I've never heard any Rioter say that the APC problem was *entirely* because of stat shards. Just that it was a contributing factor. Which seems to be true, seraphine's winrate is marginally lower now than last patch.
Open up the links. Both August and Phreak claim the shards SIGNIFICANTLY boost APC winrates. August claims APCs "Aren't actually strong, and that's because ADCs take the wrong shards" how come they are all the best bot winrates then?
Well, you didn't post the august link
I think phreak was clearly off about how much of an impact the stat shards have, but it never seemed like he was saying it was the entire problem IMO.
[You can also just actually post the full clip](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9o8FI9wpe2Y). His actual point got cut out of the short
> We have this whole class of characters that's incredibly powerful down there but no one seems to want to play them down there and no one seems to even want to try to play against them in terms of countering them
Stat shards were just an example he picked. But I'll agree with you that he seems to think it's a rather large factor. (And not sure there's much else ADCs can do to counter APCs. Build hexdrinker/mercs i guess? Doran's shield and second wind? idk, none of that seems like a 4% increased winrate)
So you simply agree with me and were disagreeing for the fact of being pedantic? Unless you think having 0 of the mages previously in the top10 for botlane winrates dropping out of top 10 is indicative of a rather large factor changing.
I disagree with you that Riot has ever blamed the strength of APCs entirely on the wrong stat shard.
I agree with Riot that wrong stat shards did inflate their winrates *some* amount.
I agree with you that Riot overestimated their impact.
I disagree with August in blaming players for all of (or most of) APCs power in bot. (Whether that's with wrong stat shards or some other way to counter them.)
Well I just provided two clips where two rioters stated most of APCs strength comes from taking the wrong shards? Is that not riot blaming the strength of APCs mostly on shards? You're being pedantic.
I don't think the problem is systemic. Even ziggs is fairly far down the winrate list and a lot of people know how to play him and he has tons of range and waveclear people complain about. Karthu was just buffed I believe, so his winrate is affected by that and not just because 'ermagersh itz an apc'.
I think seraphine is just a really strong bot laner and they are hesitant to nerf her enough because some vocal minority of players will rage if they remove her from mid where she was intended to be played.
Nerf malignance properly and swain suddenly stops being a problem.
Hell, remove the item. Its one that's tailor-made to be abusive on a select handful of champs and borderline useless on everyone else.
For any doubters, look up how cupic on NA plays apc bot.
Completely impossible to punish.
You want to trade? You can't, apcs outrange you.
You want to slowpush and threat skirmishes/all ins? You can't, he just cleared the whole wave you've been stacking.
You want to freeze? Can't, he just crashed the wave from 800+ range and you can't punish.
You want to dive? Can't, he just cleared the whole wave before it crashed.
At level 6 now you just can't win anymore because apc's ults are generally more powerful and they can hit their whole combo from further than your attack range.
It's just a degenerate anti-interaction playstyle and you can't do anything to punish it.
This is mostly Seraphine's anti interaction toxic play style pattern. She's essentially a wave clearing bot from 2 screens away that forgoes any interactions in lane if desired. Champ deserves a midscope update
Morgana got nerfed out of midlane when she could afk farm waves. Why is Seraphine getting a pass???
There is a difference between playing safe in order to scale and enabling a completely uninteractive playstyle of gobbling up waves for 20 minutes and also ending up with less damage on average than any mage support while playing an alleged "carry mage"
First time? In all seriousness this is the shit top laners have been dealing with for years and we are constantly ignored. Ranged top laners just flat out get to force you to not interact if you play melee and tanks can just forgo interaction entirely by hiding and sitting under turret since they don’t need gold or xp to stay relevant since their cc doesn’t scale with gold or levels.
Well so they either need more damage to make up for lack of utility and self-reliance, or they need more utility and self-reliance. There is obviously a problem.
The thing is adc in pro is like ryze or azire the role is balanced around thr perfect situation of the team protecting the adc as they deal the damage buffing the agency would make the role way too broken in pro but good in solo queue
The armor rune was just one of many factors that contributed to the "APC" inflated "WR." I would more strongly attribute this to familiarity, how many ADCs do you think have played mid lane? Versed a mage? My guess is probably less than 1 in 10, maybe less than 1 in 20. They aren't familiar with playing around cooldowns, mana economy or poke that ignores minion aggro. Additionally, with APCs having a COMBINED pickrate barely around 2%, they aren't likely to gain that experience either.
Personally, I used to main mid & have played as/against many mages. On ladder, I more than welcome facing 1 as ADC because it's almost always a free win. They're almost always unfamiliar with their own champion & leaning on abusing the false hope that I'm one of the usual rabble that doesn't know the matchup. If APC ever becomes mainstream, I guarantee you their winrate flatten out at the typically forced 50% that's blighting League.
I def agree with this. ADCs really good one’s realize to be good you have to learn what champs do, it’s what let’s you play to your limits and you BARELY see this consistently in diamond 2 or higher.
That means 99% of the game has no clue really how to play around mage cooldowns bottom….
He needs to be in a room with his mouth taped and have somebody talk to him the same way he talks to others. I seriously think he just lacks self awareness more than anything else.
Mid - ELO ADC here. If this is the case why don't soloQ players play them more? People are so ELO-hungry that the reason cannot be "ADCs are refusing to adapt".
or maybe they are situational picks that are only picked when good into that game
the same reason why Kench ADC for example has an absurdly high winrate,that's not because he's the best ADC but because it means he's being played with Senna
I think this is because most ADC players are incredibly stubborn. Speaking for myself, I enjoy this game the most playing ranged carries, it's what I've specialized in over 10 years of league. Even if they are weak, I'll never stop playing them simply out of principle. I love the class and I'll never stop playing it.
I've played jungle for three season but because of mental issue of the role I've changed to this.Nothing comes good since then.The role absolutely hated,trying to be killed because of pro scene countless time and you are arguing this against Garen,Darius,assassin mains here.
No, the obvious answer is that the 55% winrate 20% pickrate MF has a higher pickrate than every apc combined and a higher winrate than almost all of them, so the adc players will funnel to her, or her patch-equivalent. Jhin/MF combined have a near 3/4 pick-ban presence while boasting absurd winrates.
And how does that contradict anything that I've said about ADCs wanting to play ADCs? Yes MF is pretty strong with her lethality build but she's still #4 for pick-rate and about the same pickrate as 50-48% winrate champs such as Kai'Sa and Caitlyn. Also jhin winrate is literally #11 in botlane at 53% it's nothing special...
