Guide To Top Lane In Solo Q - Bullying
Let me start off by saying this guide is subject to opinion and focuses around a play style. So with that, let's dive right in!
INTRODUCTION I wouldn't call myself a great player, but I play the best in toplane and do so everytime i get the chance in Solo Q. I love it, and i study it constantly. Every game I'm analyzing myself and ways to dominate not just my lane, but the game and secure victory. The most important thing in top lane isn't to win lane, it's to win lane so hardcore that it influences other lanes both directly and indirectly, and I will cover ways to do that in this guide. There will be a lot of information in this guide, so feel free to only look over parts you feel you might want improvement in if you're already a confident top laner. Otherwise I suggest reading the entire guide as everything is critical to being a successful bully. Oh yeah, forgot to mention this guide is about bullying your lane opponent.
CHAMP SELECTION The ideal bully champion is a champion that can sustain. This means you can trade with your opponent and then heal up afterwards forcing your enemy to back while you continue to farm. A great example of a bully champion with sustain would be Garen, or Darius. Now that you have a champion in mind you have something to worry about. Top lane especially in solo q is riddled with counter champions. Being counter picked can detriment your chances of bullying. Obviously you can ban your counter, but should you ban your counter if you're last pick? You don't really have to worry about getting countered if you're last pick or close so most of the time you wont even have to. For instance, if I'm second pick and i want Darius, but I cant ban, I'll ask a teammate to ban Teemo. Sometimes, your teammates won't waste a ban to help you. It's a gamble. That's the nature of champion selection and if you fight a "Teemo" (I've fought so many friggin Teemos with Darius) there may still be a way to bully so don't be discouraged!
THE BULLY BUILDS
Builds are a difficult thing to teach because of how controversial they are(part of why I love league). There is no best build. So instead I'll give you a general build guideline. As a bully you want to focus on CDR in the lane phase so that you can trade as often as possible and with some champions like Darius, more CDR means more sustain. This means 
Black Cleaver, 
Iceborn Gauntlet, 
Spirit Visage and a few others. Getting Black Cleaver first is a pretty good idea on most bully champions so i recommend that one the most because it gives the ultimate package- CDR, Damage, HP, and Mobility. Mobility is also important because getting kited when trying to bully is frustrating and sometimes fatal. So for boots, I always take Swiftness Boots and upgrade them to Alacrity pretty early. A core item to bullying is the Dead Man's Plate. I wouldn't make this a first item though because it doesn't give CDR or Damage. Once lane phase is over and you've gotten CDR, Damage, and Mobility () build tank, tank, and more tank. If their is a particularly fed enemy, build to counter them specifically. For example if the enemy has a 10-0 Zed, I'm probably gonna want some Armor.
LANE PHASE Ahhh, good ol' lane phase. Lane phase as a bully can make or break a game. Bullying is fragile so pay attention! When you first get to your turret and the minions spawn then the mind games begin. You have to show your dominance right away. Get the first attack on a minion and look for your opponent to attack you, and when he does fire back. Remember, you have sustain. Fire off your only ability and see how much damage it does. After doing so, the minions will be mad at you so as soon as you fire off your ability make a break for the bush and pop out of it as quickly as you popped in, no need to stay in the bush because you're a bully. Make sure that after your initial trade you focus on pushing lane. If your opponent hits you again, show him who's boss, shake the minion agro (go in bush) and continue pushing again. Make sure you use your minions to your advantage and stay near them. Once you've pushed this is where you start influencing your team indirectly. A pushed wave will shift a jungler's attention towards you. So after you push past river, ward the river. This early in the game you don't actually want to fight their jungler, you want him to come top and get nothing. This will hurt your opponent's exp and put you further ahead while your own jungler is free to do what he wants. Another thing to keep in mind is you should never commit to killing your opponent unless you're ABSOLUTELY sure he will die. Part of bullying is fear, and you can't scare your opponent when they know you don't have flash and they do, or that you're out of mana. Around level 3 is when a jungler should come knocking so be on alert at level 3 AND if you push minions close to their turret. You should open yourself up to a gank when you have a ward down and confidence you can get away if they engage you. Otherwise, hang back when the minions are under the enemy's turret. You should also be spamming laugh (CTRL + 4) while you're hanging back. Your laugh is a completely free ability that applies tilt to your opponent. So with this in mind you should focus on the appropriate times to cream your lane opponent(get a kill). Every time you trade with your enemy pay attention to how much damage you're doing with a burst. A general good time to grab yourself a kill is when your opponent is below half or 1/3 HP depending on how strong your burst is. If your opponent backs every time his HP is low, and you don't get an oppurtunity to kill him, it's ok. That's still a good thing, while your opponent isn't there push harder than ever before. Make sure you get to his turret and nail it as many times as you can. As soon as you see your opponent, get out of there you may be ganked. The quicker his turret goes down the better because it gives your team a gold lead and free's up your lane so that you can roam without worry. Remember, honey d*ck their jungler!
