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Can meele top laners finally have some love?

c6SHnhl5vW··18 votes·2,690 views

I've been playing Darius ever since his release. Made many people get mad in the chat, leave the game or just report me for 2 years straight.

That's how I actually got to Plat in my main account. I would literally make the game a 4v5 by murdering non-stop the enemy laner to a point where he would simply leave the game or just be a non-factor for the rest of the game. I don't actually have the skill level of a Platinum, I just exploited the hell of the playerbase itself by making them mad and rage at eachother. That's why I felt Darius was amazing even after the nerfs and I kept playing him everytime I could.

But the Meta changed, Lulu became Popular in Solo lanes after Alex Ich played her in the mid lane.

She got heavily nerfed damage wise, but that didn't actually fix her. It just made her drop the bot lane permanently and she just shifted from the mid lane into the top lane, as she was picked because she is allowed to be a ranged lane bully that brings so much utility for her team that she can still be a factor even if she went 0/50 in the lane.

With her, Ryze also became more popular in both the top lane and the mid lane. Quinn and the Donger also existed, luckily they are rarely picked because they are just as annoying to deal with.

And after Nidalees rework, she also became a dominant top lane pick.

Now, this wouldn't bother me if they only shut down my Darius because he has no mobility after all and is 90% reliant on either an enemy mistake or Apprehend to do anything. But the more I played, the more I felt I was at a disadvantage for not picking a ranged top lane like everyone else. They are too dominant against every single meele champion that does not have at least 2 gapclosers, Fiora can somewhat go even. The only meele champion who actually win the lane with ease is Yasuo.

But he already got nerfed countless times as he is too dominant against mages in the mid lane and he is almost always banned anyway.

I fell in love with the top lane a long time ago, that was the place where WE, players who liked to brawl non-stop would go. Champions such as Garen and Gangplank could actually be picked in high elo and no one would really care. It was a skill matchup after all.

The earliest period of Season III was the most fun period. Even if The Black Cleaver and Warmogs were the most overpowered items in the game, I would still have fun. The ultimate snowball item had been removed, AKA Heart of Gold, the item that made whoever got ahead first, stay ahead for the rest of the game.

What do we have now? It's a non-stop pokefest of Ranged champions on other ranged champion Literally, I don't remember the last time I felt this punished just for not picking a ranged champion. I hate this, I really do. I do not want to become what I despise the most.

Where can I go with the old honorable meele top laners now?

The Jungle? There simply is no reason to pick a champions such as Garen over anyone there.

The Bottom lane? To what? so I can be poked by 2 champions instead of just 1?

or simply The Middle lane? where I can't compete with all the poke the enemy Ziggs is throwing at me?

When I saw Gragas and Maokai getting more popular, I actually thought the META was shifting and the old brawlfest would rise once more. But I guess I was not lucky, they were both nerfed right away and the Nidalee pokefest was back.

Anyhow, I wish to go the top lane with another guy to brawl non-stop once more. It doesn't matter if I win or I lose. I just want to have fun again.

Until then, I shall Put my faith in the light

Sorry for my English, I'm not a native speaker.

Cheers

30 Comments

MrSc0tty5 votes

So...what you're saying is you're not happy because you can't win every lane matchup so hard the game is a 4v5? That's...a little silly.

Look. There will be champs unfavored in every meta. If I'm a big fan of ranged poke supports, I will be fighting against the current meta if I pick Soraka Janna Sona or the like-but if I just like the class I can pick Nami, Lulu or Morgana and be fine.

Same with melee semi tanky bruisers. Hate ranged champs? Play Irelia, Wukong, Pantheon, guys that counter the ranged pokey poke meta. AP poke lulu top? Get creative with it- show her just how much Galio absolutely shits on her passive (bulwark counts an auto+3 pix hits as THREE attacks for the heal) or shred them with Talon's huge burst and silence.

Moral of the story is that the metas gonna be the meta. You can either adapt your playstyle to it (by shifting to anti-ranged melee champs) or you can say screw it and play who you want and just win by being better than your opponents playing the fotm.

