At the beginning of 2020, G2 Esports surprised everyone by swapping positions between Perkz and Caps for the first time in his gaming career, with “little Faker” moving to the bot lane. With the overall strength of the team and the superior skill of the players, G2 Esports secured another LEC trophy; however, Caps’ contributions this past Spring were significantly less impactful compared to his teammates, including Support Mikyx.
Besides individual skill, the ADC role is incredibly unique in League of Legends, and only players who are adept and adaptable can excel in it. Caps himself admitted this in a recent stream, expressing hope that the upcoming Riot update will make this position less “useless” and allow ADC players to climb ranks more steadily.
G2 Esports Caps: “I think ADC is almost an unplayable position in solo queue because when you have items, you are stronger, right? But while building your items, playing ADC is extremely frustrating because you feel like anyone on the map can kill you, you end up being as useless as Ivern. This is even worse in solo queue because you have no idea whether your support is good or bad, and the jungle situation is the same.”
“I believe one of the things Riot should do to help ADCs is to make turret diving in the early game more difficult. When you die under your turret like that, you lose minions, lose your life, and the gap becomes too large to recover, while top lane can make up for that with champion quality or other means.”
In reality, not all ADCs are that weak; however, as Caps said, before you get a big item, you are extremely vulnerable due to a lack of essential resources and survival tools. This stems from the fact that ADC items are very expensive (Infinity Edge – 3400 gold, Soulstealer – 3300 gold…) and reaching that power threshold takes longer compared to other roles.
Furthermore, the individual components of these expensive items are not very meaningful unless you complete the full item, yet they are still costly. In direct comparison with the Mage role, for the same 1300 gold, AP champions can get a Lost Chapter for mana, AP, cooldown reduction, and immediate power. Meanwhile, the BF Sword for ADCs only increases damage, which is clearly a disadvantage.
That is just a small part of the ADC’s issues; this role is not inherently weak, but when other roles become too strong too early, as Caps said, you end up being as useless as an Ivern. Hopefully, Riot Games will do something in the upcoming balance patch so that ADCs can thrive rather than just “survive” and overly rely on their teammates as they do currently.