How Do You Main Top?

TSM Resonance·3/7/2016, 1:36:53 AM·2 votes·627 views

How do you main top lane without wanting to kill yourself? You're basically a support that farms. Your jungler will never gank you lane. You will be camped by the enemy jungler, even if you have literally every bush up there warded. You'll ping when your laner is missing, and proceed to shove it in, but if your laner gets a kill mid, everyone jumps down your throat. I'd say this is the most boring role in league of legends, with jungle being the second most boring. At least as a jungler, you get to take a break from AFK farming to gank a lane.

I have had one game total that was fun as a top laner, and that was as Quinn.

14 Comments

EndlessSorcerer3/7/2016, 2:08:14 AM3 votes

You're basically a support that farms.

Not even remotely true. While it can appear to be the case for CC-tank top laners (i.e. Maokai, Malphite, Nautilus, Rammus), it differs significantly from the support play-style in almost every respect.

Match-ups between other classes of champions (i.e. Fighters, Mages, Marksmen) share pretty much no similarity to supports either.

Your jungler will never gank you lane.

The bad ones never will. Good junglers know how snowbally top lane can be and will often gank top laner early and while Dragon is down.

You will be camped by the enemy jungler, even if you have literally every bush up there warded.

This frequently happens if you are constantly pushing without wards. If you ward properly (and track the enemy jungler's position), you should have ample warning to escape ganks without consequence. Jungler's typically continue ganking top when they know they can get easy kills from it.

When fed, many top laners can successfully 1v2 the enemy top and jungler when they are ahead. When the enemy top laner is ahead and yours is behind, ganking for them can be a very risky proposition.

You'll ping when your laner is missing, and proceed to shove it in, but if your laner gets a kill mid, everyone jumps down your throat.

It happens. Spam ping your lane and mid-lane when the enemy top laner leaves and take whatever advantage you can get from it.

If an enemy roams and you ping appropriately, you can't really be blamed for others dying to it.

I'd say this is the most boring role in league of legends, with jungle being the second most boring.

I really don't see why you would think the jungle is boring. You pretty much control the pace during early-game, determining where fights occur and what objectives are being pressured/taken.

Top lane can be somewhat boring depending on the match-up and play-style, but the same can be said for any lane. If you have not played Heimerdinger vs Morgana or Vladimir vs Nunu, you have not seen a boring lane.

At least as a jungler, you get to take a break from AFK farming to gank a lane.

If you are AFK farming, you are doing it wrong. While farming properly is a large part of jungling (as it is in laning), you have to be constantly watching the entire map for opportunities and determining how best to take advantage of them.

mogonk3/7/2016, 1:45:50 AM3 votes

Yeah, I kinda like the feeling of isolation. I sometimes groan when I see my jungler coming, like "Really, man? You want me to fight? I'm like 15 cs up, let me just keep outfarming him!".

I like wave manipulation and farming. It's fun to me. Fights and ganks are chaotic and confusing and messy. Laning 1v1 is nice and neat and controlled.

And when you win lane, it's frequently because you outplayed someone else 1v1, not because of jungler interference. Gives you a feeling of accomplishment, even if you lose the game.

Just a matter of taste and playstyle I guess. I main Nasus, which is like playing a normal top laner squared.

redniwediS3/7/2016, 1:49:18 AM2 votes

Do you have a problem with support?

Personally the only time I want my jungler to come top is when there's an easy kill they can have. If I'm doing well I don't need the kill, and if I'm not it would be better for the jungler to have the gold than me.

When I'm camped I'm actually doing my job. I'm wasting the enemy jungler's time, and giving my team members a bit of breathing room for the duration. If I never get ganked I'm simply not doing my job.

My advice to you is to simply stay away from top lane. Just don't play it. With the new queue you don't have to do it anymore. You clearly don't understand any of the multiple playstyles that top lane supports, so please just stick to your mid and adc. You know, roles that are not some form of "support".

But you'll never know the joy of being so beefy you can literally feed your carries kills. You'll never know how it feels to use your life as a resource so that your team can win. You'll never experience the joy of knowing your actions manipulate the entire map in such a way that your team can have an easier time playing. So just know that while you may not like being out of the spot light, it's those who work behind the scenes who are the real heroes.

Have fun being a "carry".

Stephenizgod3/7/2016, 1:41:53 AM2 votes

Your jungler will never gank you lane. You will be camped by the enemy jungler

this is a paradoxical and contradictory statement that is somehow always true...

Top lane is only boring if one of the junglers gank or they pick someone like Pantheon, because then its a 2v1 stomp or just a 1v1 stomp, nothing fun about one side stomping the other...

Mecha MaIphite3/7/2016, 4:57:10 AM1 votes

You learn to win lane without your team to wipe your ass.

Sohleks3/7/2016, 5:17:35 AM1 votes

I love Gnar.

I carefully farm frozen mallet and become satan 2.0. I shove/ poke and whittle my enemies turret, open up that map then find picks with my tanky slow dps form. I show up in the enemy jungle or mid lane then beat up my top laner if he pushes out to farm. Eventually I herd entire enemy teams once I'm tanky and opportunistically engage a high percentage fight but if I'm not sure I'll go back to splitting and skirmishing as mini gnar.

No flash no life3/7/2016, 1:46:30 AM1 votes

idk about boring part, but playing top always gets me on my toe. I have to keep my eyes on minimap all the time as I farm while watching out for my lane opponents for trades to keep myself healthy and interupt teleport attempt; my teleport may be needed anytime and a mistimed or misplaced tp can save or throw the fight. Hence, I don't really have the leisure to care about boredom, since I'm always occupied by several tasks that require my attention.

resumed3/7/2016, 2:05:58 AM1 votes

why to degrade a role is it compared to support?

just yesterday i saw someone saying that playing jungle was exactly like playing support and that makes playing it simply not fun

Guyy Fieri3/7/2016, 2:26:06 AM1 votes

Lol the sweeping generalizations that are just totally not true

If you jungler isn't ganking top, then they're doing something wrong and you should help them learn this