The Problem With Top Lane

So recently, since the rework of yorick and the release of Kled, Top lane has been in a bit of turmoil recently. Games are lost over whichever teams top laner can get 3 kills the fastest. Three kills on an adc or a jungler is bad, but compared to a top laner, it's almost laughable. I've been trying to enjoy playing top lane, since I do love playing fiora, but it's almost impossible to have any fun in. A majority of the time, I'm either farming and poking the enemy laner, and then they back. Upon tping back in, they kill me instantly. Or i do the same. Why is this? Well first i want to talk about some champion problems, and then some item problems.

Let's talk about yorick, irelia, and nasus. All of these champions can take out their laners at level 6, and then back to outscale them with one item. but I'll talk more about that in the item section. So about the other top laners. Darius has a fundamental problem of having really high base damages on all of his abilities, and winning every trade. Fiora is really strong at kiting and can block damage completely. Pantheon is just ridiculous, I don't think much needs to be said there. These aspects kind of make the champions who they are, but the problem is that they are impossible to lane against in some situations. While I understand that champions have counters, I don't think a game should be lost instantly due to you picking the wrong champion. The amount of raw base damage outputted by darius makes it impossible to win trades against him with most champions. If I pick fiora against a really aggressive darius, I'll probably lose. On the other hand, there is a problem with champions like garen. You can sit in lane farming till level 6 as any champion, and then get q spun on and killed by garen like it's nothing. Missing health damage is a rather broken mechanic in itself but thats a topic for another time. What I was trying to say here is that most of the top laners have incredibly high base damage, with little outplay potential unless you picked the right champion. This can be adjusted by simple numbers changes to put the top laners on the same level. But what's really been getting me is the items.

So on top of top laners having really high base damage, they also have high scaling. When I think of a tank, I think of someone who is really hard to kill, but is slow moving and doesnt output a lot of damage. It isn't fair that a darius or a yorick or irelia can instantly burst me down with little to no counter play while I can't even take a quarter of their health as most champions. This is something I feel like needs to be changed in the sense that if you want to deal damage on a top laner meant to build tank, you should have to build damage to accomplish that. I think tanks like gragas and sejuani are great examples. Your burst combo with these champs isnt enough to kill even squishy targets unless you have one or two damage items. The problem with darius or garen though, is that they only have to build miniscule amounts of damage to kill people, including other tanks. Black cleaver should not be considered a completely viable source of damage, but for utility. The item only offers 50 damage, but the real problem is the armor shred. For what stats black cleaver gives, It's too effective for it's gold cost. I may just seem like I'm ranting at this point, but I have actual solutions. But before that, one more thing on items. What are the two biggest problem items? Phage and Caulfields. This probably isn't the items fault, but more so the scalings on the champions that use them. The problem with these items as that every champion can farm up to get a phage, and come back to lane to kill their opponent if they don't have defenses yet, or kill the jungler that tries to gank. I can't count the amount of times I have walked into lane and been 100 to 0 because of ridiculous amounts of cc and damage when the laner only had 1/3 or 1/2 of an actual item. components are strong and are needed to build into items, but they offer way too much. I don't feel a difference dying to a champion with only a phage or warhammer, and dying to someone with the full black cleaver. On top of that, cleaver gives too much health for the damage it gives. I think if you're going to allow an item 50 damage AND the ability to shred 35 percent of my armor, it shouldn't also make someone excessively hard to kill. And on top of all of that, the champions that I listed above all usually rush trinity. I don't have a problem with trinity at full build because it is a cost heavy item. But I do have a problem with someone walking into lane with phage and sheen, pressing q, and taking half my health at level 8 or whatever. The sheen proc is too strong at early levels, and can be built on ad champs before even building the full item for the benefit. It's like tiamat, where you can build that and then go for another item before finishing ravenous. These items components are too strong and building the actual items don't feel as effective as focusing on other items while you have components. On to the solutions however.

1. Reduce Armor Pen

With all the armor pen items offered in the game, completely shredding tanks is easy. Black cleaver and lord doms alone totals to around 70% of your armor that is just useless now even after spending large amounts of gold on it. And while I do have a problem with tanks killing people easily, I do believe that armor isn't as effective as it should be. This results in people dying easier to tanks because of cleaver. So either armor needs to be more effective, preferably like how magic resist is really good against mages, or armor pen needs to be a more expensive stat. It's too cheap and offered by too many items in the game. Cleaver should be reduced to about 25% instead of 35%. I'm not big on numbers so that's up for debate but I do think that armor pen is a bit op

2. Reduce effectiveness of item components

If a player wants the full effectiveness of an having a completed item, they should have to build the item. I'm not saying completely throw away the passives on like tiamat, but reduce the numbers more. A great example is how stinger was nerfed to only have 35% attack speed from 50% which was the same as nashors. I used to rush stinger on azir and go straight for morello but now I feel like i need to finish nashors to get the full benefit of the attack speed. I shouldnt see my enemy laner with phage and think "hey, they built phage and all I have is a long sword and ruby crystal, I guess i'm dead now" If you aren't a darius counter, and he has phage/caulfields then one combo almost guarantees your death. Another big champ that does this is wukong, you know where he dashes to you ults and you're dead. But back to the topic at hand, I think trin force and black cleaver just need the nashors treatment

3. Reduce scalings

If you want to deal damage as a tank, then you should at least have to build 2 damage items. If a champion can build one damage item and then 4 tank items and still kill you with ease, It should be considered a problem. I know I use darius alot but it's too easy honestly. You know when you're in game and you're farming mid or whatever and then at the top of the screen it says "Enemy double kill" and shows darius's picture next to your dead jungler and top laner? That happens too often even without the champ being fed. And late game these tanks are just monsters because for no reason at all, a 4000 health, 200 armor and mr champion can walk out of jungle and two shot someone who actually built damage. I don't play alot of adc but it is sad to watch sometimes. Bottom line is that darius, garen, irelia, nasus, almost every other top laner in the game should not be able to burst someone down with only black cleaver or tri force because that 50 damage gives them ridiculous numbers on their abilities.

I just want to clarify again that I DO NOT WANT THESE ITEMS NERFED EXTREMELY, but I do think that you should build the item to get the full benefits. Honestly the post is so long that people are just going to skim through it and not read so I hope this stands out.

I know the post was long but I'm tired of the tank meta, even if it is over or close to it. Whenever it comes around, the game just gets boring seeing a team that has 3 enemies I can't kill and can't even get past to kill the other two. I'm sick of losing teamfights because one tank walks into our team and body blocks everything while them and their back line kills us. And yes I know there is ways around that but it's really hard to get onto a carry if you're not a mobile champion and you can't kill the tank because they kill you too fast. I hope this was informative in some way or another but I think the next biggest problem I'll be talking about is how overly excessive armor pen items are compared to magic pen items. Sounds biased but I play all types and magic pen is a really expensive stat with only one percentage mr item in the game being void staff.

Thanks for reading, -The loser that's getting his post downvoted by people that only play top