As a Top Laner, I am in full support of the turret changes for one reason

Toastersaot·Aug 1, 2016·69 votes·4,073 views

Every time I watch Competitve play, I am immediately turned off when I see a lane swap. In a lane swap, the Top Laner gets so massively screwed that sometimes they never recover.

Most of the time, the Top Laner and Support end up at Levels 3-4 when the mid Laner is Level 7.

The lane swap also leads to REALLY boring games of just trading turrets, and seeing which Top Laner can get more experience.

So I am actually really hyped about what Competitve is going to be like after these changes make it there. The games will actually be fun to watch.

50 Comments

MarshbouyAug 1, 201645 votes

First 15 minutes of LCS red side bot goes top blue side bot stays bot turret trade

red side bot goes bot blue side bot goes top turret trade

farm small skirmish

take dragon

General Esdeath Aug 1, 20166 votes

Then attempt to gank top or mid and if it works invade, if it doesn't, play safe.

MarshbouyAug 1, 20161 votes

pretty much

DevlinCrowAug 1, 201614 votes

Newbie question here I'm prepared for the downvotes:

What benefit does lane swapping bring? Why do we never see it in non-pro games? Why are lane-swaps making a game boring when it's the exact same setup just on different parts of the map?

UnderscorBunniesAug 1, 20163 votes

I think the laneswaps are set up to benefit champions with weak laning phases or early games. Helping these champions through that portion of the game by setting up long lanes and getting them gold by tower trading is beneficial if one team thinks that their champion scales better into mid-game. At least that's what I assume, not too sure here.

I'm also under the assumption that to do the laneswap properly, you need an extremely organized team, so it's less likely to see it in non-pro games.

As for why it's boring, there's literally no potential to fight in the first 10 minutes of a laneswap. You just watch people wail away at turrets with resistances, and casters attempting to commentate it.

Battlecast SonaAug 1, 20163 votes

I'd like to point out that laneswapping isn't about weak laners but weak matchups - most of the time a laneswap occurs because the 2v2 or 1v1 matchup is unfavorable for the team, and so they'd rather laneswap and potentially freeze in a safe position once the sidelane outer towers are down.

The reason it stagnates games is because if I'm Irelia and I've frozen the creep wave in front of my tier 2 tower, not only can you not really gank me without diving me but the enemy laner can't farm there safely either, so everyone just ends up farming for lack of anything better to do.

woodvsmurphAug 2, 20161 votes

Actually, it can be about weak laners or weak matchups. Ex: Bard is a pain in laning, but weaker in teamfights IF he doesn't land a great ult that his team can make use of. Alistar on the other hand is weaker in laning just like leona because they both must completely commit to an engage to have any affect on the lane. That's not to say ali and leona are bad picks or that they can't win a lane. It just means they are very exploitable and easy to harass down. Part of that does come from lane matchups as you say, but part of it is just because of their kit being very linear. It doesn't matter if they are against a high harass lane like karma and sivir or a lower harass lane like trist and thresh. Either way, a good adc and sup can harass the ali or leona out of lane and punish them for engaging. One takes more effort sure, but it is possible either way because of champion kits. On the flip side, that karma or thresh better be ready to run if the other duo sees the chance for an all-in because ali and leona are two of the best at starting a skirmish/fight not to poke you out, but to kill you.

Warlord ZudaneAug 1, 20162 votes

It's sort of going that instead of playing the game and fighting and doing small trades and fighting here and there you just give up your first tower on top and bottom. This means the champs (primarily ADC) are leveled up and have gold before they even start fighting. So the first portion of the game is incredibly boring.

I am new too but I watched LCS recently and saw it. First blood was at 13 minutes and there wasn't even fighting early on. It makes the first phase of the game go faster I think but it makes it significantly more boring because you're just farming without even a poke for 5 minutes.

ElikainAug 1, 20165 votes

Early skirmishes aren't going to happen and don't bring that much gold and an advantage to the team that got it so there's literally no aggression during the first 15 minutes of the game, except for the cheeses or attempted ganks.

Turret trading allows both teams to get early gold to champions that need it, and that's ADC or the top laner. It also reduces the pressure on both bot and top lanes because the towers are gone and people can roam, gank or flank easier and take objectives.

The problem for Riot is that turret trading, right now, is too optimized and teams do it by default, creating really passive laning phases where nothing happens for a long time in the early game. That's too boring to watch as games sometimes end in barely 2 digit total kills.