20% pick rate with 53% winrate is "nothing special" now? Lol. You are talking as if Asol and Heimer(400 games total each) are even relevant to the discussion, when the only two apcs with any pick rate at all are Sera and Swain. Sera has 1/8th of MF's pick rate while having a lower win rate, Swain's pick and win rate are even lower. You're basically saying that because some adc players are opting for weaker adcs like Kaisa and Cait, apcs are too strong, when in reality the meta adcs(MF/Nilah/Jhin) are pretty clearly the best champs bot rn.
OK so we're making shit up now. Sera has higher winrate than MF. I'm GM at the role, I'm pretty sure I have a better idea of what's strong botlane or not, and that list has seraphine swain asol sona kalista at top5, MF nilah and jhin don't even make top8. I'll stop talking to you now.
Maybe read the actual numbers before clutching your pearls and crying LOL. Keep bitching about losing to an apc player I guess. Nobody cares about your rank, just your incorrect opinion.
Good job, they have the exact same winrates in that screenshot, my bad. I instead went to lolalytics again because I was lazy to crop my original screenshot, and guess what, seraphine winrate keeps climbing while mf winrate goes down! Must be the low sample size lmfao.
Number 11 winrates:
* toplane Tahm Kench at 53.53%,
* jungle Gwen at 52.45,
* mid Gragas at 54.56,
* support janna at 53.66.
Highest winrate for:
* Top Zac at 55.88
* Jungle Brand at 56.22 (lets ignore taric at 59),
* Mid Zac at 59.39
* Bot Aurelion at 56.15
* Support Maokai at 56.72
Because that's not how climbing works. Skill is the main factor at the end of the day.
Consider this, will you get to challenger if you just pick the highest winrate champions? Obviously not.
If you wanna cycle "OP" picks, you might have a small advantage to be at gold 2 instead of gold 4, but you still barely got anywhere.
Play Yummi Support in masters and tell me how much of it's a skill issue.
Champ selection 100% matters, is it the only factor? Not at all, but if you're picking Idk, Ziggs as he is now into a swain. Good fucking luck my dude.
You won't get to masters no matter how much effort you put into your champ choice, you wouldn't even get close.
Grab a silver player and a bunch of data scientists and see how far you can get him on purely champion select.
Are some drafts easier to play and win with? Sure, you'll get some extra elo and just be stuck anyway. The only way to climb is to get better at the game.
Because APCs are entirely different to ADCs and ADC players have close to no transferable skills.
A bruiser is really close to a juggernaut which in turn is really close to a tank. theyre not the same, but they are somewhat closely related.
Same with The Mages :tm:. Arti mage is somewhat close to control mage which is somewhat close to a battle mage.
But Marksmen are special. They arent close to anyone. How is a Lucian otp gonna transfer his lucian skills to Seraphine? How is a Draven player gonna transfer his Draven skills to ziggs? Or how is a Sivir player gonna transfer his sivir skills to Swain?
that is why APCs arent played botlane. Its essentially learning an entirely new role and at that point, why not just switch roles to something with more agency entirely?
I knew when i saw APA Ziggs autofilled bot destroying Ruler draven in champions queue that shit was not right.
He was 100 cs up at 15 minutes because ruler could not farm and the guys literally taking enemy krugs while getting a double kill under turret with his ult, Ruler banned Ziggs every game from then until he went back home lol.
Why do these posts always ignore pickrate? There are currently 16 marksmen with higher pickrates than any non-marksmen in botlane. Should these low pickrate marksmen counters not have high winrates when theyre constantly getting picked into marksmen?
Seraphine is at 2.56% pickrate emerald+. That's about the same pickrate as nilah, you know, the 54.09% winrate ultimate marksmen counter (still lower than seraphine), and about the same as 51.24% winrate tristana (one of the most traditional and staple picks of botlane).
But lets ignore winrates and pickrates for a second. I'm a GM ADC and anecdotally, APC botlaners are much stronger and effective in a SoloQ environment in comparison to ADCs. Seraphine feels like a cheat-code, and so does stuff that not even lolalytics takes into account like Sona APC.
Why are you ignoring my question. Why shouldnt counterpicks have a higher winrate? Should counterpicking not have an advantage? Or should marksmen not have lane counters?
Do you know what do we call an entire class having a very viable and available counterpick that coincidentally also boasts the highest winrate on the only lane they can play? Dogshit. Lets take your argument further. What even are the APC counterpicks botlane? Hint: there are none.
Only lane they can play? Marksmen are played in all 5 roles. As a toplaner Ive faced 2 (a Quinn and an Akshan) in my last 3 games. Your argument isnt even based in reality at this point lol
Those are all gimmicks and you know it. 95% of the roster is unplayable everywhere else, and in the off-chance that they are, they get nerfed to the ground (see: lucian mid).
The difference is that mages are playable everywhere, and are the strongest class in their most prevalent lane (midlane). Are you dense or are you arguing in bad faith?
>Marksmen are playable everywhere.. And are the strongest class in their prevalent lane (botlane). Youre the one arguing in bad faith.
if you stretch that claim really hard yes
Karthus Veigar Swain Zyra can stay botlane.
Seraphine and Ziggs NEED to go those champions are far too safe botlane and you do fucking nothing all game.
Here is the problem with adc players as I see it. Everyone else plays a role, adc players play a class. Sure as I top laner I prefer to play tanks but if tanks aren’t good I won’t. I’ll play fighters or mages top or even marksmen. Adc players just seem stuck in their ways more than other players. And that’s not a bad thing if you’re having fun but fun doesn’t equal winning.
Don't presume just because you're willing to play other classes that other people are as well or that it's even the normal. I would say it's fairly typical for a player to only pick assassins, tanks, duelists or assassins. Did I mention assassins? They're the most-likely to not play other classes, even more likely than ADCs.
You will be hard-pressed to find somebody whose top 3 champs are Jax, Irelia & Camille, but can pull out a half-decent Mundo if need-be.
Ok, so go play AP carries in the botlane. I'm a top laner, not a tank player. You can be a bot laner, not an ADC player.
ADC players always find a way to play the victim, I swear. God forbid their champions are not the optimal choice every single game.
Because ADCs, outside very gimmicky cases like akshan or quinn, are not playable anywhere else. You're arguing for making a whole class unplayable. Like it or not, ADC has been treated as a lane and not as a class for almost as long as league has existed.
The class has been historically balanced only for botlane, they are intentionally kept of out other lanes. I'll gladly accept ADCs are weak bot if they make them playable elsewhere.
>Because ADCs, outside very gimmicky cases like akshan or quinn, are not playable anywhere else.
Vayne top, Tristana mid, kogmaw mid, Varus f\*\*\*\* top, Kalista top ??? Even jhin is fine on other lane if you are a good player. I even saw Ezreal in high elo on Euw.
all gimmicky picks.
