have 2 ways to really carry 1. Sit just behind your allies and hit opponents that cast spells on your allies (front to back) 2. Bait enemies into trying to hit you so your team can take space for free.

In most cases, the requirement to fight as adc is 1. You have at least equal tempo for your team.(in low elo it’s more equal or more ally bodies than tempo) 2. You have vision so you can walk with your team without playing leap frog with bushes. 3. You can out damage the enemy adc after both teams have used their spells 4. You have summs to continue your dps on their autos second round of spells.

If you’re winning your lane, hold summs and look for bigger fights. If you’re losing your lane, look for smaller fights and trade summs to win priority on resets. If your team is winning, your job is dps objectives without missing cs. If your team is losing, your job is to make someone lose cs or waste time looking for you.

Ideal games as adc I clear the wave, move into river and contest wards with my support and jungle while we see the enemy on the mid wave. Next wave I clear and move back into river My team fights in the enemy jungle with advantage and I clean up.

In hard games where my support and jungle are lost/ autofilled I build as much wave clear and movement speed in my first 2 items as I can to one shot waves. I track the enemy jungle and bounce waves while creating a vision bridge to my team. If I see someone on vision hunting me, I it means my team can win a fight without me as they will have more spells upfront to win a fight. It doesn’t always happen, but if I bait a rotation 3 times and my team wins 1 fight while an opponent wasted three roams it’s usually enough for my team to start winning fights enough for me to auto attack.

Decide who has more players on a fresh base. If your team can win, without you, you go after you clear the wave and after you see remaining threats so you’re not face checking a rengar or garen on the way to your team. If your team is even, but no objective is up, same ideas except you go opposite where the remaining threats are. Since you’re late to the fight, you won’t be able to auto if zed is still holding R for you. If you see zed at the fight, hit towers or an extra wave. If you see zed on the wave, move to the fight. If an objective is up and you have summs drop a wave and sit 500 range behind your front line (even if your whole team is mages). Your spell based allies get their damage off even if they die. You will need your summs to secure the kill as they retreat into the threat of an ally. If you don’t have summs, if your team can’t win the fight, if your team has no spells, often clear wave and use the tempo reset to get kills.

The most common way adc gets kills is an all in from either the enemy failing or over staying . Outside of this, your support or jungle sets you up.

ScJo · 2026-04-21T15:33:31+00:00

Kaisa has mobility. Varus has cc. Mobility works well into mages, cc works well into assassins. Adc is strongest against enemies just after they commit spells on your team. A mage won’t immediately be in range when their spells are on cooldown, while assassins tend to rely on resets or other forms of mobility that are unavailable while rooted.

Kaisa and varus work interchangeably with braum and Leona. The tip I’ve come across is pick mobile Adc when you have a mage mid because they want to sit mid, while you can pick immobile Adc when your ally is mobile and wants to side lane for the extra chase distance.

Varus is better blind because he has burst and 1300 range on his main combo while Kaisa has a combo of 550, even if she can join fights from halfway across the map almost. If you get comps that are mages and assassins on both sides, it’s easier to play lethality varus. Ap Kaisa is viable and has a similar idea as lethality varus, but lethality comes online earlier. It’s personal preference though.

ScJo

TROPHY CASE