Camphene2 votes

You're missing the point of the post: ranged champions, almost as a rule, dominate melee champions.

There are very few melee champions that are played in the top lane that can effectively compete on an even playing field vs. the majority of ranged top laners.

There isn't enough of a drawback to being ranged.

Syvenon1 votes

To be fair there really aren't that many ranged champions who dominate top, you just see the same few all the time. Top play a ranged top you've gotta have pretty good escape, which takes out a lot of ranged champs. And I think there are just as many champions who can deal with the ranged ones you see. Akali absolutely shits on ryze, talon is pretty good against Lulu. You've got to adapt to the meta. There will always be champions who just don't fit the current playstyle, so you need to figure out ways to beat the current playstyle, and eventually most champions will make their way into it.

ProfDrDeath2 votes

The guys that are commonly seen top as (more or less, in some cases) ranged champions: Gnar Jayce Kennen Lissandra Lulu Nidalee Quinn Ryze Teemo Vayne Vladimir Gangplank Swain

Who else I could picture going well up top: Tristana Graves Lucian Karma Karthus

In total, 13/18 champions. However, a lot of them bring decent drawbacks if you want to include them into your team's composition (and don't want to focus the whole comp around the pick).

MrSc0tty4 votes

No, I'm getting the point and it's utterly hyperbolic.

Ranged champions do not dominate melee champions "by default." They dominate the melee champions who were making up the competitive meta at the time.

Quinn? Picked solely because she could vault off of a dashing Renekton. Ryze shuts down Shyvana thanks to the MS on his ult. Lulu bullies out Rengar thanks to her combo including a reveal. There are champions who are favored in certain matchups and champions who are countered-have you taken a peek at the competitive top meta nowadays? What've we got.

Hard engaging, MELEE tops who can trade poke-for-poke with ranged laners while having more than enough cc to crush them in a jungle gank easily. Maokai Alistar Gragas Irelia and Yasuo are the meta right now, not Lulu Ryze and Kayle.

So get into game and take a look at your jungler. If they're a cc tank, go ahead and pick a toplane assassin or damage dealer. Grab that Wukong/Irelia/Panth/Zed/Yasuo/Fizz-there's a lot of options. If your junglers a Lee Sin, a Khazix, some kind of damage dealer? It's tank time-pick Mao or Ali.

I get that hyperbole makes your statements seem more convincing. "RANGE > MELEE!!1!" But seriously? Want to actually look at the roles?

Top: it's a toss up. The meta is either ranged or melee usually 50/50. Mid: again, toss up between melee assassins and ranged mages. Right now we're seeing a shift back towards assassins with the Yasuo/Zed/Talon pickups. ADC: always ranged. Support: traditionally usually ranged but not since season 2 or so. We've seen Taric metas, Leona metas, and most recently Braum is pretty much warping the lane by himself. Jungle: there's pretty much only one ranged champ who can hack it, and that's Fiddlesticks. And for a guy whose main impact point is a just-beyond-melee range AOE ult+gapcloser, I don't think "range" is Fidds defining feature.

So 3 roles that waffle, usually with both being playable and 2 that are split always melee/always ranged

Tell me again how melee is unviable.

c6SHnhl5vW1 votes

Mate, I don't want to play Assassins.

You literally have been telling me to play Assassins in the top lane every single time. Why don't you pick Fizz? Why don't you pick Talon?

But I don't enjoy Assassins all that much, I enjoy old school brawls between two bruisers where both of them fight to the death.

Every Assassin feels the same, despite being played differently. It's always about poking down a target until they are in kill range and go in. If you are fed, you don't really need to do so, you can just go in and burst someone down, but that's not the style of play I enjoy.

Bruisers are pretty much the counterpart, they all seem to be played the exact same way, despite the small fights and brawls always being played differently.

I don't enjoy taking an Assassin into the top lane just to be somewhat able to trade with heavy poke ranged champions.

I want to take a meele bruiser, go against another meele bruiser and fight eachother, like the old Season II and Season III Meta allowed me.

