Know Your Role: Bot Lane ADC Teamfight Phase
The Teamfight Phase
Imagine something for me. You're 2-2 and in your final promotional match to move up a league. Laning went fine, but your top gave them 4 kills. All the other lanes stayed even with each other, but you're scared of that Volibear diving you like crazy. He may have even already killed you once or twice. As an ADC, this is your do or die moment. This is the reason why you're the carry. Your job now is to carry your team to a win. The teamfighting phase is where it all matters.
In the scenario I've given you above, you're under the most pressure in what seems like an already stressful game. Instead of panicking, I implore you to take a deep breath, think about your next engage, don't get caught alone, and decide what's the best strategy to win this very much winnable game.
Engaging
The best advice I can give any ADC during the teamfight phase of the game is to not get caught out. This means your rotations to other lanes, your positioning, your knowledge of what skills can catch you out, and the proximity of their team with respect to you all matters. For the split second the two teams start colliding, you patiently wait.There are a couple things you're waiting for, but most notably you're waiting for the CC to get blown. Think of it like the breath a marksman exhales before taking his shot.Once the fears, stuns, and snares have all been dropped, you're going to start attacking your first target. Many times this will be an assassin or bruiser. This is when you use your CC. Attack move backwards (you're just advancing in a different direction) and try to kite the enemy as best you can. In game, this all will have happened in a matter of seconds.
In the image above, both ADC's are prone to taking damage. Jinx can be hit by spears, barrels, and Thresh's hook. However, these all can be dodged with good reaction times. If you don't have good reaction speed, I wouldn't wait there. Vi and Lulu can also follow up and peel for her under turret, making this a hard engage for blue side.
Vayne is in a bad spot because she can be hit by all of their skillshots as well as targeted ones such as Vi's ult, Lulu's ult as Vi engages, and Jinx's auto attacks. Her team can converge and peel (Gragas's ult, Thresh's ult). However, Vayne is in a spot where all the CC can be blown on her (Rammus with Homeguard coming, Ziggs semi global ult, Jinx, Lulu, and Vi constantly doing damage to a locked down target). This makes it a bad engage for the blue side even though it's a 3v5. Purple team makes the decision, and they go in.
Jinx is now too far away to deal any auto attack damage, but she's also not prone to getting pushed in by Gragas' or Thresh's hook. Vayne is now dealing with Vi while attack moving backwards. Lulu has yet to use her ult to continue the lockdown, and blue team now has to make the decision of wait for Jinx and let Vayne be locked down or peel for Vayne. Most teams will start the peel at this point, making it safe for Jinx to move up and pick her target.
Patience
Waiting for a fed assassin or bruiser to engage someone else is okay in 5v5 teamfights. If they are only targeting you, they won't be dealing damage to the rest of the team as long as they're looking for you. If they start attacking your team, you can jump into the teamfight knowing that they'll be preoccupied with your tanks and team's CC.
But xVi! Then my tanks will be tanking for no reason! Good analysis. The thing is, a dead ADC doesn't deal any damage. If you're just going to get instagibbed, why should you make it easy for them? Make the fed enemies constantly tank damage from your team while looking for you. It will make it so much easier for you to take them out once they've made the decision that they don't want to dive you anymore.
Think you're not doing anything while waiting for their fed diver to change target? Think again. Their fed champion is not dealing damage the bulk of their damage while waiting for you. That means your team is free to wreck havoc without worrying about them, or your team can all focus whoever's fed and take out the threat completely, allowing you to get into the teamfight safely. It's like the extra hidden skill of good ADCs. It works better than any taunt in the game and becomes more reliant the better you get at the laning and roaming phase. The enemy team will want to kill you. Use this to your advantage.
Positioning
Your position on the map during a teamfight always matters as an ADC. You want to stay safe, but you want to also deal damage on priority targets. Many times your priority targets will be the champions diving you. Don't listen to the people telling you to go straight for the enemy ADC every time. If you have to get into a bad position to attack him, you're most likely going to die before dealing any real damage.The only time you should be advancing on the enemy team is when there is no one able to attack you. If no one is a threat to you, it's dealer's choice on targets. Just remember to choose the right target. Remember that your target acquisition should be divers > high damage dealers > tanks. If there are no divers, try for the high damage dealers (enemy ADC, mage). If you can't reach them without exposing yourself too much, attack whoever can be bursted down the fastest right in front of you.
