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Top lane feels shit to play because the lane is changing

nelogis·4/4/2019, 7:49:55 AM·40 votes·15,087 views

Every lane (outside of jungle and top) has a clear identitiy on what works in that speicifc lane.

You look at mid lane for example, you know that this is the lane where the mages and assassins are.

When someone in your team picks Trundle mid you already get sceptical, before even seeing how it turns out you already know "this champ is not meant for mid lane"

Same goes for support, you have damage supports / tank supports / enchanter supports. There isn't anything else there. You can't get anywhere with a Darius or Urgot support it just doesn't work.

Of course you have your accosional outliners but 90% of them get removed almost instantly from the lanes

Malzahar Support Maokai Support Aatrox Mid Irelia Mid Pretty much any non-marksmen in the ADC role outside of Yasuo

When you go to OP.GG and check Mid / Bot / Support you see champs that you actually expect to be in these lanes. You can go down to like Tier 5 "almost troll picks" and there are still champs that you expect to be in these lanes.

So what do you expect from a top lane champ? You are thinking about Bruiser (Juggernauts / Fighters / Divers / Skirmishers) and Tanks right? You aren't thinking about Vladimir or Akali right?

Now go to OP.GG and check the champs for top lane. There are 3 different classes in the first 10 champions and the tank-class isn't one of them. For the first 20 champions you got 4 classes presented and the tanks are still not one of them.

When you count every champ OP.GG lists for top lane you have EVERY class in the game presented in the top lane. Not a single class is missing.

Now this was not always the case, you couldn't just go Klepto Zilean top and get away with it. You also weren't able to play Vayne top.

Top lane, like any other lane, used to have requirements your champion had to fulfill to be playable top. Now are original top champs unplayable right now? Not really, some got fucked over by the ranged spam like Trundle but you still have most top champs that are playable in the lane.

The problem is that players didn't start playing top because of Vayne or Akali or Vladimir. They started playing top because they liked the Bruiser / Tank lane.

Remember how we tried to "open up" bot lane, how literally every bot laner ever complained for months that they can't play the lane even though their original champs were still perfectly viable? It was never about viability, it just felt like total ass to play. Bot laners didn't start playing bot lane because of mages.

The same thing is happening with top. Now this is happening over a long time period, not like with bot lane where mages kicked the door open and told everyone there that the party is over through the course of 1 patch.

But it is STILL happening with top lane and it feels like total ass to play. If we want to fix top we need to enforce it's identity. Top lane should not be the dumping grounds for champions that failed to work in their intented lanes (looking at you Akali and Viktor) it also shouldn't be a lane where ranged cheese works out as well as now (looking at you Vladimir and Vayne).

How do you fix this though? One way to go about it is to decrease the efficiency of non-interactive poke. Dorans Shield used to have a passive that blocks 8 dmg from single target spells or auto attacks.

That alone would help a lot against stuff like Vladimir or Vayne.

The next big thing is that if a melee top wants to fight a ranged one he needs to basically all-in. For an all-in the melee needs to have a relatively high HP pool to not die in the fight.

What I would do is to add a melee only bonus to Dorans Shield for this. It would make it so the HP you get is a flat amount and not scaled off missing health. This way it helps to steay healthy and look for those all-ins.

In short I would rework Dorans Shield into this:

Dorans Shield (450 gold)

+80 Health UNIQUE PASSIVE: +6 HP / 5 UNIQUE PASSIVE: Blocks 8 damage from single target attacks and spells from champions. UNIQUE PASSIVE: Restores 0 − 30 (based on missing health) health over 10 seconds after taking damage from an enemy champion.

Melee only: Regenerates 20 health over 10 seconds when hit by an enemy champion instead of 0-30 (based on missing health)

These changes will help against most of the problematic champs in top. Akali and the like would need champion specific changes.

Edit: I made this post before patch 9.7, right now tanks are represented in the first 20 champs whooo!.... I guess

47 Comments

VoraciousX4/4/2019, 8:07:04 AM7 votes

Akali was a consistent top laner before her rework, and Vlad was as well. His rework didn't really change much about him so you'd expect him to be able to top as well. Why do you think cloth armor 4 pots was on her recommended? It used to be her standard top starter items. Vlad also would always start Dorans Shield or Amp Tome. Vayne top has always also been a niche top laner. She could always work, she just wasn't an always good pick.

Something to note also Irelia has a higher win rate mid than top still and is still played in mid 30% of the time she's picked.