TeslynAug 1, 20161 votes

{quoted}

Newbie question here I'm prepared for the downvotes:

What benefit does lane swapping bring? Why do we never see it in non-pro games? Why are lane-swaps making a game boring when it's the exact same setup just on different parts of the map?

if you pick a top laner that can farm under turret.. than you can swap lanes so the enemy top gets behind and abused.. this leads to top laners wanting to duo the jungle.. than riot changed the experience sharing.. so now there is little to no point in that..

its just to get people behind is all.. denial is sometimes greater than most things..

DevlinCrowAug 2, 20161 votes

This reply was the best I thought it meant that both adc/supp from both teams went top rather than just one of them lol

woodvsmurphAug 2, 20161 votes

That's jokingly called Australia lanes in the pro scene when bot adc/sup duos go top and both top laners go bot.

TeslynAug 4, 20161 votes

the 'weaker' early game duo will try and swap. if the stronger one can meet up with them it counters the purpose of the lane swapping. the goal of lane swapping is to have off set lanes, not equal lanes.

Serika ZeroAug 2, 20161 votes

avoid bad match-ups; this is the main reason for lane swaps
set the enemy top laner behind the curve (behind the adc and mid laner)
make the enemy's strong early game jungler have less impact
extend the lanes, making easier for the split pusher, generally a fighter or assassin (Zed, Fiora, LeBlanc, Fizz) have an easy time chasing his enemy in lane for a kill if they come to contest farm in mid game+ (~15mins)

because there is a "no cost" for this, teams usually lane swap in pro play. It doesn't happen in our games, so the change doesn't affect like 99.9% of the playerbase.

woodvsmurphAug 2, 20161 votes

actually the change does affect all of us. If our team's bot lane gets camped or just bullied in a plain 2v2 and loses first tower, the enemy bot can snowball VERY hard. Thus even if you snowballed as mid or top, it doesn't mean as much as an enemy adc who snowballed lane AND got first tower. I say this especially because they dropped bonus tower defenses in bot but not other lanes. Yeah the time it lasts in mid and top is down, but it is still there for awhile.

Serika ZeroAug 3, 20161 votes

Actually it doesn't affect us that much. The increase in gold is not huge enough than giving the enemy ADC lets say 10 extra AD (money for a long sword). Which can still be outplayed and so on.

It would only matter if everyone had equal skill, so even a small imbalance will turn tides in their favor. But we don't have equal skill. That's why, lanes that would win early they will still win early. Lanes that would win late will still win late, it just gona take like 4-5 extra minutes to reach that stage, and its not that big deal.

The change affects lcs and only lcs. As much as I'd love to say otherwise, most mid laners will not roam pre lv 6. Most top laners will not tp bot pre level 6. And that's like 7 minutes in the game when all tower defenses fall to zero.

And NOTHING stops ADCs and Supports from going top lane while top laners are sent bot as they are easier to kill in general and killing the teleport user = he can't tp in to help

woodvsmurphAug 8, 20161 votes

That's just the point -- skill is not equal. Armor pen is too broken right now in the late game. So if you have someone bot who fed -- even if you got just as fed top -- you lose the game because adc's can carry harder in the vast majority of 5v5 situations. Yes if bot lost because they are late-game champs rather than because they are boosted players who don't adjust their gameplay or learn from mistakes you can come back by stalling game. But more often than not at my rank, it is because they are boosted and refuse to adapt or learn from mistakes. When you offer solid advice, they mock you instead of being grateful. When you could stall at towers, use wards to avoid tower-dives, and win in lategame, the force fights instead. So yeah, your points are very valid -- if you have decent players who are not majorly tilted. But if your teammate(s) are boosted or highly tilted you never reach that point no matter how hard you try.

woodvsmurphAug 2, 20161 votes

Lane swapping usually brings some regularity and quick gold influx to both sides. Because you are attacking as a 3 or 4 man unit, the enemy can't really defend their tower to be able to farm the minions you pushed to their tower. If they tried it the scenario would probably result in a 4v2 tower dive by the enemy team: adc, sup, jungle, top vs jungle, top. There is a chance the 2 man group could outplay and trade kills, but it is most likely they would die getting 1 reply kill at best. Thus the group pushing as 3 or 4 gets 2 kills for maybe 1 death. Even further, the jungle top duo that got killed miss out on xp that whole time they are dead -- which puts them way behind. It would also open the map for jungle invades. This is why you don't see the top laner sticking around long when the wave starts heading to their tower. They start out in the 1v2 to get some solo xp (worth more than xp gained when teammates are around) and maybe get a few cs. If we compare that to traditional 2v2 and 1v1 laning: you can get more xp/levels faster or at least more equally distributed in traditional laning (assuming no early kills), but you give the enemy a better chance at getting those kills because the jungler has a chance to gank early on. In the lane swap, the jungler can't really gank a lane other than mid -- so mids know to play extra safe and be ready to run towards where their jungler and 3 man unit are. In traditional laning, the jungler is free to gank any lane, so he/she has a greater chance of succeeding.

