Ranged Top Laners: Why They Don't Work (And Why Top Laners Hate Them) | League of Legends 

After the q on-hit change he became a bit less ranged but it's kinda true.

Ranged Top laner who sucks into ranged Top laners...yep that's GP.

He's melee but has to play as if he's ranged basically

@@walkelftexasranger i think of gp as a control champ for a reason yes his q does dmg but there are many things to do like d shield second wind and if any top laner engaged succesfully on gp he is preety much done unlike mid where he can actually fight back

To add onto this discussion Urgot is a melee toplaner

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Kled is OK into range other than teemo and Fiona since you don't gain courage during blind or fiora block

I had a match where I won top against the enemy Sett, but our jinx fed their Vel'koz so we lost anyway.

He also isn’t very good at fighting games or analyzing them at all, excluding smash. His tales are general usually and with massive portions of the argument left out

@@kennydg4979 Yeah, I just think he would probably have been better served with any of Dhalsim's previous incarnations. SF5 is probably the first game that gave him strong offensive tools because of how unfriendly to zoners SF5's mechanics can be, and the byproduct is that it makes him a lot more fun to watch. To be fair to Vars, not everyone can be an expert on everything and traditional fighting games are pretty niche, to the point where I wouldn't expect anyone to know much beyond the traditional "Grappler, Zoner, Rushdown" triangle and a basic idea of what the characters from Street Fighter 2 could do.

Literally came to say this, lmao.

Literally hit him with a 50/50 😭😭😭

at this point i feel like having to do tk teleport is a bigger disadvantage than sfv dhalsim close range buttons

Make her Mid/ADC (her kit is perfect for those two roles) and get her the fuck out of Top lane.

@@walkelftexasranger Quinn was originally designed to be an adc, but nobody played her there, and still don't because she gets outranged by the entire roster. Her ability to roam and get picks is also diminished in that role since she also has to face against whoever the support is. She honestly would be better suited for mid or jungle where she can make map plays.

@@Ratty524 I actually think she was good ADC back in the day, because her trades were really cancer to deal with. She scaled like shit tho.

Rework her into an adc, the role she was supposed to be before shoved into being a "i shit on specific melee matchups"

@@Ratty524 u right that she doesnt have the range, but she also doesnt have tools like other marksmen her range has like the damage of vayne of waveclear/spellshield of sivir. not to mention her useless ult which makes her lose so much gold in stats

Graves exists ans domeone plays him toplane

@@edoardocesetti9900 Woooooooo I love perma shoving waves into enemy turret wooooooo so fun.

@@edoardocesetti9900 i thing he mean by that a champion that uses ammo like aphelios but when runs out of it then he becomes melle till ammo repleanish

yeah but no one would play it, same reason Gnar is so unpopular and is mostly a pro play champ. having no control over, when and if your preassure will fall apart is a very big downside to a champion who relies on preassure to exist

@@baki6236 yes this is what I mean. Perhaps they could be a character that relies more on their tempo rather than movement abilities, and their ranged attacks were slower but hit harder. Then when they ran out of ammo, they get a short movement buff to close the gap and fight in melee. Then when they revert back, it's a backwards dash like kleds pocket pistol and back to range. Maybe a little too idealistic and betrays the shape shifting formula of fragile hard hitting

YES.

CRABGOD MAIN Urgot is in this place imo of “melee-range”. His combos require being close and his range is not too far away which makes him a balanced top laner. He’s also very easy to bait into ganks and all. Playing into top lane ranged is hell

Vayne has the exact same range as Urgot

@@SorcererShangTsung probably more annoying because of how much she can move. She feels way more annoying

Nah Gnar is equally as annoying as any of the others it not worse. I can’t imagine you were playing back when gnar was meta pick/ban in pro play. His lane is unfathomably safe. Like the video touched on, you have a long range slow, a very strong dash AND a max health MAGIC DAMAGE 3 hit passive that gives you a ton of move speed. The majority of top laners cannot afford to ever fight him in ranged form as it’s impossible to get close even if he mispositions. The only time you can fight gnar is when he’s melee, which unfortunately has the highest base stats of any champion in the game along with insane AD ratios on every ability. If you are not ahead in the lane, you’re going to struggle immensely to kill mega gnar. Which means he has insane neutral and the only time you can actually fight him is when he’s strongest? Not at all tolerable.

