Why Top Lane Feels Useless... And Why It Isn't! (League of Legends)

[@affect9748]

Haven't seen the video, but I have the answer as former toplaner: No matter how you feed/carry, your botlane feeds double the amount ^_^

[@frankieyuen9363]

This is so true it hurts doesnt matter if you’re a 5/0 tank 14/1 vayne going to 3 shot you

[@VarsVerum]

The pain of coinflip season Q_Q

[@gabrieldossantos1116]

Dude, i'd just lost a game where I was 6/0 before 15 min. I was just there solo killing the enemy top laner when a 15/2 Vayne came and delt almost 2100 true damage on me. Note: both of her deaths where from my tp's on bot lmao

[@TheDarkLordSemorach]

I must say it is pretty opposite for me, no matter how i try on not, my top goes 0/11/0 or something similar

[@affect9748]

@@TheDarkLordSemorach True story, the issue is that on Top you die 1-2 times (due to gank, 1-2 bad trades or smth else) and pretty much you can't play the game and then you are useless after lane phase as well. So I would say Top snowballs easier, but Bot snowballs harder, IMO

[@agureiodle2690]

its the worst when you have good set up and jungler ignores you for 15 mins

[@plutox7]

You mean the whole game😂

[@kaijicabrera7609]

As a jungled I really like ganking top, a lot of top lane champions are really immobile

[@yareyaredaz3522]

Yeah because there are far more important things to do on the map than gank top. You know if you leave bot lane alone for 1 minute they will feed 10.deaths and five 2 dragons

[@wockyslush4859]

Freezes lane right at tower for 65 waves

[@TheZectorian]

You see, play teemo and take the lane into your own hands!!!!

[@jamesedwardlabonete6359]

"-Out of the 5 roles" River: am I a joke to you?

[@nahyankamale9989]

River is not a role, its a lifestyle, a philosophy, a thing that gives true meaning to league of legends. and yet no one plays it, may its better that way since shen is the only true river, shen.

[@jamesedwardlabonete6359]

@@nahyankamale9989 there are also river champions following shen's footsteps but not quite there yet, like pyke, nunu, and hecarim

[@nahyankamale9989]

@@jamesedwardlabonete6359 there will may be a succesor but nobody can match the great and powerful river shen

[@Wikant18]

@@jamesedwardlabonete6359 also river bard and river tahm

[@katamas832]

River Shen

[@Ĺm3j]

"Hows it going up there?" "Its all good" *2000 nasus stacks*

[@skelet8337]

I feel like top lane is a whole different game i played a game against nasus even when behind he got 200 stacks in 20 minutes against me I swaped lanes with my adc to give her solo exp bcs nasus is pretty safe for adc and 10 minute later he was 800 keep nasus from stacking is an art

[@alkeemist007]

@@skelet8337 Nasus in the mid and lategame is designed to 1v1 adcs. If you're in range of his w as pretty much any marksman other than Vayne the dog will run you down under tower.

[@joecrawford306]

Toplane is a ticking time bomb that exerts pressure by stressing the rest of the team out

[@Fushur7]

@@skelet8337 the Problem in this is in my opinion, while most "good" Top and Mid laners fight for their farm, trade and try to zone, most Adc good and bad tend to leave the trading or zoning to their support, since walking up to punish the enemy adc for taking farm often means giving their support the chance to engage. This leads to them not punishing the top laners farming even though it would be relatively easy for them with their range.

[@dampintellect]

Top lane is just a 25 minute game of rock paper scissor in disguise.

[@riftsplitter2159]

yea there was a time i was first pick so i locked in darius and i ended up fighting an 2mil mastery azir top....needless to say i was virtually useless from beginning to end

[@stormdragon2529]

@@riftsplitter2159 well, top is the counterpick role in the end. you either play melee vs ranged and do nothing the first 15 minutes unless you have mobility and the jungler. or you play melee vs melee and the best player wins,( if the jungler dosent gank ofc)

[@caetanoba1]

But Tanks only use rock

[@skelet8337]

@@stormdragon2529 but when you get first blood the entire enemy team gets terrified and be ready to be camped by there mid and jg for 10 minutes at least

[@minimoYT]

@@riftsplitter2159 To be fair if the guy has 2 million mastery with Azir he probably went through way worse shit

[@lavaguava2648]

therapist: dont worry. land shark nidalee doesnt exist it cant hurt you land shark nidalee: 7:25

[@atramarokis]

I was looking for this comment😂

[@reburg9374]

Top is definitely my favorite lane because no one expects the full crit ivern to carry

[@panlis6243]

Alpha top laner, I see

[@davute9546]

Absolute alpha

[@serskaye1936]

Your build is disgusting, I hope you keep using it. You know what they say: ´´I speak for the trees, and they say: Get fu****!´´

[@killitarsmile4272]

Noone expects me to play Rell top. Noone expects me to solo carry. And I never do.

[@kald5092]

Everyone laughs and says toplane has no impact until the 7/0 aatrox comes down and gets a quadrakill

[@rafaelcastor2089]

Unless someone is running ignite or if the toplaner rushes armor boots and either bramble vest or oblivion orb with seeker's armguard.

