Sorry for this people but by a variety of factors i haven’t been playing much eve. However i have been playing a ton of LOL due to some very serious friends who do and thought i should blog about it. particularly since while the LOL community is very strong in most areas, including some great parodies and fan music, they have a curiously stumped blogging scene. Thought i would help them out.
On my LOL account i go by Forrestal, and i have about 400 wins and have won more than i have lost. No i do not play ranked yet, but i play in a high normal ELO (10 positive, and with a friend who is 65 positive at about 750 games total) in draft pick who take the game very seriously.
As such my games 80% of the time have a jungler, usually on both teams, and the metagame (Brusier solo top, AP mid, Jungle Brusier/tank, Bot Tank/support, AD carry) exists rather than just “I PICK THIS CHAMPION KAY. YAY.” (although with all the noob viktors i’ve had over the past week, it’s not a certainty).
I play solo top. i’m not going to say i’m god mode at it, far from it, nor do i win every solo top i play against, but at the moment i’m winning most of them, even if it’s 2v1. Thought i might share some of my obviously infinite wisdom and undeniable opinions with you about the mechanics and choices of solo top.
CHANGELOG:
17/1/2012: added Kennen, Olaf, Wukong, Nidalee and Cho gath, what is a solo top section, and seperated the 2nd tier into two.
18/1/2012: made it less wall of text-y, added nocturne and Jax
19/1/2012: Added Irelia, Teemo, and swain.
19/4/2012: Added Fiora and Shen
29/5/2012: Added Hecrim and Darius.
What is a Solo top:
A solo top is a champion that needs a large amount of farm and XP in order to be effective. Due to the length of the lane in comparison to mid, as well as the distance from the spawn pool makes the solo top a very specific kind of champ-
- It is a champ that benefits from a lv advantage in comparison to everyone else
- It is a champion that needs a lot of farm in order to be effective.
- It is a champion that has a way to negate/mitigate/heal to stay in the lane longer.
As such the majority of solo tops are Brusiers,most junglers, and a small collection of AP casters that possess an alternative resource system or are a AP offtank such as cho or Gragas.
What is needed in order to be a solo top:
- Patience; solo top is probably the slowest lane outside jungle ganks in terms of kils. because of both characters usaully having large sustain harrassing tends to be less decisive and lasting then in mid. without teleport, B ing can be fatal, so solo tops spend a long time out in the field.
- Good co-ordination with your jungler: Jungle ganks make or break a solo top- solo top is the lane weakest to jungle ganks for both players due to it’s length.
- Trust in your team: As a solo top you are isolated from everything else happening in the laning phase. with 90% of the champs in solo top being completely incapable of interfering elsewhere. If bot fails, if mid screws up, if your jungler is crap, you can only pray that they’ll hold it together and try to win the lane.
- Last hit like a boss: Solo top outside jungle ganks is about who has the most CS above anything else. it’s probably the most difficult arena to get CS in as you are (90% of the time) a melee range autoattacker, and you are solo amid harrases. getting all that CS is MUCH more difficult then as a bot or mid. so if anything, all the more reason to get better at it.
Item choices (AD solo top)
Dorans Shield: Kind of meh choice in most cases. sure it gives what i like to call “early mid game dominance” as the benefits from it won’t just vanish like health potions after you use them. If you’re playing against a passive top, than this could be argued. but if you’re playing against a passive top my reponse is to get a far more agressive choice and harrass/kill them.
B0ots three pots: You are not an AP caster. speed is the least useful attribute early game for the mostly static farm fest solo top. the other guy will just laugh and force you to burn pots and b, if not kill you outright.
Vamperic Scepter: This is useful on a few champs, and i rank it as the second best item choice after Cloth Five pots. Particularly on tryn, who with this & crits can perma lane if the enemy doesn’t get lane dominance. however if the enemy does than it’s kinda useless- see cloth five pots.
Regrowth Pendant: On the few passive solo tops such as malphite or Jarvan this can be viable over Cloth five pots, usually so you can get a philo stone. Useful on champs that have high natural defence (shields/armor) and high mana concerns.
Cloth five pots: there is a reason why this is in bold. this is because cloth five pots allows you to act as aggressively as you want to sustain as long you need to. it’s not that all the other choices aren’t viable, it’s just as my friend put it “if they get cloth five pots, you have to get cloth five pots in order to win.” you aren’t lifesteal dependant, can harrass a ton until you first b, which should be enough to turn it into Wriggles- at which point you should absolutely and unconditionally pwn your lane- unless they also have wriggles (happens a lot)
Wriggles Latern: as an early solo top item this item is king. nothing else offers the same combination of AD, armor, lifesteal, random creep instapops, and a free ward. all for the low price of 1600 g. i will break this down.
- 23 AD: Always helps. Increases the potency of your autoattack, your farm, your AD scaling abilities, and your lifesteal.
- 30 Armor: This is what makes it strong in it’s stats. 30 armor may not sound like a lot compared to a thormail, but that’s as much as a chain mail. win 1v1s easier, absorb harass better, other stuff.
- 15% lifesteal: another great attribute.this makes champs with no sustain a lot more viable and champs with sustain damn near unharassable.
- Free Ward: there is absolutely no reason to die if you have the jungler’s approach warded. if you have this item you will never have no ward. so you should never die to jungler ganks which is in all honesty the only time when you should die if at all.
All of this for just 1600 G. do i need to say more?
Champs that Wreck solo top:
Tryndamere: This guy gets hated on almost as much as he gets banned. This is because atm he is one of the best solo tops in the game, simply because no one, and i mean no one can beat him in a straight whacking contest. Certain champs, like riven and to a lesser extent Lee Sin shut him down pretty hard- but only if they know what they’re doing. once he gets lifesteal in the form of a Wriggles he becomes almost impossible to harass as long as he can creep- most lanes are lost if the tyrn can farm without impairment. His weakness lies in the fact that early game he can be hit hard by lee sin and riven without doing anything at all in return. eventually this doesn’t matter due to the fact he hits a minion about three times and LSs it all back but early that’s a killer.
- Powerful Sustain
- Strongest non ulti autoattack in the game
- His ulti
- Rage based (no cost abilities)
- Reasonable ganks, fantastic if the jungler has a nice hard CC such as a supress (WW & skarner)
- No ranged harras
- No hard CC
- Hard to hurt a good enemy early.
- Smart enemies will know how to handle your ultimate
- Creep hitting dependant in order to sustain.
