It's no secret that most ADC players feel like they can't do anything in a game.
Everything feels right during the laning phase.
It feels like your actions matter, and you can score reliable leads through your own
skill.
But then the mid game rolls around, and every game feels like a flip.
That's totally understandable, as ADC is the hardest role to play in solo queue, but in
today's guide, we'll be covering 2 major reasons why you might feel that way, and show you
that there is hope if you're actually making the correct macro decisions.
Alright, today we'll be looking at 2 different replays around the gold to platinum elo range
to cover some incredibly common misplays from ADCs that are really holding them back.
In this first game, we start off by seeing Tristana's team clean up a drawn out team
fight in the mid lane, while she waits to respawn.
Once she comes back up, she begins pathing towards the dragon.
We actually like this decision quite a bit.
Ziggs has top covered, Fiora has pushed in mid, and the bot lane wave is fairly far away.
The enemy jungler is still alive, so maybe Tristana's team could use the help to secure
the objective.
That being said, Tristana makes a small error on the way there.
A small optimization that a lot of low elo ADCs don't do is not killing jungle mobs on
a rotation, even when they're in a hurry.
You should know by now how we feel about you as an ADC farming jungle camps.
We understand that Nocturne is at dragon contesting her team.
That being said, Tristana could very easily auto move towards the river while killing
the raptors, which would only lose her about 1 second total in terms of her rotation over.
Even if that 1 second somehow mattered and it cost her team the dragon, who cares.
It's a good habit to build, and it's so bad to auto-pilot walk towards where the action
is, not noticing what you can potentially farm around yourself as you get there.
Moving on, she gets there, helps her team get dragon and now the mistakes begin to pile
up.
The biggest issue we see from ADCs is not really thinking long-term, in regards to their
farming.
Where do you think Tristana should go at this very moment, in order to maximize her income?
Red buff is a very good answer here.
Every other option is pretty mediocre right now The bot lane wave is very minor, so there's
not a lot of farm to pick up.
And then, she'd be stuck bottom and when her Fiora respawned that would make lane assignments
pretty awkward.
The mid lane wave is way too far forward.
She can't really go there, since her whole team is either recalling, dead or farming.
It's a waste of time to try and get that.
So her most efficient play is to go to red, hope Ekko is okay with that, and while she
farms the buff the enemy team will push in the mid wave and then she can go to collect
that.
Let's watch what happens.
She walks up to the mid wave...and has to immediately back off.
Only at this point, Ekko is in close proximity to the red buff and much less likely to give
that over.
2 inefficient plays so far, but Tristana makes things up by pathing towards the wolf camp.
She can't contest mid on her own against Zed, so she may as well farm something in the mean
time right?
This is exactly what we wanted from her earlier.
Unfortunately, here's where she makes the biggest mistake of all.
After this wolf camp, what is the *ONE* thing Tristana should not do?
And more importantly WHY shouldn't she?
The horrible play is to go towards Gromp.
Let's talk why.
In our ADC guides, we'll always tell you to farm jungle camps.
It's important.
But, you should never kill the jungle at the cost of lane farm.
Tristana's problem is again, not thinking ahead.
If she goes to Gromp here, think about what happens.
The top wave is occupied.
Meanwhile, she just took Ekko's entire topside jungle, and he's adjacent to the mid lane
wave.
If this were a jungle guide, we'd tell Ekko to not care that Tristana took his farm, and
to just take hers instead.
That is not wrong for him to do, since he's already next to it.
Which means Tristana has literally nowhere to go for farm after Gromp.
Not only that, she's not even close to ANY of the action that's happening on the map.
Look at her walk around and do absolutely nothing for so long.
This is the problem with not thinking ahead.
Every single time you make a rotation somehwere, you should at least be thinking about the
next minute in terms of where you'll farming.
Otherwise, you'll get stuck in situations like these, where you'll do literally nothing
for over a minute of game-time.
Alright, let's take a look at another problem ADCs face.
This game Miss Fortune has a massive lead over her lane opponents.
She manages to take tower, and secures herself a kill on the silly Yuumi.
So far thing are great and another series of good events are about to happen here.
One, Miss Fortune clears yet another wave before leaving bot.
If it's right there, you may as well clear it, which is something a lot of people mess
up for some reason.
Afterwards, she paths towards mid.
She has enough items at this point to be relevant in skirmishes, and she doesn't have enough
gold for any big items to buy, so not recalling here is completely reasonable.
Not only that, but the Syndra takes the hint and paths towards bottom when she respawns.
It does not get better than this.
Being able to end up in mid with proper side laning solo laners is a rare commodity in
low elo for most ADC players.
But Miss Fortune is about to commit one of the biggest errors we see from low elo ADCs.
As the dragon is about to spawn, both teams are heading over to contest vision around
it.
Let's test your Skill-Capped mentality.
If you were Miss Fortune here, what should you do?
If you instinctively thought to push mid, then we're quite happy with you.
If you are thinking to group with your team at dragon, then you may need to re-think your
priorities.
The issue with grouping at dragon as an ADC is simple.
What is the point?
Genuinely, ask yourself.
What is my purpose being there early with my team?
ADCs generally don't zone people.
They don't poke, they don't engage, they carry very little vision, they can't face-check.
They just deal damage when a fight starts.
If a fight hasn't started, more often than not, you're just going to be strafing around
doing nothing, as is seen here.
Yes, there are exceptions to this, but for the most part it applies to a ton of ADCs.
One might argue that you should be grouped with your team at the objective in order to
get vision control.
If you're not there, the enemy team just brute force their way in and take complete control
of the area, right?
Nope, you literally help your team more by pressuring the enemy the one way you can.
By pushing the wave.
If the wave is at their tower, they can't really ignore it, otherwise they're risking
losing a tower for free.
So while your opponents are forced to send someone to defend it, you have plenty of options.
If you deem the fight worthy, then you can establish vision control with a momentary
numbers advantage in the river.
If the fight seems losable, then you can push the wave and rotate elsewhere to avoid the
incoming fight.
You'll have farmed, wasted the enemy's time, and be in position to go anywhere you want
on the map.
Not only that, but even if the fight starts while you're pushing, that's actually not
even that bad.
As an ADC in team fights, it's usually good to wait out key abilities from your opponents
before fully committing.
Honestly, it's usually not the worst thing to arrive to a fight late, since you won't
have to wait until you can really commit to auto attacking.
Lastly, and probably the most important point, there's nothing Miss Fortune can do.
She is at the whim of how both teams decide to play the fight.
She's actually playing this encounter fine.
She has to wait until the enemy team fully commits or her team finds an engage.
This is why ADCs feel like they have no agency, because it's true.
Once the fight starts, you can't really control it that much.
At the end of it all, she trades her life for Khazix and we can't really blame her for
that.
It's probably tilting knowing that your team is throwing, and that you can't do anything.
The problem isn't her team fighting, it's the lead up to it.
These 2 major reasons are why the ADC role can be so frustrating.
They can't secure kills by themselves, so minions are your main source of gold.
Which means, you REALLY have to think about your future moves and how to maximize your
farming.
Likewise, you can't auto-pilot join every team fight and be useful.
You really have to think about how to actually pressure your opponents into a bad position
prior to the fight, or you're just walking into a coin-flip every time.
And with that, we'll wrap things up here.
And remember, if you want to improve fast and get the rank you've always wanted then
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Thanks so much for watching, and we'll see you in the next guide.
See ya.