r/top_mains

I am a Plat guy, I have 50k on Jax, not so much, I am new to him.

The thing is, Jax has so many counters, HP tanks counter him, AP ranged picks counter him, most tanks counter him, AD bruisers that do not rely on AA counter him such as Garen, Renekton, Pantheon.

Recently, it's much more common in the meta to see APC's that don't even deal AA damage in botlane, so playing Jax against full AP comps feels strange.

Jax is strong early game, can have prio most of the time and he also scales very well. His Trinity powerspike feels hot. His lack of sustain in lane can be gotten rid of over time i guess. But I'm still not sure whether i should go for one trick, or keep him as a pocket pick for some easy matchups he has.

just the title

I'm a Gangplank otp, sometimes play Hwei. I queue up as mid/adc, and get top about as much as I get adc, but with double lp and enemy top is autofill and have no idea what he is doing 😎

Does anyone else feel like top lane has become completely fucking degenerate?

Diamond hardcore top laner here, and every single game is one of three things. There's barely any middle ground left.

1. I get the counterpick
Enemy first-picks, I lock in something that makes his lane completely unplayable. 20 minutes later he's 5k gold down, 40 CS behind, probably typing "top diff" in all chat while I'm just farming him. If my team's winning, great, I'm basically a free win condition. If my team's losing, I spend the rest of the game trying to keep the Titanic afloat with a spoon. Sometimes I actually pull it off. Once every 10 games, maybe.

2. I get counterpicked
Now I'm living in a horror movie. Enemy has 57 CS and 2 kills. I have 5 CS and a strong desire to alt+F4. Can't touch the wave, can't walk up, can't trade, if I breathe in the wrong direction I lose half my HP.

And then the jungler notices.

"Oh, this guy's already having a miserable time. Let's make sure he never gets to actually play the game." Gank. 30 seconds later, another gank. 30 seconds later: "hey bro, it's me again." Meanwhile my jungler's off farming his third camp and bot lane is happily hiding under tower. No counter-invade, no dive, no pressure anywhere else on the map. Nothing. I'm just sitting top getting slowly harvested for LP.

3. I blind pick something actually good
I lock Renekton, Ambessa, something that can reasonably blind into stuff. Enemy locks Vayne. Or Cassio. Or Vladimir. Or whatever ranged/AP abomination happens to be broken in top lane this patch. And now I spend 20 minutes sweating my ass off just to go even. Against Vayne/Vladimir. Congratulations, BIG SUCCESS ! (They will wipe the floor with my team, I will murder one, maybe maximum two)

So, I switched to Support and honestly, the difference is fucking ridiculous. I roam, I ward, I fight around the map, I can actually make plays, influence other lanes. If my ADC is getting gapped I can just leave and go do something useful instead of being chained to a lane where I'm getting hard countered for 20 straight minutes. And most importantly — nobody is locking Vayne/Varus into me. I genuinely don't remember the last time League felt this chill.

So I don't think top lane itself became unplayable exactly. I think the bad top lane experience just doubled down. Get the counterpick, you completely shit on someone. Get counterpicked, you spend 20 minutes barely being allowed to exist. Blind pick, there's always some guy waiting to pull Vayne/Cassio/Vlad and turn your lane into a hostage situation.

So yeah. Maybe top lane isn't objectively worse in every stat. But the gap between "good game" and "most miserable experience imaginable" has gotten way, way bigger.

And after playing support for a while, I realized — I don't miss top lane. I miss being useful in top lane. I can still pick Sett against enemy Nautilius and make his life miserable or actually any other fighter. Support is no longer support if you know what I mean ! Support is nowadays Xerath support along with his Syndra APC on bot and both are in contest on who will be much more of abomination at the end of the game.

I play in master and with a sample size of 32,671 games he has a single hard counter, two unfavorable matchups and two skill matchups and thats it. Its probably the safest pick in toplane. He has the winrate of a lane bully earlygame and the one of a lategame scaling champion lategame. He is an excelent teamfighter aswell.

My champion pool is bad against him but as I said, there arent many good picks either. He can statcheck everything with only auto attacks. I dont think there is a single champion in the game who can fight him and not instantly lose lane. Not even Darius is able to be so dominant in lane and at least Darius requires matchup knowledge, Sett is genuinely just a braindead auto attacker.