- Pivotal item: wriggles (in most cases)
Udyr: Strong is the word with udyr. Very, very, very strong. another top tier solo top, Udyr is one of the best defensive solo tops. He can’t harass the enemy for shit since bear stance is such a bad gap closer, particularly early, but with his Turtle-Bear-Tiger stance combo he can absorb most of the enemy harass, stun them, and then hit them with tiger stance until they back off at ultra high early AS and that powerful dot. weaknesses? he has no range and a shit gap closer, so potentially a good GP could beat him down with parrley early but wriggles+turtle (even after the bug fix) is such a strong combo that harassment becomes pointless past a certain point. Tyrn might beat him in a late laning phase whack fest, but a good udyr will simply disengage and jump back in after his ult wears off.
- Amazing sustain
- Powerful autoattack with tiger stance+passive.
- Stun.
- Shit gap closer
- Mana based (rarely a problem but still)
- No range. at all.
- Lack of ultimate kinds of leaves him without the trump card that many other champs can pull out.
- If the other guy decides that he can’t take you in a wack fest than you have zero chance of stopping him. particularly if his name is lee Sin or Riven.
- Pontential to be countered in lane by champions that only need to farm. (it is incredibly annoying when the enemy Cait goes top. There isn’t a whole lot you can do but try and zone her some and Net shuts down your bear stance hard.)
- Pivotal item: Wriggles (even after bug fix)
Gangplank: People hate gangplank solo top and hate Ganplank in general. He’s a very very strong solo top that is one of the few top tier solo tops with the ability to have a very straight forward undodgeable (unless you’re jax after the remake or bloody Fizz- or shaco technically but that’s an ulti) Harass. he’s naturally fast and strong, he has reasonable early sustain, which only gets better with wriggles. He is very hard to gank, due to oranges and high movement, and against many other champs he just shuts them down with Parrley.His ultimate allows him to suport his team anywhere, counter a push anywhere, and block off an escape when the jungle ganks.
- Good sustain.
- Amazing Harass.
- Free slows and dots
- Free bonus AD and movement
- ulti is fantastic for so many different reasons.
- can win many whackfests unless he’s up against a whack based champ (like udyr or tyrn)
- Good ganks
- very hard to gank.
- good towerdives, esp with ulti.
- Mana based and spamming Parrley depletes you quickly.
- not quite as good as udyr or tyrn in the sustain or melee combat department.
- under no circumstances go fullcrit plank.
- Pivotal item: Wriggles
Lee Sin: While most solo top matches feel like an arm wrestle, this guy Dances. He positively dances. A skilled, pro good Lee Sin, is hard to beat, dashing with deadly precision, Crippling you, kicking you into next week and then if necessary disapearing behind his minion wave. His Hard harass (where you actually do a multi combo ability at melee range rather than hit Q- like gp) is amongst the best in the game, and unless the enemy has hard CC and amazing reaction time (0r plays riven) it’s almost impossible to stop him from harrasing you for a third of your health. His sustain isn’t amazing, but it’s slightly better than say Jarvan or Riven due to Iron will. He is strong in the wackfest, especially if he combines Cripple well with his passive.
- Good/reasonable sustain
- Energy based (spam spam spam harrass)
- Cripple (Movement/AS massive debuff)
- Amazing gap closer
- Amazing tower diver
- Amazing disengage
- Next to ungankable
- Massive execution burst
- No hard CC
- Dependant on landing his Q to do anything
- Hard to play
- His ultimate can be hard to use properly, although it works just fine as a massive nuke.
- Tends to get smacked by Udyr/Tyrn in protracted fights. Tends to get Parrleyed to death by GP.
- Pivotal item: Wriggles
Riven: Riven was a “sleeper” solo top for a long time, probably for the single reason that she had no in built sustain.no lifesteal, no heal. However like Lee sin, this girl also Dances, although while Lee Sin feels like deliberate precise movements, Riven feels like you’re jumping all over the shop waving around a large heavy blunt implement while occasionally shouting- which is both suprisingly accurate to riven herself and effective. Riven offers a whole bunch of movement abilities, isn’t constrained by a resource system of any type, has a unconditional AOE stun, a passive that is the bastard child of lee Sin and Sheen, and a nice buffer/finisher ultimate. In fact once people realised the first rule of solo top “Item sustain>in built sustain” and went cloth five pots-wriggles on her she started being able to smack down any character if played aggressively (even udyr if the riven was good with that stun) since she really could just free harrass all day.Riot started to notice this uncharacteristically early and are nerfing her next patch (oh that was so long ago), particularly her annoying health regen, but will most likely still be a very solid choice after that.
- Mediocre sustain
- no resource system (spam spam spam)
- Ki Burst (slightly larger than attack range AOE stun)
- Broken wings for dynamic closer range harrasment
- Valor (shield n dash)
- Very Very hard to gank
- Good chaser
- Long Range Execution for safe tower dives
- Hard counters just about everyone except for perhaps GP- Ki burst really stops any and every melee range counter burst in it’s tracks.
- If he can autoattack you more than once or twice you’re doing it wrong
- Ability dependant therefore potentially subject to operator failure.
- Ulti should be used at the start of the fight rather than at the end.
- Lack of sustain early can spell disaster if not following a good build.
- Pivotal item: Wriggles.
Kennen: Kennen is a champ that other solo top champs hate to face. most champs have no real anser to his long range pokes, and he can very easily dominate his lane with ranged autoattack harrass plus his skill shot. He has a stun and is murder in the sustain department once he gets a revolver/wota. He’s energy based so spells are spammable, while he’s hard to gank with Lightning rush. Most of his weaknesses derive from the fact that he has no intial starting sustain early and he’s reliant on comboing you in order to do any damage. Outside his ultimate failing to land his Q is usually pretty fatal to whatever you were planning- the marks of the storm just don’t add up otherwise. What beats him? not much. at least not outright. Even with Wota is sustain is powerful but not amazing, so certain champs are able to simply harrass him to death (i’m looking at you GP), and before he stacks on the spellvamp he is weak to harrasment as he has no counter to it early.
- Mediorce sustain early, good mid and powerful late laning phase.
- Energy based
- Stun all day, stun again after that
- Ultimate is a powerful ganking tool
- Autoattack harassment is surprisingly powerful.
- range on that skillshot Q is longer then most other harrasses
- If he combos someone an alarmingly large amount of their health goes boom.
- Very hard to gank with the psuedo-ghost lighting rush. not impossible though
- Minions block his skillshot.
- His offensive capacity is limited if he can’t land his skillshot
- Limits what roles your jungler can take (no tank jungles) because you’re AP rather then AD.
