So ... About Top Lane ...

Top lane is ... interesting.

I've been playing this game for about five or so years now, messing around in silver and having gotten myself in plat. As such, I can't say that I'm an expert at the game. I play, I enjoy and I have fun. I win and lose. I am a league of legends player.

And yet, despite my relatively low ELO, I still can't help but feel that there's something off about fighters ... and I feel like I can contribute something. I personally don't mind the whole thing about fighters compared to tanks and ranged types. I just play to win and get my ELO. I will abuse the meta ... but I will not deny that some of this is not very good.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BAhTh5ud0pw

Recently, I also came across Hashinshin's videos and more importantly, his very long video involving two other high level top laners+jungler (Wickd, eThug, IreliaCarriesu). They are ... kinda right. There's a lot of bullshit to exploit in top lane and there are far too many safe choices that just fuck over fun picks. There aren't enough melee-centric items or items built to help fighters.

Gbay99 also made an interesting video given the state of top lane's incredible diversity and the effect it has on top lane. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=21lIdcCQ6oQ

Some points that they made. 1. Items fighters buy are either better on tanks or are just being built to mess up fighters, better on adc/ranged, too expensive, or are low impact. examples: Tank items , most damage items and even stuff like , items like and being super expensive, and items like (More details in point 5)

Fighters do not have windows of opportunity to exploit tanks and are destroyed by ranged top laners. The current list of top lane fighters that are incredibly strong at the moment are those with range such as , are broken like or have ranged poke .

Tanks and Ranged top laners seem to be balanced around one another. The fighters and juggernauts, as such, are left in positions where their abilities will not win them in straight fights. Instead of making plays on tanks and ranged top laners, fighters must wait for tanks and ranged top laners to make a mistake. The idea is that both sides play on an equal playing field, the tank and the ranged top laner will always shit on the fighter. The fighter is thus taught to punish mistakes rather than taught to make plays ... which, as it turns out, goes into their other point.

With fighters being potato'd on during laning phase or not having a good enough lead, they have struggles being able to split push. Save for , the other fighters have trouble being able to split push effectively unless they have completely dominated their lane. If they do not completely win, they suffer from a feast or famine scenario, something I can probably argue is worse than an assassin's feast or famine due to the fact that assassins have clear strength in being able to burst at least one target in a team fight (and even though they have an absence in competitive play, their style of play and midlane position does not affect their enjoyment. Assassins are still playable compared to fighters). For fighters, if one is stuck in a team fight, they are made to be put into a damage role (with some utility in stuns or slows). They don't do as much damage as an adc, they don't have as much utility as a tank or a support, and they die very easily.

Again, going back to point four, they need to exploit someone getting caught out and while that is a good skill to have, a tank and a ranged top laner can do the same thing and have points 1-3 going for them. A ranged top laner might not be as good at team fighting as a tank, but they're sure going to have a much easier time in the laning phase against a tank/ranged top laner than a fighter would.

Many item specific advantages have been removed for melee fighters such as , the melee specific advantage on and so on. The only melee fighter beneficial item are the hydra items ... and that's more for the sake of actual common sense. Ranged also have an item that functions for them in a similar manner in the form of .

Worse yet, items built for fighters tend to simply fit the archetype of "Deal more damage and get some tank." In Hashinshin's video, the group was going on about an item like Zeke's herald and it got me thinking about tank items. These are not just a ball of stats. They have utility to them, either in the form of healing or giving other people attack speed and damage and etc. VS which basically says they are a ball of stats.

Fighters are, as such, then incentivized to use tank items inefficiently, muddying their place in the game.

Apparently, high level top laners have been told to move onto other laners and told to stop complaining. The issue with this is that this isn't simply a matter of moving to a different champion, this is telling a group of people that they cannot enjoy a role. As Gbay99 said, ADC's are similar. Mid laners are also similar (though the preference of mages vs assassins can be a microcosm of how fighters feel with their feast or famine).

