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Top lane and population

PhantomGG·1/17/2019, 5:38:49 AM·21 votes·12,746 views

Are you trying to make a league of legends team? Do you want to go to competitions? Do you have four members and all you need is a top laner? WELL TO BAD BECAUSE TOP LANERS ARE UNICORNS!

Hi, i'm PhantomGG, and I coach league of legends teams for fun and cash, As someone who has been doing this at a semi professorial level for over a year now, I can tell you right now the three leading causes to teams breaking up or never being formed.

1-Drama 2-Schedule 3-YOU CANT FIND A SINGLE FUCKING TOP LANER

Top lane at this point has become a even more disliked role than support, top lane talent is even more rare, as most people don't even know the most basic of concepts of how to teleport, and thus started taking ignite top lane. (which is terrible in team play) But what has caused this great exodus of top laners through out all the elos?

I believe the answer is simple

1-TP overly nerfd 2-Tanks are still useless if you aren't Sion or Ornn (sometimes poppy)

DrMundo Malphite Maokai Nautilus Ornn Shen Sion Poppy

Are the traditional tank top lane picks that come to mind. In this list

Sion is the only champion that is viable for both solo q and for team play, when you go to team play, SOMETIMES you will see a poppy. When it comes to team play, Sion, will sometimes see a ornn or a poppy, maybe even a stray Shen, but even that is rare.

Bottom line, Top laners are no bueno right now?

So what is bueno?

Carries Akali Irelia Aatrox Some Juggernauts Urgot Jax Mages Cassiopeia Viktor

Now in the past carries vs tanks should go fifty fifty, depending on how the respective players, chose to play level one, mages would often beat tanks due to our ranging them, and most juggernauts were capable of beating tanks, but often got out valued for tanks often have way better cc and late game stats. So this was a sorta "you beat me early but i beat you late" type trade in play style.

However what's going on with tanks right now, is the vast majority are simply not capable of doing their job, their base stats aren't good enough to allow them to tank, and even after they get their armor items, with everyone and their grandma building item 3071 and other factors, the tanky items don't even help that much, and don't even get me started on the true damage/percent health creep, which just makes their life even worse.

Recently we are seeing tank junglers make a come back with champs like Zac Sejuani Ornn , but for the top lane role, the class is still heavily suffering.

In the past league top lane was played in one of two ways, you were either a carry who permanently split pushed or you were a top laner who took tp, had lots of cc, and would sacrifice cs to go to other lanes and help them out, essentially being a secondary support. With tanks being so heavily nerfd, we are simply removing half of the top lane player population from the role.

If we want top lane main population to increase, than we need to buff the other half of top lane player base that we have essentially completely kicked out of both solo q and in team play.

that is all

27 Comments

nelogis1/17/2019, 12:10:16 PM20 votes

While I agree with you, you forgot the most important thing.

Top is cancer to play

If you are a normal player with a normal champ pool for top, the lane is so god damn anti-fun it's unbelievable. You can only understand this if you play top yourself.

Riot is really fast in gutting toxic shit in other lanes but when it comes to top they take their sweet time. A good thing to compare this to is Malzahar in mid and Heimerdinger/Freshly reworked Mordekaiser in bot. They might not be strong but as soon as they are picked you already know the laning phase is going to be shit.

You just can't do anything, Malzahar pushes 24/7 while not spending any mana. He might be miles behind in skill-level but it doesn't matter because it's Malzahar.

Freshly reworked Mordekaiser somehow takes away 50% of your HP with an auto (Q3) and all he did was to flash and click on you Heimer just randomly shoots rockets in the general direction of you and takes away 20% of your HP with each cast.

But then Riot steps in and boom, instantly nerfed within max 2 patches.

When it comes to top? Nah Viktor top is a unique playstyle and we haven't got enough data to blablabla Nah Lissandra afterschock top is a clear indicator that we enable different champs in different positions blablabla

It takes them MONTHS to get rid of cancer in top, just look at how long it took them to gut Gnar or Kennen or Pantheon.

Every second or third game you face something so anti-fun to play against you just quit the lane entirely before having a brain aneurysms.

