I think we can mostly agree, this has to be the worst lane in the game. Anyone who mains top, such as myself, pretty much gets this lane every game. Its the most easily countered, and most likely to be camped. it is also the most snowbally lane in the game. i personally think something needs to be done about melees in the laning stage
Swollwonder2 votesI see a lot of assertions and not a lot of evidence.
-top lane should not be camped with the exception of certain champions. this is due to drag control
-Top lane is home to tanks. Tanks tend to not snowball
-Top lane does have the most hard counters (meaning DONT BLIND PICK TOP). This is not so much a problem as it is a characteristic
Sire Hippington2 votesnearly every toplane matchup can snowball either way, so giving some early ganks to swing the lane in your favor usually means you can focus on bot/drag post lvl 6 when it matters and not worry much about top anymore, so camping top early is always a thing if you know when to switch your attention to drag.
toplane is home to all and everything, melee carrys, tanks, bruisers, mages, supports, adc.. and it's mostly the length of the sololane that causes the snowball. in mid you have less distance so less lanefreezing and zoneing and a easier rute to savety, and bot you have two guys that can protect each other a bit.
hardcounters on a snowbally lane are a issue. As soon as you forced to blindpick, your ad a huge disadvantage, and one team has to blindpick top.
WalkingInACircle1 votes[{quoted}](name=Don Pavoni,realm=EUW,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=Vxj8ueJJ,comment-id=00020000,timestamp=2015-05-12T02:19:46.767+0000)
hardcounters on a snowbally lane are a issue. As soon as you forced to blindpick, your ad a huge disadvantage, and one team has to blindpick top.
Nah, you can flexpick. There are plenty of top/jungle and top/mid champs.
Swollwonder1 votesAn early gank does not mean top is being camped. Perhaps our definition of camping is different.
Personally I dont see a problem with having a counter pick lane. Top lane has the most hard counters because of lane flexibility. You simply can't change that without changing a huge amount of things. You just have to live with that. I personally dont care because even if I pick teemo into garen I can still manage to be useful later in the game even if I dont win lane.
Sire Hippington1 votesan early gank is not, but 3-4ganks pre 6 is. And counterpicking isn't a problem if it's soft counter, but due to how the toplane currently works, getting countered puts yxou incredible far behind unless you play one of the few savepicks. With some more savety around the tower, counterpicks would still have impact due to the long lane, but not as awfully much as they do now.
Swollwonder1 votesI'm sorry i simply do not agree. I have picked teemo into garen and been able to build tank as well as get more kills than our adc by the end of the game. Perhaps you get countered in lane but that does not in anyway make the game a lost. Its not a problem in my eyes its simply a characteristic of top lane due to the fact it is home to typically melees who are countered by ranged champs in lane
Sire Hippington1 votesSwollwonder1 voteswoops meant garen into teemo sorry bout that switched up the champs Regardless you can still always not blind pick top or pick a flex pick
Sire Hippington2 votesshift the champion shield from inner to outer tower so you can actually farm savely under your tower without getting harresed or easily dived by jungle+top and evt sup/mid once behind. The shieldvalue should get adjusted and be higher for melees than for ranged, as ranged already have enough savety and their main weakness top is that you can dive them, which should be taken away entirely.
BranchofSin55801 votesI agree
buff Garen
redniwediS1 votesGaren is fine.
BranchofSin55803 votesWalkingInACircle1 votesLately I've been thinking the general dichotomy is split into 3 categories: Bully, Farmer, and Stall. Bullies come to the lane explicity to crush their laning opponent. Farmers want Top's remoteness as a chance to build up, and potential to snowball if they win their lane. Stallers want to hold the lane and out-do opponents in team fights. Naturally, Bully > Farmer > Stall > Bully.
And then theres my top, 
, whom I'm thinking is basically top's safepick. Have yet to have a matchup I thought I didn't at least have a chance in.
BluePolarizer1 votesAgreed. That's why 
is a huge counter to 
top - they just don't have the damage to keep shoving Nasus out of lane. Once Nasus gets a spectral cowl, there's nothing they can do about him and he can stack to 1000 if he wants to.
On the other hand gets rekt by bullies if the bullies get even a slight lead.
spaceghostchangg1 votesBuff Shen 4 shets and giggles
Rule 341 votesTop lane is the most forgiving it has ever been since the meta has been defined as it currently is. Teleport is universal, lane bullies are uncommon, tanks don't do enough damage to solo-kill the opponent unless you make a critical mistake, etc.
There are no other ways to make the lane more forgiving without completely breaking the balance of the game.
