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Sivir’s mid-scope update in July has made her one of the most popular marksmen in the game.
Here are the best ADCs in League of Legends in 2022 that you should be taking into your solo queue games for free LP gains on LoL patch 12.15.
Half the battle of climbing in League of Legends is knowing which champions you should be picking to maximize your gameplay.
There are now over 160 champions in the game, all with an entirely different set of abilities, strengths, and weaknesses. With every role having its own unique niche, it can be difficult to know what to lock in in that all-important promo series.
In the ADC role in League, damage is the absolute priority. The glass cannons of the game, ADCs are designed to sit at the back of team fights and pump out damage, letting their teammates tank the bigger hits and staying out of harm’s way.
The best ADCs in League of Legends are those who can maximize that damage while minimizing risk. Many more modern additions to the role have some kind of escape mechanism built into their kit with a dash, blink, or invulnerability.
But even within that niche, there are a multitude of champions to choose from, each with their own unique pros and cons. League’s frequent patches and meta shifts see different ADC champions cycle in and out of viability — so here are the five best ADC champions for League’s current patch, 12.15.
As of August 15, 2022, the highest win rate ADC in the game is Seraphine, whose win rate sits at 53.6 percent. However, she’s not a particularly popular pick, with a pick rate of only 1.9 percent.
The most popular ADC on Patch 12.15 is Sivir with a 19.5 percent win rate and a 52.4 percent pick rate.
That being said, the best ADC in League of Legends is, unfortunately, constantly changing. League’s regular updates and patches mean that champions are constantly gaining and losing power, and can be either the best or the worst character in the game depending on how they’ve been affected by the game’s most recent update.
Since her mid-scope update in July 2022, Sivir has been one of the most popular and best ADC champions in League solo queue. And even after she was nerfed on Patch 12.15, she remains the highest-win rate ADC in the game.
Before the update, her pick rate hovered at the lower end of five percent. This jumped to 20 percent directly after the update was released, and she remains one of the most popular AD Carries well over a month after the initial update.
Sivir’s a late-game monster who’s perfect for turning the tides of crucial team fights around major objectives. She’s pretty mana-reliant for a marksman, but she’s easy to pick up and quick to master with a simple kit that’s perfect for newer players.
Sivir’s low early game damage means she’s very susceptible to being shut down before she actually becomes useful. Do NOT pick Sivir into any kind of kill lane – if you see Pyke, Yasuo, or anything of the sort, then run the other way.
You could be fooled into thinking that her spell shield is a get-out-of-jail-free card for the early game, but its cooldown is so long that it often won’t save you more than once in any given skirmish.
Her ultimate On The Hunt gives her and any teammates around her a huge movement speed steroid. This makes her perfect as part of a pick composition, which will look to crowd control and burst down one member of the enemy team rather than taking fights as a straight-up five versus five.
Sivir’s most popular rune loadout on Patch 12.15 sees her run Lethal Tempo. The rune is perfect for her auto-attack heavy play style, giving massive amounts of bonus attack speed and range.
In terms of secondary runes, Presence of Mind is a must. It helps her overcome some of her early game mana issues by offering increased mana regeneration every time she damages an enemy champion. Partnered with lifesteal from Legend: Bloodline, Sivir gains a fair amount of self-sustainability from runes alone.
In terms of build, Sivir’s main stat of interest is, you guessed it, attack speed. Much like the majority of the marksmen on this list, her starting items are a Doran’s Blade and a health potion.
Currently, her most popular Mythic item is Kraken Slayer. It works perfectly with her kit, giving her both true damage on every third auto and a huge injection of attack speed in order to get to that third auto faster. She pretty much always goes Phantom Dancer second, which offers not only attack speed but movement speed to help make her a little slipperier in fights and compensate for her lower range.
After that, her build can be a little more personalized. Depending on the enemy team composition, she can either build an Essence Reaver (perfect into squishier compositions) or Lord Dominik’s Regards (for the pesky tank on the enemy team who just won’t die).
I know, I know. It may seem strange seeing Seraphine on a list of the strongest AD Carries in League of Legends, because AD stands for Attack Damage, which Seraphine doesn’t actually deal.
