My opinion on EVERY top laner (Part one)

WIth the season over, many of you are probobly going to take this time to learn and play some new champions for the next season. But, if you're having troubles deciding on what, maybe I can help you.

I am a top lane main, who capped out at plat 2 the day ranked season ended. Moreover, I have an enormous champion pool, so I have at least some insight on all top lane champions.

I will talk about them in alphabetical order, and I will give a champion a rating of S-D, as well as a rating on my experience with them. Note, that the rating does not measure how good a champion currently is, rather how reliable they are. If a champion is currently stomping, but could turn to trash with few direct or inderict changes, then they still rank low, while S-tier champions are much more resilient, and will never truly fall out of grace.

S means god tier, basicly. Champions that can work in any meta, in and against any team. These are very good to learn, as they will never be bad unless they are just nerfed to shit.

A means that the champion is generly always good, but changes to certain other champions, items or the pace of the game can make them less viable. They can still work in those metas, but their effectiveness is somewhat lowered.

B means that the champion is good, but their effectiveness can swing heavily with metas, or they belong only to certain niches.

C means that the champion is only good in certain metas, and otherwise are overshadowed by other, similiar champions. They are prone to becomming insane with certain item or matchup changes, but otherwise they are lacking.

D means pretty bad. You can make them work, but they are very advised against, as they are just not made for top lane.

Aatrox C-rank Medium experience Aatrox is the perfect example of "why would you pick him, over somebody else". Despite his cool design, backstory and voice, Aatrox is simply overshadowed by his counterparts - being Jax in terms of splitpush, and Irelia in terms of teamfighting. Aatrox is extremly squishy, has a clunky kit, an extreme dependence on items, and the only time he is actually good is if he can stand and face tank somebody, being able to use his basic attacks unterrupted, which is not realistic either in a 1 v 1 or in a teamfight. His passive sounds good at first, but since the main source of his dmg is the combo of his passive attack speed and W, losing all that attack speed lowers his damage out put by so much, he might as well not even be alive. If you like him, play him but otherwise don't.

Akali C-rank Medium experience If you're going full dmg assassin Akali top, you're prob not gonna be very useful. Very few squishy champions go in the top lane, and many bruisers and spell casters like Darius , Swain and Riven will wreck your shit before you ever have a chance to scale up, duo to your low dmg, low sustain, and lack of disenage, as well as them being able to buy at least some tank item.

Bruiser Akali however, is somewhat more viable. With your ultimate, your diving potential is very high, and with a mix of dmg and tank items you can become very hard to peel off. However, As Akali you are still vurnable early, and you bring no cc what so ever, so the only thing you can bring to the team is more dmg. You can make it work, but the only upside of going bruiser akali instead of any other bruiser is that you have 3 gap closers. In most other regards - like dueling and cc - there are better options

Alistar C-rank Medium experience (as support) Alistar has alot of things a top laner would want, like sustain, cc and innate tankyness. However, he is held back by low dmg and crippling mana costs. If you invest into mana runes, and start off with an item like dorans ring or corrupting potion , you may be able to make him work against some weaker matchups, but even then any tank would suffice.

Aurelion sol D-rank Low experience There are some people that say that Aurelion sol top lane works, but I highly advice against it. Aurelion sol deals dmg by hitting ppl with his balls, but if someone gets on him, he can't do much without ulti. And since most top laners have either cc, gap closers or both, you're going to have a hard time. Even the ranged champions that can go top like Vladimir and Kennen should have no problem dealing with Aurelion sol. If you like him alot, and one trick him, I geuss you could make him work in some matchups, but I HIGHLY advice against it.

Cho'gath B-rank High experience Cho'gath's kit is very powerful, having plenty of dmg, cc, sustain and even true dmg. However, this is held back by his non-existant mobility, and lack of engage. Against channel champions, and combo champions like he can completly shut them down, but against most others he is lacking, mostly because how how easy he is to kite and deal with in late game teamfights. His laning is obnoxius, but he is vurnable to ganks, and champions who have alot of mobility like Yasuo and Fiora can completly shut him down.

Darius B-rank Main Darius kit has a lot of powerful things in it, AD steroid on his passive, q heal, alot of slows, passive armor pen and a true dmg finisher. This is held back by limited mobility and gap closers. If Darius can manage to pop off, get off his passive, and get off ulti resets, then he will pubstump teams. If he doesn't, he will get kited and cc'd to death, and not do much. Still, he is a strong laner, and in teams with heavy cc and engage from other sources, or against heavy melee teams with no engage, he can be a monster. Recomended for lower ranks, but you will have a harder time doing anything as Darisu the higher your rank is.