- Pivotal item: revolver/wota
Nidalee (only if going wriggles/atmamogs): How many of you have been seeing this girl up solo top in the pastin the tournament or ultra high ELO ranked games? there’s a reason for that. and also a reason why it hasn’t been nerfed into the ground and everyone bitching on the forums that’s she’s OP. She’s actually one of the hardest characters to play to her full potential at the moment, not just due to her double forms, but also to the huge difference in roles between those two forms, the very annoying lack of functionality and clarity in the catform discription (“My swipe does 0+0 dmg- what is this” for example wheny ou just killed five minions with it) and the general difficulty of cat form itself. Make no mistake though she’s a very powerful choice when played correctly.
The main strength of AD nid early in the laning phase derives from the fact that she is an autoattacker that has a ranged autoattack. Sounds like not much? in a solo top where 90% of the champs are melee, the ability to simple walk up and chuck spears at them is so satisfying. and there’s not a whole lot they can do most of the time since nidalee has such great mobility.Her spear ability is kinda lackluster and autoattacks are generally better unless at max range, but traps are nice free wards and harasses.
Her sustain is also excellent for a variety of reasons
- Heal. one of the only solo tops with a heal that should at least part of the time be used to actually heal you
- with Wriggles Lifesteal gives you great sustain
- Lifesteal in cat form is unbalanced. You can easily heal for 80+ per takedown by last hitting low minions.
In fact Takedown is the skill that makes AD nid so scary. The other skills are good as well, pounce being a spammable short range dash, swipe being a nice farming tool, but takedown is downright scary. this is what it does- (all abilities gain base dmg per ulti lv)
40/70/100+AD+AD with up to 300% modifier depending on how low their life percentage is. Holy ****. Let’s say you have 130 AD at lv 11 hitting a reasonably low enemy.
(70+130+130)x200% or 640 dmg. Once you get to late game, and start screwing around with trinity procs and high AD, things start getting redicilous.
Anyway onto strengths and weaknesses
- Amazing sustain, especially post wriggles
- No mana problems while in catform
- Catform is an amazing farmer
- Last hitting made easy with ranged autoattack
- Catform has crazy burst n execution
- free AS with heal
- free wards from traps
- Ungankable with high base MS, spammable blink, and passive.
- Hard to play, very hard.
- Can still OOM
- Pounce goes where nid is poitning, not where the mouse is- a completely unique system that is hard on noobs.
- You still have less health and AD then most melee champs in catform base
- Easy to fail and feed
- Doesn’t contribute much to ganks aside crazy dmg in cat form and heal AS buff
- Knowing when to cat form and when to stay human is hard to master
- Needs to complete Atmogs in order to be good in terms of dmg/surviability late game, trinity to do it properly.
- Pivotal item: Wriggles.
Irelia: If played correctly Irelia is an amazingly strong Solo top. Last hits like a boss, stuns, massive active sustain, nice harassment, very effective dash and an ultimate that can be used to heal, straight damage, farm, and tower dive. With the potential to be a very aggressive Irelia is a bully that usually wins lane simply by denying her opponent farm, not missing a single creep, and then turning around and killing the opponent after baiting him into your jungler. Defensively she’s also very strong, with free stun, fast base MS, dash to enemy creep and her awesome passive which is the death of many a gank- CC reduction that increases per enemy champ close by. So what’s her problem well sometimes it’s just not enough. a very skillful irelia will be able to handle champs like tyrn well, but other high mobility champs tend to be erm, a problem (Ki burst doesn’t give a **** how much health the target is on and it’s an AOE) and Lee is worse (his burst is higher and can compete very well in a whackfest with cripple.) but asside from having a few problems with the other Tier 1 champs, Irelia is a well rounded, solid choice.
- Powerful sustain when maxing hiten style.
- One of the longest non ulti stuns in the game ( 2 secs at rank 5)
- Bladesurge means you never miss a creep
- Hiten style adds a powerful true damage buff onto your autoattack
- Ultimate has uses ranging from taking out snowballs to avoiding certain death by snowball.
- Very nice ganks, especially if baited
- Fast base MS
- Passive makes her very hard to gank
- Mana based, so be careful about how much you use your E and W. Also if you fail to last hit with your Q it’ll cost you.
- Damage isn’t on the same level in a straight up fight to the other tier 1 champs- except nidalee.
- In order for hiten style to work you need to hit stuff (not hard with Q though)
- Pivotal item: Philostone/sheen/trinity force.
Strong solo top champs: these aren’t god tier, but they are certainly strong choices that run close to it. all viable champs
Nasus: A strong solo top, especially against solo tops that are auto attack dependant, Nasus is a character that is very farm centric but also possesses nice sustain and 1v1 potential. he’s at his weakest from early game but becomes expotentially stronger as he farms, gets ulti and levels up his strike. A farmed Nasus is next to unstoppable so most of his strength comes from farming rather than kills. Nasus is a passive/aggressive rather than aggressive solo and tends to fall down early to champs that can harass well.
His ulti makes him a fantastic 1v1 character, and he is generally as strong choice.
- good sustain, getting better and better as he levels due to passive and abilities.
- Wither destroys autoattacked based champs
- farming your Q is deadly
- if he wins lane dominance early he keeps it
- Ulti is amazing
- high perdoric burst.
- Strong whacker.
- Mana based
- Tends to get shutdown by champs that can harass him out of farm early
- No blinks or movement steriods
- no hard CC
- not the hardest character to gank if the jungle is good
- while he needs to whack characters in order to win, he loses hard against a lot of champs once wither stops.
- Doesn’t contribute much in ganks except wither and damage. hard CC is needed.
- Pivotal item: sheen/trin force in general.
Darius: Darius has been the victim of much rage since release, and it’s hard to see how much he will get nerfed (and he will get nerfed, that i have doubt of), and he’s certainly one of the scariest tanky DPS characters out there, but he can be dealt with. He does possess some truly amazing harass for a metagolem, powerful damage and debuffs, and blitzcrank stlye multi grab that goes through minions, and a killer ulti (literally) but Darius really requires kills to get rolling, and if he can’t get them he some times falls on his face. The key to dealing with Darius is not taking risks, slowly grinding away his health (he lacks sustain or even defensive abilities), and above all else outfarming him. He’s strong in the whackfest, but not as strong as say tyrn or udyr. He also has no hard CC, and Apprehend is fairly easy to see coming. All these advise caution when playing Darius against top tier solo tops, but if a Darius gets fed than he can hard zone the enemy out of the lane, and potentially 100-0 tower dive them. A fed Darius can also begin roaming and counter jungling, and can quickly spiral out of control. When playing Darius however, both kills and farm are incredibly important, and his appetite for gold is huge. If both towers are still up at 20 minutes and the score is 0-0 with equal CS, then Udyr has won the lane against Darius. In short, if this guy doesn’t win, he loses. For this among other reasons, i perfer Darius as a jungler, as it offers him the potential to own the entire enemy team rather than just one or two, regardless he is a good, if not fantastic solo top.