To be a top laner, one has to choose four different archetypes, two of them being very weak while the other two can feel exploitative. I can tell you straight from experience that playing or against a melee champ (tank or whatever) is fun ... but I can also say that I play them for the sake of ruining the other person's day. as well has this issue. They simply just ... destroy and win. I have to make a mistake and even when I lost a game, I know I have ruined someone's fun. Sure, dodge skill shots or whatever, I can show skill expression and such in aiming skill shots as well, but in the end, I know in the bottom of my heart that if I'm not a complete monkey, I will win the lane and I will make their life a living hell.

That is also me changing my role in the game for the sake of avoiding being the one getting shit on. While I don't mind changing it, completely upending fighters for a portion of the community as a whole seems a tad unfair.

SO, what can we do to fix this?

Honestly, I'm not an expert, but suffice it to say, there are some things I can help with THE POWER OF BUSINESS AND COLLEGIATE LEARNING. I think there should be some sort of innate balance, or a core vision that should envelop top lane. In business, a company's vision or mission statement helps set the goals and boundaries for how the company operates. I think top lane should have it's own clear mission statement just as mid, jungle, support, and adc have theirs.

But what are the steps to developing Top lane you ask?

Firstly, we need to identify that there are four archetypes at the moment. Tanks Ranged Fighters Juggernauts

Before we even begin to discuss balancing champions, we need to say what should inherently defeat what.

Should tanks beat ranged? Fighters beat juggernauts? Ranged beat fighters? This four way system needs some clarity in order to move forward.

Please note, saying anything can beat anything if you are "good enough" will not solve the issue. We need to identify what is inherently better than certain others so that, at the least, champions that either fit their roles or are deviations from their roles can be classified as counters or unique picks. Once we have understood what can beat what and look through design, THEN we add counter play and moments of opportunity.

Secondly, with each archetypes identified, give them the ability to do what they do best. For example, if fighters are split pushing types with damage to turrets and abilities that help them run from trouble ... why not help their abilities hit the turrets. Yorick jumped from his Q buff alone so I could see the same happening if you helped Irelia, jax, trundle and all that jazz. If juggernauts are supposed to deal damage in a team fight, give their abilities more damage then.

Thirdly, after identifying what beats what, we need to identify what kind of opportunities we can give to both the advantageous and the disadvantageous. For example, looking at tanks versus fighters, if we were to say that fighters beat tanks in the early game, we should probably remove things that tanks can do in the early game to completely counter them ( for example ... probably moving the grievous wounds to the final item or decreasing the effectiveness as scarra said.) The items tanks will use against fighters may, in a sense, be used by fighters against their counters and so on.

We should also do things to distinguish ranged versus melee. Certain items can have benefits against ranged ( Melee: Get more health back against ranged poke or ranged autos. hits harder against ranged champs.) or perhaps are only half as efficient when used by ranged champs ( ). , for example, has been an abuse case because it hasn't ever received the melee only tag. Why is that? If this was melee only, it would be used only by two archetypes, fighters and juggernauts. Giving these items to ranged only gives ranged a better way transition into the late game compared to fighters buying this item.

Fourthly, when all is said and done, numbers will need to be hit. A lot of problems with tanks and ranged tops are simply a numbers game and the advantages that come with their class that outright overwhelm a fighter. If, for example, someone wanted a fighter that specifically lost early and destroyed tanks or ranged top laners later in the game, the numbers for that champ would have to reflect a weakness early that could be exploited by tanks and ranged types while having the scaling to work later.

More on numbers, gold values will need to be changed. Since we are going in order, items that have been given the melee tag can finally be lowered in cost and used by fighters without fear of being exploited by adc's. The issue that I might see are assassins using these items against mid laners ... but then again, assassins have been out of the lime light and they would need their own changes as well.

So then ... Riot, this is a golden opportunity for you to play around with top lane. Pre-season is the perfect time and place to go wild, be free and get the community to enjoy the chaos. This isn't pre-worlds with the juggernaut patch. Make another juggernaut crazy patch here and watch the meta go hog wild.

I know you're balancing out keystones, but people have already kind of identified what's being abused. In addition, putting in a new keystone will not help fighters all get back on their feet. This needs to be a grand class rework.

Hopefully, I have entertained anyone that reads this and hopefully you will read this as well Riot.

Thank you