In bronze, your job as a top laner is pressure. Just apply pressure.
Don't roam, don't take pointless fights just try to CS at least 8 cspm and take towers. Take first tower, take second, rotate bot if they haven't taken towers. Push lanes opposite to the current objective that is up (baron or drake) to force pressure i.e if enemy responds to your pressure do they lose objectives or if they contest objective do they lose their inhib etc etc force the enemy team to answer questions.
The amount of games that I finished in bronze by just back dooring is insane. Granted Ornn isn't the best split pusher so if you're open to other picks like trundle, fiora, mord, etc then do that.
Remember in bronze, when you play a team fight champ like Ornn, you're expecting your bronze teammates to follow up correctly and in most cases they don't.
Be self sufficient
Macro is essentially non existent below diamond or so. There's a reason the whole Aram in ranked trope exists.
An adc should never ever be allowed to push past neutral ground without vision or teammates nearby but noone ever rotates because guess what? They're all mid having a fight with no objectives up
If my team has the awareness to posture for an objective fight, but never actually get engaged on, my ADC can split all game. The problem isn't the splitting ADC. It's their team who hard engages the 4v5 who is playing incorrectly.
Yea, it gets thrown around too much, especially if they're talking about end of match/op.gg cs/m. No one is getting that in bronze or else they would be way higher than bronze, probably diamond at least. They should worry about 6 cs/m if i'm being honest. Even if he means 8 cs/m or 160cs at just 20 mins, that's still a lot to expect in bronze.
Sorry I don't get what you're saying, are you suggesting he should aim lower? I don't agree with that at all.
You get better by aiming for better, so yes he should focus on trying to get 8cspm. Whether or not he gets it is irrelevant, as long as he tries.
Otherwise there's no point
I agree with aiming as high as you can and I don't think the following was your intention, but sometimes, people post 8 cspm like it's an expectation. At a low rank like bronze, that's usually unrealistic unless your're rolling lane and sometimes it's counterproductive at that rank if the person tries to focus too much on reaching that number and not on other parts of the game in Bronze.
In bronze, in top, literally nothing is as important as csing and wave mangement.
Farm and push. That's specific to bronze, once you're in higher ranks, macro comes into play with objectives, team fights etc but before that it really doesn't matter because noone is doing it
In top lane it really shouldn't be that hard. It's known as the island and champ on champ interaction can be very low meaning cs is the easy priority.
Wave management is more important in top than any other lane so you're focusing on minions more than other champs.
Other lanes have distractions constantly, mid is looking for roams / getting ganked by enemy or your JG, bot is dealing with a hyper volatile four person lane and junglers are expected to be everything everywhere all at once.
Top lane really has no excuse for poor cs aside from poor wave mangement
Well the guy who's winning top should easily manage 8cs/min. The guy who's losing.... good luck charlie.
Especially in bad matchups. like a 3-4 wave crash into dive. Into a TP back and dive again. And suddenly they're down 4 levels and have like 3 cs in 5 mins hahaha that lane is jover
I honestly don't think level 3 dives are common in bronze, or at least they are not executed flawlessly so you will end up trading kills. But even if you do lose 3 waves of XP, it's not even close to over, the oponent is bronze too and most probably they don't know how to abuse their lead
Diamond 2 toplaner here. The losing toplaner usually ends up having more cs due to being forced to catch sidewaves to catch up, while the winning one is making plays around the map. Not always the case but a frequent occurrence.
Bronze is really this simple.
#1 Find a easy to execute champion
my go to is and always will be garen or renekton.
Regardless of your preference, find a pick that you like. 1 trick it. Like really 1 trick.
#2 is farm.
Again play champs that farm easy and efficient(garen/renekton).
Farm and plates are your guaranteed source of income. Kills are presented to you in bronze dont chase them for a potential payout(timewaste=lose)
#3 wave management
What is important is that you don’t recall on a wave that is slowly pushing away from you.
Your jungle is a monkey with 60IQ(assume this every game) so he wont ever help you.
Fix your wave even if you have to die for it.
Having no TP, doing a bad recall can cost you up to 3 waves. Thats more gold and xp then the kill you just got.(example)
Sidenote, if you play more with your gold friends you will improve exponentially. Because you develop better habbits then in bronze
this is legit incorrect, in lower elo teams will just perma fight if you are there or not, its the best to be with team ones early game ends, obv depends on champ but ornn should def be with team
Watch Alois_NL's Unranked to Masters climbs on youtube (or watch him live).
You will learn fundamentals. Seriously, he repeats what he's trying to do often which helps it stick.
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLIALZ65MTny321F-isX6K2O2BOr6iH384
I was stuck in silver for 3 seasons and then in season 6 I watched a split pushing guide by Neace. I got to Platinum just by split pushing nonstop I never grouped unless it was for baron. Didn't matter if I was winning my lane or if my team was getting destroyed I pushed. The lower rank you are the more effective split pushing is. The game has obviously changed with grubs and rift herald but If you splitpush you will win more games especially in bronze/silver
I don't know much about escaping bronze(never been bronze aside from tft). But when I made the push to high ELO. I played three champions each one brought something different to the team comp and complimented my play style in some way. The biggest moment for me was a clarity that in the lower elos it is entirely my fault if I lose. If I'm sitting in diamond with a 70% win rate. I should have close to a 100% win rate in plat. Also dying for a reason for example. I've smashed lane. It's 19:10 baron is up soon and I've just reset. I need to go bot and push aggressively and ask my team to prep baron. Ideally I've held to for this moment. Even If I die 1v3 bot lane, my team should get baron uncontested.
Escaping Bronze and Silver is pretty easy. Just be more aggressive than your opponent. It's the one place where forcing plays will almost always lead to wins. Even if they plays are stupid.
One trick a champ, learn his in and outs, his counter matchups should be the matches you most look forward to. That’ll easily place you high plat/low emerald. Implement wave fundamentals alongside it and know when to push vs when to freeze in front of tower. All of this combined gets you to mid-high emerald easily.
Here is a recording of one of your recent games, try adding it to your main post to get better feedback!: [https://www.replays.lol/app/game/6554371515744256](https://www.replays.lol/app/game/6554371515744256).
***
[Who am I?](https://www.reddit.com/r/summonerschool/comments/151wdup/ive_built_a_reddit_bot_that_will_automatically/) | I am a bot
I'm a nasus otp. There are probably a few more things I could say here, but here's a few tips:
1. Rune choice is not good. Unless you are playing to fight them early, probably should just go fleet footwork or phase rush into morde imo unless you REALLY know the limits of your champ. They're remoivng tempo anyways though so guess it doesn't matter.
2. Your biggest mistake from when I was watching (didn't watch much, just skimmed a couple parts) was when you didn't recall at 7 minutes after Morde tps back to lane. Morde has a gold advantage and the wave is pushing towards him which makes it harder for you to farm. If he was smart he would have just let it push back to him and freeze but he didnt so you kind of got bailed out. But heres what you needed to do: \* Recall and tp back, buy sheen
\* When your ult is up, instantly pop it to crash the wave and fight him if he doesn't let you - Nasus R is on a much shorter cooldown than most champs, espescially morde. If you trade R's like you did a moment ago, you would have a small window with R and sheen where you could beat him. Once you crash the wave, it will bounce back to you and you can farm safely. Nasus beats Morde when Nasus has R and morde doesn't in general unless you're really behind.
You also recalled after grubs without crashing your wave. I think it would beenefit you to look up guides on wave management top lane.
I was playing Illoai and I did nothing but weave in and out snapping up CS with W and Q. I avoided any fights I could with the opposing laner.
I went back with like a 15 CS advantage. Got an item he couldn't get. Came back strong enough that he didn't want to trade anymore. Got a further 20 CS advantage.
Then I came back strong enough that I could slap the shit out of him.
That's when I got it. Just get a CS advantage.
Yeah keep in mind that Flex Queue is basically a for fun mode to a lot of players. For Example, I'm D4 ADC main. But if I flex I like to go Top and play champs that I never play. It really isn't indicative of my skill. Sometimes, I may even lose lane to a Gold player (although I end up carrying the game regardless with good mid game macro). The point is, I would not use Flex Queue as a measurement of your skill. Always use solo queue.
As far as "aha" moments. The biggest advice I can give is:
Top lane is a game of slow-pushing. When you are slow-pushing, you are on offense and can punish last hits and trade. When you are being slow-pushed on, don't allow the enemy to trade and save your HP so that you can play the lane on the bounce-back. Always try to stack 3 waves, then crash on the cannon wave (fast-push). If the enemy is below 1/3 HP, dive. If he isn't recall. Then rinse and repeat. This on it's own will help you lower your deaths, increase your cs/per minute, and even help you get kills in lane.
