http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RUdjDz-3DgY

Yes, finally.
Now I can stop communicating through text altogether.

Quick guide for ADCs in s3:

You don't win by building 5 dps items.

You get infinity edge OR bloodthirster, then phantom dancer OR statik, then last whisper (unless, for some strange reason, they have no armor on anyone. The LW lets you attack who you want. Otherwise, you will get zoned by the tank and deal minimal damage to him)

After you finish those 3 DPS items, you build a fucking mogs. GA is shit. Mogs lets you survive burst and then deal damage. You might need a QSS to deal with supresses, but generally a mogs to survive the burst of it and then cc from your team will be a better plan.

After the boots/ie/pd/lw/mogs, your last item is to upgrade your vamp into a BT or if you went BT first, an IE.

Repeat: Please don't build 5 item ADCs.


And this goes doubly for junglers.
Pretty much without exception, you should be building to tank, not to damage. Amumu doesn't need a liandry's, he needs an aegis or a sunfire or a mogs. Leesin doesn't need a BT, he needs a goddamn mogs. The HP is the greatest thing a jungler can get, it's just the strongest stat at the moment. Stop gimping your team by building damage.

 

Wait, there are ADCs that aren't building like that? That's standard build order for any good ADC in 5s too, unless they're utterly crushing the enemy team.

 

I dunno, I don't really agree with Warmogs being the absolute best. Certainly it is a good item, but there are games where a GA or Banshees would be better. I find that the defensive item is a bit more flexible to what you need.

 

Banshee's is so, so underrated.

 

Only reason Mog's was promoted to best was because of all the easy pen stacking during pre-season as well as defensive stat nerfs.

GA will always be that one BS item vs reset and kill reliant champs will BVeil will still fuck over first-strike champs that need that initial CC.

Mog's is just idiot proof.

 

Not that it counts for much but yes, down here in Silver ADC's still go for a full 5 item offensive build (excluding boots of course) rather than buying a Warmogs/GA/Banshee's. I say that, a few do, though usually they go for GA... Against something crazy like a fed Akali, rather than Warmogs. Hopefully even down here people will start to realise and adapt rather than go 5 damage items, get blown up when they inevitably get caught and don't complain.

New patch is going out tonight, notes can be found on EUW forums, reddit, all the usual places. Minor buff to Akali's options in terms of runes and masteries, slight buff to Riven if you're somehow behind in lane and the bugfix everyone's been looking for on J4's passive probably the most notable things (at least to me, not going to touch them messing wth CDR on certain items).

 

Idk about Banshee's but I rarely (never) find GA better than Warmogs on an ADC.

First, if your GA pops in a team fight, you had poor positioning and/or your team didn't peel for you. That's poor play and warrants a loss.

Second, if your GA pops because you wandered off alone, A) that's bad positioning and B) you're going to die anyways as soon as your GA revives you. That time you wasted reviving from GA could have been better spent ticking down your respawn timer.

Third, as everyone else mentioned, GA's defensive stats have been nerfed to the ground so badly, they may as well not exist.

Fourth, GA returns 30% of your max HP upon revival. The average adc has 1.5k HP near level 18, assuming you build no HP. You get back between 400-500 hp on revival. Additionally, your dps is ZERO while you are reviving. Warmogs provides 1k hp. In addition to NOT reducing your DPS to zero, Warmogs (assuming you are life stealing and dishing out DPS while not dead) provides more effective health than GA by virtue of both its actual stats and the opportunity to life steal that it provides you.

Fifth, HP is THE counter to burst damage, and burst damage is balanced by cooldowns. Late game, if you positioned poorly enough to get hit by the burst, at least you survived it, and turned the game into a 5v4 for the next 3-8 seconds, depending on the enemy nuker's cooldown timers. Mid/early game, Warmogs is equally good (assuming you didn't sacrifice all your damage to rush it) since mages are strongest at this stage, and no squishy is going to keep diving you with only autoattacks after blowing all their spells and failing to kill you.

 

You know one item I don't see very much on ADC's, in ranked or otherwise?

Mercurial Scimitar

Granted, it would never be able to replace a true defense item like Warmog's, but it certainly is undervalued in my opinion. Not sure where it would fit in for a balanced ADC build, but I do think it's merits are often overlooked.

Perhaps it's simply better on solo-top champions like Riven who can make full use of it. Personally, I like it better than Maw of Malmortius in certain situations, depending on the enemy AP.

 

Honestly, let's get any assumptions that GA popped due to out of position/ w/e out of the conversation. That would happen just as easily with Warmogs, and an ADC is squishy enough that they can't afford to be out of position either way.

As for merits in a teamfight, an ADC with a GA passive up is often more threatening then an ADC with a warmogs. Assuming, of course, that the rest of your team is capable of doing damage. Sometimes, it's not the effective hp that matters, but rather the time spent reviving allows your team to kill that sole bruiser that decided to charge in (whom you hopefully did plenty of damage to already before dying). The GA passive has ALWAYS been good, and continues to be so. Like Evan Tide said, only reason why Warmogs rose to top is due to the heavy pen stacking (which has been nerfed back to reasonable levels) and quick snowballing due to instant flat hp.