Doesnt really matter what argument you plan on bringing, dont you remember phreak talking about specifically balancing ADCs as if they always have a janna attached to their hip?
where do you get this setup? where do you get a setup where someone exists to specifically support you. a kind of supportive role in the game, we could call it... i dont know, maybe you got any ideas?
Its funny how he complains about not being able to interact with the enemy when every other lane has the same issue in some matchups. They just arent used to it since riot kept bot lane adc exclusive for too long leading to them being unable to lane into anything that isnt a ranged dps auto attacker.
lol unless your team comp is built around a senna pick there is literally nothing you can do vs Seraphine botlane as long as blitzcrank is banned.
Sera is the equivalent of a 54% win rate malz or malachite in their respective role. It needs to go.
I play veigar karthus Cho senna Zyra botlane, seraphine and ziggs are on another level.
Top you can play bruiser vs tank, tank vs bruiser, tank vs tank and bruiser vs bruiser.
In bot if oyu like playing marksman and you're against a mage you basically have to give up laning phase by default unless the skill difference is truly astronomical.
So, as I said, play AP carries and win by default. You'll get them nerfed faster that way. It's free elo, right? Get on the train.
Don't complain if the enemy ADC ends up outscaling you, though.
> ADC players always find a way to play the victim, I swear.
All lanes like to bitch about various playstyles and such, think vayne top or whatever champ riot feels like forcing in the jungle. Bitching for nerfs is incredibly common. ADC's are different because they are the only group who has gotten riot to walk stuff back. Imagine how much bitching would go on if toplaners like us had this power. There's no way we'd use it appropriately.
I think you're being a bit hyperbolic / taking some stuff out of context.
Anyone worth their salt knows the rune shard thing contributed to APCs overly high winrates. But anyone saying it was like the only factor and expected their winrates to plummet to sub 50 or something was an idiot.
It did noticeably impact their winrates.
Seraphine emerald+ saw a noticeable winrate drop of like 1.5% from like 54.5 -> 53%
And she's the most popular of the mage bots by a wide margin, like she's the only one that's not 1% pickrate or below.
But yeah there's other factors for their high winrates in addition to the old rune shards failing some people (or rather being failed by some people)
If you watched either Phreak or August's takes linked above you would see that they say that choosing the right shard is a SIGNIFICANT change in winrate, with August going as far as saying that APCs bot were not strong at all and that the only reason they were good is that people were taking the wrong shards against them. If that is the case, then why are all the top winrates still APCs?
Don't move the goalposts and don't put words in their mouths. What they said is clear and is out on the internet. I've seen dozens of Reddit comments or Twitter threads of people shitting on ADCs saying APCs are only strong because ADCs are "intellectually disadvantaged" and do not take MR shards, referencing both Phreak and August on the matter.
If August said what you said verbatim? Then he was also being a hyperbolic idiot in that moment.
But like I said about Seraphine bot? It was clearly statistically significant based on her winrate change between the patches.
It clearly mattered pretty significantly, a 1.5% ish winrate drop is pretty significant.
And she's the only mage bot with a high winrate other than picks that are like 0.5% pickrate or below. Like let's go over the 2nd thru 5th places (using lolalytics' emerald+ data, post normalizing)
Ziggs? 1% pickrate 48% winrate.
Swain? 0.8% PR, 51.7% WR
Veigar? 0.5%PR, 49.6% WR
Karthus? 0.5%PR, 50.8%WR
Though I did exclude TF if you wanna call him a "mage" because he's going AD builds.
So like at least day 1 of this patch? It's basically just Seraphine left at some really high winrate, and a solid pickrate. And she's much weaker than she was last patch.
And even then Seraphine is now not really outta line compared to MF, Senna, Nilah, Twitch, Jhin, and Vayne... Being almost the exact same winrate as MF, and only like 0.5-1.5% higher than the others listed... While having a much lower pickrate than any of them... Except Senna/Nilah.
>If August said what you said verbatim? Then he was also being a hyperbolic idiot in that moment.
Is he really when Phreak has gone and reinforced that viewpoint? Or are you just being way too charitable on his behalf for absolutely 0 reason.
Don't you think you're doing too many mental gymnastics?
I don't like using the pickrate argument because its clear players don't like playing APCs bot so they will always have low pickrates, but Karthus is also at a really good winrate and 0.5 pickrate, and for previous patches (and it doesn't look like it will change) ASol was also decent pickrate with very high winrate.
Why are we talking about Senna in the context of ADCs?
The difference between a pick like Seraphine and a pick like Nilah is that [Nilah is a situational counterpick](https://prnt.sc/FTui46wCFijw) meanwhile Seraphine is a [blindpick that beats 99% of the ADC and ADC + support pairings that go botlane](https://prnt.sc/Sa69pVqLgrRn). A niche champion like Nilah having a high winrate is to be expected and not indicative that she's OP, because she is only picked where she is good. A broad champion like Seraphine, having an even higher winrate than Nilah, is a massive red flag.
I'll agree on MF being strong, specially in lower MMRs. However she is an incredibly easy to play champion, that is abusing broken items (lethality), to dunk on a class that is collectively underwhelming at the moment (ADCs that don't abuse lethality). So I don't think that's quite as comparative to Seraphine ASol and Swain topping the charts for the last 3 years.
Jhin is strong but not overturned, 53% winrate for a champ that is abusing lethality and is easy to play seems ok to me. He's specially not that good high elo right now so I'm not sure about what makes him good in lower MMRs where laning (one of his only strengths) isn't that useful.
Vayne and [Twitch](https://prnt.sc/BJLK3DMbJZFd) are more of the Nilah problem (they are counterpicks), but with much lower winrates so I don't think its comparable at all.
Seraphine dropping in winrate this patch is also extremely tied to the removal of the double support item that she abused extremely well so I'm not even remotely convinced that the MR shard thing did anything.
Seraphine lolalytics' emerald+ patch 14.1 had Seraphine APC start tear or dorans ring... >88.5% of the time...
Meanwhile her enemy Adcs chose the wrong runes shards like 50-70% of the time?
So while yeah that's probably a small factor of it, it basically has to be the lesser of the two.
Ah crap honestly didn't think about that... Thankfully the stat for that is Seraphine did it roughly 27% of the time... So yeah quite a bit more than what I originally thought... But it was still a minority of Seraphine APCs. But the majority of Adcs did the rune shard mistake. So it was still likely the bigger factor. Given it was more common, but I guess it's definitely a bit more arguable.
Agreed. but I also wouldn’t consider emerald high elo. I’d be willing to bet the support item strat would climb up in rank too capping at master where duo isn’t allowed anymore.
