LoL Bottom Lane Dynamics Guide

LoL Bottom Lane Dynamics Guide by Declined

If improving was easy, bronze would be deserted.

I am creating this guide to help you understand the dynamics of bot lane while adding some extra basic game knowledge to help prevent and understand critical blunders.

This guide is created for anyone who wishes to improve, but already know the basic terms used, if you have trouble understanding some of those terms, there is a lovely compendium linked at the bottom by “The All Tomato”

Contents

I. What is bot lane?
II. Priorities
III. Mentality
IV. Mechanics
V. Partnership
VI. Winning your lane
VII. Lane types
VIII. Wave manipulation and wave placement.
IX. Stay or go?
X. Items
XI. Positioning
XII. Play styles
XIII. Miscellaneous
XIV. Useful links
XV. Final comments

The current meta of bottom lane is considered a duo lane, consisting of a marksman and a support, in rare cases someone decides to break the meta by sending down 2 champions with incredible synergy, in order to pull off amazing and stupefying plays.
A Thresh/Blitz combo is a good example, due to their exceedingly long range pulls.
However by sacrificing the marksman spot on the team, they will have a much larger problem pushing towers as well as dealing as much damage in team fights.

II. Priorites

1. Survival first and foremost you can’t do anything if you’re dead.
2. CS 2nd. (You can do whatever you want in between last hitting)
3. Winning the lane third.
4. As a support protect your adc, even from themselves, never forget that.
5. Objectives (proper warding can show you incoming ganks as well as provide cover both to deny and secure objectives)
6. Kills (that’s right objectives is more important than kills, getting kills gives you a tactical advantage, use it, WITHOUT endangering yourself)

Inhib » FREE towers »Baron » Dragon » towers » buffs
Inhibs and baron are game changing objectives, getting towers is always nice but not essential, they are not moving anywhere, so prioritize dragon.
Just remember, none of those objectives are achievable without proper warding, or scoring an Ace.

III. Mentality

Attitude, mental state, irritation, joy, sadness, all factors that can win or lose you the game.

A) Interactions
– Your attitude will affect how you play as well as how you interact.
If you go into a match while angry, any little thing can set you off, and you will start to rage instead of focusing on the match.
– Asking ‘why’ is almost always seen as an attack against someone, be it skill, knowledge or decisions, forcing them to focus on defending themselves rather than winning the game, it is a vicious cycle that can start simply with the word ‘why’.
– If you want people to listen, be courteous, and try to explain why they should do something, instead of demanding that they do it.

B) State of mind
– Don’t panic !!!!
Sometimes when threatened people forget everything and start running, that will get you killed.
– Stay calm in fights and focus on kiting and keeping yourself alive, you can’t do anything if you’re dead.
– Be nice to your support, he/she is there to contribute to the team, not to babysit you.
– As a support, remind your adc to applaud you, for saving them, they shouldn’t just take you for granted.

C) Agitation and physical state.
Don’t play if you aren’t feeling at your best, I cannot stress this enough.
If you need to pee, you’re hungry, your dog just died, don’t play, take some time off and find yourself. If you do decide to play, at least listen to some music that helps you either relax or focus.

D) Playful banter
We all have our bad days, and it won’t take much to set you off when you’re feeling bad about something, so try to have fun in games.

The difference between hammering your keyboard, and clicking the right keys at the right moment.

– Attack move, is usually set to the A key, it can be a life saver, as it will move you towards the location, but stop to attack the closest target in range, this can be used to prevent people from kiting you, in and out of bushes (among other things)
If you go to key binding you can find the “Player Attack Move Click” it is essentially the smart cast version of attack move.

– Stop
The stop command, is used to stop and prevent you from taking any action.
Good to help you dodge and control minute movements in fights or the laning phase, also very useful when hiding in bushes, so you do not accidentally reveal yourself.

