Whenever I play Top Lane I feel I can't push my advantage even when ahead

DeadUnborn··9 votes·1,567 views

It always feels like no matter what, if I start beating the enemy Top Laner he can just play passively. At that point my only two options are freezing lane or roaming. I usually can't roam because I can only gank mid and in my experience that is usually trading tower for kill, which IMO isn't worth it because I lose map control.

The only viable option MOST times is to freeze lane and deny XP for the enemy top laner until I get a gank and knock tower. The problem with this strategy is that it is very time-consuming. By the time I get ahead, I usually feel the game has already been dictated by bot lane. You can knock down towers way to easily in that lane.


SOLUTION

Make it so that ALL turrets have early damage protection, and only disable the protection for the Pro-Scene. For those that don't know, the outer bot turret is actually easier to knock down because it takes normal damage throughout the game, while other outer turrets have a damage reduction shield until a certain time. The reason for this is because pro-players use a very efficient strategy were they lane swap to focus on farming and bullying the top laner instead of risking trades. This made for very uninteractive games, so Riot made the bot tower easy to destroy to punish this strategy (lane swap= you lose your tower easier). Problem is, this is warping the game for the majority of players while only affecting about 60 realistically, which I find odd

40 Comments

McFatal2 votes

finally shoved the full tank ornn out of lane after 15 combos, maybe i can take the tower now!

he rushes tabis tps back and i no longer get him out of lane in any circumstance ever.

me getting first tower as a fighter against a tank is nonexistant if their jungler has half a brain.

the second the tank has a completed item you're getting dove for free and there is NOTHING u can do about it.

DeadUnborn2 votes

Yeah, you basically only get to win first tower with jungle help. However most junglers tend to focus on bot nowadays since it is more rewarding for the team

Critmaster Garen2 votes

yea. its a bot lane problem, not a top lane problem.

playing safe should be an option, and getting killed once in lane shouldnt spell complete doom and defeat for the next 10 minutes.

sure, youre supposed to get an advantage out of an early kill, but the lane would feel like shit if you couldnt recover from a disadvantage. especially considering how heavily influenced it is by jungle pressure.

they really need to reduce the snowballing thats going on in bot lane. bot shouldnt constantly be the factor that singlehandedly decides games by the time top laners havent even completed their first item. the problem is marksman snowball on bot lane, and how items of marksmen and supports are so cheap, that a 6/0 top laner is about even in power with a 2/0 marksman.

the reason why we feel that we dont have a lot of game impact is because games are almost always decided on bot these days before we can even become remotely relevant as a top laner.

it all went downhill when marksmen started to abuse lethality back when it was a newly introduced stat, to cheese themselves massive early and midgame power spikes. instead of fixing the problem, riot just ended up adding onto it by making these midgame power spikes the new baseline for marksman balance, and overbuffed crit items to the point where theyre not lategame scaling builds anymore, but so cheap that crit marksmen can just power spike at the same time as lethality marksmen.

HamsterDuDu1 votes

I actually disagree only because if you pick a bruiser top (my fav top champ Jax) and farm it out you pub stomp late even if there mid or adc is fed you still can stomp it with skill Just remember to ward and your A ok [slayer-pantheon-thumbs]

DeadUnborn3 votes

the median time for a game is 28 minutes, you have no time to scale up by that time mark. Of course there will be some games where you will be able to carry/ scale up. More often than not that isn't the case however

Troll for Trump2 votes

Jax is a slayer, not a bruiser. He scales into late-game while basically every bruiser doesn't.

DeadUnborn1 votes

I think the term Riot uses is "skirmisher". This category of fighters scales well into late game, is focused on autoattacks and usually has defensive capabilities.

Yi has Q and W Fiora has W and ult Heal Ekko has W shield and Ult heal Trynda has W damage reduction, heal and ult

Jax has his ult and E.

Yes, they are different from bruisers like Kled, Renek, Vi and others

NemeBro1 votes

{quoted}

Jax is a slayer, not a bruiser. He scales into late-game while basically every bruiser doesn't.

Jax is a diver. Riot is wrong.