[@Azazreal]

@@rafaelcastor2089 Which means you have forced the enemy top laner to build to counter you specifically. That potentially weakens them in general team fights over solo duels. Thats still a net positive.

[@rafaelcastor2089]

@@Azazreal Yeah, sure... 800g for a freelane will definetely break their legs and make them useless.

[@catrielmarignaclionti4518]

@@rafaelcastor2089 for that fight? yeah, your ap midlaner o mage support can totally capitalize on that, shifting the pressure of aatrox into ap mage.

[@crashchampout]

@@Azazreal a net positive? 800g to make a champs job unplayable

[@zoroark522]

Top is the most susceptible to being abused by specific champions who were buffed with no regard for top lane. Things like Vayne, Lucian, Neeko, etc... work top lane because of how abusive and overbearing they are in the laning phase, which is used to scale to win late as well. These types of picks force the jungle to come top lane, which pulls agro away from the "important" lanes because if left alone they will 1v9. The top lane abuse champions like Quinn and Teemo may win early game, but their goal is to just set you behind instead of getting ahead themselves, where their kits are built to win early, but lose if they make it to late. This is my main issue with top lane, because these ranged abuse champions can easily win lane to the point where if done well you could have a CS difference of 50-60 at 12 minutes, but they can also take this lead and hard carry like a normal ADC with no fall off like old ranged top lane champions. This paired with how important being second pick is, makes the lane incredibly unfun for 90% of the games. Picking a champion you enjoy top lane will result in not having fun because some guy worse than you can pick a flat out better champion and just easily win. You pick a melee champion you enjoy 3 games in a row as first pick and get met with a Vayne or ranged abuse every game. You are fed up so you pick Vayne first pick and the enemy picks Camille, Jax, etc... and just instantly rails you with no counterplay because it only works if you are second pick.

[@alexllenas4607]

Yes, exactly this is what ruins top lane, the counter pick meta, the other lanes have a plan B if they get hard counter, mid can roam and be a 2nd jg, jg can path in a way that never face the enemy and bot is a 2v2 so adc an sup can complement each other, but top is a 1v1 on the longest lane, if you get hard counter the enemy will dive you or simply freeze the wave to deny you 30+ minions on first back.

[@Hclody95]

toplane is decided in champ select, whoever first picks is gonna be disadvantaged. also yeah the lucian vayne top picks are painful if your jgl decides to not punish them. if opponent jgl camps you, you gonna be useless for 90% of the game. so many things can go wrong in toplane

[@Jack-op8bb]

Exactly, almost all champs in the top lane has unplayable matchups. Example, Quinn is good against Renekton but gets shit on by Irelia. I play illaoi a lot and I basically get a free lane against Shen/Maokai and I auto lose against Teemo/Tryn. Mid lane is not like this because the lane is short, also mid lane has many well rounded champs like Oriana and TF. Yes, there are hard matchups in mid but all the matchups are playable, try play Garen against Vayne in top lane, it's just pure pain and suffer.

[@zoroark522]

@@Jack-op8bb The only issue with mid is there are some champions so far above the rest like Fizz and Yone, that literally every matchup is a winning matchup for them. For some reason Riot don't nerf some of these champions, or intentionally buff one for a new skin like Evelynn and her KDA release, or Akali and her new skins, etc...

[@Jack-op8bb]

@@zoroark522 I would say Kass and Galio are two counters for Fizz, but I agree with you on Yone.

[@benedicto_4206]

“Top lane is a useless role, and has no impact” Me: *taking the inhibitor at 15 mins because no one responds to my push

[@turtlesad5450]

*yorick intensifies

[@d4s0n282]

@@turtlesad5450 urgot intensifies

[@oceanman7336]

Happy Trundle noises

[@TheBeastkinKid]

@@oceanman7336 Why's the Shen there??????

[@idirbouchdoug1567]

i relate to this as a yorick main

[@icepumpkin4484]

Well you don’t have to be usless, you can be the punching bag of the entire enemy team.

[@tristonho451]

"You can play Ornn! Don't you wanna play Ornn? It's so fun!"

[@denislesha6748]

@@tristonho451 i love sounding the horn

[@ma-cg1il]

@@tristonho451 now I wanna to play orn

[@tristonho451]

@@ma-cg1il Do it man! Join the punching bag club!

[@skelet8337]

When every game in champ select ppl tell you to go tank or they dodge :( at least is fun to be chonky with cho gath

[@jasiuo6794]

I really love this take. I am a toplane main playing Riven and Fiora as well as tankier picks such as Ornn and Cho. I hate it when other toplaners simply state that "well too bad botlane got solokilled twice toplane no impact." In reality, you can make half of the map your kingdom. All it takes is strong fundamentals and patience, and you can force other people to ignore the "high potential lanes" such as botlane and mid just to stop you from farming a lane, a champion and a jungle at the same time.

[@poggers4392]

"Riven and fiora" thats all you had to say to lose all my respect for you

[@RomanTheNotARoman]

Ah I see, when the Shaco was ganking top 15 times over when I was overextending, I wasn't inting, I was absorbing pressure for my teammates! :)

[@throwawayemail6269]

So essentially top lane's purpose is to be a big ol' problem. Make it so they can't execute their plans as desired, and let your team do better under the reduced pressure while they stop you.