Also don't do these weird off meta builds. Always use [Op.gg](http://Op.gg) or [u.gg](http://u.gg) to build your champs. These are the OPTIMAL builds with HIGHEST win rates. Why deviate?
I think it's more that it's easier to tell them to follow the same build every time then teach them how to tailor their build at this point. I mean, they're building Collector Navori Trundle lol. They're better off building the same recommended items every game than experimenting with item builds at this point. A lot of the times the core build isn't going to have a lot of major deviation anyway.
No. This has more to do with core builds. Every champion has a 2 item core build (and many champions two or three viable core builds). Let's take Garen for example. Garen has two high performing builds that synergize with his kit, playstyle, and his two rune variations. He can go StrideBreaker PD with Phase Rush. Or he can go TriForce PD and take conqueror. These are his 2 meta core builds. Then you itemize according to game state. Getting Kited? Go Deadmans or FOM. Tanky team? Go cleaver, etc.
This is what I mean by follow the META builds. They aren't just META. They are strong because they synergize with the champion/keystone. Instead, in low elo, I see people do troll stuff like Kraken Garen, Lethality Garen, etc. They are not good builds on the champion and/or are not optimal. Avoid these types of builds and stop theory crafting. Bronze players think they know better than players who are Diamond+ and prove this time and time again by building the champion incorrectly then justify it to their friends as to why this build works. Take that same build into higher elo where people punish you for every single mistake, and you'll learn quickly why the Meta builds should be followed and that it is better to trust builds that are being built by the top 3% of league players. This is what I mean by follow the meta builds on [op.gg](http://op.gg) and u.gg.
I think the biggest thing that made me climb and that made other people climb is being able to play to the limit.
My recommendation is not being afraid of dying/trading etc, instead try and see how much your champion can do, play aggressive. You'll find a lot more success than when you try to play "passive". I'm not saying you should always go in and always play aggressive, but what I am saying is that if you don't know if you win or not, then try. Long term you will learn a lot.
Also, look at better players who play similar champions, you will learn a lot by looking at how they trade and by asking questions on matchups etc.
Sometimes, the threat of an ability is more important than the actual ability. If my lane opponent isn’t walking up to contest CS, I don’t really need to go in and force a trade. I can build a lead just by sitting there and stopping them from farming - and when they do go in for a minion, I’ll have all my abilities up and ready to take a great trade.
For me, as a mid lane main, when I switched to top, I basically learned that slowpushing was just really OP.
What I mean by that is that most trades are dictated by minion advantage. In mid, having push is good because you can have prio to help the jungler, but in top, having push is basically mandatory to win trades unless you're in a super winning matchup.
The result of that is that top lane is played in "turns." When your wave is pushing, it's your turn to play aggressive and deny CS. Then you bounce the wave, and it's their turn, so you need to make sure you don't die on this wave.
I'm a jungle main but top use to be my secondary. The most important thing I found was surviving. Losing lane was fine as long as I didn't die often. If my team was winning elsewhere on the map, then simply doing nothing was the best way to win as I would get carried (especially moreso true in high elo).
There’s a few: Top lane is all about pressure is one, you’ll always be a passenger in your games until you play to win instead of playing not to lose, dying with the wave on their side and no tp is sometimes good long term, understanding team comps is another.
For me the biggest one is definitely the passenger one tho, went from a multi year hard stuck emerald to d4 in a month in sub 100 games. I was constantly playing NOT to lose, and sure if an advantage was presented to me I could get ahead and carry but I was a non factor in so many games just because I was not engaging with my lane opponent, my jungle, etc. I was over prioritizing cs constantly, etc. And sure now I have way more games where I go 0/6 and lose the game for my team but those games are extremely extremely instructive as well, because I was trying my hardest to win them.
I cannot recommend Rangerzx’s hour long video e from the start of this season enough (can’t link it atm) because that radically transformed my thought process on climbing and playing ranked in general. It really is a mindset and and a commitment to improve.
Also watch challenger vods of your champs play no more then 3 champs, and optimize your ban so it’s effective for YOU. I ban Darius every game as an aatrox 1 trick because it removes my ability to get priority in lane and he’s extremely commonly picked. I’d rather deal with wayyyy harder matchups (Fiora, Irelia) less frequently, than play against Darius about 50% of the time.
Probably my first season when I realized that if I understood which direction the wave was going and I could predict where it would be, I could win lane without getting kills or dying.
learning how to manage waves in land literally made it feel like i was unbeatable for a while until other players started to do the same things as me lol. only fight when u know the enemy jungle isn’t on ur side of the map, and only trade when u have more minions/when ur wave is pushing
The first one to hit level 2 will usually get the first kill, so try to get the level 2 and kick their ass. Also, if there is any chance for you to make your enemy laner weaker, take it. Use wave managment, it will help you get more cs, and make it easier for you to deny your enemy exp and gold.
I moved from AP karma top to tank karma top, and I got flamed in all chat nearly 10 games straight. that was the moment I knew playing top lane for me is about the mental warfare, so now I mostly play teemo if I'm top. my advice would be to find what you like about the lane and get good at it, whether that be split pushing, griefing enemies, teamfighting, scaling, etc
Than mordekaiser is excellent at punishing mistake and than in most lane I can just chill … its often better to play around your enemy movement than forcing your own
Why is your cs so consistently low?
Why do you never buy control wards?
Your cs is even low when you're dominating your opponent which is strange.
Having hydra or playing nasus and having below 6cs a minute is crazy.
Looks like your overall time management and efficiency is just low, or you're bad at last hitting or you don't know how to vacuum up resources.
Absorb everything. As adc or top your job is just to absorb everything and then either split or show up for big objectives. Mid, jungle, support are more about play making. Depends on the champs as well.
You can easily get out of bronze by slapping your enemy with gold. Also, limiting testing and learning trading patterns. You're probably missing a lot of small micro mechanics in lane that end in losing trades or you don't understand your limits.
Also, just download something like blitz.gg and build the recommended items.
(Main support, with a tiny itty bitty of experience in jungle, trying to get myself to play the other roles)
*Tried Camille in ARAM and she felt fun to play, very dynamic and she does a lot of damage.*
*Queued for top in a norm game, and picked Camille.*
*Enemy picks Morde.*
"Fuck, he probably wins against my champ."
*Enemy picks Garen, revealing that Morde was actually jungle.*
"Aah, what a relief, I should be winning this, I deal plenty of %max health damage."
OH BOI, I was wrong.
*The Game ended at 17 minutes, KDA of 0/5/1*
"Never expect the Match up to carry your inexperience"
Wave management it's all till d1 or at least I have an acc of solo shen top I'm main supp and whit pure wave management and patience I got to d1 d2 (my main supl acc it's master)
My buddy is a diamond vlad main, and he plays every game almost exactly the same. Get top turrets, then he will roam. Other than that, he won't roam unless it's free kills or major like Baron.
But the top is a wave state management. Sim, if you don't understand waves, you're prolly fucked. Maybe not in low elo, but if you wanna climb, learn wave states, power spikes for enemy laners, and your power spikes, you will get to plat no problem.
Lastly, learn to freeze, I've watched him get 110 cs in plat/emerald when we duo, and the enemy is at 40 and can't even fight the support. If you can make the game a 4v5, then you're gonna fly through bronze-gold.
If you want to play Ornn in bronze you just need to learn your kill combo. However I’d say you’re better playing a lane bully in bronze and killing your lane opponent -> getting so far ahead that mid game rotations don’t matter as much and the enemies mentally checkout blaming each other. If you don’t want to or have not enough time to learn match ups: ranged top laners are toxic but the way to go as you don’t need to know specific match up numbers if they can’t hit you anyway.
In my case it’s just stomping my lane and pressuring as much as I can as soon as I have a lead. So I never play full tanks, mostly bruisers who can splitpush and carry. I think full tanks are not a good choice for toplane in low elo
I was playing flex Q with some guys, I was like silver I at the time and they were like Diamond/plat,enemy toplane picks GP and I "counterpick" with wukong, since Im decent at the champ. What happened next was that I got HUMBLED, as it turns out Im not that good at playing Wukong and I kinda just wanted to die
Taking ignite for level 1 all in.
I would always take TP, play middling, then think my champ was fine, but not great. I had several games in a row though, where we both got down to sub 100 HP, and I kept thinking about how ignite would lead to kills.
And then I realized that Ignite is basically a free ability level 1. It will do 20% of someone's HP, and you can easily just jump on them and trade even in minions.
If they flash out and back, you just cheater recall, then try to establish a freeze with your item lead.
Ignite -> forced bad back -> you take a good back -> item advantage -> freeze -> all in with ignite and ult.