Skirmishers have low tank stats but very high DPS and potential to shred any target, as well as mobility that isn't exclusive backline access.

Jax builds tanky as shit, has low tank-shredding potential in a team fight but high burst for squishies, and exclusive backline access with his Q. Jax does have a way to avoid damage with his E, but it's rather tame compared to skirmisher defensive abilities, and his other one is just a straight buff to his resistances.

He plays like a textbook diver. Being late game-oriented doesn't change that.

Camille is a diver and her late game is very strong.

Troll for Trump1 votes

He plays like a diver because he jumps into fights, but he tends to be a worse teamfighter than a duelist (Titanic helps with it), he does a lot better entering fights towards the end and sweeping rather than being an engager or entering towards the beginning/middle of a fight (like divers), and, more because of his kit being relatively outdated to the mobility/cc creep, doesn't have the sticking capability/reach of a modern-day diver.

He does build more like a diver/juggernaut, but his DPS is just way too high for just being a diver.

NemeBro1 votes

{quoted}

He plays like a diver because he jumps into fights, but he tends to be a worse teamfighter than a duelist (Titanic helps with it), he does a lot better entering fights towards the end and sweeping rather than being an engager or entering towards the beginning/middle of a fight (like divers), and, more because of his kit being relatively outdated to the mobility/cc creep, doesn't have the sticking capability/reach of a modern-day diver.

He does build more like a diver/juggernaut, but his DPS is just way too high for just being a diver.

He's a perfectly solid team fighter, able to threaten the enemy carry while being hard to kill due to his ult and E. He typically follows an allied engage, but this isn't unique to Jax among divers. Xin Zhao has poor engage as well, yet is among the strongest junglers and is a diver.

Nah, his dps is substantially lower than every skirmisher, even with higher damage builds than his current meta heavy bruiser build. It's far closer to the DPS of divers like Xin Zhao or Irelia.

Troll for Trump1 votes

He's a perfectly solid team fighter, able to threaten the enemy carry while being hard to kill due to his ult and E. He typically follows an allied engage, but this isn't unique to Jax among divers. Xin Zhao has poor engage as well, yet is among the strongest junglers and is a diver.

Ok compaired to the stuff of today, you can't even label Jax as a solid teamfighter. Outside of E, everything he has is single target. Given the mobility/cc/peel creep, he doesn't have enough stick on the enemy carry to intiate fights.

Post-rework XZ's engage isn't actually that bad because he can live a lot longer.

Jax's dps with the higher dmg build is wayyyyy higher than XZ or Irelia. No idea what you're talking about there.

Currently with bruiser build, though, they have similar dps.

NemeBro1 votes

{quoted}

Ok compaired to the stuff of today, you can't even label Jax as a solid teamfighter. Outside of E, everything he has is single target. Given the mobility/cc/peel creep, he doesn't have enough stick on the enemy carry to intiate fights.

Post-rework XZ's engage isn't actually that bad because he can live a lot longer.

Jax's dps with the higher dmg build is wayyyyy higher than XZ or Irelia. No idea what you're talking about there.

Currently with bruiser build, though, they have similar dps.

Everything just about every diver has is single target. And his E is an AOE stun on a fairly low cooldown. No other diver has team fight CC that strong on such a low cooldown. By comparison, the cooldown on Warwick's AOE fear E, which operates very similarly to Jax's E in that it mitigates damage while active and can be activated to CC enemies around him or does it automatically at the end of the duration, has a cooldown three seconds longer. Warwick also can't get CDR into his built quite so effortlessly as Jax can.

Jax's Q is six seconds. By comparison, Warwick's Q has a much shorter range, Xin's E has a twelve second cooldown (nine if he lands all three procs of his Q), and Renekton's E has a 14 second cooldown. Yet Jax is too easy to kite to be a diver? Nah.

Xin's engage relies on him getting close enough to use his 650 range E to jump on the carry. Where is the carry's front line during this?

