Duo Top

[quote=rudyards]Duo Tops are really common at lower levels before the Meta becomes concrete. But they do have the downside of splitting XP and Gold amongst two people, as well as giving up the Jungle resource, which doesn't outweigh their chance of snowball. Or does it? I think that you could use the top lane as a second ADC/support lane, in order to gain a large advantage in the late game. If you did so, there would be a few specifics that the entire team would have to fit. [list] [*] Diver/Roamer mid, preferably one with high amounts of Magic damage (in order to force your opponent to diversify their defenses). Someone like Twisted Fate could work. [*] One of the ADCs should be a strong endgame carry, where the other one (the one you send into a 2v1 lane) should be one with a strong early and mid game, as well as strong lane pushing potential. Kog'Maw and Caitlyn would work, especially due to Kog'Maw's high mixed damage making just building Armor nto as helpful. [*] One of the supports has to be tanky, and preferably a good initiator. Thresh or Allistar would both be viable choices. [*] The other support should be an aggressive one, with decent peel. Lulu would work, and would have the added benefit of being good in a hyper shove 2v1 lane. [/list] The major cons that remain are lack of control over buffs and Dragon/Baron (which is huge, and I haven't really thought of a fix yet) and lack of utilizing the Jungle research in general. Any thoughts on this?[/quote]

[quote=luizdeh]Honestly, making something like that work would be incredibly hard. Low level games are chaotic to say the least. Level 4 people screaming at you because you stole their kill, you didn't help them when they bolted toward the other team 1v3 and you just backed off because you're not stupid and shit like that. TONS of other derpage examples. What I get out of these games is just practice. Right now I'm letting everybody get their pick and then pick what is lacking. And that isn't even a role, I just pick AP or AD. Because there is no Support role in these games. Basically, you got 2 duo (kill) lanes and a mid (farm) lane. No Supporting involved whatsoever. I've played games where my team had [[Akali]], [[Master Yi]], [[Graves]] and [[Ashe]]. WTF was I supposed to pick? I went [[Singed]], built tank and Flinged the shit out of everybody and tanked pretty much everyone. Just an example. TL;DR: trying to find a pattern/order for low level games is time wasted. Use them for practicing champions.[/quote]

[quote=DillButt64][quote=rudyards] Duo Tops are really common at lower levels before the Meta becomes concrete. But they do have the downside of splitting XP and Gold amongst two people, as well as giving up the Jungle resource, which doesn't outweigh their chance of snowball. Or does it? I think that you could use the top lane as a second ADC/support lane, in order to gain a large advantage in the late game. If you did so, there would be a few specifics that the entire team would have to fit. [list] [*] Diver/Roamer mid, preferably one with high amounts of Magic damage (in order to force your opponent to diversify their defenses). Someone like Twisted Fate could work. [*] One of the ADCs should be a strong endgame carry, where the other one (the one you send into a 2v1 lane) should be one with a strong early and mid game, as well as strong lane pushing potential. Kog'Maw and Caitlyn would work, especially due to Kog'Maw's high mixed damage making just building Armor nto as helpful. [*] One of the supports has to be tanky, and preferably a good initiator. Thresh or Allistar would both be viable choices. [*] The other support should be an aggressive one, with decent peel. Lulu would work, and would have the added benefit of being good in a hyper shove 2v1 lane. [/list] The major cons that remain are lack of control over buffs and Dragon/Baron (which is huge, and I haven't really thought of a fix yet) and lack of utilizing the Jungle research in general. Any thoughts on this? [/quote] no offense but this is a terrible idea, your team would be pure squish even with a tanky support with an initiation, yes youll have high damage from 2 adcs but thats also two people you have to peel for and protect late game (not including your apc so thats three people you have to peel for) so you have 3 people to peel for and only 2-1 people to peel for them[/quote]

[quote=tehAsian]The closest thing to duo top I've seen is: Jungler gets a super fast leash at blue. Jungler takes red and hits level 3 when enemy top laner is 1. Jungler lvl 3 ganks top lane, getting first blood AND keeping the enemy top laner at 1. Jungler and top laner shove down the turret and deny exp from enemy top laner until they down 1 or 2 turrets. In extreme cases, you can possibly take down an inhib. This method doesn't lose dragon control because very few champions can solo the dragon pre-10 minutes. It also gives your jungler a big exp boost, and your top laner can come down for a very early drag. Also, your top laner can apply huge pressure to mid and bot and eventually snowball the game into a really early surrender. Relatively speaking, your top laner actually comes out ahead because he isn't denied tons of creeps while the enemy top laner has literally nothing for the first 5+ minutes.[/quote]