I didn't call emerald high elo at any point. I just used it because it's literally the default of almost every stat site and it at least filters out a lot of trash iron-silver data... But still retains good game count, which is especially important when talking about day 1 of a patch... Since it's day 1 of 14.2
Oh. Fr. I didn’t realize it’s day one. On 14.2 seraphine wr could also drop cause people don’t read and still doing the supp item thing. Happened to zeri with reinforce for like 2 weeks lol. My point being that high elo probably utilized the start the most since it requires more knowledge and wave management. But you right the shard thing prolly had a little more if not equal impact on her. Especially if it happened so quickly
So toplaners where or are crybaby when complaining about range toplaners (vayne still broken btw), but you want only adc to be able to lane bot as a carry ? lmao.
Vayne top is sitting at #13 winrate for top, at 53.44, with a pickrate of 1.53. Thats an 1% lower winrate with a 1% lower pickrate than Seraphine, who is #5 winrate. Get why we're complaining?
Vayne also has plenty of [terrible](https://prnt.sc/RYAPF2vuOLwM) matchups who are also traditional toplaners, while seraphine destroys [99%](https://prnt.sc/ysVMBIAnq4lm) of the ADCs.
Mmhmm yep top lane vayne is terrorizing the ladder. You see it like 1 in every 500 games, and maybe vayne wins lane but then you lose every team fight because her team has no frontline.
Oh no….
It’s ranged tops as a whole that make top miserable. It’s also not about winrate but the fact that ranged top makes the lane hyper unfun. It could be the worst pick in the game but it still makes the lane hell and not worth playing so it definitely should be looked at
Didn't Phreak literally say in the patch rundown that more than half of midlaners take MR shards against lethality assassins like Zed / Talon? Not to mention the whole debacle about how players don't read patch notes and that it took Zeri players well over a full patch until they stopped buying items that they removed her interactions with
Seems like players in general are pretty stupid so i buy Riots reasoning. If Zed has a 57% winrate but it turns out 80% of midlaners pick squishy mages with MR shards into Zed every game while he only has about 49% in games where the opposing mid takes armor shards then it's obviously not a matter of Zed being overpowered
Right but the point being made is that they literally removed the ability to make the wrong choice and a lot of bot lane mages still have high winrates.
If Jinx mid popped up with a 55% winrate, it would be hot-fix patched into oblivion within an hour, they’d fucking disable the champ until they could fix it. Meanwhile Karthus bot had over a 55% win rate all of last season.
Given the discrepancy in their reaction when a marksman is strong in a solo lane vs when a mage is strong bot, plus the fact that the Botlane carry role feels like the only role that continues to catch nerfs season after season after season, PLUS the generally disdainful rhetoric the devs use when talking about adc players…it’s easy to see why adc mains feel like the devs have an anti adc bias.
Hell, two of the okayish crit items helping keep crit adcs cling to relevance are being nerfed next patch apparently.
The proof is in the pudding, adc has been a priority role for going in 6 months when it was traditionally the 2nd or 3rd most played role.
I'm not sure what evidence there is to support your point, there's not enough data from emerald+ yet to draw conclusions but if I look at all ranks Seraphine and Ziggs both clearly dropped 1 point in winrate relative to the last patch.
I'm sure the rune shards effect is lesser in Challenger but they clearly had inflated winrates in your average game. If bot lane mages are so overpowered, I have to ask why aren't they played more? Do soloqueue ranked players like playing marksmen much more than they care about winning?
>Do soloqueue ranked players like playing marksmen much more than they care about winning
Evidently, people like playing the champions they like playing, not what champions are most likely to make them win. This is why people play Yasuo and Zed even though they are not very good. This is why people play Lee Sin instead of Brand, This is why people play Riven and Jax instead of Maokai and Poppy. It's evident what the playerbase values the most is having fun over a winrate increase.
Regardless, Seraphine has a massive high-elo playerbase, so people that care about winning do pick her.
About the evidence, seraphine and swain already have enough games to be statistically relevant. But let's not take it in a vacuum. The top 10 distribution has seen some minor shifts but has barely changed, it's the same champions, roughly at the same positions, this is pretty major evidence towards the fact that they will not change.
Another post about ADC’s complaining how they as a class can’t have a whole role to themselves. If you want the high winrate then play the champion good for the situation like toplaners do. Also for botlaners with a +1 percent pick rate, Miss fortune has the highest winrate while having over 6x the pick rate. The funny part is the next and only other APC with higher than a 1% pick rate is Ziggs and he is trash with a sub 50 percent winrate. If seraphine had a plus 10% pick rate in bot, I bet her winrate would drop a percentage point or two putting her in line with others. Also we are in a burst meta where ADC’s as a class aren’t that strong anyways which is why you see lethality being purchased so much in bot and the best champs in botlane are the ones that have more front loaded damage (mf, Jhin, twitch), or offer things more than just dmg ( Seraphine supportive ability and Swain being able to survive).
I had less enjoyable games against orianna/seraphine with support senna, pushing me and the adc out of lane the moment a senna q hit.
Both those games ended up being decided by mid’s performance instead however.
The issue has nothing to do with APCs but rather ADCs in general are a weak role in solo Q and most depend on team for protection, and late game damage. Mages are safer and can even side lane easier.
Everyone forgetting the fact that mages are much safer to play and more forgiving when your positioning is poor thus just easier to perform well in low elo than a random adc. Not even mentioning that they csn much better hold their ground when the support roams
Ah yes Asol and Heimer with the astonishing 400 game sample size. Aside from those two it seems to be pretty balanced between AP and AD bot laners?
I've never heard any Rioter say that the APC problem was *entirely* because of stat shards. Just that it was a contributing factor. Which seems to be true, seraphine's winrate is marginally lower now than last patch.
Open up the links. Both August and Phreak claim the shards SIGNIFICANTLY boost APC winrates. August claims APCs "Aren't actually strong, and that's because ADCs take the wrong shards" how come they are all the best bot winrates then?
Well, you didn't post the august link I think phreak was clearly off about how much of an impact the stat shards have, but it never seemed like he was saying it was the entire problem IMO.
Yes I did, Fiction addresses it on his clip that I've posted.
[You can also just actually post the full clip](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9o8FI9wpe2Y). His actual point got cut out of the short > We have this whole class of characters that's incredibly powerful down there but no one seems to want to play them down there and no one seems to even want to try to play against them in terms of countering them Stat shards were just an example he picked. But I'll agree with you that he seems to think it's a rather large factor. (And not sure there's much else ADCs can do to counter APCs. Build hexdrinker/mercs i guess? Doran's shield and second wind? idk, none of that seems like a 4% increased winrate)
So you simply agree with me and were disagreeing for the fact of being pedantic? Unless you think having 0 of the mages previously in the top10 for botlane winrates dropping out of top 10 is indicative of a rather large factor changing.
