r/top_mains

Top lane players who spend all game complaining about ranged top laners act like the entire map is supposed to revolve around their personal dueling fantasy. The second someone locks in a ranged champion, they behave like Riot has committed a crime against humanity instead of simply forcing them to adapt. They want to cosplay as noble warriors in their isolated island lane, then lose their minds when the matchup isn’t a handshaking melee slugfest on their terms.
What makes it especially funny is the sheer main character syndrome behind it. These players act like their lane experience is sacred, as if everyone else in the game should respect their unwritten rules about “real top lane.” Meanwhile, bot lane deals with poke, jungle gets flamed by everyone, and mid has to survive ganks from every direction—but top laners getting auto-attacked a few times at level 1 suddenly turns into a dramatic speech about game design.
At the end of the day, ranged top laners are just another strategy, and acting like their existence is some personal attack is peak crybaby behavior. If your entire identity as a top laner falls apart because someone picked a champion with range, maybe the issue isn’t the pick—it’s the ego behind the complaint.

Hi everyone. I've been playing between platinum and emerald for a while now. I'm okay against platinum, but I get pretty crushed when I face emeralds. I'm playing top lane and I come across a smurf who dominates the entire lane. For example, if you realize the lane is weak and the enemy top laner knows how to play, how do you deal with it? What I'm trying to say is guy freezes the lane in every situation. Even if I tried freezing he going to proxy and dont kill 3-4 CS and make other wave 10-11 CS and freeze again 😂😂 This annoys me I have nothing to do.

I’m looking to start a new chapter in my League life, this time in top lane. I want to find one champ to OTP, and I’m currently thinking about Olaf or Vladimir.

Which one do you guys think would be better overall?

Thanks!

Why hasnt this cancer been nerfed?

I went and counted how many champion changes and system changes each role got.
Here are the results:

Toplane champions: 36 changes
Toplane systems: 2

Jungle champions: 56
Jungle systems: 0

Midlane champions: 38
Midlane systems : 3

Adc champions:19
Adc systems: 0

Support champions:16
Support systems: 12

All other systems:42

At first glance it doesn't seem that bad. But digging a bit deeper reveals another story.

The toplane roster is the biggest out of any other role roughly tied with mid ,with around 60 champions . Compared to adcs(23), junglers(around 53),mid(around 60) and support(around 42). It's obvious that the roles with more champions should, and would get more changes.

Now let's see which champions in top actually got changed, since a lot of these changes were back to back nerfs or buffs.

All the actual champions in top that got any change would be Quinn,Yone,Voli,Heimer,Teemo,Varus,Trundle,Riven,Jayce,Ambessa,Kennen,Kayle,Illaoi,Rumble,Gwen,Garen,Cassio,Olaf,Ornn,Tahm,ww,Gragas,Wukong,Singed.

Out of 200% pickrate (since there are 2 toplaners per game), those champions,in the last patch, occupy about 70% of it. In other words ,each team has 35% chance that their toplaner has received balance changes the last 4 months.

Still doesn't seem that bad, but let's dig even deeper. Which of these changes were actually meaningful?

Without going into too much detail, the only changes that actually did anything for the champions were quinn,yone,voli,ambessa,kennen,kayle,gwen,camile, garen,cassio,olaf,ornn and wukong , with teemo and heimer both getting nothing changes but also being in the next patch. The rest were either neutral power shifts, like tahm, or placebo nerfs/buffs that barely moved them in wr and ranking.

I will also mention a target nerf to anivia top recently , although she is not a designated toplaner

12 champions that got meaningful changes in the last 4 months is horrible and is indicative of a stale lane. Do the devs seriously think that toplane is in a fine spot right now? With how many people complaining how ranged top has taken over toplane and specific champions having a huge number of complaints against them for months(shen,garen) i can't see how this is the case.

Even empirically i can tell you that all roles have gone through meta shifts except top. Jng meta has changed like 5 times in the last 4 months, mid meta changed with the pro-oriented patches, adc has transitioned from early to midgame adcs like yunara to late game hypercarries like jinx or smolder. Supports are now getting changes to move them to a tank engage support meta rather than enchanter. Top is literally the same all these months.

