Ask a Diamond [Week 5: Bot lane]

[quote=PsiGuard]I'm a little late to the party, but I feel the need to point something out about support runes specifically. [quote=Vynertje]Armor + Hp seals (mixed) HP / Ap quints[/quote] [quote=Natedog13]Armor Yellows x9 Health Quints x3[/quote] These setups are [i]terrible[/i]. STOP using health quints guys. Armor quints have been good for a long time, and since Riot nerfed armor seals and buffed health seals at the same time, health in seals is way more efficient than it is in quints. Compare these two setups: 9 armor seals = 9 armor 3 health quints = 78 health 2 armor quints = 8.5 armor 9 health seals + 1 health quint = 98 health Armor quints are way more efficient than seals. [b]If you're going to mix health and armor, put your armor in your marks or quints, NOT in seals.[/b] If you guys keep using old rune pages, you're giving up 20 HP for no reason at all. It's just as bad as running AD marks and armor pen quints.[/quote]

[quote=PsiGuard][quote=Luther3000] [size=1]obviously not diamond[/size] I've been looking over pro AD mains' runes ever since the changes. The two most popular pages I've seen are: 9x AD 9x Armour or 4x Armour and 5x Health 9x MR/MR per level or 5x MR/MR per level and 4x Mreg/AS 2x AS and 1x AD (Majority of EU/NA ADC mains) 9x AD 9x Health 9x MR/MR per level or 5x MR/MR per level and 4x Mreg/AS 2x Armour and 1x AD (Majority of Korean ADC mains I've been able to check and Doublelift) I still think lifesteal quints are pretty good with the first page instead of AS quints, especially in matchups where you're going to get poked a lot and/or your champion scales poorly with AS. [/quote] I still haven't tried the armor quints, but it seems like AS would be good if your duo can push better and/or you have an easier matchup while armor quints would help in closer matchups or against poke lanes that will push you under tower. I guess the question is, do armor quints give you enough effective health to make [[doran's blade]] suffice for early sustain or is lifesteal superior for surviving early laning? It's 8.5 armor versus 3% lifesteal, both with 3 on-hit healing and a health pot. Maybe the armor is actually better. EDIT: Fixed on-hit healing to 3 from 5 since ADCs are ranged. :3[/quote]

[quote=Vynertje]Right, I heard about that change, but never actually got to make a change. Thanks for correcting![/quote]

[quote=Luther3000][quote=PsiGuard] I guess the question is, do armor quints give you enough effective health to make [[doran's blade]] suffice for early sustain or is lifesteal superior for surviving early laning? It's 8.5 armor versus 3% lifesteal, both with 5 on-hit healing and a health pot. Maybe the armor is actually better. [/quote] Yeah, that's a good question. The health + armour setup is obviously much more powerful than lifesteal in 2v2 fights to the death, but I'm unsure how things work out over a longer, more poke oriented laning phase. Logically, assuming you don't die or get forced to base, lifesteal should always outscale eventually. I'm kinda curious now so I might do some rough math later to see how long it takes.[/quote]

[quote=I want to be a Blitzball]Viability of [[taric]]? Best adc partner, when to pick etc.[/quote]

[quote=Joxuu]^ Quite unviable. Well maybe not unviable. Stable pick but not fit for current meta. Doesn't provide needed presence or poke. Has the same problems as [[braum]] except his ultimate is not that great. Works the best with ADC that benefit from stun lock or aura. [[corki]], [[jinx]], [[lucian]] come in mind but he pretty much has the same synergy with everyone. Wouldn't advise to pick him but if you must.. umm maybe against [[thresh]] or [[blitzcrank]].[/quote]

[quote=Bokonon]Taric is a good counter to AD heavy comps; picking him is like a giant middle finger to that Tryndamere or Rengar. His main problem is his poor utility in laning phase, especially in the current meta which favors kill lanes over hypercarries. However, Taric is pretty good at keeping the ADC alive, and his teamfighting is great against AD heavy teams, so he can work nicely with a late game champ - I played a bit of Taric + Jinx and Taric + Vayne with my duo partner recently.[/quote]

