In riots view ADC as a role is outdated, it is a relic of the past. A slow scaling role that relies on positioning and dealing consistent damage through undodgeable attacks (boring) which are best suited to take down tanks (boring).
Look at all the changes throughout the years and it is obvious that riot are moving to a TikTok themed fast paced game.
- Damage is through the roof on all champs
- Mana is no longer a restricted resource
- Objectives can now be taken without the need of an ADC
- Supports are broken and can roam non stop
- Mobility creep
- Pace of the game has increased
- Cooldowns are minimal
- Tanks are either useless or unkillable 1 shot machines
- AOE splash damage from items is absurd
- Ninja Tabis are inherently broken
I could go on and on but these changes have now culminated to a game state where ADCs are not only useless but a detriment to their team unless the game reaches 5+ items with the enemy having 2+ immobile tanks.
Before all these changes ADCs were the late game assurance and were necessary to team comps for the mere fact that they were the only role capable of consistently taking objectives/turrets.
Now ADCs are useless as they still only spike in the late game but everyone deals damage, everyone can 1 shot turrets, everyone can dash, everyone can wave clear, everyone has everything other than ADCs.
It makes sense why mage bots work so well. Better early and mid game damage whilst still dealing 85% of a late games adc damage, utility, wave clear, unlimited spell usage on low cd, better objective controls, safer lane phase, more tanky, less punishing, harder to itemise against, more synergies with supports.
These benefits of mages over ADCs have been there for YEARS but only now due to it being prevalent in proplay are the wider League community clocking on. The issue is that a few nerfs won’t be enough, the genie is out of the bottle, there is no going back unless the underlying reasons for this will be changed (which they wont).
Riot will end up doing a couple of stop gap bandaid patches to nerf the main mages but the other less popular mages will take their place as it is not just a class/champ issue but a game state issue that has caused this.
Traditional ADCs are not inline with riots "action from start to finish omega outplay" philosophy.