A lot of content creators have even moved on from top to other roles. Naayil,AloisNL, Viper husum,NoArmWhatley all have either completely moved away from top or have taken a short break from it.

I will literally start believing that riot has no one in the balance team that actually plays top consistently if nothing changes in 16.12

This post is not made to compare toplane to other lanes, but to outline how little love toplane has gotten. To be honest i think mid should also get some meta changes but i mainly care about top

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Now some notes:

I only counted a change as a "x role" champion change if it actually impacted that role,not just because that champion is played in that role. For example just because mundo got a Q jungle mod nerf, and mundo is mainly a toplaner ,doesn't mean that i counted it as a toplaner change, in this case i counted it only as a jungle champion change.

16.11 is next patch, but the patch notes are on spideraxe's twitter

The "All other systems" were basically all the non role-tied item changes, minion changes, rune changes,grubs etc. Basically everything that impacted all roles. While stuff like role quests changes , or items tied to a specific role (upgraded boots, support items) are in their perspective role changes.

I decided to use the lol wiki for what champions i consider toplaners,midlaners,supps etc with 1-2 personal exceptions like excluding mel support and rengar top.

Pick rate data was taken from 16.10 from lolalytics.

I only double checked toplane changes, i might have miscounted a bit on other roles or system changes

I did 8 patches because it's a 4 month patch cycle, if you go to 16.2 , 16.1 and before data is even worse, with toplaners getting proportionally even less attention.

Junglers did get the most changes but they also got the most "nothing burger" changes, stuff like fizz , maokai and brand jungle mods that did nothing to them yet still contribute to the count.

That's all, thanks for reading and tell me if you think toplane is actually stale or is fine how it is right now.

I'm a Yorick Letha enjoyer

AND a Thresh top enjoyer

Im currently trying to find an AD champ to play.. im playing Ornn, Gragas.. so i have 1 tank 1 ap champ but i want to have a backup ad champ.. i was thinking Kled but he just sucks balls late game.. Could Jax be the answer? Strong splitpush, fights, lategame..

I'm used to hard carrying games just by getting a huge lead in lane by killing enemy over and over. But as I get to higher ranks, people play more safe and it just becomes a farm fest, How do I get a lead in these situations? Do i just shove hard, proxy and try to gank mid/jungle?

Hey guys, I mainly play Dr. Mundo and Kayle.

Right now I usually blind pick Mundo and it works fine because I’m still in lower elo, but I’m starting to think that as I climb, blind picking Mundo might become a bad idea.

My current thought process is:

Have a safer blind pick champion. Then, if I get last pick, choose between Mundo or Kayle depending on matchup/team comps

What do you guys think? Would you recommend just ignoring that and blind picking Mundo anyway if he’s my best champ, or should I look for a third champion specifically as a blind pick? And if so, what top lane champs would you recommend that fit well with a Mundo/Kayle pool?

Thank you!

I understand top lane wave control in theory: player A gets prio, player B plays safe, the wave crashes into B’s tower, then it rebounds. If A stays for the rebound (with TP for example), B can often hit level 4 first because the player pushing the wave gets the XP lead, same way you hit level 2/3 first when you have prio. Then B crashes, and it repeats.

But on very weak early champs like Mundo, even with a temporary level advantage you usually can’t kill. In low elo I often see player A permanently pushing into weak early champs instead of letting the rebound come back to their side and punishing the overextension. Isn’t that technically a mistake by player A, since it gives free scaling to weak early champs?

And in high elo, where player A actually does let the rebound come back and punishes correctly, how are weak early champs supposed to survive/play around that?

why do we have 3 tiamat items? nobody builds hydra items cause stridebreaker is an uninteractive “do-it-all” item with weak stats. it’s only good cause the active helps champs like Darius and Sett with mobility

frozen mallet has a much clearer identity which helps immobile melee tops STICK on the opponent. its dumb how seryldas is the only item with a slow attack passive