Mundo A - rank Medium experience Mundo has an extremly cost efficient kit, making him extremly strong early and mid game. His q is % hp dmg, his w gives tenacity, his e free ad, and his ulti hp. However, his kit is also extremly selfish. The only thing he can do for his team is a slow on his q, other than that, everything he does is for himself. This makes it so he can snowball like crazy, but also do decently well by just buidling tank items and relying on his good base stats to deal dmg. However, items and abilites that apply grevious wound like and can shut him down, and high mobility or stronger early game champions can counter him. He favors fast metas, as his base stats can wreck house before others catch up, but since he has almost no scaling at all, his late game damage doesn't scale nearly as well as other champions.

Ekko A-rank Medium experience. Ekko's kit is so overloaded, its no wonder he can do so much. His base damages are high even after the nerfs, and with items like iceborn gauntlet and sunfire cape that give both tankyness and dmg he can be quite obscene. Champions with sustain can outsustain him, and champions with hard cc can shut him down, preventing him from using his ultimate. Still, his kit is very good, and unless top lane gets dominated by champions like Cho'gath and Mundo that can just outsustain, he will always be somewhat relevent.

Fiora S-rank High experience Fiora is probobly the best duelist in the entire game, in my humble opinion. Due to her high outplay potential, she is one of those champions that you can pick into anything, as long as you're good enough. Moreover, your passive allows you to both go both a more tanky bruiser build or a more glass cannon build. Howoever, the main reason that I place her so high is that her abilities are just good, even ignoring their actual numbers. Her w can parry ANYTHING. You can't nerf that. Her passive deals % max hp true dmg, which is always going to be strong. The only way Fiora will ever not be god tier, is if Riot massivly nerf her numbers. But untill then, she will continue to be a decent laner, with insane late game scaling.

Fizz B-rank Low experience Plenty of bruisers can have a field day crushing Fizz, exploiting his lack of sustain. Fizz can exploit weaker matchups like Hecarim , but against any strong top laner Like Irelia should not have any problem dealing with Fizz. And even so, if you go bruiser fizz top, then pretty much any other backline diving bruiser would do his job just as well.

Galio B-rank High experience Galio has alot of things holding him back. HIs mana is crippling early game as well lack of enage or disengage. His basic abilities are underwhelming, but that's to make up for his massive, gamechanging ulti. His ulti is probobly one of the most powerful abilities in the game, only problem is getting it off. This makes him reliant on his team for set up, or alternativly flash. But, he is still a good, ap bruiser, with a meh laning phase and decent scaling. However, he has a reworking comming soon, so this may change.

Gankplank A-rank Medium experience He is called Godplank for a reason. Gp is not the easiest champion to play, as several popular top laners can have a fieldday snowballing off his weak early game. However, he can win fights for his team across the map with his ulti and mid-late game he can 1 v 9 carry with his barrels, dealing more than half of an adc's hp with just one. However, against smart teams that know how to play around his barrels , or heavy frontlines that zone him off can be effective against him. Still, he is very good to learn how to play.

Garen C-rank Medium experience Why would you ever play Garen over Darius . All Garen has dmg, he has some tankyness, and soft cc in his silence, as well as a execution ultimate. But, if you never get close enough to someone to actually do anything of that, he is useless. And that is how you'll find most of your games goes with Garen.

Gnar S-rank Medium experience Gnar is everything a top laner would want. Mobility, hard cc, burst, kiting, range, poke, and decent scaling. The only thing missing is hp sustain. This is somewaht held back by him not having everything at once. If you want to kite, then you need mini Gnar. If you want to burst and cc, then you need mega-Gnar. However, once you learn to play around this, you have one of the best, most reliable top laners right now. He has flexability as he can both team fight and splitpush, and his ultimate can win teamfights singlehandely. A fantastic investment.

Gragas A-rank Low experience Gragas has sustain, cc, decent dmg, decent disengage and engage. He is all around decent. THere are some tnaks that outclass him in the top lane. Malphite has a stronger engage, Nautalius has even more cc, but Gragas is the most well rounded of all the tanks. He is more fit for the jungle, where is strong gank potential is much more usable, but he is still a very good top laner. However champions with sustain can outsustain his mana pool, and if played right, poke champions can just prevent gragas from ever being able to take a good fight, and force him out of lane.

Graves C-rank Medium experience Graves is not that good of a top laner. He is easily gankable, has alot of mana problems, and the recent nerfs have lowered his ability to brawl with the bruisers of top lane. Early game he is a pretty strong but also vurnable lane bully, but late game he is pretty much forced to splitpush, as his teamfighting is garbage. His closest counterpart is QUinn , however she has more map mobility, allowing her to snowball other lanes to make up for her poor scaling, as well as an even easier time harrassing and poking. The only thing Graves has on Quinn is some tankyness in extended fights, as well as better pushing.