[@irasac1]

Exactly

[@_Azurael_]

This Fire Emblem Three Houses ost's in the background... I love that game

[@obseed3041]

I play support most of the time and sometimes I just wanna leave bot and support the toplaner because the adc doesn't know how to take a hint and still chases off the enemy even though the jungler is visibly waiting by the bush in the river, the enemy adc and support are at full health all the while he's half his health and just used his flash trying to avoid a fucking minion. And he would have the audacity to tell me I'm a shit support because I didn't protect him when I literally used all my abilities to give him time to escape but all he does is panic and auto attack at the minion in the back.

[@Fushur7]

can relat, and at least most top laners understand wave control, try to bring a 0/4 adc to not push hard and overextend, it's sheer impossible

[@ziggyberts]

Tbh i just love top lane because most of the time it's just me against another player punching the shit out of each other lmaoo almost no interruptions. Also the fact that most of the split pushers are up there, watching the enemy team gank up on you because they know you're a threat giving your team advantage on their respecting lanes is so satisfying

[@skelet8337]

And then your team doing nothing with it bcs they look at you doing 1v4 not taking drake :'(

[@yuumiyuki]

In summary How other roles carry: YEET How top lane carries: YOINK

[@chopblocker89]

What in the world is that Nidalee @07:26 LOL

[@josephtebay]

She be swimming 🏊🏽‍♂️

[@batataambulante1378]

she be literally diving tho

[@SomeKata]

I'm just an old player, but understandably, these roles have existed before League of Legends itself. In wc3, you actually had a playercap of 6, meaning that there was even more meta strategies and default loadouts, but with 5 players(you could also start a game with 5), even in MOBA other than league of legends, 2 player botlane with ADC and support has always been a popular concept, and also even things like mage assassin at mid, and ranged toplaners to counter traditional toplaners, and even lane swapping, are all concepts that predate league itself by just under a decade. I bet league would love to come to try to own that experimentation stage it went through as if it already didn't happen in the MOBA community, but it did XD and most of the conclusions 'found by league' aren't any different than what was originally proposed by the wc3 community. League sort of has a negative reputation in this regard by the moba community as a game more for braindead players because the community struggles to understand the game while enjoying it so much, it's beautiful visuals and Apple-like simple but consumerist design makes it sort of distasteful how even pros of the game can lack seemingly basic strategic information, but compensate with skill, that was a new concept for moba more than anything. The obsession with Mid Lane Fame is also clearly from a large misunderstanding of the game in general, basically, someone with the least information is going to obviously assume the flashy person in the middle of the map is possibly the most important. mostly though, what I would highlight about league is that you get these versions of 'half strategies' much more commonly, like ADC junglers. In wc3, the planning stage was literally for deciding where to put your ADC, the idea botlane was set in stone was insanely strategically lazy, and so strats exist for example to have your ADC instead mid, top, or even jungle and safely farm camps instead of being at risk in lane. This was insanely popular in wc3 to use ADC junglers(with like a sup, like lux, mid), and it's popular in League also, Graves is one of the single most popular champions, however, this comes at the cost of understanding the strat itself, because in wc3, once your ADC goes into the jungle, it becomes viewed as inting to pick an ADC botlane....the entire idea should be to make a freeze, roam, or fight lane when you move your ADC to the jungle, not just have two ADC forehead....and so league has massively warped the entire strategic side of MOBA itself to cater to people that don't think it's appropriate to work together at creating a strategy before the game starts. The 'champ select' is the most basic version of planning to exist an any MOBA, and as a result, no one knows how to plan for the game and locks in 'predefined' roles without any understanding of their purpose, they never had to hash it out and plan ever once. Toplane isn't just a useless role, toplane is quite literally the leader of the team. This also transcends league and is factual in other MOBA, toplane is the leader because of the theme of role selection you describe. You typically will have fast paced mid lanes, and bot lanes, while top is slow noodle fights; the toplane gets the most XP and becomes the highest level the most often, in every MOBA. This concept is what makes their role the most important, and noodle champions aren't just the best in the toplane, but rather the the speed and style the role demands. As the leader of the team, you could view it as dying being bad, like losing your King in Chess, an ideal toplaner never actually concedes pressure is what defines them. The entire rest of the game is also model after toplane. The botlane itself literally only exists, because SOMEONE WILL WIN TOPLANE, and the only generally safe backup strategy for taking down the resulting raidboss is a ranged-auto-scaling champion to farm the entire game. This ADC is given a support to make the backup plan even more redundant, and then midlane meta is literally just to pick things that delete ADC so that enemies cannot have a backup plan, making the whole game actually an entire rock-paper-scissors stemming from topdiff itself. ADC players would love to believe their job is to kill everything and get Pentakills, however, their job is to kill one person, the enemy Top. Katarina for example does not need help killing ADC, Supports, Midlaners, or Junglers. She needs help killing toplaners, and that is why the ADC role exists.

