ADC’s Best Gear Comparison: Penetration or Crit?

First, let’s talk about the traditional ADC standard gear: Electrocute, Infinity Edge, and Essence Reaver. With a 50% critical strike chance, hitting as an ADC feels like a gamble; if you get lucky, the critical damage can be quite impressive. And with the presence of penetration items like Essence Reaver, ADCs can deal similar damage to both frontline and backline targets.

On the other hand, the build of Blue Buff Blade, Electrocute, and Infinity Edge is extremely aggressive, boasting a 70% critical strike chance, meaning most of the ADC’s basic attacks are critical hits, allowing for faster wave clearing and dragon fights. However, during team fights, without penetration items, the damage output against high armor frontliners is somewhat weak; fortunately, the high critical hits can make up for some of that ADC’s shortcomings. In contrast, when facing squishy heroes, this build is much more brutal than the old three-piece set, resulting in higher output. Professional players pay more attention to the connection between the frontline and backline; as long as the enemy backline is slightly held by their frontline, the damage dealers will certainly take the hits from the enemy frontline to deal damage, aiming to eliminate the enemy damage dealers quickly. For this purpose, a high critical strike chance with this gear proves to be more effective. Moreover, for heroes like Sivir, the overall high critical strike chance is sufficient to compensate for the lack of penetration, and the AOE damage is enough to wipe out all enemy backliners.

In professional matches, ADC players often choose Essence Reaver as their last item or even skip it altogether, believing that as long as they can eliminate the enemy backline first, the frontline will pose no threat.

On the 23rd, during the second game between EDG and RNG, EDG’s mid-laner Pawn used Ryze and, while having a significant advantage, opted for Rod of Ages and Archangel’s Staff instead of the usual Magic Penetration Rod, choosing Rabadon’s Deathcap instead, which is rarely seen on Ryze. A simple analysis shows that Pawn wanted to leverage his advantage to become the Ryze powerhouse, completely cutting off the enemy backline’s survival. In theory, having Rod of Ages and Archangel’s Staff makes Ryze a semi-tank in the mid-game; adding a Rabadon’s Deathcap afterward would result in explosive damage, allowing him to take on two enemies without pressure during a solo encounter. In team fights, even if he has to tank the enemy frontline, he can unleash chaos on the enemy backline, relying on his ultimate’s AOE damage to eliminate at least one enemy backliner and severely injure another, potentially taking down both enemy damage dealers if uninterrupted.

If Pawn had chosen Magic Penetration Rod, it would have indicated that the enemy’s protection of their backline was strong enough to require starting from the frontline. When the magic power is not high, the ability of Rabadon’s Deathcap to deal with the frontline is indeed inferior to that of Magic Penetration Rod; however, if you have 700-800 ability power, Rabadon’s Deathcap provides a significant boost, making its damage output comparable to that of Magic Penetration Rod.

In contrast, in the first game, RNG’s Huang Ji chose Magic Penetration Rod after completing Ice Staff and Nashor’s Tooth instead of Rabadon’s Deathcap. The reason is simple: Huang Ji has a long reach and can safely kill from the frontline, and his ability to cut into the backline is almost zero. In this situation, the role of Magic Penetration Rod is definitely greater than that of Rabadon’s Deathcap, making it more beneficial for dealing with frontliners.

Similarly, ADCs opting for Blue Buff Blade and then Infinity Edge instead of Essence Reaver are looking for opportunities to work with their frontline to eliminate the enemy backline, rather than methodically taking down the frontliners first.