League of Legends has well over 100 characters, and 5 roles that allow people to take their favorite Champions to roles that best fit their desires and goals as a player. If you’re someone that loves lifting up their allies, Support’s probably your favorite. Chunking out enemy players in tenths of a second more your speed? Consider playing an assassin in Mid or Jungle. What people usually recommend if you tend to be a bit of a lone wolf, though, is Top Lane. No duo to worry about in lane, no way to get ganked from both sides, and plenty of opportunity to pressure the opposing team.

What Type of Champions Are in Top Lane?

Broadly speaking, Top Laners are Champions that have a lot of health or defenses. While not every Champion up Top has to be a tank, they make up a very large portion of the roster that is viable there. People will always find new ways to bring their favorite Champions to roles they don’t normally play in. Sometimes, a new patch or item being added to the game can bring builds and picks no one would have ever thought of. Simply, there are about three main categories of Top Lane Champion: Tanks, Bruisers, and Others.

Tanks are characters that build almost or even completely for the purposes of taking less damage. You will find that their builds consist largely of either armor or magic resist. Their kits focus a lot on damage reduction (increasing their resistances) and crowd control (knock-ups, slows, stuns and more). They are the front line of any teamfight done well, and it normally takes counterbuilding (purposefully choosing anti-tank items) to stop their gameplan. Tanks can kill enemies, but their overall damage output is low in comparison to almost every other class of Champion.

Bruisers are similar to tanks, but are generally more damage-focused. They tend to be seen as a happy medium between DPS (damage per second, characters that look to rush down the opposing team’s backline) and Tank Champions. Their kits can and usually do have ways for them to increase their defenses, but their main goal is to deal damage for as long as possible, rather than peel (take damage for their allies). Staying alive allows them to kill, rather than give kills to their allies.

Other types of Champions in Top Lane are usually reserved for high-damage non-tanky Champions. Think about the times you might have seen Kayle, Vayne, Ekko, or Quinn up top. Occasionally, mages will break the meta and turn up topside, but these are usually few and far between compared to what you’ll regularly see. They often scale hard and use their range/poke options to prevent the opponent from farming up.

Why Is Top Lane Seen As an Island?

People who play Top Lane often say that they feel their role is a pretty lonely one. After all, only one side of their lane is prone to ganks.

Junglers usually tend to path more toward Bot, and Mid Lane is generally not going to roam to Top over Bot Lane. There are so many things that factor into why Top tends to remain a 1v1, but some more common ones are:

Bottom Lane Grants High Rewards

Top Lane has a couple of important objectives that spawn (Void Grubs and Baron Nashor), but the concentration of players and important objectives in the bottom half of the map makes pathing Bot more rewarding in the long run. A successful gank in Bot can lead to a double (or possibly triple, if the enemy jungler ganks first) kill and a free rotation to Dragon with multiple people in tow to secure it. Top lane ganks often grant extra pressure or turret gold, but the rewards are often seen as less beneficial in the short term.

Mid Lane Is Dangerous

Mid lane can be ganked from both sides (top side and bottom side jungle), so Junglers need to be prepared to countergank. With Junglers needing to keep up on objective pressure, pathing through mid on the way to Baron or Dragon can be a convenient way to get a kill or set up their damage dealers for a more favorable laning phase.

High-Damage Lanes Get Priority

Many players realize how devastating a Veigar with 10, 15, or even more kills can be. Top laners are huge threats if allowed to scale, even if they are not major damage dealers. A tank with solid income can be impossible for a weaker team to take down, but they tend to be seen as less threatening immediately. If other lanes are slipping out of control, many Junglers will try to address them first. If everywhere else has leads, they’ll want to work to keep those.

Why Is Top Lane Strong, Then?

A lot of people totally underestimate what happens when Top Lane goes unchecked. When your team loses in Mid, they envision their entire team getting destroyed by Veigar’s ultimate. What many gloss over, though, is how quickly a Nasus or Fiora up top can be to your team’s gameplan. A persistent split push from the enemy team will leave people constantly being unable to 5v4. Someone, or maybe even more than one person, will need to come and answer them. The losing team will at best, have to fight even fights. At worst, two or three people will have to answer the push and they will be totally barred from competing for objectives.

Getting a great lane phase from a Top Laner can take a game and flip it on its head. The enemy team might scale well, but it would be hard for them to do that without answering the two or three turrets that have already gone down. A burst mage could mean catastrophe for a team full of squishy marksmen, but one well-timed Ornn ultimate can send them straight to the greyscreen. Even one well-timed ult from Shen, regardless of how well he has done in lane, can give a huge shutdown to the ADC who has been gold starved all game. Regardless of how laning phase may feel, it’s important for Top Lane players to understand the sheer amount of impact they have simply by existing near the teamfight or off pushing a turret alone.

Junglers and other laners might forget to visit Top Lane, but their distance is often not a disadvantage. Taking the time needed to turn Top Lane into a well-scaled, well planned out pressure strategy is important to your team’s ability to win. Finding ways to farm up to the point of being able to exert enough pressure on the enemy will often be what gives the rest of your team the freedom they need to push for objectives or take good fights. That is why Top Lane is so strong.

Wrapping Up

The pressure that Top Lane is able to put out, along with their strong gamechanging and teamfight-turning abilities puts them in the perfect spot to take a lost game and turn it into a victory. While it would be nice to have Jungler at our side, knowing and understanding why people tend to keep their distance can help you get your gameplan straight. Focusing on your lane and character strengths over the lack of other lane interaction. When teamfighting comes, so will the time for you to make the biggest impact possible. Find your area of expertise and exploit it. Soon you’ll have plenty of victories behind you.