In the end, there's simply no a "best" defensive item for ADC. The whole idea of "effective health" is ridiculous, because if we include lifesteal or any kind of healing into account, resistance will always win out in the end.

 

A question to y'all LoL faring DLPers. What is your ideal 3v3 team? And why?

Me and my team are suddenly figuring that what started as a night of "hell, why not" has actually brought us very far, so we're trying to up the ante, as they say. Maintaining our perfect record is getting harder the higher we go.
So, opinions advice and anything you think is useful, shoot.

It's ranked 3v3, so banning is an option, too.

 

Honestly wasn't aware people took 3v3 seriously, it's always been like Dominion in my head, a fun sidegame that's there but more of a lighthearted thing. Off the top of my head I'd guess lots of burst with a sustain damage dealer to complete the trio but, no idea, never touched Twisted Treeline.

Starting to see why some people do indeed dislike the new system, puts a lot of pressure on the promotion matches, especially when you're the only one in the actual series as your teammates don't really give a crap. That and they do something ridiculously annoying and fail at it, such as a Lee Sin mid who was 0-6 vs Lux by 10 minutes, with 1 gank from their jungler. A lead is a lead I suppose.

Frustrating evening though saving up for AS Quints is going well. No Win of the Day due to time constraints but oh well, there's always the weekend, though maybe in the early hours.

Edit; Yay! Jatt is back, a break from Rivington. Much as I love the guy, he can't commentate all that well. He's like the Tasteless of the LoL world.

 

One of the reasons I dont build Mercurial Scimitar as an AD is that its just so expensive. 3800 gold for a defensive item is just more than I'm willing to invest, especially since its only really useful in niche situations, eg. vs extremely cc heavy comps like leona/amumu. Warmogs is only 2800 and in most cases is just as useful. Though, maybe I just think that since I play Graves and he scales so well with HP compared to other ADs.

 

Scimitar is something I might finish as my sixth item. Once I've got the Quicksilver Sash, I'd rather finish off the BT/IE/PD/SS/LW that I delayed.

I don't buy QSS often though. I'd rather take Cleanse and build normally.

 

Honestly, the only time I bother with QSS is if they have some long cc (suppress, fiddle's fear, Nasus Wither, etc). Otherwise, the normal defensive items are better imo.

 

Yeah, Mercurial Scimitar is definitely dependent on the enemy team comp and how much CC they have. And it is not a cheap item either. So I can understand it not being used very much by many ADC's.

Since we're on the topic of defensive items for ADC's, I've actually seen some professional Graves players build a Runic Bulwark. Combined with his passive, I can understand it being a fairly strong item on him.

Although, taking the bulwark as the ADC does prevent the support or jungle from building it(either early on or otherwise). But perhaps that allows one of the others to pursue other items such as a Locket of Iron Solari or Mikael's Crucible.

 

Wut. Just have the support/jungle build it anyways. That's even more broken defenses stacked on Graves and themselves.

 

Went 24/4/7 with Garen today. I'm pretty sure it was just because the other team was horrible(I got no less than six kills early on because they were convinced they could tower dive me) but I don't care, I feel awesome

Anyway. Uh. Been experimenting with some stuff. I still like playing a tanky champ best. Played a lot of AD carry Ashe the past few days though, and I really suck at it. That's okay, though, I think I'm improving slowly. I've also been playing around with the free champions like people suggested, and that's pretty fun, mostly because I'm so clueless as to the best way to use them when I first try them out.

So yeah, level ten, and having lots of fun. I'm also lucky in that I have a group of IRL friends who play, and now that I'm playing we have an even five, so even if they do have to basically carry me the whole game, playing with a group is incredibly fun. Also, I can't help but think that I must be learning somehting, dying to level 30s all the time...

Oh, and also: through experimentation, I've found that I seem to do best with Garen solo top, starting with boots/pots, building Warmog's, then Black Cleaver, then Youmuu's Ghostblade (providing I don't have to buy any counter items). Does that seem like a solid build, or is there something stronger I could do?

 

For Garen, there's no need for Youmuu's Ghostblade. Warmogs and Black Cleaver are solid choices though. In addition, boots/pots is pretty useless as starting item. Since you are level 10, go for items that give more sustain (cloth/5) if against duo top, or just start with longsword/pots. All boots/pot do for you is help you lose trades.

 

Myaa~r

Quinn and Valor

If you haven't seen anything on her yet. +80% movespeed out of combat(still +20% in combat) on her Ult seems like it could be interesting... Interested in trying her as a traditional AD, but also as a bruiser-esque AD(possibly, if not likely, top in that case) to take advantage of her Ult's melee functioning. Well, at least make up for the risk of being a melee Ult on an otherwise ranged character.

 

With that kind of movement speed outside of combat with her ult, she will be a powerful roamer.

She could even be...

A jungler perhaps?!

Probably not, but still, it's worth a shot.