– Champion mechanics are very different depending on the type of champion you play. **♥♦♣♠
Certain champs have steroids (Draven, Twitch, MF, Tristana) others act more like ad casters (Lucian, Corki, Ez, Graves), the details aren’t important, the point is you understand how they are played, their combo’s and their limits once you do that, you can effectively trade blows.
If you time certain abilities you can get off more skills/attacks at the same time, like a Leona killing a regular ward when placed,simply by timing her Q.
Or a blitz saving his ult just long enough to get off a lightning Arc (the passive from the ulti), before activating it.

– Kiting
Simply put, kiting is a hit ‘n run technique used as a means to do damage while avoiding retribution.
Most commonly used techniques include:

• Using high range attacks and mobility to move in range to harass, and out of range to avoid retribution, Caitlyn is well designed for this behavior.
• Attacking and going into a bush to break line of sight.
• Use slows, snares and roots to prevent enemy heroes from walking up to you.
• Walk in and out of their range, while timing so your opponent is busy doing something else (usually last hitting).
• Certain champions have movement displacing abilities, such as Vayne’s tumble or Ezreals jump, even flash.
• Using minions as roadblocks in order to buy yourself time and room to maneuver.
• Backwards kiting simply moving backwards while throwing abilities/spells while your opponent(s) chase you, very usefull in large teamfights, as it can prevent some of their heroes from even reaching the fight as it is continuously moving away and staying out of their range.
• To have someone peel for you, which is my next subject.

– Peeling
The act of ‘peeling’ away the threats for another champion.

• Any form of CC should help achieve this goal.
• Heals and shields are usefull at lessening the pressure on the adc.
• Buddy blocking, the act of intercepting skillshots on behalf of the champion, exactly like taking a Caitlyn ult, or walking in front of your adc who is about to be hit by Nidalees spear.
• Knockbacks and pulls are very usefull if used correctly, you do not want to place a Fizz right next to your adc, but rather to keep him at a reasonable distance.
• There are a couple of useful champion items, Mikaels Crucible, 3 support gold items, but it is more important how you use those items, than using them because you panic.

V. Partnership

Bottom lane is not just about playing adc let’s not forget there is also a support,which means that you have to rely on each other, it is a 2v2 lane not Rambo + 1 vs 2.

Trust each other, if one of you decides to go in and pull of a play, it is usually better to follow rather than hanging him/her out to dry.
If you follow, there is a chance of doing something, if not, one of you is more likely to die within the next 20 sec.
In short, if your partner is in trouble, you have to decide, can you save him/her? Yes or no, there is no time for half assed decisions.
When they make something happen follow up on it, but remember not to go all in right off the bat, make something happen, win the encounter and then back off, don’t be suicidal or reckless.

VI. Winning your lane

There are a couple of ways to win your lane that isn’t focused solely on killing your opponent.

1. CS: To out farm your opponent by a significant amount.
Being better at Last hitting is one way, it can also be done by zoning your opponent away from the farm, and freezing the lane far away from their tower.(*Check one of the links)

2. Sustain/attrition: Be mindful of your health, and your mana at all times, as well as their health, not to mention your supports health and mana.
Contrary to popular belief, if you or your support runs out of mana, going in unless you have your jungler incoming ready for a gank, is ill advised.

3. Poke/burst: Don’t go all in, trade some blows with them, and be sure to come up on top, you should know that burst counters sustain.
The best time to trade is when their support is out of position and won’t be able to backup their adc, while your support is there to help you trade. 2v1 always has a better chance than 2v2.

4. Ganks: When you have a gank incoming, it is your job as a laner to present the most advantageous situation, so if they come from the lane, make sure they have an easy time sneaking into the bush, or try to draw your opponent out (bait usually work).
Try not to scare them off before your jungler is in position.
It is the junglers job to get as close to them before your opponents realize it, and preferably be well positioned when they do, in order to secure kills.

5. XP: Although it is rare to see, you can actually win by cs and xp alone, by forcing them out of lane, and freezing the wave far far away from their tower, giving you easy farm/xp, while they get nothing.
This is a crucial thing to do in a 2v1 lane, because if your opponent reaches level 6 before you, he will have an advantage.

