An Ad Carry Guide (Mmmk)

[enigma#]

So you want to play AD carry?

 

New or experienced, there are a lot of expectations, assumptions and responsibilities as an AD carry you are expected to follow through.

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A Generic Guide

This guide doesn't fit all situations or champions, this is a generic overview of how AD carries are generally played out.

 

Lane Phases:

Early: In this stage of the game, you are most vulnerable and should be focusing on getting farm. Farm = CS. The more minions you kill, the better! Make sure to focus on that first and not just securing first blood. Unless your team wants you to get first blood, it shouldn't be the utmost highest priority. At this stage of the game, you are vulnerable to being ganked the easiest however, this is also the stage of the game where your support will be critical in ensuring your success.

Key objectives:

Farm!

Secure dragon!

Kills!

Mid: At this point of the game, you should still be focusing on farming HOWEVER, depending on how the game is going (either in your favour or against your favour); you should start adapting based on it. For example, if you have bot pushed already (and the tower down). Focus on objectives like dragon, getting red buff, ganking mid/top... pushing bot even further. I used to be a big fan of early towers, however, I prefer to synchronise tower takedowns with my team. If mid is losing brutally but is getting sustain and farm he/she needs. I'll take down the tower for the global 150 gold. Make sure to go back to farming when all is said and done. Make sure to keep focus on your minimap for missing champions and other objectives.

Key objectives:

Farm!

Towers!

Dragons!

Buffs!

Ganks!

Late: At this stage of the game, you will have your crucial items (discussed later in this guide) and will be focusing on either pushing for an inhibitor (or multiple ones) AND/OR baron. This stage you will need to pay attention and position yourself correctly for fights. Your ability to stay alive is extremely important and not getting ganked or caught is just as important. When you teamfight, make sure you stay behind with your support or whoever can CC for you in case they bumrush you with their brusier or tank or whatever.

Most importantly, don't get caught and farm effectively when you can.

 

Baron or inhibitors are extremely important. It is debatable which one you should get first. I like to get baron but it is highly contingent on your team composition and how many people are alive on their team.

Key objectives:

Teamfights!

Towers!/Inhibitors!*

Baron!*

Ganks!

 

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If you're new to the game, I have a few suggestions to make your life a bit easier.

 

First, bind a key in game for 'move only'. The reason why I suggest is that the standard 'move - attack' binding is ineffective for escapes or pursuing. You don't want to be hitting the nearest thing always.

 

Second, bot games are not the only way to learn. Normals can be tough and threatening at times. You should play them. This will give you an idea of how a human reacts. Bots will not necessarily help you learn to kite, farm under pressure, and learn the meta.

 

Third, learn the meta. At this level, you will be faced with interesting combinations, some may follow the meta, some might not. Nothing wrong with not following the meta (and in fact it produces very effective and hilarious combinations) however if you're serious about playing... you must learn the meta.

 

The meta is basically this, at the top lane, there is ONE person expected to play up there. Typically they are more heavily armored and they hit harder. Likewise the enemy champion will be similar.

 

At the middle lane, there is typically one player. Usually this person is focused on dealing 'nuke' damage. This means the damage dealt in one aggression is typically VERY high and some can kill you with their combo. This lane usually consists of someone who deals 'ability power' damage. You deal attack damage power.

 

The bottom lane, this is where you will sit for the start of the game. You will usually have a partner that will 'support' you (ergo the name 'Support'). Your support is there to poke, take damage, and most importantly HELP you get farm. They won't necessarily do damage to the minions but by keeping the enemy combination (which will be similar to yours) from poking/killing you. Likewise, they are your friend and master (to a certain respect).

 

Fourth: this is a team game. It is not about you. You may be the one getting kills, killing people but your team is the crucial axle of your victory (or defeat). Many players don't understand that their team's performance as whole dictates much of your survivability, damage output and even positioning. Each champion your team has is integral to your success. Learn your team's champions (you don't need to play them, but I do suggest it) and understand their weaknesses and strengths. More importantly, learn your supports! They are your best friend.

 

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Here are my personal 5 tips for experienced and new players:

 

1. You should be focused farming first. Most AD carries have their sustain and are able to live through trades effectively with their supports. However you don't get all your gold from just killing the enemy team.

 

As I have learned (The hard way), farming is what will help you get your items. This means sitting at a lane (Bot for example) and just last hit all the minions.

 

To help you practice this, I would suggest creating a custom game (with or without a bot) and try to farm as effectively as you can.

 

If you can do 150 minions in 15 minutes (with or without items, without is more of a challenge) then great! You're definitely on your way to be an effective farmer. Mind you, each champion has caveats and benefits when farming. For instance, Tristana (my main champ) has an ability called explosive shot. When I last hit, the minions around the slain minion will take additional damage. This makes my farming more difficult at times however there is a benefit to this. If I have a group of minions at low health, I can kill one and the explosive shot proc will get all of them for me. This reduces the chances of me losing minions to my own minions (who are actively attacking them).

 

Now, chances are you won't kill 150 minions in 15 minutes (let alone get that in a real game easily). However, the closer you can get to it the better.

 

2. Capitalise on your enemy lane's mistakes.This is a tough one and is probably the most annoying one to master.

There are easy mistakes you can tell (like the support leaving the carry alone to ward with the carry overextending) however there are tougher ones. Most of the ones that earn you better rewards are the ones you will learn by playing more. As an AD carry, I look at where the support is at and where my support is at when exchanging for damage.

