Hey.
I'd like to start practicing top lane. I'm a support player and when I can't get support I'm usually left to go top. I've also noticed nobody calls top lane in my elo usually. Mid, ADC and jungle are the most requested roles. So I have decided to learn top. Any recommendation for what champs would be a good choice to start off with.
Please include runes, masteries and any other tips the top lane mains can recommend.
Thanks alot :)
Darius and Garen are good. Since the rework people have found them hard to deal with, and they're easy and fun to learn. :)
In MY opinion Renekton is easily the best top lane player. You dont see a lot of renekton but im telling you he is a beast, literally. High mobility, High damage, High sustain with his q, natural tank without even needing tank items, easy and incredibly fast wave clear after your first item.
your build should be:
start 
and 3x 
(the long sword will build into your first item, if you chose to do so dorans shield is also viable)
first back grab 
and more pots if needed
as soon as you can rush tiamat (
) , this is such an important item on renekton ill explain after build
after tiamat is built start building 
don't worry about finishing tiamat into ravenous or titanic hydra yet
after and boots (grab 
against ccs or just grab 
for a standard) the build titanic or ravenous hydra. This is a personal preference, try both, i personally like ravenous hydra more ( 
vs 
)
then after that is when its pretty up to the situation, but the most standard core final build that i take 90% of games is 
(
or
)
things to know about renekton: -renekton doesn't use mana, he uses rage, which makes it easy to stay in lane without worrying about mana pots or saving spells. -when renekton uses an ability or auto attack he gains rage, but after half rage only auto attack until you're ready to trade with a champion or heal -when renektons rage bar is red his next ability is empowered, this is what makes or breaks renekton players -your q heals you for HOW MUCH DAMAGE IS DEALT so this is your bread and butter. Wait till rage bar is red, then q, but try to hit AS MANY TARGETS as possible. the more targets you hit, the more total damage you deal, and therefore the more you heal. always try to hit multiple targets -use all your abilities to fill your rage bar, spam them, but when its red only auto attack to fill it more and save your rage for a champion but keep in mind that it falls off after a while, so don't save it if you're roaming. If youre roaming and youre not full health hit stuff with your q as you run past. you doint need to finish a camp, or even have an empowered q for it to heal. if im roaming toward mid i always kill or atleast q the scuttle on my way
Order of abilites: grab Q first unless you are going to invade, in which case i would take w for the stun then take E second for the mobility of escaping any potential early ganks or just getting out of danger take w last max q first, then e for armor shred, and w last as its just a high damage stun. really its up to you if you want to max e or w second but i recommend e. obviously max r where you can
runes and masteries: i take 3 flat attack damage quints 9 attack damage reds 9 armor yellows 5 flat cdr blues and 4 magic resist blues but taking all cdr is viable and could also be swapped for scaling cdr
masteries i take 21-9-0 all in attack damage or cool down reductions
summoner spells are varied by preference, personally i take flash and tele
matchups: renekton wins against riven and garen and darius and nasus and gnar. renekton has the mobility and tankiness to destroy the adcs and casters in team fights and turn around to help wipe out the tanks too
general top lane tips not specific to renekton: renekton clears minions super fast after tiamat. if you shove your lane under enemy turret go kill the scuttle. Scuttle provides good vision and is mostly armor which you shred with e so you can kill him super fast and get back to lane always ward, vision OP tell your lanes to keep wards up. Renekton is a massive presence in a fight, so if you see the enemy team overextended ping and tp behind them. with your mobility and stun you should be able to secure AT LEAST one kill with well timed tp. if you push minions past the river they will always shove back, so i never shove past the river unless im trying to take the turret if enemy top lane is dead and youre under turret attack minions fist, turret second, This is free gold from farm and your minions will still hurt the turret, plus they will live longer because they will only take turret agro one at a time. if no minions are around u hit the turret also
tl;dr just play renekton, he is such a fun and underestimated champion. then when you feel like you could play renekton better but don't know how read this. hopefully it helps.