Hecarim C-rank Medium experience Hecarim is by no means bad, but there are just too many things holding him back. Firstly, his mana. Secondly, his sustain. Having both bad health and mana sustain early is already two very red flags for the top lane. Moreover, there is only really one thing Hecarim does well, and that's snowball. Anyone who plays adc or mage can tell horror stories about a fec Hecarim who runs them and can barely be peeled off or kited. However, if he falls behind, or just goes even, his mid-late game simply subpar compared to his closet counterpart, being Jarvan

Heimerdinger C-rank (barely) Low experience Heimerdinger does one thing. Push. If he falls behind and can't push, or is constantly ganked, he becomes useless as he can not do his one job. If he does manage to do his job, then all he does all game is siege. His teamfight is awful, his peel is awful, everything besides his push and siege is bad. His dueling is pretty meh, and he can easily get fucked by anyone with AOE or poke.

Illaoi B-rank Medium experience Illaoi is a strong but exploitable champion. People who know how to play against her, will demolish her without her being able to do anything about it. Hard cc, , disengage, or moblity hard counters her. HOWEVER, if you manage to get around all of that, you will find a champion with ridicules damage output. SAme as with Darius , the higher your rank, the harder it will be to do anything.

Irelia A-rank Medium experience There is a reason why Gbay mains her, and a reason for why she is often op. Because she is genuily strong. High damage, some sustain, high diving potential, AND tenecity. She is only lacking a direct hard cc, since her only stun is situantional. Her first few levels are her weakest point, and certain bruisers like Darius and Trundle can manhandle you, but she is still a very good champion.

Jarvan A-rank High experience Jarvan has engage, disengage, poke, burst, decent laning, good scaling, can hard carry, and can fall back on his cc if he falls behind. The only things holding him back are similiar to Irelia, where certain matchups can absolutly shut him down. THe main diffrence between them is that Irelia is a better duelist, while Jarvan is more team oriented, as well as being more useful if he falls behind. If you need ad, and you need hard engage, then i HIGHLY recomend Jarvan.

Jax A-rank Medium experience Jax is an amazing splitpusher, and snowballer. He destroys towers fast, and champions just as fast. He bursts down squishies, and melts down tanks, all while being almost impossible to 1 v 1 for most champions, even among duelists. HIs ultimate allows him to build much more damage than most other champions would get away with, and his mixed damage is insane. However, his lane is weak, and with low sustain you can easily poke and zone him, or crush and snowball on him.

Jayce S-rank Medium experience Jayce is another fantastic example of everything a top laners want, except for sustain and being somewhat useless if he falls behind. Poke, all in, snowballing, mixed dmg, % hp damage. He does fall of slightly compared to alot of other top lanres with powerful ultimates, since he doesn't really have one. However, the versatility Jayce brings, as well as having almost no bad matchups makes him an extremly strong top laner.

Kassadin D-rank HIgh experience Kassadin is an assassin, which is already bad for top lane. Moreover, most top laners will just shit all over him. In the massive list of champions that go top lane, he has barely 4 good matchups, and those being against other pretty weak top laners. He does scale better than most other assassin, but he is so weak and easy to snowball of off early, that it is just much to risky to pick.

Kayle A-rank (Barely) Medium experience Kayle offers damage like no other top laner can, at least when it comes to sustained damage. On top of that, her ulti can be game changing. That Vayne that you finally manged to lock down and is trying to burst down is now immune to all damage. She can make certain champions irrelevent, and undo her teams stupid mistakes, all while melting though healthbars. However, she offers no cc or tank stats, playes that know what they are doing should have no trouble playing against her, and if she falls behind she is fairly useless. Moreover, she is weak to cc, as it shuts down her, and her ultimate. She has a tendency to go out of control whenever an item of hers becomes buffed, so keeping her as a pocket pick may be useful.

Kennen A-rank (Just barely not S-rank, too much counterplay) Kennen is one of the gods of the top lane. Poke, mobility, cc, all in and an AMAZING teamfight ulti. You burst down squishies, all while cc'ing their whole team. He can single handely carry and save games. The only thing holding him back is that certain matchups (mainly early game snowballers like Riven , Jayce and Irelia can counter him, and CC and disengage can completly shut him down, preventing him for make use of his ultimate. Moreover, similiar to Galio , his ultimate can be hard to get off, makin him reliant on Flash or teleport for good engages or flanks. Still, he is an amazing investment, and I higly recomend him.

That concludes part one, I will make part two soon. If you feel as if i missed any champion, mention them below. Besides that, hope I helped, and please carry my ranked games.