How to elevate your AD play from 1400 to 2k!

By Spellsy

Introduction
From playing with many low elo ADs, and many high elo ADs, I have found some of the key differences in what truly separates the high elo from the low elo! So, in this powerpoint I will articulate some of the common mistakes which I see lower elo ADs do, that they may not even know is a mistake! As well as look at some of the more advanced techniques that I noticed lower elo ADs dont often use. This isnt supposed to be some secret book which will immediately make you better at the game after reading, but instead, it is something that if you consciously think and analyze your play, you could recognize some situations described, where you would have made an error and now corrected it!

Trading In Lane
Ever get a lane where you seem like you cant even farm because they are chunking you every time you attack a creep? Thats what happens when your opponent knows how to trade well. I believe knowing how and when to setup and execute trades is one of the most important skills in turning a good AD player into a dominant one. So, this section will be dedicated to learning how to trade better. Basics: What is trading? It is when there is a small duel between the ADs and supports, where nobody particularly is going to die, but looking to weaken the opponent.

Trading Cont.
So, I'm going to highlight some tools / skills to make it so you trade better than your opponent!

Commitment: Make sure when you go in for a trade, to commit then back. So, for example, if you go up with Graves, go up (or E), then Q and attack once or twice, then back immediately. Dont get greedy and continue while your stuff is on cd, just chunk and back. This decreases their retaliation window, and your goal is to weaken them, not kill. Snowballin: People continue to play passive and continue to focus on last hitting despite the fact of having a lead. While you obviously want to keep your creep score advantage, if you have an item advantage (a doran or something), make sure to try to force trades as often as your champion allows, but beware of junglers.

Trading Cont.

Controlling The Creeps: This is very important if you are playing an aggressive character. You should try to push the creeps a bit at the beginning to get a faster level 2, then play aggressive from there. Also, it is still important later in the lane as well, force trades when you have big creep waves, vs. avoid them when you have small ones. Coordinate With Your Support: In solo Q many people may think its impossible to coordinate, but if you give a bit of heads up with your intention, most people will follow! This also goes both ways though, if you see your support forcing a trade, go with them!

Trading Cont.

Approach Intelligently: Basically, when you see your creeps getting low, that is the best time to approach, because it forces their carry to decide whether they should retaliate and miss out on the creeps which are about to die, or get chunked and take the cs. Make sure you approach/engage a trade for a reason, not just because you are bored. Be Champion Conscious: Some carrys trade often and quickly (Cait, 1-2 hits every few creeps), while others trade rarely and longer (Sivir, if you hit Q then follow up with chase and W). I will go more into champion specifics in a later slide.

Laning
Next, there are some general laning mistakes which I notice as well. Im going to establish the mistake, and then talk about how to improve it. Dont know when to take or not to take tower.

Taking the tower can make you more accessible to ganks. So, if you are in a game where your lane is the only one winning, you should keep the tower up to try to preserve your lead bottom. However, if you are winning bot and your top laner is also winning and putting a lot of pressure, taking the tower and forcing the jungle into a bad situation where he needs to gank two lanes can also be a good strategy. Lastly, if you are losing the lane and have the chance to take a tower, it is usually a good choice.

Laning Cont.

Knowing when to back and when not to.

One of the first things you learn is that you want to try to back when the lane is pushed so you miss minimal creeps, but there are other common errors I see with backing. Sometimes people will not back when they have less than half hp and no pots, so to compensate they only get about half the creeps for the next few waves. Instead, you should go back and miss 1 or so waves, but get the full amount of the sequential waves (similar with mana). Also, often after getting a fb kill or a kill in lane, people will stay around with low hp as long as possible. It would often times be better to go back, buy your items, and snowball the lane as much as you can even if you miss a wave while you are b.

Laning Cont.

Take the victory, dont succumb to greed!

Often times when a bot lane attempts to kill, but they flash/heal and get away with low hp, just take the victory. Instead of chasing and possibly dying to a gank or a tower dive, let them back and push their wave in. The free creeps you get and the creeps they miss are almost worth the kill. Many people when they get behind get into this mentality where they think they are further behind than they really are, and throw the lane even more. When people get ahead they sometimes get over-aggressive, take advantage of this and try to force them into bad trades, dont just bend over and avoid everything and get minimal farm. This usually turns out with you being useless mid game. An example is, lets say you are graves, when someone comes up to harass you, rather than Eing back immediately, throw your q and w then retreat.

Dealing when you are behind.

Laning - Cont.

Pressure the AD when they are last hitting at tower!

One very powerful thing that you see very often in high elo games, is when bot lane gets pushed to the tower, they dont just get free cs. Instead, you always see the ADs poking and spamming the support/AD as they try to CS vs the tower. This is really effective when they are last hitting the ranged creeps (as it will usually let you get close enough to hit them). Also, make sure you are looking at the tower attack timing, you can often sneak in a hit and then back off quickly if the tower had just launched its projectile at a creep, and avoid taking any tower dmg!