Here is a quick rundown of the live of a normal top laner

Yorick Aight lets play top "1st Game" Akali Aight just 1 game where the laning phase won't be fun it's ok I guess "2nd Game" Kennen Aight just have to manipulate the wave so the jungler can gank "3rd Game" Jax item 3508 Aight just have to play passively because 1 death is going to be the end of me -> gets ganked by the jungler and that is the end of him "4th Game" Jayce JUNGLER FFS HELP ME! "5th Game" Riven item 3508 oh hurr durr look at me with 0.5 seconds cooldown on my abilities hurr durr look at the outplays hurr durr "6th Game" Aatrox Ha I guess I dodged every Q but he autod me once so I LOST THE TRADE! "7th Game" Quinn Jungler if you don't help me in the next 3 minutes im the inting the game! "8th Game" Viktor "hey what are you doing in my jungle Yorick?!" You can go defend top yourself while I'm having fun here "9th Game" Irelia Oh look at mister "gets caged under tower" but somehow still wins the trade because he took literally no damage! "10th Game" Pantheon Oh wow 200 damage you clearly deserved that one, oh another 200, and another one, maybe I can enga... ooh nope guess I'm dead haha :) "11th Game" Lissandra Nice now we can do absolutely nothing in laning phase and wait who is getting the jungler on their side, whooo what a game! "12th Game" Gnar NOOOOOO! FUCK OFF NOT YOU AGAIN! "13th Game" Heimerdinger "Report Yorick for stealing my lane pls" "14th Game" Darius Oh loo... wait... wait wait wait a NORMAL CHAMPION! Finally! Let's have some fun -> Gets camped by the jungler, FUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUU

It comes to a point where you don't need to know how to play top. Like you said, top lane talent is rare. Why try to learn the lane if you can just learn to play Riven and be done with it? Why try to learn the lane if you can just go Lissandra top and play her like it was mid? Why take TP when you can go ignite and ultra-snowball the lane with the 1 killl advantage? Wave management? Who gives a shit

It is unrewarding and unfun to play top, an autofill can just stonewall the lane and invalidate all your knowledge about the lane. That is the main reason why people just quit top.

Edit: Also by the way Mundo isn't a tank

Serika Zero1/17/2019, 12:05:04 PM5 votes

You probably have some friends. go ask them how many of them enjoy playing tanks in video games. how many want to just sit there and take it.

You want to force tanks on people, but most people don't want tanks. That's all. And that's why tanks only see a lot of play when they are broken as fuck.

Which is why the support was overall a hated role. support used to be: blitz, thresh, Leona, Alistair, taric, nautilus. Janna, Nami, karma

So mainly tanks, and those that weren't tank barely did any damage. people do not like playing tanks.

So, if your muy bueno top laners are tank players, ofc you will barely find any. Most people would avoid that unless they get paid for it. not everyone is a masochist that just wants to sit there and take it on the chin for the sake of their team.

Frog goes moo1/17/2019, 5:42:40 PM3 votes

Ornn? Oh you mean 45 percent winrate. Oh yeah I remember that guy. The only really good tanks are sion and poppy. But if you're playing poppy you have to ban out darius.

Nevrankroaton1/17/2019, 1:26:00 PM3 votes

I really REALLY REAAAAAAAAAAALLY fucking hate how TP warped top lane more than anything and how everyone think this spell is fine because it isn't frontloaded damage so "Muh ignite is dumb, TP is smart".

Like the benefits of TP are such that they made tank far more popular instead of balancing better the class. TP was like "Well like that, Top lane won't be an island. You are so dumb Nev, if you nerf TP, top laner will feel useless again" when the issue is that it made pressure on bot even stronger and it STILL DIDN'T FIX THE ISSUE OF TOP LANE."

Teleport allow for a lot of smart decisions but also gave insane power. You could make "bad" back timing but have TP to not loose any minion. You could basically force people to cancel a gank by launching TP and CANCEL it so you don't loose CS. You could make a bad call and basically go like "WELP, NOT GOING THERE", etc.

Then they rightfully smacked TP (which is still an insane pick toplane in pros/organised play) and since ignite got very strong, we had ignite instead.

