If characters aren't meant to be forced into certrain roles, where else are these guys meant to go?

PopcornBunni··21 votes·10,202 views

Braum Ivern Leona Thresh Alistar Bard Skarner

39 Comments

GhostOfTsushima16 votes

It's Aram, they can go anywhere they want

No surrender16 votes

Braum toplane AS Carry

Ivern Roaming support with a 1v2 ADC like Ezreal, camp stealer

Leona Toplane / jungle, just not effective that much

Thresh Everywhere

Alistar Everywhere

Bard Midlane APC

Skarner Lol don't pick

Fondling Gems3 votes

Braum can also tank-ish top with a Wits end vs AP or Botrk vs AD into a Titanic Hydra into full tank. Honestly the only position I will play him. Manfighting Olafs is too fun.

Leo can definitely Jungle, although her clear isn't wonderful right now. With a Taric/Alistar bot though you can run a CC kill lane and go for early snowball wins with plenty of tower dive. IBG's are fun.

Thresh gonna have some fun as an ADC with stormrazor, AS Thresh with rageblade can get VERY amusing once he has enough souls, since each soul grants 1 damage on hit + flat AP which he does on hit via rageblade. Only seen it once, but the guy managed to farm to late game, wasn't even fed, and wiped out 3 people, 1 of them a fairly fed Fiora, by excessive flailing. Easily one of the most amusing things I have seen, although definitely not as viable as a one shot Thresh build unless you get to freefarm all game.

I used to play a ton of AP Alistar Jungle/mid before his minor changes. Not a fan of his E/passive switch for jungling so I'm not really sure how he fares now.

Bard can AP mid but also has a surprisingly good jg clear, especially once he gets AOE chimes. His ganks require landing Q, but tbf that really isn't any harder than Reksai ganks, and they are actually very similar due to sneaky pathing.

Ivern definitely has the short end of the straw here, but I have seen a couple amusing top lane Iverns. You have to pick into a tank or other passive enemy, but you can constantly poke via bushes and end up following a similar build to the mid lane Lulu strat.

Personally don't play him, but my friend used to play a lot of Skarner support. Passive lane until 6 but then it is free kills when your jungler ganks. Ends up going for an ultimate hat + movespeed build, forcing QSS's on all the enemy carries, while his ult is on a much shorter CD than QSS. Combined with a pick/siege comp and you just keep the enemies in their base until Skarner is able to grab a priority target who's QSS is down. With enough movespeed the enemys can't collapse before your team has taken them down, in which case they are in a 4v5 and down one of their top 2 players, while we have only used our support's ult/items.

Definitely not the strongest strat, but a fun one that works up until around low gold fairly consistently. Definitely struggles while behind though, but you can say that for a lot of champions in their best positions, let a below average champion in an unusual position.

remakoro12 votes

Everyone suggesting top. Makes it look like top lane is some kind of dumpster for shiet irrelevant or unplayable anywhere else. That explains why teemo mostly resides on top as well.

flibitydoo2 votes

to be fair there was a time in season freaking 4/5 when people called top lane "the place where mid lane rejects go" because Lulu and Ryze were dominating up there (and the other example was vlad even though he wasn't a new to top lane).

MohawkBird11 votes

[deleted]

Leetri3 votes

Ok so you want top Lulu to be a thing again? That won't go over well with the boards seeing how they're seemingly 90% top mains.

MohawkBird5 votes

[deleted]

Du Ma Mi3 votes

{quoted}

I wanted Lulu top to be a thing.

There

Teridax681 votes

I agree with this. We're frequently told that Riot wants more diversity in the game, and wants more champions to be viable in more positions, but when it comes to actually making said champions viable and healthy in more than one position, the typical response we've got is that it's simply easier to balance a champion around just one lane. There's always been this kind of clash between diversity and convenience of balancing, and so far the latter has won out, in part because we still don't really have a system in place for allowing champions to be viable in multiple positions. It also doesn't help that certain champions were designed with only one role in mind, and have had their kits so focused around said role that they become unhealthy if played even slightly differently (e.g. Lulu when taken top). It might take a while before we truly start seeing diversity in League, and before that happens we may need a more reliable balancing methodology that would make the process stabler and more predictable.

OverpoweredSoap1 votes

{quoted}

Riot likes to state that they don't "force" meta or champions to go into certain roles, but their patterns of balance obviously say otherwise. Any time a champion is doing well in a non-intended role, we see it nerfed to the ground.

That's because most of the time when champions go into roles/lanes they weren't meant for, they tend to be rather oppressive or just horribly imbalanced.

There are certain exceptions like Support Trundle/Miss Fortune.

Also if riot hated champions going to roles they weren't meant for, a lot of mages wouldn't be able to support at all. Though, the more I think about it, Riot tends to be ok with champions going into the support role (bar Malzahar support) than anywhere else.

Sire Hippington4 votes

They all could find atleast one other place with just small changes.

Braum jungle and top Ivern support Leona top and jungle, evt ap-mid Thresh top and jungle, evt adc Alistar top, mid and jungle(he was played in all of those roles at some point in the past) Bard Mid and Jungle Skarner Top

Nøctμrne3 votes

Played Alistar jungle, don't recommend, his clear times and health after rotation is terrible.

Sire Hippington1 votes

in his current state, sure

Nøctμrne3 votes

Unless there are changes being made to allow him to jungle, then that is his only state, not sure I'm following you here..