[@skelet8337]

I mean no matter the situation is just logical that a chamo with very weak early game and strong late game should be placed in a duo lane or in a lane without much pressure like range vs melee or jg in lol jg adc dont work (except kindred )bcs they don't have the clear speed needed and most of the "innovation"stage of league was about the jg bcs like others moba they assumed you go jg but at the beginning the monster were so strong and without jg item it just wasn't worth so they went 2 1 2 in lanes ignoring jg as a whole for the rest it wasn't really innovation and haven't seen that is something ground breaking is like to say that putting a tanky unit infront of 1 with high damage and low hp is something every game innovates This isnt meant as a hate comment or anything of that sort

[@krosrodes4829]

Dwelling of the Ancient Gods in the background? Vars is secretly a Fire Emblem player.

[@HighLanderPonyYT]

2:46 The breakdown feels more like: Me: 95% Rest of my team: 105% Opposing team: 0%

[@alexandregehin8665]

3:43 most of us are very low elo. The less we see the enemy jungler, the more we forget he exists

[@jonasmalmanger9351]

fire emblem 3 houses music? sick!!! love that game and your channel

[@jy61]

Your reasoning as to what top is supposed to do is accurate and something too often overlooked, but the fact that the game plan is too inconsistent (requires you to not be counterpicked unless you're smurfing/just way better than anyone in the game; is very dynamic and hard to learn) does make the role inherently weaker. The other roles have a very simple game plan to create impact, which means less time spent thinking about that and more time doing other things. On top of that, champions like Vayne undermine the "powerful individual" champion feel of champs like Jax, Fiora, and Tryn. It's not just her either, champions like Kassadin, Karthus, and Yi outstrip even the best scaling tops and champs like Tahm can simply stop them in their tracks. Top lane is absolutely the weakest role and has been for some time. It doesn't have literally no impact of course, but it's both the highest difficulty and probably 2nd lowest overall reward for bothering to do so.

[@VarsVerum]

Oh I agree. Despite making this video, I still think it’s JG diff for the past 3 years

[@skelet8337]

@@VarsVerum the problem is you rely on the enemy jg coming to take pressure and that isnt something that happens very often

[@baptistecochennec5956]

@@skelet8337 if the jng don't come just hit the nexus

[@skelet8337]

@@baptistecochennec5956 unless you are super ahead your opponent can stop your split push some if you aren't playing (trynda bcs f towers)

[@baptistecochennec5956]

@@skelet8337 most toplaner can solo dive after a few kill, u can also freeze to force the laner to came and kill him or he don't have cs and if you have first tower just push and take jng or roam

[@ShaingTV]

As a toplane main i dont like the points here and heres why: The argument made here is basicly that in toplane you can aliviate pressure for your team, more so then in the other 3 roles. That is nice and all but basicly only means to take the cheeziest and most obnoxious toplane picks possible and i seriously don't want to play against tank ekko or quinn top 24/7. That just isn't fun. The other problem is that IF you do fall behind, more often then not, there is no comeback for your lane possible, which is even more infuriating in the heavy counterpick meta that is prevelent in current day league. It just isn't fun to play into cheese picks, knowing full well that you are playing from behind and in need of help or your tower will simply get chipped away at till your standing under the nexus with 0/1 score.

[@katamas832]

Drawing pressure is good and all. But when a fed mid laner, with the jungler and top laner comes to dive you and the rest of your team does nothing in return since they are so behind, it's worth literally nothing.

[@TheHunter128]

I just hate the rock paper scissors feel of top Lane. Kinda annoying yo just lose in certain match ups because you wanted to play a specific champion or style of champion. For instance losing to juggernauts as a tank. The amount of lack of outplay potentially for tanks vs juggernauts make picking top early in the draft just scary. For specific champion picking chogath is just bad

[@VarsVerum]

Red Caster yep. Counter pick lane :(

[@claimant2912]

Counter pick lanes exist but try only picking one to three champions so you master them and win even the hardest matchups.

[@emil55555555]

@@claimant2912 bro I have played garen for years and other low mobility champions and I still have no idea how to beat a good vayne top without a jungler. It's just not posible sometimes.

[@Oearli]

@@emil55555555 you not losing the lane hard is already a "winning" position vs a lane bully like vayne, because "winning" is relative to the matchup. the only way she can be useful later is by getting fed on lane and using that lead well, since from an equal position you will probably have more use in teamfights (as long as the vayne is not a god). in my humble my silver opinion.

[@catrielmarignaclionti4518]

@@emil55555555 play someone with a slow or a better speedup than garens q, I never lost a lane vs a ranged toplaner as nasus, play with e, no need to farm till your powerspike (with nasus imagine) and then just murder the bitch

[@Doublejho]

honestly one of my biggest issues with toplane is that you can shit on your opponent as hard as you like but as long as they're a fiora, a jax, a darius, etc, they can just beat you in an item or two anyway, the amount of times i've played aatrox or darius only to absolutely shit on a jax early and be unable to fight him once he has a trinity or trinity + botrk, or the amount of times i've fed early on jax and gotten items and just beaten the shit out of the enemy that beat me previously is insane, it's just so demoralising, even moreso than a fed enemy botlane

[@VarsVerum]

That's often the rock and a hard place a lot of top laners face. If you play to win lane, you're gonna get outscaled so you have to be quick to end. If you choose a scaling option, you basically have to pray that your teammates can either go even, or win because you have no priority.

