With the AD Carry role’s fall from grace in 2018, the role has seen terrible shifts in tides and even at one point being reformed completely as the once great marksman class becomes irrelevant. However, with the upcoming patch 10.11 Marksman update, the role is once again looking to regain its former glory and make a huge impact on the rift. Is the world ready for the return of botlane-centric gameplay once again or will the solo lane dominance continue to thrive despite the upcoming update?
The Marksman Update
League of Legends’ patch 10.11 surprised the community when the game’s lead gameplay designer, Mark Yetter, tweeted the tentative content included in the update. As a lot of players were only expecting the Volibear rework, they were put to the edge of their seats when they saw huge changes leaned towards the use of marksman champions which included changing and buffing base stats and related items to these champions.
In that preview, you can see that positive changes being made by increasing the utility and relevance of marksmen. As such, people have started calling the patch “The Marksman Update” which has very conflicting opinions on whether or not this patch is enough to actually make the ADC role a powerhouse among the lanes in League of Legends. With numbers looking good, we’ll still need to see if the stats on paper actually have the same impact as it would in actual gameplay.
Rise and Fall of Marksmen (Brief History)
League of Legends always changes things up through the yearly rework of how the game works and what it focuses on. It’s no surprise that with these major changes, a lot of things get caught up and eventually becomes irrelevant in the game. However, if there’s one thing you didn’t like changing was that core essence of what makes League of Legends that game we know and love. Unfortunately, this is what happened with ADCs as we reveal Riot’s biggest mistakes before the marksman update.
Height of Glory
The height of marksman glory was at the second half of 2017 where crit items such as Infinity Edge made ADCs so crucial and prioritized in all team compositions. This, with the addition of the Ardent Censer support meta, made it easy for marksmen to rush expensive items without the need for them to build lifesteal items in the early game. The game was very centralized on ensuring that your ADC wasn’t falling behind the game.
With this, the Bot Lane role was simply too over-focused and the rest of the lanes were only there in as supporting roles for one player throughout the game. A lot of players complained about how this made the game feel stale despite Riot Game’s numerous efforts to balance multiple champions through individual nerfs. This didn’t prove effective though as when one champion falls off the meta, another marksman would eventually take its place.
Troubles in the Bot Lane
At the beginning of Season 8, Riot Games decided to do the unthinkable in order to tackle the issue of overdependency on bot lane marksmen, patch 8.11. This patch featured drastic changes on the base stats of ADC champs and virtually removed crit from the game. This means that the super late game ADCs became irrelevant in all the phases of the game. This began the issues surrounding the Season 8 marksman update purge.
This patch took the game’s state by storm and pushed a lot of ADC mains far away from this lane or made them go into a long hiatus. During Season 8, professional League of Legends players and streamers complained about the horrible state of the botlane. During this time, mages and assassins were played instead of marksmen. The term “ADC” which meant Attack Damage Carry, lost all of its meaning. Pro-ADC mains were benched being unable to adapt to the drastic change in the meta.
League of Legends was chaotic during this time. Champions such as Swain, Heimerdinger, Syndra, and Yasuo were the norm in the botlane accompanied by traditional supports. Some teams even put midlaners in the botlane to replace their regular rosters. Those teams that did try to use marksmen in the botlane were absolutely destroyed by the mages they were facing. It just wasn’t a fair battle.
Desperate Changes
Throughout the remainder of Season 8 up to Season 9, Riot Games has been tiptoeing towards rebuilding marksmen into a relevant role but at the same time they were extremely reluctant to revert them into what they were before. No marksman updates were given out during this period even though a lot of ADC mains were already burnt out trying to wait for a sense of normalcy in the bottom lane where they used to enjoy.
Riot Games eventually succeeded into slowly incorporating the marksmen back into the game but it was never really the same after the 8.11 patch. Mages and assassins were still present and were more common than the marksmen. ADCs were playable, though, since limited champions such as Kai’sa and Ezreal, which were not crit dependent champs, were making common appearances in the rift.
By the end of 2019, ADCs were safe to roam again in the botlane to which a lot of players were extremely happy about. While the marksmen were allowed to go back, they weren’t as dominant as before and played very minor roles in the rift where solo laners such as those in the Top Lane and Mid Lane were given more focus. That is not to say that ADCs could not carry the game every now and then but for sure it’s not as common as before.
