Top Lane and the Low Impactfulness Problem
So, I see a lot of threads recently about how top is weak because of the fact that it has low impact. Drag is bot, plus if a bot lane wins, that means TWO people are ahead instead of just one, low ability for top laners to roam, etc.
This problem seems to be accentuated and emphasized by the recent rise of soraka top. She has a global ult, useful in team fights even when behind, relatively safe in lane, inexpensive items, etc.
Well, I have a solution that doesn't involve champion or item balance DIRECTLY (though it would likely cause for some champions to need to be rebalanced some). Here it is:
Riot should create "Teleport Stones) on the map. At least one on the top side of the map that can be used once per character every 5 minutes. Where would it be placed? Right in the middle of where the scuttle crab ward goes after it dies (right before the baron pit). Upon activating it, a champion channels it for 4 seconds and can then teleport to other special teleport stones across the map. If the champion takes ANY damage from ANY source during that time, then the teleport is cancelled and put on CD for another 90 seconds. At least four teleport stones should be on each side of the map. As an example, on the right side of the map, there would be one up near blue buff, one down near red buff, one at the scuttle site, and one at the small brush near mid lane (the second brush out).
Now, to make things more interesting and provide a new objective for jungles and more emphasis on scuttle, the two stones in the river on each side need to first be activated by an ally champ in order for someone else to teleport to it. It would take two seconds to activate, provide 30 gold, 30 XP. The stones could be activated (aka reclaimed) without delay, but the xp and gold reward would be limited to once every 30 seconds (in the event that two junglers kept trying to capture and recapture them over and over).
This would provide junglers, top laners, supports incentive to ward the stones more often and fight over scuttle in order to:
-stop an opposing champ from teleporting bot or midlane for a gank by detecting them with a ward or scuttle vision and attacking them
- Prevent the river teleport stones from being activated in order to prevent the enemy top laner or jungler from teleporting to them.
Now here are two more optional ideas I have for this concept.
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Make it so that ONLY the top lane stone can teleport for the first 14 minutes (nobody wants bot laners or mid laners to have EVEN MORE agency and roaming power during the lane phase, and no top laner likes getting ganked by the bot lane support AND jg out of the blue), but then once the 14 minutes are up, the bot side teleport stone becomes activatable.
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If a player teleports and gets either a kill or two assists within the next 20 seconds, they can reactivate a teleport stone to return to the place they came from (but the original cooldown remains the same) within the next 20 seconds after gaining said kills or assists.
The overall purpose of this? To give toplaners more agency and roam power without buffing their numbers, XP, etc., even more than they already are. Perhaps then, even the top lane XP buffs could be removed. Then, maybe everyone would stop complaining about top lane, which I personally enjoy, but have to admit that it's just not the greatest as far as equal influence on the game goes.