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Designers Fail To Understand The Top Lane Problem

Palaven·10/16/2019, 5:07:42 PM·103 votes·23,637 views

A lot of top laners complain about the role, especially in comparison to bot lane. It often feels impossible to win if the enemy bot laner gets super far ahead. So the change is that duo laners will level up a bit slower and solo laners will level up a bit more quickly. At first glance, this might make sense, but its only a very surface level fix that addresses a singular complaint you sometimes hear: I won my lane hard top but I couldn't carry. Sure, this change will make it easier to carry when you win lane hard.

But let's think about other major top lane complaints: (1) I feel like I'm playing a 1v1 while my team is playing a 4v4. (2) Top lane is too much about getting a counterpick. If you get counterpicked you have a really unfun time.

The problem with the exp change is it punishes a top laner even more for roaming to be involved with his team, and only reinforces the playstyle of simply sitting in lane and trying to get a counterpick to win lane. The other irony is that they are trying to make changes to bring back tanks to the top lane by adjusting conqueror and kleptomancy. But guess what? Tanks aren't about winning lane and tanks want to group with their team - meanwhile, the experience change punishes tanks for losing lane and for leaving lane to group.

All the experience change does is reward counterpicks and lane bullies even more. Am I happy that the Kennen I'm facing isn't farming a 10 minute Protobelt with Kleptomancy? Sure. But how about when he now takes Electrocute and forces me out of lane to get an even larger experience lead? Eh, not so much.

The truth is that a 4v4 should matter way more than an isolated 1v1. The solution isn't to make the 1v1 more volatile and subject to counterpicks, it should be finding ways to get top laners involved with their other allies on the map.

Nor does this new "solution" address a more common problem - both top laners go relatively even but the other side of the map gets smashed. Does it really matter if I have an extra level when I'm 0/0/0 and the enemy ADC is 7/0/0? Sure, any lane feeding can be hard to overcome. But as a top laner, when one part of the map is losing, I want early options to go there and help swing it back in my teams favor. Now, if I teleport to help bot lane, I get punished harder as the enemy top laner soaks up even more experience.

While so much news yesterday was incredibly awesome, I can't help but feel quite saddened that top lane is simply going to be more focused around an isolated 1v1 favoring ranged bullies.

115 Comments

Syrile10/16/2019, 5:36:11 PM38 votes

Rito with the next-level next-level understanding of the game. A complete and total misunderstanding of the way a game should be played mixed with a desire to make eSports even more flashy causes an unplayable game. Season 10 looks like total garbage.

Falcon 8710/16/2019, 7:21:23 PM22 votes

The biggest problem imo is the turret plate system. It makes the already heavy counter-pick meta even worse and discourages roams. There is no option to play safe now. Play under the tower and the enemy laner would get massive leads off cs difference and plates. Die once and the opponent can get 160 gold on top of the kill. Or when your jungler is bot side and the enemy jungler decides to tower dive. You are forced to leave the tower getting denied exp and cs on top of the turret plates gold.

The thigh guy10/16/2019, 6:42:52 PM17 votes

Top laners cry about anything and everything.

The number of times as an adc I’ve just been instant killed by an irelia while I was fed out my ass is stupid.

Top laners have this complex where no matter how hard they are fucking every other role into the ground, they will always be weak.

What’s that? A 5/0 mordekaiser just instant killed an adc. “Well that’s because morde was 5/0 duh!” Oh a 17/0 jinx kited out and killed a Darius? “Gawd, stupid adcs are so op, I can’t do anything!”

preternatural10/16/2019, 7:55:30 PM15 votes

top lane is at the mercy of good and bad junglers.

LightswornLance10/16/2019, 6:29:37 PM9 votes

TBH every lane can complain about something except mid, top complains about no influence, jungle complains about being forced to gank and incompetitent laners, adc's just get oneshot by anything, support SHOULD have the highest impact if everyone is playing like humans but when does that happen.

WalkingInACircle10/16/2019, 6:38:59 PM8 votes

The counterpick problem is well known and has existed for a long time. Juggernauts and their enforced win melee lose ranged are not helping but it's not new.

Find yourself either a safe pick or a flex pick. I've been learning gangplank recently for that purpose.

Sire Hippington10/16/2019, 10:21:42 PM5 votes

Yea, that toplane 'fix' is another display of their incompetence.

