Why top lane feels so frustrating right now (discussion post about the state of top lane)

If u didn't get it from the title, I main top lane. And I gotta say, the lane is so frustrating right now. And this is for two reasons

1. Junglers make it feel like a scary movie. I get the purpose of junglers, and even if I find them frustrating as fucking hell, they do have a spot in the game. But holy hell, have they ruined top lane. Unless, you play top lane, you wont truly understand what the big diffrence is from the other lanes. Not only are u alone in a long lane, which already makes you vurnable, you're also melee most of the time in the top lane, which makes you even more vurnable.

Now, there is ofcourse counterplay to this. Warding, playing back and general map awerness. However, wards are not that reliable. Control wards cost is quite high for early game, where you often have to choose between either a or a . Also, they can be cleared. Trinket wards have a long ass cool down and dont last that long. In other words, it's hard for a single top laner to ward up to protect themselves with wards. I mean, its impossible to keep every single gank path completely warded. Even if you ward river and tribush, you can still get lane ganked, or they can gank you mid fight and catch you when you have a harder time to escape. Even with wards you are extremely vurnable.

Moreover, playing back is exactly what is so frustrating about top lane. Playing aggressive top laners, IE feels like playing Russian roulette. Pull the trigger - lock in your champ. Hope that you get a blank where you can lane without much jungler interferance and win your lane, or get a bullet and get camped into oblivion. I think most top laners would agree that those champions are the most fun, but they are such a big risk. Not only cuz there are alot of counterpicks, not only cuz they are vurnable to outplay, but also because of junglers. Those top laners just dont seem worth the risk now that junglers are so prevelent.

And, even if you're not playing a super aggressive champion. You're playing . Not the most aggressive top laners, they are fine just sitting back and farming, maybe poking a bit, and waiting for late game. But even as those, you will still have to trade. Even if you dont want to, almost all other players will trade with you. And there comes a point where you will have to risk taking a fight to get a minion. Also, you dont want to give your enemy free farm without threating with a trade if they try to farm to close to you.

This is good, this keeps the lane exciting and it punishes bad decisions and rewards being able to punish properly. The problem is that i'm afraid to do any of these things cuz junglers. If a Riven overextends to take a creep, you should punish her for overextending. But at the same time, you have no idea if she is just baiting you, and there is actually a jungler waiting to gank you. The problem with this is that you are now afraid to fight when you shouldn't be, you're afraid to punish plays that deserve to be punished. This makes for unheatlhy, unfun and unrewarding game play.

Again, its like Russian roulette. Take the fight, and hope to god that you get a blank (no jungler) instead of a bullet (there is a jungler).

2. It feels like its ignored by Riot. Compared to all the other roles, Top has gotten the least attention from Riot. We haven't had a major class update, no real item updates. Now, riot has started giving us more pure top laners, in , which is cool. BUt if you look further back than those, the last champion designed for top lane was in 2012, 5 years ago!

Another sign that top lane is forgotten is that our champions barely get any attention. They're barely bothering to nerf the op toplaners like and a few others, meanwhile completely ignoring the top laners who have needed attention for sooooo long.

Oh cool, getting buffs cuz they're having a hard time. THat's fine. BUT WHAT THE FUCK ABOUT AND A FUCKTON OTHER TOP LANE CHAMPIONS WHO DESPRETETLY NEED ATTENTION.

I barely see any of these, like a good chunk of top laners are just in the gutter, basicly unplayed and Riot doesn't give a fuck. Its ironic that top lane is the lane that THE MOST amount of champions can go, but despite that we se basicly the same 4 champions every game. Every1 (including riot) is talking about how frustrating it is to pick or ban Caitlyn or syndra every game. But has every1 just not noticed that top lane consists of nothing but almost every game? Sure seems like it.

Idk, maybe i'm wrong on these things. I want to hear what other ppl think, especielly other top lane players. I want to know if this is just me, or if other top lane players feel the same way. Thank you for reading.