Oleandervine1 votes

He had previous states where he was a good jungler. He was so good, in fact, that it ended with him getting severe nerfs where he settled completely into the bot lane as a support because of them.

Nøctμrne1 votes

ahh, The only alistar I remember was pre-rework, then I quit for a period of 6 months to a year, came back he had changed along with some other champs I played. I was unaware to nerfs that happened on his rework. sorry about that lol

Oleandervine1 votes

No no, this was seasons ago, like 2 or 3 I believe.

Nøctμrne1 votes

I've played since season 2 just never touched Alistar lol, I wasn't a jungle main until around season 7 and all I played was top lane before.

KZ Engel1 votes

they intentionally forced alistar out of the jungle. his ganks were way too potent, even before he was given an on-hit stun on top of his combo.

MuffledGarbage2 votes

Braum top is actually Lit tho. I play it to great success quite often

Ivern could go top and stall enemy toplaners while also stealing enemy jungler camps

Leona Top works... somewhat, Leona Jungle could work if Riot would let her proc her passive on monsters

Thresh jungle, Thresh top, Thresh mid, Thresh ADC, LMAO thresh goes anywhere

Alistar full AP mid deletes mages and assassins alike, Alistar AP-Bruiser top is great

Bard ADC, Bard AP mid carry, Bard top works

Skarner top and Skarner support work well

Just gotta be creative m8

Recon12122 votes

The only 2 i agree with are ivern and Skarner. Most of them can be played in solo lanes and do fine depending.

Jerry SeinfeId2 votes

Leo should receive small tweaks to buff her jungle/top, she gets outclassed in the support role anyway.

Blackmage92 votes

Besides Ivern I can say I saw the other champs on top lane at least once or twice.

Sad Tyrant1 votes

top, support, Top, Top, Top. mid/top, top(/s)

Meep Man1 votes

Ivern and Skarner are the only people there that I would say can't lane. Braum and Alistar are really hard to make elsewhere and probably isn't worth it.

The rest don't have anything FORCING them into a role. Leona - Easy Top Lane Tank Thresh - More of a Meme, but AD Thresh Top/ADC can still one shot people at times Bard - Top or Mid easy

Hiraeth Oblivion1 votes

Ever notice how all the books people don't tend to read are on the top shelf? Since they seem less popular, or, aren't as open to a wide audience as the ones in the middle, or the bottom?

you get what im saying

Total Eclipse1 votes

Bro who T.F. ever said champs weren't meant to be forced into roles? If you're talking about in the future, you'll have to wait and thats only going to end up applying to half of the champs out there anyways. Right now the only champs that get a choice are top/mid, top/jg, and mid/supp. OCCASIONALLY adc/supp. Other than that, you get a role with your champ, and if you expect to see any new flex picking, its going to be the ones i mentioned.

Cojak1 votes

A big point of the mid mage nerfs was to open up the lane to other classes/roles. Of course this got people talking about marksmen bot lane, and supports. The listed supports have no business being anywhere than where they were designed to be. Unlike marksmen who could go anywhere (not all everywhere, but enough of them can fill any lane/role). I think this is a troll-ish post about how is Riot going to fit these champs into different roles.

warpenguin5551 votes

There was a time in season 5 where Alistar could go top. He also got kicked out of the jungle at one point for being stupidly unfun to play against. I wasn't playing when Alistar jungle was a thing, but the way I saw it described, you couldn't push past the river or you would get headbutted under the enemy tower.

Akali is SO HOT1 votes

There are some champions that have kits that are only really healthy in one particular role. Whenever Alistar becomes viable top lane it's usually because people have found a new way to exploit his W or Q and he becomes completely unfair to play against. Go check out worlds from 2 or 3 years ago when he was permabanned because he could auto attack mid W and proc sheen with it. Lulu is another good example of a character that should only ever be viable in the support role. When Lulu can solo lane she invalidates basically 99% of the cast and is absolutely unfair to play against. That's why she is immediately nerfed whenever she becomes viable in top or mid.

Some of the champions that you listed don't really have kits to suit other roles and Riot would have to do some big reworks on them to allow them to do it. This isn't really worth the time as they have other things to focus on and would allow the characters to be gimmicky at best in the other roles. Braum's kit, for example, doesn't really do anything at all without a team behind him to assist his kit. Can't really do anything by himself. Some of the champs you listed can do other roles however. Leona top, Thresh ADC, Skarner top, and Bard anything can all work to some degree.

PopcornBunni1 votes

For all the people suggesting Leona specifically for top and jungle, how could she contend? She can't proc her passive on her own, even against minions or monsters, and that's where most of her trading power comes from.

Akali is SO HOT2 votes

Leona top isn't good, but it's not bad either. She is actually pretty decent at trading because of her Q auto reset that also stuns. She's similar to pre rework Taric top. Not that great, but something that's doable and fun to do if you're just messing around with friends or something.

Zach65081 votes

I sometimes play Bard mid with Electrocute and Cheap Shot, then I buy Lichbane.

KZ Engel1 votes

that's an old-ass design philosophy that riot somewhat recently gave up

Rathar Dashing1 votes

Lots of those guys can go top. Not as well as other roles, sure, but still possible.

Aerial Queen Liz1 votes

If they just added bonus damage to monsters on Leona's kit, she'd be a decent jungler, no kidding. Maybe make her E dash to monsters.

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