Why do people care so much about lanes?

Wild Wes·9/11/2015, 10:54:09 PM·5 votes·1,485 views

So I get that if you're playing in a PvC that you can usually predict which characters are going to be where. But even in a PvP, people are like "oooo, u shad go 2 tap lane because dats were u balong". What's the difference? It's not only grammar-deficient people, so seriously? Maybe a few towers are a little bit stronger or something but other than that it's either just a 1v1 or a 2v2. What does it matter where you fight? Because unless one person's at their base where their healing station is, it's pretty much just the same. Just to let you dudes know, I'm not saying you're idiots. I'm just asking why you believe that.

46 Comments

50000000000000009/12/2015, 1:33:02 AM8 votes

Metagame of League is a pretty long story, but I'll try to make a tl;dr version at the bottom. Basically, in a teamfight you want a frontline (to protect your carries), source of burst damage (to kill squishy carries), source of sustained damage (to kill tanks), and mixed damage (so it's harder to itemize against).

Burst damage champions are generally reliant on abilities rather than autoattacks to do damage. This means burst damage champions should go to mid lane, because that's the shortest lane and they will level up the fastest. In early-mid game, the mid laner should almost always be at the highest level. These champions are a main source of damage, so they need a lot of gold and experience.

Sustained damage champions can rely on abilities or autoattacks, but autoattacks are generally more reliable (no mana cost) and more sustained (attack speed is cheaper than CDR). These champions don't really need their abilities to do a lot of damage (generally). These are marksmen/ranged ADC. These champions need to maximize DPS (damage per second), so these champions also need a lot of gold, but experience is not as important.

Frontline champions need to buy tank items. Tank items are cheaper than damage items, so they don't need as much farm. Also, since they're tanky, during laning phase, their mistakes aren't as heavily punished.

Mixed damage is achieved by having a source of physical damage and magic damage. ADC does physical damage, and mid laners generally do magic damage (there are a lot of AD midlaners, so if that's the case top laner or jungler usually provide the magic damage in those cases).

Okay now, so why do different champions go to different lanes? Burst damage champions (assassins and mages) go to mid lane because they need a lot of gold and experience. Mid lane is the best place because you can farm the minions and get the experience the quickest. Sustained damage champions (ADC/marksmen) go to bottom lane because they need a lot of gold, but not so much experience. They go to bottom lane with a support because they can share experience. Support doesn't farm because they can be useful even without any gold. Frontline (tank/fighter) go to top lane because it's one of the longer lanes. It's the most vulnerable lane to gank compared to mid lane, because it's longer. That means it's more difficult to run away from a bad fight. Since they're building tanky (generally), they can survive what could be otherwise dangerous ganks.

So why not have ADC+support in top lane and tank/fighter in bot lane? That's for dragon control. In early game, dragon is an important objective that can give you a serious advantage later. Having more people nearby will make sure you have an edge when you're contesting dragon. Baron doesn't spawn until 20 minute mark, at which point it's better to group up and teamfight.

There's a lot of exceptions to this rule, like Heimerdinger top. Heimer top is meant to harass the enemy top laner, since the enemy top laner is generally going to be melee champion. It's really difficult to fight a Heimerdinger as a melee champion because of his turrets.

tl;dr: mid laner needs gold and xp, so they go mid. top laner needs some farm but not as much as the carries, so they go to top lane alone. adc needs a lot of gold but not as much xp, so they go with a support who helps the ADC farm.

Twiggles9/11/2015, 11:12:58 PM4 votes

Tanks and fighters usually go top lane or jungle, ranged ability reliant champs like mages and assassins usually go mid lane (or jungle for certain assassins), and ranged auto-attack reliant champs like marksmen usually go bot lane with a support (the support usually being a champ that can help their marksman sustain or keep the enemy from retaliating).