OneMustFall4/4/2019, 10:34:06 AM6 votes

You can literally play any champion anywhere if you know how to play your champion. There's always been weird stuff played Top like Taric and Rengar. It's a 1v1 lane and if you know how to solo fight and your matchups, you can make anything work.

That being said, I think ADCs in general went from being undertuned to overtuned and now they can kind of dominate everywhere. Almost every ADC can sustain themselves now in lane whereas that was less true in the past.

lowrankhero4/4/2019, 11:25:21 AM4 votes

vlad has been a toplaner for like, forever

AngelofJudgement4/4/2019, 10:08:58 PM4 votes

know this will get downvoted but they post is actually just straight up factually false in almost every way. just going to address the top lane use to be all about fighters. no it wasnt go back and watch games in season 3 and see lissandra lulu kennen rumble ryze and kayle in the top lane all the time. and if you say "yea but in season 1 top lane was about fighters" then your talking about an era where players thought the best role for adc champions was in the mid lane soooooo. The romanticizing fromtop laners about old seasons is tiresome the balance in this game has always been a complete joke we are just way more aware of it now cus A there is more information about the game B most players are no longer in the honemyoon phase they were in season 2/3/4

A Chaotic Mind4/4/2019, 6:03:33 PM3 votes

wtf are you talking about vlad was played in top lane since his release

5050BS4/4/2019, 7:05:57 PM3 votes

Dude you can play any champ anywhere. Deal with it. Yes Some are bad in some places but Some are GOOD in places you would not find them.

Luc Mid Vayn/Quinn top Reksai Mid

Heimer ADC Swain ADC AD Malz Junlge (plz bring this back Riot)

Saevum4/4/2019, 5:22:51 PM3 votes

Its the more unstable lane in league. This is not new.

15424/4/2019, 3:25:46 PM3 votes

that's why i stopped playing jungle, jungle used to be a place for though champs that had shields or ways to recover themselves while jungling, now a days you see weaklings like twitch jungling, graves, and the lamb, even the goddam teemo; the jungle was made weaker cuz of them, it was completely ruined, and one of my fav roles passed to be the least thing i want to play.

Acekill3r4/4/2019, 6:41:19 PM2 votes

Your argument went south when you talked about adc complaining when they were "still viable".

Let me tell you that they fkin weren't and i stopped reading there.

Using lies to support an argument is NEVER going to make you sound smart but the complete opposite.

I suggest you to remove that bullshit if you want to get taken seriously.

The23rdGamer4/4/2019, 12:59:39 PM2 votes

Your post is well written :) My only complaint would be that champions outside of the big beefy tanks and bruisers have been played top for ages (in fact, some of the first champions that were played toplane were Katarina and Ryze back in S1).

Obviously that information is incredibly old by now though, and I completely agree that top can feel awful to play if weird picks become too strong there. I can't tell you how many times I've had to face Jhin top on Mordekaiser and found myself unable to play the game due to his ranged harass and his movement speed boost.

Your Doran's Shield changes might help fix this. I would be interested in seeing how this could be applied to some of the feelsbad moments that currently exist. ^^;

Farm With Jayce4/4/2019, 2:53:02 PM2 votes

Vlad is like, one of the only 2 mages that belong in the top lane. Vlad and Swain are top lane champions because theyre basically bruisers with all the health they build. Its been like that forever, Akali has also been top forever.

Now if you were to say top lane is becoming trash because tanks are irrelevant due to being one shot in team fights, then this would help your case more. Akali, Swain, and Vlad isnt why people dont play tanks top lane. They dont play tanks top because theyre utterly useless compared to a bruiser that can provide damage and cc instead of just cc from a tank.

If Riot really wanted Tanks to come back into the top lane, they'd have to make the game less snowbally, where nerfing Runes Reforged would come in. Tanks havent been in the top lane since Season 7 ended where Runes Reforged was introduced. Giving champions more damage than ever, making tanks more of a support than top laner now.

Scottsc204/4/2019, 4:33:14 PM2 votes

As a jungle main who sees weird shit that shouldn't be viable pop up all the time (this is low Platinum elo, BTW), I quite agree that both jungle and top lane feel very bad to play right now.

Hayaishi24/4/2019, 4:40:21 PM2 votes

The fact you can pick Kennen and autowin any lane against melee in top is a testament of how incompetent this company is.