6. Breakpoints and items: Reaching a breakpoint faster than your opponents, usually level 2, 6 should be your que to go in for a crucial early trade/kill.
If your opponents overstay in lane while low on health/mana and having vastly inferior items is also a dead giveaway, that they’ve made a critical mistake, giving you a chance to either kill them, or force them out of lane.

VII. Lane types

Here are some ways that focus on the lane and how to play in it.

You can categorize bot lane into 3 main types, burst, poke and Sustain.
– Burst lane. (Very risky)
Great at all ins, usually determined by the support, Thresh, Blitz, Leona.
They have a huge kill potential at level 2, so always rush for level if possible.
Certain champions have huge powerspikes at level 6, and with that, they can turn from a poke to burst lane (Annie), essentially bursting down opponents before they can react.

– Poke lane. (Medium risk, but is a skill match up.)
Great for harassing, like throwing Nida spears all day long, this is not about nuking or bursting, auto attacks work just fine, as long as you do it consistently.
Harass at every chance you get, when they are low, you either go in for the kill, or scare them off for some free farm/xp.

– Sustain lane. (Safe and monotone/boring)
Focused around managing mana and maintaining health, usual champions are Soraka, Sona and Taric, however champions without heals but Runic shield and the summoner spell Heal is also a viable choice if played correctly.
Great for trading when being poked since you can sustain out of the things they throw at you, winning by attrition.
Can turn into an endless farm fest.

Each of them are played with a different tactic, and risk.

○ Quick lane type counters

• Burst lane – Poke down their adc to such an extent, that it is too dangerous for their support initiate a play.
  Push for level 2, and keep on pushing to get the level advantage and the minion wave advantage to help, should they decide to engage on you.
• Poke lane – this is mostly a skill match up try to avoid early poke. When/if they wish to trade, don’t be afraid to either go in, or back off completely, do NOT let them poke you for free.
• Sustain lane – Burst counters sustain, the longer you spend trying to force them low, the more difficult it becomes since you cannot hope to out last them.
  With a LOT of poke it is possible to force their support to run out of mana, but it usually takes too long to be an effective tactic.
• Utility – Depending on what you’re up against you can counter most of it through positioning alone. Such as skillshots, (blitz or thresh grab) positioning abilities, and AoE spells with some form of utility incorporated, Zyra’s ult, Janna’s whirlwind, Nami’s tidal wave. More of this in the Positioning paragraph.

– ►Peeling◄
This is not a lane type per say, but to choose champions who are tailored to protect their partner, through some forms of cc.
Janna, Nami, Morgana, Braum and Lulu being some of the most obvious choices however depending on how you play, other less obvious champions can also be used, such as Ziggs, Thresh, Zilean, Kayle, Alistair.
Make sure to use the tools available to you at the right time and place, in order to pull off some incredible plays.
However, if you panic and use the spells too early, they may be on cd when you truly need them.
List: Heal, slow, root, knockback, knockup, extra health (Lulu ult), shields (Morgana and Braum), as/ms boost, AoE zoning and so forth.

– ►Kill Lane◄
When choosing 2 champions whose abilities compliment or prolong one another, to the point where they can kill someone if they make only 1 mistake, also makes great lane bullies.
Riven/Rene is a double stun combo if they manage to get close to you.
Lux/Morgana is a double snare/aoe combo.
With a bit of teamwork you can let the apc go bot if the support has the tools to setup their opponents for an easy combo first, and let the adc go mid.

VIII. Wave manipulation and ward placement

Pushing your lane compared to playing defensive.

At level 1, 3 caster minions deals the same damage as an adc.
If you can get your minions to help, you should have the advantage, and the bigger the wave the better your chances will be, this is called ‘utilizing the wave‘.
If you can build up a large enough minion wave, you can dictate the engages in lane through the use of ‘wave momentum’.

