5 Beginner ADC Tips

Playing ADC can be a double-edged sword; you can output a ton of damage and carry the game, but you're extremely squishy and can be at the mercy of your team. Here are 5 tips to help you ease into the ADC role.

Secure A Good Bot Lane

It’s critical to have good synergy in the bot lane, as you’ll be spending most of the game alongside your support. If you can secure a powerful bot lane duo, this can put you at a huge advantage before the game has even begun.

In champ select, you should communicate with your support to figure out champs they play and are thinking of picking. This can highlight which champion you should lock in to compliment their choice.

Champs like Kalista and Samira synergies excellently with engage supports like Alistar and Thresh, while champs like Twitch and Zeri have great synergy with enchanters like Lulu and Yuumi.

Follow-up When Your Support Engages

You’re in a partnership with your support when playing in the bot lane, and the two of you have to help each other out in order to succeed. When your support engages — or pings that they are about to engage — it’s essential you react to this and follow up with damage to ensure the engage is worthwhile.

If you don’t, this can result in an unfavourable trade if your support takes a huge amount of damage.

However, your support can sometimes make over-aggressive trades. If they are diving underneath the tower on low health or engaging without setting up vision, this can put them at a huge risk of dying. Therefore, it’s best to not follow up on these engages else you’ll be at risk of dying too and making the play even worse.

Play Defensively When Your Support Roams

Reacting to what your support is doing is a critical skill when playing ADC. Supports tend to roam a lot, whether it be to set up vision or to gank other lanes. When they are roaming, it’s your responsibility to react to this by playing defensively. This can be done by playing underneath your tower and focusing on killing minions.

Push Waves To Help Your Jungler

With the recent changes to Drakes, they are much more difficult for junglers to solo. If your jungler has started the drake and it’s safe for them to do so, it’s important you push out your wave and go to help them.

If you don’t, this leaves your jungler in a vulnerable position as they can take too long to kill the drake and be ganked by the enemy.

Practice Last Hitting Minions

Last hitting minions is essential when playing ADC, as it's your most consistent form of gold income. It can be tricky to last hit early on in the game when you don't have many items, though it does get easier later in the game when your damage output is high.

You can improve your last hitting skills in the practice tool, spending a couple minutes every day playing out the first few minutes of the laning phase. Only purchase your starter items (like a Long Sword or Doran's Blade) and pick different champions each time, making you more comfortable with different attack speeds, ranges, and base AD.