No it isn't. With a higher damage build like this:

item 3078 item 3146 item 3047 item 3053 item 3026 item 3065

He does about 630 DPS to the practice dummy. Xin IIRC did around the same, maybe slightly less, with warrior, triforce, and then straight tank. By comparison, a Yasuo with an average build breaks 1,000 DPS. A YOLO high damage carry Yasuo build does around 1,300 or so. Tryndamere easily reaches 1,400. Even a crit Yi will easily break 1,800 DPS. I'm too shit at Riven to test her but a Riven main friend tells me it is about 1,000 DPS, and Fiora's DPS is hilariously inflated due to doing percent health true damage on a 10,000 health target.

Jax might be able to reach skirmisher DPS with a goofy ass guinsoo's rageblade/blade of the ruined king carry build that would get him popped like a pimple in a real game (and he would STILL suck at shredding tanks because he just can't easily itemize for pen), but that's just the thing: Jax is best built and played as a diver, because he makes a poor skirmisher. Building Jax to be a melee carry doesn't work. It's best to build him like a diver because he has a diver's kit. Maybe a rework would fix this, like it did for Evelynn who was also a diver despite being intended as an assassin.

But right now he's not a skirmisher at all. No champion who builds heavy durability AD items and full tank is a skirmisher.

edit: I decided to test Jax's DPS with an unrealistically high DPS build to sate my curiosity.

item 3078 item 3124 item 3047 item 3153 item 3156 item 3026

This netted Jax about 850 DPS after the inflation resulting from the dummy's huge health pool due to bork's current health damage wore off. Still below skirmisher levels.

Troll for Trump1 votes

Everything just about every diver has is single target. And his E is an AOE stun on a fairly low cooldown. No other diver has team fight CC that strong on such a low cooldown.

Same with skirmishers though.

Jax's Q is six seconds. By comparison, Warwick's Q has a much shorter range, Xin's E has a twelve second cooldown (nine if he lands all three procs of his Q), and Renekton's E has a 14 second cooldown. Yet Jax is too easy to kite to be a diver? Nah.

XZ's E slows, his Ult isolates a target, and his Q knocks up WW's Q follows blinks, his E fears, his R is a single target surpression, and his W makes him go after a single target Renekton's E is a double dash, as though it were intended for him to go through multiple targets, and he has the W stun Jax's Q is just a dash. Jax's E is an AoE stun.

Jax just seems more orientated for dueling rather than diving. While some of the other divers may also have dueling aspects, they're not as pronounced as Jax's.

Jax might be able to reach skirmisher DPS with a goofy ass guinsoo's rageblade/blade of the ruined king carry build that would get him popped like a pimple in a real game (and he would STILL suck at shredding tanks because he just can't easily itemize for pen), but that's just the thing: Jax is best built and played as a diver, because he makes a poor skirmisher. Building Jax to be a melee carry doesn't work. It's best to build him like a diver because he has a diver's kit. Maybe a rework would fix this, like it did for Evelynn who was also a diver despite being intended as an assassin.

Jax needs less pen because he does mixed dmg, especially with the goofy dps build. Jax isn't really a poor skirmisher. I think he can 1v1 every champ in the game much easier than other champs. If you mean compared to other skirmishers, then yeah, he's on the low end. I agree he's best played as a diver, but I feel like his kit seems geared for him to be a skirmisher, and that's what RIot intended for him to be.

ChompyWulf1 votes

So rather than learn ways to improve the game should change for you?

Oh, and Herald is an excellent way to drop tower.

DeadUnborn1 votes

I am talking about systemic changes, not skill between players. I was describing the possible scenarios of when you WIN lane.

Tell me then, based on what I described, what could I improve/I am not considering.

Also the only effective ways to get Herald are:

a) The jungler gets it Solo lvl 8/9 which is later into the game and out of my control as a top laner.

b) You get it with the junglers help after killing mid or top (out of my control since I junglers have to focus on bot)

c) You trade it for an enemy TP bot or a dragon (which snowballs enemy bot, but is the best case scenario)

If you are trying to imply I should try to get the herald by myself as a top laner I would highly recommend you stop doing that. You basically give away any lead you may have, risk getting caught by the jungler and killed and potentially set you/your team back by givin free reign to the enemy top laner

ChompyWulf1 votes

The problem is skill and style of play. If you can't wave clear and siege tower that's on either your skill or champs used.