- Sustain is mediorce early, with lack of natural life steal or any real damage mitigation (shields, armor buffs, health regen ect).
- He’s a massive bully able to deal out huge amounts of damage quickly and easily against other champions
- His farm is fairly standard, just be careful not to push the lane with your Q.
- He’s a terror of a duelist, and should be engaged with caution and hopefully on your terms.
- Apprehend is an absolutely terrifying skill when towers are invovled, weather his or the other guy’s.
- If there’s a clear skill gap or if the opponent just picked the wrong category, he can pubstomp so hard it’s not funny.
- If played well can single handly win a game
- Mana based, and therefore can go OOM if played aggresively (like he should be)
- He has no real escape mechanism, in fact the best way to deal with ganks with Darius is to hope you can take both of them(can happen especially if either or both of them are below 50% hp), or alternately take flash ghost.
- His ganks are strong, but are greatly helped by the ganker having some kind of hard CC (alistair, ww, shen ect)
- Pivotal Item: I’d once again advise Wriggles, simply because it’s the most efficent way to get lifesteal and armor on Darius, two things he needs if his opponent isn’t trash. Although HOG and phage are both two good early choices as well. Use your best judgement to pick.
Shen: Since the Shen reworks, Shen has become one of the most annoying Solo tops to face, and funnest to play with. Shen is one of (with potentially malph, but he’s a fair bit better) pure tank that can solo top and be very, very scary. This lies in the fact that his abilities scale off his Max health and that he’s energy based. Shen also has a spammable ranged poke that can seriously ruin some solo-tops day. His greatest strength however lies in the fact that he can start building massive amounts of health and armor right off the bat, which means he can counter build like a boss. With a Poke, dash, taunt, shield, his basic kit is impressive, and every last one of them has a viable use in lane. What makes Shen a feared solo top isn’t actually got anything to do with solo top though. Most solo tops are isolated, far removed from the rest of the game during the laning phase. Not so with Shen. Shen past six can be a decisive force. He can counter-gank down at bot, turning an enemy double kill into an allied tripple kill. He can tag onto your jungler as he ganks mid, turning a 2 on 1 into a 3 on 1. He can save your jungler from being counterjungled, and turn around and get a kill, or he can do the same thing while your jungler is counterjungling himself. He can push top solo while everyone else is in mid, and ulti in when necessary. And then he will TP back into lane with an extra 600 G and a shop. That is what makes Shen solo top feared.
- Powerful sustain through vorpal blade, natural health regeneration, strong armor/MR values, and shield
- Ki strike makes farming easy
- Vorpal Blade is one of the best harasses in the business, along with Parrley
- Energy based- nuff said.
- Suprisingly strong in the whackfest with Ki-strike, vorpal blade, shield and taunt. (all that damage mitigation, regen and shield with suprisingly potent damage output means that Shen frequently comes off stronger)
- Taunt makes ganks terrifying.
- Dash and high durability makes him difficult to gank
- Shield absorbs harrasses easily
- Stand United is an absolute terror (reasons listed above)
- His damage output is still fairly mediorce, even if it is disproportionate to his tankyness. It’s often difficult to kill people who don’t let themselves be baited solo.
- Energy management takes practice, especially with his dash/taunt
- Stand United takes good judgement to use, and an unecessary ulti will leave you badly out of position.
- Pivotal Item: Heart Of Gold (not exactly pivotal, but it’s nice to have, and works against everyone).
Reneketon: I will admit that since i don’t own this champion i’m kind of heistant about saying how good or how bad he might be. however i have played him a few time so i can give you the general run down. Reneketon is a strong choice for solo top, with a nice combination of sustain, damage and hard CC (stun) he’s rage based which is always good, and he is a strong 1v1 with Dominious with nice mobility from slice and dice. Realistically Reneketon suffers from merely being slightly worse at everything he does while having no obvious faults. He can be an excellent solo top, but find he tends to lose against the afore mentioned top tier solo tops
- Good sustain verging on powerful due to AOE attack/heal.
- Nice long stun to pwn noobs
- Rage based
- Ulti is almost as good as Nassus’s (not quite imo)
- Ganks are potent with stun
- hard to gank with stun+ slice and dice and ulti if necessary
- rage and sustain require ou to constantly hit minions with both cull the meek and autoattacks in order to stay in lane, which pushes the lane hard.
- Timing 50+ rage with the right ability’s added effects can be difficult for newer players
- mobility isn’t as strong as some other champs and neither is the sustain.
- Pivotal item: the brutaliser/wriggles.
Rumble: This guy is a bully. spammable low CD abilities, Runnable (abilities that are on even as the char runs/moves constantly like Garen’s Judgement) abilities for maximum early bullying, nice spammable skillshot poke that slows a ton, a lovely ultimate to be used to cut off escape with you’re jungle and a shield MS buff. his only weakness is his lack of sustain in any natural form, which means he has to wait until he gets revolver/WOTA for sustain which comes later than with other champs (such as LS or health regen) weakens him against champs that can successfully retaliate early (Lee sin) in addition he doesn’t have a long range unconditional poke like Parrley or Vorpal Blade, which means he has to dedicate to harasss. That said, he’s a very strong champion in solo top.
- Good sustain that gets better once revolver/wota, helped by shield and damage avoidance.
- Good farmer
- great ganks with two different slows (one of them is a DRASTIC slow if he lands bot both his tasers) ultimate cuts off escape.
- Heat system and low CDs means you have no reason not to bully.
- overheating does make your autoattack surprisingly powerful
- Hard to gank with tasers+shield+ulti
- Lack of sustain cripples him against aggressive champions that do
- whacking fests, while he is the best AP of any type at it, he can’t stand to tryn or udyr.
- Pushes the lane hard with flamespitter making him easier to gank.