[@Elwind_of_Arathor]

Just stumbled on this old video. I gotta say, as someone who was playing top main back in 2012 and just picked the game up again recently I can absoulutely attest to this. It is always my goal. Good top laners consistently draw or apply pressure throughout the entire game to enable their team to make big plays.. If I'm in another role I love having a top who does this effectively.

[@suplex8802]

As a low elo player, jungle, mid, and support prioritize snowballing adc, and it's usually successful, adc will snowball after much help. But the thing is in teamfights, me top laner was much more useful in teamfights with only 1 kill as riven. For league, it has become a standard that carry is always is an adc and I think that mentality is not good, because your mid laner might be able to carry the game much harder rather than an unskilled adc, also I think when trying to play an adc. I found it hard at the beginning to have so much support and to be relied on so much, and I am aware that this carry mentality has gone much further in dota, when carry can easily 1v5. Though it's just me ranting cause I'm a low elo player

[@stormdragon2529]

ADC is a coinflip role. the player makes the difference not the champs or the role. you might have 10/0 as an ADC but if you cant carry if you have the enough peel and frontline to protect you and enable you, you're usless.

[@suplex8802]

@@stormdragon2529 nah, was just me naggin about my adcs being tanks in the teamfights

[@skelet8337]

Top and mid are the mid game bread and butter late game is adc central then top becomes a second support

[@d0nt_]

i get your point but i still think that (at leasdt at my level of pisslow) it's still the most frustrating role to play, since it feels like in 75% of the games top lane is decided by the junglers, not by the laners. I understand that there are ways to predict and counteract ganks, but if you're low elo you can't just know the timings and pathing of all junglers, and with it being a long lane, often warding isn't enough. Sure i might be taking pressure off the other lanes but it doesn 't mean that it's fun, regardless if you win or lose, since you are going to be useless anyway after the laning phase. Even if you win because your jungler ganks, it often doesn't feel deserved. It is so hard to have an actual fun experience in the top lane, the 1v1s (almost) every top laner loves happen so seldom it's depressing. For my taste the top laners are the most fun champions, but in the most frustrating lane.

[@novaseer]

this is why I love Illaoi, who the fuck cares if I get ganked when I can double kill at level 6

[@diadochi3784]

@@novaseer illaoi you have ruined my life atleast 17 times

[@ToiletClogger420]

“No one has a 100% win rate” The guy that only played the tutorials: -_-

[@owa1985]

To echo this video, a friend of mine once told me (when I was getting spam ganked top as Pants) that my main job was to make the enemy jungler feel like he had to keep ganking me in order to win the game. In that game, he was the jungler and the fact that the enemy jungler was spam ganking me allowed him to farm the enemy jungle camps as well as gank the other two lanes, thus winning us the game.

[@ultimatesonic47]

it doesnt matter if you take or brake the stick of the enemy team if your team doesnt have one, i also notice that drawing attention has an impacte if your team does something with it, i mean if you have 2 or 3 people trying to kill you for like 30-40 seconds and your team doesnt take a thing it doesnt matter, its like the gold comparison it doesnt matter if you have 10k gold ahead if you havent used it

[@deaconthomson749]

What song plays at the beginning of the video?

[@gearguts7259]

This all sounds good until you get killed while splitpushing bot by 4 people and even tho Nashor is up your team thinks the smart play is to steal top JG.

[@idirbouchdoug1567]

as a yorick player who always splits i just spam ping the shit out of the opposing objective (be it dragon or baron) right before i start splitting, and even take the time to write what they should do in case i get gangbanged.

[@ricardorocha2960]

The year is 2021, the topic is Toplane in league, the realisation is, i've been taking my coffee wrong all this years.

[@cabrozonte]

I agree with most of the video and I would say that is the strength of toplaners, but what I think makes it frustrating is that exerting enough pressure so that other enemy lanes practically lose their own, makes the toplaner's task quite colossal and demanding: having to deal with the other team coming to alleviate themselves of the pest that you end up representing means you quite possibly wont be able to achieve your own personal goals, like scoring kills or CS. Because of that most people (or at least less experiencied players) resort to a very passive playstyle or champ (insert Malphite). Add in the factor that most of the times in ranked soloq you lack communication with the jg, who would act as a safety net of sorts for you to apply as much pressure as you can toplane. Then it kinda ends up being a case of: what would my own team preffer to have to face the enemy? And due to the meta and other factors I would guess most would preffer to have snowbally champs fed and to pressure with pure numbers instead of betting for one strong champ or player. My opinion from my experience tho, very cool vid :)

[@jukmifggugghposer]

I call this style of carrying “being a problem”. You’re not necessarily getting mad kills or securing objectives. You’re just a threat that the enemy team has to stop, alleviating pressure from your teammates and (theoretically) giving them a chance to make plays.

[@Dark_Tesla]

As a Nasus main, exactly how you describe the benefits of top lane is how I play the role. I literally tell my Jg to leave me alone. I ward liberally because I scale without gold, I take teleport for global pressure and tower defense in losing matchup and I hit my spike and pressure hard. If my team is even I group and act as a wall, if losing I force the enemy team to fight mine at a disadvantage by sending resources to deal with my split push.

[@DemonLordGamingAC0]

And that's why I play Yorick top and splitpush all game. If I'm slightly ahead, I'm almost unstoppable

[@lorddraydray5371]

That Yone play at 10:22 made my day.

