Boards›Gameplay

Toplane from a tank player's viewpoint

Schuijren·11/24/2018, 8:50:15 AM·17 votes·7,972 views
Gyazo

Hello fellow summoners.

This post is written by a top lane tank player with regards to the current gameplay, specifically in top lane. I know my champion class is not so popular. It's boring and obnoxious for most League players to experience tank gameplay. And honestly tanky champions and builds have been busted for quite some periods.

But it has been a while now that tanks up in toplane, with the exception of Sion, have been in a pretty crappy spot now specially in SoloQ. Aside of those periods where tanks indeed were broken, it's always been an unpopular class, with less damage, gold, and carry potential on average. All of that is a trade-off you make for playing a tank instead of a carry- or damage-oriented champion in SoloQ. That's completely fine.

What isn't fine is that right now, tanks get stomped in lane by any bruisers who have the intellect to take the Conqueror keystone. This keystone is absolutely nuts in terms of the damage it grants and how available it is. Bruisers can facetank a minion wave and still outdamage an enemy tank in trades with this. Why does it have to convert every damage you deal into true damage, and why is the uptime permanent? It's been a while now that we have to witness champions like Irelia and Akali in their current states in top lane, as well as Viktor top something I think is completely disgusting to play against. Boneplating is an obnoxious band-aid that also is a problem for midlane (some mages who go that into burst trade assassins). Once the enemy toplaner has tiamat it easily gets dispatched.

Top lane laning just feels like such a brain-dead role now. There's no skill or game knowledge involved in just stacking your conqueror on minions and all-inning the enemy afterwards. There is no skill involved in having boneplating up at lucky timings. If people really want a thoughtless combat game they can play something else. League is supposed to be more strategic, not just mindlessly queue'ing up to just fight all the time. What's with gutting summoner Teleport? Ignite is this tactical nuke right now that you just have to point click during an all-in. The usage of Teleport at least had some strategic depth to it. Right now you can't even cancel it anymore so you'll just lose lane with one bad TP to botlane.

I do think the addition of turret plating was a great change. The problem is just how superficial top lane combat has become. Tanks aren't even able to take part in it without getting crushed. You have to be so much better than the enemy toplaner to win trades in a tank vs non-tank matchup. There's no skill in top laning anymore. You just spam Kleptomancy on Viktor, you just all-in with Conqueror when it procs and if you all-in better, you win. And tanks cannot do anything against it. They just sit under their turret avoiding all possible trades. It feels like all the defensive runes and laning items are balanced around other roles and classes too that get beaten early, but tanks get beaten up harder than any of those other situations. This is the case unless you're straight-up a significantly better laner than the enemy non-tank player. And with how hard Conqueror scales, sidelaning in the mid-late game is a nightmare for tanks as well. With the big decline of impact ADC's have in this game now, there is even less of a reason to even consider playing a tank, as there is nothing to frontline for anymore.

This is not me complaining about a certain champion, this applies to a whole class of champions in a certain role, with the exception of Sion.

  1. Sidenote: Riot please hire Scarra for your balancing team. Please hire Scarra for your balancing team. Please hire Scarra for your balancing team. Make him a leader or anything along those lines. He seems to know what's up. If any reader doesn't agree on my points above, please at least consider agreeing on this. It has to be done to save this game. Every single PBE update includes five new skins and barely any balance changes. This needs to be stopped. If Scarra leads the balancing team for a few months this game will be enjoyable again.

23 Comments

Zardo11/24/2018, 1:28:57 PM4 votes

No. Seriously I don't get where you're getting that top lane tanks are weak into all bruisers. Look at their lane kill rates on op.gg- most tanks slaughter most champions early. Look at poppy v Jax. Hell, even look at ornn v Viktor, ornn actually has a higher kill rate on viktor.

Tanks have the most braindead trading patterns in lane. They can brute force out trade you in your minions wave just because of their insane base damage and defensive tools.

The reason most tanks have poor winrate is because they rely on teamplay to play around, which isn't going to happen in soloq unless you're on comms. That, and the lead them can get in lanes doesn't amount to much, just a little extra tankiness. Also, they get outscaled and lose the 1v1.

Zybertooth11/24/2018, 12:23:06 PM4 votes

Scarra is one of the last true game designed based players whom plays all roles, please put him way in charge of balance yes!

DeKirschi11/24/2018, 2:28:50 PM4 votes

tanks are fucking cancer to play against

L Rayquaza11/24/2018, 10:49:51 PM4 votes

Here is the problem, it's not tanks and bruisers, it's flashy flashy champs. Yorick was popular for a bit but Yorick isnt flashy, so they keep gimping him any time he tries to come up, they wanna market their game as this fun to watch brawl fest so that people will want to watch pro stuff and then get into the game/spend more money. Let's look at simple to watch champs that got popular then promptly nerfed, meanwhile Irelia still gets to dash around everyone, Pyke still gets his super flashy multi execute(I will admit I really do like playing him, really unique supporting style), Kai'Sa gets her flighty dodge and dash ADC, and Lee Sin always gets buffs like 2 months before worlds because "MUH INSECS"

ankoanko1911/24/2018, 4:03:35 PM3 votes

Toplane is far more skill oriented when there are 2 fighters against eachothers than 2 tanks. So skillful only last hitting for the first 20 minutes and hoping your team wins. A Fiora vs Riven matchup is always more skillful than a Maokai vs Shen matchup. The ONLY tank which I see has potential to be skillfull is Poppy.

Vile Odium11/24/2018, 9:09:39 AM2 votes

Completely agree

SilentBomber11/24/2018, 11:11:09 AM1 votes

I agree the tank class is not performing how it should be.I believe,it has to do with the diversity of Runes.Why should any player,pick a tank in a game where the damage creep is so high for even tanks to endure?

Why,should someone pick Nautilus,Malphite,Ornn or whatever at top lane,when you can pick Urgot with the same tankiness but more damage.Plus,the execution ultimate with its disgusting range.

The problem is in the Rune system.There should be more options and more diversity like in the old one.Especially when the games now are decided on the laning phase.....