Top lane is a mess, tanks are a mess and I hope the changes Riot made to basically gut them in term of organised play so they could be stronger solo (looking at you ornn) is the first step to make Tanks being able to SOLO lane instead of being bottom biatch who don't do shit but have so much agency in their initiating power/tempo that they are too much in organised play.

I honestly don't know what we could do to help top lane. The scuttle can be up there, the rift herald is a good objective, like... I don't know man. I don't know if fixing toplane is easy.

I do think they need to continu to work on tank so then juggernauts feel more valuable. I do think TP is a interesting summoner spell but is bonkers and totally deserved to be nerf as much. I do think that Top laners lack agency or way to smartly play macro.

Power Cosmic1/17/2019, 6:00:38 PM2 votes

The map is simply not balanced and carrying isn't risky. Playing top lane it is up to the player to get him/herself carrying, and there is little risk if you are quicker or have a favorable matchup, so a lot of top play is simply not letting that happen because you are on an island. It is more fun to have a good game on a safe pick, than be forced to play a 1v1 fighting game top while the rest are in a 4v4 battle to take the the opposing nexus. Also damage needs to be taken out of the support role. If you want to carry out of top, which should be an option, you should need help and be vulnerable early. Outplay champs should have to use their outplay tools to get a lead to have a net positive effect on a game.

woodvsmurph1/17/2019, 6:17:34 PM2 votes

  1. Sorry, but if you think cleaver is a problem as to why tanks are weak... you're sorely mistaken. Without it stuff like Renekton isn't viable because any armor means he does 0 damage to you no matter how much ad he buys. And this alone still wasn't cutting it, so conqueror was created. If anything doing too much damage to tanks despite all their resistances and hp is the problem... it's honestly the combo of %hp dps and crit. Yes... crit. If you don't have armor pen... raw ad and attack speed should mean very little. Yet we've seen in recent years where adc's can greedily go 4 crit items and a ga or lifesteal item yet shred 300+ armor tanks. That's without even a teammate with cleaver to cut down some of that armor for them. Therein lies the problem. Well that plus abominations like item 3153 item 3124 item 1419 yi doing 3k damage with aa, aa, q. Which again... I'd be semi-ok with IF he actually died like a squishy glass cannon should when cc'd. But no... tack on one hp item and use his w to minimize burst when his q is on cd for a whole 2 sec and he takes almost no damage during this time. So, I'm sorry but you are completely off if you think cleaver has anything to do with why tanks aren't viable.

  2. Everything revolves around adc. Did you ever stop and think about that? It's only gotten far worse in recent years and the sad part is people are starting to accept the idea that games should be: midlaner kills 90% of an enemy or maybe one whole champ, adc kills the other 4 - 4.1 champs. Uh... no. That's not acceptable in most cases and that's nowhere near what 5+ seasons of league has showed us. But that's the trend we are heading towards like some classic mining cart that's speeding out of control. When toplaners are perfectly capable of being THE win condition for their team... but instead are stuck 1v2 STILL WINNING their lane while their team plays around some trash bot lane that can't go even or pressure a tower or secure a dragon in a 3v2 lane why the hell would a toplaner want to join a team and face that kind of treatment even more? Don't just take my word for it... take a look at RTO and the twitch games he was just in as a perfect example of junglers and teams with the wrong mentality due to trends in recent seasons.

Two games... RTO in position to get ganks/counter-ganks during laning phase which would put him easily in position to 1v2 and give his jg priority over the enemy jungler topside. Bot lane... lacks the cc needed to make plays. Mid lane again not the easiest lane to gank for their jungler. But team over prioritizes putting bot ahead. And even when not focusing on bot... jg is prioritizing one more jg camp (which is static) vs a nigh guaranteed kill that helps both himself AND his laner. So let's look at an example of why gank first, do camp later is the correct option even though most non-toplaners would argue otherwise.

a. Yi ganks top, gets kill, helps RTO shove tower where he can then 2v1 collapse on enemy jg if they invaded to steal his gromp (that he in the actual game chose to do instead). Enemy jg is now dead, toplaner died and was denied cs or is at tp disadvantage, and yi has more than made up for one lost camp via the 2 kills/assists gold and xp plus jg priority he now has. In all future scenarios he now wins 2v2's topside even harder, gains his team tp advantage, and can steal away enemy jg camps easily or even get first tower or herald.