A lot of it is to make it easier to figure out who goes where and avoid confusion when leaving base. It also allows Riot to design specific champs for specific roles and be confident that they know what types of champs they'll be laning against most of the time. Even early on, when it doesn't matter quite as much, it's a good practice to get into since it's what you'll be expected to do later on.

It's a bit of a learning process, but it isn't so bad once you get used to it.

I hope that helped. :)

Zmuecat9/12/2015, 1:17:35 AM4 votes

Why even "quote" people like that if you're going to say twice in your post that you meant no offense by it? It takes too much away from your question/point for no reason. Don't do that, cause it opens the floor for horrible behavior in the first two sentences.

The game, over time, has pretty much 'evolved' to the point that champions of certain design are better in certain places because of how lanes work. While Darius doesn't need to go top, the vast amount of champions that frequently go into that lane are easier for him to deal with than going bottom or mid (it also gives Darius more XP and hopefully more gold). The meta is defined like that because it works in general.

Meta breaking is a thing though, and so long as your team knows what you're doing and you aren't ruining 4 peoples next 20-50 minutes, you should be fine doing whatever. Team game, make sure you work with your team, not against them.

Catastrop9/12/2015, 1:13:55 AM3 votes

I'm sorry but I'll have to give my response later, right now I'm laughing way too hard to remember what I was going to say. "oooo, u shad go 2 tap lane because dats were u balong". XD

Shroom Junkie9/12/2015, 1:10:05 AM2 votes

Because, certain champs already go to places generally so they place whoever's best against them in that lane.

Like, Nami probably isn't going to win against a Jax top.

Amumu probably won't win against Ashe bot, even with a support.

Maokai probably won't win against Malzahar mid.

TurquoiseYoshi9/12/2015, 3:26:44 AM2 votes

Lanes get important once people have more summoner spells and more masteries/runes, since then people actually start with something.

G01fanThomas9/12/2015, 11:54:03 PM2 votes

Its League Of Legnds Bra.

Stephenizgod9/13/2015, 6:53:38 PM1 votes

Quick Answer:

Top lane is for tanks/bruisers whose only roles is to farm and possibly kill each other. They dont have much of an impact on Dragon Control because they generally dont do much damage. When your team is taking dragon they normally have Teleport to help out. The only thing they can do in other lanes is steal XP and Gold so they normally stay in their lane.

Mid laners are for bursty high damage champions, Mid lane is the shortest lane meaning minions get to you faster. They level up faster then everyone else and they trade (fight) more often. The reason you want this person Mid is so they can roam bottom or top depending on the situation.

ADC/SUPP bot lane is because your ADC (Marksmen) will be your pusher, they generally use Auto-Attacks and build high damage items and no tank. Because of this they need a support to help them get to the level they need to be. Why are they Bot lane instead of Top lane? This is for Dragon Control, with more people you are more of a threat when fighting for dragon, it also helps to have more people help with taking Dragon as it does a lot of damage and has high HP.

Jungler is obvious, their job is to take objectives and help out the other lanes.

That is about as quick and simple as one can make it...

SEKAI9/12/2015, 7:58:58 PM1 votes

The problem arises from a few aspects.

The game was originally launched without extensive flexibility on what you can do, hence there is always a best strategy on the table. It's more like the genre's blind spot to be honest.
Riot is prone to nerfing the buffing according to reflex, instead of concluding from analysing the statistics. This couples with the fact a great deal of the champs were not released in a balance state, and also how many champs are intentionally kept in unbalanced state for 1 reason or the other which I find it very odd.
Riot is also known to delete contents from the game that they find undesirable. It comes in various forms: reworks, items removal, mastery overhaul etc etc. This leads to streamlined and inelastic option sets.
A part of the community is brain dead in terms of innovation, so they follow meta like a religion.
Then the game started to be balanced around the meta some time ago, so instead of things being optimal and sub-optimal like they should, it's now a problem of viable or unviable.

Let's just say the balance scene of LoL is not the greatest.