The Renekton Bar and the State of Top Lane?

Hyrum Graff··3 votes·2,435 views

Once upon a time...

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2) Top Lane and the "Renekton Bar"

As with any lane, we are definitely aware and concerned that there may not be enough champion diversity in the Top Lane, especially at the competitive level. This is largely due to what we believe are "lane bullies" who essentially represent the relative early game power level needed to enter and compete in the lane. Currently, that bar is the "Renekton Bar."

One way to reduce the severity of the "Renekton Bar" would be simply to tone down Renekton's power a notch. In this case, directly lowering the bar would potentially create an even more unhealthy situation where a different champion rises to the top and acts as the new "bar." We actually see Renekton as one of the more interesting top lane champions in the game, and so instead of nerfing here, we're looking to buff.

We're in the process of looking at champions that we think provide interesting and healthy gameplay in the top lane, and finding ways to nudge them up to be able to better compete in the current Top Lane environment. This doesn't mean these guys should just now outright beat champions like Renekton, but it hopefully means they have a better chance of going toe-to-toe with him or maybe even just surviving the lane against him and then providing some unique strengths to their team later on.

As a note, since we can't address every single top laner we'd like in one patch, this will be an ongoing project as we continue to bring more and more champions into the fold.

I'm wondering how you (players and Rioters alike) feel these goals have been realized. Thoughts?

3 Comments

SmokingPuffin5 votes

The bar became obsolete with the advent of the "who cares about top lane" meta. It is no longer a crushing blow to just lose lane slowly up there, because what really matters in a top laner is now how well you can teleport into teamfights.

Since the bar era, we've added a huge amount of diversity to top lane picks. However, the main challenge with this new teleport-centric meta is that bruisers aren't very good at that thing unless it's Irelia, leading to a really, really short list of bruisers seeing play in the lane.

Riot still has the same problem they've had for years -- kits from the bruiser design era are just so flat and linear, leading to binary gameplay. Many need reworks to rejoin the game.

MotherChurch1 votes

Jax has been seeing more competitive play lately too. Maokai is kind of an AP bruiser and still sees play.

Killer X 121 votes

Oh hey, i remember reading this a while back. I hated that Ren was in the top lane since he was hard to lane against almost no matter who you played. I hated playing top then. I bought him, played one game, went like 12-2 or something and finally realized exactly how BS he was in lane...times change tho

I think right now there is much more diversity in top lane. Just recently in the games i've played top (as yorick since i just bought him, wanted someone i could play with one hand) i've seen: cho, morde, ryze, j4, gnar, darius, riven, Heim, and surely some others. Back when Ren was the flavor i saw Ren, Shvy, Mundo and thats about it. Was boring as fuck.

Unfortunately right now top lane is still not very fun. With the importance of dragon and such i no longer bring ignite to top, i always bring TP. There usually isn't' much fighting, ganks are so slow they rarely catch people off guard (esp on blue side).

The new Ren is Gnar however. Old Ren was annoying, but he fell off hard in the late game. Gnar is a lane bully that can take a 2v1, win a 1v1 lane and then still be a huge force in the late game. The only time he is "weak" is when he is in little gnar form and outnumbered. That isn't healthy. That being said, some lanes win against him, but its always hit or miss since lanes he'd lose in mini gnar he wins in mega gnar.

Idk, i'd like to see more top champs played in the LCS. I think right now its Mao, Liss, Gnar, Irelia, Rumble every game. That is better than just 3 champs, but J4/gnar/rek/Kass/Liss/LB are all basically pick or ban for a lot of teams. Need more champ diversity and more bans.

TLDR: blah blah words.

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