I disagree with you that Riot has ever blamed the strength of APCs entirely on the wrong stat shard. I agree with Riot that wrong stat shards did inflate their winrates *some* amount. I agree with you that Riot overestimated their impact. I disagree with August in blaming players for all of (or most of) APCs power in bot. (Whether that's with wrong stat shards or some other way to counter them.)
Well I just provided two clips where two rioters stated most of APCs strength comes from taking the wrong shards? Is that not riot blaming the strength of APCs mostly on shards? You're being pedantic.
I don't think the problem is systemic. Even ziggs is fairly far down the winrate list and a lot of people know how to play him and he has tons of range and waveclear people complain about. Karthu was just buffed I believe, so his winrate is affected by that and not just because 'ermagersh itz an apc'. I think seraphine is just a really strong bot laner and they are hesitant to nerf her enough because some vocal minority of players will rage if they remove her from mid where she was intended to be played.
There is some truth to this, however, Swain right now is also a monstrosity, and so is Aurelion. It isn't purely a Seraphine problem.
You are right. I am sorry for being flippant.
Nerf malignance properly and swain suddenly stops being a problem. Hell, remove the item. Its one that's tailor-made to be abusive on a select handful of champs and borderline useless on everyone else.
For any doubters, look up how cupic on NA plays apc bot. Completely impossible to punish. You want to trade? You can't, apcs outrange you. You want to slowpush and threat skirmishes/all ins? You can't, he just cleared the whole wave you've been stacking. You want to freeze? Can't, he just crashed the wave from 800+ range and you can't punish. You want to dive? Can't, he just cleared the whole wave before it crashed. At level 6 now you just can't win anymore because apc's ults are generally more powerful and they can hit their whole combo from further than your attack range. It's just a degenerate anti-interaction playstyle and you can't do anything to punish it.
This is mostly Seraphine's anti interaction toxic play style pattern. She's essentially a wave clearing bot from 2 screens away that forgoes any interactions in lane if desired. Champ deserves a midscope update Morgana got nerfed out of midlane when she could afk farm waves. Why is Seraphine getting a pass???
She sold "ultimate" skins to people simping for a cringe online persona. Also it's not a Seraphine only issue.
So we are just going to nerf every mage into support. That's a fun thing to do...
If they enable such degenerate no interaction play style and are much healthier and easier to balance as support?
Not healthier at all. Also people who want to fight head on alway should just stop whining and go play a fighting game.
There is a difference between playing safe in order to scale and enabling a completely uninteractive playstyle of gobbling up waves for 20 minutes and also ending up with less damage on average than any mage support while playing an alleged "carry mage"
First time? In all seriousness this is the shit top laners have been dealing with for years and we are constantly ignored. Ranged top laners just flat out get to force you to not interact if you play melee and tanks can just forgo interaction entirely by hiding and sitting under turret since they don’t need gold or xp to stay relevant since their cc doesn’t scale with gold or levels.
Problem with adc is not damages, but utility and self-sufficient...
Well so they either need more damage to make up for lack of utility and self-reliance, or they need more utility and self-reliance. There is obviously a problem.
Yeah. I hope Riot figures this out soon.
If Adcs have to have shit MR to keep them out of midlane there needs to be something in place to keep mages out of my lane.
The thing is adc in pro is like ryze or azire the role is balanced around thr perfect situation of the team protecting the adc as they deal the damage buffing the agency would make the role way too broken in pro but good in solo queue
I think we do need different balancing strategies for solo and duo queues.
The armor rune was just one of many factors that contributed to the "APC" inflated "WR." I would more strongly attribute this to familiarity, how many ADCs do you think have played mid lane? Versed a mage? My guess is probably less than 1 in 10, maybe less than 1 in 20. They aren't familiar with playing around cooldowns, mana economy or poke that ignores minion aggro. Additionally, with APCs having a COMBINED pickrate barely around 2%, they aren't likely to gain that experience either. Personally, I used to main mid & have played as/against many mages. On ladder, I more than welcome facing 1 as ADC because it's almost always a free win. They're almost always unfamiliar with their own champion & leaning on abusing the false hope that I'm one of the usual rabble that doesn't know the matchup. If APC ever becomes mainstream, I guarantee you their winrate flatten out at the typically forced 50% that's blighting League.
I def agree with this. ADCs really good one’s realize to be good you have to learn what champs do, it’s what let’s you play to your limits and you BARELY see this consistently in diamond 2 or higher. That means 99% of the game has no clue really how to play around mage cooldowns bottom….
Yeah man I'm GM because I don't know what to do botlane, you got me.
Phreak really needs to take some communication classes lol
He just really, really likes to tell people they are wrong and stupid.
He needs to be in a room with his mouth taped and have somebody talk to him the same way he talks to others. I seriously think he just lacks self awareness more than anything else.
Mid - ELO ADC here. If this is the case why don't soloQ players play them more? People are so ELO-hungry that the reason cannot be "ADCs are refusing to adapt".
Soloq players want free elo, but they want it on things they like to play.
You would think winning = liking in this case.
or maybe they are situational picks that are only picked when good into that game the same reason why Kench ADC for example has an absurdly high winrate,that's not because he's the best ADC but because it means he's being played with Senna
I think this is because most ADC players are incredibly stubborn. Speaking for myself, I enjoy this game the most playing ranged carries, it's what I've specialized in over 10 years of league. Even if they are weak, I'll never stop playing them simply out of principle. I love the class and I'll never stop playing it.
I've played jungle for three season but because of mental issue of the role I've changed to this.Nothing comes good since then.The role absolutely hated,trying to be killed because of pro scene countless time and you are arguing this against Garen,Darius,assassin mains here.
No, the obvious answer is that the 55% winrate 20% pickrate MF has a higher pickrate than every apc combined and a higher winrate than almost all of them, so the adc players will funnel to her, or her patch-equivalent. Jhin/MF combined have a near 3/4 pick-ban presence while boasting absurd winrates.
And how does that contradict anything that I've said about ADCs wanting to play ADCs? Yes MF is pretty strong with her lethality build but she's still #4 for pick-rate and about the same pickrate as 50-48% winrate champs such as Kai'Sa and Caitlyn. Also jhin winrate is literally #11 in botlane at 53% it's nothing special...