Pushing pros:
– You can deny your opponent farm if you manage to push to their tower
– Good meat shield against skill shots.
– better trading potential.
– You remove their meat shield granting you an easy chance to poke/harass.
– Due to ‘wave momentum’ if you are able to create a large enough wave, you can dictate the engages.
Pushing cons:
– It requires good warding.
– Risky to be so far away from your tower, which leaves you prone to ganks.
– Getting ganks from your own jungler isn’t likely.
– You have to push all the way to their tower, if you do not, they get free farm.

A) ward placement
To prevent ganks you would want to ward the entrances to the lane, meaning the lane bush, riverbush/Dragon and the tribush.
As a rule of thumb, if their jungler is able to jump walls, you ward the river bush instead of the Dragon.
With only a few wards it is possible to keep the lane secure throughout the laning phase.
However depending on your opponents playstyle, you may want a few extra wards to prevent them from walking into the bushes and zoning or harassing you uncontested.

Defensive pros:
– It is very safe, you can essentially hug the tower, and hold them off tower diving.
– Their jungler will have a low risk of succeeding unless they’re exceedingly tanky, and you are low on health.
– Farm fest
– Good chance of surviving or escaping ganks.
– if you can manage to freeze the wave just outside of your towers range you will have free farm.
Defensive cons:
– Bad against poking comps, since you have little room to dodge, and not a lot of minions to hide behind.
– If they decide to tower dive, not much will deter them. (Good bait if you have ‘Heal’ ready)
– If you recall the tower will take a beating
– The tower will take some cs if you aren’t careful.
– If their minion wave grow too big you will be in big trouble.

B) Minion and tower Aggro
When being pushed close to your tower, you need to understand how towers work to have a better chance at increasing your cs, while under the tower. How minion aggro works, if you wish to harass, while being pushed by a huge minion wave.

Towers will attack the first target in range, and then prioritize
– *CHAMPIONS WHO HARASS YOU*
– Pets
– Seige minions
– Minions
– Whatever is left

When sieging towers, you will draw aggro whenever you attack an enemy champion who is inside of the towers range, so if they move too far away from their tower, you can actually attack them without drawing aggro, once you’ve drawn aggro it can only be lost by leaving the towers range, or becoming untargetable.

Minions
This same trick applies to enemy minions, as long as they have something else to prioritize first, they will ignore you even though you walk right past them.
So if you manage to bully your enemies far enough away from their minions before using auto attacks, you will not draw unnecessary minion aggro.

However do notice that you will only draw aggro from minions when you auto attack a nearby enemy champion, compared to towers where any form of damage matters.

Freezing the lane
To manipulate the minions to fight in the same place, again and again, and again.
The easiest way to do it, is simply to ensure that their wave is at least 3 caster minions (roughly) bigger than yours at all times. When there are no more friendly minions you step in and act as a punching bag, until your minions show up again.

The slow push
During mid/late game where towers are scarcer and far between, you can build up huge minions waves as they have more room to be built up slowly.
To do that, you need to wait for the wave to be close to your base, then you kill off all the caster minions, if it is a cannon wave, you need to leave the cannon minion, that way, and then leave, that way the wave will build it self up slowly but surely, so that they will have to send someone to deal with it, forcing a situation where they will have to fight you 4v5 or risk losing a tower to the huge wave.

From reset to frozen
Without being interrupted, it is possible to force an equal lane to become frozen.
To do this, you need to tank their minions for about half a second before the waves collide, so that their minions will have a chance to group more tightly and will focus 1 minion, rather than spread out their attacks, like they normally do.
You still need to last hit, but you should wait until the very last moment before you do, that way you won’t be affecting the wave enough, to not fall in your favor.

IX. Stay or go?

When to recall, gank mid, or leave someone to defend the tower.

By vigorously pushing the lane, you can ‘buy’ yourself time enough to leave the lane, and pursue other goals.

Recalling
As long as there is something to do in lane, without taking a risk, you should stay, this includes killing their tower, securing cs, or even setting up a kill.

