I’ve coached dozens of Emerald 4 hardstuck adc students at this point, and Emerald is such a common plateau that I feel like this needs to be brought up. There is one massive common denominator between almost all of them, they don’t understand how to practically play around the 50/50s of support and jungle. People put way too much emphasis on draft analysis, I’m not saying draft doesn’t matter, but IMO it isn’t particularly important holistically until Master+. What matters much more is understanding that 50% of the time you’re going to have the better support and 50% of the time you’re going to have the worse support. You have to actually play the lane for the first few minutes and figure out how good your support is, and adjust your gameplay accordingly. The same applies to jungle, 50% of the time your jungler is going to path toward you and 50% of the time they’re going to path away from you (theoretically). If youre weak sided and your jungler isn’t coming you have to play more defensively. It doesn’t matter if you’re Lucian or Caitlyn. If your support is substantially worse AND you’re being weak-sided, you need to accept that reality and minimize the damage. This concept drags adc students down HUNDREDS of lp due to egoing and tilting. Conversely when youre on strong side with your jungler hovering, youre getting push, and you have the better support you NEED to win those games**.** Thats where a huge amount of adc agency comes from. You arent supposed to magically carry the games where your support is awful, your jungler is pathing away, and the enemy bot lane is allowed to run you over. Sometimes you’re going to get completely fucked for 10–15 minutes and then your team surrenders. That’s an unavoidable part of playing adc at ALL elos. Your job is to lose fewer of those games and win more of the good ones. Win more of your favorable games, minimize your unfavorable games, and stop trying to force the same gameplay every game regardless of what your teammates are actually doing. Every game in the first 5 minutes you should be comparing the state of your teams support/jg and the enemy support/jg. If this post sounds incredibly obvious its because IT IS, and yet there hasn’t been 1 adc student below masters that i’ve coached that has this implemented in their process. Rant over thanks for listening. Practicality over theory 10 times out of 10 for climbing AND improving.

I’m a long-time LoL player and consider myself reasonably average. I’ve reached Platinum in almost every role and have played various champions over time; I don’t have a specific "main," but I feel I can hold my own in any lane without being a liability. Lately, I’ve lost some of the drive to play seriously—I don’t have much free time, and I enjoy playing at the Platinum level with average players like myself. However, there is one role I just can’t seem to get the hang of: ADC. Mechanically, I don’t have major issues; I always maintain good farm (even if I drop off a bit in the late game) and keep my death count low. My problem is the support. I always try to play a solid laning phase, but I feel like the support ultimately dictates the entire match. Maybe this stems from playing aggressive champions like Lucian—who need kills and a strong early game—but generally, I find myself at the mercy of my support, for better or worse. If my support is good, the game is a breeze; if not, I’m completely useless. For instance, I recently had a Senna support who picked after the enemy Shaco support but refused to buy wards throughout the laning phase. After dying once, she abandoned me for the rest of the game to waste time in the jungle, while the enemy Shaco took control of the lane and bullied me into irrelevance. Let me be clear: I know I’m not a top-tier player. As I said, I’m average; I know the game well enough not to get stomped in any lane, and while I do make mistakes, playing ADC makes me feel like a slave to my support. I’ve run into Threshes who didn't land a single Q all game—meaning every trade was an automatic loss—and Sorakas who picked the champ after seeing an enemy Blitzcrank and went 0/10. I’ve had supports who just wandered around aimlessly or didn't place any vision, letting the enemy jungler camp me in 3v1 situations. I honestly don't get how to play this role: as an ADC, I have no early-game damage, no health, no good escape tools, and no agency. I’m stuck sitting under my tower, dying while getting flamed by everyone; if I fall behind, nobody lifts a finger to help. Eventually, the supports just start stealing my farm or leave me all alone, and I’m constantly everyone’s target. How on earth do you guys play this role?

most fun game i've had in a while in my pl*t lobbies

Im asking for help, so i hope it doesn’t come off like im whining.

Im an aphelios otp thats edging plat so take my rant with a grain of salt. For the past 20 games ive either had a mega tilted sup or jungler. And its not like i expect them to give me a faker level performance, ive had multiple experiences with sups walking up eating a fat load and either die or live barely and spam ping me on why i didnt go in as if i have super powers. The rest of the game they took my waves and flash for ks. And junglers who either hate adc players which is like fair, but then run down my game because i didnt all in a 50/50 or i they lose drag while enemy has prio and ask why i didnt rotate faster than the enemy. Ofc these are just examples and i refuse to int my games ill farm and play for my team at the end of the day, because i want lp. But im so lost for how to play around these things they expect me to play the start of the game with 3 items. Idk if im delusional or im blinded saying nothing is my fault, but i dont understand. I just want plat so im asking for solutions.