Quepha4/4/2019, 6:44:21 PM2 votes

Pretty sure people have been playing Vayne top since season 3.

5StackUltOneShot4/4/2019, 7:03:52 PM2 votes

One day Im up against bruisers the next its top tank Viktor into toplane Vayne into aftershock Lissandra.

Help pls...

Salty Mc Feed4/4/2019, 8:01:29 PM2 votes

Completely wrong, nothing is stopping your from playing Sion mid for example, except bad match ups, but these can happen always and on any position, so it's a matter of the individual draft and not a general top lane issue.

The biggest issue on top lane is that players counter pick a lot, which naturally brings some ranged champions to the lane which in return are very vulnerable to ganks in the long lane but at the same can bully their opponents really hard when left alone, but even among melee champions there are a lot of really unfair and one sided match ups that players like to abuse. So it actually becomes more of a jungle and mid issue too... Games are decided a lot by draft and counterpicking, but also the decision making of the other players and especially the jungler.

Imo picking Darius or Illaoi is as much of a dick move as picking Vayne... but I guess if you personally prefer melee you will hate on Vayne players. I don't really care, I think top lane is super snowbally and risky in general you just gotta deal with it, either by using different picks or working out safer strategies to survive the lane...or just dodging.

ModCaliCoastReplay4/5/2019, 1:16:48 AM2 votes

As someone who's been a toplane main for almost two seasons now, I absolutely understand the frustrations about ranged tops. This argument isn't new; there are many people who feel toplane is the last "safe" lane for melee champions, and are upset when they pick one of these melee champions into a ranged champion who counters them almost completely in lane phase.

My issue with it is - I don't know how you "fix" this without fundamentally altering the game in unintended ways, or ways that are impossible to enforce. It also gets into some very fundamental questions about the game and the nature of MOBAs - to wit, with 143 champions in the game, should it be a design choice that the majority of champions have a balanced chance against each other in a 1v1 matchup (which top represents more so than any other lane)? Is this desirable? Is it even possible? (It's very possible that it is not possible, in my opinion as someone who is also a game designer on occcasion.)

As an example, as best I remember, one of the reasons item 1054 was changed away from the damage-reduction passive is that the old version had a tendency to make Darius a brutal monster in toplane, as well as making supports like Alistar Braum a nightmare for enemy botlaners if they were willing to trade off gold/vision. It was altered into an item that gave 100% extra base health regen, which proved ugly on DrMundo and other high-regen base champs, which was also unbalancing, so it's now been changed into the item it is now, which manages to not break the game by also not being incredibly amazing at much of anything. I don't think giving the damage-reduction passive back is the worst idea, but one of the reasons that tank items have been nerfed so heavily overall is that the Season 5-ish (?) unkillable tank meta was judged to be more uninteractive than a damage meta for an actually fairly simple and reasonable reason. High damage can produce unfairness in the "dice roll" sense that whoever gets the first combo off or can build high damage first tends to win fights, but at least both sides have a chance to interact. An unkillable tank is however nearly completely uninteractive at extreme levels; you can hack on it, shoot it, and slam it for eons and nothing you do will affect it strongly enough to give kill pressure before it can get to safety in lane phase or before the enemy carries wipe your tankless team in late game.

That being said, I would strongly argue that this is a problem that is made worse by the high damage meta that has been a perpetual source of complaint for two and a half seasons or so now. I'm still among those advocating for a general damage reduction; I've suggested a 5%, across-the-board, damage-reduction day on PBE that hits every source of damage in the game except towers/Baron/dragon for some time. Some of it is rose-tinted glasses in my opinion - a lot of people forget that Season 1 was ridiculously unbalanced and dominated by mages in pro play back when Zhonya's Ring was a thing - Rabadon's and Hourglass in the same item, and as broken as it sounds. Season 2 and 3 still even had some very broken champions who were heavily nerfed - remember when Ahri's W-bolts actually had kill pressure as a single bolt, instead of en masse? Or when old Kayle had a 40% scaling ratio on her E attacks? But overall, I agree that it did feel better, and that damage does need to come down generally for the game to feel good again.

(As a final note, Vladimir Swain Ryze have indeed been played in the toplane for their entire existences, which all go back to Season 1 or even before in Ryze 's case, so the argument that they're up there now and that's a problem doesn't really hold water.)