So the setup is definitely not "the exact same" as it appears to be. In exchange for the high gold influx of killing the towers, you reduce the xp earned by side laners and reduce chance of being able to gank for kills. After the first tower is killed in a lane swap is where we see some deviations in how things play out. You can watch for yourself to see what those are or read other posts below. The whole point though is that lane swapping reduces fights and kills in MOST games until the lane swap ends.

EK KimozziAug 2, 20161 votes

{quoted}

Newbie question here I'm prepared for the downvotes:

What benefit does lane swapping bring? Why do we never see it in non-pro games? Why are lane-swaps making a game boring when it's the exact same setup just on different parts of the map?

In my opinion, the reason why we dont see lane-swaps in non-pro games is we don't communicate much. lane swap requires so much teamwork and communication. in pro games, I saw top laner got so so so behind because they failed to create the wave come back to their side.

It is boring because they dont contest for the turrets. It is like " okay you guys take bot, we will take top and lets meet 10 min later", so viewers will see pros taking turret + drag , turret + rift herald, turn around and take other side of the turrets for 15~20 min without many fights.

The Yetii RiderAug 3, 20161 votes

{quoted}

Newbie question here I'm prepared for the downvotes:

What benefit does lane swapping bring? Why do we never see it in non-pro games? Why are lane-swaps making a game boring when it's the exact same setup just on different parts of the map?

Benefit - There is zero risk to swapping lanes because there are no members of one team in a lane. (It's still called lane swapping but basically you send a top laner against two champs for the first three waves or so, then he TPs to the other wave and takes down that tower while the enemy does the same)

So say I'm blue side. I send my ADC and support top, and my top laner bot. The enemy sends their top laner top and their ADC and support bot. My top laner stays back, gets a bit of CS and XP, then TPs top when there's a big wave and takes down the turret. Enemy top TPs bot and does the same.

The reason this is a thing is because turrets give global gold and map pressure, so taking them is better and more predictable than trying to out trade your opponent.

The reason we don't see it in solo queue is because games are much less coordinated and therefore dragons mean a lot more (you aren't able to play around the enemy dragons as well, while they all just get a boost in power) so both teams need to defend it.

It's boring to watch because, like I explained, they're just trading turrets. It isn't a real 'swap'. It's a pretty dumb name that was used to refer to a true lane swap a few seasons ago and the name stuck even though people aren't in one lane anymore.

QweraRandolphzAug 2, 20164 votes

Lane swaps aren't fun for anyone, the only time I don't mind it (as ADC) is when i'm playing a hyperscaler like vayne and just freefarming top vs like a Darius, but I also understand that it isn't fun for the Darius at all

http://www.pvpdatabase.com/?p=1253

UnderscorBunniesAug 1, 20163 votes

not gonna lie, that time C9 Balls hid behind a wall to soak XP while three people were taking his tier 1 was fucking hilarious though

Tobias BracknerAug 1, 20163 votes

This this this. Lane swaps are the epitome of competitive players focusing on not losing over winning and the sooner those babies stop relying on them for free gold the better.

Synnx7Aug 1, 20162 votes

Still the first 20minutes will be a whack-a-mole game. or Farmville Outdated crappy moba mechanic , last hitting

DREADN0UGHTAug 1, 20162 votes

{quoted}

Every time I watch Competitve play, I am immediately turned off when I see a lane swap. In a lane swap, the Top Laner gets so massively screwed that sometimes they never recover.

Most of the time, the Top Laner and Support end up at Levels 3-4 when the mid Laner is Level 7.

The lane swap also leads to REALLY boring games of just trading turrets, and seeing which Top Laner can get more experience.

So I am actually really hyped about what Competitve is going to be like after these changes make it there. The games will actually be fun to watch.

I agree 100% about everything.

I was so hyped for TSM vs IMT this weekend. But when I start the replay video on YT, I was greeted with the most boring lane swap in video game history.

