I kind of want toplane to be more of an island again.

So about the time when I quit League toplane was extremely isolated. No one but the toplaner him/herself ever came there and all people did up there was dueling for 20 minutes because there would be no way in hell that the tower would fall before that timestamp, there wasn't a Rift Herald and TP wasn't buffed yet so everyone was taking Ignite. About the time I quit was shortly after TP got buffed and it suddenly became the only Summoner Toplaners would always take ( I quit because of different reasons though ).

Now that I'm coming back years later toplane has changed quite a bit. Junglers have a reason to actually go there, the tower up there is much easier to kill ( especially with Herald being around ) and toplaners put much less focus on dueling and more on setting up plays for their team and controlling the area.

And I kinda don't like that. It might just be Nostalgia speaking here but I think toplane isn't as fun anymore. Yes, being on an island meant that you wouldn't really interact with the rest of the team but I think that was the beauty of it. Toplane was THE dueling lane, you would constantly skirmish with your opponent and test your skill without having to be anxious about the jungler. I remember splitpushing being huge aswell back then, if you did everything right for the first few minutes and got a lead you were a threat that couldn't be ignored and you could carry games by doing that alone, like a raid boss that suddenly showed up half way through the game.

Now you can't really do that anymore. You feel like the jungler ( and sometimes roaming supports and midlaners ) have much more control over the lane than you do and constant dueling ( the most fun aspect of toplane ) isn't really as much of an option anymore because it is simply too dangerous to do so. It's mostly just tanks farming, defending turrets and setting up teleport plays on the one hand and mostly ranged lane bullies that cheese you and set up ridiculous leads that you can't do a lot against on the other hand.

Whereas before it was pretty laid back and chill combined with the feeling of having a lot of individual skill if you win the lane, now this has been replaced by constant anxiety and stress aswell as the feeling of powerlessness if you fuck up, you need to get your team involved or the enemy team comes to get you. And I already have enough stress and anxiety as is, I really don't need more of that in the video games I play.

But enough of me, this is supposed to be a discussion after all. Do you guys feel the same? Is there a way to get that old toplane feeling back? Or do you think toplane is better than it was all those years ago?