Exactly, nobody likes people who pick ranged top because they ruin the fun of your entire team and the enemy top, just for you to have a winning matchupw and selfishly enjoy the freest laning phase possible.

Ranged top generally has awful sustain/escape tools as well, so a freeze by your tower is also a wonderful option, with hard pushes when they disappear until engages are an option.

Difficult to play lul

Jayce's primary advantage is that in lane he is virtually impossible to beat without jg help by most tops. He can just auto you and hit you with energy balls whenever you try to farm and if you engage him, he can hit you away with e, forcing the trade to be short. This is balanced by being useless when behind and also being free farm for junglers cause jayce honestly sucks at escaping ganks and has a weak 1 v 2 even when ahead, so if you play him without respecting enemy jg, you'll probably get killed over and over. This is what makes Jayce honestly really hard to play, because he relies on well developed macro skills to balance out understanding when to be aggressive and when to be passive, even though you technically have the tools to bully enemy tops at all times.

@@67tedward You have made my point more clearly than I. He's not that bad at escaping ganks though, between cannon E, hammer Q, and hammer E. That's more tools than some get.

@@BLKCLVR Sure but for ganks specifically jayce really can only knock 1 person away, so the other player can still cc him and let the other catch up. Thundering blow is an excellent 1v1 disengage for that reason but not as useful as a duo escape. Not the worst escape out there for sure given his movement speed boosts, but compared to someone like gnar, jayce is going to die a lot if he overextends. In particular if you're standing outside enemy tower and harrassing them, I don't find jayce can reasonably escape all the way to the other side of top if the jungler's on top of him. This is mostly speaking from personal experience as a mediocre jayce player (don't main him but occasionally will play him casually) and getting punished for being over aggressive.

100% Additionally, kayle plays the opposite of most ranged top laners as she is vulnerable early but great at late game team fights (as long as she has a frontline)

Nah as an akshan OTP I can say that the mental damage is a huge reason why I pick him. I remember when I won a game where my whole team intend like 0 10 each and we won cause the enemy Gwen went afk

@@it_is_morbin_time He saying he hates ranged top because you (players) selfishly pick them for causing mental damage instead of for teamplay. And i agree that some people only pick ranged top champs to counterpick. Annoying af when you dont go afk and still stay having your team roast you.

​@@Tyrone2714I agree. When my team is being feeder, I'm winning in my lane as Kayle so I'm ahead compared to other players. I ended up literally carrying my team.

Kennen exist

Any adc for syndra is free kill. You can even bait their dashes and then 100 to 0 them

As someone who plays adc mid sometimes (MF) syndra is indeed a pain to deal with XD

I legit permaban Syndra whenever I play mid. Her trade combo when actually spaced is so fucking bullshit

If you want to fuck vayne top just pick arcane comet malphite. Lanes over

toplaners who complain about ranged because they are not interactive play tanks... bunch of clowns

not saying tanks are bad, just they are not very interactive, my most played toplaners this season is Sion

⁠@@doomkingraye7692ranged tops arent fun. Thats it. Most of the time they fall off so if anything its also a huge middle finger to their own team. Tanks are kind of braindead but at least tanks and bruisers fighting in toplane is fun enough. And both people will contribute to their teams comp. Tell me how useful a vayne top is when theres already an ADC.

Best anti-AP champ ever designed. Too bad he got reworked :/

Literally this. I've played Yorick into Quinn and shit on her, but I've suffered as Singed against Darius. Melee or ranged isn't the issue, but being counterpicked is, and if you blind pick a ranged toplaner (except maybe Gnar) you're either an otp or trolling

In fighting games it's less of an issue because everyone has a way to counter zoning. When I play lol there's this impression that the game is incomplete because of lacks stuff like that, universal tools that can deal with cheesing like this.

not just kled but divers counter ranged top

Good luck picking Kled as counterpick, when people play range Top laners only as counterpick. Somebody would have to be REALLY damn stupid to first pick Quinn or any ranged champion.

​@@walkelftexasranger you haven't seen low elo it seems

Vayne IS a problem for most toplaners. You need double dashes just go reach her, and then she has invisibility and multiple dashes to kite you.