If I pick a Meele bruiser and end up against something that is not a meele bruiser, I want to at least have some way of dealing with them. I feel Ranged champions in the top lane should have as effective as Alistar is in the jungle atm.

Randuins was nerfed, Dorans shield was nerfed, everything that kept these ranged top laners from poking you to death was nerfed. Even the goddamn Wardens mail doesn't build from Cloth Armor anymore. If you fall behind against a Quinn, you can't even get 2 cloth armor and a few pots to reduce damage, you literally have to go Chain Vest and that's it.

I don't want to play Assassins, I want to play Meele Bruisers and have ways of dealing with the Ranged Meta. As I said before, Yasuo is always banned, Maokai and Gragas got nerfed and Alistar is just a big mess.

The Ranged poke heavy champions beating Meele Bruisers is not about getting counterpicked. Counterpicks is a different business. Counterpicks is something like a Trundle beating off Shyvana simply because he is Trundle.

As I said many times before. I want to deal with these pesky mages and carries and throw them out of the top lane so we can have a fun non-stop Brawl meta.

Most people who enjoy the ranged top laners don't actually enjoy to play ranged top laners, they just enjoy the ability of being able to poke without giving the enemy a chance to poke them back.

MrSc0tty3 votes

First off, the main point here: WHY DO YOU GET TO DICTATE WHAT OTHER PEOPLE CAN PLAY? Maybe I'd prefer to only play Mage vs Mage in midlane, or only traditional supports v traditional supports botlane, but people still have the right to pick Kassadin or Zyra against me.

Secondary points RE: what you can do.

  1. use your preferred "always brawling" playstyle with a high sustain build. Start off with a cloth five against an AD opponent or a flask and flat MR runes and masteries vs ranged AP. Then you straight up rush a Cowl and all the while you trade it hard and fast against your opponent. Pick a Renekton, pick a Wukong and just get on them and stay on them and chunk them low enough that they have to leave. It's not as easy as bullying out say a weak early game tank or something like that but you can be sure that if you get to your defensive item before they get their damage going they'll lose every trade you make them take.

  2. Tank it out. This is the present Maokai/Alistar strategy. Still involves a lot of getting up in your face and beating down opponents, you just take less damage and deal less each time so you even it out and end up with more trades overall.

Also, side note: you realize that Darius has more poke in his spin than Fizz or Talon do, right? Not all assassins follow a poke>all in game plan. Some do, like Zed, Kassadin, and Akali, but for most that's a really unviable strategy as the poke simply isn't strong enough or in some cases, like fizz, they actually have no poke at all.

Zed, Ahri, Leblanc, Kassadin, Yasuo: poke and all in Diana, Katarina, Akali-rely on a really weak mostly poke and sustain game until level six, then transition to heavy trades and going for lane kills Fizz, Talon, Khazix, Rengar-heavy all in trades whenever it's favorable for them.

You think Khazix can win lane trying to poke someone down with the pitiful damage from void spikes, never using them for the melee range sustain? Their playstyle is pretty much the same playstyle Renekton uses, get in, deal a chunk, and get out, repeating until you can get your opponent killed.

c6SHnhl5vW2 votes

Out of everything I wrote that's the idea you got?

Really?

The "making the game a 4v5" was a mere example of why I thought Darius was still good, even after all the nerfs he got, despite him being classified as an unviable champion that no one would ever touch unless they wanted to climb out of Bronze.

You got the wrong idea, I didn't mean I couldn't adapt to the meta itself, I meant that the meta in the top lane atm is completely unfun to play against.

Lulu was a mere example, I can give you many more. Ryze bullying you harder than Renekton ever did, being a ranged champion and scaling harder to late game than most champions?

Irelia, Wukong and Pantheon don't make your life easier. They still suffer against ranged top laners You know what stomps Ranged top laners so hard they ragequit? Yasuo, but he is always banned anyway so whatever.

Old School top lane champions have no business in the top lane anymore, whereas most champions that go top lane nowadays can play in many other roles.

Quinn can go to the bottom lane, she isn't that good as an ad carry herself despite being a champion designed for that exact role, but hey, it's still better than picking her in the top lane so she can poke the enemy without him poking you back.

