Riot Games Plans to Diversify League of Legends' Bot Lane

Following a previous Dev Diary where the idea of teams without marksmen was briefly discussed, Riot Games shared another post doubling down on the goal to diversify the options players have in the bot lane.

The video in question brought up the topic of allowing champions to exist in more than one role and lane, sometimes even in the bottom lane that's usually reserved for a marksman and a support. Part of that goal supposedly consists of the addition of a new, unannounced item that would allow teams to compete without needing a marksman, but it all comes back to allowing different champions to field different roles.

"One thing mentioned there I figured it would be good to talk about a bit more is our plan to open up bot lane to a wider range champions in the farming position," Riot Meddler said in reference to the above video. "It's something we've been interested in, and talked about, for a long time, but haven't dedicated the needed effort to to properly support non marksmen there. That's meant a game state where marksmen have been effectively a required pick as a result. A lot of players have called us on that, in particular that we've talked of wanting to support more diversity, but haven't opened up the most consistent part of team comps."

Items aside, part of that goal will also involve changing the way that some traditional supports work to allow them to support champions that don't fit the mold of a traditional farming bot lane champion.

"Our biggest goal with mid-season is to change that, make it so it's a really effective choice to sometimes run a comp that doesn't have a marksmen in bot lane, or potentially doesn't have a marksmen at all. It's kind of workable at present, but we agree should be a lot more so. That's likely to involve work on items for non marksmen bot lanes, adjusting some supports so that they've got stronger synergies with non marksmen, maybe changes to things like how towers take damage even. We generally want to stay away changing individual champs so that they go bot though, this is about opening up the position to other classes, not putting mechanics on champs that are bot lane specific."

The goal and the process to achieve it is currently in the planning and investigation stage, but Riot Meddler noted that not every champion would be able to exist in the bot lane even after the changes.