AD Carries

Archive post, August 2011. Read this as a snapshot of the 2011 bot lane rather than a guide to the current one. The lineup dates it on its own: Teemo stopped being a bot lane carry a very long time ago, and the Wriggle's Lantern, Malady and Madred's Bloodrazor build the post hangs on him has left Summoner's Rift entirely, as has Sword of the Occult. Ashe has changed underneath it too, since Frost Shot is her passive now rather than something she toggles on, and the global pick the post credits her with comes from Enchanted Crystal Arrow [R]. We're keeping the post as a record of how the role got explained while players were still working it out.

What is an AD carry? Generall an AD carry is defined as a champion whose main role is to use ranged attacks to farm up as much gold as possible in order to become a strong presence late game and dish out a lot of damage. In the current metagame, there are two possible places an AD carry is usually located: solo mid, or bot lane with a support champion. Naturally, any place is possible and even the jungle is possible for certain champions like Ezreal. However, this isn't their strongest role and is generally seen more in casual games.

So what makes each one different?

Even though most ranged AD carries are very similar, each one is unique in their own special way. In this post we'll be covering Ashe, Caitlyn, Miss Fortune, Teemo, and Tristana.

Ashe

Ashe's role on the team goes beyond that of any other ranged AD carry because of her scouting and global initiation/finishing abilities. By using her frost arrow she can land key steals and initiations, such as taking out baron/dragon globally if it's warded and not smited by the enemy jungler or initiating from a safe distance to allow your allies to get the jump on the opposing team.

Her main weakness is her squishy stature and lack of an escape mechanism, which she tries to make up with her global abilities.

Caitlyn

Caitlyn's survivability and early game laning skills are much better than Ashe's due to her cupcake stun/sight abilities and her semi-blink ability that allows her to escape across ledges without wasting her flash summoner. Prior to creep spawn, her early cupcakes are particularly helpful since if used at specific choke points, it may stop a key initiatior such as Alistar to AOE stun your allies.

Miss Fortune

MF's main strengths lie in her chasing, slowing, and AOE abilities. Of course her two main abilities allow her the burst damage necessary for AD carries to succeeed, but her ulti makes her one of the most deadly chokepoint champions in the game; combined with a stunner like Amumu or an ulti like Orianna's MF's ulti can turn the game around in a single battle.

Teemo

Teemo's role is a little more versatile than the average AD carry. Of course everyone loves The Rain Man's Wriggles + Malady + Bloodrazor build that mows down tanky champions (alone with everyone else), but his real strength lies in his pushing abilities. By hitting each creep once with his normal dart, he exponentially increases the power of his poison and eliminates waves extremely efficiently. This along with his built-in ghost gives him escaping powers and let's him become a strong pushing presence until he finishes Bloodrazor, Baron, and destroys the enemy team if the game hasn't already been won.

Tristana

Tristana's role in a team is essentially pure damage when she's built as an AD champion. Her ulti and rocket jump still packs a decent punch and allows her to slow and finish off enemies, but she should mostly save her jump for survivability purposes. The jump along with flash and ghost makes Tristana nearly invulnerable to ganks and death in general, making Sword of the Occult much more viable on her than on other AD champions. However, since her farming ability is so strong when coupled with a support champion such as Sona, most players prefer just to use their excessive amount of gold to pick up an Infinity Edge to ensure victory.

Conclusion: While each ranged AD carry's main goal is to farm, survive, and eventually destroy the enemy team with massive damage, each one differs slightly in playstyle. Just watch out for tanky DPS and be sneaky! Happy gaming summoners.