The Kings of the Bot Lane
Eventually, all marksman updates received a relevant set of changes which gave ADCs back their lane. Soon, assassin’s and mages were rarely seen in the lane and marksmen roamed free once again. However, this came at a high cost. In late Season 9, certain champions were vying for supremacy in the role and you could only see 2-4 champions being played. While this wasn’t uncommon before, it was definitely worse now.
In season 10, Aphelios and Senna were introduced and this sparked the marksman war where the two kings of the bot lane were being picked or banned in rotation: Aphelios and Senna. These two were the absolute powerhouses of the bot lane and no other marksman could come close to how relevant they were in the lane. Both received a barrage of balance updates to keep them balanced but all of them proved irrelevant and were shut down one by one. The two controlled the bot lane for patches to come.
The AD Carry Role in Season 10
Leaning how to play ADCs in S10 wasn’t the same as how you would learn it before. Although, the essence still stands the same. ADCs are late game carries which propel the game forward once they are able to build all essential items and upgrade their skills. In the early game, ADCs are generally useless but laners often put attention to them so that they generate an early game lead.
In S10, the importance of an AD Carry lies in the fact that they play in the bot lane, which is also called the Dragon Lane. Dragon Buffs were given utmost priority in Season 10 which is why mid laners, junglers. and bot laners are expected to always contest and try to claim the dragon for their team. As the bot lane has 2 champions in it, it is expected that both the ADC and Support always look towards securing lane priority in order to help the jungler take the dragon for his team.
What to expect in Patch 10.11?
Aside from the release of our adorable little Volibear rework, you can expect everyone to enthusiastically play a lot in the bot lane. A meta will not be established before more play testing and we can expect news of what is currently hot in the rift after 3-5 days. With that being said, if you’re looking towers fast queue timers, we suggest that you don’t queue for ADC in the days to come as it might take you longer than you would like.
If you are one of the people who are excited for this new marksman update, it’s best you read up on all the changes so that you’ll have a general idea on how to play. Play testing will take your time, try to experiment on all of the marksmen you are familiar with so that you can find the most effective one to climb ranks with. This means that champions like Aphelios might also go back on the very top of the list despite the recent nerfs given to him.
Are ADCs OP in Patch 10.11?
It’s too early to say. However, it is important to note that buff included increase of base stats and utility stats such as movement speed and very minimal on general damage output. This means that the marksman update is a big step but not a gamebreaking one at least. It is safe to say that ADCs won’t dominate you in lane too much but rather will be able to take more of a beating as survivability is increased.
What items should I build in Patch 10.11 as an ADC?
There isn’t much dramatic change in items for the marksman update except for a 2% movement speed increases for items that utilize zeal. This means that marksmen are given more mobility but the damage will remain the same. You will essentially build the same items you’ve built before without a change in priority or sequence.
Future of League of Legends
League of Legends will continuously grow and evolve as it has in the past so will it in the future. It is not impossible that we will see more “bad” patches in the future since the Riot Games balance team doesn’t have a very positive review among the players. However, despite all of the horrible patches, League of Legends still maintains a high regard towards its player base by always making sure that demands are met reasonable.
Patch 10.11 will live up to its name as the marksman update and will propel a much needed change the ADC role has been yearning for in a long time. We might see changes in general game pace as ADCs will be able to act more independently in lane with all the survivability in place. However, late game will be the true battleground for all these champions.
What should I do if my account doesn’t have enough marksmen?
Well, you could buy more marksmen using your Blue Essence and Champion Capsules you earn from the game. However, if you want a quicker way of getting champions easily then you’re in luck since LolFinity sells smurf accounts such as our NA 100,000 Blue Essence Smurf account which will allow you to buy all the champions you’ll need in the future. We have accounts from multiple regions which you can buy here.
What do we think of this “Marksman Update”?
Overall, the update has done a good job in increasing the capabilities of marksmen in staying in the game without breaking crucial elements which prompted the events of Patch 8.11. The new marksman changes will prove to be very useful for ADC mains but a lot of them might not be able to have a strong feel of it affecting how they play in general.
The increase in survivability is very crucial for an ADCs early game and will give the player more confidence in going for more plays that would otherwise be too risky without the changes given. Unfortunately, we might also be seeing marksmen played a lot in solo lanes such as the mid lane and top lane where they will bully a lot of other champions who can’t close the distance.