Views: 2819 State of the Bot Lane: 8.9
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I accidentally edited this instead of creating a new blog for 8.10 D:
16 May
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This brings me to another point, how can you say tank supports aren't strong right now? Alistar and Braum have been immovable objects ever since preseason. They're literally untouchable in lane (Braum not that much in the first few levels, if anything) and Alistar is capable of oneshotting you at level 3. Also, where's Rakan? He's made a comeback last patch, bringing back Xayah Rakan lanes. Morgana is also quite commonly picked. Soraka with E max + Grail rush is also a thing now.
Where are Varus, Ezreal, Jhin, Tristana? MF is by no means strong all of a sudden, nor is she popular. Jinx is fine, though she's pretty mathcup-dependent like Trist.
I strongly disagree. Janna's can play aggressive of course by spaming W in lane, but they can also play super passive and a deny playstyle by disengaging/peeling with
Her trading is also very good due to
Regarding Tank Supports...
The nerfs to
Also since AP items have been buffed in recent patches, this indirectly makes Ranged supports stronger. That doesn't even include the direct buff ranged supports have been getting.
Regarding
Regarding ADCs....
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Janna can play aggro but she shouldn't easily win lane into those assuming they're players of equal skill level. Someone who lets Janna W him on cooldown without punishing her at all can't play bot lane period. That's not to say she's not strong, but you largely overestimate her laning phase.
E max Soraka doesn't take W until level 4 or even 8 (she goes EQEW), she doesn't play like classic Soraka therefore making grievous wounds debuffs irrelevant. If you saw it played, you'd know.
Yes, the game is bot lane oriented right now, but that's because of hard scaling AD carries. MF's laning phase is nowhere nearly as strong as you make it out to be. Mediocre range + telegraphed trading patterns, doesn't do well into the S tier AD carries. Merely looking at the statistics in high elo games is enough to prove a point here.
Varus is consistently good throughout the game, one of the best laning phases AND scales really well into the game, especially with the AP build. He barely has any weak sides lol.
Trist extremely vulnerable to ganks??? She's literally the least vulnerable to ganks among all AD carries except Ezreal. She scales ridiculously hard and her lower range won't matter in all ins, which is her strongest side early on and also something she should be forcing.
I still think
I have not seen anyone do this
I strong disagree. Hard scaling AD carries are not winning games at all. This goes back to my early game meta point. The average game time at the moment is around 27 minutes, this is not even close to the late game meta that our typical hard scaling champions such as
On Janna: she's also strong because she can actually defend against an Alistar/Rakan all in. I'm not trying to argue whether she's strong or not, it's just that you're overestimating what she can do in lane judging by what I assume is your own personal experience.
Varus doesn't have the best laning phase, no, but it's one of the better ones. He's one of the few AD carries that can handle Caitlyn in lane. Assuming you've seen what AP Varus can do, you shouldn't even consider placing him anywhere below S tier.
Vayne isn't played because of her weak laning phase. Kog'maw has been seeing more play, though, and he's a different case anyway because his build allows for a better mid game. Guinsoo rush is an early power spike compared to BF + RFC or Shiv.
So about MF, I really really don't see how you can consider her a top pick now. Her damage falls off really hard compared to all the commonly picked AD carries (which she doesn't even beat in lane contrary to what you think), she's even worse when she's behind. Also, you don't need the game to drag on for hypercarries to take over. MF with 3 items will never be able to match a crit AD carry with IE Shiv RFC. She isn't even played right now, I'm really curious what are you basing your assumptions on. Like you're pulling data here and there for win/ban rate but you should also look at her pick rate in an actually respectable elo.
Tristana isn't picked for poke, she's just a hypercarry, she becomes unstoppable once she gets going. We don't need to talk about how utterly ******ed RFC is, do we? 2-3 items is all she needs. Ezreal isn't primarily picked for poke, either, he's just a safe, reliable pick with steady scaling, he doesn't have losing matchups which certainly helps.
For the sake of us not writing each other a short essay in each response I ask you one thing: do you agree or disagree that this is a early game meta?
But whatever i'm just glad you voiced your opinion :)
Also, for the record, they mostly play Soraka like that in Masters/Challenger, I never said it's fotm. The fact that it never caught on in the lower tiers doesn't invalidate its strength.
This blog is also meant to appeal to the general league player base, meaning people around silver-plat elo. Win rates and ban rates do not give a full picture sure, but it hints at something deeper about the champion (
Also despite what the league sub reddit may tell you, anything past bronze is a relevant elo and anything past gold is a respectable elo . Most of the player base is silver to low gold. Once you get past gold the player base drops drastically to less than 5% of the player base. I do not know about you, but being statistically better than 95% of your peers is rather damn respectable in my opinion.
And i'm not sure why you are so obsessed with
Yeah, sure, but let's be real here, lower tiers are incredibly slow to catch on the meta, typically lagging a few patches behind. The knowledge and understanding of the game there is limited, champion picks don't matter nearly as much, any pick would work there. That's not to say they're good picks, however, but you can make them work. Hell, you can get pretty 'high' (relative to most of the playerbase) without knowing jack**** about the game. What I'm trying to say here is, what's 'good' (or what works, rather) in those tiers doesn't matter, it's not in any way authoritative. Therefore, in my opinion, data should be gathered exclusively from high elo, and I'm sure many would agree.
Lastly, I'm not obsessed with the Soraka thing in any way, all I did was try to point out what's also good now, is that not what your blog is about?
And I meant to harm in that
And facerush supports like
I'm not saying that facerush supports are bad, but if you do not win the all in you will suffer greater in lane when matched again sustain supports such as
With the
For tank supports, it's about how hard they can zone. An AD carry like Sivir, for example, can never get close to the wave against an Alistar or he'll all in her. The only time he's weak is the first 2 levels, at level 3 he gains massive kill potential at any point his WQ is up. Leona isn't particularly strong, though, she's basically a weaker Alistar, but she can be good into Xayah Rakan lanes.
On the subject of Ignite: it's actually saddening that people still default to Exhaust on supports.
I think that
I swear Riot is trying to make Lux support a thing.