[@lycheegucci2917]

thanks for the video, actually pretty useful to a toplane noobie like me, who didnt know how to pressure with toplane.

[@alec_flyntgaming9315]

Top's a rough one to sum up; I play casually and Yorick is my go-to as I like summoners and he can apply pressure to multiple lanes or keep aggro on a lane while assisting with teamfights or doing jungle objectives while the jungle is ganking or distracting the enemy jungler. Denying the enemy team the extra gold from towers, manpower or resources if you can keep pressure from jungle on you or have them pop herald top so allies can focus, or prevent solo barons by heavy sustain junglers like Voli. The negative is you rarely get support if needed and I've had games that are complete washes due to people running adc in top; almost impossible to do anything against a Vayne's speed and passive 3-hit chunk

[@abyssangel76]

i love how the nidalee in the 7:40 its buged and trespass the floor

[@Hymn645]

It really depends on the toplaner. A game I had a few days ago my top laner was pretty useless. Which sucks because I, the jungler, focused his lane more than the other lanes. He was up 5 kills, 3 levels, and over 3k gold over anyone else in the game and had taken the second tower while his first barely has a scratch, but he never helped with objectives while the enemy top laner always showed up to contest objectives, especially drakes. Having a fed top laner doesn’t do you much good if he never helps out with objectives and team fights. He partook in one team fight and one team fight only and that is when they were sieging our base and he physically couldn’t leave our base without fighting them. At that point his lead over the enemy had evaporated because while he still had a small item advantage the drakes and elder more than made up for that and mid, bot and myself were behind, 15 minutes early and it probably would’ve taken 3 of them to kill him and mid, bot and myself were even in items and xp and we could’ve won easily. But when 5 enemies are at the dragon the second it spawns it’s a 4v4 while the enemy jungler 1v1s the dragon or they just 4v5 killed us. Had our toplaner simply walked to the drag fights we would have won the game.

[@stormdragon2529]

so as a TLDR: Top is not too impactful in the early game, unless the jungler plays around you. bot is more important since if they get fed you get more dragons, bot vision, bot prio and a fed ADC Top biggest strength is drawing preasure on the side-lane and teamfights, split pushing ( if done right) and they are the best individual role lategame

[@stormdragon2529]

i think top is the most fun and diverse role in the game. every champ top has different playstiles , strengths and weekneses. some are great at splitpushing, other at teamfighting, others at skirmishing and dueling, other have great CC and engage etc. you just need to use your champs strengths in the best way

[@skelet8337]

A yes diverse basic attack heavy champ with a lot of healing tank or a ranged cheese pick one and get counter and suffer

[@silverpact1008]

This is incredibly accurate. People forget that 0 champion damage tryn and feeding sion were *viable win strategies* in mid elo for a time. Because Top isn't about KDA, CS, or anything else like that. You can be a 0/12 Nasus who doesn't leave lane, but if you start pushing just before dragon spawns the enemy team has no choice but to answer. Singed can just run around once he hits 16 and infuriate an entire team. If they want to stop it, that requires a major commitment of CC cooldowns, which his team can take advantage of. Every top laner is built to make life difficult for the enemy team. That's their most important role. Make your enemies incapable of playing at the tempo they desire.

[@skelet8337]

As a cho gath is just try to take as much agro as possible bcs even if i am 0/10 I still have but load of cc to use

[@makiiavely]

i don't know where this feeling comes from, when the enemy top laner gets really fed i usually consider the game lost

[@caetanoba1]

This its good, but this is true only for Bruiser tops, bc if u play a Tank it's feel more useless, u can only make a good engage and pray

[@kozak5147]

I like to call it the lane of the hidden carry, because people forget about you, and then suddenly you just show up mid 6/0/0, and 1v4 at 15 minutes

[@joranvanolphen9892]

As a non top player it really feels like tops job is to turn the 5v5 in a 5v4. If the adc goes bad you might have a fed brand or lux who did the clean up or the other way around. A enchanter even when behind a bit can still add a lot of value and a with tank support its mostly about the initial engage. If the midlane goed bad the jungler might be fed or they can still play for objectives. Maybe the jungler is 0-3 but the lanes got the kills.

[@ianhandy5090]

We not gonna talk about 7:33 when the renekton autoattacked a camille from 10 meters away

[@bryanhickernell7189]

I basically have the mindset of a top laner mid lane I will auto push mid lane as a Diana until the jungle comes to stop me or someone else comes to stop me then when they leave I go back to auto pushing. It’s a fun play style and gets results if your teammates are at least not the worst

[@ItsDylanBui]

Love my top lane 😁💕 Hope you doing well smartbored 😉🔥

[@christianrosendal4829]

you sound like this one guy named smartbored, thats crazy

[@Dolowincraft]

I would add that as a toplaner, your job is also to completely disable your opponent, just because toplaner isn't dragging a lot of attention, it's really rare that people try to help there fellow toplaner stopping a massive freeze or a chain dive. And if you perform well in the 1v1 you can easely be triple the impact of your opponent, which is crucial for the early mid game fights.

