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Has Riot finally admitted (albeit subtly) how useless top lane is and how broken AD carries are?

FalconPawwwwnch··5 votes·1,795 views

"3) Top lane is a much bigger issue. There are so many factors involved here (power of Teleport, relevance of Dragon, power of Marksmen vs Fighters, etc.) that this is a larger scope problem that would take multiple patches to work on. But you definitely make a great point, there are some issues in champion diversity top lane and we need to do some work on that."

http://boards.na.leagueoflegends.com/en/c/gameplay-balance/3NL0vjdZ-the-pbe-has-been-down-for-2-and-a-half-weeks-first-update-is-a-nerf-to-sona?comment=00110002

Only took you multiple seasons to finally say what high elo has been saying for years. The really question is, what exactly is going to be done about it exactly? Let's be honest Riot, your patch history shows you really don't like it when melee champions are carrying games from top lane. The last time you helped top lane was gave buffs to Jarvan and Malphite because of "muh Renekton bar," but then you nerfed Renekton, nerfed Jax, nerfed Visage, nerfed Sunfire, nerfed Omen, nerfed Doran's Blade for melee champions (HARD, I might add, 5 life on hit = 3% life steal at 166 AD), and made it so top laners have one combat spell in fights whereas AD carries get 3 (yes, 3, flash, heal, and their supports exhaust), you wonder why every damage based fighter is forced to splitpush nowadays but it's blatantly obvious: AD carries are untouchable and have been forever. Red buff, on top of broken support releases (Thresh/Nami/Braum), on top of nerfs to pretty much every fighter made it so almost no fighter threatens ranged carries.

Another thing is that there's this stereotype that: fighters have been almost mandatory top lane throughout LoL history and only get replaced by other things for short periods of time, which I call BS on for a few reasons, i'd argue that AP champions/tanks dominated top lane longer than fighters did. Let's look at the timeline since a few months before Season 1 Worlds.

Few months before Season 1 Worlds - Season 1 Worlds: Deathcap was overpowered as all hell and everybody was running double AP comps: 155 AP and 30% bonus, everyone just bum rushed it.

August 2011 - April 2012: This is the time where fighters actually were used top lane, usually bum rushing wriggles into atmogs. HOWEVER, they were not the only things being played around this time, as double AP comps were dominating top lane almost as hard, not because of deathcap, but because of Will of the Ancients; the item gave 25% spellvamp in an aura to your team. If you ran Vlad/Kennen/RumbleAhri/Cassiopeia etc with another AP champion and both got Will of the Ancients, both players had 50% spellvamp and your team had 25%. In fact, I'd argue that AP champions this time were just as powerful as fighters were. The only thing is, Wota was nerfed to 20% (February 2012) before Atma's and wit's end were nerfed (April), so people feel like bruisers were dominating top lane for way longer than they accurately remember: bruisers were only undisputed for that period of time, the rest of the time Double AP was JUST as powerful. After the atma's nerf people ran double AP again for a few weeks until Wota was nerfed again at the beginning of May.

End of May 2012 - July 2012: Bruisers used top lane mainly again because people realized how strong Jax was, Darius was released, Irelia was buffed, along with other changes.

July 2012 - October 2012 (Season 2 Worlds): Jayce was released in July and he was the undisputed king of top lane for awhile (along with Rengar, but Rengar was disabled during Season 2 Worlds if i recall correctly); however, there were other champs that also were close to him: Shen, Jax, Irelia, Olaf mainly. This is around the time where people realized ranged champions could easily exploit melee champions top lane.

Preseason 3 - February 2013: Elise was released during this time and this is when %health damage started becoming so common. Olaf (and Shen) were the meta top lane due to Warmogs being so powerful; however this dream ended when Warmogs was nerfed. This was also right when Black Cleaver stacked (although this feature was removed fast), but people still ran armor shred comps with Jarvan/MF/Taric/Renekton etc. Once Olaf was nerfed you saw Renekton, but mostly AP champions.

February 2013 - July 30, 2013: AP champions and ranged champions DOMINATED, yes DOMINATED top lane. Ryze, Kennen, Elise, Jayce were the main four being exploited but other champions like Lissandra and Rumble were used a lot too. Not to mention Vayne who had absurd statistics in OGN during this time

July 30 - Season 3 Worlds: Spirit Visage was massively buffed so people started running tanks again, mainly Shen and Renekton, but then trinity force was massively buffed too so Jax saw play in worlds. Those 3 were pretty much the only 3 champs being used top lane.