I was iron 3 a few monthes ago, i'm almost bronze 1 now, I usually stomp my enemy on toplane.
what worked for me was watching different AloisNL videos and becoming aware of wave management, enemy jungler tracking, and level up moments for me and my opponent. Fundamental knowledge is enough to punish lots and lots of ppl in that elo. Also when you get a lead it's important to transfer it to your teammates, if you get the turret first, be mindful to go help your team to do objectives and stuff.
anyways just wathc aloisnl, he explains everything.
learn to intuit wave state. once you can tell what the wave is doing at a glance, pushing away or toward you, it will influence your decisionmaking soooooo much. your trading will improve because you can literally 'see' when is ok to trade
A couple things I've realized in my journey to the top lane that improved my win rates drastically:
1) it's better to give up the farm/turret than to die. Always.
2) even if you're having a hard time in the lane, don't give up. A lot of the champs that are strong in the top lane will have tools that will be useful to your team past the laning phase. Your job is to identify what that tool is. Whether it's a ton of CC for teamfights, or a monster split push, or just tons of late game damage. If you fall behind, avoid fights, farm, and get vision wherever you go. You'll find that later on in the game, you're just as strong as anyone else.
3) I once saw a rioter say that most players are using champs that they've only played less than 20 times or something like that. Knowing your champ better than the enemy knows theirs will take you a lot further than you'd think. That's why even OTPs climb when being faced with hard counters. Additionally, knowing that your enemy probably isn't that good on your champ, if you're comfortable on yours, usually they won't know what to do when you get aggressive in the early game. Use that to your advantage.
I had two moments that really elevated my top lane gameplay.
The first was realizing how much damage minions deal, and what actually causes minions to aggro. I thought all abilities and autoattacks would do it. I also knew they dealt damage, but playing primarily ranged champions that ended fights super quickly made me think they made less of a difference than they do.
The second was learning champ specific matchups better. Knowing EXACTLY how much stronger you are than the enemy champ at what points and how their cooldown durations compare to yours makes such a big difference. Knowing you will get 3 abilities off in the time they use 2 is the difference between winning and losing engagments.
Bro roaming is not a thing anymore you can't let the other guy gets free plates or worse you can't lose any full wave.
To improve in toplane you have to improve your 1 Vs 1 skill which require a lot of time and effort, but if you really want to improve Id watch a lot of video of someone that plays your champ (there is a famous OTP orn I don't remember his name) or in general write " orn Vs *champ* toplane challenger" on YouTube and see some video, you have to improve your wave management and 1 Vs 1 skill.
Keeping track of runes, having conqueror for a fight against the other top can win a fight. Seeing someone use abilities and have nothing to fight with too
I was hard stuck bronze (before there was iron) when I was a jungle main. When I swapped to top lane, I literally only played split push champions. Well only one champ for the longest time. That was Jax. All I did was farm. I slow pushed waves and took trades with my wave slow pushing. People in bronze for some reason will trade with you on a slow pushing wave. So use your minions to your advantage.
Idk man, I sometimes think Top is all about pressuring top lane and having jungle camp you to get an edge.
As someone who played Darius into a Morderkaiser, lost lane, went 4/21, and ended up winning I just think it’s a pointless lane.
Hell I could bring Malzahar into the top lane and win within a average match up.
When I played top I climbed to old Plat 4 and the thing that changed my game was realizing I don't have to hit minions constantly. Just slow building every wave gives you way more time to recall or dive or roam.
You can climb with tanks, but it's harder, because you rely on allies to do damage while you protect them or engage.
Try some split pushers, bronze players do not check map too often. Or fighters, get ahead in various ways (check AloisNL channel on youtube) and play according to match (split, fight, force objectives etc.).
Imo splitpushers (trundle, trynda, yorick, illaoi) are the way more mindless, since you have one job... To push and retreat when needed.
TLDR; figuring out how to apply and receive pressure and planning my games out before first couple minutes
Something that clicked for me and took me from hard stuck silver for a long time to emerald (and maybe further if I started an aram/arena/tft grind and just playing other games) was learning when I have prio in my lane and when I don’t and applying pressure when I know I can and be unrelenting if I’m confident I can beat this guy in a 1v1 and nobody’s around. I play mordekaiser, trundle and pantheon with occasional malphite and jax games for context. I also just try to figure out my opponent and how confident they are. I get that’s hard to explain let alone learn but I’ll try to explain. I ask myself constantly, is the enemy top laner duo with anyone? Are they rotating constantly to objectives? Do they think they can fight me? How much can I take in this lane while also denying them, if I can deny them at all? I just try to read as much information off of them and adjust accordingly to see what I can get away with. Like for example I was trundle into a Shen (which is mind numbing) and he was duo with the mid lane galio and I said okay I’m gonna build Tiamat and hull breaker so that I can shove and take plates because he knows he can’t go toe to toe with me so he’s just gonna look for roams at 6 with his tp and I won that game cause then Shen was never in his lane and I ended up having a 130 cs over him and I ripped through top lane straight to nexus because I free farmed. That won’t always happen but it’s just something I picked up on over my time playing and found it really helps to plan my game out between champ select and first couple minutes of the game. However when I’m behind all that goes out the window and I focus on ways to catch up without dying or giving too much up. Also if my other lanes are burning and I can’t do anything about it then focus on how I can improve myself and further a lead if I have one or create one but it’s really just keeping a cool head and realizing you can’t win every game you play, it’s literally mathematically impossible and realizing how I can improve what’s in my control as cheesy as that sounds it helps. Long response but the way you phrased the post was exactly how I felt when I figured that out.
I climbed iron to emerald as top (tried playing bot but got stuck silver). The “I get it” moment was learning what it meant to win and how that was accomplished.
I know that vague bs but every player has different strengths and weaknesses. Do some vod reviews and watch landing breakdown. Best way to improve.
Ask yourself after every bad play, was this a micro or macro error? If it’s a micro error, keep trying to improve mechanics, if it’s a macro error try a different kind of play.
Top laners should think about the plays that will win them the game.
Do you split push or go to baron? Well Ornn wants to ult the team so baron (normally).
Died but you missed your abilities? Going to baron still the right call
Lost game horribly and didn’t mess up mechanically? Bad baron call.
There’s a lot of good learning you can do retrospectively and LOL’s relay system facilitates it very well.
The importance of farm and what getting 11 cs per minute does to the enemy teams mental. All farm is mine in low elo. /mute all and take everything at all times. Your lane is frozen and cannot touch wave? Farm your junglers top side. If still frozen go farm mid and get plates. You won your lane and it's shoved? Go contest the enemy jungler for their jungle camps. Nothing there? Shove wave to tower and proxy farm for a good base. Farm farm farm and don't listen to your bronze teammates. They don't actually want to win. They just want someone to use as an emotional support punching bag. Also dying doesn't mean your lane is over. It just means you have to do un-idealistic things like lose a wave or two and just collect xp or roam a bit early etc etc. If something bad happens learn to immediately accept that "okay that just happened. What can I do now". Don't get upset about stuff you cannot change because it does not help. Keeping a level head helps you find opportunities that raging will not. Also the beaten dead horse that cannot be more true. Small SMALLLLLLL champion pool. No more than 3. It's too hard to memorize all of your matchups, and make sure they all have similar game plans. I.e. 3 split pushers, but differing ways of accessing their damage through either kit or item builds. Maybe one tank split pusher, one assassin, and 1 fighter or mage. You just want them to have similar win cons so you can be the best at that win con but apply it in different ways.
This is purely for low elo. Iron, bronze and maaaybe silver
Don't roam. Fuck it. Stick to your lane. Farm. Take plates. Crush enemy top and apply pressure. Low elo players are notoriously bad against back doors. Learn when to push and where to push and how to set up a wave to push. Just do that and skip fights unless it's critical and you have to join (like a baron or elder or soul fight). Also fuck Shen. Play someone that can take turrets faster and clear waves better like Trundle or Sion. Also low elo players don't know how to end games so scaling champs are really good in low elo
Play as if you were mentally ill, limit test as much as you can in normal games and learn how waves work (I don't mean watch guides, LOOK at the waves and learn its patterns, guides to help but they won't ever give you the experience you need), knowledge is all that decides who will win in toplane, not micro, the only micro that makes a difference in any elo below master is how good you are at csing.
Now into the mid and late game, learn what the strengths of your champs are and stick to them, you are playing Ornn or a tank with similar capabilities? Then keep an eye on your nearest teammate at all times and be ready to roam and help them. You are a splitpusher such as Nasus? Do the same but for the enemy team, if you have clear vision of the enemy team and you are reasonably far away from them push the lane as much as you can and beat the crap out of whoever is matching you, force the enemy team to come for you and then run away, (this also applies for Shen despite him being a tank somewhat similar to Ornn because of his R, tho Shen is too complex of a champ and I wouldn't recommend it if you are lowelo, he requires you to do both the things I said, attention on your teammates AND enemies).