[quote=NateDog13][quote=Vynertje] It's your own perception, but if you look at all you get from my setup compared to a 0-21-9 setup: 10% CDR on startup, and another 10% on items. Slightly increased gold income, especially the extra gold on hit stacks nice with Spellthief Extra starting gold, allowing to grab a ward on startup while still allowing a potion. Slightly extra experience passively, which is really effective if you're roaming a lot with your jungler/mid. Movespeed: ranged champions benefit from this a lot because it allows more safety in lane, in order not to get caught. Even if you run 21 in defense, you're still relatively squishy so this avoids getting all-out all the time. The best points in deep defense are in Legendary Guardian and as a ranged champ you'll barely be in range to get the full +20 armor / +10 mr. The little bit extra flat armor is nice but doesn't weigh up to the other benefits.[/quote] Idk man, the 9 points cover a portion of what you stated already, and 5% move speed outside of combat is really only good for heavy roamers, and a lot of people grab mobis on supports as it is. In terms of gold generation and starting gold, those just feel so.... weak. And even if you dont get the max armor/mr from Legendary Guardian, you're getting at least 8 armor in lane and 4 mr, which ain't shabby at all when you couple them with the runes I put up, that's just my playstyle doe. I still just can't seem to like the utility tree past 9 points lol [quote=Out Of Pancakes] I see that you're still using armour seals and hp quints : why not armour quints and hp seals ? Is there a reasoning behind that or is it just because you don't wanna buy runes or because it doesn't make a big difference in your opinion or any other reason ? Why not using hpen marks on poke supports ? What starting items would you use for Thresh and Blitz ? How can you deal against a super bursty botlane such as Leona/Graves post6 ?[/quote] I'd rather not waste more IP for a marginal increase in stats when I still have champions left to pickup, by all means people should go the other route if they're starting off, I just don't play enough to have that kind of IP generation anymore. Early penetration is pretty weak in my opinion, and I gear myself towards being a tankier support made to assist peeling for my ADC rather than assisting them via damage dealing. I'm personally still a fan of starting of with Doran's shield on both of them and then backing for a gold income item into boots into sighstone with yellow trinket swap to red. Defensive items and positioning. You generally never want to be caught out or engage them unless you have 2+ people backing you up or able to peel for you in some way shape or form, the best way to stop burst is to never put yourself in the position at all if you can. [quote=Sirell] Month or so in and I still don't know what kind of setup I should be using for an ADC. I've experimented with everything from AD, Lifesteal, AS, armor, CDR and mana regen, in the form of every Mark, Seal, Glyph and Quint variation that seems reasonable, but nothing has yet revealed itself to me as a convincing set-up to take in the majority of my matchups (the only exception being Blue Ezreal). What would you guys recommend?[/quote] Honestly I'm sticking to my same old rune page, the whole point of lifesteal is to combat harass, the community is getting way too crazy with this AS rune buff thing. In my opinion it seems like LCS players don't get punished for grabbing them mostly because they always end up lane swapping, and rarely do you have a 2v2 bot lane anymore. I think it's best to just wait and see what starts popping up and keep testing things. [quote=Lisk] Thanks for the response. I'm a little confused by the chess analogy. Is the ADC the queen or the pawn? Just to be clear, the situation I was imagining was first blood has already been taken top lane so it is irrelevant bot lane, and after the exchange the scoreboard looks like this: Blue ADC: 1-1-0 (dead) Blue Support: 0-0-1 Purple ADC: 0-0-1 Purple Support: 1-1-0 (dead) Also, in the second scenario where the support "flash dives" the enemy ADC, suppose you're 100% sure, or close to it, that you'll kill him. It's just that you have 20% life, so the tower shot will kill you. And your ADC will be alive no matter what, so that isn't part of the equation.[/quote] Oh, that's a weird assumption in my area of play. In my games bot lane tends to be the one giving up first blood. But regardless, in this case it's still the same. The ADC is the Queen, one of your most important pieces, support is your pawn that protects the queen. Both are extremely vital roles that need to be filled, however, if you can sacrifice your pawn for a greater piece and save your queen, you're making a worthy trade. And in case of the second one, if your support tanks and the adc gets the kill, the trade ends up in your favor because your adc gets the kill, their adc gets the kill, but your ADC ends up getting more CS, and probably the turret as well. It still isn't what you should be aiming for, but if it gets you the objective and your team starts getting more off of that... worth. [quote=PsiGuard] These setups are terrible. STOP using health quints guys. Armor quints have been good for a long time, and since Riot nerfed armor seals and buffed health seals at the same time, health in seals is way more efficient than it is in quints.[/quote] "I'd rather not waste more IP for a marginal increase in stats when I still have champions left to pickup, by all means people should go the other route if they're starting off, I just don't play enough to have that kind of IP generation anymore." [quote=PsiGuard] I guess the question is, do armor quints give you enough effective health to make Doran's Blade suffice for early sustain or is lifesteal superior for surviving early laning? It's 8.5 armor versus 3% lifesteal, both with 5 on-hit healing and a health pot. Maybe the armor is actually better.[/quote] Their starting might be the same, but lifesteal scales better into the game imo. Still both viable routes, I'd weigh the armor as more beneficial with dealing against high early harass lanes like Caitlyn Thresh. [quote=I Want To Be A Blitzball] Viability of Taric? Best adc partner, when to pick etc.[/quote] Honestly right now he's just sitting in tier 2 chilling. The problem though is that bot lane support picks generally don't go past god tier/tier 1 picks in higher level play. Nobody wants to play against a Leona as Taric, or a Thresh as Taric, or generally just pick a weaker support into a god tier support. He's in a pretty sad position right now. Best lane partner would probably be Graves. God Graves is just stupid tanky with Taric, and the stun sets him up for full on combos. SOOOOOOOO DUMB. When to pick him? Right now I don't think there's really an answer to that :<, too many better picks. We'll see how Riot deals with him and the support meta in general over the coming patches.[/quote]

[quote=Mooninites][quote=NateDog13] I'm personally still a fan of starting of with Doran's shield on both of them and then backing for a gold income item into boots into sighstone with yellow trinket swap to red. [/quote] Thats such a delay on vision, if you start [[Doran's shield]], it's pretty hard to get a g/10 item unless you get ahead in lane (i.e. a kill). [quote=NateDog13] Dropping more IP on runes aint worth it. I don't play enough for the IP flow I would need to make it optimal, and it works for me. [/quote] The point of this thread is called "ask a diamond", the idea is that you're giving people advice, you may as well tell people the most optimal set-ups rather than a welfare rune set-up[/quote]

[quote=Vynertje]Besides that, having an optimal rune setup for every situation is actually a great advantage over your enemy. Just an example, a lot of Malphite players only have a standard AD/AP page but if you have a dedicated Malphite page you're A LOT stronger.[/quote]