[quote=rudyards][quote=luizdeh] TL;DR: trying to find a pattern/order for low level games is time wasted. Use them for practicing champions. [/quote] I wasn't saying [b]for[/b] low level games, I was drawing inspiration [b]from[/b] those games. But I agree with you on all accounts. [quote=DillButt64] no offense but this is a terrible idea, your team would be pure squish even with a tanky support with an initiation, yes youll have high damage from 2 adcs but thats also two people you have to peel for and protect late game (not including your apc so thats three people you have to peel for) so you have 3 people to peel for and only 2-1 people to peel for them [/quote] No offense taken. The point you have is a valid one. It is a hugely squishy team, especially considering the current style of play which is heavily focused on Divers. It's definitely not something you could impromptu do in Solo Queue, but it might work in 5v5 teams. Still, just theory crafting. [quote = tehAsian] The closest thing to duo top I've seen is: Jungler gets a super fast leash at blue. Jungler takes red and hits level 3 when enemy top laner is 1. Jungler lvl 3 ganks top lane, getting first blood AND keeping the enemy top laner at 1. Jungler and top laner shove down the turret and deny exp from enemy top laner until they down 1 or 2 turrets. In extreme cases, you can possibly take down an inhib. This method doesn't lose dragon control because very few champions can solo the dragon pre-10 minutes. It also gives your jungler a big exp boost, and your top laner can come down for a very early drag. Also, your top laner can apply huge pressure to mid and bot and eventually snowball the game into a really early surrender. Relatively speaking, your top laner actually comes out ahead because he isn't denied tons of creeps while the enemy top laner has literally nothing for the first 5+ minutes. [/quote] This seems much better than what I had planned, especially for Duo Queue purposes. I honestly think this would be a better way of doing it, especially with a snowbally top (like Akali) and a tankier/CC heavy jungler to act as the support/adc that this comp is going for.[/quote]

[quote=sirell]It's reliant on the level 3 gank actually being successful. If the gank and the toplane pressure gets stalled out, your jungler will lose the initiative and might even get counter-jungled or allow enemy lanes to notice your strategy and play more aggressively in botlane or even midlane. It's a play that's not uncommon in pro level tournaments, but it's not necessarily better overall.[/quote]

[quote=rudyards]That makes sense. So flexibility would be important if you built a teamcomp for that, as a falllback?[/quote]

[quote=IAmByakuya][quote=tehAsian] The closest thing to duo top I've seen is: Jungler gets a super fast leash at blue. Jungler takes red and hits level 3 when enemy top laner is 1. Jungler lvl 3 ganks top lane, getting first blood AND keeping the enemy top laner at 1. Jungler and top laner shove down the turret and deny exp from enemy top laner until they down 1 or 2 turrets. In extreme cases, you can possibly take down an inhib. This method doesn't lose dragon control because very few champions can solo the dragon pre-10 minutes. It also gives your jungler a big exp boost, and your top laner can come down for a very early drag. Also, your top laner can apply huge pressure to mid and bot and eventually snowball the game into a really early surrender. Relatively speaking, your top laner actually comes out ahead because he isn't denied tons of creeps while the enemy top laner has literally nothing for the first 5+ minutes. [/quote] This[/quote]

[quote=DuffTime][quote=rudyards] I think that you could use the top lane as a second ADC/support lane, in order to gain a large advantage in the late game. If you did so, there would be a few specifics that the entire team would have to fit. [/quote] I've suggested the idea before as well, except I don't actually believe that double ADC is as good as most do late game. That being said I still imagine that you could run this comp with two very tanky supports like taric/leona. It would help to have something like a Diana mid as well. They would frontline then for your team and your ADC champs would go HAM. Also, ideally you'd have one "Right click" ADC and one who is less oriented towards it. An example might be Twitch / MF. You'd run MF in the bot lane and Twitch in the top, either support would probably work in either lane. You can also take Nunu top to counter enemy golems or blue buff on spawn if you'd like to try to create extra advantage via invading. Anyway, long story short, the idea might be viable and you're not the only one thinking it ;][/quote]

[quote=rudyards]Yeah, I just need to try it out a bit, and play around. It's not something that you can purely theory craft, I think.[/quote]