League of Legends (LoL) Question: Top lane

Posted in General 12,833

Top lane

Asked by AbaddonSoulchain on April 10, 2018

I need help from a top lane main. Tips mostly, but some help in general.

Answers (2)

(33) |

Okay. So in top lane there are a few things to pay attention to.

1 - Minion Wave Management.
Minion wave management is extremely important in all lanes, but I personally think Top lane has the best setup for it due to it being a long, 1v1 lane. You should learn about lane freezing. The how's and when's. As well as ways to optimize your recall timing and things like the even/uneven minion rule.
Even/Uneven Minion Rule
Improve Recall Timing
How To Freeze

2 - Champion Preference.
When I say this, I'm referring to both your champions you prefer to play, as well as the types of champions you should play. If you intend to do well in top lane, you'll have to play some tanks. I would advise looking into tanks of both damage types who also have a lot of Crowd Control. Some examples would be , , and . It also helps to learn some very specific champions, such as for countering things like , or for zoning and lane presence if you have an AD mid and a tank jungler and support.
The reason you want to play CC heavy tanks is because it fulfills a role most don't play in other positions, as well as giving you a champion that can be behind but still useful. A who is 0/5/3 is a hell of a lot more useful than a who is 0/5/3, just due to the massive amount of CC in the champion's kit.

3 - Teleport vs other summoner spells.
You always want to take when you go top lane. By doing this you ensure that you have a way of mitigating loss to your Creep Score (CS), as well as a useful tool for turning around skirmishes quickly. If you're laning against someone who took , you may face problems in all-in fights, but if you're playing a tank like I mentioned above that won't matter in the long game. You'll be infinitely more useful to your team and be able to keep the enemies off of your carries, which is much more useful than just attempting to be a 3rd carry champion with less protection than the enemy carries. Remember, you are not useless as a CC heavy tank if you get behind. You are basically useless as a bruiser or low CC tank if you get behind.

If you want any more specific advice, I'll be happy to help as much as possible. Unfortunately unless you're specific, I can't be specific with the assistance. I hope this helps you. Good luck on the Rift.

(149) |

Tanks are always safer but people still end up playing glass cannon marksmen and mid laners for a reason. Going full tank top just because you won't be entirely useless if you fail is not a great mindset for solo queue I think. Gotta carry that ****. So get some damage. (Full tank is great for competitive team oriented play but for 1v5's, not so much)

(33) |

The ONLY time playing a carry champion top lane is a good idea is if you've been in a higher ELO and then placed lower than the tier you play in. Then you can usually get away with playing a carry champion until your games get harder.

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(35) |

What exactly do you think classifies as a 'carry top laner'? Anything that isn't a tank? Camille has been dominating top lane for several patches now. Vlad (scales like crazy) and Swain (virtually no losing matchups currently) are both great picks into tanks. Fiora, picked to counter Camille among other things, is an amazing split pusher and duelist who also scales like crazy. There's also GP, but yeah, don't be that guy.

The thing is, it's impossible to pin it down like that, there's a lot of different kinds of top laners with different champion roles. It's wrong to tell lower elo players to not play carry (or just non-tank) top laners simply because they're not as easy to get into (not necessarily difficult to play, their kits involve unique mechanics that take some getting used to: e.g. Fiora, Irelia). It's fine to pick tanks if you're not confident in your ability to outplay and carry or you simply struggle with some lane matchups, but that's generally not the advisable mindset for low elo solo queue.

(149) |

I'm not voting for Vayne top, what I'm trying to say is: stuff like Fiora, Gnar, Gangplank is also fine, and champs like that are arguably better at dealing with stuff by themselves.

(35) |

Yeah except that full tank Sion, Ornn, Maokai etc. can 1v5 just as effectively :^)

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(149) |

I mean, it's pretty disgusting atm but a full tank Mao isn't really the epitome of snowballing right? I agree with Sion and Ornn though.

(33) |

I guarantee you if you say this to any top lane main in higher ELO they're going to laugh at you. SRO especially. This is precisely the advice he gives when people ask about climbing as a top laner.

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(149) |

Like I said, tanks are invaluable in competitive team oriented play. But in bronze/silver I think it's better to be able to take matters in own hands instead of focusing on disruption and engage and then end up watching your team play cards until you're dead.

I know nothing about high elo or streamers or whatever. Who is SRO? Search turns up SoloRenektonOnly, latest video is about Vi top. Full tank indeed.

(33) |

YEah. On his troll build account, which is around gold-plat. When he plays on his main, grinding to challenger from high diamond, he plays tanks. Cho'Gath, Poppy, etc. He doesn't have to play seriously in gold ELO.

(16) |

Meh, I don't know. I've checked all that you mentioned in the past, multiple times, I can't get them to work. I don't usually play top lane anymore but now I'm just so terrible at it, I recently played 2 games in top lane and they both went horribly wrong. I understand these things in theory, but I can't make them work in practice. All in all, my top lane is so ****py, after those last 2 games, I'd ban my own account if I could. It was that bad.

(33) |

Why don't you try practicing your wave management in a custom game or the practice tool? Just go into one, put yourself against a champion AI that would normally play top lane. They'll go bot, but the lanes are almost mirrored. Go bot lane and practice your last hitting, as well as your wave management. The AI will harass you at weird times, but that will allow for you to practice last hitting under pressure. You can harass the AI back as well, but you want to be sure not to kill them. Also, if you push the AI into recalling, you can practice managing your recall timing.

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(16) |

Oh well, you're not wrong. Laning against an AI opponent isn't the same as laning against an unpredictable human player but it's better than getting my arse kicked in normal games, then falling behind 40 cs or 3 levels and not knowing what I did wrong. Still, I wish I could go back to those replays and see what I did wrong but that doesn't come easily.

(33) |

Another thing you can do is ask a friend to lane against you in a custom game. Especially if they main the lane you want to practice. Then you can get actual experience laning against someone who mains the role and they can point out what you're doing wrong and help you improve. It is also helpful if the friend you ask is a higher rank than yourself.

(16) |

I don't have a huge number of contacts in this game. I don't think anyone I do have is a top lane main. I'll stick to practice tool for now, it is the reason it was created, after all.

(33) |

Either way I wish you luck on improving.

(16) |

Thanks for your help and time.

Speaking from experience, I can tell you right now that the only thing you can TRULY do to get better is just keep practicing. Play in normal drafts and queue for top lane. Try counterpicking the enemy team if you're able to. Otherwise, just play who you want to play (who is a top laner). For myself, I main top and jungle, and if I play any other role, I will probably lose. It's for one simple reason: I am not experienced in those roles. Everyone is a noob at some point; don't be discouraged. Practice and time is all it takes. Last hitting, for example, just takes some getting used to. It's incredibly hard to master and I sure have trouble with it. You just need to get a feel for a minion's health bar and the amount of damage they take from your minions, and also look at how much damage you will be doing to that minion. Let's say my attack amount is 70, then to basic attack and get the last hit on a minion, I'm going to need to wait for the health bar to get incredibly low (like 1% hp low). Other things that come with experience are managing your experience and when to all-in fight. If you're up in CS/XP than your opponent in lane and hit level 2 first, you have a great advantage and your minions are almost guaranteed to push. With that knowledge, you can decide when to all-in engage the enemy and go for the kill. There are numerous small things such as that in which your gameplay will change according to the lane. This is why I cannot stress enough that time and practice in normal drafts is the best way to get better at top lane. Yeah you'll have some bad games, we all do. Just keep at it. And maybe you'll find a champion you really click with and that will help your journey in mastering top lane. Good luck and have fun :)

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