They literally had 3 top 3 bot, pushing down to t2 turrets, then ''respected'' the threat of early engages on both sides, swaped lanes and did the same thing over again. Meanwhile mid lane Bjerg and Pob are just farming into oblivion with junglers going around like Sharks waiting for a mistake to take advantage of, and god knows how little that happens.

Over all, I just played League with LCS in the back ground. That is how little attention it got from me.

FancyKiwiAug 2, 20162 votes

The changes are going to do one of two thing. They ether stop or at least reduce the amount of lane swaps or it's going to make the teams try to push faster so they get that bonus gold.

PopppyseedAug 1, 20161 votes

I get that its helping the lane swapping problem in LCS but I'm not in favor of it because its hurting in other ways like making bot lane more rewarding to gank even though it was already the most value and the game is already being snowbally enough we dont need more.

Battlecast SonaAug 1, 20161 votes

but botlane tower is now harder to take than before.

People aren't reading the patch notes properly - fortification was ADDED to bot lane towers, not removed from it. What they removed was botlane's exception from fortification.

Warlord ZudaneAug 1, 20168 votes

Pretty certain you are wrong here, but double checking patch notes to be 100% certain....

Yep you are 100% wrong.

Outer turrets SHARED LOCAL GOLD 300 gold ⇒ 250 gold HEALTH 3300 ⇒ 3500 FORTIFICATION DURATION 7 minutes ⇒ 5 minutes FORTIFICATION DAMAGE REDUCTION 35% ⇒ 50% ~~removed~~ MORTIFIED : Fortification’s damage reduction no longer applies to bottom lane turrets

So... outer turrets get extra fortification and the bottom has it REMOVED, not added.

Fortification’s damage reduction no longer applies to bottom lane turrets

Battlecast SonaAug 1, 20161 votes

why is the description "Mortified" grayed out if it's what's getting patched into the game? Looking at the patch notes, only values that are no longer being used are grayed out. Are you implying that Riot changed their useage of that for just that single mechanic? Look at the patch notes again, friend.

JimmyyyAug 1, 20164 votes

they slashed out 'removed' and said 'MORTIFIED' instead to make a joke. I can't tell if you're dense or an asshole.

Toplane FencerAug 2, 20162 votes

Lol just go check in game if you really think you're right.

jwn8175Aug 2, 20161 votes

You're over thinking it buddy

woodvsmurphAug 2, 20161 votes

If you are playing properly and both the adc and sup use their wards correctly, a 1 man gank should mean nothing before level 6. If you have a crappy support or crappy adc, yeah it hurts. It hurts regardless in that situation. If you can waste the enemy's time ganking bot though, you can get your teammates ahead by your jungler ganking their lanes with more success. It is much harder to survive a 1v2 gank than a 2v3 gank if you are playing intelligently. Tp takes so long to channel now that tp ganks from top should be practically useless unless you've killed enemy outer tower and are way overextended or if they are done out of vision. Otherwise, you should be able to get to safety before tp finishes. The only way you shouldn't is if you are playing too agro and overextended.

Rain SmurffAug 1, 20161 votes

I think riot needs to do more before they are able to get rid of lane swaps. I am in favor of what they are trying to do too. LCS has gotten a bit stale after the lane swap meta's constant occurrence

Troll for TrumpAug 1, 20161 votes

Top lane has been stale for a while imo

Sire HippingtonAug 1, 20161 votes

Fully agree, but i just don't think the tower FB is a good idea. It's totally not needed to deter laneswaps, alone the 50% damage shielded top/mid vs non bot means the team initiateing the swap needs TWICE AS LONG for that first tower, so the other team can either take the bot tower and then save their top tower, or take bot and first drake and yet match the other team in the swap, takeing top tower and herald, tradeing towers but secureing two neutral objectives on top. So even without the extragold on first tower, i think going for the laneswap has clearly enough downsides to be an emergency strategie rather than the norm when your standart lane matchups really would suck, or if you have some wiered cheese strat prepared with it.

The tower FB just snowballs things harder. Getting the sologold for the first tower nearly equals 2kills now, that's just massive.

Warlord ZudaneAug 1, 20162 votes

It's a 2-fold plan though. The lowered defense on the bot tower means you need to defend it and if you don't then the other team is snowballing your bot lane. Add in the first blood and now you not only need to defend - but you need to push. You can't just give up a tower - top or bottom, or you can fall apart.

Yea it's snowballing but only if you allow it to. It's forcing players to actually try to interact with each other.