W is undodgeable. Lets be real, in a 1v1 or 1v2 his W is undodgeable. His ult has the highest priority in the game while being point and click, and it slows for 99% so its basically a stun. If thats not enough he has his E. As a melee champion (99% of toplane) its not possible to dodge it, and he does not need to use E in order to win a trade because his passive gives him free 40% attack speed from level 1 (I can share the link to the math).

My best pick against him is Yone, which is also my champion with the most mastery and I was an OTP for a long time so I know the matchup. Its insufferable. Every lane bully has a counterplay, Volibear can be spaced, Darius too, Renekton has a very clear trading pattern. There is nothing you can do against a Sett standing still. He deals too much damage with only AA and Q, he almost never needs W so he can just use it to trade and that shouldnt be possible. His cooldowns are not as high as people say and it doesnt matter because as I mentioned he does not need W to win trades. His ult is braindead, requires zero skill and for some reason it slows so its not possible to miss a fully charged W.

Is there any counterplay to that piece of shit or I just need to accept that they are overpowered zero skill champions out there?

https://preview.redd.it/4joz99mdakjh1.png?width=401&format=png&auto=webp&s=720e9f20b422a15a6ab339ec90332188487a7f75

https://preview.redd.it/6pihcp1eakjh1.png?width=554&format=png&auto=webp&s=87efa0712adb6a7e12039f124baed9fe49ec4cef

I used to play Galio mid some seasons ago, but I migrated from midlane to toplane in January. I never had the bravery to pick him toplane, but today I was against f*cking Malzahar top and 3 other AP in my promotion so I picked Galio. It was the best and funniest match I've ever played. It's probably because I was facing a mage and not a real toplaner, plus we had Nocturne, but I love Galio's game design.

Is Galio top a real thing? Any tips and tricks on matchups and builds?

Hi, I'm a Gold (with plat skill I believe) OTP Gwen.

I was looking for a champ who's:

- Bruiser

- Low skill floor high skill ceiling

- fun

- idc if it's not optimal for low Elo

- Possibly has scaling

Any suggestions about what should I play? I was thinking of Kayle or Darius

Hi everyone, I have returned to the game after 4/5 years out. I have a fair idea of the basics but all advice is welcome. I have started a fresh account but any links to good mastery set ups/ current champion tier list etc etc is all welcome. Thanks in advance

I was playing morde too against singed, and this really word interaction happened. He placed puddle behind him, then I ulted him so that I could kill him. He tossed me where the puddle was, and I got rooted. Has anyone else seen this?

Make a wall in top lane for the first 10 mins so no support or junglers can enter so we can 1v1 in peace without any bs

Ok I’m an Urgot one trick and am learning fiora whag champions can’t I beat with these two and who should I pick up to fix it?

I am currently diamond 4 and I plan to climb to master. I main Shen and Pantheon and my playstyle is aggressive pre 6 to get ahead, which is usually the case with those champions and then early-mid game perma invade with jungler and roaming midlane.

I had no issue with those two champions against almost all champions, since the win condition is not me solo carrying but getting a huge teamgold advantage early.

The only time I really struggle is either against literal toplane gods which just clap my cheeks, but I respect it and there will always be people that are better.

Or I struggle against perma push champions which do not let me roam. For example:

Heimer, rumble, anivia, singed ...

Also I have struggles in certain team comps when I just dont see our wincondition in the champ select and i feel like i need to play a champion that can carry.

Any good advice for a third champion which I can counterpick for those enemies or scenarios?

I have 300k points on riven and play decent on her, maybe just cs-ing unter tower with her?

Edit: shen is my blindpick if I am blue side

I just got filled top, picked cho, enemy picked morde

He was just molesting me, 80cs up, 2 levels up. Couldnt do shit. Did the top gap matter?

No i just grouped and got some qs and got a free double lp

Is this lane really this low impact? Or did i just get lucky?

Advanced concepts like proxy farming aside of course. I’m mainly trying to understand when to slow push vs when to freeze. Trying to learn garen if that helps. If anyone knows or can link me to other posts or responses id appreciate it, thanks

He is now the most popular top laner in the game

I do think that his thematic is basically the thing missing from top lane. His "nowhere to hide" idea was what made him strong in mid lane because mid laners basically just camped under tower with waveclear and his immense sustain and poke and scaling forced them to interact or lose. This is also often how I feel playing top against opponents who just camp tower and since top is so far from everything you cant do anything else so you're just trapped in lane against a tower camper