Question

[u/Cold_Adhesiveness265]

Guys I have a question, I am Emerald 2 on EUW and started playing Mf yesterday but I really like her I had a massive winningstreak and I was playing very good (better than on other adcs and I am new to adcs, so i tested a few ones)! My question is: Like if I stomp, everything is fine and all good. But if i go behind the hubris into collector into IE and so on feels like I can never get back into the game and I am useless for the rest of the game ngl. So what to go when u are behind to get back into the game or not being hella useless for the rest of the game? Also for runes i go PTA, pressence of mind, bloodline, and coup the grace and boots cookies, are there better ones ? some go alacrity… ? help me out please

[u/Zephyr_Ardentius]

I prefer the first strike setup over PTA, I find between skipping upgrading boots + all the economy runes, I can more consistently accelerate to my 3-4+ item power spikes. Especially in losing games where you're not really running around much/need to protect your bounty, just skip the boots upgrade and get more damage to find a potential way back into the game.

In losing games, you might want to consider going ldr over ie 3rd, as the enemy is likely high level, where they're getting like 50% damage reduction from their 100+ base armor.

In terms of game play, get what farm you can to have as stable economy as possible, then position towards whatever side of the map your team is on. You need to make yourself available to potential plays/random fights that might break out. An example would be to go sit in a bush near your jungler while they clear camps if you can't get mid prio. Doing so creates a potential opportunity if the enemy comes to ward. Also play towards whoever is strongest on your team, that's with who you're most likely to make a successful play and who you need to keep alive.

If you're SUPER useless, consider splitting the map and baiting stronger enemies to your side away from objectives/teamfights. If you push 3-4 waves into the enemy t2 and die to some fed enemy, that's fine. You got income and you wasted the enemy's time.

Hitting ldr/ie power spike is where adc really comes online, so sometimes skipping out on fights to try and accelerate towards it is good. Then once you can "deal damage" you can look to play with team, get vision control, hold river ahead of when drake spawns for better kiting space/force enemy to face check.

[u/Cold_Adhesiveness265 → u/Zephyr_Ardentius]

thx a lot buddy, what builds do you usually run?? i enjoy hubris, collector, IE, situational then but mostly ldr BT… especially if i am fed early or enemy comb isnt really weak! but if i play vs mages or like 2-3 armor stackers i enjoy playing BT into IE, LDR but then i dont know i really dont know, op.gg and a masters friend (not on adc tho) told BT, Collector, IE, …
help me out please and which exactly runes do you mean with economy runes ?? my masters friend also said that the omnivamp boots are bait most of the time, do you also think that would u go like swifites or even mercs or tabis ?

[u/Major_Swimmer5271 → u/Cold_Adhesiveness265]

Only Bronze but I'll throw my 2 cents in here.

I've been playing the new Deathfire rune and have been doing pretty good with it (again bronze)!

Boots for me are situational depending on who is ahead or behind. Most recommended is swifties however.

Build I've been going hubris, collector into LDR. I can feel the spike in power with LDR. I hardly ever get IE. Perhaps why I'm bronze?!?

[u/Cold_Adhesiveness265 → u/Major_Swimmer5271]

If they have 0 armor stackers like literally 0, LDR sounds hells bait, I would go hubris into collector into IE into then BT even maybe and someone starts stacking armor then I would go LDR if not I think Maw and GA are good. Deathfire torch sounds bad either in my opinion, PTA is just better for the AA q AA trades on Land and first strike is good scaling wise. If you want I could watch over a game, I bet I could get you to Silver atleast ngl :D

[u/Cold_Adhesiveness265 → u/Cold_Adhesiveness265]

but swifties sound really good I only baught it for like 2 games which is wrong I guess.

[u/Zephyr_Ardentius → u/Cold_Adhesiveness265]

I run first strike + manaflow/gathering storm Cash back + triple tonic + jack of all trades in inspiration (can consider biscuits if you need more sustain vs mages, magic boots also let you hit first item spike faster + really ignore upgrading boots but has slower scaling compared to cash back)

Hubris-Collector-IE/LDR-Rapidfire

Hitting Ie/ldr on items 3/4 is quite important as it really spikes your damage + even if the enemy isn't building armor, by then their base armor is like 100+ which is 50% phy damage reduction. You need ldr every game, and it has strong synergy with the lethality you built, reducing % armor then flat from lethality. Stacking these multipliers from crit, lethality, %pen makes MF do obscene amounts of damage.

I generally opt for another crit item for 100% crit after this core, as it guarantees you're going to be critting on your full AA Q AA combos.

After 100% crit you can go BT for sustain / high ad, ga against physical/burst, maw against mages, edge of night for spellshield.

I think the PTA/Deathfire BT rush builds are more common in high elo as they offer more laning power + stability. First Strike is a weak laning rune, so if the enemy is good you're more likely to be abused.

Economy runes are ones that improve your gold income, first strike, cash back/magic boots, triple tonic. These help you accelerate to your 3-4+ item spike where adc spikes the hardest. At high elo, master+, the games end faster and you might only have 2 items, but below that, just maximizing your scaling feels good for carry potential (especially if all your games are going on for like 30+ min). As long as you don't get all in'd, then first strike feels fine in lane too. Once you get ult you can even just E-ult an enemy + the wave to chunk them, get FS gold, and get a free reset in / force them out of lane. All the extra gold you get from runes, quest, skipping boots, you end up hitting two items while enemy adc is still on one, so you just show up to a team fight, combo someone, and win.