Ryze was a midlaner, he has always been a midlaner, however, during the last season, he was seen in the top lane countless times. He is annoying to deal with. Luckily, Ryze players tend to make many mistakes in Platinum, so he never really was an actual threat, but he is very good at wanting to make you headbut your keyboard.

Lulu was desgined as a Support, she was actually called Suppordle. Why can't they give her glitterlance decreased damage to minions? It would make sense. It would be a nerf to solo Lulu and a buff to support Lulu as she would not push the lane so hard whenever she was poking. After all, that's all she was ever meant to be.

And thank god the Banana thrower got nerfed.

You see, adapting to the Meta in its current state is basically turning yourself into what you hate the most. I hate ranged top laners, top lane has always been my favorite lane as there was hardly any poke. It was all about exploiting eachothers mistakes rather than poking until the enemy was almost dead and then go all in. Now if you look at it, you see Nidalee, Lulu and Ryze. You hardly see the Aligator anymore, despite him still being one of the best old school top laners.

Where does honorable champions such as Garen go in all of this? Top lane? Nope. Jungle? maybe if his passive didn't wear off whenever he attacked by the jungle creeps, and even then, he would be outclassed by every other jungler. Mid lane and Bottom lane? Don't even get me started on these lanes.

Don't get me wrong, I don't want to Garen and many others to become LCS material, I just want to be able to pick a champion such as Gangplank and not lose by default simply because the enemy is ranged and you are not.

A small buff to the Dorans shield would be all that is necessary to bring these old champions back. But Riot simply doesn't want to because they are afraid bot lane supports might start building it or something, even tho Relic is way more benefitial in the current state.

MrSc0tty2 votes

Well if you're looking for a spot for Garen , actually I've had the most success playing him as a counter to melee assassins anywhere. It's a niche role, as, as you've said, he's never been a very high quality pick, but that is what I would say is his best niche, as a creep denying lane bully who can put his silence to maximum use and who does not need to be afraid of following his lane opponent wherever they go when they roam. Battle the infamy!

And as for adapting-as I just said, you don't HAVE to adopt poke if you really don't like it. Just as you don't have to in any lane. But you have to adapt your strategy accounting for the fact that your opponent is gonna be ranged. Poke has existed in toplane since the release of Teemo, it's not a new thing. The counter to it is the same as it's always been: get a champ who can be 100% up in their face all the time. Where's the rule that says you can't go Fizz top against that Nidalee? That would work great-I've got one more gapcloser than you, I can pole over your spear, and that heal you've got, fuck you, you can't use it in any fights because I've got grievous wounds. What about Talon against Lulu? Range of cutthroat > range of pix, you force her to pix+q minions and if she does that you can easily close to her and chunk her. Assassins aren't countered by ranged champs at all-they're countered by BRUISERS, who, as you mentioned, aren't the meta right now. Seems like you don't have to give up your positioning-punishing melee champs at all.

Shrikesnest3 votes

I appreciate the sentiment. It's annoying to love playing a champ but being unable to do so because the meta pushes them out.

But I think Riot has to go about fixing this very carefully. There was a time, not too terribly long ago, where bruisers were totally out of control. Tanky melees with decent mobility and high base damage could build such that they were basically unkillable and could still dish out good damage against the enemy team. I agree that melee is in a bad place right now and they need to do something about that, but simple statistical buffs are a bad idea, because that just creates another unhealthy gameplay pattern.

c6SHnhl5vW3 votes

Yes, but those unkillable bruisers were Shyvana, Mundo, Jax and somewhat Renekton. They had too many free stats and inbuilt mobility, aswell having the damage and tankiness of a bruiser.

I've been playing League for some time. I started around mid season II. Darius had just been released.

But Darius and many others were never trully a problem. They were designed to fit the META back then. I still remember when Shyvana was considered Trash tier, still she was broken as all hell. Anyone still remembers IEM Kiev? She got nerfed like, 4 days after M5 started playing her in the event.