Things to look out for:
– Items arms race (breakpoints) if your opponent has bf sword and you only have a Dorans blade because you ‘forgot’ to recall.
– Mana, neither you nor your partner is very useful without mana.
– Health, same thing unless you want to try and bait your opponents into towerdiving, even if your jungler is incomming, it is best to let him hold the tower while you recall.
– Incoming ganks, can you survive with the towers help yes or no, a conscious decision to abandon the tower, in favor of surviving.

Rotating mid to gank
First of all you can’t gank without having reliable cc, because of this, very few ad carries are able to gank mid on their own, even some supports (Soraka) are horrible and should not be attempted.

You can rotate mid to gank, only when your lane partner is relatively safe, the lane is pushed, and you have sufficient health/mana to not be a burden.

One of the most obvious occasions to do this, is when you destroy their tower, let the adc push 1 more wave if need be, thereby securing the lane from being overwhelmed, and giving you enough time to rotate mid for a nice unexpected gank.

Few supports can hold a lane on their own for long, as this requires certain pushing potential, and cc, while a few number of ad carries without built in escapes are also at high risk when being left alone, the more cc or burst your opponents have, the more dangerous it is for your partner to be alone in lane, so no time for idling around if you wish to rotate mid to gank.

X. Items

○ Breakpoints
Simply put, gold is only worth as much as your build.
Full items work far better at scaling off each other, than half finished items (except zeal, zeal is awesome after the 4.10 update).

A break point is when a a champion build an items which scales incredibly well with his kit, or off other items, like an infinity edge + zeal, or bt + lw, reaching these breakpoints is a huge step in a champions potential and is a great advantage, an advantage you should seize but never overextend, or greed will get the better of you.

○ Items ADC
Never use a generic build, always consider the team composition you’re up against, for instance boots of swiftness is very viable when up against a Nasus and Nunu, against a heavy ad comp you get more out of buying Randuins Omen than you do GA (Guardian Angel), or with a heavy ap comp a Spirit Visage can keep you alive as long as you keep kiting and attacking.
If you’re uncertain of what to do/buy, I recommend always getting AD as a 1st big item, VERY few marksmen’ abilities are tied with to attack speed, Vayne is one of them, making BotRK (Blade of the Ruined King) more appealing on her, because of to the attack speed, compared to the higher raw attack damage Bloodthirster.
– Version 4.10:
With the changes to dorans, you can go to straight to IE (infinity edge) with 1 doran and lifesteal quints.
Zeal is now more cost efficient to buy, making it a viable 2nd item instead of going straight to Phantom Dancer.

○ Items support
When the round begins you have 3 options for gold items, these 3 items define your lane type for the next 20 minutes. (more of that further down)
For the record, the first item tier is horrible, upgrade ASAP to tier 2.

– Ancient Coin: recieves a ++sustain, only a +poke and although it can be used in burstlanes, you don’t have the burst to kill them quickly, or the health to survive any extended fights, you will however have a fall back pattern to rely on, making it better for trades rather than all out fights.

– Relic Shield: recieves a ++burst lane potential, a ++1 sustain and an appauling –poke, since you will run out of mana almost immediately if you try.

– Spellthief: Absolutely amazing +++poke, not designed for a sustain lane if you want the active gold income as well, and not enough extra damage to justify calling it a burst lane, also has the highest gold income if used correctly, good active mid/late game for utility.

Think long and hard before you decide for a build path, and what you hope to achieve, utility (cooldown), shields, item buffs, back lane mage (burst), auras and so on, whatever you choose, it has to compliment the team somehow.

Unorthodox example:

This is to show you how a skillset can compliment a build for a specific role, in this case, someone mobile enough to be a nuisance or lock down opponents, while being tanky enough to survive it, and having the items needed to protect the adc at all times.
In short: A beefy, utility based protector.
Jarvan IV, with the summoner spell Heal and Flash (no surprise there)
– Face of the Mountain (Item mostly used in burst lanes, horrible if you wish to play poke lane)
– Mikaels Crucible (We now have 2 focused heals + 1 if you count FotM as well)
– Sightstone (No need for explanation)
– Locket of the Iron Solari (Yet another item designed for shielding)
– Randuins Omen (AoE slow can make a huge difference if timed correctly)
– Boots (Can be substituted, I would recommend black cleaver for the armor debuff it grants, depending on the teamcomp.)

