You Call This 'Steady'?

Those monsters or heroes could transform for dozens of seconds. During that time, why did you, the Protagonist, just stand there and watch?

Especially those like Golden Armor Warrior, whose transformation lasted over a minute. If the Monster had even a shred of intelligence, it would have already gone over and stabbed you while you were putting on your suit. Why would there be so much follow-up bullshit?

Frequent jump-attacks were Kalista's defining trait, one that set her apart from other ADs much like Draven.

Her unpredictable landing positions gradually whittled down Lucian's HP, making him anxious. But he still had a chance. QAA's High Burst could instantly turn the situation around. So, the moment his Q skill came off Cooldown, Lucian slightly raised his Hands, and the light of Body Piercing Holy Light shone from them once again.

But This Time...

"Whoosh~"

Luo Xiang directly used Flash to dodge. He wasn't stubborn at all. He immediately followed up with another Auto Attack, then pulled out the spears with his E skill. Only then did Lucian belatedly try to Flash out of Kalista's spear-pulling range.

But... it was already too late.

"Rip!"

With a crisp sound of spears being torn out, Lucian's corpse fell at the other end of the jungle along with the glow of Flash.

First Blood!

First Blood secured.

Looking at the Full HP Titan standing in front of her, then at the enemy ADC with less than 200 HP remaining, Nami hesitated briefly before decisively retreating.

The wind was too strong. Time to run.

The AD gap was terrifying.

That level-one Solo Kill instantly flooded the Live Room with Bullet Comments of "666."

"See, Brothers? This combo is just that easy against Lucian-Nami. You just need to Kite." After showing off his mechanics, Luo Zhen smugly picked up the cup on his desk. In this era where anything could instantly kill an AD, the enemy AD was still the easiest one for him to bully.

"Oh, right." As if remembering something, Luo Zhen glanced at the Bullet Comments and added, "Kids in low ranks, don't copy this. Kiting is fucking useless in low ranks. I suggest you Auto Attack them to death first. Then you can walk however far you want. This is much easier than Kiting."

Live Room Bullet Comments: ???

Kill You All

After taking the kill and Last Hitting a couple of Soldiers to balance the wave, Luo Zhen began recalling. There was no way they could Push Forward the wave. Even if they did, the enemy Support would use his life to hold it. When Lucian came back, they would still be the ones losing out. Better to just head home decisively.

The First Blood gold, combined with his not-so-high CS, was only enough for one item. There was really nothing to hesitate over.

Doran's Blade +1

If he had enough money, Boots plus an Attack Speed Sword would naturally be best. But he didn't. Buying only Boots or only an Attack Speed Sword against such a burst-heavy enemy combo would be idiotic. Doran's Blade was great. He did lose a little economically, but its immediate Combat Power boost was simply too high.

Its excellent all-around stats gave him more room for error against the Lucian-Nami Combo.

As the saying goes, with six Doran's Blades, the enemies were all trash. He already had two Doran's Blades, so he possessed One Third of divine power. It was enough for now.

Since he had gained an advantage, he had to make good use of it.

No more nonsense. Crush them!

"Nice. Buddy, this game's Support is pretty decent. Looks like I've got a good chance to Rank Up."

Whether a Solo Queue AD could Rank Up wasn't about the AD's own ability. It depended on their own Support.

If your Support picked a Hero and stood behind the AD all game like Baolan, even if Black Chicken Pot came, he could only farm under tower while being pressured. But once your Support knew even a little about the game, understood how to capitalize on their strong periods and avoid the enemy's strong periods, the Laning Experience immediately became much better.

Of course, Basic Skills were still important—namely, Kiting.

A normal Player would learn how to Kite after playing Draven for a while. After practicing Vayne for some time, they could basically dodge skills too. But after playing AD for a long time, you realized some things couldn't be avoided through Kiting. Getting Focus Fired into Sudden Death was common. At times like that, it depended on your Teammates' ability to protect you.

After suffering the loss of being killed at level one, the enemy Lucian-Nami Combo had clearly become much more obedient.

Which made sense.

They had thought picking this combo would make it an easy stomp, only to get slapped across the face by the enemy Kalista right away. He now understood the cruelty of reality. If he wanted to fight again, he would at least have to endure until level three.

But... you had already handed over this advantage. If you wanted to play scared now, Kalista wouldn't allow it.

After all, going against a woman's wishes was illegal.

Thus, Luo Zhen once again activated Kalista's ultimate Hero technique—Side-to-Side Leap!

