I am going to stop playing top lane and you should too.

Kinkou Order·2/4/2018, 11:47:11 PM·55 votes·5,763 views

I just have so much more control over the game's outcome as a support which if you had told me in season 4 I would have laughed but here we are. I also don't have the extremely toxic hard counters like Illaoi when playing Irelia which I know is going to happen almost every game if I have to pick first as top.

Top lane really does need some help. I want it to be more like season 2 or 4 where hard counters did not seem to be anything like they are today. But I get a feeling that will not happen due to the way that juggernauts exist. Yes they have made top lane into far less of a skill matchup lane and far more of a rock paper scissors lane often decided by hard counters.

I could blame ghostcrawler for this and say he made spears beat Cavalry who beat archers who beat spears (AoE reference for those who don't know) but it is not only Ghostcrawler who is letting this problem continue without any signs of things improving. Top lane is not in an enjoyable to play state and it is going to need a lot of work to be enjoyable again.

First turret gold makes roaming in a bad matchup too much of a negative trade off since the turret will likely be gone within 2 or 3 waves, and TP having a 4 second channel makes it far less effective than it once was to TP gank bot lane. IF you are in a bad matchup you are often forced to defend your lane to prevent an advantage instead of trying to use what your champ has to make an advantage elsewhere. The turret doesn't even provide any kind of reliable safety from getting 2 or 3 person turret dived. They will just use stopwatch to lose turret aggro anyways.

Champs who are proving to be stronger than they should be like Gangplank are not being nerfed in a timely manner while having both a higher than average win rate and a global ult that makes him able to influence the outcome of other lanes while not even leaving lane.

I'm not sure if support is more popular than top lane currently but it feels far more impactful than top. I had been a support secondary player from season 3 to season 5 and season 7 to now. Now I never get put as support with only 2 out of 44 games being support with it secondary behind top compared to what use to be every 3rd or 4th game being support with it secondary behind top. There is clearly a shortage of top lane players.

Top lane is in a really unhealthy state and until it gets better I am going to no longer be a top lane primary player.

#HashIsRight

123 Comments

Remove Jungle2/5/2018, 12:08:09 AM25 votes

[{quoted}](name=Kinkou Order,realm=NA,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=dyo4bkGe,comment-id=,timestamp=2018-02-04T23:47:11.689+0000)

I just have so much more control over the game's outcome as a support which if you had told me in season 4 I would have laughed.

Then play a support on top lane man!

http://grabilla.com/08205-14729653-5949-49c7-87fb-9d35fb017815.png

Ahri Baka2/5/2018, 3:52:45 AM13 votes

I don't main top , but , I can carry when I play Top more than when I play mages , stop this whole top lane hate stuff ffs Like how would your adc fight when he has no good frontliner? I can carry with most of top laners I have , and here are the ones I have Quinn Riven Fiora Malphite Sion and Irelia Gangplank Camille Aatrox Pantheon Illaoi Maokai Olaf Shen Nasus and a good MonkeyKing Jax can actually carry too like ffs , the highest winrate champions , most of them are top laners and no , Top lane CAN carry , do you even try roaming mid and saving your summoner 12 for bot ? just like how bot roams mid , and mid roams bot and top , Top can roam mid and bot , like , what do you expect if your bot lane gets destroyed and the enemies reached the inhibitor and you are a braindead Nasus who only farms for stacks and does nothing else ? stop tilting yourself and move to help your team , if you can't , stop playing top and go play for the support role , people like you will make autofilled supports who will troll less.

vgamedude2/5/2018, 1:38:13 AM11 votes

I don't think Gp is the issue and I think we should stop picking on the one carry that seems to be viable top lane even in pro play.

Even being a hypercarry he still gets outdamaged by the garbage that goes on down in the bot lane, and he's actually a hard champion to play.

420 grams2/5/2018, 12:03:50 AM11 votes

I already switched from top to jungle. Gained 5 divisions within a month ✌️ Being impactful is actually fun

Akali is SO HOT2/5/2018, 3:23:59 AM8 votes

I miss the days where if I put Mid as primary and Top as secondary I would almost always get Mid. Nowadays I get top like 75% of the time lol

FCJAAAAGOOOO2/5/2018, 7:25:02 AM7 votes

I play top and disagree although I'm not even plat yet this season. I only play Renekton.

I either get a lead, kill top under their tower and knock down their tower afterwards and carry games, or take a lot of pressure from other lanes/jungle and let my team carry games. I take Ignite and force the other top to recall and teleport back top constantly. I'll even just Ignite them just to force them to recall and tele top. I'll inevitably out-cs them with my overall threat, build two bruiser items and go to town on lanes, objectives, the jungle and anyone that comes anywhere near me.

Ranged tops do significantly less in teamfights unless I just give them the lane, which simply burning pots prevents unless my teammates come top and blatantly feed them. Gimmick tops have loads of counterplay; Illaoi gives you your soul back if you burst her down hard enough when she grabs you and Darius can't touch you without well-aimed Q's if you save W+E for every engage post-level 3, and Renekton's enrage Q completely trump Darius's Q save hemorrhoids stacks.

There's really not a way someone can just not carry with a top laner without it being voluntary; lane bullies like Renekton aren't the only tops that can do it. PTA Shyv carries games from the jungle as we all well know. Nothing's stopping toplaners, who earn more gold and exp, from doing the exact same thing.

FatedSaviour2/5/2018, 12:58:07 AM7 votes

really, i play top heaps and its fun, that is, when all of my other lanes dont feed, which is never

PePsiLemoNN2/5/2018, 11:00:44 AM6 votes

You realize Hashinshin only wants Jax to be OP and brainlessly splitpush all day right? I really don't get what fighter players are bitching about when Nasus Fiora Riven Camille Illaoi are all strong right now.

Btw you played 0 ranked games this season , you can't tell everyone to stop playing top cause you had a bad experience in silver MMR normal games.

Śhunpo2/5/2018, 2:58:42 AM5 votes

I mean, you guys should also quit mid lane as well. Just come down to the bot lane where everything happens, cause nothing eventful happens in the other two solo lanes.

Penta Penguin2/5/2018, 10:20:04 AM2 votes

[deleted]