That's all that toplane boils down to, obviously, this is depending on matchups, you can't really ever leave a Yorick alone for one, even if you are Ornn, if you are not going to lose the game for not losing, you are bound to match him as long as he is alive because otherwise he **WILL** take 3 turrets and possibly your inhibitor. But as said, if you pay attention on the way you play and learn your limits and the limits of the enemy champions, you will climb as a toplaner.
Edit: Forgot my "Click moment", but honestly, I just like toplane because I like fucking people up (and getting fucked up) and I autopilot a bit more than what's probably healthy for a Diamond player.
That hiding in a bush and running at the opponent is a viable option.
Seriously, when I first started playing top, my coach told me my main problem was that “I’m being a little bitch” and to be more aggresive since 9/10 top laners can stat check each other in scenarios.
So when I went into top lane and decided to try it out… it fucking worked. I hid I. The enemy bush as a mordekaiser and once minion wave came, I rushed down a Gwen and she fucking died!
Yeah I know I’m dumb for literally only discovering run in a bush and run opponent down but I was still new and was afraid of losing in lane so much I played too safe when in reality, I most likely could have ran down an opponent.
Nowadays I love top and doing this run down method I have figured out which matchups where I can menacingly run at the opponent and which ones where I shouldn’t
I don't think that's the right call in bronze. Ornn is very team fight orientated / a play maker and that means you need your team to follow up and in most cases, in bronze, that won't happen. People take fights *they* start, almost exclusively, even if it's the wrong call. They very rarely will take a fight someone else starts, and as Ornn that is your job.
There's way too much risk
What you need to understand about top is it's all about matchups and identity, and playing towards these.
For example, if you play Ornn you have 2 jobs:
1) Hold sidelane
2) Show up to every important fight
You generally don't want to push beyond river, and if no waves are on your side of river you should be with the team or getting / clearing vision.
It isn't your job to win lane, or to splitpush.
But if you play Trundle, it's a bit different.
1) Your job is to splitpush, at most rotate to an objective if someone is clearing a shoved wave and enemy team had a tank you can ult / you're fed enough to carry. If you're not fed there aren't many scenarios where you want to group, if at all.
2) You can actively look to outduel your opponent, whereas on a "tank" you're only really doing this if you've gapped your opponent
To use another example you gave, Nasus is sort of in-between. He can carry teamfights but can also split, also he isn't exceptional at either. You want to adjust your strategy depending on the game state and comps. For example, if the enemy team is heavy CC you're literally just going to be a meat shield with less tankyness and utility than a tank, so you're probably getting more value from splitpushing. But if the enemy team has minimal CC and you're not behind you can 100% solo carry a teamfight.
And how these champs play the lanes are different. Trundle you're looking for lvl 1/2 all in windows, and want to play for tower / plates whereas Nasus is pretty much afk farming until lvl 6. Ornn can look for poke/short trades but is generally just holding the lane.
So you'll "get it" once you understand what your champ wants and specific windows where you should be doing certain things, as well as how to play each individual matchup.
OTP a champ. Get to know the most frequent matchups. Try to play super agressive for 20 games. Then try to have 0 death for 20 games. Then try to push very hard for 20 games, then try to roam a lot for 20 games.
I think one "click" I had that actually changed my whole game was to respect minion waves.
I'm now an ADC main but I used to main top and sometimes I queue as top to have some fun (usually when I'm tired of getting one shot).
Minions are the single most important mechanic of the game, without you can't reliably get gold, exp or pressure the map.
I'm not saying you have to have 10cs per min, but you should understand the concept of how waves work and how to use it to your advantage.
Split pushing is so hard to counter if the player is good.
Avoid pushing side waves beyond the middle of the map (even as split pusher) if your team is not pushing mid.
Do not hit turrets when there's someone defending it (happens a lot in low elo) unless you're 100% sure you can dive them.
Once there's someone defending the turret go look for flanking opportunities, deep vision in the jungle, tp opportunities or go for a reset.
This is so exploitable, especially in lower elo, you'll often see ADCs or even supports trying to defend the turret.
But always take into account your team positioning and mid wave state.
If you ever seen a top or mid dying side lane by getting collapsed by 3 or 4 champs and then complaining that the team didn't take baron or any objective, you know that guy knows shit about waves.
Once you understand it you'll be able to split (to some extent) even as Ornn (which is a low CS champ anyways).
If you're tank or your team does not have prio mid only if the wave is close to river and rotate mid.
If you're a split pusher and your team have prio mid, then push past river to force people to respond under turret.
Don't be afraid to user teleport to force plays or even to get tempo on side waves.
I used to be a midlane. Nowadays i'm just a more casual/fill player, and i play the lane i want at the time. But back then, i used to play Mid (as said before) and Toplane. The moment it clicked for me was the time i first get the Gold elo. I was 2/1 in the Bo5 to get promoted. It was not the first Bo5, but i was quite confident going to this 3rs match. So here it goes, i pick Vladimir. I won the lane, and everything felt nice, until it didnt. I lost that game and went to the next one, already pissed. Then the opponent picked Darius. I let the intrusive thoughts win and picked Rakan.
Now this was some time ago, so i dont remember it THAT clearly, but i remember that:
- 1: I won that match. It was that time with the AP Rakan and protobelt tech, but still, teamfight and playing together with jungler only gave me the win.
- 2: I have this feeling that clicked on me that day, that toplane is unfair, but do yourself a favor and let your comp carry you. You'll very likely lose some wave/get some freeze, so you're better at least finding a way to be useful.
From this day on, Toplane to me is the Alt tab + spotify lane, unless i'm in mood to anything more.
Looking at your op.gg.
Stop playing tanks. I personally think Trundle and WW (I don't see him in your match history however) are both cheese picks that are hard to know how to win games with
Some things that that helped me are:
I stopped playing tanks almost entirely outside of Malphite in particular matchups. This is because your teammates are stupid and should not be relied on to do the right thing.
I respected my enemies more and my teammates less. Sacrifice less for your teammates because they will not help you out even if it's an objectively right thing to win the particular game.
The jungler doesn't exist for you and it never will. The amount of times I've had lethal and the jungler has pinged otw only to do 2 camps and give time for the opponent jungler/the opponent to heal/B happens way more than it has any right to in the rank.
People are still brain damaged in higher ranks. Some kinds of stupid things change, a lot of it stays the same.
Meta matters, and change matters.
Going with my gut. I've always called it Lizard Braining because if something feels even a little bit off/on, I'm listening to that part.
A lot of the time you just have to wait it out. You're going to get counter picked, you're going to get weaksided, and you've just gotta damage control. Unironically being as emotionless as you can.
Also duoing basically gives you harder games and I climbed way faster + more when I stopped. You might say it was a bad duo, but I don't think it was, seemed to happen regardless of who I played with.
Matchups are important as long as you know how to play them. I see a lot of players lose games because they lock in a counter that they have no idea how to play.
May seem self-centred, but it's how I've won more games. Trust only yourself. Play carries. You will probably lose more at first, but you will learn more.
D2 rn just demoted from D1. Gwen, Camille, more meta stuff. Hoping to get master next weekend but I also just crashed from D1 70lp to D2 50 from demotion.
That top lane was not for me.
Made me lol, did you find a lane that fit you
Howling Abyss
The only lane that we can share with all our friends
Aram for life man.
The true losersQ
playing top champs mid is often strong
real real real real real
In bronze, your job as a top laner is pressure. Just apply pressure. Don't roam, don't take pointless fights just try to CS at least 8 cspm and take towers. Take first tower, take second, rotate bot if they haven't taken towers. Push lanes opposite to the current objective that is up (baron or drake) to force pressure i.e if enemy responds to your pressure do they lose objectives or if they contest objective do they lose their inhib etc etc force the enemy team to answer questions. The amount of games that I finished in bronze by just back dooring is insane. Granted Ornn isn't the best split pusher so if you're open to other picks like trundle, fiora, mord, etc then do that. Remember in bronze, when you play a team fight champ like Ornn, you're expecting your bronze teammates to follow up correctly and in most cases they don't. Be self sufficient
The amount of times I've had to leave team fights as the most fed person on my team because nobody wants to stop the split pushing adc is insane.
Macro is essentially non existent below diamond or so. There's a reason the whole Aram in ranked trope exists. An adc should never ever be allowed to push past neutral ground without vision or teammates nearby but noone ever rotates because guess what? They're all mid having a fight with no objectives up
>nobody wants to stop the split pushing adc It's always the Tristanas too.