Here we can see the positions of both ADCs at the start of a teamfight. Jinx is way to far behind to deal any damage, and Vayne is too close to the tank line that she's exposed CC. Purple team decide they can engage on blue because they can get a high priority target (APC and ADC).
Right from the engage, purple team starts attacking Gragas. Taunt and Wild Growth are used, which means it's safe for Vayne to start auto attacking. Jinx is still too far behind, but because of her kit she can deal damage with her ult. Notice how Vayne retreats, waits for the CC, then turns around and starts dealing damage. This is the optimal time for an ADC to start dealing damage (when no one is targeting them).
As Vayne's tank line falters, Vayne continues to deal damage and attack move backwards. Jinx finally made it to the fight as the clean up crew. Notice how both ADCs deal damage to target's that are a threat to them in their zone. Vi then uses her ult on Vayne, knowing a good ADC will continue to kite backwards if you don't lock them down.
Purple team was winning in terms of towers and kills, but because of pre-engage positioning, they got punished and pushed into a 4v5 without Nidalee. Vayne is doing the best she can by continuing to kite backwards, but being locked down by Vi and Rammus is something that's hard to get out of.
Taking Objectives
In the images shown above, you see a 4v5 that shouldn't have happened late game. Sometimes it's better to just take objectives. Purple team's mid inhibitor is down and Baron is up; wouldn't you say it's a good time to try? After winning a teamfight or taking an inhibitor there are a bunch of things around the map you can do. Things like:
- Take a tower/inhibitor
- Baron/Dragon
- Enemy jungle buffs
- Allied jungle buffs
- Lane Maintenance
One tip I'd like to give because I've seen it happen in quite a bit of games is never overstay your welcome. This means that if you won a teamfight, push until they have 5 to 6 seconds left on their death timers, then leave. Too many games have happened where one team thinks they can keep pushing even though two people are coming up in a second. It always ends the same, and it's simply because of this: If you won a teamfight and decide to push, then chances are you and your team are going to be too low on health/mana to get into another teamfight immediately after. Best bet is to take a tower/inhibitor/Baron right after winning a teamfight then going back to base to spend some money.
Nexus Tower Push
We've all had those games where you seem to have hit a stalemate at their nexus towers, waiting for someone to make a mistake. That doesn't mean you should get bored and move to the front to attack someone. All the rules of teamfighting still apply, just with the threat of two towers hitting whoever initiates. When a stalemate like this happens, you should wait for your minion line to come, they will be an extra layer of defense for you. Creep block OP.
Once your minions come, you should first attack the tower. Make sure to attack the same tower as the rest of your teammates, so you can annihilate one of the threats that makes it an advantage for them. Sometimes it'll be better to take down the towers first, sometimes it's better to take down the enemies first. You just need to figure out a couple of things.
- Are there any other inhibitors to take? Many times a team will rush to save their last inhibitor and be completely out of range of both the nexus towers and the inhibitor towers, making the engage much safer for you and your team.
- Can your team tank the damage? You'll get a gauge of how much your tanks can actually tank from the enemy team throughout the whole game. If your tanks are taking too much damage from enemy damage dealers, you'll have to deal with them first. Take note that most sub-gold elo players will stay under tower even though they're getting bursted down.
- Can your team deal enough damage to the enemy team? If your team can handle tanking the enemy team, as well as be enough of a threat to push them back, don't pad your stats. Just attack the towers and the nexus when you can target it.
- Misjudged how much your team can do under two towers? Sometimes you'll only be able to take one before your tanks start retreating. Once the tanks start moving backwards, switch from attacking the tower to attacking the enemy; all assuming the tower still has more than a quarter life left. All the rules of ADC teamfighting still apply: pick a priority target and take them out, don't take too much damage.
From here on out it's only the nexus exploding and the end game screen. I hope these ADC guides have been helping you become a better ADC! I'll be spending the better part of next week revising and adding things in I may have forgotten or just don't know about, and once I'm done, I'll be taking a break for about a week from writing before starting the new Know Your Role: KYR - Bot Lane Support!