If you can't bully the enemy to base or kill him and get on his tower, that is again on your skill or champ used.

Putting protections on bot towers so it's like all the rest will just revert back to seasons ago when duos would bully solo lanes to take towers and win by rotating faster.

DeadUnborn1 votes

Tell me then, based on what I described, what could I improve/I am not considering.

You haven't answered this question specifically


1.- Look dude I'm D5, so not to be cocky but I have a really decent (at worst) grasp of how the game works. No you can't "siege" top before the 15 min mark as most viable top laners, nor is that a viable option for most styles of play. Hence why I said it is a systemic problem.

2.- Yes I can bully the enemy laner, the thing is once you get past bronze 3 to higher tiers of play, enemies who get beaten early know to play passively and give up farm, so killing them after a few kills is harder against competent players. That is why I stated you can freeze farm to deny xp to the opponent, but in the current meta that is not a viable strategy because you give power to other lanes (lane freeze is a mid game strat but games nowadays are too short for that)

3.- Please show me some _concrete _ evidence of this being a problem. Right now it is not unusual for there to be 4 man ganks to ROFL stomp the losing bot lane, so what you are describing isn't gone in this season. Also how on earth would you know if putting protection on bot towers would enable "premades" to bully solo lanes, they can still do that now, but prefer to go bot lane mostly because it is the easier tower to kill

ChompyWulf1 votes

OK...let me explain your logic problem.... You complain that you can't push an advantage as much as a pair of players who by design have a softer tower target in lane. You KNOW this design is because pros (and it wasn't just pros doing it) were setting up 2v1 scenarios so Riot incentives duos in bot. So your idea is to make all targets equal again so once more that strategy becomes more common?

The simple fact is that if you can't get an advantage on a lead, you must find a way to improve.

DeadUnborn1 votes

Ok then, answer this:

Tell me then, based on what I described in previous posts, what could I improve/I am not considering in terms of sizing an advantage once ahead.

ChompyWulf1 votes

Since you never talk about champs used, that's a big missing factor.

Definitely gotta lose your can't do attitude. Probably would help to not wanna be the star, since you're not OK with other team members doing better than you.

DeadUnborn1 votes

What? I am honestly having a hard time following your train of thought.

Ok I'll give you this scenario:

I'm running Kled. By the ten min mark I have killed the enemy Gangplank 2 times. I am ahead by roughly 15 CS by the ten minute mark and used my ulti to gank mid and got an assist. The gangplank is playing really safe and just CSing with Q and waiting in tower/far back. What do I do next keeping in mind I have a 0/2 ADC and Support who are getting camped by the enemy jungler

ChompyWulf1 votes

Clearly GP has superior wave clear so you should continue roaming. Get Herald. Steal enemy Jung camps. Gank mid. Communicate with your mid and Jung to cover and let them apply pressure bot. Kled is OK at split pushing but won't siege against the GP well, so you clearly should work with your team and not worry about your lane towers only. Think macro, not micro.

DeadUnborn1 votes

At that point my only two options are freezing lane or roaming. I usually can't roam because I can only gank mid and in my experience that is usually trading tower for kill, which IMO isn't worth it because I lose map control.

The only viable option MOST times is to freeze lane and deny XP for the enemy top laner until I get a gank and knock tower. The problem with this strategy is that it is very time-consuming. By the time I get ahead, I usually feel the game has already been dictated by bot lane. You can knock down towers way to easily in that lane.

Also the only effective ways to get Herald are:

a) The jungler gets it Solo lvl 8/9 which is later into the game and out of my control as a top laner.

b) You get it with the junglers help after killing mid or top (out of my control since I junglers have to focus on bot)

c) You trade it for an enemy TP bot or a dragon (which snowballs enemy bot, but is the best case scenario)

If you are trying to imply I should try to get the herald by myself as a top laner I would highly recommend you stop doing that. You basically give away any lead you may have, risk getting caught by the jungler and killed and potentially set you/your team back by givin free reign to the enemy top laner