- Pivotal item: Revolver/WOTA
Warwick: A very strong choice in solo top, WW is the king of sustain verging on even udyr level. In fact WW is one of the few melee tanky DPS type solo tops where Wriggles isn’t needed- his passive and Q (god help you if he gets spirit visage) is more than enough sustain. it’s hard to beat him in the Harassment Arena if he get’s close enough,he’s a good but not excellent autoattacker with Hunter’s Call and his ulti is such a superb ganking tool. Blood scent makes avoiding harrases on low health next to impossible, the same with tower dives. With junglewick currently being second tier after the easier jungle (he’s now too safe and a bit too slow) lanewick is a strong choice.
- Powerful sustain that turns into amazing after 7
- His harass leaves most other opponents wondering why they bothered.
- Tower dives well
- Ganks are almost always fatal if they don’t see the jungler coming
- Blood scent often helps you see the enemy jungler coming for earlier ganks (unless it’ a bloody jungle rat, in which case you’ll get the buff and wonder who the hell you’re smelling)
- Ultimate is a superb tool for many thing and it’s got a large range on it.
- Loses to top tier junglers- just.
- Sustain is entirely dependant on hitting stuff
- besides from ultimate lacks CC.
- Hunter’s call plus passive makes him a powerful in earlier whackfests- people will wonder why their higher DPS isn’t killing you.
- if denied farm, denied health.
- Mana based- spam too much and you oom.
- lacks escape abilities of any sort unless the chaser is below half health.
- Pivotal item: Wriggles/spirit visage
Jax: People are still figuring out the optimal way of building jax after the remake but riot has been getting better with their recomended items recently and Jax is no exception. Like with most AD solo tops he’s a wriggles boy though and so much that appears to be the pro consensus. Jax is probably one of the strongest solo tops when it comes to 1v1ing, and both his burst and continous DPS numbers are high, especially after he gets his ultimate. Jax has a nice harrass and is very good at punishing solo tops who either lack skill, the right build or runes/masteries, or just picked the wrong character. He has a nice AOE stun, and his Counter strike is both a great way to erm, stop damage in it’s tracks and stun people. Weaknesses? he can’t take harrasment very well and has no natural sustain. the New Jax isn’t particuarly tanky so champs that can harrass him/take him on mess him over. Summary? he wins against the squishier, rangier solo tops, but has big trouble both early game and against the tankier variants.
- Sustain: Mediorce at the start, but reasonable after wriggles
- Empower leapstrike is still a strong harrasss.
- If you don’t kill him fast in a 1v1 he will kill you.
- Passive makes for nice whack fests early.
- Using empower to reset that autoattack with ulti passive really hurts
- Plenty of mobility
- Counter strike makes for a nice escape.
- Ganks are good with leapstrike and stun.
- Mana based and ooms when being aggressive
- Squishy, relatively
- His bad sustain makes him easy to bully
- can’t take the tankier guys in a 1v1 early unless fed (examples, Udyr, Reneketon, ect ect)
- He doesn’t have that OP passive anymore
- AP solo tops bully him some times
- Pivotal item: wriggles, perferably followed by Cutlass.
Pantheon: Mostly taken because he’s one of the few champs that hard counter GP, pantheon remains a strong choice with harrasment on par with GPs, a blink that is also a stun, and a cone attack. He lacks natural sustain but lifesteal works well on him so there’s no reason not to build wriggles. his biggest problem is mana issues, and the fact that he is essentially a burst character rather than a fighter and loses bad to other chars that like to autoattack he also lacks escape mechanisms.
- Mediorce sustain
- Passive counters GP’s Parrleey sooo hard it’s not funny.
- Spear is a brilliant harass
- passive makes his tower dives fearsome.
- burst damage is high
- great ganks with jungle
- No real escape mechanism excepting jumping on someone and running.
- No real oppoturnity to use his ultimate except to get back into lane because solo top should rarely leave lane.
- Autoattack is good but not that good
- Mana based and tends to go oom rather quickly.
- Pivotal item: Wriggles
Yorick: Yorick is a character that people have come to associate with solo top. he’s a brilliant laner, farmer, and harraser with his gouls. his ultimate makes him hard to take on, and he can very easily prevent you from farming. his sustain is sizeable, and by and large effortless. His weaknesses are mostly restricted to his lack of verastility (he’s got three variations of the same ability) his almost total reliance on farm, and his lack of any hard CC.
- Good sustain
- So many different harrasses that it’s not funny
- Aoe constant slow
- great pusher
- Can clone fed characters (him or his jungler) for scary ganks
- Frustrating to play against
- No hard CC
- Completely item dependant- his entire strength is dependant off having substantialy more gold than his opponent.
- No dash or blink
- His autoattack unless substantially augmented by items kind of sucks.
- Mana based and can OOM unless played properly
- Pivotal items: trinity force/Manamune
Xin Zhao: another very solid solo top if no longer top tier. great natural sustain, powerful autoattacker, nice dash/slow and knock up. the strength of Xin is that he destroys champions worse than him fairly easily, but he doesn’t do that well against champions that are currently stronger than him (such as lee sin or udyr) strait no conditional on target dash, very high autoattack potency, nice AOE intiate ultimate that also buffs you substantially, Xin is still a viable solo top at high level, although because he tends to fall off late game compared to similar champs he isn’t taken as much.
- Powerful sustain especially later as he gets lifesteal and his passive gets stronger.
- Autoattack burst only slightly below Udyr level (Battle cry and Three talon strike)
- great farm
- Fantastic ganks with dash slow and knock up.
- Slow and knock up.
- Can be extremely aggresive against passive solo tops well
- Not bad towerdives.
- No real escape move
- no hard CC
- will still lose to Udyr and Tyrn in a whack fest which is basically what he’s all about.
- Mana based, although he rarely goes oom
- Enemies with good reflexes are hard to beat.
- Pivotal item: Wriggles.
Skarner: ever since his buff’s both jungle skarner and solo top skarner have been OP, and i’ve been patientaly waiting for Riot to do something about it. Although imo he should be jungled for even better results, and i didn’t put him top tier because i feel his OPness is tempoarary. Everything about him is slightly unbalanced. Crystal Exoskeleton for example provides a AS buff, a Movement speed buff and a shield. similar champs might get one of those. That and the absurdly low mana cost on his Q, the broken ultimate and his powerful passive makes him a broken character all around. very few weaknesses this guy. Really it’s only the lasting perception that’s he’s UP from his release and his small player base that prevents him from being nerfed into the ground
- Powerful sustain
- Powerful passive means he’s strong in the wackfest
- Absurdly low mana costs means he hardly ever ooms
- spammable AOE with slow
- His ganks are nearly unbeatable
- Can push you out of EXP range by chasing you and spamming Q
- Ultimate is one of the best ganking tools, one of the best tower diving tools, one of the best tower baiting tools, and team fighting tools in the game.