Binxy Prime2 votes

Ranged top laners beat melee top laners in general, but melee top laners offer something that most teams need and that is consistent damage soaking late game to allow your own carries freedom. I generally play ranged top laners because I am just better in general at poke type champions in this game but I have played many games vs melees where they cs intelligently are not very far behind and then they hit a point where they can just jump on me and kill me whenever I get in range.

Mao is still insanely good, Alistar is really strong now because of hit ult allowing you to be very disruptive in team fights and he snowballs junglers well. You can still pick beefy tops like Mundo or Shyvanna and be very disruptive in fights, you just need to build more defensive early farm up, maybe let your first tower go until you are a split push threat the enemy team can no longer deal with or you are a huge wall in teamfights.

67chrome2 votes

I've mostly been seeing melee champions go top lane during the current tournaments, though to be fair Nidalee is banned almost every game.

But yea - the state of melee champions is kind of depressing. Outside of season 3 it's been pretty depressing in general.

Where can I go with the old honorable melee top laners now?

Dominion is always an answer. Most melee champions are pretty solid there.

Maybe not a very amazing answer, but if you like to brawl non-stop, it's a brawl non-stop.

You don't get ranked rewards from it though, but every match you can get awarded with a gold, silver, or bronze emblem on your match history. Feels pretty good to look through your match history and see a bunch of little gold medals. It's like yeah, I'm a baws.

Treelines is always an answer as well, where Darius is actually pretty strong. There's a much lower chance he'll get pressured out of a team-fight before he can get someone low enough to ult, there's a much lower chance he'll die before he can get a second ult off, and he can carry a team by himself if he manages to get 3 ults off - which isn't exactly hard. He's also a catch-22 carry to face off against, as he can build full tank and deal absurd levels of damage - so you have the choice of letting him get double re-sets or focus a tank while his other 2, generally squishier allies, assault your team.

You can actually get ranked in Treelines as well, along with ranked goodies. Treelines isn't quite as brawl-happy as Dominion, it's more like Rift - but it does cater pretty heavily to melee champions over ranged ones.

c6SHnhl5vW4 votes

I am more into Summoners Rift

I know Darius beats the sh*t out of everybody in Twisted Treeline. He is too tanky for 3 people to handle. Especially if they don't have an AD Carry to deal sustained damage.

And I don't really enjoy Dominion all that much.

I just think that Dorans shield could use a buff. Or just some Meele unique item that allows the champion too close the gap in an easier way.

I mean, have you ever played a meele champ against a Quinn? You have no chance, literally, you can only feast on her mistakes and nothing else.

Camphene1 votes

I completely agree and I'm guilty. I've played 35-40 games of Quinn on LAN because A) she's free and B) she destroys most top laners.

There isn't a reason someone could give me to go back to fielding a melee champ in top lane. Riven or Yasuo might be the exception but only in specific match ups when the burst/shield would make up for the difference in range.

Kazellion22 votes

The melee bruisers that work have escape mobility and sustain or hard engage gap closers, darius' apprehend range is too short to be a reliable engage in place of other champs gap closers. The being said, (other than nidalee that has rediculous sustain, gap close, escape mobility and range poke) most of the problem top laners you listed can be crushed by some of the hard engage melee tops(which darius crushes himself).

Not all champs are born equal.

Krizalid2 votes

I do agree with you but we need to remember such characters as Volibear who are still unbearable at top (lol, unbearable Volibear).

Camphene1 votes

I really think this is a direct result of the fact that there doesn't seem to be a downside to being ranged.

Sure, on the face of it Melee champs tend to get higher stats and sometimes get gap closers or escapes but a significant portion of melee champs are flat out at a disadvantage when they are face to face with a ranged champ.

Ashe vs. Udyr is an extreme example of this. Both champs at full build mean the Udyr will slowly die as the Ashe perma kites.

Other examples, like Quinn vs. Darius might seem more balanced but after playing around 15-20 games of Quinn vs. Darius this week, I assure you, unless the Darius gets significant jungle assistance the absolute best he can hope for is 70% of the CS the Quinn gets. At worst he's going to die 4-5 times and rage quit.