 

Imagine this situation, you are playing against a taric and ezreal. You will soon learn that taric has a stun ability and ezreal relies on skillshots. Imagine you are an ashe with a nunu support. You know that while nunu can't stun anyone or hard CC anyone. You know he can slow and you as well as an ashe can slow too. If your nunu is playing smart, he will be sure to play near the frontlines and harass their lane constantly while you as ashe (a weaker AD carry than ezreal during lane phase) farm. Let's say the taric stuns the nunu (out of stupidity), you can capitalise that mistake because now you can start attacking the ezreal without fear of being stunned. Obviously this is not the only situation where you can capitalise on their mistake (and that's a pretty faulty mistake to make for the support). The fact remains, you should go on the offense when they least expect it but not negligently.

 

3. Scope out and assess their gameplay styles. This also takes experience and can be risky. By watching how your enemy lanes play, you can figure out how you need to respond against your enemy lane. For example, if top is losing and mid is winning with a significantly margin, you can infer that the jungle may push top or gank bot more often. What risks are involved when you choose to all-in or engage.

 

4. Objectives! Work with your team to get dragons, towers and barons. These will help you win your games, not just kills.

This will swiftly improve your chance to get the items you need.

 

5. Team work team work and more Team work. If your team is not willing to work with you, your chances to win isn't going to get better. Having teammates that blame you or their other teammates is definitely a downer.

If you want to win, instill a sense of teamwork. Work with your team. Helping push lanes or gank as the ADC and get their morale back up. It will go along way!

[enigma#]

Item Guide

Once again, this is a generic guide to items. You need to learn and play your champions to find out what items work best.

 

Your choices for early game items are (but not limited to):

Boots + 3p

Longsword + 2p

Dorans

 

Boots + 3p

Pros

Move speed bonus (+25 move speed) "mobility"

Better sustain (not as reliant on autoattacking than dorans, one extra health pot than longsword combo)

Upgradeability

Cons

Less RAW attack damage to start

 

When you should be getting this combo:

a) You feel uncomfortable/unsure with your lane partner

b ) Your lane comp is weaker than the enemy's lane comp

c) Your enemy team has a strong gank potential (e.g. shaco)

d) When your lane lacks sustain

 

Longsword + 2p

Pros

Extra base AD (good for farming and harassing)

Decent sustain (2 health pots, still better if you're not planning to push than a doran's)

Upgradeability

Cons

Mobility reduction (not that much but still...)

 

When you should be getting this combo:

a) You are more confident with your lane partner

b ) You want to farm more effectively at a higher risk potential (10 AD is alot early game)

c) Your team has good CC and sustain but you still want to play a careful lane

 

Doran's

Pros

Extra base AD (good for farming and harassing)

Health gain

Cons

Mobility reduction (not that much but still...)

Sustain reduction (it's minimal if you plan to push or all-in early game)

Upgradeability reduction (you can't upgrade doran's into anything lol)

 

When you should be getting this combo:

a) You are more confident with your lane partner

b ) You plan to be going ham ('all in') against this lane and want to have a huge lane presence early game.

c) Your team has good CC and sustain

 

Mid Game/Late Game:

You should be looking at your core items. These (but don't buy all of them necessarily, and there are more...) are

Offensive Core Items:

Bezerker's Greaves

Infinity's Edge

Phantom Dancer*

Staikk's Shiv* (these all can be secondary tier core items too)

Blood Thirster*

Triforce

 

Secondary Tier Core Items:

BlackCleaver * (Eww, I don't like including it but it can work)

Last Whisper

Ruaan's Hurricane (this item..ugh... you can get it but it shouldn't be top priority)

 

Defensive Items

Guardian Angel (it's a wonderful item to have especially if you can get baron by then)

Quicksilver Sash

Mercurial Scimitar

Banshee's Veil

 

All these items are dependant on their teamcomp, if they lack CC... you really don't have to get banshee's or QSS for example. If they are heavy in CC, this is where you will need to keep in mind what kind of CC they have. If they have hard CC, then maybe a QSS or BV will be more appropriate. If it's alot of soft CC and you have decent escapes, a GA might work as well.

 

Your items you build at the core probably wont' change too much. However, your secondary tier items and defensive items will impact your ability to sustain yourself during a teamfight.

[-O-P-rime]

Good read, but uh. I'm going to stress on the early game last hitting thing. YOU KNOW WHY D :<

[enigma#]

Masteries

 

Below is an example of a Masteries page

 

As an AD carry, you should be focusing in the Offensive tree and the defensive tree.

The core masteries you select should have:

Fury, Deadliness, Weapon Expertise, Bruteforce and Sunder.

The other masteries are up to you though. Play with them and see what works for you.

I like having a bit of cooldown reduction, it helps in teamfights and farming (so I can use my abilities more)... however you might not even need it or notice it. Consider investing it in another skill set.

 

The defensive masteries, I would suggest hardiness and durability as main masteries. Durability so you can get that 30 HP and hardiness to be a bit less squishy against their AD carry. The rest is up to you. I took damage reduction from champions (unyielding) as a way to win exchange a bit more effectively. At low levels, the two damage can make a difference (not much though xD).

 

Runes

 

This is an example of an AD carry's masteries. You do not need to follow it a tee. It should give you a good idea of what you should be getting.

 

AD runes (like AD reds or quints) are huge for farming and early harass. They are second only to armor penetration. Though disputable, I find having armor penetration greatly impacts harass on supports (except taric) and champs with low armor (like mages). You can mix and match however, having 15.5 AD does round up to 16 AD in game.

 

The yellows, I usually get armor.

 

Blues - though disputable.. focus on getting MR or MR/5. I chose to get mana regen/5 to help boost my mana regen (it isn't much but it does help).

 

Quints: AD or Armor Penetration

[PerryThePlatypus]

tl;dr

Farm.

[MattThePanda]

tl;dr

Farm.

The one thing enigma cant do.