However, suspend your disbelief for just a moment, because Seraphine is the second-highest win rate bot laner in the game right now. She’s an AP Carry who’s able to pump out some real damage in the late game. She was initially designed as a support or supportive mid laner, which means that she’s also got some decent tools to defend and sustain for herself in lane.
She’s a great alternative for those who find the ‘kite backwards and autoattack’ style of traditional AD Carries to be a little dull. Perhaps you’re a mid laner looking to venture into the bot lane role, or you’re a support who’s tired of being underappreciated and wants to do some damage for once.
One crucial point to note with picking Seraphine is that you’re cutting your team off from a huge source of AD when not picking a traditional marksman. You’ll need to make up that damage elsewhere – preferably with an AD mid laner like Zed or Qiyana.
She’s great alongside a team with a lot of hard engage. Her ultimate’s range is extended for every ally champion that it hits, meaning you want allies who will run into the enemy team and spread her ultimate damage as far as it can possibly go.
Much like a lot of AP champions, she’s pretty weak in the early game. Try picking her into something like Sivir, who also takes a while to come online. That way, she can’t be punished when she’s at her weakest.
Seraphine’s one of the few bot laners whose runes come from the Sorcery tree, rather than Precision. Aery buffs both her damage and her shielding, making it the perfect choice for her hybrid support/damage play style.
Manaflow band, Transcendence, and Gathering Storm all allow her to passively gain mana and Ability Power over the course of the game, turning her into a late-game monster. For her secondary runes, Biscuit Delivery is a universally useful rune for mana-reliant champions, and Cosmic Insight gives her some much-needed Summoner and Item cooldown reduction.
In terms of items, Liandry’s Anguish is a must-build for Seraphine. It gives all her abilities a damage-over-time burn, and does damage based on the enemy’s bonus health, making her a surprisingly strong tank-killer.
After that, Archangels Staff adds some much-needed mana sustain and damage, along with a nice 200 bonus health to give Seraphine a little more survivability. If you’re dealing with an enemy team that’s heavy on healing, you can go for Chemtech Putrifier for some Grevious Wounds, or Rylai’s Crystal Scepter to help lock down a more mobile opposing team comp.
The newest champion in League’s roster, Nilah’s a nontraditional AD Carry who’s perfect for those who find the ranged playstyle of marksmen to be a little dull.
She’s only been out for a few weeks, but already Nilah has become the joint third highest win rate AD Carry in the game as of August 15, and for good reason. Her kit is incredibly strong, even allowing her and her laning partner to gain double the experience of a regular duo lane.
She’s probably the most difficult ADC on this list, simply by nature of being a melee champion. But she’s fun to play and rewarding to master, and will net you some significant LP gains if you can get past her learning curve.
Nilah’s great into low-mobility lane opponents. She wants to get in range and offload all her damage onto her opponent before they have time to react – but if that opponent has a blink or a dash, then Nilah opens herself up to being heavily mispositioned.
She’s good with healing and buffing supports to counteract the fact that she’s very susceptible to being poked out in the early game. Her highest win rate supports are Taric and Sona, with Janna following up behind.
Much like a lot of melee fighters in League, Nilah thrives with the Conqueror rune. Stacking with auto attacks, Conqueror allows champions to heal based on damage done with auto attacks once it’s fully stacked. This gives Nilah some sustain in extended trades.
Triumph gives some much-needed extra healing alongside bonus attack speed from Legend: Alacrity. To top off her rune pathway, Last Stand lets Nilah do bonus damage when she is low health – an opportunity to turn around an unfavorable skirmish.
Immortal Shieldbow is the perfect item for Nilah. When you’re a melee champion, you’re going to take some pretty intense hits. Shieldbow gives a pretty sizeable shield and a chunk of bonus AD when you take a hit that takes you below 30 percent health.
After finishing Shieldbow, you’ll want to build Phantom Dancer. It gives yet more survivability in the form of bonus movement speed to slip and slide out of harm’s way, alongside a health dose of crit chance, attack speed, and attack damage.
From out of the sewers comes one of the best ADCs on Patch 12.15 – the rat himself, Twitch.
He’s been both a jungler and an AD Carry during his time in the League of Legends meta, but right now it’s the bot lane role in which he shines the most.