In the end, it doesn't matter if a melee champ gets higher stats because those higher stats might mean an extra AA in a permakiting Ashe, or an extra rotation in a top-lane Quinn. The stats don't matter because a melee champ can't get into range and do damage.

Syvenon2 votes

Yeah sure once Ashe gets full build. But if Ashe is laning against Udyr, she will get absolutely destroyed until maybe 25 minutes? She can't disengage well enough to play top lane, you have to sink too many points into q in order to be safe, which kind of defeats the purpose of taking the adc top. That's why Quinn is a good toplaner, she can disengage pretty well. But she will still get beat by a number of champions. Yorick is always super strong in the top lane, but people forget about him because he is boring as hell to play lol

Teddie1 votes

One Answer Gnar

Crackerrr1 votes

I used to be a Shen main on top lane. I stopped after getting beat out by a Lux, then Heimerdinger, and then Fiora. It gets a bit annoying when a mage can kill you in less then 5 seconds when you are under your tower with 250 magic resist and 4k health. And I also played against lot of Sivir's that have been able to poke me out of farm completely. There needs to be something rito can do to bring back the tanky top laners. just my thought.

MrSc0tty4 votes

Tanky toplaners?

Like Alistar and Maokai you mean?

Or do those "not count" because they have the tools to beat ranged tops.

c6SHnhl5vW2 votes

The single reason why Alistar and Maokai are able to beat Ranged top laners is not because of them being meele, it's because they are very good at setting/following up ganks.

Maokai has his W and passive Sustain.

Alistar has a heal and 2 abilities which give him hard CC.

They don't beat ranged top laners by themselves, they need jungle assistance to do anything.

I mean, Maokai & Gragas did, but then they got nerfed to f*cking heavens.

MrSc0tty3 votes

So you hate people who poke people down and get them low then all in them.... Like Fizz.

But you like Gragas, who got Nerfed to high heaven when they added 30 mana cost to his W and reduced the damage of his Q to minions.

Have you considered that you're just being a petulant child about all this? I mean, I'm sorry that ranged champions can go to a solo lane. They pretty much have always been able to. There has always been a possibility that you might have to fight a ranged champ as a melee champ. Melee champs are not more honorable than ranged champs-what makes a Renekton honorable when he E's in, stuns, Qs, then E's out? There's the same level of Counterplay. What makes Darius using his spin to hit an enemy an "honorable melee brawl" while a Ryze using Q is a "dishonorable poke"? Your entire point here is "people should only be allowed to play what I want them to play, which happens to be a favorable matchup for me" and that's just silly, I'm sorry.

c6SHnhl5vW1 votes

Gragas was actually nerfed to oblivion when you compare him to his older self.

The Reworked Gragas, even if he was still broken, was just a small shadow of the Barrel Sniper.

I'm being a child? I just want to go to the top lane with a champion I enjoy playing and not lose by default simply because the enemy top laner is ranged, while I am not.

People like this pokefest so much? Why don't they bring it to the mid/bot lane, a place where the enemies can actually fight them back? huh? It's like saying, "I love Ryze top because poking someone who can't poke me back is what I like to do"

We were able to win against the enemy ranged very easily simply by getting a Dorans Shield and a Wardens mail/Wardens Mail. That was what kept the annoyance of Quinns and Ryzes bearable.

And when you think about it, when Darius hits his Decimate on someone, he isn't really "poking", it is basically an invite to a fight. He won't be the one backing off after hitting it. It's the enemy, he is free to fight me, sure he shouldn't, but if he wants to do so, I'm right there.

Now as Ryze, you will be throwing off your combo and backing away, over and over. That's what Ryze's will do. They will never full on fight you like a champion such as Darius does.

I don't want people to stop playing Ryze, I want to have tools to deal with such ranged poke. I want tools to force people to commit to a fight if they make a mistake, and by mistake I mean, if they somehow get in your face, they cannot leave without one of you falls.

That's what made me fall in love with the top lane in the first place.

That's a Brawl.

Syvenon2 votes

Now as Ryze, you will be throwing off your combo and backing away, over and over. That's what Ryze's will do. They will never full on fight you like a champion such as Darius does.

