How to Carry as ADC in League of Legends

How to Climb Quick as ADC

I have played my fair share of AD Carry lately and am trying to improve at it. While I’m nowhere near the same level I am as a Support, my knowledge in the Support role has helped me improve quickly in the AD Carry position, and while my win rate might not be the best, I’m consistently doing well in my games.

In this article, I will discuss multiple tips to help you play and learn the AD Carry role in League of Legends. We’ve written some articles in the past about climbing in this role before, which you can find over on the Mobalytics Blog!

The things in this article might seem extremely basic, but if you use them all and stick to these tips, you will see your win rate and gameplay skyrocket because they are so useful. So make sure to use everything we suggest in this guide!

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1. Change Pick Order

Riot Games has made a lot of good changes to Champions Select, and one of those changes is to adjust the pick order. I recommend avoiding first picking a champion unless they are a safe blind pick or unless the enemy has already picked their AD Carry. This is because you can get hard counted by either the enemy ad carry or the enemy support, which is going to reduce your chances of winning the main.

In Low ELO especially, a good matchup is key, so if you can avoid getting counterpicked, then it is highly beneficial.

2. Learn an AP Champion

The meta in the Bot Lane has been pretty stale for some time, with the same champions being strong as always. Some niche AP champions can be played in this role, and I recommend that you learn at least one.

It’s not hard to learn one of these champions, especially if you play the Mid Lane. But learning how to play one of these is good, just in case the S-Tier picks get picked or banned or your team composition already consists of multiple AD champions.

Good picks right now include Ziggs, Karthus and Swain.

3. Learn the Best Builds

I will keep this one quite short because it’s actually very easy to implement this one. Download the Mobalytics App and import your builds whenever you play a game. This will prevent you from accidentally taking the wrong Rune Page, building the wrong items or panicking and picking something completely different.

At the end of the day, the most popular builds are there for a reason, so you must follow suit and build items that synergize and work well on your champion rather than items you think might be okay.

You can download the Mobalytics App here.

4. Ban Draven

Unless you plan on playing him, which I would advise against if you’re just learning how to play the ADC role is to always ban Draven. Draven is a monster to play against and can be quite hard to handle once he gets ahead.

If you watch any High ELO streamer, they will usually ban Draven because of his early-game dominance and how obnoxious he is to play against. Laning against a Draven can be hard as he can 100 to 0 you.

When learning a new role, it’s best to understand the basics first, and you can make it easier on yourself by banning him. You’ll also not want to quite playing the ADC role once you get killed by him over and over again in lane.

5. Understand the Basics of Wave Management

Wave management is crucial for all lanes, but especially the bottom lane as you may lack resources to clear the minion wave early to force a reset. So it is vital that you understand when to push, when not to push, and how to manage those waves correctly.

Unfortunately, I cannot simplify it without missing out on a lot of details, but we have made an in-depth wave management guide in the past that discusses and breaks down everything you need to know about wave management and how to perform and maintain good wave management.

If you want to learn how to manage waves correctly, make sure you check out our in-depth wave management guide today!

6. Practice Your Farming Skills

If you’re going to play the ADC role, it is crucial that you master and learn how to CS like a pro. So, following on from our previous point about wave management, ensure you know the patterns and how to properly last hit. It is key that you are attacking minions at the right time so they do not die to minions!

A basic tip you might not realise if you’re a beginner is how to kill minions under your tower before you’ve had your first back. To kill melee minions, you need to let the tower hit them twice and then auto-attack them. For the ranged minions, auto-attack them once, let the tower auto them, and then finish them off with another auto-attack.

A good champion to learn how to farm with is Miss Fortune as she is a very easy champion to last hit on.

7. Synergy

You also need to be on the lookout for Synergy when playing the ADC role. If you don’t pick an ADC that works well with the Support that has already been picked, then it’s going to be your fault if the laning phase doesn’t go too well and you two don’t work well together.

For instance, let’s say the Support picks someone who doesn’t play very aggressively: let’s say you’re a Draven player, and the Support picks Soraka. You might not want to pick Draven here, as Soraka lacks kill pressure, and it will be quite hard for you to get kills without help. On the other hand, it’s really easy for you to both die against a duo that synergises well.

While technically every ADC works well with every Support, you’re going to find some champions that work extremely well with one another. It’s best to pick a champion that wants to achieve the same things in the laning phase and can work well with one another to achieve those things.

Final Thoughts

At the end of the day, learning a new role in League of Legends takes time and dedication. Don’t expect to get to the high ranks if you’re a new player, but that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t dream big. Make sure you use everything we discussed in this article to help you climb!

Let us know your thoughts! As always, you can find more interesting content like this over on the Mobalytics Blog.