Something interesting I noticed about Top Lane

TehNACHO·Feb 28, 2019·1 votes·923 views

I can manage some serious CS deficits and not really lose much in the long run.

I like playing Mid Game champions whenever I play top lane, champs like Wukong, Kled, Nasus, and recently I've been playing Yorick. Depending on the match up however, this tends to mean I can get zoned really hard from the minion wave. I've played a lot of games where I've been sitting at as much as a 30 cs deficit, yet through experience alone I can often still stay in the game.

The cynical Boards member part of me wants to point out the CS bounties but it's also just interesting to me that I can stay in the game just by staying alive and soaking exp, rather than necessarily needing to farm every CS.

8 Comments

I love cowboysFeb 28, 20192 votes

I think what you meant to say is that toplane has little agency so as long as you don't go 0/10 you can come back from losing lane early and being zoned out.

TehNACHOFeb 28, 20191 votes

What do you mean exactly?

I roam a lot on my lighter picks (Kled, Wukong) and split a lot on my heavier picks (Nasus, Yorick) by the mid to late game. I tend to have a lot of impact on the game past the laning phase. Unless you specifically mean early game laning phase Top Lane has little agency (hi Pantheon), I don't think you're right at all to say that top has little agency.

I love cowboysFeb 28, 20191 votes

{quoted}

What do you mean exactly?

I roam a lot on my lighter picks (Kled, Wukong) and split a lot on my heavier picks (Nasus, Yorick) by the mid to late game. I tend to have a lot of impact on the game past the laning phase. Unless you specifically mean early game laning phase Top Lane has little agency (hi Pantheon), I don't think you're right at all to say that top has little agency.

I do mean more towards the early game, it's a lot harder for a toplaner with a lead to spread that lead to the rest of your team compared to the other lanes. If you get a kill or two early but then your opponent plays very conservatively and safely, it's harder for a toplaner to push that lead further without risking your opposing laner to tighten the gap by hard pushing and taking a tower plate or two.

I also think people generally undervalue exp and level advantage. I'd argue staying on level in a losing lane compared to your opponent is just as important as getting cs. So in that regard, I would agree with you.

TehNACHOFeb 28, 20191 votes

Aye, in that case, yeah. Side effect of being on an island. Funny enough, one streamer SoloRenektonOnly stressed specifically not to leave Top Lane ever unless you have a basically guaranteed double kill or something equivalent, since turret plates exist and the top laner can reset. I think it's funny that Top Laners are in some ways specifically discouraged from leaving.

xDogMeatxFeb 28, 20191 votes

So basically CS isnt as important for top lane?

TehNACHOFeb 28, 20191 votes

...maybe.

Specifically, the gold you get from CSing may not be as important as soaking up the experience. This may be champion specific (I play midgame champs who scale naturally on levels/have kit specific gimmicks), but especially in high poke matchups like Heimerdinger or Rumble, it looks like staying alive and getting exp is worth much more than fighting (and losing HP) for the gold.

xDogMeatxFeb 28, 20192 votes

Who has such ability to get more gold off of exp than gold itself?

TehNACHOFeb 28, 20191 votes

Nobody, reading your post literally.

May I rephrase it as "Who has such ability to get more value off of exp than gold itself?" however? Because this is the case for a lot of champions. It's been common knowledge on the Boards/League Forums for the longest time that one of the biggest barriers to mages in the Bot Lane has historically been how they scale harder on levels than they do in raw gold like a Marksman does (who scales very little on levels but a lot on gold).

Furthermore, I'm talking specifically about high pressure poke or zoning matchups. What do you do when you get counter picked as a Yorick vs a Heimerdinger, for example. Run through Heimerdinger's turrets for every CS, or let Heimerdinger push the wave, lose a couple CS but still getting the EXP without getting poked down?