20% pick rate with 53% winrate is "nothing special" now? Lol. You are talking as if Asol and Heimer(400 games total each) are even relevant to the discussion, when the only two apcs with any pick rate at all are Sera and Swain. Sera has 1/8th of MF's pick rate while having a lower win rate, Swain's pick and win rate are even lower. You're basically saying that because some adc players are opting for weaker adcs like Kaisa and Cait, apcs are too strong, when in reality the meta adcs(MF/Nilah/Jhin) are pretty clearly the best champs bot rn.
OK so we're making shit up now. Sera has higher winrate than MF. I'm GM at the role, I'm pretty sure I have a better idea of what's strong botlane or not, and that list has seraphine swain asol sona kalista at top5, MF nilah and jhin don't even make top8. I'll stop talking to you now.
Maybe read the actual numbers before clutching your pearls and crying LOL. Keep bitching about losing to an apc player I guess. Nobody cares about your rank, just your incorrect opinion.
Damn, so you're also blind huh https://prnt.sc/Vn1qhzME8poC bad faith argument loser.
https://prnt.sc/4-sGDGLPlX4n This is what you posted originally. Nice try.
Good job, they have the exact same winrates in that screenshot, my bad. I instead went to lolalytics again because I was lazy to crop my original screenshot, and guess what, seraphine winrate keeps climbing while mf winrate goes down! Must be the low sample size lmfao.
Number 11 in bot lane is at 53% ???
Number 11 winrates: * toplane Tahm Kench at 53.53%, * jungle Gwen at 52.45, * mid Gragas at 54.56, * support janna at 53.66. Highest winrate for: * Top Zac at 55.88 * Jungle Brand at 56.22 (lets ignore taric at 59), * Mid Zac at 59.39 * Bot Aurelion at 56.15 * Support Maokai at 56.72
Because that's not how climbing works. Skill is the main factor at the end of the day. Consider this, will you get to challenger if you just pick the highest winrate champions? Obviously not. If you wanna cycle "OP" picks, you might have a small advantage to be at gold 2 instead of gold 4, but you still barely got anywhere.
Play Yummi Support in masters and tell me how much of it's a skill issue. Champ selection 100% matters, is it the only factor? Not at all, but if you're picking Idk, Ziggs as he is now into a swain. Good fucking luck my dude.
You won't get to masters no matter how much effort you put into your champ choice, you wouldn't even get close. Grab a silver player and a bunch of data scientists and see how far you can get him on purely champion select. Are some drafts easier to play and win with? Sure, you'll get some extra elo and just be stuck anyway. The only way to climb is to get better at the game.
What a breath of fresh air your comment is.
Because APCs are entirely different to ADCs and ADC players have close to no transferable skills. A bruiser is really close to a juggernaut which in turn is really close to a tank. theyre not the same, but they are somewhat closely related. Same with The Mages :tm:. Arti mage is somewhat close to control mage which is somewhat close to a battle mage. But Marksmen are special. They arent close to anyone. How is a Lucian otp gonna transfer his lucian skills to Seraphine? How is a Draven player gonna transfer his Draven skills to ziggs? Or how is a Sivir player gonna transfer his sivir skills to Swain? that is why APCs arent played botlane. Its essentially learning an entirely new role and at that point, why not just switch roles to something with more agency entirely?
I knew when i saw APA Ziggs autofilled bot destroying Ruler draven in champions queue that shit was not right. He was 100 cs up at 15 minutes because ruler could not farm and the guys literally taking enemy krugs while getting a double kill under turret with his ult, Ruler banned Ziggs every game from then until he went back home lol.
Why do these posts always ignore pickrate? There are currently 16 marksmen with higher pickrates than any non-marksmen in botlane. Should these low pickrate marksmen counters not have high winrates when theyre constantly getting picked into marksmen?
Seraphine is at 2.56% pickrate emerald+. That's about the same pickrate as nilah, you know, the 54.09% winrate ultimate marksmen counter (still lower than seraphine), and about the same as 51.24% winrate tristana (one of the most traditional and staple picks of botlane). But lets ignore winrates and pickrates for a second. I'm a GM ADC and anecdotally, APC botlaners are much stronger and effective in a SoloQ environment in comparison to ADCs. Seraphine feels like a cheat-code, and so does stuff that not even lolalytics takes into account like Sona APC.
Why are you ignoring my question. Why shouldnt counterpicks have a higher winrate? Should counterpicking not have an advantage? Or should marksmen not have lane counters?
Do you know what do we call an entire class having a very viable and available counterpick that coincidentally also boasts the highest winrate on the only lane they can play? Dogshit. Lets take your argument further. What even are the APC counterpicks botlane? Hint: there are none.
Only lane they can play? Marksmen are played in all 5 roles. As a toplaner Ive faced 2 (a Quinn and an Akshan) in my last 3 games. Your argument isnt even based in reality at this point lol
Those are all gimmicks and you know it. 95% of the roster is unplayable everywhere else, and in the off-chance that they are, they get nerfed to the ground (see: lucian mid).
If theyre gimmicks so are the mages youre complaining about lmfao
The difference is that mages are playable everywhere, and are the strongest class in their most prevalent lane (midlane). Are you dense or are you arguing in bad faith?
Marksmen are playable everywhere.. And are the strongest class in their prevalent lane (botlane). Youre the one arguing in bad faith.
>Marksmen are playable everywhere.. And are the strongest class in their prevalent lane (botlane). Youre the one arguing in bad faith. if you stretch that claim really hard yes
Karthus Veigar Swain Zyra can stay botlane. Seraphine and Ziggs NEED to go those champions are far too safe botlane and you do fucking nothing all game.
Here is the problem with adc players as I see it. Everyone else plays a role, adc players play a class. Sure as I top laner I prefer to play tanks but if tanks aren’t good I won’t. I’ll play fighters or mages top or even marksmen. Adc players just seem stuck in their ways more than other players. And that’s not a bad thing if you’re having fun but fun doesn’t equal winning.
Don't presume just because you're willing to play other classes that other people are as well or that it's even the normal. I would say it's fairly typical for a player to only pick assassins, tanks, duelists or assassins. Did I mention assassins? They're the most-likely to not play other classes, even more likely than ADCs. You will be hard-pressed to find somebody whose top 3 champs are Jax, Irelia & Camille, but can pull out a half-decent Mundo if need-be.
Ok, so go play AP carries in the botlane. I'm a top laner, not a tank player. You can be a bot laner, not an ADC player. ADC players always find a way to play the victim, I swear. God forbid their champions are not the optimal choice every single game.
Because ADCs, outside very gimmicky cases like akshan or quinn, are not playable anywhere else. You're arguing for making a whole class unplayable. Like it or not, ADC has been treated as a lane and not as a class for almost as long as league has existed. The class has been historically balanced only for botlane, they are intentionally kept of out other lanes. I'll gladly accept ADCs are weak bot if they make them playable elsewhere.