XI. Positioning

Positioning is roughly translated into decision making based off game knowledge, threat assessment, optimal approach or escape.

• Zones of Control:
  The area of which, it is dangerous for you to be in, against skillshot based champions, it is usually anywhere that is within their range, without anything blocking, such as minions.
  Blitz is a perfect example, if he is hovering around the sides, he is waiting for you to be out of position and within his grab range.
  Because of this, a Blitzcrank can walk up and scare you out of the lane, that is called zoning.
• Danger zone:
  In terms of Melee champions, the closer you come to them, the more dangerous they become, Riven is a great example of this, the longer away from her you are, the less skills she has at her disposal.
  Mages or adc on the other hand, are pretty comfortable at attack range, as it can be hard for them to aim, if you are too close and ready to dodge.
• Bushes:
  Think of bushes and vision as a tool, to help kite, or sneak up on your opponents with, and remember to place wards in the bushes if your opponent likes to hide in them.
  That goes for their team as well, you will feel so stupid if you walk past a bush, and 15 sec later they emerge to kill you, after you’re too far away from your tower.
• Walls:
  Try to avoid standing too close to the walls when in lane, because there is one less way to dodge skillshots, short of flashing.
• Skillshots:
  The art of aiming abilities, most skillshots go in a straight line from the user, however some are circular, or even go across.
  Some skillshots like Jinx’ Chompers are about preemptively securing your own, or preventing their escape, and by placing them close to a wall, you increase the effectiveness of that ability.
  So the more you move around the harder it will be for them to hit you, keep moving, only stop to attack.
  They are often also negated by minions, so use them as a ‘living’ shield.
• Targeted skills:
  These are a pain to deal with, luckily the damage you receive from them is usually lesser than that of a skillshot, and there is a slight delay giving you a chance to react, in case of Taric’s stun, if you have jump, use it! (Tristana)
  That way you will not be in a position for them to follow up on it.
• Timing and cooldowns:
  Timing can be the difference between a successful trade, or a disastrous one.
  Champions with abilities need to engage, like Blitz/Thresh hook or Leona’s jump are extremely vulnerable for a short period of time while that ability is on cd, be sure to punish them for it.
• Impact of warding
  With the changes to ‘Spirit of the Ancient Golem’ certain junglers are now able to solo the Dragon extremely early, which may require more wards.
• Ganking:
  The best time to gank is always when your opponent is overextended or have just used their escape ability for something, and it is therefore on cd.
  Walk up behind them, and when they try to escape, you should lead them, rather than follow, that way you can get in more attacks, abilities, and you may even scare them into running away from their tower.
• Pushing:
  The closer you come to their base, the faster their champions can close in on you, making it crucial to have proper warding, map awareness and either have backup ready (for a trap) or be ready to flee before placing yourself in danger.
• Stand Your Ground
  When you know there isn’t a single chance of escape, and you will die if you try to run, your best option is to fight to survive (or die for something), most champions have initiation abilities or spells they prefer to start with, if you can dodge those, you have a chance to turn it around.
  Move unexpectedly, dodge, kite, kill.
  If you’re being surrounded, rush in to force a fight while they’re still too far away to help, so you only have to fight them individually instead of as a group.
• Chess/tactics
  Have you ever watched the LCS? Those games are not just about who the best players are, it is just as much about tactics, trading dragons for towers, ulting minions to save a tower, or buy time, put pressure on a part of the map while your team is off securing objectives.
  Even sacrificing a player on your team to occupy your opponents long enough for the rest of your team to be useful elsewhere.
  Their jungler can’t secure Dragon if he is busy in top lane or dead, which is why having vision of your enemy jungler will allow you to counter gank, negate ganks, steal his farm, or even invade at just the right moment.