b. Yi ganks top, gets kill, 2v1 invades and forces enemy jg off the camps in their jg they were doing. So yi gets the enemy jg's camps topside AND can STILL go back and get his own camp. Same future benefits as in scenario a too.

c. Yi ignores opportunity top, does camp, then runs top but the opening is no longer there. Enemy jg also cleared top and is now ahead in rotation for bot side plays due to yi doing a wasted gank top due to having delayed. Enemy jg can immediately force a play bot after resetting and be ahead of yi on the play or can do one more camp than yi and still be in position to counter bot side plays yi makes.

d. Yi ignores top side opportunity, does camp, and then shows up late to counter-gank when enemy jg had the same idea as RTO only they actually correctly prioritized the gank over the jg camp. Scenario b now comes into effect but with yi and the enemy jg roles flipped and yi having to give up pressure and concede to the 2v1.

This stuff is literally the same as what is consistently applied to bot and mid only... people just ignore top as a win condition. That's really sad especially after everyone finally got to see the true power a good toplaner can have over the game with last year's world finals and the Shy demolishing Fnatic. No instead toplaners are treated as expendable. They are screwed over in exchange for jg or bot getting advantages and just told to suck it up. Which can sometimes in all fairness be ok. But only if jg or bot DOES SOMETHING with that advantage that outweighs what was lost top. Which all too often is not the case. Moreover, even if somewhat behind bot lane generally has the advantage of being able to get a good teamfight and scale back into the game off the back of their team playing well. Unless you're playing a damage soaking sponge like sion that's just meant to be a meatshield, toplaners can't often say the same thing. They have timing windows which if missed might make the champ mediocre or even a liability all game long. And the investment of one good gank at 5 min is the equivalent of 2 good ganks at 8 min or 4 good ganks at 15 min... much moreso than other lanes due to said timing windows and other factors. Jg's and teams don't tend to realize this, so they think oh... well I ganked once at 15 min and got you an assist so that makes up for you playing 10 of the previous 14 min in a perma-1v2 ok and you're on even footing now. Well that's simply not accurate. So if team doesn't DO anything (other than accrue cs lead that they don't leverage for any gains via towers, dragon, kill advantage, etc.) then you are losing more top than what you gain elsewhere. Moreover, everything you are gaining... you could easily gain that AND help your toplaner if you just correctly prioritized the order in which you do things as evidenced by my RTO 4 possible scenarios example.

  1. People don't generally play toplane to be some giant meatshield that just runs in there, dies, and gives all the glory to the adc. They play top because they're good, they know they are, and they want to prove it. You play it to smash the other guy to pieces and then take your advantage and invalidate any advantages the other team has in one of two fashions or both. The first option is the splitpush. When you go... I don't give a ... if you gank me, I will 1v2 you and your jg or mid or adc or whoever the hell you send at me. So what are you going to do about it? Because if you send 3+ people after me, I'll just waste your time and my team will roll over you elsewhere on the map. The second option is teamfighting. Early and mid game bruisers and such have perhaps some of the greatest carry potential. Not because adc's need buffs, but because burst is still very relevant and bruisers have the innate durability in combo with their items that they can match an adc's damage threat while being more durable. It's not until later mid game and late game where peeling and dps of adc's is supposed to take over as the primary carry threat. So the bruiser offers the enemy team 2 options... you can focus my team and I will kill your carries and then kill the rest of you or... you can focus me, I'll still more or less force your squishy carries out of the fight, and my teammates will kill your whole team in the time it takes you to kill just me. That's what a bruiser that wins lane is supposed to do.

