With all these new players joining the game, it might be easy for them to get lost in the huge character roster. With every new champion, LoL surges closer to 200 in its roster. At the time of writing, the total list is 157. With all those champions, it can be easy to get lost, so in this article, we’ll look at some good champions to get you started. This article specifically will focus on the ADC role.
For a full Beginner’s Guide, see our guide here. We’ve also got a Support guide here.
The ADC pretty much does what it says on the tin. Attack Damage Carry. Your job is to carry the late game, by dominating your opponent or slowly scaling to the mid/late game. Unlike Support, there are not many roles that an ADC can fill, though the few they do have are fairly different.
Lane Dominant – Your job is to be in the lead, push the enemy ADC away and win the lane
Hyper Carry – Getting a few early kills or just going even on CS you’ll find yourself carrying the late game. You’ll need to assert your dominance early if you can, mostly working around your junglers ganks.
Scaling ADC – A slow start to the lane, but you’ll pick up as the game progresses.
Now, to look at a few examples of these ADCs.
Lane Dominant ADC – Miss Fortune
Miss Fortune is the quintessential lane dominant/agro ADC. Her kit is perfectly designed for it. From her Q bouncing off dead minions to hit enemy champions, her W which allows her to charge down the enemy, or her E which creates an AOE damaging slow. Her Ultimate is also capable of taking down multiple enemies at once or clearing an entire wave of enemy minions. Miss Fortune also scales well with kills, meaning once you get a few kills behind you, you’ll be nearly impossible to stop.
Hyper Carry ADC – Jinx
Jinx, the star of the latest Netflix hit Arcane, is as hyper in the game as she appears in the show. Her kit and playstyle allows her to take full advantage of a small lead and snowball it. Her passive causes her to gain a speed boost after killing an enemy player or taking down an enemy objective. With a combination of Stuns (W) and a slow (E) she is able to control her enemies. One unique feature of the Jinx is that she can use her Q ability to swap between a machine gun and a rocket launcher. The latter is an AOE attack that costs mana on each hit but can proc on-hit abilities, meaning she can dish out incredible damage. Lastly, her Ultimate fires a giant cross-map rocket that explodes in an AOE to the first champion hit, allowing her to chase down enemies in other lanes.
Scaling ADC – Vayne
Vayne is a slightly more unusual ADC. While she’s a scaling champion, she really needs time to get strong. She can do a lot of damage early, especially if she’s able to pin her enemies to a wall using her (E). Her on-hit (W) allows her to do True-Damage after landing three hits to an enemy champion. Her Q is a small roll, which allows her to gain distance from her enemies or flee if she’s being chased. Furthermore, her Ultimate puts her into an improved form, increasing her attack damage, allowing her to tumble to put her into stealth and increased movement speed when chasing enemies. Vayne takes time to get used to, but when master, she can carry a game on her own.
Honourable highlights:
ADC is a busy role, and almost any champion could be made viable given the right situation. If you want to keep it traditional, you could look at these:
Lane Dominant ADC – Kai’Sa, Draven, Caitlyn, Jihn
Hyper Carry ADC – Lucian, Tristana
Scaling ADC – Kog’maw, Twitch, Ezrael
You can find full character descriptions and ability breakdowns on the official League of Legends page.