ADC Itemization: The Background

Cut to the chase: this is about League of Legends, not Warmachine.  So read at your own risk. 

I think there are pretty much two ways to build an ADC; the standard build that begins with Infinity Edge and the bust-heavy path that starts with Trinity Force.   If you don't follow one of these paths, you are playing a sub-optimal (read: bad) build and aren't going to perform well as an ADC.

But before I can present the builds, I want to talk about the role of the ADC in LoL.  Why should teams include an ADC? What characteristics make a good adc?


1) Characters with high and sustained attack damage are required to push towers, claim dragons, and kill Baron.

Claiming these objectives can takes many seconds and mages/assasins typically have low dps over long time intervals.  Tanks/Bruisers generally have better damage output in these scenarios, but because they generally build items to increase their survivability and rely on abilities for damage they also fall short.  Teams that include an ADC style character can clear objectives more quickly, which is one path to victory.

2) Some teams include characters that are incredibly tanky.

I'm talking that monstrous Cho-Gath, the full build Nautilus, Maokai the never dying tree, etc.  These champions can be more or less invulnerable if you don't have a team member with really high DPS and Armour Pen to kill them.  Other traditional sources of damage, such as mages/assassins, can make a big dent in these guys but generally can't finish the job.  Many tanks have %damage that make them very effective at fighting similarly farmed bruisers. 

The job of the ADC is to crush tanks when they become a problem. Sustained damage over time

3) After winning a team fight, whoever is left gets to try and claim objectives.

The ADC can survive fights because their superior range allows them to fight around the edge.  ADCs shoot into fights; they don't participate in them.  Good ADC play involves positioning so you never get attacked. A victory condition at the end of the game is winning a fight with a living ADC who can push for the W.

For these reasons, I think you should build an ADC solely to maximize damage output.  There is more or less one way to do this, independent of the character chosen.  Superior itemization leads to maximized DPS.  If you build around a particular character's passives/abilities, or include early surivability items, you won't be able to fill the ADC role when you get to the late game. 

In my next post, I'll talk about build paths that maximize DPS and compare them to other builds.