Sadly in solo queue teams often deny their toplaners either option. They refuse to play properly around the splitpush power and potential of their toplaners by forcing outnumbered fights or feeding 4v4 when all they have to do is hold a tower and let their toplaner work his advantage - either solo killing his opponent, forcing the enemy to invest multiple people and give his team a 4v3 or similar, or shoving the enemy splitpusher in and then looking to force 5v4 fights via flank engages if the enemy is sieging his 4 teammates. They aren't supported in teamfights with teammates instead over-investing into protecting members who are less valuable if kept alive rather than giving them up, finishing off low hp enemy carries, and enabling their toplaner to carry the fight. Again... just look to RTO example match where they zilean ult a karthus who just dies again in 2 sec without getting off significantly more damage nor tanking significantly more damage from the enemy team. If that were instead used on the renekton or yi... they'd get infinitely more value from the ult. Moreover, in organized team play the situation is even less ideal for toplaners. Because all farm is funneled into mid and adc... often denying toplaners the powerspike potential they could get in solo queue and removing those options. Now... if your adc or midlaner is your strongest player by far, that maybe makes some sense. But if your toplaner is your strongest player or at least equally strong... why not actually give them a chance to show what they can do? We have weak toplaners who are disinterested in joining teams because they are treated like trash as badly as supports have ever been. Not in every game nor by every org, but overall that is the trend and mentality solo queue and teams take towards their toplaners.

Fire Blaustoise1/17/2019, 5:04:36 PM2 votes

Top lane at this point has become a even more disliked role than support, top lane talent is even more rare, as most people don't even know the most basic of concepts of how to teleport, and thus started taking ignite top lane. (which is terrible in team play) But what has caused this great exodus of top laners through out all the elos?

I believe the answer is simple

1-TP overly nerfd 2-Tanks are still useless if you aren't Sion or Ornn (sometimes poppy)

its only a NA & Low elo things. And its not a sometimes Poppy (she's good. Period).

Tp is still the best summoner for toplane... at least until jungler get hard nerfed.

do you really list Jax as juggernaut ? and as good in competitive ?

item 3071 isnt even in a good state.

. With tanks being so heavily nerfd, we are simply removing half of the top lane player population from the role.

Its not true. Tanks players aren't even half of toplane player population. They're clearly far of this... not only because their current state.

If we want top lane main population to increase, than we need to buff the other half of top lane player base that we have essentially completely kicked out of both solo q and in team play.

No. If you want to increase it, you need to up top lane impact. It will happen when riot will nerf jungle and mid impact (supports still avoid nerfs).

Conqueror is already planned to be nerf.

hectixx9/19/2019, 5:22:14 AM1 votes

dog shit post - fake wannabe gold 4 coach KEKW

HyVee1/17/2019, 9:06:37 PM1 votes

I am not seeing AP shaco top in that list...

Minimac20001/17/2019, 10:40:11 PM1 votes

Fyi, Ornn is a bruiser not a tank since his changes. He now gets pooped on by everyone even harder than before toplane lol. Also, he's a support now not a top layer. If you don't believe me check r/ornnmains

hoganftw1/18/2019, 4:01:27 AM1 votes

Top lane is for masochists, honestly. Do you want to be ignored by your jungler while being towerdove by theirs? Do you like losing lane because your jungler decided to invade when you pinged miss? Do you like that top lane's meta is extremely volatile? Do you like being bullied in lane and potentially losing the game because scaling doesn't matter in a 20 minute game? Do you like losing the game because you can't win other people's lanes for them?

As someone who loves the role, I'm a stoic and a masochist really. Maybe it's just conditioning, or just a love for embracing the 1v1ish vibe.

Vlada Cut1/18/2019, 7:10:37 AM1 votes

"No top laners" What kind of a fricking coach are you if you don't know about Bruisers benf the meta? Not to mention that there are a lot of peoole playing that lane now too. Stop claiming that tanks are the only top laners and that top lane is deserted the moment they're out lf the meta.

Frontline Fury1/18/2019, 7:20:23 AM1 votes

Well that’s one way to make me feel appreciated and uncomfortable at the same time. As a top lane main for now six seasons, this seems odd to me.

Most tanks are terrible - they’re all matchup dependent. If you are looking for an exclusively tank player you should specify that.

My account on NA is Extra Yukeh if you’d like to host a tryout.

rayzo1/18/2019, 6:47:49 PM1 votes

Jax isn't a juggernaut