Preseason 4 - January/February 2014: Shyvana/Mundo/Nasus/Renekton were fotm because of perserverance and because of sunfire/visage being so broken.

February - June 2014: Jax and Ryze got REALLY popular around this time and were being used a ton in every region. Items had been nerfed, and champions had been nerfed (Nasus/Shyvana/Renekton) so fotm changed.

July 2014 - Season 4 Worlds: Jax nerfed to 45% win rate tier so Ryze was still broken as hell; Maokai and Alistar buffs made them god tier during this time too, and Rumble was used a lot too.

Preseason 5 - Present: Pretty much the only fighter being used top lane a lot is Irelia, Maokai is still used in pro play but the release of Gnar made it so most melee champions are unusable top lane, and Lissandra being popular doesn't help either. Jax was buffed but that didn't change much.

Tl;dr AD carries >>>> fighters for most of LoL history and a Rioter finally admits it, and a rough timeline of top lane since Season 1 is drawn out

19 Comments

biomaster3 votes

AMEN man, just so sick of it, especially when tha adc GOES top, like quinn, im just a shaco top main sick of this ranged abuse.

Rebonack2 votes

Start with this change.

  1. Increase minion call for help range.
  2. Make the call for help trigger as soon as you CLICK on a champion to auto them, NOT when your attack lands.

This would allow melee champions to pull enemy minions toward their side of the lane by clicking a champion and then retreating. This would put a further buffer between themselves and a ranged champion wants to harass them.

Leti the Yeti1 votes

aww snap, i feel like a minionmancer already

SmokingPuffin2 votes

you wonder why every damage based fighter is forced to splitpush nowadays but it's blatantly obvious: AD carries are untouchable and have been forever. Red buff, on top of broken support releases (Thresh/Nami/Braum), on top of nerfs to pretty much every fighter made it so almost no fighter threatens ranged carries.

AD carries aren't untouchable. The thing is, assassins have replaced fighters as the way we dive ADCs. They clearly do it better -- look at how much more reliable it is to send Zed after Caitlyn than it is to send Renekton. I think that the old balance model, circa season 2, only worked for fighters because assassins didn't really exist in the game at that time.

That means fighters are currently struggling to figure out their role in the game. I suspect the best candidate is to have fighters be really good at beating up assassins. Assassins are kinda sorta running rampant right now and fighters are the natural thing to wreck them. Then we can do a rock-paper-scissors with marksmen, assassins, and fighters.

Kuroi862 votes

power of Marksmen vs Fighters

So what? Am I to believe that marksmen weren't meant to be a counter to fighters and tanks while assassins are meant to counter marksmen?

Lets face it, fighters have always been a royal $%^@# to balance. Some even believing the class should be removed and all fighters reworked to be full on tanks or assassins. Marksmen are typically easier to balance considering how item reliant they are. Balancing marksmen is more about fixing their items. Fighters on the other hand are a whole other beast to rope.

As for how, I honestly think it's as simple as nerfing the AD on item 3031 and item 3035 while buffing the AD on item 3072, item 3508 and item 3153 (For those about to throw a fit about Bork being buffed, take off one or two % from the % hp damage.)

For those that complain about crit chance, set it to a static stacking amount, you gain a % of crit chance per auto and only crit at 100%. For those that might think this would be too much of an advantage for ranged champs. 1. You can tweak ranges on marksmen and 2. Shorter ranged, ability based champs still have their abilities and combos they can throw out in return for a predictable crit.

Knight SoIaire 1 votes

Am I to believe that marksmen weren't meant to be a counter to fighters and tanks while assassins are meant to counter marksmen?

thats not exactly like that

tanks are meant to be durable and soak the damage adc's are meant to deal constant damage without a downtime where they wait for cooldowns or mana since adc never finishes dealing his damage he can hit the tank without any loss while apc would just waste a combo with long cooldown just to scratch him, adc shouldnt be able to just whack a tank like any other squish

i think that out current game distorts the roles to the point where tank is a cc bot and adc is a guy who kills everything in seconds

if we speak ballance we need to consider the place those champions should be to interact correctly not what they actualy are

Lets face it, fighters have always been a royal $%^@# to balance. Some even believing the class should be removed and all fighters reworked to be full on tanks or assassins. Marksmen are typically easier to balance considering how item reliant they are. Balancing marksmen is more about fixing their items. Fighters on the other hand are a whole other beast to rope.

i dont agree about marksman ballance while they do are simple, they ballance is not just of their items but the ballance of entire defense vs offense interaction with mobility on top of that if defense gets a buff adc's get a nerf

Kuroi861 votes

I think it would go towards balancing marksmen.