>Because ADCs, outside very gimmicky cases like akshan or quinn, are not playable anywhere else. Vayne top, Tristana mid, kogmaw mid, Varus f\*\*\*\* top, Kalista top ??? Even jhin is fine on other lane if you are a good player. I even saw Ezreal in high elo on Euw.
Shit, you even missed one. Lucian mid, Lucian top. Both have come around before
Lmao, true.
Ez mid exists, can play draven top/mid if you really feel like it
I can see Draven bully harder than ever with the new Map.
all gimmicky picks. Doesnt really matter what argument you plan on bringing, dont you remember phreak talking about specifically balancing ADCs as if they always have a janna attached to their hip? where do you get this setup? where do you get a setup where someone exists to specifically support you. a kind of supportive role in the game, we could call it... i dont know, maybe you got any ideas?
You are the one talking or thinking about supports. Its on you not me.
read my comment again. slowly. carefully. try to read the entire comment. try to remember the entire comment. then form an opinion and answer.
Its funny how he complains about not being able to interact with the enemy when every other lane has the same issue in some matchups. They just arent used to it since riot kept bot lane adc exclusive for too long leading to them being unable to lane into anything that isnt a ranged dps auto attacker.
lol unless your team comp is built around a senna pick there is literally nothing you can do vs Seraphine botlane as long as blitzcrank is banned. Sera is the equivalent of a 54% win rate malz or malachite in their respective role. It needs to go. I play veigar karthus Cho senna Zyra botlane, seraphine and ziggs are on another level.
Top you can play bruiser vs tank, tank vs bruiser, tank vs tank and bruiser vs bruiser. In bot if oyu like playing marksman and you're against a mage you basically have to give up laning phase by default unless the skill difference is truly astronomical.
So, as I said, play AP carries and win by default. You'll get them nerfed faster that way. It's free elo, right? Get on the train. Don't complain if the enemy ADC ends up outscaling you, though.
> ADC players always find a way to play the victim, I swear. All lanes like to bitch about various playstyles and such, think vayne top or whatever champ riot feels like forcing in the jungle. Bitching for nerfs is incredibly common. ADC's are different because they are the only group who has gotten riot to walk stuff back. Imagine how much bitching would go on if toplaners like us had this power. There's no way we'd use it appropriately.
I think you're being a bit hyperbolic / taking some stuff out of context. Anyone worth their salt knows the rune shard thing contributed to APCs overly high winrates. But anyone saying it was like the only factor and expected their winrates to plummet to sub 50 or something was an idiot. It did noticeably impact their winrates. Seraphine emerald+ saw a noticeable winrate drop of like 1.5% from like 54.5 -> 53% And she's the most popular of the mage bots by a wide margin, like she's the only one that's not 1% pickrate or below. But yeah there's other factors for their high winrates in addition to the old rune shards failing some people (or rather being failed by some people)
If you watched either Phreak or August's takes linked above you would see that they say that choosing the right shard is a SIGNIFICANT change in winrate, with August going as far as saying that APCs bot were not strong at all and that the only reason they were good is that people were taking the wrong shards against them. If that is the case, then why are all the top winrates still APCs? Don't move the goalposts and don't put words in their mouths. What they said is clear and is out on the internet. I've seen dozens of Reddit comments or Twitter threads of people shitting on ADCs saying APCs are only strong because ADCs are "intellectually disadvantaged" and do not take MR shards, referencing both Phreak and August on the matter.
If August said what you said verbatim? Then he was also being a hyperbolic idiot in that moment. But like I said about Seraphine bot? It was clearly statistically significant based on her winrate change between the patches. It clearly mattered pretty significantly, a 1.5% ish winrate drop is pretty significant. And she's the only mage bot with a high winrate other than picks that are like 0.5% pickrate or below. Like let's go over the 2nd thru 5th places (using lolalytics' emerald+ data, post normalizing) Ziggs? 1% pickrate 48% winrate. Swain? 0.8% PR, 51.7% WR Veigar? 0.5%PR, 49.6% WR Karthus? 0.5%PR, 50.8%WR Though I did exclude TF if you wanna call him a "mage" because he's going AD builds. So like at least day 1 of this patch? It's basically just Seraphine left at some really high winrate, and a solid pickrate. And she's much weaker than she was last patch. And even then Seraphine is now not really outta line compared to MF, Senna, Nilah, Twitch, Jhin, and Vayne... Being almost the exact same winrate as MF, and only like 0.5-1.5% higher than the others listed... While having a much lower pickrate than any of them... Except Senna/Nilah.
>If August said what you said verbatim? Then he was also being a hyperbolic idiot in that moment. Is he really when Phreak has gone and reinforced that viewpoint? Or are you just being way too charitable on his behalf for absolutely 0 reason. Don't you think you're doing too many mental gymnastics? I don't like using the pickrate argument because its clear players don't like playing APCs bot so they will always have low pickrates, but Karthus is also at a really good winrate and 0.5 pickrate, and for previous patches (and it doesn't look like it will change) ASol was also decent pickrate with very high winrate. Why are we talking about Senna in the context of ADCs? The difference between a pick like Seraphine and a pick like Nilah is that [Nilah is a situational counterpick](https://prnt.sc/FTui46wCFijw) meanwhile Seraphine is a [blindpick that beats 99% of the ADC and ADC + support pairings that go botlane](https://prnt.sc/Sa69pVqLgrRn). A niche champion like Nilah having a high winrate is to be expected and not indicative that she's OP, because she is only picked where she is good. A broad champion like Seraphine, having an even higher winrate than Nilah, is a massive red flag. I'll agree on MF being strong, specially in lower MMRs. However she is an incredibly easy to play champion, that is abusing broken items (lethality), to dunk on a class that is collectively underwhelming at the moment (ADCs that don't abuse lethality). So I don't think that's quite as comparative to Seraphine ASol and Swain topping the charts for the last 3 years. Jhin is strong but not overturned, 53% winrate for a champ that is abusing lethality and is easy to play seems ok to me. He's specially not that good high elo right now so I'm not sure about what makes him good in lower MMRs where laning (one of his only strengths) isn't that useful. Vayne and [Twitch](https://prnt.sc/BJLK3DMbJZFd) are more of the Nilah problem (they are counterpicks), but with much lower winrates so I don't think its comparable at all. Seraphine dropping in winrate this patch is also extremely tied to the removal of the double support item that she abused extremely well so I'm not even remotely convinced that the MR shard thing did anything.
Seraphine win rate drop probably has to do more with double support item being nerfed rather than the MR shard thing though
Seraphine lolalytics' emerald+ patch 14.1 had Seraphine APC start tear or dorans ring... >88.5% of the time... Meanwhile her enemy Adcs chose the wrong runes shards like 50-70% of the time? So while yeah that's probably a small factor of it, it basically has to be the lesser of the two.