XII. Play styles

Playstyles determine every interaction you have with an opposing champion, and is therefore a subject well outside of bottom lane.
There are 3 playstyles, aggressive, passive and bait.
With any bit of observation, you can tell if your opponents suddenly changes to an aggressive playstyle, it usually means, that they have a gank incoming or they reached a breakpoint faster than you (level 6).
With this knowledge, and if your opponents understand it, you can bluff, bait or even escape ganks before they can react.
Professional players are able to change play style several times in a single fight making it exponentially harder to fight them.

• Aggressive
  When you actively seek confrontations, to a larger or lesser degree, just show them who the boss is.
  Unfortunately you can get tunnel vision* which is very bad for you.
• Passive
  Trying to avoid confrontations as best as possible, even letting you get zoned if it means you’ll stay safe.
• Bait
  The art of making your opponent do stupid things (greed is strong), like chasing a Blitzcrank close to their tower, forgetting to hide behind minions, giving him an easy grab.
  Having shields or heals is a great way to appear weaker than you actually are.
  Obviously playing bait isn’t always without risk, so be confident in your ability, and know what you’re doing.

XIII. Miscellaneous

A) Runes
Marks/Red is focused mainly on offensive capabilities, Seals/Yellow is about health/defensive capability, while glyphs/blue is utility/magic and Quints/purple are all around.
I am by no means an expert in this area, but I try to follow some simply guidelines, and work my way out, if I require something more specialized.

○ ADC:
There is no generic page I can give you, sorry:
Red, the reason most pros take 8 ad red, and 1 crit red, is because that extra crit can make a world of a difference, while that one extra ad won’t matter much at all.
Yellow, On adc mains you often see a combination of armor and health.
Blue, I highly recommend mr or mr/lvl, however with the current meta, a lot of people choose either AD or AS as a means to win early game, and hope their team can protect them late game.
Purple, having 1, 2 or even 3 LS (lifesteal) runes are a must have in order to trade, and not lose the lane due to attrition.

Please do remember that some champions also benefit greatly from attack speed, and modifications for an optimal build is required.

○ Support:
3 main types of support, with subgroups as well, think about how you wish to play your lane, and the lane type, a poke lane won’t require as many defensive runes, if you know how to kite and kite well, where as a burst lane, would like to either burst down their opponents or to be beefy enough to not get squashed at the first encounter.

Red:
Poke – Magic pen/hybrid pen
Sustain – AP or armor
Burst – Armor

Yellow:
Armor/health/Mana regen

Blue:
Mr/Mana regen/CD

Purple:
Choose whatever compliment the goal you wish to achieve.

B) Masteries
– ADC masteries are pretty straightforward, in the offense tree pick everything in the 2nd column, and depending on whether you are playing an AD caster rather than an adc, I would recommend points in ‘spell weaving’ and ‘blade weaving’, foregoing ‘Butcher’ and ‘Frenzy’.

– Support is a far larger subject, yet again I must ask you to consider the play style and lane type you wish to portrait.
Roughly speaking a burst lane requires 21 points in either the offensive or defensive tree, this will help you to either win through ‘burst’ or win through not dying.

Take Blitzcrank, a lot of people decide to go somewhat AP with him, since his grabs will hurt more, giving you a better chance to burst someone down, where as a heavy plated Blitz will grab, smack you in the face and let you flash out.

C) Summoner spells
Viable options for the ADC includes, Flash, Heal, Barrier, Cleanse and Exhaust.
The first 4 makes sense, but why Exhaust?
The thing is, Exhaust unlike heal, negates a large portion of the damage for a few seconds, these few seconds can be vital if you wish to survive the burst from an assassin or to duel a Riven who flashes onto you, it provides you with one immensely important trait, to be able to duel someone, in unfavorable circumstances.

If you decide to go for a burst lane, using Exh and Ignite, make sure the ADC is the one using the Exhaust.
Another niche pick, is “Cleanse” immensely powerful but only against the right team composition.