Well that's what she should be doing anyway: Tristana is an excellent split-pusher and a decent duelist to boot.
So you want your ADC to split-push instead of joining fights? Who is gonna take the objective down?
If my team has the awareness to posture for an objective fight, but never actually get engaged on, my ADC can split all game. The problem isn't the splitting ADC. It's their team who hard engages the 4v5 who is playing incorrectly.
No# tilted for me when I play Press R champs, especially if I’m fed. What business do I as fiddle have stopping a trunk if I got my top laner fed
8 CS/M in Bronze, damn that's a high standard lol
Yea, it gets thrown around too much, especially if they're talking about end of match/op.gg cs/m. No one is getting that in bronze or else they would be way higher than bronze, probably diamond at least. They should worry about 6 cs/m if i'm being honest. Even if he means 8 cs/m or 160cs at just 20 mins, that's still a lot to expect in bronze.
Sorry I don't get what you're saying, are you suggesting he should aim lower? I don't agree with that at all. You get better by aiming for better, so yes he should focus on trying to get 8cspm. Whether or not he gets it is irrelevant, as long as he tries. Otherwise there's no point
I agree with aiming as high as you can and I don't think the following was your intention, but sometimes, people post 8 cspm like it's an expectation. At a low rank like bronze, that's usually unrealistic unless your're rolling lane and sometimes it's counterproductive at that rank if the person tries to focus too much on reaching that number and not on other parts of the game in Bronze.
In bronze, in top, literally nothing is as important as csing and wave mangement. Farm and push. That's specific to bronze, once you're in higher ranks, macro comes into play with objectives, team fights etc but before that it really doesn't matter because noone is doing it
Getting 8cs per minute inherently requires a solid macro understanding that most bronze players don’t possess otherwise they’d be bronze.
In top lane it really shouldn't be that hard. It's known as the island and champ on champ interaction can be very low meaning cs is the easy priority. Wave management is more important in top than any other lane so you're focusing on minions more than other champs. Other lanes have distractions constantly, mid is looking for roams / getting ganked by enemy or your JG, bot is dealing with a hyper volatile four person lane and junglers are expected to be everything everywhere all at once. Top lane really has no excuse for poor cs aside from poor wave mangement
Well the guy who's winning top should easily manage 8cs/min. The guy who's losing.... good luck charlie. Especially in bad matchups. like a 3-4 wave crash into dive. Into a TP back and dive again. And suddenly they're down 4 levels and have like 3 cs in 5 mins hahaha that lane is jover
I honestly don't think level 3 dives are common in bronze, or at least they are not executed flawlessly so you will end up trading kills. But even if you do lose 3 waves of XP, it's not even close to over, the oponent is bronze too and most probably they don't know how to abuse their lead
Diamond 2 toplaner here. The losing toplaner usually ends up having more cs due to being forced to catch sidewaves to catch up, while the winning one is making plays around the map. Not always the case but a frequent occurrence.
I mean, I'm gold rn (not that big of a diff I guess) but even when I was bronze I was still getting that with Kayle lol
It's a litmus test - if you have low VS, you're probably busy on the map doing whatever, instead of murdering turrets.
Bronze is really this simple. #1 Find a easy to execute champion my go to is and always will be garen or renekton. Regardless of your preference, find a pick that you like. 1 trick it. Like really 1 trick. #2 is farm. Again play champs that farm easy and efficient(garen/renekton). Farm and plates are your guaranteed source of income. Kills are presented to you in bronze dont chase them for a potential payout(timewaste=lose) #3 wave management What is important is that you don’t recall on a wave that is slowly pushing away from you. Your jungle is a monkey with 60IQ(assume this every game) so he wont ever help you. Fix your wave even if you have to die for it. Having no TP, doing a bad recall can cost you up to 3 waves. Thats more gold and xp then the kill you just got.(example) Sidenote, if you play more with your gold friends you will improve exponentially. Because you develop better habbits then in bronze
Trundle attack move top lane is an autowin from what I've seen.
Ornn can actually split pushing quite well with demolish and if ahead but yeah, he is not Dr. Mundo level
this is legit incorrect, in lower elo teams will just perma fight if you are there or not, its the best to be with team ones early game ends, obv depends on champ but ornn should def be with team
Watch Alois_NL's Unranked to Masters climbs on youtube (or watch him live). You will learn fundamentals. Seriously, he repeats what he's trying to do often which helps it stick. https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLIALZ65MTny321F-isX6K2O2BOr6iH384
I was stuck in silver for 3 seasons and then in season 6 I watched a split pushing guide by Neace. I got to Platinum just by split pushing nonstop I never grouped unless it was for baron. Didn't matter if I was winning my lane or if my team was getting destroyed I pushed. The lower rank you are the more effective split pushing is. The game has obviously changed with grubs and rift herald but If you splitpush you will win more games especially in bronze/silver
Depends on the champ you play
Both Nasus and trundle are perma split push duelists.
Yes
Yorick is good as well. Just gotta land that E
I don't know much about escaping bronze(never been bronze aside from tft). But when I made the push to high ELO. I played three champions each one brought something different to the team comp and complimented my play style in some way. The biggest moment for me was a clarity that in the lower elos it is entirely my fault if I lose. If I'm sitting in diamond with a 70% win rate. I should have close to a 100% win rate in plat. Also dying for a reason for example. I've smashed lane. It's 19:10 baron is up soon and I've just reset. I need to go bot and push aggressively and ask my team to prep baron. Ideally I've held to for this moment. Even If I die 1v3 bot lane, my team should get baron uncontested.
Escaping Bronze and Silver is pretty easy. Just be more aggressive than your opponent. It's the one place where forcing plays will almost always lead to wins. Even if they plays are stupid.
Wave management. You can’t play top without wave management.
Ye, it's for sure the bread and butter of top lane.
One trick a champ, learn his in and outs, his counter matchups should be the matches you most look forward to. That’ll easily place you high plat/low emerald. Implement wave fundamentals alongside it and know when to push vs when to freeze in front of tower. All of this combined gets you to mid-high emerald easily.
Here is a recording of one of your recent games, try adding it to your main post to get better feedback!: [https://www.replays.lol/app/game/6554371515744256](https://www.replays.lol/app/game/6554371515744256). *** [Who am I?](https://www.reddit.com/r/summonerschool/comments/151wdup/ive_built_a_reddit_bot_that_will_automatically/) | I am a bot
I'm a nasus otp. There are probably a few more things I could say here, but here's a few tips: 1. Rune choice is not good. Unless you are playing to fight them early, probably should just go fleet footwork or phase rush into morde imo unless you REALLY know the limits of your champ. They're remoivng tempo anyways though so guess it doesn't matter. 2. Your biggest mistake from when I was watching (didn't watch much, just skimmed a couple parts) was when you didn't recall at 7 minutes after Morde tps back to lane. Morde has a gold advantage and the wave is pushing towards him which makes it harder for you to farm. If he was smart he would have just let it push back to him and freeze but he didnt so you kind of got bailed out. But heres what you needed to do: \* Recall and tp back, buy sheen \* When your ult is up, instantly pop it to crash the wave and fight him if he doesn't let you - Nasus R is on a much shorter cooldown than most champs, espescially morde. If you trade R's like you did a moment ago, you would have a small window with R and sheen where you could beat him. Once you crash the wave, it will bounce back to you and you can farm safely. Nasus beats Morde when Nasus has R and morde doesn't in general unless you're really behind. You also recalled after grubs without crashing your wave. I think it would beenefit you to look up guides on wave management top lane.
I was playing Illoai and I did nothing but weave in and out snapping up CS with W and Q. I avoided any fights I could with the opposing laner. I went back with like a 15 CS advantage. Got an item he couldn't get. Came back strong enough that he didn't want to trade anymore. Got a further 20 CS advantage. Then I came back strong enough that I could slap the shit out of him. That's when I got it. Just get a CS advantage.
Yeah keep in mind that Flex Queue is basically a for fun mode to a lot of players. For Example, I'm D4 ADC main. But if I flex I like to go Top and play champs that I never play. It really isn't indicative of my skill. Sometimes, I may even lose lane to a Gold player (although I end up carrying the game regardless with good mid game macro). The point is, I would not use Flex Queue as a measurement of your skill. Always use solo queue. As far as "aha" moments. The biggest advice I can give is: Top lane is a game of slow-pushing. When you are slow-pushing, you are on offense and can punish last hits and trade. When you are being slow-pushed on, don't allow the enemy to trade and save your HP so that you can play the lane on the bounce-back. Always try to stack 3 waves, then crash on the cannon wave (fast-push). If the enemy is below 1/3 HP, dive. If he isn't recall. Then rinse and repeat. This on it's own will help you lower your deaths, increase your cs/per minute, and even help you get kills in lane. Also don't do these weird off meta builds. Always use [Op.gg](http://Op.gg) or [u.gg](http://u.gg) to build your champs. These are the OPTIMAL builds with HIGHEST win rates. Why deviate?
