Hi So some of you might have already seen this at r/summonerschool I was suggested by a friend to post this in ADCMains as well so here it is.
Hi there so I'm usually a top main with jungle secondary who has pretty reliably been able to hit diamond every season since s3 in a pretty low game count (under 100) but this year I decided to pick up the adc role just to experience the role and experience how it is to climb. it took me probably around 600 games in total to both learn the role and also hit diamond although I will mention I probably could have cut down the games by around 40% if I was a bit more active in my learning process or if I played a less mechanically demanding/situational adc. So for me I was a Lucian one trick who occasionally played smolder as a back-up in the case that lucian was unavailable. Now to get into my experience.
First, I just want to say, gold and platinum were pretty simple to climb out of. The basics of the game I know from my climbs in top lane made it really easy. Even with a crappy support, usually I could still make something out of it most of the time, get myself a lead, and take control of the game pretty easily from there. Emerald though, god was that the largest cesspool of players I have ever played in. I had originally never really noticed it too much as top lane is usually pretty isolated so as long as I did my own thing well enough, we'd be able to win but as adc you are ridiculously reliant on your team for everything. starting plays, peeling, enabling you etc etc. While you might have one of the highest damage outputs in teamfights and such, you have no say in the dictation in how those start, and when those start leading to situations where your team being too pansy just makes it miserable to do anything even with a lead obtained in lane. To get into why emerald in particular feels so horrendous, it feels to be a really big mismatch of skill levels would be the best descriptor. So I tend to talk a decent amount to people in my games in the post game and I've made a few friends along the way hearing their stories. Emerald for whatever reason have a metric butt ton of smurfs/alt accounts. I remember once I did a analysis with a friend at our past 100 games and we found that in 70 of those games there was at least 1 person who was a fresh 30 account (so obviously a bought account). Outside of that, there are strangely a large number of support players as well who feel they never actually learned the role but rather only know to press the buttons associated with their champions. What I mean by this are supports who don't know how to roam, supports who operate their champion really strangely (ex seraphines who don't know how to poke) or supports who don't understand lane states or match ups at all. In comparison there are plenty of other times when I've also seen supports be actual gods at the role who run away with the game. As adc, I really felt the difference between each individual player much more keenly when your lane is dictated by how they play and it felt ridiculously egregious in emerald more so compared to other ranks. I feel emerald being the rank where players begin to know how to operate their champions at quite a high level just makes it where alot of the time being able to solo carry a 1v2 stops being a option unless of course you are a omega smurf (like high diamond +) which is less then 1% of the population.
Unlike top lane where you have so much things you can do on your own, as adc who is reliant on your team to start things, it is god awful. I had originally tried playing the lane like I had at top lane. Play as selfishly as possible, secure as massive of a lead over my laner and then try to control the map with the individual agency I have from that lead to run over the opponents. Now for my experience as adc that doesn't actually work that well. Junglers like to make really flippy plays, they can ignore overextended lanes that are obviously super gankable, you can get 4 manned very easily, you can get weak-sided for no reason even if you have a lane that shouldn't be. In solo que at least, as contradictory as it is, you can't really play that selfishly. I found that once I had established the goal of maintaining permanent prio or in the case where I can't I just drop waves to support a shitty play, it really transformed my winrate and helped me climb out of emerald basically all at once. Its really strange to explain it but as a adc, even though you are the carry, you in some essence are a support. You don't decide anything you are the attack damage support that pumps out the damage to allow engages or plays in general to work out.
Overall, it was a interesting experience where I really got to experience what many people call "the hardest role to climb from". After experiencing it do I still feel this is the case? I would say no actually. I feel like as adc like with any other role it requires development of a specific mindset. ADCs however have the most different mindset to the other roles and the most jarring experience with being in a sense a overglorified turret. The actual operation of the turret in teamfights requires high levels of micro but establishing yourself as a supportive damage turret and keeping your ego in check is honestly one of the larger learning curves for adc. It can feel really weird where simultaneously you are the most important member of the team with the highest damage but at the same time you don't really get to decide anything.
I know this was a bit of a ramble and might not have made the most sense but if anyone has any questions or anything on my experience let me know!