Lucian had 500 Attack Range and 335 Movement Speed, while Kalista had 525 Attack Range and 330 Movement Speed.

These numbers meant nothing in other lanes, but in bot lane, they represented many things. One of them was attack frequency. Early on, both sides' attack speed was fixed at around 0.7, meaning it took roughly 1.4 seconds to fire off an Auto Attack. But the windup before an attack didn't take that much time. That extra gap was for ADCs to move and adjust their positioning.

During that year's Regular Season, JKL's Kaisa got Kited so hard by Uzi's Vayne that he couldn't even Auto Attack. The key was controlling that tiny Time Point.

My Attack Range is longer than yours, so after attacking, I have more time to decide whether to pressure forward, retreat, or even sidestep during the windup. Someone with lower Attack Range, meanwhile, had to anticipate when the Opponent would pressure forward and back away first, then chase up and fire an Auto Attack as the Opponent retreated, creating perfect Kiting.

AD looked simple because most ADs in this version just died instantly in Team Fights, so everyone thought there wasn't much to it.

Or, to put it more bluntly.

If you played AD without intending to carry, then the role really was quite easy.

But in the eyes of top ADC Experts, every Auto Attack an AD fired was a contest between their heart and skill. They had to consider the minion wave, skills, HP, Attack Range, attack radius, Support Teammates, Enemy intentions, and even the Jungler who might occasionally appear.

Although the entire thought process revolved around bot lane, there was no less to consider than in any other lane. As he continued laning, Luo Zhen gradually immersed his full attention in it.

In High-end games, it was hard to interact with Bullet Comments while performing crazy mechanics.

If someone could do it...

Then Sima Yi's Source Power must have been born into this world again. Normal people absolutely couldn't do it.

"What terrifying Distance Control. What precise landing angles."

Watching Luo Zhen skillfully use his E skill to refresh spears and suppress the enemy's HP, the Assistant Coaches and analysts of V5 gradually squeezed the team manager out from the front of the screen.

Of course, V5's manager wasn't angry. This was good. If even these Assistant Coaches and analysts remained unmoved, that would truly mean this AD wasn't Raw Material worth cultivating.

"Indeed. His youth is his greatest asset. Although AD is admittedly weak in this version, we absolutely need this young AD!"

At this point, they no longer cared about Rookie's presence. If this Rookie Player's Basic Skills were lacking, then leaving the choice to Rookie would have been fine. But now that this Rookie Player had displayed terrifying Basic Skills and a sharp sensitivity for Distance Control, that sensitivity wasn't something that could rapidly improve through a day or two of training.

This was talent—undeniable talent!

What was V5 afraid of now?

They held three Champion picks they had picked up on the cheap. Logically, they should fear nothing.

Yet this New Team had a fatal flaw: almost Everyone was an old veteran.

It would be fine if they could Take Away their Opponent 2-0 or 2-1 in a BO3. But what if it was a BO5? What if the Opponent shamelessly used the Old Man Ao Tactic?

Ah, that was where having a young potential ADC as backup made all the difference.

Train him properly. At worst, they could Start to Slouch in the fourth and fifth games and play Four Protect One. It wasn't like Rookie and Karsa had never done it before.

Thinking of this, Rookie, who understood the situation, wisely remained silent.

In his heart, he had already accepted the opinions of the New Team's analysis group and Coaching Team. But he wanted to see more—something he was extremely familiar with, something belonging exclusively to top ADC players: presence!

Meanwhile, Luo Zhen, still unaware that his fate had quietly changed, encountered the first major difficulty of the early game: the enemy jungler had arrived.

The instant he saw the enemy Jungler appear, Luo Zhen felt a disgusting sense of Flipped the Dog well up in his heart. Damn it, picking Lucian-Nami was already cursed enough, and now they were even fucking Calling for backup?

Oh, no... Calling for a bear. Were they bullying him because bot lane had no fighting race?

Although he had expected Volibear would probably come help Lucian-Nami, he hadn't expected him to arrive this quickly.

In the S12 Preseason version, Junglers only had three things in their minds all game:

1: During the Laning Phase, how to farm Monsters under the bot lane turret—ADs.

2: During Team Fights, how to farm Monsters near turrets—ADs.

3: During the jungling phase, how to farm Monsters at enemy minion waves—ADs.

This Jungler must have followed those three principles here to feed.