- Fast
- Autoattack is good even without the spammable abilities
- Permaslow
- Very hard to gank.
- Champs like Lee sin and Riven might be able to harrass him with limited harm to themselves. maybe. Gangplank has his Q although in the face of the shield and sustain that may be a bit pointless.
- Really should be jungled.
- Pivotal item: Philo stone wriggles.
Olaf: Olaf is a champ that wins badly against champs he wins against, and has serious problems with ones he can’t. Powerful active sustain (viscious strikes + passive) means that if Olaf is dominating the lane or at least hitting things he’s hard to push out. Reckless swing is a powerful harass, but also requires short range and can occasionally backfire. One of Olaf’s greatest weaknesses is his ultimate. it’s a fantastic ability in a team fight situation but it’s lackluster at best when it comes to solo top, usually restricted exclusively to getting away. the damage reduction element is only good against certain champs, basically ones with multiple on hit effects or DOTS such as teemo. The only possible use is to break crucial stuns/suppresses such as WW’s ulti. if you’re doing that then, why not go GP? that said he’s a very strong whack fest champ with great sustain and a dangerous harrass for champs that depend on armor to keep themselves safe.
- Powerful sustain
- Powerful autoattack
- True damage busts open certain champs
- passive makes him difficult to 1v1
- Slow
- Hard to keep down on low HP if he can farm
- abilities have low cost/don’t cost mana
- Ulti kind of meh when it comes to the laning phase
- Susceptible to harassment early
- you must land that Q in order to chase
- doesn’t contribute much to ganks except damage and soak.
- Pivotal item: Wriggles.
Wukong: There are very few weaknesses in Wukong solo top played right past a certain point. He’s got a nice straight forward dash, a powerful burst and he’s hard to counter harass chase with decoy. early he lacks natural sustain but since most of the more competitive builds i see start at cloth five pots it doesn’t matter. He can stand his own against just about anyone, and who he doesn’t win outright against he can make their lives much harder. Lastly his ultimate was just made for ganking and the resulting chase.
- Mediorce to good sustain once you get wriggles
- Very nice easy hard harrass with Nimbus strike+crushing blow+decoy.
- Knock up and armor reduction
- Decoy makes him next to ungankable and makes him hard to counter harass.
- Just strong
- on target dash
- Ulti was made for jungle ganks and tower diving.
- Good luck ganking him unless you literally CC him out of the block.
- Mana based, so going OOM is a risk especially if you spam a lot.
- his sustain isn’t incredible.
- no range
- his autoattack whackfest is weak.
Solid Solo top champs: These guys do not wreck, but tend to be reasonable choices if none of the above are taken- most are toward the tanky end of the tank-offtank-tanky DPS spectrum.
Jarvan IV: the word here is solid. Not strong, and against the above he will rarely “win” the lane, but if he plays it well he can definitely hold the tower. He is also hard to gank, spells death for some solo tops if he and his jungler turns around and ganks you, and his natural armour and shields make him hard to hurt after he gets sustain. However at the same time he suffers from Mana problems, sustain problems and as such needs to get a load of early game items to compensate (wriggles and philo stone usually, sometimes just philo stone) and then HOG as well. The end result is that while late laning phase jarvan is erm, dangerous, he tends to suffer from the “wtf why haven’t i started building my expensive core items yet” syndrome, especially if not farmed. Strong farm and strong ganks, and not being completely shut down early game are mandatory to suceede as Jarvan.
- Mediorce sustain.
- Amazing ganks with your jungler
- Powerful natural defense with shield + armor buffs
- abilities are pretty powerful if you can use them
- Seriously hard to gank
- Knock ups and ulti for great CC
- massive AOE slow
- Strong tower diver.
- Mana based and frequently mana starved when an increasing amount of solo tops either have a alternative resource system that doesn’t run out or no resource system at all.
- Lack of sustain early makes him tough against champions like udyr, tyrn, lee sin or riven- he’ll be lucky to stay in lane let alone farm.
- Relatively weak autoattack/offensive capacity compared with other champions.
- Pivotal item: Wriggles/philo stone
Garen: In lower level Competition Garen is a top tier solo top. In top he tends to fall off against much more skill dependant champs such as lee sin and riven. his easy sustain, (just don’t get hit) means that just stacking health items on him like Dorans and HOG work. his simple ability to deny ability based champs with his silence (provided he can hit them) followed by agressive spin works wonders. However the problem is he falls off late lane as a AD Garen isn’t viable to other champs because he lacks sustain, while a Tank garen does no damage. either way tyrn/udyr will smack you.
- Powerful passive sustain
- Good tower dives
- He can be very annoying to face unless kept under constant harrasment
- If played early ultra-aggressively can be difficult for just about anyone with very little skill involved.
- Execution for Killed Secured. ahem.
- No resource system for great spamage.
- Silence. long silence.
- General lack of CC.
- falls off severely late into the laning phase after others get wriggles.
- Must aggresively push lane in order to farm well (spin).
- No blink.
- hard but not impossible to gank- although if he has ghost and he can’t 100 to 0 him while he’s under hard CC good luck. (ghost+ decisive strike+judgement- uncatchable, unslowable)
- If you’re autoattacking them you’re doing it wrong.
- Pivotal item: HOG/dorans shield/sword spamming
Malphite: Malphite is a solo top that is entirely situational. He is a very strong against AD burst champions, such as Talon, especially ones that lack any kind of inbuilt sustain, but with his passive and ultra high armor he can wreck certain champions very effectively. However he suffers from the fact that his autoattack is next to worthless and he can’t really contest the lane against any 1st or second tier solo top champions kind of limits his ability to do anything. However that’s not to say that he can’t pwn the enemy if they don’t build any sustain- lololol shard shard shard. one of the few solo tops that shouldn’t build wriggles. philo stone instead. His ground slam is a powerful debuff while his ultimate has such great ganking potential it’s funny.
- Mediocre sustain
- Amazing defensive with passive+ high health and armor and health regen.
- Mana based and frequently mana starved.
- Shard makes you hard to gank, ulti away+ flash makes it impossible.
- Very good at ganking in co-ordination with your jungler.
- Powerful tower diver in co-ordination with jungler and other team-mates.
- Reasonable ranged Harassment.
- Powerful debuff.
- Worthless autoattack.
- Bad damage in general.
