Why ranged top laners are perfectly fair

Mira Arya Enthe··6 votes·1,121 views

Barring completely overtuned picks like Jayce(Same could be said for Camille and Yasuo who are annoying melees) I really don't understand the hatred for ranged tops. Now maybe this is because I primarily jungle. But to me, any high harass top laner is the counter for themselves. Usually much squishier they must rely on bullying in order to be effective. Otherwise they lose their only advantage. The thing about bullies is they ALWAYS PUSH LANE.

Sure. You may lose a wave or two of gold(I see top end Riven's give up the first 1-2 waves in about half of matchups). But you get the exp and THEY ALWAYS PUSH LANE!

Here is where me being a jungler comes in. Because there is no easier gank than an overextended Teemo or Kennen or Quinn. I absolutely love these ganks as any of my four junglers. Shyvana Sejuani Riven Amumu

How these lanes usually go down in my games.

Darius is being harassed out of farm by Teemo. Shyvana walks into lane behind him. He either dies or flashes out. If he flashes out rinse and repeat in a minute or so. Between Darius pull and slow, Shyvana's redbuff plus chilling/exhaust we end up with a 100% mushroom fed Darius by 10 minutes. This is on my worst ganking jungler too...

So. Maybe it is not Teemo or any other ranged top laner who is the problem. Maybe it is your team communication. When I play this game I use the chat box a LOT. Not to flame people. To talk.

"Hey it is Shacko with ignite and smite. He will likely invade here Ping ward please?" For example.

The same goes for laning. Mind you I top lane as tops nobody wants to gank for. Yet still get marvelous results just by saying "Pantheon is really hard for me. I am going to play careful. Can I get a gank please? I will let him push."

Now that I think of it. I wrote this on ranged top laners but it applies to a lot of the shit people complain about. I will nicely ask my support when playing Ashe. "Can we try to keep wards up in these areas?" Pings "I have bird for vision on" ping.

Point is. Lane bullies push. When facing a lane bully POLITELY communicate with your team. Confess it is a bad matchup for you. And ask for help. That "toxic" champion can soon be spewing toxic /all chat about jungler tents and mid laner as you eat him for lunch.

At least. I assume so. I haven't used /all for two seasons now. It serves only as distration and tilt. It serves no purpose.

And yes. This is the NORMAL strategy in top tier play. Jayce bullying Garen? Free gank. Kennen Bullying Riven? Free gank. Riven Bullying Gangplank? Free fucking gank. Just conserve your HP and don't do anything stupid. As Adrian Riven said in his coaching of a Trynd matchup "Lose 3 farm now get a wave later".

Ranged top laners. Are their own counter.

38 Comments

TyrekGoldenspear7 votes

This is a clever solution...

If junglers looked anywhere but bot lane right now. :')

Right now top is pretty much ignored in this meta as games end before most can scale.

Mira Arya Enthe2 votes

Works for me when I play top as Riven, Teemo, Garen or AD Leona.

TyrekGoldenspear2 votes

Then I need you as my jungler pls. Random junglers I get cannot be relied upon.

Ralanr1 votes

When has top not been ignored?

TyrekGoldenspear1 votes

When summoner 12 was good?

Ralanr5 votes

And then they nerfed it. Clearly Riot thinks top shouldn't join the party in bot.

TyrekGoldenspear3 votes

At least they're doing something to solve the problem. After all, a 5 man bot is worse than a 4 man bot.

Ralanr1 votes

True. I just wish they stop putting the important stuff there.

TyrekGoldenspear1 votes

Yeah. It's good enough that adc and support booty is down there. No need to make gold and drag down there too.

ned the kled1 votes

Oh man, i am not glad they nerfed tp, it was ggez for me.

But as kled? i don't need it. i can tp to the inner tower, ult. ggez still xd

Salron4 votes

Junglers cannot relied upon in soloq

Mira Arya Enthe1 votes

Have you ever tried. POLITELY asking your jungler OR mid for help. Then patiently waiting till they can? Works 95% of my lanes.

ShaolinToilet1 votes

I have asked very politely for ganks in top lane and been ignored 95 percent of the time

Catastrop4 votes

Me get ganked as a ranged top laner? Karma Lissandra Swain Whatever are you talking about?