Cleanse is a bit special, as you may be at a disadvantage early during the laning phase, however against a high cc team, such as, WW, Fiddle, Veigar, Skarner, Malza choosing Cleanse may be the difference between surviving or not.

D) Clashes
When clashing at bottom lane, there a couple of ways to come out on top (assuming both sides have full health).
Be tankier than your opponents, so that you can survive the clash.
Have higher burst potential. (Graves/Annie)
And then there is skill, by utilizing Crowd Control abilities and positioning, in order to kite, negate or mitigate damage.
Roughly speaking, it is about showing them who is the boss of the lane.
You ‘just’ have to win the encounter, know your champion mechanics, combo’s and timing, if the sh.it really hits the fan it turns from a clash to an all out fight.

All out fights can be chaotic or organized, there are a ton of things to consider, positioning, playstyle, abilities, limits, kiting, just remember DON’T PANIC!!!

E) Teamfights
○ ADC
Kite, juke, poke, do whatever you have to, in order to SURVIVE and attack the highest priority target you can get to, WITHOUT endangering yourself.
Of course if you know killing XXX member on their team will turn the fight, then by all means.

○ Support
Your role varies greatly, you can be an initiator, back line supporter, or even a second defense, but the main thing is that you have to decide, what is more important, protecting your adc, or killing their high priority targets, decide before the fight erupts, cause you won’t have time to think about it during.

F) Bush fundamentals
As you all know, if you walk into a bush, your opponents can’t see you, however if you use basic attacks you will reveal the bush for a few seconds, even if you stop the auto attack animation.
That is why people move out of bushes to attack, and walk back in before their opponents can retaliate, it also means you need patience if you do not wish to be discovered, or to reveal the jungler you have hiding next to you.

G) Orb walking and Stutter step
The definition of ‘Orb Walking’ is to move in between auto attacks.
Do not mistake this for ‘Stutter Step’ as this refers to cancelling the wind down animation of the attack, this can be done either through moving, or abilities/items, for instance, directly after a Leona has attacked, you can use the Q (stun) to cancel the time otherwise required to animate returning, to her basic stance.
Another good example is Riven and Hydra/Tiamat item, with some training and timing, forgive me if I do not know the specific details but Tiamat/hydra is not an item you see in bottom and so I do not have a lot of experience with it, I just know there is a trick to this, and it is possible due to the ‘stutter step’ effect.

F) Pull
To help the jungler with buffs at level 1, the better the pull (more help), the less damage the jungler will take, the faster (s)he can, start his/her jungle cycle and start ganking your lane.
This is about giving the jungler as much of a head start as possible.

G) General tips

• Elo Hell is a mental state, improve your attitude to get out of it.
• Never leave shop without potions the first, 15-20 minutes of a match.
• Making amazing plays isn’t just about the 5-15 sec, it is about getting away with it.
• If you’re going to die, make it worthwhile, draw them away from your adc, set up a 1 for 2 situation even try to lead them on a merry chase, always choose the lesser of 2 evils.
• If your jungler is getting invaded, go help, chances are in your favor that the other lanes will respond to the call for aid.
• Giving kills to each other is fine, but ONLY if there is 0 chance of losing it.

XIV. Useful links

I am trying to give you the highlights of each subject, and how they pertain to one another, if you want minute details here are a bunch of links specificly created to be educational in their own way and area.

Last hitting, props to Elyndar for making this. (This is a must read, don’t ask why just shut up and read it)
http://imgur.com/orWUCKH

Advanced Mechanics ADC Support Leaguecraft101
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1oPLc6DZvz8
(Wave momentum, timing and positioning)

The Art of League by “gbay99”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S2nkSPvWVHs
Playing to not lose, rather than playing to win.

XV. Final comments

Although most of this info is generic, I am sure you’re now better equipped at playing and understanding this game, best of luck.

*Tunnel vision: To focus exclusively on something to the extent that you forget everything else, including your surroundings.

If you’ve made it this far please vote, comment or pass it along so that more people can benefit from this