[@Azazreal]

Totally agree, as a top laner your job is to annoy the enemy team. Make them pay attention to you. Force them to send 2 or 3 when you keep stomping them in 1v1s. Constantly push a lane they thought was safe just to annoy them. Think like Teemo basically.

[@oceanman7336]

As a top lane main I find this to be true however it do be annoying when your junglers seem to avoid toplane like it's the plague

[@grenpowerranger1842]

I hear... Fire Emblem Three Houses music in the background. Take my like :)

[@alkeemist007]

Ah, so what you're telling me is I SHOULD play like Hashinshin.

[@AhrimanHJ]

What’s the music? I swear I’ve heard it before

[@HelloAnon]

Fire emblem 3 houses I think

[@panosts6178]

How to carry as a toplaner: Play Tryndamere with flash ghost, fight and dive early, give 0 fucks about your team and perma push and dive. Take herald yourself when available. Build Haulbreaker + lucidity boots and tell your jungler to stay away (like they usually do). Proxy, invade and in general be a complete Chad that doesn't care about their team and focuses on making the toplane an airplane landing zone. Often there will be no towers fallen in the rest of the map while I'm hitting inhibitor at 13 minutes. Got me from gold to Diamond in 3 seasons. After you get there find a jungle or mid main that can make sure the rest of the team isn't completely feeding or get ahead themselves creating pressure on the other side of the map.

[@SillyNep]

I know toplane isn't useless because of how often enemy toplanes in my games basically carry their teams to victory.

[@vivianemoliveira]

"Why TOP feels useless" Simple, it's because of a shitty bot lane

[@yareyaredaz3522]

As a jungle main I will agree. If bot loses u basically lost the game. So I usually just sacrifice top to try and get some dragons and mid/bot plates early.

[@skelet8337]

@@yareyaredaz3522 yes I am top and jg and as top lane I never flame my jg for not coming bcs is so much time wasted for 1 kill max

[@luizotavio44]

i mean the problem i have with top lane is that even if the enemy jungler decides to marry me my bot lane or mid still manage to lose by themselves

[@skelet8337]

Had a game where they had panth mid and he ulterior top 5 time before he hit level NINE I was so mad when we lost bcs our bot fed bcs there jg ganged me 8 times for 10 minutes and didnt kill me once with them and was still 60 farm ahead it was insane I took 3 ppls pressure on me and I was the one on the team with most gold and level

[@MerlinCross13]

It's weird to see this compared to Dota. As a way to force more... engagement(?) between the lane match ups, Dota's map is set up to basically have "Safe Bot Lane" be mirrored on each side. So Red/Dire/Purple Safe Lane is actually the Top lane. So you have to either run doubles(Usually with strong engagement/dives/stall), or you run someone very tanky/sustatin based as you have to play 2 v 1 at times. I think League kinda has a bleh 'meta' due to the Top-jungle-middle-double bot format. There's no way or reason to shake things up or match ups. So you get instances of "X is useless" when the meta doesn't seem to make much use of that role.

[@miaiguy]

it's depressing to me because i already know all this and i still can't make myself useful when botlane is 0/4 jhin with 0/3 sennam while i'm kited by the enemy jinx

[@nikolygtx8848]

Its so usseles that i'm starting to main support

[@cub3978]

It is remarkable how the same points do in fact apply in 2024

[@Betroid]

I quit top after 6 years after I got 8 towers and more damage than my team combined and fell off after 30 minsit’s really depressing renekton main now I main syndra

[@Helios_Therian]

As a top main I have to say that the best feeling in League is not when you are 4/0 with perfect CS at 10 min. Rather it's when you make the enemy top be 0/4 with 20 CS at 10 min forcing half his team to come over to do his work for him

[@equinox2655]

But u lose anyway cause ur bot laner is 0/50 at 1 min

[@leave_yuki]

I think it’s partly that everyone forgets about the top lane and then at 25 mins the top lane me comes down and nukes the entire team. When you look at his kd its 0/0/0 but they are like 160 cs when everyone else is at 100

[@flameofmage1099]

I would love a video on how to top carry.

[@bananein121]

I like playing nasus bc it doesn't need too much brain if you make it to late game 500+ stacks bonks but farming Q until minute 30 really makes me feel bad

[@0mnom519]

For me top is important bcuz it helps the team Like carry Distract Split push And most of all makes the enemy to plane tilt and quit

[@MihuKat]

Hey vars I think your videos are very cool. You always bring it over so easily. Are you going to make more videos in the future? You are pure inspiration. I'm looking forward to your next video. U will Improve and be A GOD Best wishes Share love Buddy love HOPE SUPPORT! Mihukat^^

[@Tairumz]

I have found u before you blew up I subscribers :)

[@Augcliffe]

The majority of games I play, the support ends up carrying the bot lane. This should be a massive wake up call to Riot.

[@drakehellstone208]

man it's nit the place for that but league has so many things you must go and manage to do

[@hoaang9455]

I like top lane just because is isolated from all lane doesnt mean you useless doesnt matter how bad you are you can try tp down bot or help mid lane with gank top is like the secondary deffend because some champ in top lane can do alot of damage while tanky at the same time i hate when my top lanner always try to slitpush while we are in a teamfight like they doesnt care i play top lane and when i see on opportunity to help my team i will tp in to lock the kill , top lane is a good role for those who know how to play it

[@bilosmm7610]

The problem with other lanes is that they try to 5v5 and they never farm. As a top laner you have to scale and build some items if you want to have a big impact. Every time im ahead and im trying to extend my lead, my team just arams it when they're behind and die.