Really though, I'll never understand the ridiculous notion that ranged top is somehow a cheese strat. I would assume that if there are melee champions who can bully other melee champions out of the game, logically you would look to ranged alternatives to counter them.

Mira Arya Enthe2 votes

This basically. The reason I will play Jayce top is because I don't want to deal with Darius, Garen or Trynd just statting all over my face and winning.

Ralanr3 votes

So they are healthy because they cause your junglers to come help a heavily solo focused lane that offers no real objectives except a buff that's only great for split pushers and is very risky to get?

Top lane is supposedly a self sufficient lane and you usually have to accept that you're not going to get help from your jungler. Even if you ask politely, your jungler could see better advantages in other lanes or in the enemy jungle.

My only problem with ranged top laners is their free harass (particularly Quinn's enhanced damage with Valor) because it effectively makes my lane hell unless my jungler comes to help. If my opponent is good, I feel like I can't do anything against them.

Should ranged top laners not exist? Hell no, they deserve to exist as do other strategic niches. I'm just more salty that I see more ranged top laners than I do melee bot lane carries. It makes me feel that a ranged champion can potentially function anywhere they want without sacrificing much in comparison.

AKA: they look like the child that gets everything and taunts (pokes) you about it.

TyrekGoldenspear3 votes

#BuffDoransShieldPls

Mira Arya Enthe1 votes

Of course that needs to happen. That won't take Jayce, Vlad, Swain, Quinn, Teemo, etc out of top lane.

TyrekGoldenspear3 votes

The sad thing is that maybe Riot knows item 1054 is lame.

After all, item 1055 and item 1056 have a cool background or some kind of effects in their art.

But item 1054 has just a plain black background.

Mira Arya Enthe1 votes

The problem is the perception that League is a solo game. Top can be ganked by Mid or Jungle diring their standard route/roam. On top of that top laners can clear wave and then TP gank to get an advantage elsewhere. It is a team game.

Ralanr2 votes

Yes it is a team game, but top lane has this nasty little history of being an island and thus often forgotten about when compared to mid or bot.

There is no strategical reason to get your top laner to snowball over getting your mid laner or bot lane to snowball. Especially when mid and bot are closer to early game objectives.

Mira Arya Enthe1 votes

According to the boards, Darius, Fiora, Riven and Jax all carry much harder than ADCs. Why not snowball them?

Also that sounds like a problem with top objectives not ranged tops.

Ralanr1 votes

According to the boards, everything dies quickly to a full build ADC.

Mira Arya Enthe1 votes

That was more sarcasm.

Anyway the game shouldn't be designed based on failure to gank top. Ganking top is normal when we aren't talking about B5 teams. Because top tier junglers know swinging a neutral late or free gold from a lane bully is good. For example watch Adrian Riven matchups into GP and Jayce and watch how much his junglers come.

Also that sounds like a problem with towers and rift herald. Nit ranged top laners.

Ralanr2 votes

Again I'm not saying ranged top laners shouldn't exist. I'm just saying that they are very frustrating to fight because of how much you're forced to rely on your jungler in a solo focused lane (which top is advertised as).

There's also something wrong when ranged top laners become the meta rather than act as niche picks. Such as when Jayce and Kennan dominated top lane.

Mira Arya Enthe1 votes

Kennen was nerfed and no longer is meta. He is off meta except perhaps in LCS where that kind of engage can never be nerfed enough.

Jayce is overtuned.

Buttpirate lacks interactivity. His ult is for other lanes, he denies farm. Clears waves with barrels and farms at safety with exhaust ready.

BastionKross2 votes

Mira seems to be looking at the situation almost exclusively from a jungler perspective. The junger sees that Quinn bullying the ally top laner and is happy to see that, since it's free gank city.

But spare a thought to the experience the top laner is having. They're farming under tower, playing very passive, often getting poked down from outside tower range, and generally having a miserable experience. They're not even playing League at that point; they're playing Punching Bag Simulator 2017.

The only bright spot in that lane is when the jungler does come to gank. Unfortunately, if you're in soloQ (particularly lower elos) that gank may be five minutes away when you call for help, if it ever comes at all.

And that is what makes the whole ranged vs melee situation so unbearable for the top laner, whether or not he gets to have fun in the laning phase is completely dependent on the competency of his teammate. That's horrible. No one wants to spend the first ten to fifteen minutes of the game in complete agony because their jungler just wasn't able to get on the same page.