If I were to make a list of champions to recommend, I would have to know your play style and what types of champions you enjoy. To start off, I will name the poster boys of the different types of Top champions that are easy to play (never said easy to master):
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Juggernaut- Late Game Bruiser
Darius is very forgiving and all you really need to know is to get 5 stacks of his bleed. Any player by now knows you save his ultimate for the kill. He can unreliably bully early game as well, but just not against anyone so I wouldn't call him a reliable lane bully. Where he really shines is after he gets enough farm for good items and he can slam dunk his way through the enemy team. Garen is also a viable option since he plays similarly to Darius, but is more focused on carrying his team by killing all the enemy carries. He is also pretty reliable for getting to his late game due to his innate sustain and tankiness. If you like being tanky AND want to carry your game, play this guy.
The typical masteries for these guys are 9/21/0 or 21/9/0 depending on how much bullying you will take early and runes include movement speed quints and armor/health scaling seals. The rest is optional.
Lane Bully- Early Game Bruiser
Lane bullies have this natural thing of being great early game, and typically bad late game. Keep this in mind going into this. Renekton is an overall easy to play early game bully that transitions into a meat shield Raid Boss late game, meaning he can still 1v1 fine, but his team fighting potentially is limited and his main purpose is to spread as much damage as possible into the enemy team and soak as much damage himself as possible. Early game is where its at though, so just remember that Renekton is mainly what he due to the heal on his Q. Use this guy if you want to dominate the early game.
The typical masteries here are 9/21/0 as well and runes focus more on attack damage, armor penetration, and life steal.
/ 
Anti-Lane Bully- Anti-Aggression Bruiser/Tank
When I say this, I mean the only real purpose of these guys is to make sure a lane bully doesnt perform well. These guys usually are much like lane bullies, except they farm and wait for the enemy to engage on them before retaliating. Tahm Kench is just the man for this job due to his punishing Devour and grey health. Champions of this class usually have an average all around game, but can punish early aggression against themselves. They also usually have high Teleport presence to make their Anti-Aggression be able to be used globally to secure objectives early game. Shen is exceptional in that path due to his ultimate. He is a standard brick wall Top Lane as well.
The typical masteries here can either be 21/9/0 or 9/21/0 depending on how much aggression you think will be coming your way. Runes normally focus on % health, health, armor, and magic resist at all cost.
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Middle Game Team Fight Stompers- Initiation AP Caster/Tank
These guys usually abuse early game with their range and spells before transitioning into team fight monsters come Mid Game. Rumble and Kennen are naturals at doing this due to their ultimates having very high base damage and crowd control potential. They are also both manaless so they are ALWAYS a threat. They usually fall off late game however as the enemy team gets Magic Resist and round out their builds, unless they are fed. They aren't quite as big Lane Bullies as Renekton mentioned above, but they can certainly abuse those who have a poor early game to the extreme, such as the Juggernauts. There are some Tanks that can do this, such as Zac, but most I usually wouldnt recommend this since they usually are less of a bully early game.
Masteries here focus on 21/9/0 to properly abuse the early game (Tanks go 9/21/0) and runes usually focus on magic penetraton, armor, and magic resist.
/ 
Objective Control- The Unseen and Unspoken Specialists of League
Although their PvP combat is limited, these guys are stupidly annoying to deal with early game and transition into objective kings come late game, still being annoying. Teemo and Nunu are exactly who I am talking about and, although Nunu isnt used Top often, he definitely is a forgiving starter if you want to be original. Teemo is the more meta pick here AND he is getting buffed next patch. Majority of champions that fall in this role also get a lot of crap from the community for how annoying they are, so be sure you can deal with the "NO SKILL CHAMP!" that will be coming your way, although you know that what you do takes planning and/or real focus.
Masteries here can vary a lot depending on the match up, but Nunu typically wants 0/21/9 or 0/9/21. Runes also vary, but Teemo usually wants CDR, movement speed, and attack speed, although magic penetration, ability power, and magic resist are also viable. Armor is also always good for seals.
play top lane master yi, people dont play against top lane yi much so they have a hard time dealing with him