Seeing their own Jungler daddy arrive, Red Side Lucian immediately spam-pinged for Nami to give him E. Because they had pressured too fiercely early on, Kalista and Titan were now so far from their turret that they couldn't avoid the pursuit simply by running.

Seeing there was no hope of escape, Luo Zhen hardened his heart and fiercely pinged Volibear. At the same time, he controlled Kalista to slowly leap toward the three bot lane bushes.

Since I gave you the chance and you still refuse to let me go...

Hmph... then I'll Kill You All!

I Hope It's Me!

Did the Kalista-Titan combo meet the basic requirements for a two-versus-three?

Without a doubt, it did.

Among the many bot lane ADs, taking level three as an example, any AD with Sustained Damage Output met the requirement. The difficulty simply varied. Those with the highest success rates were undoubtedly Draven, Kalista, and Ezreal.

Before Volibear came down, he had already pressured down the enemy bot lane combo's HP. That gave him the possibility of a Miracle. But whether that Miracle could erupt still depended on his own Support's mechanics.

"Watch closely, Brothers. ADs really can't carry in this version much of the time, but that isn't an AD problem. It's an environment problem. But once an AD's early advantage breaks through the limits imposed by the environment, then AD can truly have a C added after it."

"Do you remember asking why Streamer played AD? Now, Streamer will tell you the answer."

"If the gun that decides victory in a match can only be held by One Person, then—I hope it's me!"

With his back facing Volibear, Luo Zhen used Kalista's leaps from Auto Attacking Soldiers to slowly approach the three bot lane bushes.

Volibear was just about to use Flash for hard crowd control when Kalista entered the bush and disappeared from sight. At this Time Point, both bot lanes had either placed their Control Wards in the nearby side bush to prevent poke, or in the river to prevent GANKs. Against the middle bush Kalista had chosen, the three Red Side players had no ward that could help them.

And at the very moment the Enemy assumed the two opponents would definitely flee from a three-versus-two, Kalista's figure abruptly appeared outside the bush again.

Only This Time,

she wasn't moving backward, but... forward!!!

Her target was Lucian!

"Next, it's time to witness a Miracle!" Luo Zhen's voice rose high, and even the expression on his face gradually turned uninhibited.

Even trapped in a desperate situation, he had never felt despair.

Being fortunate enough to experience the thrill of licking blood from a blade at such an early stage was the romance of every mechanically gifted ADC player.

The detail he had hidden within the minion wave was finally revealed. From the moment he began leaping from a position closer to the middle toward the bot lane bushes, the Soldier he had been Auto Attacking all along was the same Melee Minion.

Kalista's E skill mechanic was that using E midway through an attack caused two instances of E damage: the spears already in the target and the E damage attached to the Auto Attack fired afterward. So regardless of which E damage killed the target, it refreshed E. And Skarner's EQ meant casting E and immediately casting Q; the Q also carried E's effect, just like Skarner's EA.

There were two requirements for all of this. First, it had to be done during the leap. Second, your Hands had to be fast!

E [Tear]

Three long spears were violently ripped from the Melee Minion, taking its life while instantly bursting out a small wave of damage on Lucian as well.

Volibear was finally in range.

Seeing something was wrong, he forcibly used Flash, trying to stun Kalista as she came out of the bush.

But...

Just as he landed and prepared to fire that stun-inflicting Auto Attack, Kalista used the leap from an Auto Attack to jump back into the bush once more.

Vision lost again!

"Great idea!"

In V5's meeting room, even Rookie, who had been a professional for years, couldn't help praising him.

As long as there was no Enemy in the bush, the Opponent wouldn't have vision inside it. Relying on Kalista's highly flexible mobility, she could use that bush to dodge at least one or two crucial Auto Attacks.

Then came the most critical play.

Q [Piercing Arrow]

A [Unstoppable Force]

Even the dumbest solo queue Player should have realized by now that their own ADC was anything but ordinary. Titan immediately fired his Q skill, pulling back Volibear, who had temporarily lost his attack target. Then he deliberately waited out part of the Q skill's Control Time before following with an Auto Attack carrying his passive, locking him down firmly.

A wordless, perfectly synchronized combination.

The more High-end the game, the more many combinations happened instinctively. The lost vision plus Titan's QA Control Time gave Luo Zhen at least two to three seconds of freedom to deal damage.

There was enough time.

The slaughter began!

A Right-Angle Leap dodged Lucian's Q skill.

An AQ double leap forcefully shifted his position, narrowly avoiding the crowd control from Nami's Q skill.