Tanks are a whole other issue.

Tanks typically fall into one of two categories with it being very difficult to hit the medium. Either you die too quickly and aren't of enough use to your team. Or you are unstoppable and can face tank every ult on the enemy team and still walk away with some health left over.

One problem is that tank items are great on bruisers, another is that you have to build against both physical and magic damage. If you face a high damage opponent in lane and have to itemize against them, then you could be screwed when having to tank down their APC and ADC.

I think a possible (And I stretch possible, as in this is just a theory.) Solution for tanks could be some items that scale your Ar/Mr/Hp in percentages. While Bruisers are forced to build one or even two damage items, then go tank, an item like that would allow a tank to grab one % item, then begin stacking which ever stat they need, which would in turn make them scale harder, meanwhile bruisers simply wouldn't gain enough stats from it for it to be cost efficient. Again, just a theory.

Leti the Yeti2 votes

well we lost a 5 v 4 in our favor our jungle top and mid were pretty decent, pretty good really are bot lane was ... shabby and in relation to their bot lane; utter shit their botlane carries the game annnd the 3 of us watch in horror cuz we cant stop this bitch for some reason

Epilogue of Life1 votes

They should remove everyone who is poke oriented.

AetherKingdom3 votes

I agree delete Xerath.

Epilogue of Life1 votes

And Nid, and Rumble, and Lux, and Syndra, and Ori, and many more

AetherKingdom1 votes

can't forget jayce

Epilogue of Life1 votes

Well Jayce actually goes ham sometimes...how often do you see a Lux diving someone lol

AetherKingdom2 votes

Jayce only goes ham after he hits you with 50 balls. any aggression before that and he says lol knockback + free ms from simply changing forms (^:

Mazianos1 votes

Ever tried full ad Jayce? and I mean FULL AD. 4 IE, 1 BT and a ER/Mercurial

w = %110 dmg with max atk spd. crits deal 3k+ dmg

no one touches you...

Ch0c0lateJesus1 votes

Playing a fighter is currently the most depressing role in the game. You know that you can beat your opponent into the dirt, but..

If they are a fighter, they will just build pure tank and be pretty much as useful as you are if the game lasts more than 30 mins.

If they are a cc/utility class they will be more useful always.

If they cant be useful in fights they will endlessly push, meaing you have to babysit the lane during midgame, the point when fighters are strongest.

Nothing you do in lane matters, getting ahead doesnt matter, the most you will be in the end is a meat shield.

Knight SoIaire 1 votes

your patch history shows you really don't like it when melee champions are carrying games from top lane.

while i dont disagree that adc's being the literal center of the game is a bad thing

top laner carrying from top is straight out toxic since there is nothing on toplane that is of teams interest early/mid game

so if toplaner carries it means that he does it as one person without his teams help (kinda op ... dominating the game just by laning)

Another thing is that there's this stereotype that: fighters have been almost mandatory top lane throughout LoL history and only get replaced by other things for short periods of time, which I call BS on for a few reasons,

it isnt a bs its true after those champs get nerfed other ap/range champs take their place

but fighter still is a core of toplane because some of those ap/ranged picks build similary to fighters nah jk the only thing i remember on top were the rises to opness of certain bruisers but never bruisers as a class, one specific bruiser rose to be played among all the mages/ranged crap that always lived there

the problem that we face is riot not ballancing deffense offense mobility interactions correctly

rangeds are made so that they dont require any defense to live because of mobility and they counter any defense with brute force, so kiting removes fighters easily

if you pick a full tank get fed (stupid but true example) and enter a teamfight you wont last 5 seconds despite loads of armour

example : my last game with nasus, got fed, got stacked and enemy team had 4 ad autoatackers, 240 armour gave me nothing midgame until i bought thornmail and just killed them before i died

ap dmg is fawoured by riot because mages wtih skills on 3 second cooldown have too much of a downtime where they deal less than 1kdmg per sec (sarcasm) so mr items suck while riots design already removed ap champions flaws

ad dmg is easier to counter but at the same time arpen is prolly as common as ad in this game and so defense doesnt pay off

which leads us to the point where ranged champions outperform meele ones by far unless they dont jump like yasuo

mikemil2231 votes

well this is dumb because not all top laners and marksmen have this "issue". it should break down to champs not lane. also dont try to say "you think this because you are low elo" because if you think you are so good i gauruntee id wreck a lot of you or at least givemost of you a challenge in a lane

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