But panda, what if I mess up and die first? If you die first discard your dreams, it's all over!...Just kidding. This may actually play to your benefit if you utilize it correctly. I'll explain in the form of an example. I'm playing Darius, I hit level 4 and see the enemy Teemo has 1/3 HP so I go in for the kill. I pull him in and rock his world with all my available abilities but he has heal and doesn't back down! I get stomped. However, Teemo doesn't have heal anymore, but he has 400 more gold than me now and rejoins lane more confident than ever. Poor Teemo. Now I shift my focus from pushing and more towards getting favorable trades, but he out trades me! So now that I'm crippled, I back off, and focus on only sustaining. I constantly look to Q him and regain my health then back up. Once I am above half i go back in to unload my burst and back off until he is at 1/3 HP. Now the confident bugger doesn't have heal and I hit level 6. So I go back to pushing until he takes a step too close and i snap my burst on him for an easy kill. This is what makes a bully champ's sustain powerful. When used correctly it won't matter if your opponent has an advantage in trades. Even if that Teemo has been smart and backed to his base, his advantage will be gone while you free farm the minions.
But panda, my opponent is also a bully champion! Well than you'll have to out bully him. You can't afford to lose the first kill advantage against another bully. You should focus more on killing minions and staying in lane as long as possible if you find yourself dying first to the other bully.
VICTORY PHASE After lane phase if your bullying has gone well, the next trial begins. Now that you've put their jungle's attention on you and your allies haven't been ganked, it's up to how they dealt with that. If your allies are winning lane because your jungler has had the freedom to help them un-opposed than you've done your job. If your allies are losing anyways, the challenge comes in. You have to spread your bully influence and pressure everyone. Victory phase begins when you destroy your lane opponents turret. This is when you should be looking to roam as much as you can. Only roam after you've pushed a considerable distance and you see a good opportunity. If you push than your lane opponent will be busy dealing with minions and it will make it more difficult for him to follow you when you do roam as well as keep your own turret alive. If for example you run down and gank mid, and your ally helps you kill someone, GIVE THEM THE KILL. If you hog all the kills, you wont be helping your allies, you'll only be putting more pressure on yourself. Being ahead is enough, now you have to make sure your teammates are too so you can have an efficient team fight. You'll want to force team fights after you've assisted your friends. I see a lot of teams fail when they are ahead because they don't push their advantage and only want to chase opponents and kill them. This is a bad mindset. Your objective as a bully is pressure, not chasing. Force team fights by pushing mid. Most of the time your allies will gravitate mid if you're pushing. If your allies don't, then keep pushing and if you sense a team fight, and you don't have everyone mid, ping danger over and over again to get the message across and avoid a fight. This way you keep pressure mid but don't lose your advantage while your allies are in the side lanes or jungle and you can even spread the enemies and catch a few under turret while they separate to deal with your split pushing friends. I've laid out a bunch of situations so to keep it simple, after lane phase the game becomes about assisting your allies. You should be feeding your allies then pressuring mid and forcing fights with your team. Once you've fed your team you must keep objective control and continue to pound down turrets relentlessly. If you've failed to feed your team, then you must avoid the team fight. Stick to assassinating enemies and split pushing. Run away if you notice everyone is missing from the mini-map and avoid team fights as much as you can while trying to split the opponents pressure to the side lanes and delay the game until your allies catch up and the enemy begins throwing. Once that happens put pressure on mid and-....yeah you get it :p.
CLOSING STATEMENTS That's it! I hope my guide will help someone earn a victory in Solo Q or even come to love Top lane! I tried to cover every situation I could think of so the guide is pretty hefty, that being said please give me any questions you have so I may provide answers or improve the guide! Thank you for reading and GLHF!
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