Also you DO NOT trade lane xp for jungle camps (other than scuttle after pushing lane), that is just setting you behind. Also if you have to rely on your jungler to win lanes, you will never climb out of bronze. I am not trying to be mean by saying this or anything, but to climb consistently you HAVE to be self-sufficient. Only once you are past D3 you can start relying on your team mates to make plays consistently

ChompyWulf1 votes

You're trying to give me advice when I'm telling you what you're doing wrong and you don't even see it. I know what I've done wrong. I'm not highly mechanically skilled, my computer occasionally clips and for too long my ISP was inconsistent and would DC me. I don't invest time in practicing a small selection of champs in a couple roles, I will go on streaks of one role or another. I don't have a lot of time to regularly play, my chances to play ranked are inconsistent so I don't try to duo hardly ever. I didn't have all the runes to play the most op pages and didn't strive to keep up with the top meta. I do have a very strong understanding of the tactics and strategy, something you clearly can't wrap your head around and have a mentality that you MUST make gains in your lane when sometimes you clearly should flex that advantage somewhere else on the map. It's not just about YOUR xp, but denying buffs to the enemy, getting vision to track them, and forcing them to try tracking you. This can punish their Jung, give your Jung and mid chances to roam and punish, and force your top opponent to follow you and get caught out, all while possibly taking pressure off your bot lane to get some resources back.

Learn some deeper play.

DeadUnborn1 votes

I'm sorry but there is no way you will climb up consistently by roaming all the time to deny camps and stuff.

I'll leave this here for you to watch

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iybgV-WkiTo

He explains it way better than I ever could in a paragraph. Also you can climb up with pretty crap settings to a high level of play. My computer needs a fan to not overheat and shut down when playing, I get ping spikes up to 300 all the time and I' still D5. My frame rate is crap also and have to run everything on low settings

ChompyWulf1 votes

You size upon one thing in an entire post of points and ignore the rest. Your reading comprehension and lack of will to engage in discussion shows you aren't willing to hear anything you don't want to hear. Enjoy your wasted leads.

DeadUnborn1 votes

Lol. I do recomend you watch the video tho. It will help you climb :). Also dont you think I could say everything you just said tight back at you? Xd

ChompyWulf1 votes

You really couldn't. You reply with a single argument to five made prior. Learn macro.

DeadUnborn1 votes

pfff I don't know what to tell you. I really don't get why you are being defensive, I was sincerely trying to help you understand my point. I know I probably look like a cock saying stuff like this, but getting to D5 with mechanically easy champs like Kled, Rek Sai and WW shows just how much macro do know.

Mechanically I am decent at best, I always win matches by out rotating the opponent and doing objectives. You can look at my match history if you think I am bluffing. I am talking about systemic changes and gave you specifics of how each outcome works out; you ignored all that. I also showed you a video from a master level coach which specifically explains why your suggestions wouldn't work and you ignored it as well. You don't see the double standards, really?

My "single argument" is encompassing the root subject of the thread, not going on tangents which is tedious to converse with. Also if you watched the video you would see Neace talks about xp, vision, map pressure and jungle rotations there... but you haven't and just called me a troll for some reason

Gives No Lux1 votes

Ever think that maybe you're just doing it wrong? If the opponent can take your tower in the time it takes you to gank mid then surely you can take his tower after killing him.

Also if you're ahead then you should have TP advantage you can walk mid and gank, then TP back top if you need to.

DeadUnborn1 votes

Except the game doesn't work that way. Taking TP in lower elo is terrible (Below D3). Without ignite you can't kill competent opponents in a consistent way. By taking TP top you are submitting yourself to rely on opponent incompetence or your teammates wining lanes and carrying you. I won't go into the finer details of wave management because frankly they are too complicated to be explained in a short post. I will say that the opponent gets more time to push when you live than you do when you kill him; it is simple math, after a kill trade you are low on health and have to reset or expose yourself to the enemy jungler, while roaming takes time going away to a different lane and then going back to lane.