Twitch’s assassin playstyle is unlike pretty much any other AD Carry in the game. He’s designed to run around in stealth looking for the perfect angle, then pop up in front of the entire enemy team and mow them down with his ultimate. He’s very much a feat-or-famine kind of a champ, but when played right he can be incredibly fun to master.
The obvious answer to this is ‘when you have a support duo willing to play an enchanter’, specifically Lulu or Yuumi. Twitch thrives when he has someone who can buff up his attack speed and damage, and Lulu in particular has a massive attack speed steroid built into her kit.
In terms of the enemy team, you want to play Twitch into a composition with very little backline dive potential. That means no assassins, no engage bruisers like Vi, Camille, and Jarvan IV, and no gigatanks like Ornn and Alistar. It also helps if the enemy team is fairly short-range and not particularly tanky – Twitch is much better at blowing up squishies than he is tearing through tanks,
As an attack-speed reliant carry, Twitch runs Lethal Tempo as his keystone rune of choice. Not only does it grant him massive bonus attack speed, but it gives him a little extra range to make up for how low his base attack range actually is.
Presence of Mind is essential to counteract some of the mana issues you’ll run into while clearing waves in the early game, Legend Alacrity is yet another source of attack speed, and Coup de Grace gives him that little extra push to assassinate low-health targets.
Twitch is also the only ADC on this list to run the Domination tree for secondary runes. Taste of Blood helps give him a little extra survivability in fights, and Treasure Hunter is a nice bonus source of income.
Twitch’s most important stat is attack speed, and his core item is Blade of the Ruined King. Much like Coup de Grace in his runes, it helps give him that little extra boost when picking off low-health targets. Next up is Kraken Slayer, which gives attack speed, crit chance, and attack damage, and also has the welcome side effect of boosting the attack speed given by all the other items in his build.
After finishing those core items, you’ll want a Runaan’s Hurricane, and then your build is entirely situational. Pick Guardian Angel if you’re having trouble staying alive in fights, Lord Dominik’s Regards if you’ve got tanky opponents to deal with, and Infinity Edge if you just want to explode any low-health target you touch.
An oldie but a goodie, Kog’Maw’s an immobile living machine gun with perhaps the most ‘traditional’ ADC playstyle on this list.
There have been various iterations of Kog’Maw that have seen play in the global meta. For a brief while he was even an AP mid laner – but his current form sees him revert to a more traditional AP attack speed build to really shred through the enemy team in team fights.
Kog’Maw is a champion that rewards good positioning above all else. He has no mobility whatsoever, and if he’s in a position to get jumped on then he’ll die faster than you can say ‘nerf assassins’. However, if you can keep yourself out of harm’s way, he has an incredible potential to pump out damage.
Kog’Maw is PERFECT with an enchanter support. And you know who are some of the most popular supports in the game right now? Lulu and Yuumi.
His laning phase is nothing to write home about, but he’s got decent range and can’t be punished too heavily in the lane phase provided the enemy jungler doesn’t send fifteen ganks your way within the first ten minutes.
He’s fantastic into tanky teams, where he can be left to auto attack freely in extended, front-to-back team fights. He does struggle quite a bit playing versus assassins, so if the enemy team has more than one backline dive champion you might be better off picking something with a little more survivability.
Kog’Maw’s most popular rune loadout is an interesting mixture of the runes run on Nilah and Sivir. Much like Sivir, he takes Lethal Tempo as his keystone rune – they both use attack speed as their primary stat, which this rune gives in spades.
For secondaries, however, Kog’Maw’s most popular loadout specs him into the Resolve tree, rather than Inspiration. This is mostly because he doesn’t rely on mana, so runes like Biscuit Delivery and Timewarp Tonic are essentially meaningless for him.
You can opt for Conditioning and Overgrowth to beef him up a little, but it’s unlikely that’ll save you on the off-chance that you misposition and suddenly find yourself in the middle of the entire enemy team.
In terms of build, Kog’Maw’s all about two stats: on-hit and attack speed. Guinsoo’s Rageblade is a must-build, and it’s generally going to be your first item. It’s relatively cheap, and it gives you every stat you need.
After Rageblade, you can either opt for Blade of the Ruined King if you’re against a tankier team comp, or Runaan’s Hurricane if you just want to obliterate a team full of squishy champions in mere seconds.
So, there you have it — the best ADCs in League of Legends as of patch 12.15 in 2022.
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