That is an excellent question. I stumbled upon this by accident. One game in the wonder that is blind pick i called support, only for my lux to lock in anyway. I decided to be the carry, and though i lost that game, i fell in love with Rakan ADC, and decided to commit to it.

ANYWAY enough about why I did it, here's why you should, too.

Rakan is a very fun champ to play. In the support role, he is limited by his duty to the adc, building less damage and playing around his carry. But what if you could be the carry? A damage dealing botlaner with enough CC to make the game think you're a support, dashing into the enemy team and easily winning 1v1s? Rakan is a battle-dancer, and battle usually doesnt go well if you can't hurt the opponent. AP Rakan makes everything fun about him amplified. The speed, the quickness, the utilty, the versatility. It's all there, and now with post game reports good enough to take home to show the parents.

Pros:

Very Fast
High Damage Combos
High Team Utilty
Constant Powerspikes

Cons:

Hard Laning Phase
Not Good While Behind
Nobody Takes You Seriously
Underperform, Get Flamed

You know all those runes I put up on the top? So for almost all of those rune pages, you can switch up the secondary runes for ones from the other rune pages. for example, if you like the dark harvest rune page but struggle from having to save boots till later. You can add the inspiration secondary for free boots. Or you could take Resolve secondary on the Phase Rush page for a little more sustain. Rakan is very flexible with these runes, so don't be afraid to experiment!

Play safe really early, wait till level 3 or 4. Just focus on minions and not dying. Chances are you get pushed into tower, as Rakan has horrible wave clear. This may make those pesky marksmen a little cocky. Punish them if they get risky, they will respect you afterwards. Unless you die. Then they won't. However, Dying on an early engage is hard with the free heals and shields. once you get 6, and especially once you get Mythic, you start magically winning fights. Your heal and shield basically double in effectiveness every back. you gotta play safe, though. only dive if there is a nice opportunity. mess up and your support will lose the additional faith in you they didnt know they had, and the wait until mythic slapdown will be longer. Really the main point is to play around your sustain (q, passive), until you get mythic or are close to mythic.

You know how Rakan is great at engaging and CCing enemies? Now you can do that, but do mad damage in the process. Nobody ever expects a rakan with 2 items to do a 3rd of their health by pressing W. If you choose Harvest, this is when your burst becomes a lot more dangerous. You bring the damage in teamfights, along with a lot of the utility you would bring playing support. Q into E to your lowest-health teammate can be a real lifesaver for both of you!. Also at this point your passive shield is enough to block a ton of poke and damage for when you engage. With your passive shield, you become essentially a tank. Right when they get past your shield and finally hit your hp bar, your Q heals you right up!

Main Combo: Smooth Moves
W>AA>Q>AA
This combo is great and your main combo. If you have mythic, work that into there and you can extend the combo by a lot, especially mid game.

Poke/Burst Combo: Feather Flair
W>AA>Q>E
Get in, get out. This combo is great for poke in lane, and if your health isnt exactly where you want it to be.

Ult Combo: Irresistable
W>AA>Q>AA>R>AA
3 abilties, 3 AAs, lots of damage. Lots of cc for team to follow up on.

I'm a dude who likes trying off-meta builds and am that one nerd who plays champs because he likes their personality/lore. This build was very unique, so i continued to play around with it, and now I love Rakan Bot.
Oh, Actually about ME? Hmm, okay, well I live in the US, Got 5 siblings, I think 19 chickens, 3 cats, a dog, a lifetime supply of soda, and a peacock that decided our backyard was his. Currently I am focusing on writing a book, getting better at League, and freeing my household from Prince Harold the Peacock's iron grip.

Wait! One Final Tip: The key to winning is not losing. Thanks for reading the guide, have a groovy day!

Ladies, Gentlemen, Non-Binary Buds, There is a LOT happening this upcoming patch.

P shield reduced from 33 - 254 + 90% AP to 30-225 + 85% AP

Q heal reduced from 18 - 120 + 70% AP to 18-90 + 55% AP

E shield reduced from 40 - 140 + 80% AP to 35 - 135 + 70% AP


RITO Games has announced their new sustainability update. With this update comes nerfs to our heals and shields, along with my beloved Conditioning rune. HOWEVER! FEAR NOT! Our AP Build will negate almost all damage done by this patch, especially with the Everfrost Mythic Passive giving free AP anyway. Q has been hit pretty Hard though... Might try an Archangel's build to give some extra heals. All in All, barely a nerf, even a net buff with the other changes! Rejoice!

To my dear Rakan Enjoyers, patch 12.14 has good implications for us!

The nerfs to lane sustain items only work to increase the value of our healing and built in sustain, which is a buff by nerf, sorry toplaners.

The parts that hurt:

Bone Plating::: Cooldown: 45 >>> 55
Conditioning::: Gain 9 Armor/MR and 4% total Armor/MR >>> Gain 8 Armor/MR and 3% total Armor/MR
Second Wind::: Heal 6 (+4% Missing health) > >> Heal 3 (+4% Missing health)
Unflinching::: 10-30% Tenacity and Slow Resist >>> 5-25%

Conditioning is still a great rune, and i dont think the 1% loss will hurt much. to those who ran unflinching and bone plating, this is a big hit, as the tenacity will reduce a 2 sec root by up to .5 seconds instead of .6. that makes a difference, guys! bone plating is now up once a minute, so dives are less frequently safe. second wind fanatics, due to our buff through nerfs, the sustain will still be great.

The part that helps:

Sudden Impact::: 7 Lethality & 6 Mpen >>> 9 Lethality & 7 Mpen

we now get that extra ONE (1) MPEN BABYYYY! any buff is welcome, and a basically permanent 1% damage buff is very welcome. it's like a budget prowler's!

what do yall think about the patch? i think it's a net buff, but would like to hear your thoughts.