- Lack of lifesteal or similar active sustain makes him, erm easily pushed out.
- Pivotal item: Philo stone
Cho Gath: Cho Gath is in my opinion not the worlds strongest solo top. others disagree, and while his not unviable, he simply runs into the unenviable problem of being extremely mana starved, with no active sustian (like lifestal or spellvamp) in his build but must last hit in order to proc passive and stay in lane. high mobility champions ruin his combo, he needs to get within very close range to ulti which doesn’t work against some champs, and he has no natural MS buff or blink making him entirely dependant on landing that Q in order to do anything. That said he can get scary amounts of health with feast stacks and ROA, and when that combo does land, it hurts. Good last hitters also profit greatly from cho gath.
- Good sustain, but dependant on last hits actively, and Catalyst passively.
- He’s a tank, and gets huge amounts of health.
- Knock up+ silence hurts.
- You’re a huge monster thing
- Long range Q
- Voporal spikes makes him auto attack surprisingly strong.
- Jungle ganks are a thing of beauty with knock up+silence+true dmg.
- Nice tower dives if you can land your combo.
- Mana based and mana starved. If possible ask your ungler for blue, you’ll seriously need it (only works if blue team)
- Miss your Q? chances are you’re screwed.
- Mobility champs wreck you in general
- if you can’t last hit you won’t last.
- Escape mechanism entirely dependant on landing Q.
- Pivotal item: catalyst/roa
Ryze: Bringing in the European meta game can be fun, and Ryze is really no exception. with the return of strength of spirit this guy has great passive sustain, and can shut down most non-blink solo top champs suprisingly well- since he rains down from afar. Of all the viable solo top champions he has the highest ranged damage, and can put a great many champions through hell. his ulti is next to spamable, and allows for massive sustain against snowballs with his AOE+spellvamp. his weaknesses is his lack of escape mechanism, his lack of active sustain, and the fack that he is really really slow.
- Good sustain post 6, mediorce before that
- Best ranged offensive solo top out there (GP may do the same dmg as overload, but there’s never one spell when Ryze harasses)
- hard to stop farming if you’re a melee solo top- ranged autoattack ftw
- Can be a nightmare for any non-blink solo top- root shuts people down hard.
- high damage output.
- If the jungle has strong CC ganks can be devastating.
- Mana based- although i find that ryzes rarely end up oom.
- Slow- very slow
- No blinks.
- He can only root one guy at a time and only for a short period.
- As such- Very susceptible to ganks of all kinds
- Obviously worthless autoattack.
- Pivotal item: Catalyst/tear
Signed: i have problems with this guy solo top but i’m not stupid enough to say he isn’t viable. i just think there are others better. His sustain is entirely passive, working off his ulti and strength of spirit, and his farm is mostly based off poison trail. however he is weak pre six, and very gankable before he gets his ultimate. overall this guy only works if his opponent has either selected the wrong character, messed up his build or is just bad. otherwise he tends to fall down
- Good sustain completely passively
- farmer extradionaire with poison trail
- Post six he is unchaseable. although not uncatchable.
- Ganks are decent but not fantastic as the fling is only good when they get to run
- Passive ensures tankyness passively
- Mana based and early ooms frequently
- Autoattack is by and large worthless
- not very good at static combat
- Pre six he is weak
- Pushes the lane hard due to the necessarity of using poison trail to farm well
- Exposes himself to retaliation when farming often.
- Pivotal item: Catalyst the protector/tear
Nocturne: a very rare solo top although all things considered he doesn’t make a half bad one. Nice sustain with his passive (it’s very easy to hit 5+ minions with it allowing for epic healing) ranged harass with his Q, spellshield counters some champs very well and that Fear is amazing. Finally his ultimate allows for some really nice ganks (they will literaly never see your jungler coming). the issue with nocturne is simply that others do it better. He really needs blue to spam his Q a lot to harass and as the solo top rather than the jungler he can’t do that. he’s rather similar to champs such as lee sin or riven, but is generally slightly worse in the solo top role. As such he’s not first or even second tier.
- Good sustain verging on powerful
- good in the whack fest, especially with both AS and AD steriod buff
- Spell shield will seriously hamper some champs (see kennen, see cho gath)
- Fear is great for many different reasons
- His ultimate can be used to tower dive like a boss, gank with your jungler like a boss and escape ganks like a boss
- He ooms like a boss if playing aggresively
- His gank escapes can be iffy
- Ultimate aside, his gap closer is a bit shit (kind of like having a bear stance udyr with no stun, a bit more MS gives you ghost while you do it, and dependant on landing a skillshot first)
- squishy and his sustain isn’t what it is on some other champs
- Is a ton better in the jungle.
Mordakaiser: Mord has always been a tough opponent to face. his shield makes him hard to counter harrass, his ulti is a great 1v1 tool, and he has a brilliant harrass with his Siphon. Lastly if he wins a 1v1 with Children of the Grave on the opponent he will either put your tower on 5 hp or kill it. the second happens more. However he kind of has weak sustain early seing his abilities cost health and he tends to be rather squishy once his shield is gone allowing others to stack tonnes of easy dmg on him. Knowing when to harass Mord is what decides his fate. stronger late laning once he gets a Hextech. In addition he has no CC. none at all.
- Mediorce verging on bad sustain early, powerful sustain if he gets spellvamp.
- Shield absorbs harasses, minions and other random dmg like a boss.
- Good farmer
- No CC. none at all.
- ulti makes him very very hard to 1v1 as it constantly fills hsi shield and buffs him (and if he has spellvamp heals him too) while you lose it.
- No resource system except health.
- Doesn’t contribute much to ganks except damage and ulti.
- Very very easy to gank, since he has no MS steriod, no CC and is typically slow
- Pushes the lane hard with siphon making him easy to gank.
- Pivotal Item: Hextech Revolver
Volibear: This character is still slightly broken if played right. late game Volibear Atamogs is so OP it’s not funny, especially when combined with more tank items and AS items like wits end. in the laning phase he remains solid but not as good as other champs. he is a very solid whacker, has a good execute, his passive renders mundo obsolete and rolling thunder is a nice but flawed opening move. His weaknesses basically boil down to his compete lack of any real escape move, as rolling thunder only works if you’re moving towards an enemy. All of this has lead him to be described as “a bad udyr” rolling thunder is better than bear stance on the offense, but can’t be used defensively, while frenzy doesn’t approach tiger stance crazyness most of the time. his ultimate thankfully is the exact kind of whack and pwn ultimate he needs. he could potentially beat udyr or tryn in a 1v1 but only if he’s farmed, fed and at full HP, which if the enemy is good will never happen.