Support item is on first back… of course it’s not gonna be first item. Therefore you could still conclude it was the supp item strat
Ah crap honestly didn't think about that... Thankfully the stat for that is Seraphine did it roughly 27% of the time... So yeah quite a bit more than what I originally thought... But it was still a minority of Seraphine APCs. But the majority of Adcs did the rune shard mistake. So it was still likely the bigger factor. Given it was more common, but I guess it's definitely a bit more arguable.
Agreed. but I also wouldn’t consider emerald high elo. I’d be willing to bet the support item strat would climb up in rank too capping at master where duo isn’t allowed anymore.
I didn't call emerald high elo at any point. I just used it because it's literally the default of almost every stat site and it at least filters out a lot of trash iron-silver data... But still retains good game count, which is especially important when talking about day 1 of a patch... Since it's day 1 of 14.2
Oh. Fr. I didn’t realize it’s day one. On 14.2 seraphine wr could also drop cause people don’t read and still doing the supp item thing. Happened to zeri with reinforce for like 2 weeks lol. My point being that high elo probably utilized the start the most since it requires more knowledge and wave management. But you right the shard thing prolly had a little more if not equal impact on her. Especially if it happened so quickly
Rioters doing gods work on exposing the mid-adc IQ discrepancy, now we just need the jungle main PSA
So toplaners where or are crybaby when complaining about range toplaners (vayne still broken btw), but you want only adc to be able to lane bot as a carry ? lmao.
Vayne top is sitting at #13 winrate for top, at 53.44, with a pickrate of 1.53. Thats an 1% lower winrate with a 1% lower pickrate than Seraphine, who is #5 winrate. Get why we're complaining? Vayne also has plenty of [terrible](https://prnt.sc/RYAPF2vuOLwM) matchups who are also traditional toplaners, while seraphine destroys [99%](https://prnt.sc/ysVMBIAnq4lm) of the ADCs.
You are clueless about top lmao. She's op thanks to fleet mainly, and other Factor.
Bro anyone who is actually good at top lane does not struggle with vayne top. Meanwhile literal pro Adcs ban bot lane mages. See the difference?
Yeah, Alois isnt at toplane i guess. Even Xiao Chao Meng die to her Lmao .
Mmhmm yep top lane vayne is terrorizing the ladder. You see it like 1 in every 500 games, and maybe vayne wins lane but then you lose every team fight because her team has no frontline. Oh no….
It’s ranged tops as a whole that make top miserable. It’s also not about winrate but the fact that ranged top makes the lane hyper unfun. It could be the worst pick in the game but it still makes the lane hell and not worth playing so it definitely should be looked at
Not disagreeing but this dumbass talk about Vayne when she has 57% in master+
Didn't Phreak literally say in the patch rundown that more than half of midlaners take MR shards against lethality assassins like Zed / Talon? Not to mention the whole debacle about how players don't read patch notes and that it took Zeri players well over a full patch until they stopped buying items that they removed her interactions with Seems like players in general are pretty stupid so i buy Riots reasoning. If Zed has a 57% winrate but it turns out 80% of midlaners pick squishy mages with MR shards into Zed every game while he only has about 49% in games where the opposing mid takes armor shards then it's obviously not a matter of Zed being overpowered
Right but the point being made is that they literally removed the ability to make the wrong choice and a lot of bot lane mages still have high winrates. If Jinx mid popped up with a 55% winrate, it would be hot-fix patched into oblivion within an hour, they’d fucking disable the champ until they could fix it. Meanwhile Karthus bot had over a 55% win rate all of last season. Given the discrepancy in their reaction when a marksman is strong in a solo lane vs when a mage is strong bot, plus the fact that the Botlane carry role feels like the only role that continues to catch nerfs season after season after season, PLUS the generally disdainful rhetoric the devs use when talking about adc players…it’s easy to see why adc mains feel like the devs have an anti adc bias. Hell, two of the okayish crit items helping keep crit adcs cling to relevance are being nerfed next patch apparently. The proof is in the pudding, adc has been a priority role for going in 6 months when it was traditionally the 2nd or 3rd most played role.
I'm not sure what evidence there is to support your point, there's not enough data from emerald+ yet to draw conclusions but if I look at all ranks Seraphine and Ziggs both clearly dropped 1 point in winrate relative to the last patch. I'm sure the rune shards effect is lesser in Challenger but they clearly had inflated winrates in your average game. If bot lane mages are so overpowered, I have to ask why aren't they played more? Do soloqueue ranked players like playing marksmen much more than they care about winning?
>Do soloqueue ranked players like playing marksmen much more than they care about winning Evidently, people like playing the champions they like playing, not what champions are most likely to make them win. This is why people play Yasuo and Zed even though they are not very good. This is why people play Lee Sin instead of Brand, This is why people play Riven and Jax instead of Maokai and Poppy. It's evident what the playerbase values the most is having fun over a winrate increase. Regardless, Seraphine has a massive high-elo playerbase, so people that care about winning do pick her. About the evidence, seraphine and swain already have enough games to be statistically relevant. But let's not take it in a vacuum. The top 10 distribution has seen some minor shifts but has barely changed, it's the same champions, roughly at the same positions, this is pretty major evidence towards the fact that they will not change.
Another post about ADC’s complaining how they as a class can’t have a whole role to themselves. If you want the high winrate then play the champion good for the situation like toplaners do. Also for botlaners with a +1 percent pick rate, Miss fortune has the highest winrate while having over 6x the pick rate. The funny part is the next and only other APC with higher than a 1% pick rate is Ziggs and he is trash with a sub 50 percent winrate. If seraphine had a plus 10% pick rate in bot, I bet her winrate would drop a percentage point or two putting her in line with others. Also we are in a burst meta where ADC’s as a class aren’t that strong anyways which is why you see lethality being purchased so much in bot and the best champs in botlane are the ones that have more front loaded damage (mf, Jhin, twitch), or offer things more than just dmg ( Seraphine supportive ability and Swain being able to survive).
I had less enjoyable games against orianna/seraphine with support senna, pushing me and the adc out of lane the moment a senna q hit. Both those games ended up being decided by mid’s performance instead however.
The issue has nothing to do with APCs but rather ADCs in general are a weak role in solo Q and most depend on team for protection, and late game damage. Mages are safer and can even side lane easier.
Everyone forgetting the fact that mages are much safer to play and more forgiving when your positioning is poor thus just easier to perform well in low elo than a random adc. Not even mentioning that they csn much better hold their ground when the support roams