I suggest you watch Neace on youtube, especially his tryndamere gameplay. He will explain what I am telling you in finer detail


Yes the ideal plays are:

Dive and kill tower after top laner, that takes jungler aid or being two levels ahead as a rule Freeze and Deny Exp Roam and Snowball

I already explained in other posts why neither of this 3 options is great at the moment for top laners to win CONSISTENTLY (key word there)

Gives No Lux1 votes

That's just part of the dynamics of being in top lane. It's not a carry lane. You have a role and that is one that is pretty heavily team focused.

If you're ahead and you do well consistently then start calling shots. If you're strong have mid come gank your lane instead of going there. Work on deep vision and take their jungle.

If you're really wanting to push your lead early then trade top tower for bot. Bot priority means significantly more than top. Most times you can roll bot tower into mid pretty quickly so you will be trading 2 for 1.

Since top is the least priority lane your impact is really to drive the macro game. Taking your tower makes that easier but it's not the only way. Probably the most difficult hurdle to overcome is having your team not tilt when you decide to trade top priority for a more important objective.

DeadUnborn1 votes

in low elo like silver 5 you can carry from every lane. Of course depending on the meta it is easier from some lanes than others, and jungler is easiest of all always because of how much it impacts other lanes early.

What you are talking about really doesn't work for climbing elo consistently ; that stuff only works on highly organized teams that know what they are doing. I recommend you watch Neace on youtube, he can give you some solid advice that might help you

Gives No Lux1 votes

{quoted}

in low elo like silver 5 you can carry from every lane. Of course depending on the meta it is easier from some lanes than others, and jungler is easiest of all always because of how much it impacts other lanes early.

What you are talking about really doesn't work for climbing elo consistently ; that stuff only works on highly organized teams that know what they are doing. I recommend you watch Neace on youtube, he can give you some solid advice that might help you

Oh, I'm well aware. While having a coordinated team certainly will help it still doesn't change the fundamentals of how the meta is right now. If you trounce your lane and can hard carry then great, otherwise you WILL need bot lane to win plain and simple.

If you get a lead and transition that to taking bot tower and then mid while giving up top tower then you have priority in the 2 most important lanes, you're still ahead of your top lane opponent, your mid and bot aren't going to feed anymore due to lane mistakes and anyone who is behind has the opportunity to farm top when it pushes in.

'Winning' top lane doesn't matter in and of itself because it has very little strategic value once baron comes into play. The key to winning consistently is getting your teammates ahead especially if you're more skilled. Not only does it return tangible results in terms of macro advantage it also reduces the chances that they will feed or tilt and increases the chance that they will group and pressure objectives. This makes you a force multiplier rather than just a solo player doing well.

DeadUnborn1 votes

My complain exactly is that bot should NOT have so much power.... did you even read the thread? or just the title

Everything else you said is wrong tho, Herald is very powerful but not accessible all the time. Also splitting with a duelist was very viable last season

Gives No Lux1 votes

{quoted}

My complain exactly is that bot should NOT have so much power.... did you even read the thread? or just the title

Everything else you said is wrong tho, Herald is very powerful but not accessible all the time. Also splitting with a duelist was very viable last season

Why shouldn't it hold more power? By having 2 dedicated lane members it has twice the resources of any other position. It certainly isn't the only strategy to win consistently but if you're playing solo it's likely going to be what you encounter almost every game.

If you want to find a way to 'cheat' the meta then your best bet is to find a good cheese strategy and exploit the hell out of it. Otherwise it's not likely that ADCs will ever be losing their position as premier forces for objectives.

DeadUnborn1 votes

nah, go read the original thread pls, it is clear you didn't

Harden Stepback1 votes

I blame the pro scene for the demise of top lane.

DeadUnborn1 votes

yeah to be honest harassers and tanks are too strong, which makes skirmishers and divers almost useless in that lane. As a Teemo player I would know haha (it is a shame he is not viable in ranked unless you are insane at lol.

Tanks become unkillable with about item and a half (Specially Maokai, Ornn and Sion), and with the current mana sustain, Aery and early scaling from lethality and liandriss champs like Teemo, Jayce, Kennen and Panth are way out of line

Sasogwa1 votes

Or make so towers have increased resistance based on the number of nearby opponents.

Will also be a solution to help splitpush which is garbage right now

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