A trend of noticed top lane
Is that the current meta top laners have extremely potent strengths with little to no compromise. Many of these laners have inherent weaknesses as champions, but their strengths are build up without any built in weakness.
For example, take Nu-nu-nu-Aatrox. His strength mostly lies in his Q, giving him lane pressure, damage and sustain. It's the core part of the champion and while Aatrox himself has levels of weakness, none of that lies within his strongest attributes. His Q is a 3 part knockup, instantly giving him access to the strongest for of CC in the game. It stacks Conqueror, giving him access to the best form of damage in the game. It gives him sustain, which is easily one of the most valuable resources in the top lane meta. Now what weakness is built into his Q? Well, it's a skillshot, and that's pretty much it. Then you have the rest of his kit, which is genuinely build from the ground up to empower his Q. His most preferable items for damage also give him his most desired resource, CDR. He doesn't have to make any sacrifice between damage and CDR, period. Max rank Q and 40% CDR means his Q is always up provided he's playing optimally. His dash is versatile buff that helps him land his Q, his slow is a semi versatile skillshot that helps him land his Q. His ult is a massive steroid with bonkers MS bonus that, you guessed it, helps him land his Q. His entire kit being relegated to help out his greatest strength essentially obliviates the only weakness that comes with that strength.
Of course Aatrox is only an example, I use him because it is easy to break down his kit to display how there is no compromise to his power. He's not nearly the strongest pick top lane at the moment, but those who are share the same problems. The class Aatrox belongs to is one that would typically suffer from counter items and strong teamfights, meant to be more of a soloQ climb machine rather than a competitive pick, but currently it's quite the opposite.
Let's look at everyone's favorite, Riven, and compare her to a champ I play a lot, Poppy. Riven is known for oppressive damage and target acquisition. Now, what weakness is built into those strengths? Essentially none. She rushes the only items she would ever want without compromise while also assisted the most by the Rune system. She's so potent apparently the top tier Rivens are playing her Crit and are having good success,_ somehow._ Now compare that to Poppy, who has great base damage and potent teamfighting. There are notable weakness built into those two strengths. The first is her vicious mana consumption. The second is that she looses teamfight potency without tankiness and CDR. If she doesn't build to accomidate for these weaknesses, she tends to be useless. Iceborne gives a solution to two of those problems, but most Poppy's don't build it as it is simply not a good enough tank item for this meta. Most Poppy games avoid building it entirely and focus on tankiness or utility, incrementally building against her weaknesses until they finally are at a suitable state mid game. There is no bum rush item that gives Poppy everything she needs, there's no perfect total wish fulfillment path with her. This is a problem I find exists particularly to tanks, but this problem simply doesn't exist for the champions currently dominating top lane.
Of course this is just an opinion through observation. I'm very curious as to how other players feel about it, especially from the perspective of those who main the current meta top lane. Am I being reasonable with my observations or am I missing some point entirely?