@@lordpaulphilippfernandez9904 You can rush Edge of Night on many melee tops to counter Vayne. She can basically never duel you whenever it's up because EoN Spellshield blocks her E, which she needs to peel you off, and none of her other abilities can pop the spellshield.

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yeah, that secondwind/boneplating + dorans will surely make u able to tank vaynes truedmg %hp dmage... sure...

second wind and dshield got nerfed hard, they're both bad and dont do that much to avoid top ranged tops opressive lane

It's a low elo solution tho

​@@uncreativeperson8497I think I used to see strategy like this in LPL.

any good ranged top will just build up a big wave early since you can't walk up, dive you with the jungler when it crashes since nasus is useless at level 2 and now you're 2 levels down and basically lost the game. The higher the ELO the more likely this is to happen. it's why Nasus doesn't work in high elo.

ok? you've seen it before though right????

​@@dominicguye8058 not the ashen lord one.

Well, Ornn is by definition one of the best pick into ranged champs ( Malphite also). However, if you play a champ without sustain or enough cc/or mobility, then you're out of luck.

Ornn is definition of annoying trash

Because its just not fun to play against a ranged top. There's no counter to getting right clicked from afar and without jungle assistance you end up hugging tower for 20 minutes until team fighting comes into play.

how to beat ranged top as ornn: go armor refillable. farm a few waves and sit back. get tabi. farm more get warden. and auto do 0 dmg.

genuinely as an ornn main seeing ranged top normally means a free lane

play trundle or olaf vs ww or kayn top volibear works too trust also get executioner's on your first back

Good ending

He is blak and gay he IS suppossed to be realy strong

@@Yokai_Yuri Thank they didnt make him a woman, that would be the one horsewomen of top.

His R is just dumb lol being able to fist someone through half the map with zero counter play then one shot them is so fair

he has 44% wr globally, i think he's fine if you look at masters+ he has 49% ksante is good because he peels for the giga broken adc well, not because of all out

@@josebaltoomarnilson4762 wr is the only thing that matters

Underrated comment. Most of the time you just dance until you get enough lvl and an opportunity to jump the ranged top. It's just infuriating to purposely miss cs, cause that is not how we are taught how to play.

my favorite thing is to pick something like a ornn and aim for the teamfights later, but tbh you can just pick something like a camille, an irelia or a jayce (if ennemy picked it just pick malphite) and break their legs there are champs that are designed for all-ins and have totally their place at toplane but people would rather not pick anything else than their main and get shat on

If wanting to be able to do something by myself in the first 10-15 mins of a game that lasts 20 mins half of the times when i am playing a fucking videogame is considered wanting to be the main character im dam guilty.

They go top bc their early game sucks. But its still good enough for top lane.

true teemo place is where ? jungle doesnt work mid doesnt work adc is crazy bad suport is inting

I've had some Quinn games where I got pushed hard early game, because someone like Urgot just says no to my disengage, but I was able t become a late game nightmare because my team could handle Urgot, while I take out their midlaner and support. I mostly jungle, but occasionally I'll mid as Orianna or Swain or top as Quinn because the jungler's most important skill is map awareness, and if you're able to transfer that to Quinn, even if you lose lane, you can become a nightmare for the enemy team with pokes against their squishies, or transfer it to Swain and poke their jungler with your eye while they're farming without leaving lane

@@rimmer62 Jungle is actually where he should go, thematically. But he has literally no tools for that, outside of shrooms, which he doesn't get until level 6. And it's not good until at least level 11. Support is also a surprisingly appropriate role, with his abundant vision control, and blind for the adc. But he lacks the range, tankiness, or actual lockdown of real supports. Yeah, basically comes down to the fact that he basically has 2/5 of a real champion's kit, at best, for most contexts.