- Mediocre-good sustain (passive) but really needs wriggles.
- Whackfest Autoattack while ultimate is up is on Udyr level.
- if stacking health Frenzy is a dangerous harass.
- His ganks are potent, if slow.
- AOE slow, and fling
- Not really fast on the retreat and that’s important.
- Easily ganked
- Rolling thunder is hard to land against most enemies
- Ignite will wreck your passive and ruin your day.
- ultimate relies on you staying attack range. if you can’t do that than they get away.
- Pivotal item: Wriggles
Fiora: Despite being seen by many as a new, improved Yi designed with the current Meta in mind, but she’s turning into a relatively popular solo top. On one hand i love the damage that Fiora can dish out. Her autoattack is one of the most powerful on this list, but this is dangerously counter balanced by her squishiness, lack of escape mechanisms, and the fact that tanky DPSs are her closest this to a counter 1v1. Guess what she comes up against most frequently in top? there’s also a few technical issues with her gap closer (Might have been a bug, but when i played her, Lunge didn’t land her untop of the enemy if they were moving… but rather… and annoyingl… behind them). However, she does have some rather nice natural sustain, which combined with lifesteal can be scary. Her ulti is also a strong opener/mid fight tool, and riposte is the bane of champions that rely on-hit abilities like nasus. As a final piece of advice, contrary to other melee glasscannon DPS types like Yi and Tyrn, Fiora works best with quick, short skirmishes, then pulling back. this is because Burst of Speed only lasts about 3 seconds, and Duelist maxes at 4 stacks. Lunge in, BOS, riposte, wack wack, pull back with the bonus MS. rinse repeat.
- Powerful sustain with lifesteal
- Whackfest is strong, but is best used in short bursts rather than pro-longed combat against other whackers.
- Her farm is completely reliant on her autoattack. So no more or less than other melee autoattackers.
- A bit like what the Chosen Yi should be able to do, Riposte can reflect enemy ranged autoattacks. If you’re up against champions that use a ranged autoattack, feel free to abuse this to counter harass on their harrass (i think i need a yo Dwag pic here…)
- her ganks are potent if the jungler invovled has plenty of CC lying around, since she can’t hold anyone in place by herself.
- Her ultimate gains strength expotentially with the amount of enemy champs in the zone. It also procs lifesteal, and makes you untargetable for a second or two. using it to save yourself from certain death works.
- CC? what CC?
- Burst of Speed is reliant on hitting someone. Not so good for escaping ganks. On top of that she doesn’t have much in the way of health in most of her builds.
- Her harrass combo is mana hungry
- Lunge is bugged.
- Pivotal item: Usually wriggles, but building a BT might work as well. Lifesteal is pretty essential though.
Hecarim: I like Heracrim. I really do. I like the way he looks, how he acts, i like how his skills work. However for several reasons he’s not an exceptional or even particularly good solo top. His damage is a bit lackluster, his sustain skill is optimised for jungling, and most of his skills seem to be aimed around ganking rather than straight up fights.For all these reasons i think that he’s a much better jungler than he is a solo top, but by all means go ahead if you like the character.
Teemo: Teemo is arguably the most annoying character in the league. He is one of the few ranged autoattackers that are viable in most cases solo top. the issue with teemo that many people have a problem with is that he… is… so… hard… to hurt in most cases. Move quick+ blinding dart will kill most autoattackers, And once he gets his shrooms well he has ultimate lane control. no way you can gank that shit if it’s done properly, even checking the bushes is dangerous. His Poison is a powerful harrassment tool, the DOT it applies being a constant nussiance. All this siad he does have weaknesses. any champ that can harass him successfully tends to stomp him kind of hard (see GP) the problem is it’s hard to do so. very hard to do so. And he can harrass you plenty with his autoattack/ blinding dart. Not much you can do if you haven’t got a solid ability based ranged harrass here. Another solid method is to simply make the Teemo spam his spells tonnes. Not recomended unless you have tonnes of sustain, but Udyr and several others can manage it. A oom teemo is a weak teemo. Damage tends to last on teemo to, because unless he’s building Emblem of Valor into starks he lacks sustain. Wriggles teemo? not the best idea but it could be done.
- Mediorce sustain that may not necessarily get better
- You can’t stop the farming teemo
- Very hard to get to grips with
- Shrooms turn solo top into his own personel fiefdom. If you even get within ability range of a teemo after 6 during a gank he’s doing it wrong.
- Harasses like a boss
- Stealthy passive has some interesting applications.
- Mana Based and therefore can oom and limit his ability to harrass, escape and avoid damage.
- If he does get caught he’s as squishy as all hell
- Blind does nothing against ability based champ
- Get’s bullied by other ranged chars
Champs that really don’t shine here: Self explanatory
Shyvana: Shyvana was a good idea that was plagued with a multitude of problems from the start- namely a lack of any kind of natural sustain, and any kind of natural CC (unless you count the forced movement from her ult which i don’t.) this in addition to her fairly mediorce autoattack with abilities that definitely leave you disappointed in terms of damage output. All of this prevent shyvana from being viable dispite here natural tankyness, rage bace resource system (or a variation thereof) and general bruiser nature. All of these reasons make her a No no solo top.
Vlad: Vlad is a laning opponent that starts off being unbelievably weak and ends up being both tanky and amazing sustain by the end of the laning phase. at all periods of the laning phase however he suffers from “killing ability” and while his sustain and harrasment ability improves vastly by lv 7 and 9 he remains essentially unable to kill someone unless they put themselves open to being killed. Transfusion’s massive early CD makes him hard to keep in the lane if the enemy is arggressive, and like in mid is only viable once he gets to lv 7 when Tranfusion’s CD and power is enough to start seriously poking the other guy. Tides of blood is strong but suffers from i think a slightly too long CD, and very short range. pool is strong in some circumstance but won’t save you if you overextend.
- Good-ish sustain early, improving up to amazing after spellvamp and 3 sec transfusion CD.
- Later in the laning phase can be a harras fest.
- very nice last hitter with transfusion
- Pool makes him dodge incoming damage well
- No resource system except health.
- Very weak early
- Doesn’t get a whole lot better by mid
- Still doesn’t shine late compared to other champs
- slow
- pool will only get you so far if ganked.
- No CC at all.
That’s it folks. comment here, or on the various forums with links attachted. finally if you have any feed back/flames please don’t heistate to let me know.