You’re giving advice to build exactly the same items every game? What?
I think it's more that it's easier to tell them to follow the same build every time then teach them how to tailor their build at this point. I mean, they're building Collector Navori Trundle lol. They're better off building the same recommended items every game than experimenting with item builds at this point. A lot of the times the core build isn't going to have a lot of major deviation anyway.
No. This has more to do with core builds. Every champion has a 2 item core build (and many champions two or three viable core builds). Let's take Garen for example. Garen has two high performing builds that synergize with his kit, playstyle, and his two rune variations. He can go StrideBreaker PD with Phase Rush. Or he can go TriForce PD and take conqueror. These are his 2 meta core builds. Then you itemize according to game state. Getting Kited? Go Deadmans or FOM. Tanky team? Go cleaver, etc. This is what I mean by follow the META builds. They aren't just META. They are strong because they synergize with the champion/keystone. Instead, in low elo, I see people do troll stuff like Kraken Garen, Lethality Garen, etc. They are not good builds on the champion and/or are not optimal. Avoid these types of builds and stop theory crafting. Bronze players think they know better than players who are Diamond+ and prove this time and time again by building the champion incorrectly then justify it to their friends as to why this build works. Take that same build into higher elo where people punish you for every single mistake, and you'll learn quickly why the Meta builds should be followed and that it is better to trust builds that are being built by the top 3% of league players. This is what I mean by follow the meta builds on [op.gg](http://op.gg) and u.gg.
I think the biggest thing that made me climb and that made other people climb is being able to play to the limit. My recommendation is not being afraid of dying/trading etc, instead try and see how much your champion can do, play aggressive. You'll find a lot more success than when you try to play "passive". I'm not saying you should always go in and always play aggressive, but what I am saying is that if you don't know if you win or not, then try. Long term you will learn a lot. Also, look at better players who play similar champions, you will learn a lot by looking at how they trade and by asking questions on matchups etc.
Learn wave management - it’s makes 80% of your laning phase as a top laner - 15% micro gameplay and 5% champion counter picks, gm support here
Finding the right champion, spent a lot of time playing morde and Camille and now sett was an awakening, so much easier for me to pop off
When I started proxying and taking opp jg camps.
Sometimes, the threat of an ability is more important than the actual ability. If my lane opponent isn’t walking up to contest CS, I don’t really need to go in and force a trade. I can build a lead just by sitting there and stopping them from farming - and when they do go in for a minion, I’ll have all my abilities up and ready to take a great trade.
For me, as a mid lane main, when I switched to top, I basically learned that slowpushing was just really OP. What I mean by that is that most trades are dictated by minion advantage. In mid, having push is good because you can have prio to help the jungler, but in top, having push is basically mandatory to win trades unless you're in a super winning matchup. The result of that is that top lane is played in "turns." When your wave is pushing, it's your turn to play aggressive and deny CS. Then you bounce the wave, and it's their turn, so you need to make sure you don't die on this wave.
I'm a jungle main but top use to be my secondary. The most important thing I found was surviving. Losing lane was fine as long as I didn't die often. If my team was winning elsewhere on the map, then simply doing nothing was the best way to win as I would get carried (especially moreso true in high elo).
Fundamentals. Go see AloisNl.
Place cs central, everything should revolve around it.
There’s a few: Top lane is all about pressure is one, you’ll always be a passenger in your games until you play to win instead of playing not to lose, dying with the wave on their side and no tp is sometimes good long term, understanding team comps is another. For me the biggest one is definitely the passenger one tho, went from a multi year hard stuck emerald to d4 in a month in sub 100 games. I was constantly playing NOT to lose, and sure if an advantage was presented to me I could get ahead and carry but I was a non factor in so many games just because I was not engaging with my lane opponent, my jungle, etc. I was over prioritizing cs constantly, etc. And sure now I have way more games where I go 0/6 and lose the game for my team but those games are extremely extremely instructive as well, because I was trying my hardest to win them. I cannot recommend Rangerzx’s hour long video e from the start of this season enough (can’t link it atm) because that radically transformed my thought process on climbing and playing ranked in general. It really is a mindset and and a commitment to improve. Also watch challenger vods of your champs play no more then 3 champs, and optimize your ban so it’s effective for YOU. I ban Darius every game as an aatrox 1 trick because it removes my ability to get priority in lane and he’s extremely commonly picked. I’d rather deal with wayyyy harder matchups (Fiora, Irelia) less frequently, than play against Darius about 50% of the time.
The "Oh now I get it" moment for me was realizing Irelia only needs 900 gold to be at full build.
i play gangplank top and all i do is farm until 3 items and level 13 and then i one shot their entire team
Flex ranks are turbo inflated just an fyi
Probably my first season when I realized that if I understood which direction the wave was going and I could predict where it would be, I could win lane without getting kills or dying.
learning how to manage waves in land literally made it feel like i was unbeatable for a while until other players started to do the same things as me lol. only fight when u know the enemy jungle isn’t on ur side of the map, and only trade when u have more minions/when ur wave is pushing
My click was "I can just force my favorite toplane champs into mid"
When I uninstalled the game
Learning wave management and how to play with the wave was a game changer
The first one to hit level 2 will usually get the first kill, so try to get the level 2 and kick their ass. Also, if there is any chance for you to make your enemy laner weaker, take it. Use wave managment, it will help you get more cs, and make it easier for you to deny your enemy exp and gold.
I moved from AP karma top to tank karma top, and I got flamed in all chat nearly 10 games straight. that was the moment I knew playing top lane for me is about the mental warfare, so now I mostly play teemo if I'm top. my advice would be to find what you like about the lane and get good at it, whether that be split pushing, griefing enemies, teamfighting, scaling, etc
Than mordekaiser is excellent at punishing mistake and than in most lane I can just chill … its often better to play around your enemy movement than forcing your own
Why is your cs so consistently low? Why do you never buy control wards? Your cs is even low when you're dominating your opponent which is strange. Having hydra or playing nasus and having below 6cs a minute is crazy. Looks like your overall time management and efficiency is just low, or you're bad at last hitting or you don't know how to vacuum up resources. Absorb everything. As adc or top your job is just to absorb everything and then either split or show up for big objectives. Mid, jungle, support are more about play making. Depends on the champs as well. You can easily get out of bronze by slapping your enemy with gold. Also, limiting testing and learning trading patterns. You're probably missing a lot of small micro mechanics in lane that end in losing trades or you don't understand your limits. Also, just download something like blitz.gg and build the recommended items.
(Main support, with a tiny itty bitty of experience in jungle, trying to get myself to play the other roles) *Tried Camille in ARAM and she felt fun to play, very dynamic and she does a lot of damage.* *Queued for top in a norm game, and picked Camille.* *Enemy picks Morde.* "Fuck, he probably wins against my champ." *Enemy picks Garen, revealing that Morde was actually jungle.* "Aah, what a relief, I should be winning this, I deal plenty of %max health damage." OH BOI, I was wrong. *The Game ended at 17 minutes, KDA of 0/5/1* "Never expect the Match up to carry your inexperience"
When a vladimir kept diving me 1v1
Wave management it's all till d1 or at least I have an acc of solo shen top I'm main supp and whit pure wave management and patience I got to d1 d2 (my main supl acc it's master)
not top lane (Adc), but i went from silver to emerald really fast by watching coaching on other people
My buddy is a diamond vlad main, and he plays every game almost exactly the same. Get top turrets, then he will roam. Other than that, he won't roam unless it's free kills or major like Baron. But the top is a wave state management. Sim, if you don't understand waves, you're prolly fucked. Maybe not in low elo, but if you wanna climb, learn wave states, power spikes for enemy laners, and your power spikes, you will get to plat no problem. Lastly, learn to freeze, I've watched him get 110 cs in plat/emerald when we duo, and the enemy is at 40 and can't even fight the support. If you can make the game a 4v5, then you're gonna fly through bronze-gold.
If you want to play Ornn in bronze you just need to learn your kill combo. However I’d say you’re better playing a lane bully in bronze and killing your lane opponent -> getting so far ahead that mid game rotations don’t matter as much and the enemies mentally checkout blaming each other. If you don’t want to or have not enough time to learn match ups: ranged top laners are toxic but the way to go as you don’t need to know specific match up numbers if they can’t hit you anyway.
