A meta-breaking guide to: TrisTOPna. Yes, Tristana Top

(It works because you can shoehorn "op" in her name and it becomes top (also she might be OP in top lane))

Welcome to my Top lane Tristana guide! In this guide, we'll go over:

• What makes Tristana work in top (1)

• Why we would pick Tristana in the first place (2)
• Runes/Masteries (3)
• How to lane (4)
• General build path (5)
• What to do after lane phase (6)

---

(1) Tristana works in top lane primarily because of her passive, Draw a Bead, which increases her attack range against enemy champions. Being ranged, Tristana already has a leg-up on her competition by being able to harass them from safety without fear of being attacked back. While some opponents are able to use CC on Tristana to make the attempt, she quickly out-ranges them due to her passive and can harass with auto-attacks and her E (Explosive Charge) as much as she desires. When ganked, Tristana has a get-out-of-death-free card in both her W (Rocket Jump) and her R (Buster Shot), so the fact that she pushes so hard with her E isn't too much of an issue either. Being able to put out this much pressure and kill towers almost when she feels the need to (her E) allows Tristana to direct the flow of top lane almost entirely to her whims

(2) Tristana is a second ADC and can be built and played sort of like a ranged assassin. If your team already has a tank with decent engage, you can freely pick Tristana top without fear. Tristana brings a lot to your teams table. A secondary source of serious damage, a great split-pusher with ways to escape being caught out, a great tanker (W behind enemy, let them into your team mate a-la Lee Sin), and she's able to farm really well in a solo lane where she's not being actively pressured which leads to a huge gold income which is fantastic for a scaling ADC like Tristana.

(3) https://puu.sh/uYNL1/2811f5b1f3.png

CDR blues allow Tristana to jump more, push harder, and deal more damage. While you can swap these out for MR/level blues (how often do you fight a magic damage top lane?), I prefer to use these.

The Lifesteal adds up to 9.5% (with Dorans Blade), which means that Tristana is able to sustain herself as if she had a Vampiric Scepter from level 1, which is fantastic because if you ever make a mistake and get engaged upon, you can rather quickly regenerate your health and stay in lane to continue farming, which is imperative for Tristana. The longer you stay in lane, the worse-off your opponent will be.

Fervor is a no-brainer. With your superior range, you're able to constantly harass your opponent. Since Fervor takes so long to fall off, usually you deal more and more damage as you continue to harass them while not CSing. While harassing forces minions to attack you, you can quickly drop the aggro by standing near a bush and ducking inside after every attack. If you don't like that, I'd use Warlord's Bloodlust for further sustain. If you opt to take Bloodlust, however, I would recommend taking Natural Talent instead of Vampirism.

Due to just how much harassing Tristana does to those poor melees, I like to take Bandit to speed up my item gain. This is completely optional, however, and all choices can be taken here.

(4) Take W at level 1 so you don't push too hard. This is because Jungle players usually take two buffs or two buffs and a camp before ganking top lane around the 4 minute mark. The less you have your lane pushed out, the safer you'll be. I actually sometimes hit level 3 without putting any other skill points into Tristana until it's a good time to use E to harass. Every time your opponent attempts to CS, you should hit them two or three times before ducking out to safety. They have to stand pretty far back and sometimes this causes them to lose experience simply because if they stand near their caster minions, they take damage from your E's passive effect. If they try to fight back, just use your W to jump away to safety and continue the bombardment. When you've pushed up to their tower, they can't stay on their tower because of your E. If you use your E and place it on the tower, it immediately zones your opponent. When it gets near to exploding, they either have to run away or run toward you. If they stuck around, they get a huge sum of damage tacked on to their health bar. Remember that you can always continue to harass them with your Fervor-boosted auto-attacks while they're on their tower, as they really can't fight you back. If the champion isn't a tank, you can all-in them when they're around half health and win the fight (or 1/4 health if they're on their turret) and if they're a tank, you can kill them at 1/4th health without any major issues. Using E, auto, W, auto, auto, (ignite if you took it), R, auto. to finish them off. If a tank is on their tower, just be careful they don't have CC to hit you with after you jump on top of them.

Range is your friend, and it will decimate the lane for you if you master how to use it.

(5) I like to build the following:

(or if I'm against a Shen or similar farm lane), , , , , , (or ) , ,

Other items which are also good purchases include:

, ,

You really don't need a whole lot of attack speed because Q (Rapid Fire) lasts throughout pretty much every team fight and it gives a lot of bonus attack speed, which makes a Crit+AD build really good on her.

(6) After lane phase, you open yourself up to a lot of options. You can gank using your W+R combo or you can continue to push with wards, your E which busts turrets wide open will destroy lanes relatively quickly combined with your Q and you can W and R away from any threats that might present themselves to you. You are a great split-pusher, but also a strong duelist and team fighting champion. You deal great sustained damage in fights and great burst damage too. You can assassinate targets out of position and break open enemies who try to reach you in 5v5s. With all your cries and resetting W, it'll be very difficult for them to catch you off-guard.

Once you're comfortable with Tristana, I expect great things from you! Some of Tristana's power can be seen here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZJSysAhF5sQ

If you're interested in watching live gameplay footage, I stream Fridays, Saturdays, and Sundays starting at 7-8 EST here: http://www.twitch.tv/chickenwrap

If you have any questions, feel free to ask me either here or in the stream later! I hope this quick guide helped shed some light on why I choose to play Tristana in the Top lane in Diamond, despite how often people get upset or criticize it! Usually they're shut up by the time you're 4-0 =)