Sire HippingtonAug 1, 20163 votes

Which screems to me 'screw scaleing champs, pick lanebullies/push-bots bot instead' which brings us back to the usuall cait, sivir,lucian and maybe ashe

The game really was by far snowbally enough, what woud be needed is a reduction of snowballiness, not an increase.

Warlord ZudaneAug 1, 20161 votes

I haven't noticed much different in normal games. I mean bottom is being pushed a little harder but it's a 2 person lane so I'd expect it to be different than top or mid. I'm still seeing the top lane towers taken down at a decent rate compared to bottom.

Besides, bottom lane has a support to help defend them, top and mid only have their tower to help. Yes, bottom has a tower but they don't need the tower + support when others just have the tower.

Edit: I normally play bot with Soraka or Tristana, I'd consider them scaling and it works fine for me. So, might be anecdotal but still.

woodvsmurphAug 2, 20161 votes

Actually it is the best deterent they've come up with to my knowledge. Last season for awhile they tried buffing towers in all lanes and in just certain lanes to make it so one side would have reduced tempo in lane swap if they chose to do it. Teams still lane swapped because their tempo wasn't significantly slower than the enemy team. Now though, losing tower first by even 1 second means something. Also teams have been killing top tower before rift herald spawns -- so it's not really an option after the initial tower kill in lane swaps while dragon still is. And who knows, maybe people will start camping low waveclear mids or camping top to get kills and grab tower fb that way instead of focusing bot. Even if you are focused, a good bot duo can stall long enough and play smart enough that their team can get a greater gain in another lane or via counter-gank than what they lose from enemy jungler trying to get tower fb and kills bot. And if you hold tower when enemy tp's bot, that's tons of free time for your top to damage enemy tower while their top laner probably doesn't get more than 2 or 3 hits on your tower. That more than negates the damage reduction difference on top vs bot tower.

Sire HippingtonAug 2, 20161 votes

Laneswaps happened, but weren't the norm in previous season, or at max 50/50. But more importently, the tempo differences in other lanes where not very huge and the overall laneswap procedre was a bit different. In the current laneswap meta, a 10sec diffrence can already have a meaningfull impact without tower FB, and mostly with the last changes ntop takes not a bit longer, but TWICE as long as bot, which gives either a free drake+a lane reset at bot, denying the freeze and giving your sololaner a massive advantage, while mostlikely get riftherald on top with the followup swap, or it might even be enought to rush top and defend your tower..

woodvsmurphAug 8, 20161 votes

There were points in other seasons where certain regions lane-swapped nearly ever game. Riot would change things up and some teams would stop doing it for awhile until the better teams learned a new lane-swap meta to follow. And yes tempo differences were huge. They still lead to dragon advantages, roams on mid for kills or fake recalls into kills on enemy duo or top laner when the initial swap ended. I am arguing above that the changes promote standard lanes -- the second part of my statements above are regarding standard laning - not lane swaps. And rift herald takes too long to spawn to get it off an initial lane swap; you kill the first tower well before it spawns. If you swap again to opposite sides and are now top, then yeah you might be around for its spawn and can take it. If you understood the second part of my argument above was for standard laning and not lane swaps, then I fail to see your point. If you didn't understand that, then hope this makes it clearer -- because I think we have the same basic beliefs about what the changes will do and what was common practice before them.

UmirinmahgainsAug 1, 20161 votes

There's been games this season with standard lanes that end up being 15-20 minutes of both sides farming and nothing happening. First blood at 12-15+ minutes isn't the rarest thing. Now that it's always lane swaps that's usually more assured, but forcing standard lanes doesn't mean you'll get action.

woodvsmurphAug 2, 20161 votes

You are right that it doesn't ensure more action. It does however increase the likelihood because it is easier to get advantages in lane in 1v1 and 2v2 depending on champ matchups. Also the jungle has a realistic chance to gank any lane instead of just mid. Thus statistically and logically a higher number of games will have more action early on. Not every game, but more of them.

SquashCannonAug 2, 20161 votes

Lane swapping was a bad habit that needed to be nipped in the bud.

Scourge upon the world Chogath

MeDicenWeraAug 2, 20161 votes

Nunu picks, nidalee picks, azir picks, tristana picks, siege, poke poke, siege, siege, lane swap to get first tower, lane swap again.

Riot doesn't control how the game is played, it's mostly pro players, so we'll get into more passive lane swaps than ever.

dy0nzAug 3, 20161 votes

i mean i think it will be the same will it not? they want to down the tower faster for first blood i think it makes them want to lane swap even more tbh