Libido4/5/2019, 9:38:36 AM1 votes

The thing is, runes made ranged champions unfun to play against. Its just not fun, ruines the game. I feel like i am beaten not because he is better, but i just dont feel like playing

Metallikaiser4/4/2019, 9:13:39 PM1 votes

Nah, this whole argument falls apart when you consider some staple top laners like Rumble, Swain, and Teemo, and using the example of Vladimir and Akali who are absolutely not new to top lane just makes the post a little nonsensical, not to mention Vayne top's success is tied to her being generally over tuned right now. We need less self imposed restrictions on roles, not more, I had so much fun playing non marksmen in botlane, and I was really excited to see more people come to realize you don't need to play a marksmen, I thought things would finally change in the game culture, and then riot just gave up and caved in to the angry adc mains and just reverted everything despite the changes happening because we all agreed marksmen were waay too strong (Funny that, same exact thing they did with the recent crit revert.).

Also funny thing about the poor nature of your general statements, not only are there certainly non bruiser/tank champions that are staples of top, but it gets more specific, there are tons of bruisers you can pick top and get flamed for (Xin/WW/or until recently Hecarim top), and the same thing happens to tanks, imagine the flame for picking Sej/Ali/Zac top.

And the funny thing about this is, is that it stiffles creativity and innovation, I was doing Urgot jungle for an entire season and criticized for it, and now everyone is doing it. Not to mention plenty of things that are just accepted now that had to be something different when they started, Vel Koz support, Viktor top, Taliyah jungle.

Corvin07164/4/2019, 8:24:13 AM1 votes

I don't think any item change can fix a lane without give an opening for abuse in other roles. You made me think about something else though. How about an area effect which gives some disadvantage for champions from other classes? E.g. damage or ms reduction which fades away after 15 minutes and effects only the lane between the two outer turrets.

Red Mage4/4/2019, 10:14:27 PM1 votes

All lanes are changing & have changed overtime.

Bot lane: When a few champions got reworked you would start to see Ziggs bot, Mord, Yasuo, Renekton, Viktor, (Lately Cassio). Back in the day unless you didn't have marksman role next to your name people would flame you for these choices. So it use to be only Ashe, Jinx, MF, Cait, Kalista etc.

Support: Before: You'd only see legit supports Sona/Soraka/Lulu/Janna/Alistar/Taric/Karma(Pre-rework) (Oh lets not forget when supports had 0 income and their inv was like 9 wards, oracle potions, and 1 item to help ur adc get stronger. Now: You see almost anything ranging from Soraka, Veigar, Heimer, Ashe, MF, Kayle, Poppy, Renekton etc.

Mid: Before: Zed, Talon, Yasuo, Veigar, Syndra, Lux, Annie...(your typical mage/assassins) Now: You see all the mage/assassins but you also see people like Irelia, Riven, Lee Sin, MF, Sivir, Ashe, Lucian.

Jungle: This role is ALWAYs changing so you legit see everyone there (Hi Karthus).

Top: Imo is the most versatile role you have your tanks like Garen, Poppy, Maokai, etc. You have your bruisers like Darius, your mages like Vladimir, Heimer, your marksmen like Vayne & Teemo, even supports can go up there..leona, taric, blitz, etc.

TLDR: All lanes are changing & the people who don't like it are the people who don't like change.

Crescent Dusk4/4/2019, 11:30:50 PM1 votes

{quoted}

Every lane (outside of jungle and top) has a clear identitiy on what works in that speicifc lane.

You look at mid lane for example, you know that this is the lane where the mages and assassins are.

When someone in your team picks Trundle mid you already get sceptical, before even seeing how it turns out you already know "this champ is not meant for mid lane"

Same goes for support, you have damage supports / tank supports / enchanter supports. There isn't anything else there. You can't get anywhere with a Darius or Urgot support it just doesn't work.

Of course you have your accosional outliners but 90% of them get removed almost instantly from the lanes

Malzahar Support Maokai Support Aatrox Mid Irelia Mid Pretty much any non-marksmen in the ADC role outside of Yasuo

When you go to OP.GG and check Mid / Bot / Support you see champs that you actually expect to be in these lanes. You can go down to like Tier 5 "almost troll picks" and there are still champs that you expect to be in these lanes.

So what do you expect from a top lane champ? You are thinking about Bruiser (Juggernauts / Fighters / Divers / Skirmishers) and Tanks right? You aren't thinking about Vladimir or Akali right?

Now go to OP.GG and check the champs for top lane. There are 3 different classes in the first 10 champions and the tank-class isn't one of them. For the first 20 champions you got 4 classes presented and the tanks are still not one of them.

