Best ADCs to Climb With

Best ADCs to climb with in patch 12.17. Dominate the bot lane!

Season 12 is coming to an end in a couple of months, so this is the time if you are looking to climb. And what better role to climb with than ADC? There is a notion among the player base that ADC is one of the hardest roles to gain LP with, as you are too dependent on your team’s help. That is partly true, but it isn’t all doom and gloom.

Every one of us had our bot lanes lose lane so hard that the game is unwinnable, so why not be those other guys? These meta ADCs are strong because you can dominate your lane and then impact the rest of the map. Or they are one of the better scaling champions in the game that will win you any game that goes 25+ minutes. So let’s see what our picks are for you on patch 12.17.

Miss Fortune

Miss Fortune was one of the three champions that got heavy adjustments on patch 12.17, to get away from the oppressive Make It Rain (E) max and poke playstyle, and bring back the traditional crit builds. This was not only effective, as MF was already in a very good spot before the changes which were mostly buffs, but it also necessitate some quick hotfixes.

Even with the quick changes the balance team made, Miss Fortune is sitting on a 25% pick rate and 26% ban rate with a very high 53% win rate in Platinum+. Of course, the statistics are not everything, but they tend to tell a lot about a champion’s strength.

While you can still try the E-max build with either Lethality (Eclipse) or AP (Liandry’s Anguish), the best way to play Miss Fortune in patch 12.17 is the crit build. Press the Attack is once again the top rune for the Captain and Kraken Slayer is probably her best item, with Galeforce following in close second. Kraken’s bonus attack speed feels great with the Double Up (Q) buffs, even though her Strut (W) changes were reverted.

Jhin

Jhin has always been a staple of these lists. He has one of the simplest kits in the game and a very simple ADC to begin learning with. His high AD and spammable Dancing Grenade (Q) offer great waveclear during all points of the game, and his range gives him a lot of safety.

Jhin also is a very good blind pick as he doesn’t have many counters and he is very hard to punish. Plus he has good synergy with nearly all support classes so you probably won’t have problems due to your support picking something you don’t want. He is great at playing with engage support as he offers great follow-up crowd control and has good range, and he also likes to play with enchanters like Nami and Janna who empower his already strong auto attacks and give him much appreciated movement speed.

You can comfortably pick up Jhin as a one-trick in your climb as his only weakness, tanks, aren’t too common in solo queue. He has great build variety between Lethality and Crit, or a mix of both. 

Samira

In solo queue it isn’t guaranteed that the games will go late and let you scale as an ADC, so why not pick for snowballing and be the one that dominates from the start? Samira is one of the best champions when it comes to snowballing with a very strong level two or three spikes and she is almost incontestable after she finishes her Immortal Shieldbow. Her Blade Whirl (W) offers a great advantage if you master the timing as you can block a crucial CC or damage ability in a 2v2 and her Wild Rush (E) reset is great for tower diving.

The only problem with Samira is that she doesn’t synergize with enchanters well and she prefers engage supports that aren’t exactly meta. But if with picks like Amumu and Taric starting to be played more and with most enchanter getting nerfed in recent patches, Samira should be a champion you should look to pick up.

Seraphine

If you’ve been watching any professional play in recent weeks you know how powerful a farming Seraphine, aka the CEO of LCS, can be. She’s been getting some small nerfs ever since the Durability Update, the latest being in 12.14, but none of these nerfs were enough to shut down her power.

She offers great utility with multiple crowd control abilities, heals and shields while doing a surprising amount of damage with a full AP build. Also if you use your double High Note (Q) her waveclear is great which lets you have pressure and helps you poke your opponent under their tower. Of course, you can always get engaged on, but she has a lot of self-peel after her level six when she gets access to her Ultimate.

If you are playing with a duo partner Senna/Seraphine is a dominant lane that scales well into the late game. If not, you can play her with most enchanters or engage supports too.

Swain

Swain is another champion that got a well-received midscope update. He was already best played as an AP carry, but after the changes, he only got better and better. There were some downsides to the updated version like the removal of bonus heath gain on your Demonic Ascension’s (R) activation, but if you are good at using your passive health gain you can compensate for the difference in a very quick manner.

And the constant refreshing of your ultimate with reduced cooldown for your Nevermore (E) makes 2v2s and even 5v5s a lot easier to navigate. With a two item spike of Liandry’s Anguish and Rylai’s Crystal Scepter, you have a lot of DPS combined with sticking power.

Swain is at his best when played with engage champions but you can always play him with other scaling champions like Sona or Senna as well. If you’d like to give Swain a shot, remember to be careful during the early game as your first two levels aren’t good enough to fight most lanes, and try to wait for your level six if you can.

Honorable mentions for patch 12.17

• Tristana
• Kai’sa
• Ezreal
• Draven
• Karthus

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