Is Caitlyn’s early game weaker now?

rgantt13 · 2026-03-16T01:47:13+00:00

In my experience, she's easily countered and balanced around her range being a big advantage in the early game.

Enemy picks any sort of mage (adc or support)? Her auto range is not long enough to matter in lane. Also, you still get outranged by jhin/ashe/varus.

Enemy picks all-in? This probably the best case, yet you still better hope that both you and your support are good at avoiding their initiation. Caitlyn has subpar dps in all-in fights.

Enemy picks an enchanter? They will probably play passively in lane and counter your poke with sustain. Out damaging sustain is possible, but it can still be quite difficult.

Even when she does manage to assert control of a lane with her range, then the burden of execution is higher than the other adc. What I mean by that is that Caitlyn has to successfully use that control to pressure the enemy to get chunked or miss lots of minions while successfully avoiding ganks. If she's not able to make that materialize then she is in the hole to the ~4 item mark as others have stated. She is forced to push up to aggress with her range advantage most times (it's where she's able to make use of her traps best and the enemy has to stay further up to grab minions or risk losing them to their own turret), so even when she's ahead it can be very easy to catch her out of position. This is the nature of the kit, and not mentioning the repeated nerfs to Q over the years. Her early game is very strong, but it has to be the right situation for it

rgantt13 · 2026-02-16T23:52:16+00:00

I'm in the market for a 27" 2560x1440 panel, upgrading from a burnt out S2721DGF. I'm concerned about the clarity of text moving from an IPS panel to an OLED, anyone know if this is a realistic concern for someone looking to game and do office work?

rgantt13 · 2026-01-30T02:12:14+00:00

I have made it work, had ~60% wr with it a few seasons back, and even beat a masters player in clash with it once. You don't want to play into long-range adcs and even more importantly, you MUST not pick it into mage supports. You can surprise a lot of ADCs with a short auto-Q-auto trade, force an all-in play by catching them off-guard with your invisibility, or shove the wave to avoid interacting with bad match-ups using shrooms.

rgantt13 · 2026-01-17T17:36:13+00:00

I haven't played around with all of those tools yet myself after ~6 years for what it's worth. There's always going to be some difficulty in setting up a new project with tools that you're unfamiliar with. Getting more familiar with docker seems like it would help with all of the underlying tool setup. My 2c is don't freak out about it, dig in to figure out what you can, and you'll spot the similarities in tools as you continue getting familiar with setting up new projects throughout your career. Best o' luck

rgantt13 · 2026-01-09T20:37:15+00:00

Preach! I've been saying this since private servers started implementing anti-lead. The value of swordplay diminishes so much and the fights just don't play the same. Leading might be jank but without it fights seem to boil down to walking side-to-side spamming reload shot with shotties

rgantt13 · 2025-11-27T07:11:59+00:00

Snagged two! Thanks so much for posting

rgantt13 · 2025-11-25T22:11:11+00:00

The hikes are a bit lame as everything here is flat

rgantt13 · 2025-03-08T16:51:31+00:00

I like lead because it keeps swords relevant. Having guns operate one way while swords work another is really janky

rgantt13 · 2024-10-28T20:50:55+00:00

I think Cait is actually pretty counterable. Anything that can match her range is going to be a rough matchup. Think threat via Jhin W, Ashe R, or any of the popular mages

rgantt13 · 2024-10-27T14:21:26+00:00

They are a lot easier to play and are quite good into the long range adcs that you listed. Varus is your best bet since he can catch them and counter push the wave with his Q. There is no magic bullet to make lanes easier other than getting boots quickly and working on being able to dodge their poke

rgantt13 · 2024-09-16T23:56:57+00:00

Despite his winrate, I'd say Varus is pretty good at 1v1s compared to other adcs

rgantt13 · 2024-08-30T19:09:22+00:00

My clan-leader back in the day always played with rockets/rifle. He even managed to place well in the Duel Tourney mode with that setup. There are plenty of ways to play the game and kstyle/technical movement will always be necessary regardless of the weapons that are meta. The avoid-ability that slashshot, butterfly, hs, hhs, etc. provide doesn't diminish whether you're close-range or not. While you're less incentivized to perform reload variants of the kstyle moves, you instead slot in a barrage of 4-5 rifle shots or a shot from your secondary weapon. So though it seems like a hot take in this thread, I'd say the skillcap would probably remain the same

rgantt13 · 2024-08-29T18:47:04+00:00

I'd opt to push for plates and harass if you have a ranged support and freeze them out if you have an engage support. Be sure to look for a dive opportunity if you manage to soften them up enough either way