When you count every champ OP.GG lists for top lane you have EVERY class in the game presented in the top lane. Not a single class is missing.

Now this was not always the case, you couldn't just go Klepto Zilean top and get away with it. You also weren't able to play Vayne top.

Top lane, like any other lane, used to have requirements your champion had to fulfill to be playable top. Now are original top champs unplayable right now? Not really, some got fucked over by the ranged spam like Trundle but you still have most top champs that are playable in the lane.

The problem is that players didn't start playing top because of Vayne or Akali or Vladimir. They started playing top because they liked the Bruiser / Tank lane.

Remember how we tried to "open up" bot lane, how literally every bot laner ever complained for months that they can't play the lane even though their original champs were still perfectly viable? It was never about viability, it just felt like total ass to play. Bot laners didn't start playing bot lane because of mages.

The same thing is happening with top. Now this is happening over a long time period, not like with bot lane where mages kicked the door open and told everyone there that the party is over through the course of 1 patch.

But it is STILL happening with top lane and it feels like total ass to play. If we want to fix top we need to enforce it's identity. Top lane should not be the dumping grounds for champions that failed to work in their intented lanes (looking at you Akali and Viktor) it also shouldn't be a lane where ranged cheese works out as well as now (looking at you Vladimir and Vayne).

How do you fix this though? One way to go about it is to decrease the efficiency of non-interactive poke. Dorans Shield used to have a passive that blocks 8 dmg from single target spells or auto attacks.

That alone would help a lot against stuff like Vladimir or Vayne.

The next big thing is that if a melee top wants to fight a ranged one he needs to basically all-in. For an all-in the melee needs to have a relatively high HP pool to not die in the fight.

What I would do is to add a melee only bonus to Dorans Shield for this. It would make it so the HP you get is a flat amount and not scaled off missing health. This way it helps to steay healthy and look for those all-ins.

In short I would rework Dorans Shield into this:

These changes will help against most of the problematic champs in top. Akali and the like would need champion specific changes.

Edit: I made this post before patch 9.7, right now tanks are represented in the first 20 champs whooo!.... I guess

BULL.SHIT.

I see Fioras and Irelias mid all the time. I see AP Malphite mids all the time. Mobile bruiser mids are happening fairly frequently and they are disgusting to play against as a mage who gets 1/2 hp removed by a single auto+skill used by said bruiser.

Pick an Annie Mid. Get a Fiora who proceeds to make me useless in lane since she can parry any stun and her dash happens to be the same range as my damn spell range, then I get auto'd to death. Same with Irelia, land her stun, dash onto me, lose 70% of my HP and proceed to be starved of CS the entire laning phase.

Malphite builds toward last chapter like me and starts outpoking me thanks to his passive and his ult does ridiculous damage.

The only lanes that are relatively unaffected by gimmicks are bot lane and junglers since their respective mains cried hard enough to gain exclusivity.

Sillae4/5/2019, 12:16:45 AM1 votes

"Same goes for support, you have damage supports / tank supports / enchanter supports."

Ok, but literally every champion either falls into damage/tank/utility. Theoretically, any champ can be played as a support.

iDarkWind4/4/2019, 12:33:30 PM1 votes

[deleted]

Acekill3r4/9/2019, 12:16:17 PM1 votes

This Board is fkin dead, you downvoted me for saying the truth, try searching truth on Wikipedia and you are going to realize how stupid you people are for denying something proven to be true. Bunch of kiddos.

Snowman Arc4/5/2019, 8:56:50 AM1 votes

People seem to confuse the style of champion compared to the lane they are supposed to be played at. The only differences between top and mid lane are:

  1. Shorter time to get to mid lane from base, therefore champions with stronger waveclear can return without dropping cs, alongside other benefits, so generally mages have a better time there.
  2. Mid is also a shorter lane, which means that when fighting / skirmishing, you can sacrifice a bit of mobility because you can get to the safety of your tower more quickly. At the same time, you need stronger burst damage to avoid your opponent running away to their tower.
  3. Top lane is harder to gank, therefore the chances of being into an isolated 1v1 are higher, therefore you need champions who are stronger there as a 1v1 champion, or someone who can at least drop any lane priority and not affect the rest of the map that much, in favor of late game power or utility.
Ladrac4/4/2019, 12:24:22 PM1 votes

I aggree