I play kennen mid nowadays, its great. Most midlane match ups are favorable for me. (Minus a few like syndra)

Because they are only picked when they are in a good matchup

those three you listed are very niche counterpicks. nobody picks them unless its to counterpick

I am on the toilet thank you for your comment

I think they gotta just give him a whole new ultimate and put his shrooms as a basic ability used similarly to ziggs q

They almost did with the potential rework, when they were going to change his passive and e.

thats the thing about ranged top, you can bully the enemy, but 1 gank and you are done, the melee will just kill you over and over, i despise ranged top, but every time i meet a vayne i just cry for help, they get ganked and they die cause they were trying to harass me, i feel like if you play ranged top you are not trying to win the lane, you are trying to destroy the enemy mental

@@SandySalesman That's why I never pick ranged top in ranked games, only in norms

Personally I’d rather fight any ranged champion than yorick so I can see why you would say that

Vayne is just a mental block for me. I usually play stuff like Sett/Darius/Mundo and Vayne is an absolute nightmare. I hate her so much. But getting to cage her and throw ghouls at her as Yorick once was probably the best feeling I've ever had as I got to crush the champion that has single handedly ruined more games for me than I care to count.

u cannot get caught with ur pants down when u did not wear some in the first place.

@VarsVerum

Being forced to play safe for 90% of lane isn't skillful, it's just boring. That's why nobody likes you up there, it just becomes a waiting game of hoping you make a mistake. Not sure why you say "It's a team game, yet top lane feels so out of your control". That's the whole reason it feels that way. Every single team game feels like that besides rare exceptions like CS. Trying to deal with a tank is much more interactive than trying to deal with an ADC, regardless of viability. Tanks actually encourages you to think about buys(barely but still), you can still do things, and they usually have counterplay. Meanwhile with ADCs the strategy is just to run them down as fast as possible and nothing else.

@@bevvvy1374 gotta add a TL;DR for this one, I don't think ranged laners that sit under tower playing safe are skillful. But doing that will never get you consistent wins. I think the unfairness of ranged laners is exaggerated immensely and that people should hate tanks just as much if not more than ranged lanerss, because they truly encapsulate what makes the laners "unfun". I disagree completely with a lot of what you said. With what I mean with it feeling out of your control is that you can't do anything. Jungle roams all over and influences the lanes, support is broken beyond belief being a jungle 2.0. mid lane can roam. And adc.. well adc is kind of the same tbh. Being forced to play safe in a bad matchup while still finding opportunities for ganks and other scenarios is skillful. Frankly that's every counter matchup in top lane, which ranged laners are. If you're playing poppy into a Darius you're gonna play safe 90% of the time, same goes for yone into Jax, any adc against a malphite. They at least force you to adapt your gameplay, you might not find it fun to play safe but I think it's infinitely healthier for the game over pulling up RU-vid on the side while a gragas, ksante, ornn, Sion, or malphite sits in lane being unkillable unless you're playing one of like 3 champs. I want to clarify though my list of champs is in order of most played (all top), Kayle > riven > jayce > Samira. I won't be defending any ranged top laners who sit under tower all game farming till 3 items. That is boring, but those people will get no where like that besides piggybacking of their team. And what you said about it becoming a waiting game "hoping you make a mistake", that's the entire laning phase in even slightly unfavorable matchups. It's just more forgiving vs another melee laner. Until you get to challenger there's so many mistakes you make just in laning phase itself. Noticing the mistakes and windows of opportunity is 100% a skill in the game people need. I'd also like to mention you cannot itemize against tanks, you have bork, and divine. That's it. Divine is a shit item barely anyone wants, and bork is good on a handful of champs. And even with bork those champs will do at most 3-5% of a tanks HP per auto when they get it. Which seems like a lot till you realize that's 90% of their damage. Old kraken was pretty good but had an even more niche pool of champs that could build it, and most would rather opt for something else even then. Armor pen items don't really count as you only build them 3rd, maybe 1/100 times you build them 2nd. And by that point laning phase is over and the tank has outscaled your pen.

@@marijnlastname3132 This has to be a joke post, waiting for your jungle to make your lane playable is skill expression? The simple answer to why people don't hate tanks as much, you do have the option to fight them and itemize around killing them. Doesn't matter what your opinion on Divine Sunderer or Black Cleaver/Grudge is, they work and do allow you to kill them even if it takes time to get there. Those tanks are also not forcing you off CS and killing any potential fight for the entire laning phase. Against any competent ranged top, if you are playing a purely melee character, you're fucked. It's entirely on the onus of the ranged top to make a mistake for you to even have a chance. You can say jungler or roaming support will solve this, but those are not things within your control. You have no input on the outcome of this lane besides reducing your CS or death deficit. You keep going on about how terrible it is to fight tanks, yet ranged tops reduce everyone to playing like a tank, what are you even talking about?

