An experience toplaners thoughts on the current state of League.

Hi, so this is a really long post and I'd appreciate it if you read it all, but if not thats chill too. The second block of text is on Shaco, the third is on Singed and the forth is on general meta balance.

Ive been playing league since early season 6, I started pretty dump playing mostly mid and jungle. I had a very hard time sticking to a champ and as a result have amassed a whopping 576 unique masteries on different champs. An IRL friend of mine got me interested in Shaco and for a long time he was the closest thing to a main I had, I was still bronze at this time. Early season 7 I learned about Proxy Singed, and through a combination of his meme status and uniqueness he quickly became my OTP and has been ever since. I peaked at D5 briefly and currently float in the bowels of plat. I took breaks, played mid sup for a bit, ect. In summary Im about as average of a player as they get. I am convinced that right now, as of path 9.14, Singed and Shaco are the two worst melee champs in the game, if not the worst champs period. The only role I've found success with Shaco in is support - fucking support - this poor clown can barely clear the jungle anymore and god forbid he gets invaded. Singed doesn't have the luxury of hanging out in different roles like Shaco, and in my 650+ games of him over the past 3 years I cant think of a single time I've ever hated playing him this much. Singed wants to be fast, deal a bit less damage than a mage and have about the same health as a bruiser, but right now it feels like he cant even get to 5 minutes without being dead weight on the team. I'm going to highlight the issues with Shaco and Singed below in two separate blocks of text, then talk about some other issues I have with the current meta.

Shaco. Undoubtedly one of the most annoying champs to play again when he's strong, especially in lower elo; lucky for people who dislike Shaco hes barely as strong as a cannon minion right now. On an average red start clear with a leash Shaco will usually end up at about 1/3 hp by the time he gets to his blue buff. Hes pathetic at clearing krugs and rapters, which is a problem considering he relies HEAVILY on redbuff early and midgame, this forces him to either spend precious time he could be investing in ganking on running across the map to get to the camps he can actually clear, or he has to buy a tiamat and set himself behind 1325 gold early, which I don't think I need to say is a lot for a jungler who's suppose to thrive on the early game. The only 2 things Shaco has going for him is his ability to instantly clear scuttle with his boxes and Dark Harvest being good on him, and neither of those matter if the enemy jungler is competent. Here's how I would make Shaco feel less like a last minute kids party clown and more like the psychopathic maniac he's suppose to be. Shaco NEEDS help clearing, the easiest way to do this would be to lower the cooldown on his boxes by 2-4 seconds. I think a good way to do this without throwing off his balance would be to remove the cooldown scaling with level and just give it a flat 7 second CD. This would help him immensely with his clear, it would help bring AP Shaco back out of the wood work and it would reinforce his early game presence.. A reasonable assumption would be that this would make fighting him impossible, but its important to remember that sweepers completely remove the fear effect his boxes have. If this is still to much of a problem I'd suggest removing the ability to place boxes while invisible and the box-duration ap scaling (because it already does effectively nothing and has no reason to exist in the first place)

Singed. Singed is a victim of top lanes merciless power creep and counter pick meta. There is absolutely ZERO reason to EVER pick Singed. He cant proxy bad matchups anymore because his sustain is dead and minions have been buffed to the point where they're also as strong as Shaco. Here's a list of champs that do what Singed does but a million times better: Garen, Nasus, Darius, Tahm, Gankplank, Aatrox. The only thing that sets these champs apart from Singed is the fact that Singed is AP, good thing black cleaver exists otherwise that might be an issue for them... Singed has to buy his sustain, Garen Nasus Gankplank Tahm and Aatrox have it hard boiled in their kits for free. Singed has to buy his damage in order to come even close to winning trades, Garen Gankplank Darius and Aatrox win trades with their eyes closed. You might think, this is fine, every champ has bad match ups and Singed is suppose to power spike mid game anyway, right? These are all Melee immobile toplaners... Singed is suppose to counter immobile melee tops, that is the ONLY thing he is suppose to counter... Don't get me started on the mobile melee tops like Jax, Kled, Fiora... The Dark Seal nerf was a nail in the coffin for Singes lane phase, Dark Seal stacking was the only thing keeping him on the verge of viability, and the compensation buff were undeniably nice, especially the fling mana cost, but it doesn't matter if Singed cant even get to level 6 before the lane is a lost cause. When I first started playing Singed I would get in game excited to learn about the matchup and see what max speed I could hit, now when I get in game I see the matchup and wonder how many of my teammate will have rage quit by the time I come online. But above all of this, quite possibly Singes biggest problem, is runes. What.the.fuck.is.he.suppose.to.take? Most people I see are taking Domination and Precision right now, and it makes sense, he needs the healing from Ravenous Hunter and Triumph to function, and since hes building damage he needs the Tenacity from precision to stay alive. He had fun with conq, dont get me wrong, but conq was broken and needed to be nerfed for champs like Hec and Jax to ever not be bullshit. Dark Harvest is very good late, but again games are usually over by 15 minutes in the current meta. Predator is fun but inconvenient, Electrocute is actually better than you might think but its single target and that does not jive with Singed at all, and Hail of Blades is not designed for Singed at all. Aftershock is the ideal rune for Singed in my opinion, or it would be if tanks mattered right now. In this meta DAMAGE is POWER, the team with more damage WINS. Singed is out here trying to build mage items like Proto and Zhonyas and embarrassing himself in the process. Here's what I would suggest to make Singed feel less like a Mad babyrager and more like the Mad Chemist hes suppose to be. Singed either needs sustain forced into his kit, spell vamp on his toxic trail or something, or much more ideally, he needs the Dark Seal nerfs reverted. I respect the buff-more-nerf-less mentality that riot has been embracing this season, but sometimes nerfs are unavoidable. Address the issues with Akali Ryze Xer and whoever else was abusing Dark Seal and dig Singed back up from his shallow grave. Other things that could help Singed would be removing the cast time from his w and reverting that 0.5 second cooldown on his Q thats on the pbe right now (seriously whats even the point of that? Just to aggravate people who are used to the current cooldown? To make it even harder for him to farm early?)

Alright, now that I'm done ranting about my dead babies, I feel it necessary to address some other champs that are in the meta right now. Tahm-kench is unbeatable, simple as that. The Renekton shield break is a great solution but it seems to me like that's only going to further enforce the already unbearable counter pick meta of top, one hard counter isn't enough to remove a dominant pick from the meta either (yes ik about blitz too, but hes stuck bot for now). Jax is far too safe of a pick, there's literally zero risk in picking him, and for a toplaner that's impressive considering the aforementioned counter pick meta; he needs the Katarina treatment on his ward jump in my opinion. Sylas should have power shifted from his ult to his E, t least make him take ultimate hunter or presence of mind to get that insanely low ult cooldown. Nasus W last FAR to long, either combine swiftness boots and mercs to you dont have to lose out of resistance just to counter it or nerf its duration directly. Id also love to see Nasus' passive reworked, "he gets lifesteal derr" is incredibly outdated not to mention boring.

TL;DR the games balance is in critical need of help, tanks are dead and assassins cant even take advantage of that fact, mage items are still to versatile and runes shoehorn champs into specific play styles. Riot can keep trying to patch this flood of shit with TFT but the sealant is starting to deteriorate and for the first time I'm genuinely concerned about the future of this game. -Stay Happy_