Designers Fail To Understand The Top Lane Problem

A lot of top laners complain about the role, especially in comparison to bot lane. It often feels impossible to win if the enemy bot laner gets super far ahead. So the change is that duo laners will level up a bit slower and solo laners will level up a bit more quickly. At first glance, this might make sense, but its only a very surface level fix that addresses a singular complaint you sometimes hear: **I won my lane hard top but I couldn't carry.** Sure, this change will make it easier to carry when you win lane hard. But let's think about other major top lane complaints: (1) I feel like I'm playing a 1v1 while my team is playing a 4v4. (2) Top lane is too much about getting a counterpick. If you get counterpicked you have a really unfun time. **The problem with the exp change is it punishes a top laner even more for roaming to be involved with his team, and only reinforces the playstyle of simply sitting in lane and trying to get a counterpick to win lane.** The other irony is that they are trying to make changes to bring back tanks to the top lane by adjusting conqueror and kleptomancy. But guess what? Tanks aren't about winning lane and tanks want to group with their team - meanwhile, the experience change punishes tanks for losing lane and for leaving lane to group. All the experience change does is reward counterpicks and lane bullies even more. Am I happy that the Kennen I'm facing isn't farming a 10 minute Protobelt with Kleptomancy? Sure. But how about when he now takes Electrocute and forces me out of lane to get an even larger experience lead? Eh, not so much. The truth is that a 4v4 **should** matter way more than an isolated 1v1. The solution isn't to make the 1v1 more volatile and subject to counterpicks, it should be finding ways to get top laners involved with their other allies on the map. Nor does this new "solution" address a more common problem - both top laners go relatively even but the other side of the map gets smashed. Does it really matter if I have an extra level when I'm 0/0/0 and the enemy ADC is 7/0/0? Sure, any lane feeding can be hard to overcome. But as a top laner, when one part of the map is losing, I want early options to go there and help swing it back in my teams favor. Now, if I teleport to help bot lane, I get punished harder as the enemy top laner soaks up even more experience. While so much news yesterday was incredibly awesome, I can't help but feel quite saddened that top lane is simply going to be more focused around an isolated 1v1 favoring ranged bullies.
Report as:
Offensive Spam Harassment Incorrect Board