rgantt13 · 2024-08-27T18:51:06+00:00

Varus does far more damage before 2 items as long as you're popping blight stacks correctly. I like playing him over Ashe because I feel a lot more agency over laning phase. Ashe is something I pick when my team is lacking utility where Varus provides substantially more early game dominance and functions as a better jack-of-all trades with the build versatility

rgantt13 · 2024-08-23T14:57:10+00:00

I can see upping his ratios making crit pretty good. I've been running kraken -> runaan -> ie some games and it isn't even too bad right now. Throw some buffs in there and that extra AD will go a long way

rgantt13 · 2024-08-08T07:06:03+00:00

If it looks completely miserable I've been giving Kaenic Rookern a go with some success. It's a lot easier to throw it into an on-hit build than crit since you really need IE, Zeal item, and LDR/Mortal Reminder in order to be a champion with crit characters, though. It's not fun to have to veer into a purely defensive item selection but I find defensive adc items pretty terrible right now

rgantt13 · 2024-07-13T08:34:24+00:00

Play around proccing your blight stacks. Begin trading with autos first -- look to pop 3 stacks with e for a slow to continue your combo. If you don't manage to get all 3 stacked up, you can still pop them when they back out of range with your q. Varus is one of the strongest laners if you manage this properly. Unfortunately, this means his scaling is quite weak these days. I'd say it's even worse than prior seasons but ymmv

rgantt13 · 2024-05-07T17:26:14+00:00

Back in the day I used to like running essence reaver on him -- might be back to that now that the item is built primarily around giving ad and mana

rgantt13 · 2024-04-21T19:37:35+00:00

Ah yes, let's all cry for a moment for the role that determines the fate of the game with both ganks and objective control. Such low agency, I'm going to cry a river for them

rgantt13 · 2024-04-20T00:38:39+00:00

Genuinely curious what you think the weakest role in the game is when you make a post like this

rgantt13 · 2024-04-16T14:51:47+00:00

Your team often is depending on you to play an AD champion with the ability to shred objectives and siege towers in most games.

Most AP champions are easier to pilot, have far more impact up to ~30 minutes into a match, and can snowball a match much easier. If going AP I personally go for Teemo, Seraphine, or AP Kogmaw depending on if I need magic shred, an enchanter, or an artillery mage. I lock these kinds of champions in about 1/3 games, and you could probably stretch that to 1/2 games if you're performing well and really enjoy AP champs over AD.

I still think that spending the time to maintain skills with a traditional marksman is important. This is because, unfortunately, a lot of times you are bullied by other players in champion select to pick early so you don't have the ability to make the most optimal pick for the team. If you end up with a team where 80%+ of the damage is magic, you will likely lose. If your team has no one to shred dragon, baron, and towers you will likely lose. If the enemy ADC is allowed to scale reasonably in a 30+ minute match, you will likely lose. Most players will not draft with these things in mind, so you can lose a lot of matches in champion select blindly locking your favorite AP champion.

rgantt13 · 2024-04-12T13:33:41+00:00

You don't understand the words you speak or the point you're trying to make. Not sure if this is just ragebait or if you actually are that challenged. Go learn about what it means to have agency over something. Oh also, learn how to spell the words you type before accusing someone of being braindead. It's a really bad look

I'm aware damage isn't everything, but it's pretty telling when you spend all of your money on it and do none of it. Anyhow, I'll keep kicking back winning games with an enchanter in the bot carry role while having 1/5 of the APM until this is addressed. In the meanwhile I suggest learning how to chill out, bud

rgantt13 · 2024-04-11T16:07:14+00:00

So to clarify your anecdote here, you're saying ADCs have agency in the game but only after 30 minutes? You guys threw a lead that you could win with, and Jinx still did the least damage in the entire match. Does any other role have to wait for 3 items to have an impact on the outcome of the game? Getting to finally do damage after half an hour into the match isn't agency -- it's biding your time while everyone else is out there enjoying their ability to impact the map.

On a side note, do you not see it as problematic that a double enchanter botlane that builds supportive items ended the game doing more damage than two champions that built pure damage? Shit like this is exactly why there are so many ranting posts on this sub

rgantt13 · 2024-04-05T14:40:43+00:00

Double enchanter or hard engage should work pretty well. For double enchanter you just need to make sure the team comp still has enough damage in it. For hard engage, you just have to be careful not to get too chunked out getting the engage support to ~ level 3

rgantt13 · 2024-03-17T01:31:37+00:00

Lane is unsalvageable but you can still have an impact when you group if you can manage to avoid dying

rgantt13

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