Laning by champion
Although all this general advice is good, it is important to understand the basic playstyle of each specific champ as well. So, this will go through most of the popular AD carries and look at general playstyle. Ashe You can play offensive or very defensive, poking and chunking with her W and her high attack range; or, playing passive and farming from afar with her W Caitlyn Play very aggressive, attacking every time they go for a creep, and abusing your Q as much as possible Corki Is versatile, but the main thing in lane is to poke with q/r and then when they get low w onto them and burst. Ezreal Similar to corki, you can trade with Ezs q and force engagement with e. Secret lane tactic when creeps approach, sit in bush and ult the champs, then e onto them and you will start the engagement with them at half hp!

Laning by champion cont.

Graves Can play very aggressive early levels against a weak carry, otherwise, farm till 5-7 then unleash wrath KogMaw Plays pretty passive, farm for late game; however, at 6-7 you can trade well with W&R if you catch their AD out of position. Miss Fortune Force a lot of trades, she trades the best out of any AD carry early game (1-5), and still great later (5-9) Sivir Sneak trader, because of her low range she cant trade often, but with her Q and W damage, she owns trades look for opportunities, but dont force it.

Laning by champion cont.

Trist farm farm farm then coordinate with support and burst (even as early as level 2). Not great at trading until over-itemed. Urgot try to combo with your support to land Es and then Qs, else, be aggressive at around 5-7. Great for setting up ganks as well ask your jungler to come for a lane gank then swap. Varus great at trading mid levels (3-7), auto attack twice with your w, then pop your e for easy ownage trades. Vayne play defensive and try to farm up, but she does very very well with ganks, as she has very high dmg if she can not die.

Teamfighting
Now I am going to look at some common teamfighting mistakes, and how to improve your teamfighting execution! A lot of times when an AD carry gets chased by a bruiser, they just run directly back.

While nobody expects you to tank the bruiser 1v1, you shouldnt just run away either that turns your dps to 0 and separates you further from the people who can protect you. Try to attack move back or at least just toss your spells out at them.

Many times AD carrys will sit on the same target even as they run away to get the final blow.

This is bad as you are not expected to get all the kills in teamfights, you arnt burst dps, you are sustained dps. You should not be afraid to switch targets, and just do as much damage as you can in the teamfight let the bruisers and AP carrys chase down the runners, as they usually have decent finishing abilities.

Teamfighting Cont.

Let your front line protect you, but also protect them.

Sometimes AD carries leave their front liners to go 1v1 someone on a different side, or outside the team battle. Even if they CAN 1v1 that person, and it is successful, it is most of the time better to stay with your frontline (obviously not next to them, but behind them), so you can protect them with the threat of your dps, and they can protect you with their tankyness/cc.

Item Building
Next, I will talk about some common item building mistakes. For reference, heres the Standard Build:

Doran start over Boots 3 health pots.

Item Building Cont.

Sometimes, when people are ahead they go back and skip dorans.

While it is tempting to go buy a bf sword on your first backing, getting dorans and beserker greaves over bf sword are more offensive early game items, and allow you to snowball the lane harder. Almost always (except on Vayne) is bloodthirster a bad choice for first big item. Bloodthirster is only good to give more survivability to tank bruisers in a teamfight; however, no AD except for Vayne can really use that, more damage through Inf. Edge is almost always better. Bloodthirster could be good to go instead of Last Whisperer if they have no armor though.

People buying Bloodthirster over Inf. Edge

Runes
For Runes, there are sometimes when there are people who seem to have sub-optimal pages. However, overall, if you have a reason to use a page (something like lifesteal quints, or mana regen blues, or such) they are many viable options. Just to highlight a Standard Set though, would be: Flat AD Marks, Armor Seals, MR/Level Glyphs, and Flat AD Quints Armor Pen Runes: These are viable sometimes if you want to be particularly offensive; however, for general AD pages, AD runes allow for better last hits AND more dmg which outweighs them. Rune Traps: One trap is armor penn Quints. If you are deciding between running armor pen on quints or marks (and running flat AD on the other), ArP Marks and AD quints is the most efficient.

Masteries
Masteries overall I do not see many mistakes in (or at least significant ones), but they are worth outlining. 21/9/0 vs 21/0/9

The defense page is better for going a more burst oriented build, as it provides more defense which in turn means more offense! The utility page is best for a more trade oriented build on some of the mana intensive AD carrys (corki, urgot, etc.), giving you the mana regen to use spells more often.

Summoner Spells
The last, and maybe most common, mistake I see is in summoner spells (specifically heal) The Heal Trap: Since heal has been nerfed so many times, it is NOT the go-to spell. It worth it if you will never use ignite or cleanse and dont need ghost, for example on ashe vs a low cc team, you wont typically be in close enough range to use ignite, and theres no reason to take cleanse, so it would be appropriate to get heal; however, even then it may be better to get ghost if you're running a kite heavy team. But on your typical AD carries (corki, graves, varus, ezreal, sivir, etc.) getting heal is not good, ignite really outshines it.