[@hoaang9455]

@@bilosmm7610 yeah i feel you mate while you farming the other are trying to kill each other some went for dragon and heral just nonstop action if you won your lane that doent mean others lane are wining and who have the better jungler win the game

[@kylephan1895]

Top land now a day is 90% about counter pick.

[@idirbouchdoug1567]

sadly i agree , whenever i get first / second pick in ranked i just accept that i'm not going to play the first 15 mins of the game since i will get full counterpicked.

[@skelet8337]

@@idirbouchdoug1567 I get counter picked even if I pick 5th like this ppl aways ask other to pick for them so they can go second I haven't picked after my opponent for a month probs

[@Mrowkaqq]

Are we just going to ignore the flying nidalee 8:20

[@ThiccFish]

8:59 Interesting THIS video aged poorly. See, Herald IS squishy. So is Dragon, it has 4k hp and 21 armor and MR, making it actually squishier than Herald, and while junglers can solo herald, they can solo dragon to, just as if not MORE easily. Now worlds this year was almost entirely focused around JUST top, with picks like Sylas, TF, and Ryze making plays fro 4 man dives for TOP only, prioritizing draft so top laners had good matchups, or just picked up Jayce. In season 11 top lane was the single MOST impactful lane. At the time of writing this, the top 10 challenger accounts in EUW, 5 are seperate top laners, similiar for NA as well.

[@frogradar]

Top lane just feels forgotten. And then the jungler appears and you feel camped because they dont fuck off. I think it's also the easiest lane to self-tilt. Losing the first 1v1 is a huge set-back on top side. At least botlane you have your ally with you to help out and if one fails you can place ur faith in the other to get the kills back. Top doesn't work like that, if you fuck up top you have noone to help you get back. You can't deward top lane like the support can deward botlane because you need the warding item.

[@catelyntully9494]

Top laners in not top elo use to be (or at least used to) the most inflexible players in the games, in older seasons when power wasn't that high I used to lane with almost any champion in top from AP rakan to Thresh and junglers and most of the time it was effective not exactly due to my pick but because how little they knew about other champions and how little they were willing to learn about them

[@GalanThings]

Most of the problem is perception of the game by players, especially since 99% of playing league is you vs 9 randoms. When you end the game with 32/24/5 assassin everyone thinks he carried the game. When you see a support without a ton of assists everyone things he is doing terrible job. Almost nothing besides K/D/A seams important by the end. Pressure, objectives, good positioning, taking advantage when it is given, etc is hard to see by the games end. That's why everyone and their mother want to play some sort of killing machine. Its the best and most direct way of feeling you are doing good even if you aren't

[@alexandregehin8665]

I think it's wrong to think people say toplane is useless because of its low KDA or dmg. The reason it feels useless is because as games become shorter and shorter, a lot of games are over by the 15 or 20 min mark, sometimes with ff votes every 3 minutes. Because the game got accelerated by the ennemy jungler, and the game will never get to a point where you can oppose any pressure anywhere, thus having made 0 impact on the result of the game you've played for almost 20 minutes. That's what's frustrating. Popping your TPs to a lane hard losing hardly ever pays off either

[@IronFilament]

Video aged like fucking milk. It was useless back then and now its actually just void

[@RustingPeace]

not highest dmg in the game? lol most top laners are so tanky that you're often that person that dealt most dmg and tanked most dmg...

[@skelet8337]

Top layers are the ones doing most damage bcs of how the lane is played top it is a trade non stope bcs all the viable top layers have sustain and bcs your opponent has so much health and they heal and get back with tp

[@bohomazdesign725]

Almost 3 seasons later top lane stopped "feelling useless" to actually being useless thanks Riot overbuffing jungle / dragons and the ADC class. It got so bad that ganking top lane over bot lane became considered griefing the game by junglers. And if thats not enough they introduced some time ago "unleashed" teleport to the game ^^

[@HimanshuSingh-jn1tf]

In top if I win lane I mostly lose if I lose lane I mostly win game , even if jg doesn't focus me

[@moonless5603]

7:26 if your realize this nidalee is inside the ground 😂

[@Betroid]

Gankinh that 800k renekton is always a win

[@kyuki_starrow]

what the fish is this nidalee doing underground XDD at 7:30

[@logangovier181]

Got it! Fire emblem 3 houses soundtrack right?⚔🛡 😂

[@Tenz220]

Top is useless until you see the enemy Jayce starts dropping 60-70% bombing every body with a single shock blast 16mins into the game from a full screen away.

[@connorkenway8771]

Pls make a new video about top lane I’m thirsty for it ‼️‼️‼️‼️

[@emotional_st0rm]

7:44 I know this isn't relevant to the video but why in the world was Nidalee just stuck in the ground? 😭 EDIT: AND WHY WAS SHE FLOATING IN THE VERY NEXT CLIP ASD;LFGJPSDLG;PJSDLGKJDSG

[@Slackerzz-]

You got a problem with my vodka coffee??