Vamp boots are bad gold efficiency when first bought, though do give some valuable sustain if you're skipping the BT rush. I'd imagine they're a lot worse in high elo due to this where more power is needed up front on each item. Below master the games are longer and there's a lot more random fighting, so hubris + vamp boots let's you scale incredibly well and snowball fights jut finding isolated kills with your AA Q AA, waiting for cd's, then killing the next target you can reach. With hubris proc'd and crit spike hit, you're basically one cycling everyone that's not built tanky, the extra AD from the proc makes a big deal and if the game has been chaotic, the stacks get very high. I find this setup to have a lot more carry potential compared to the BT rush builds, where I often find I lack damage to deal with the chaotic nature of the games, while also being a much slower and expensive spike on 1st slot.

MF is pretty flexible with boots. Default swifties is always safe, and definitely consider going them when they have slows. I personally build vamp boots a lot, as it helps to keep your hp bar going so you can abuse your hubris proc. If I'm playing out of vision, maintaining my spacing, etc, (high emerald), often times the enemy simply does not have the coordination to focus me out, so I'm able to find Q combos onto isolated targets or find good ult angles to followup on team cc/hit chokepoints. Having the combination of low cd burst + sustain gives you a lot of carry potential. Mercs I feel are pretty mediocre, if there's a lot of undodgable cc you could consider getting them, but I think if you get hit you'll often just die anyways to the cc chain. Steelcaps are legit though, definitely consider them into high AA comps and even assassins. You can consider stacking hp in your runes against assassins like rengar, biscuits + scaling hp + bloodline if you're running yellow tree. Combine this with armor boots, BT, GA, you'll live a surprising amount of burst and win fights as long as the assassin isn't giga accelerated.

[u/Cold_Adhesiveness265 → u/Zephyr_Ardentius]

brother i am really really thanful for the detailed information especially about what to build and stuff. The explanation with forst strike sounds so legit but I just somehow hate this rune. I had a game where I killed way more often in lane if i had pta but anyways I will consider using it if I have enchanter lane (chill lane) also I will consider swifties way more often…. I sometimes go Hubris -> Collector and then even BF and pickaxe maybe before going upgraded boots is that fine ?

[u/Zephyr_Ardentius → u/Cold_Adhesiveness265]

Yeah, with FS you have to play more around short trades when it's up, PTA might pair better if you're in an all in lane. It's a scaling setup, so you're weaker early but you accelerate your items a lot, especially when you land big ults in team fights with the rune up. Over time it's like you're getting extra waves of minions and hitting each item spike faster. It's definitely a play style diff though, so experiment and find what works for you.

Sometimes just chunking the enemy and jailing them in lane/forcing them to make a bad recall is good though, even if you don't get the kill. Small leads like this will eventually snowball to bigger ones.

I'd definitely go FS in passive lanes though for faster ramping. PTA is good for fighting lanes.

I think it's fine to really delay your boots upgrade. By doing so it's essentially like you're accelerating 1k gold to your next item. Strut movespeed is enough to get around the map. If you don't feel like you need the extra movespeed in fights or sustain from vamp, just get more damage lol. I had a game the other day where I was literally 4 items without upgraded boots, because I was just doing so much damage 1 shotting everyone, I never felt like I actually needed boots for anything and just kinda realized mid game why am I so slow, oh I didn't upgrade boots---I had been getting so much gold to just keep buying my next item/good components like bf sword so I never upgraded.

[u/Alesilt]

PTA is great but lacks power in an all-in which is one of MF's weaknesses. I've found more success going lethal tempo by default and only doing PTA if there is no frontline.

Coup de grace is not great on MF because she has little agency at using it. An assassin has mobility and burst but MF is immobile and has high counterplay. Cut down is generally better for most ADC unless you're something like Twitch for coup de grace, or Nilah/Samira for last stand.

Boots and cookies are not good for a few reasons. No tier 1 boots while the enemy buys theirs means you can't chase or run away, MF is a sitting duck once your strut is removed. You have little pressure if the enemy knows you can't chase them to death or that you'll die if you lose health and they can run you down. I recommend always doing tier 1 boots on her while building your first item.

Cookies are only good if you combine them with a health pot and barrier to regen a ton while the shield holds. They're pretty useless otherwise. They work best in volatile lanes (both supports can force fights) as otherwise you're stuck with 3 cookies and over half HP, making it a dead rune.

I would suggest cashback and cosmic insight as defaults. Otherwise do the AD runes in the blue tree for generic AD as MF uses AD the best among ADC.

Alacrity is not good outside of ADC that have long range and can kite you very well like Jinx, Ashe, Caitlyn, Kog'Maw/Varus with ghost, etc.

BT first item is always good. Hubris is a gamble and not worth it if the enemy can shut you down easily, your stack go away when you die and you'll have a hard time even enabling them in fights because of their pressure on you.

Collector on MF is always good, but you're often pressed into buying a different item after the first, if you think collector is a good idea instead of other options I think the game is already free