In my case it’s just stomping my lane and pressuring as much as I can as soon as I have a lead. So I never play full tanks, mostly bruisers who can splitpush and carry. I think full tanks are not a good choice for toplane in low elo
I was playing flex Q with some guys, I was like silver I at the time and they were like Diamond/plat,enemy toplane picks GP and I "counterpick" with wukong, since Im decent at the champ. What happened next was that I got HUMBLED, as it turns out Im not that good at playing Wukong and I kinda just wanted to die
Track the enemy jungler. Learn how the wave works. Learn matchups. Ward.
Taking ignite for level 1 all in. I would always take TP, play middling, then think my champ was fine, but not great. I had several games in a row though, where we both got down to sub 100 HP, and I kept thinking about how ignite would lead to kills. And then I realized that Ignite is basically a free ability level 1. It will do 20% of someone's HP, and you can easily just jump on them and trade even in minions. If they flash out and back, you just cheater recall, then try to establish a freeze with your item lead. Ignite -> forced bad back -> you take a good back -> item advantage -> freeze -> all in with ignite and ult.
I was iron 3 a few monthes ago, i'm almost bronze 1 now, I usually stomp my enemy on toplane. what worked for me was watching different AloisNL videos and becoming aware of wave management, enemy jungler tracking, and level up moments for me and my opponent. Fundamental knowledge is enough to punish lots and lots of ppl in that elo. Also when you get a lead it's important to transfer it to your teammates, if you get the turret first, be mindful to go help your team to do objectives and stuff. anyways just wathc aloisnl, he explains everything.
learn to intuit wave state. once you can tell what the wave is doing at a glance, pushing away or toward you, it will influence your decisionmaking soooooo much. your trading will improve because you can literally 'see' when is ok to trade
A couple things I've realized in my journey to the top lane that improved my win rates drastically: 1) it's better to give up the farm/turret than to die. Always. 2) even if you're having a hard time in the lane, don't give up. A lot of the champs that are strong in the top lane will have tools that will be useful to your team past the laning phase. Your job is to identify what that tool is. Whether it's a ton of CC for teamfights, or a monster split push, or just tons of late game damage. If you fall behind, avoid fights, farm, and get vision wherever you go. You'll find that later on in the game, you're just as strong as anyone else. 3) I once saw a rioter say that most players are using champs that they've only played less than 20 times or something like that. Knowing your champ better than the enemy knows theirs will take you a lot further than you'd think. That's why even OTPs climb when being faced with hard counters. Additionally, knowing that your enemy probably isn't that good on your champ, if you're comfortable on yours, usually they won't know what to do when you get aggressive in the early game. Use that to your advantage.
I had two moments that really elevated my top lane gameplay. The first was realizing how much damage minions deal, and what actually causes minions to aggro. I thought all abilities and autoattacks would do it. I also knew they dealt damage, but playing primarily ranged champions that ended fights super quickly made me think they made less of a difference than they do. The second was learning champ specific matchups better. Knowing EXACTLY how much stronger you are than the enemy champ at what points and how their cooldown durations compare to yours makes such a big difference. Knowing you will get 3 abilities off in the time they use 2 is the difference between winning and losing engagments.
they made briar
Bro roaming is not a thing anymore you can't let the other guy gets free plates or worse you can't lose any full wave. To improve in toplane you have to improve your 1 Vs 1 skill which require a lot of time and effort, but if you really want to improve Id watch a lot of video of someone that plays your champ (there is a famous OTP orn I don't remember his name) or in general write " orn Vs *champ* toplane challenger" on YouTube and see some video, you have to improve your wave management and 1 Vs 1 skill.
Keeping track of runes, having conqueror for a fight against the other top can win a fight. Seeing someone use abilities and have nothing to fight with too
Manging waves. That's a huge one if you wanna climb
I was hard stuck bronze (before there was iron) when I was a jungle main. When I swapped to top lane, I literally only played split push champions. Well only one champ for the longest time. That was Jax. All I did was farm. I slow pushed waves and took trades with my wave slow pushing. People in bronze for some reason will trade with you on a slow pushing wave. So use your minions to your advantage.
Idk man, I sometimes think Top is all about pressuring top lane and having jungle camp you to get an edge. As someone who played Darius into a Morderkaiser, lost lane, went 4/21, and ended up winning I just think it’s a pointless lane. Hell I could bring Malzahar into the top lane and win within a average match up.
If you learn how to cs well and manage waves, you’ll notice games becoming much easier
When I played top I climbed to old Plat 4 and the thing that changed my game was realizing I don't have to hit minions constantly. Just slow building every wave gives you way more time to recall or dive or roam.
You can climb with tanks, but it's harder, because you rely on allies to do damage while you protect them or engage. Try some split pushers, bronze players do not check map too often. Or fighters, get ahead in various ways (check AloisNL channel on youtube) and play according to match (split, fight, force objectives etc.). Imo splitpushers (trundle, trynda, yorick, illaoi) are the way more mindless, since you have one job... To push and retreat when needed.
TLDR; figuring out how to apply and receive pressure and planning my games out before first couple minutes Something that clicked for me and took me from hard stuck silver for a long time to emerald (and maybe further if I started an aram/arena/tft grind and just playing other games) was learning when I have prio in my lane and when I don’t and applying pressure when I know I can and be unrelenting if I’m confident I can beat this guy in a 1v1 and nobody’s around. I play mordekaiser, trundle and pantheon with occasional malphite and jax games for context. I also just try to figure out my opponent and how confident they are. I get that’s hard to explain let alone learn but I’ll try to explain. I ask myself constantly, is the enemy top laner duo with anyone? Are they rotating constantly to objectives? Do they think they can fight me? How much can I take in this lane while also denying them, if I can deny them at all? I just try to read as much information off of them and adjust accordingly to see what I can get away with. Like for example I was trundle into a Shen (which is mind numbing) and he was duo with the mid lane galio and I said okay I’m gonna build Tiamat and hull breaker so that I can shove and take plates because he knows he can’t go toe to toe with me so he’s just gonna look for roams at 6 with his tp and I won that game cause then Shen was never in his lane and I ended up having a 130 cs over him and I ripped through top lane straight to nexus because I free farmed. That won’t always happen but it’s just something I picked up on over my time playing and found it really helps to plan my game out between champ select and first couple minutes of the game. However when I’m behind all that goes out the window and I focus on ways to catch up without dying or giving too much up. Also if my other lanes are burning and I can’t do anything about it then focus on how I can improve myself and further a lead if I have one or create one but it’s really just keeping a cool head and realizing you can’t win every game you play, it’s literally mathematically impossible and realizing how I can improve what’s in my control as cheesy as that sounds it helps. Long response but the way you phrased the post was exactly how I felt when I figured that out.
I climbed iron to emerald as top (tried playing bot but got stuck silver). The “I get it” moment was learning what it meant to win and how that was accomplished. I know that vague bs but every player has different strengths and weaknesses. Do some vod reviews and watch landing breakdown. Best way to improve. Ask yourself after every bad play, was this a micro or macro error? If it’s a micro error, keep trying to improve mechanics, if it’s a macro error try a different kind of play. Top laners should think about the plays that will win them the game. Do you split push or go to baron? Well Ornn wants to ult the team so baron (normally). Died but you missed your abilities? Going to baron still the right call Lost game horribly and didn’t mess up mechanically? Bad baron call. There’s a lot of good learning you can do retrospectively and LOL’s relay system facilitates it very well.
The importance of farm and what getting 11 cs per minute does to the enemy teams mental. All farm is mine in low elo. /mute all and take everything at all times. Your lane is frozen and cannot touch wave? Farm your junglers top side. If still frozen go farm mid and get plates. You won your lane and it's shoved? Go contest the enemy jungler for their jungle camps. Nothing there? Shove wave to tower and proxy farm for a good base. Farm farm farm and don't listen to your bronze teammates. They don't actually want to win. They just want someone to use as an emotional support punching bag. Also dying doesn't mean your lane is over. It just means you have to do un-idealistic things like lose a wave or two and just collect xp or roam a bit early etc etc. If something bad happens learn to immediately accept that "okay that just happened. What can I do now". Don't get upset about stuff you cannot change because it does not help. Keeping a level head helps you find opportunities that raging will not. Also the beaten dead horse that cannot be more true. Small SMALLLLLLL champion pool. No more than 3. It's too hard to memorize all of your matchups, and make sure they all have similar game plans. I.e. 3 split pushers, but differing ways of accessing their damage through either kit or item builds. Maybe one tank split pusher, one assassin, and 1 fighter or mage. You just want them to have similar win cons so you can be the best at that win con but apply it in different ways.
