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Top lane tank help needed

Rhakaza··1 votes·326 views

I am pretty new to LoL. I'm not even able to play ranked yet. When I play it is usually blind pick, so I don't know what to expect but I look at our team comp and try to decide what we need. Often that results in us needing a true tank. By that I mean a character capable of taking a lot of damage with solid CC abilities.

Basically the question is if I get top lane and choose a true tank such as Nautilus, Malphite, Cho'gath, etc. and then see that I am playing across from a Juggernaut like Darius or Garen what should I be looking to do in lane? My understanding is that with equal resources a true tank should pretty much always lose in a 1v1 against a juggernaut because their defenses are high enough to stop my lower damage, while they can dish out a lot of sustained DPS and have self-heals. Last time this happened I didn't try to push the lane, just lose it more slowly so I could build items and be a force later in team fights. Is that the right call? What should I be trying to achieve in early game and what types of items should I look at to do that? IIRC I just used a lot of health pots, and stacked some armor early game to reduce the incoming damage and built towards Thornmail.

4 Comments

Jbels2 votes

During the early game, you might be able to trade here and there with a juggernaut. At 6, you need to back the fuck up until you get at least sunfire cape. Once you get sunfire cape, they can no longer cheese you from 100 to zero quickly, but do not underestimate their ability to outdamage you. Once you have your second armor item (Frozen heart especially dicks over champions like Urgot or Yorick), Killing you becomes questionable for them (For Darius, Deadman's plate is better because the extra health makes his ult's true damage nowhere near as good against you).

The goal here should never be to kill the juggernaut. It should be to survive the laning phase until you can farm without having to worry about the poke and fighting on your face that these juggernauts can do. Be careful with your itemization though, as you may want a magic resist item if their mid lane is snowballing/doing well before you get that second armor item. The extra health combined with the armor from sunfire cape will still make it harder for the jugg to kill you. In Yorick's case, his ult will do less damage to you because it gives him primarily bonus magic damage.

What you should seek to do is roam and pick up kills for your team after a certain point. In team fights, you will eventually become your team's hard engage who will pin down their primary damage dealer so your team can collapse on them and kill them, or a defensive frontline for your damage dealers so they can stay alive and deal their damage. Whichever style you adopt at that point is based purely on good decision making. Normally, if I notice that acting as a hard engage for my team is ending with us getting beaten in team fights, I switch to being a peeler (defensive frontline). I wait for THEM to make the first move, and then use my abilities to protect the damage dealer they tried to engage on.

You'll eventually get the hang of it, it just takes time and practice

Ralanr1 votes

It depends on the champions you’re playing against and who you are. Against an opponent you’re not confident in fighting, Farm with ranged abilities.

Shahamut1 votes

Play Maokai. Out damage and out sustain them

Rhakaza1 votes

Thanks guys. Great advice. I'll look in to Maokai, because I don't have him yet.

Jbels, I appreciate the detailed response. I'll look at my first items and come up with a plan around sunfire cape then a second armor item. Unfortunately for the most recent game when I was Nautilus we were losing all lanes, but that usually doesn't happen. My plan was to get to the teamfight stage and be the on to initiate on their ADC or support and lock them down with his ult and his slows. I mostly didn't want to end up feeding their Darius too much because I know he can be a terror later in the game once he gets rolling in items.

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