All it does is giveing toplaners bigger leads when they get one, but it doesn't help them converting their lead onto the map. All it creates is an enviroment for hardcore splitpushers like jax, fiora or camille as well as counterpicks(as if counterpicks weren't already a huge issue for top...)

The main issue for top, especially tanks, is the massive acceleration of the game. Teamfights and objectives are done so quickly that you can't roam reactively. If you roam as soon as the enemy team groups up, it's allready to late. And since the massive TP nerfs, useing it reactively in a NON-coordinated enviroment is usually suizide so it's more a laning tool. What's worse, with how minions sprint across the map and structures beeing made of paper at best, leaving your lane to group with your team preemtively means you serve your base to the enemie top on a silver plattern. And with the xp changes, you get punished even worse for grouping. The last big issue for top is that most top picks are brawly(is that a word?) champs that reky on tankiness for teamfights, and tankiness simply still doesn't exist in the lategame, so no matter how well you do, you bever will carrie lategame teamfights unless you play stuff like vlad or gp, which are unsuprisingly meta in high elos for exactly that reason....

So the only way tops will get more impact from that changes is by either snowballing and beeing unbeatable behemoths midgame which is not exactly a healthy thing to have, or by raw mindless splitpushing.

What toplane would need is either ways to get to the rest of the mao faster, like a portal linking the new top and bot alcoves, maybe activateing at min 14 when the plateings fall off, or less damage overall so objectives and teamfights last long enough for them to get there in time, and their base doesn't get vaporised if they leave their lane unatendet for a min. And speaking of plateings, the gold granted by them could be easily cut in half and it would only make the game better. Also, just remove cleptomancy, it's cancer beyond imagination in toplane and no itteration that is any viable will ever be healthy for melee vs range matchups. It's even more stupid than spear of shojin and that shit gets removed for good reason...

Mihalikb10/18/2019, 1:43:28 AM4 votes

I think the way to increase top lane's relevancy is to flip the Herald/Nashor and Dragon pits. Put the Dragons up to toplane.

Make taking and contesting Dragon the job of top/mid/jungle.

The I don't know what the changing of xp ratios will do to the meta. On one hand it strongly empowers midlaners that can roam fast and gank bot. Do you really want a level 6 Talon, Zed, Qayana, Pantheon, Syndra, Lux roam bot while bot is still level 4? Are you sure about that Rito?

On the other the jungle Xp changes mean that Junglers will be trying to leach lanes more.

Cdore10/16/2019, 7:11:51 PM3 votes

This should give you a rude awakening:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xAOFoaq8xy4

Hi im 1210/16/2019, 9:05:43 PM3 votes

how to fix top lane:

  1. remove klepto
  2. give the entire team vision of both top lane bushes for the first 5 minutes of the game that's it.
Blitzidious10/16/2019, 11:50:19 PM2 votes

So, here's just a spitball for this issue. What if the river "flowed" towards mid, essentially giving a potentially milder version of waterwalking or whatever that rune is called when moving towards mid? Makes it easier for a Toplaner to get to the center of the map. Not sure if Top river should be the only one that "flows" though.

voidscaler10/18/2019, 12:45:56 PM2 votes

absolutly 100% this the first thing i thought when i saw the new dragon change (the 4th dragon powerup one) was that all it does is enhance an already existing problem jungle at the moment is argueably the most important role, the team with the better jungler has a MASSIVE advantage, toplane is the least important role, in 4/5 games toplane is as you said a 1v1 island that doesnt mean that much with tele a toplaner can only really help in 1 in 3 dragons or so without crippling themselves what this change does is make early game power jungler (who can secure the dragons early) THAT much more essential and the jungle difference that much more necesary, and it makes toplane that much more ignorable junglers and midlaners already ignore toplane as dragon and bot are too important, now that dragon is EVEN MORE important none of them are ever going to give a single shit about top and it will litraly be just a flat 1v1 the level advantage solo lane will get with these changes actually makes it WORSE for toplane, not better how many times during a gave where you are laning vs illaoi or darius or garen and need help does your jungler say "i cant come top he will double kill us" now that the level difference between top and jungle is EVEN BIGGER the jungler has even more reason to NOT go toplane, after all if hes lvl 5 and the darius is lvl 8 what the hell can he actually do except just feed gold

nothing about this new season looks good to me (hell even the new lethality item, they are creating a lifesteal ad lethality item that if you on your own gives 50-80% attackspeed.......so yay sololane assassins....)