Is this a joke? You are saying "darius is more manly, so he should win". People play Ryze because he's good against darius. When darius was released he DESTROYED pretty much any top laner, but over time people figured out how to beat him. You can't be mad because people figured out how to beat your precious "real champion".

Also old Gragas felt awful to play as. His e felt really out of place and his w was purely to get mana. It felt like you had two spells, q and r. How is throwing barrels for 5 minutes until they're low enough to ult any more honorable than what Ryze or Lulu does?

MrSc0tty1 votes

Top lane is not a brawl.

Toplane is a solo lane farthest from the early objective (dragon) and with a wide lane. Junglers are less likely to gank often but ganks are more dangerous. That is the dynamic of top lane.

The requirement to go there and be optimal, then? 1v1 strength, and the ability to escape jungle ganks. That's pretty much it. Teemo is as optimal a toplane champion as Garen and has just as much right to go there. Brawling is a strategy that works well-but poke and kite works too and again, has always been an option. Just because something counters your preferred champion doesn't mean it's unfair-you have the same resources that your opponent does. If you want to choose to fight a ranged opponent at a disadvantage because you want to play champions that are at a disadvantage to range, do it, that's your choice. The other option is to play melee champs who have an advantage over ranged poke/kite strategies as I mentioned. What isn't an option is forcing your opponent to abandon a valid strategy just because it puts you at a disadvantage. Putting your oppinent at a disadvantage is kind of what competition is about, after all. And that's what the game is, a competition. It's as much about the strategic choices as the tactical ones, and if you understand that nobody's going to see your argument as valid because it's purely opinion then that's fine. But it is just opinion, despite all your calls to a "majority" because "everyone agrees with me". You want to say all melee champs are at an unfair disadvantage vs ranged champs? I'm gonna call BS and point out that at the top level of play you almost never see teams with all ranged champs and you see both melee and ranged picks in both solo lanes and support. There is one role absolutely dominated by melee and one by range, and three with a mix. That to me speaks to balance.

AceHelosis1 votes

plz nerf Nidalee nidalee top Riot

Kazellion21 votes

A LOT of the gap closing bruisers will all in "ranged poke" autoattack champions and crush them, a lot of those same champions will lose to darius. Darius can't trade with a range champ for the most part(apprehend range is too bad) but outtrades most champs that actually go in on him.

bbbbates1 votes

I think what this comes down to is that being ranged in and of itself should be considered powerful. If you see yourself matching up against a top that is ranged, you're gonna have to play it safe for awhile, ask for some jungle help, trade under tower and such while you build up, then you can brawl later in the game so long as you manage the early game correctly. As someone who like playing top laners that are considered "not great" ala malphite and garen, this is basically what it comes down to.

I find that if I play it safe and go down 5 - 10 - heck, even 20 - 30 CS in lane, I am still incredibly relevant late game and I can get to a point where you can simply zone your opponent. It seems to me that for what you get, defense items are a lot more valuable than offense ones. Say Im against a Quinn top and she backs and buys a vamp scepter, I can back and buy a chain vest for 80 less gold and that puts me in a much better spot. Same goes for if Im against a ryze, like I see some people suggesting in comments, me backing and buying a negatrons puts me in a way better spot than him backing and buying a tear or a catalyst.

All in all, melee vs ranged is never meant to be an all out brawl. Because ranged by itself is an advantage, ranged champs are often way more fragile and have a hard time brawling so they will try and avoid it. This means trying to poke. Melee champs are often much more durable, and if they get in range can often out trade a ranged character, so they often have to either wait for a gank to even the odds, or you have to be patient and think about how you fight, or you can take TP and make an impact on the other areas of the map. This is not just the essence of toplane, its the game in general. Ranged champs will always hold an advantage over melees when they are at ranged, meaning both parties have to think, melees have to think about how they can engage without getting poked, ranged have to think about how they can poke without getting engaged. Makes for interesting gameplay. I think darius actually fell out of favor because he has no defensive skills, he cannot use a single skill he has to escape and he cant really do much to peal for squishier, but higher damage characters.

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