Discussion about melee vs ranged champions and top lane

I have seen various discussions from devs and players on this topic lately, I have three different suggestions to tackle the issue I see:

1 - For one group of champions it comes down to movement speed, they struggle a lot in higher level play or even low level depending on what they're up against because with their lack of instant gap closers they are too susceptible to being kited, highly mobile champions or heavy slows on the other team simply make them no fun to play at all. And then to make them worth it their damage at close range has to be very high (or in some cases, they just aren't worth it). Most ranged start out with lower movement speeds, the problem however is that most of the strong mages either can peel for themselves well or can stay way back because of their range. ADCs start out slow, but with current itemization they get faster than most bruisers fairly quickly since they have strong options in movements speed items, combined with cheap boots (zerker) and boot enchants.

• Using Darius as an example, late game with his 340 movement speed darius struggles to just catch up to any ranged, and his one gap closer is on a long CD with short range. This does two things, one is that it creates a huge gap between melee with strong gap closers/mobility skills and those that don't have one or that have one that isn't long range and in too long a CD in terms of viability and fun. And is why the likes of jax, lee sin just generally feel more fun and can make more plays than the likes of darius, people have to actually work hard and use their ccs well to keep them off. For melee that lack mobilty the game becomes by default one of feast and famine, if you get fed early so you can become tanky enough while still building enough dmg, thus enabling you to survive long enough to get on top of people in team fights once they have been cc'ed, you can wreck, if you don't get fed early, you're generally useless since you can neither get to the back line without dying or do enough damage to their front line to really matter.

• Movement speed is a good thing to tweak too rather than just giving everyone gap closers because it can be done in small doses and can still be countered. If Darius had let's say 350 base speed, he can still be kited it just won't be as easy as it is now. And for some champions that struggle too much with being kited in certain match ups but are still really strong because their damage is so high (like Trundle and Shyvana) making them faster would allow for some small damage nerfs and just make them healthier overall. I would tweak the following in this manner: Darius, Mordekaiser (+10), Garen, Olaf (+5), Shyvana and Trundle (+5, along with small damage nerfs). Another solution to go along with or instead of is to have more options for movement speed items for fighters, since at the moment if trinity force isn't good on a fighters (and it isn't on most), or they scale off AS heavily to get yoummu's or zephy's etc. Fights that want straight AD just have nothing they can get if they are getting kited too much.

2 - The other broader approach that is a lot more involved is giving fighters defensive capabilities that interact with ranged but have no effect against other melee. For example Fiora's Riposte would remain active after being hit by a ranged attack (so it would absorb two ranged, but one melee auto), shyvana's w could also reduce ranged attack damage by 10% while active, trundle's w could reduce ranged attack speed of targets inside it, Morde's and Garen's w armor/MR boost could have double the effect against ranged attacks, etc. Yes, such tweaks would have to be balanced off by nerfing fighter damage a bit across the board. But the general idea is this. By giving fighters more "built in" ways of shrugging off ranged damage and catching up to them (for the ones that struggle right now with catching up to them, clearly some don't) while making them less explosive if they do get on top of squishies you create more room for counter plays on both sides and have less of the "it's hard to catch you but if I do you're insta dead" dynamic that happens way too much right now with melee vs ranged.

3- Another issue with top is that tiamat is a really unhealthy item. It makes shoving the lane WAY too easy, giving a big advantage to champions that do well with it or just forcing some to get it anyways. If one champion has it and the other doesn't, specially if the other has no huge AOE skills, it is too easy to shove them up or split push quick if they aren't around even for a bit. It's also ridiculous amounts of sustain once you finish the hydra and use it on a minion wave. It turns top into too much of a shove lane competition often isolating the lane too much from the rest of the map. I think that item should be changed so the active damage only affects champions and that would do wonders for the lane.

My two cents.