@@kioken101 my entire point is that ranged tops are all counter picks. If you're a slow melee you just got counter picked. No one blind picks ranged top, it may be annoying to play against but it 100% is a skill issue. Sadly the jungle is part is hard to defend. The sheer amount of impact jungle has on top lane laning phase is insufferable and something needs to be done, not just for ranged tops. But as the game currently stands yes, you are supposed to wait for your jungler because if they get a gank off it's near gauranteed to kill a ranger. If the gank fails you'll at least have breathing room. I keep complaining about tanks because they make the game pointless. You'll never zone a tank, I mean you might have fun pressing some abilities in melee range. But its just a matter of time before they outscale you in teamfights or brick up any sidelane. You can at least kill a ranged top post lane phase. When it comes to itemizing, yeah you can buy "anti tank" items. But my point is they have no effect. Anti ranger items are usually in the form of gap closers, and they've all been removed because of how oppressive they were on juggernauts. I wish there was a healthy item to counter rangers up top. But sadly there isn't right now. My entire point is that both tanks and rangers deny you the game. The only difference is one gives you the illusion of counter play. Why aren't both universally hated. Especially considering that tanks have been strong for a while and ranged tops died out as a viable strat ages ago.

As a top lane who just played against a ranged "thing" (i refuse to call them Champion) fuck you and your opinion until it bleeds. It is NOT fun. Doesn't have ANYTHING to do with skill, and im pissed even tough we still won the game. You just abuse the range and deny any kind of gameplay. Let me last hit a minion, oh no my health. Let me try to fight at all, oh no my health. I finaly got your ass with my ult, oh no you ran away with 1hp and i can choose to either follow you out of rage in hopes of getting one kill after 15min of being denied any semblence to fun or swallow my hate and go back under my turret. May you always have a bad ping and thunder strike down your pc.

especially seeing as the counterplay is so easy- rush ninja tabis and then all in. that's all it takes to win lane. good spacing and itemisation is all you need

Back when I still played league I very rarely played Quinn top in a very particular matchup. When they enemy locked Vayne top. They try to cheese you with a ranged top laner you counter pick with another ranged toplaner who can very easily gank other lanes if you get ahead and if you don't get ahead you make sure that Vayne doesn't get a lead herself and you can still punish with superior map coverage.

Its not hard to beat its just fucking annoying

We've had a surge of either ranged or cheese picks in top recently in low elo.

@@lutter4818 I just want to play a good game

kting a melee support in a 2v2 lane is very different from a solo lane if the enemy is playing kennen and you're playing olaf or tryndamere or something, you will never win doesnt matter if you're better at the game than the kennen, he will just disengage everytime & poke you out of lane

@@lashedandscorned I was a top-laner from S1 to S7, and it's still my 2nd most played role. Ranged top lane picks are meant to negate your pick. You don't need to win that lane as melee, just don't feed and eventually you are more relevant.

If they pick tank they are father less

Only urgot, jayce, gnar and elise are respectable. They actually go into melee range and fight up close. Every other one of those champs on top is cancer and those that play them there do not deserve to breathe our oxygen.

@@radekvaverka8921 Ken has to go into melee for ult and E

so true not even anathima chains can help you against vayne and thats the stupid thing atm with the new dmg they all do hybrid dmg like why should i build 2 items to match 1 adc item even then they have %pen

he's ranged yeah, but still a juggernaut. he can soak up tons of damage and dish it himself, but is easily kitable and as u said he needs to get close. like his autos aren't really a big deal to most melee top laners, its mostly him throwing you over his back and pummeling you with shotgun pellets lol. more consistent than true ranged top laners imo.

@@chummyfudge8988 glad to hear he's not as hated cause I am mastery 7 on him XD

I mean you can't really hate champ that is only strong lvl1 and then he has to wait until lvl9 to start doing something. Urgot sucks he needs some mid-scope update or mini rework, because right now he's slow as fuck and his W is just joke (ability that does slightly more damage than autos, but almost completely locks you in place...very cool).