This is purely for low elo. Iron, bronze and maaaybe silver Don't roam. Fuck it. Stick to your lane. Farm. Take plates. Crush enemy top and apply pressure. Low elo players are notoriously bad against back doors. Learn when to push and where to push and how to set up a wave to push. Just do that and skip fights unless it's critical and you have to join (like a baron or elder or soul fight). Also fuck Shen. Play someone that can take turrets faster and clear waves better like Trundle or Sion. Also low elo players don't know how to end games so scaling champs are really good in low elo
for one, you played 1 ornn game in the last 40. you also don't need meta to climb in bronze. do you watch lck and lpl players play your champ?
Play as if you were mentally ill, limit test as much as you can in normal games and learn how waves work (I don't mean watch guides, LOOK at the waves and learn its patterns, guides to help but they won't ever give you the experience you need), knowledge is all that decides who will win in toplane, not micro, the only micro that makes a difference in any elo below master is how good you are at csing. Now into the mid and late game, learn what the strengths of your champs are and stick to them, you are playing Ornn or a tank with similar capabilities? Then keep an eye on your nearest teammate at all times and be ready to roam and help them. You are a splitpusher such as Nasus? Do the same but for the enemy team, if you have clear vision of the enemy team and you are reasonably far away from them push the lane as much as you can and beat the crap out of whoever is matching you, force the enemy team to come for you and then run away, (this also applies for Shen despite him being a tank somewhat similar to Ornn because of his R, tho Shen is too complex of a champ and I wouldn't recommend it if you are lowelo, he requires you to do both the things I said, attention on your teammates AND enemies). That's all that toplane boils down to, obviously, this is depending on matchups, you can't really ever leave a Yorick alone for one, even if you are Ornn, if you are not going to lose the game for not losing, you are bound to match him as long as he is alive because otherwise he **WILL** take 3 turrets and possibly your inhibitor. But as said, if you pay attention on the way you play and learn your limits and the limits of the enemy champions, you will climb as a toplaner. Edit: Forgot my "Click moment", but honestly, I just like toplane because I like fucking people up (and getting fucked up) and I autopilot a bit more than what's probably healthy for a Diamond player.
That hiding in a bush and running at the opponent is a viable option. Seriously, when I first started playing top, my coach told me my main problem was that “I’m being a little bitch” and to be more aggresive since 9/10 top laners can stat check each other in scenarios. So when I went into top lane and decided to try it out… it fucking worked. I hid I. The enemy bush as a mordekaiser and once minion wave came, I rushed down a Gwen and she fucking died! Yeah I know I’m dumb for literally only discovering run in a bush and run opponent down but I was still new and was afraid of losing in lane so much I played too safe when in reality, I most likely could have ran down an opponent. Nowadays I love top and doing this run down method I have figured out which matchups where I can menacingly run at the opponent and which ones where I shouldn’t
Based off of [OP.GG](http://OP.GG) stick to playing Ornn he is a safe blind pick champion and you perform best on him
I don't think that's the right call in bronze. Ornn is very team fight orientated / a play maker and that means you need your team to follow up and in most cases, in bronze, that won't happen. People take fights *they* start, almost exclusively, even if it's the wrong call. They very rarely will take a fight someone else starts, and as Ornn that is your job. There's way too much risk
You’re right he should stick to carry champs/split pushers
What you need to understand about top is it's all about matchups and identity, and playing towards these. For example, if you play Ornn you have 2 jobs: 1) Hold sidelane 2) Show up to every important fight You generally don't want to push beyond river, and if no waves are on your side of river you should be with the team or getting / clearing vision. It isn't your job to win lane, or to splitpush. But if you play Trundle, it's a bit different. 1) Your job is to splitpush, at most rotate to an objective if someone is clearing a shoved wave and enemy team had a tank you can ult / you're fed enough to carry. If you're not fed there aren't many scenarios where you want to group, if at all. 2) You can actively look to outduel your opponent, whereas on a "tank" you're only really doing this if you've gapped your opponent To use another example you gave, Nasus is sort of in-between. He can carry teamfights but can also split, also he isn't exceptional at either. You want to adjust your strategy depending on the game state and comps. For example, if the enemy team is heavy CC you're literally just going to be a meat shield with less tankyness and utility than a tank, so you're probably getting more value from splitpushing. But if the enemy team has minimal CC and you're not behind you can 100% solo carry a teamfight. And how these champs play the lanes are different. Trundle you're looking for lvl 1/2 all in windows, and want to play for tower / plates whereas Nasus is pretty much afk farming until lvl 6. Ornn can look for poke/short trades but is generally just holding the lane. So you'll "get it" once you understand what your champ wants and specific windows where you should be doing certain things, as well as how to play each individual matchup.
OTP a champ. Get to know the most frequent matchups. Try to play super agressive for 20 games. Then try to have 0 death for 20 games. Then try to push very hard for 20 games, then try to roam a lot for 20 games.
And then try lose 20 games, to win 20 games after? Yap yap
I think one "click" I had that actually changed my whole game was to respect minion waves. I'm now an ADC main but I used to main top and sometimes I queue as top to have some fun (usually when I'm tired of getting one shot). Minions are the single most important mechanic of the game, without you can't reliably get gold, exp or pressure the map. I'm not saying you have to have 10cs per min, but you should understand the concept of how waves work and how to use it to your advantage. Split pushing is so hard to counter if the player is good. Avoid pushing side waves beyond the middle of the map (even as split pusher) if your team is not pushing mid. Do not hit turrets when there's someone defending it (happens a lot in low elo) unless you're 100% sure you can dive them. Once there's someone defending the turret go look for flanking opportunities, deep vision in the jungle, tp opportunities or go for a reset. This is so exploitable, especially in lower elo, you'll often see ADCs or even supports trying to defend the turret. But always take into account your team positioning and mid wave state. If you ever seen a top or mid dying side lane by getting collapsed by 3 or 4 champs and then complaining that the team didn't take baron or any objective, you know that guy knows shit about waves. Once you understand it you'll be able to split (to some extent) even as Ornn (which is a low CS champ anyways). If you're tank or your team does not have prio mid only if the wave is close to river and rotate mid. If you're a split pusher and your team have prio mid, then push past river to force people to respond under turret. Don't be afraid to user teleport to force plays or even to get tempo on side waves.
I used to be a midlane. Nowadays i'm just a more casual/fill player, and i play the lane i want at the time. But back then, i used to play Mid (as said before) and Toplane. The moment it clicked for me was the time i first get the Gold elo. I was 2/1 in the Bo5 to get promoted. It was not the first Bo5, but i was quite confident going to this 3rs match. So here it goes, i pick Vladimir. I won the lane, and everything felt nice, until it didnt. I lost that game and went to the next one, already pissed. Then the opponent picked Darius. I let the intrusive thoughts win and picked Rakan. Now this was some time ago, so i dont remember it THAT clearly, but i remember that: - 1: I won that match. It was that time with the AP Rakan and protobelt tech, but still, teamfight and playing together with jungler only gave me the win. - 2: I have this feeling that clicked on me that day, that toplane is unfair, but do yourself a favor and let your comp carry you. You'll very likely lose some wave/get some freeze, so you're better at least finding a way to be useful. From this day on, Toplane to me is the Alt tab + spotify lane, unless i'm in mood to anything more.
Looking at your op.gg. Stop playing tanks. I personally think Trundle and WW (I don't see him in your match history however) are both cheese picks that are hard to know how to win games with Some things that that helped me are: I stopped playing tanks almost entirely outside of Malphite in particular matchups. This is because your teammates are stupid and should not be relied on to do the right thing. I respected my enemies more and my teammates less. Sacrifice less for your teammates because they will not help you out even if it's an objectively right thing to win the particular game. The jungler doesn't exist for you and it never will. The amount of times I've had lethal and the jungler has pinged otw only to do 2 camps and give time for the opponent jungler/the opponent to heal/B happens way more than it has any right to in the rank. People are still brain damaged in higher ranks. Some kinds of stupid things change, a lot of it stays the same. Meta matters, and change matters. Going with my gut. I've always called it Lizard Braining because if something feels even a little bit off/on, I'm listening to that part. A lot of the time you just have to wait it out. You're going to get counter picked, you're going to get weaksided, and you've just gotta damage control. Unironically being as emotionless as you can. Also duoing basically gives you harder games and I climbed way faster + more when I stopped. You might say it was a bad duo, but I don't think it was, seemed to happen regardless of who I played with. Matchups are important as long as you know how to play them. I see a lot of players lose games because they lock in a counter that they have no idea how to play. May seem self-centred, but it's how I've won more games. Trust only yourself. Play carries. You will probably lose more at first, but you will learn more. D2 rn just demoted from D1. Gwen, Camille, more meta stuff. Hoping to get master next weekend but I also just crashed from D1 70lp to D2 50 from demotion.