Aptest1 votes

Top lane is supposedly a self sufficient lane

champions are different than one another and therefore with any two champions one will always have the advantage, unless fighting the other champion is out of the question so there's absolutely no kill pressure, because (a) high ranged AFK waveclear (hi Zilean) or (b) too much sustain on both sides (matchups with two tanks with sustain and full tank builds and no damage, like Poppy VS maokai)

Big Lincoln3 votes

Problem is I don't want ganks top, because even if my lane is easier, if bot lane gets ganked and dies they'll turn it into a dragon

Ranged top lane is fine but these ranged top laners aren't. Quinn Jayce are absolute horse shit because they have unmissable disengage spells that you can only outplay if you burn your Flash to get behind them, on top of their high damage harass that remains relevant into late game. Jayce has melee base stats even though he only goes into melee form when he's going to all-in and kill you or if he's disengaging, and Quinn doesn't even need TP to outroam you for days. Kennen is annoying because even if he gets dumpstered he'll probably still be better in teamfights than you, and Teemo was just fucking built to shit on melees.

It's not that they're ranged for me; it's that they're ranged and can shut me down even if I get close to them (except Teemo).

I'd rather go back to the Renekton bar.

doublelift fg2 votes

i tried to learn something from a player for top lane in case i'm autofilled and can't play twitch

read a full essay just to learn that it's ok to be negated 100% if you just harass your jungler for him to gank top and ignore the clown fiesta of bot lane

Mira Arya Enthe1 votes

Standard strategy in top tier play. If you are against a matchup you cannot win. Ask for gank from jungle/mid. Wait patiently until they can.

S0kaX1 votes

What if my jungler sucks or never ganks top???????????????????

Mira Arya Enthe2 votes

Then your team failed as a team and you lost the game because of it. But telling by your excessive use of "??????" In your comment. You aren't the kind of person who knows how to wait for your jungler or mid to gank after politely asking.

Most top lanes I win is because I ask my jungler and/or mid for help.

S0kaX3 votes

I know how to wait, but the fact that you said ranged toplaners are fair because junglers. Everything in this game is fair when they overextend, unless they are Camille which has 9999 dashes. Also I ask for jungler's help, but most jungler are either afk farming or ganking bot only and maybe midlane.

fcI86bas7N1 votes

This whole post if forgetting Gnar who fixes this problem alone. This entire argument is somewhat redundant.

Touch My Box1 votes

To be fair I am a jungle main and when my top laner asks for a gank I tell them to "shut the fuck up, top is a dead lane"

WoonStruck1 votes

Ranged top laners aren't unhealthy.

Ranged top laners that discourage interaction are.

Lulu Engaged on? Polymorph and kite. Use R if things are looking bad. Can't lose unless you're braindead.

Quinn Engaged on? Vault->whatever the fuck you want. Can't lose unless you're braindead.

Teemo Engaged on? Blind and the large majority of champs can't deal enough damage to kill you top. Use W and kite. The only way you lose is if you let them hit their spikes without punishing them before it. This is probably the hardest of these champions, and its still mind-numbingly simple and easy.

Jayce Engaged on? R->QWE->R->W->EQ free kill. Can't lose unless you're braindead.

Kayle Spam E off CD, still don't run out of mana. QW any time something gets near you. After 6-> Engaged on? E->Spam auto attack. If you're taking/going to take a lot of damage, R->QW kite for a free kill. Can't lose unless you're braindead.


Champions like Swain, Vlad, Gnar, etc aren't huge issues. Its primarily the champions listed above.

They're used to cheese, primarily, because there's very little thought that you have to put into them.


Another thing: Once you get past gold MMR, people don't just auto-push lanes. If it starts pushing, they will shove it hard, base, then have an itemization advantage on you while you're forced to stay because of a large wave at tower. If you base after clearing it, they shove in again and you lose a level, letting them cheese you at 6 or some other powerspike around it. If you don't, you have to deal with the same shit, but effectively down 500-1600 gold.

oSEXYPLATYPUSo1 votes

When will people realize that being passive in lane and getting cs as much as you can and playing to your win conditions when you are counterd in lane is a perfectly fine strategy. Just cuz you are in a losing lane does not mean the game is over. The game is not win lane win game. Look at opportunity else where in game to make an impact. Take advantage of what your team can. Its not a game of checkers, its a game of chess

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