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There are a variety of League of Legends top laners that counter each other. Some vary in strength based on metas, others vary depending on matchups.
For top laners, there are three archetypes of champions that fluctuate as the meta changes: hyper-carries, support-style champions, and split pushers.
Splitpushers have a weak laning presence and a weaker ability to trade damage until they get a few items. Once they get some items and can duel with their opponents, they just steamroll through the lane, taking turrets until the enemy team sends forces to stop them.
Support-style top laners are the beefiest tanks in the game, like Sion, Ornn, and Shen. They can trade damage with their lane opponent reasonably well, but their main strength comes from surviving in their lane until they can build up enough tanky items to join their team in all-out team fights.
Top lane hyper-carries put out insanely high damage in the blink of an eye and can usually hit multiple targets at once with high cleave and AoE damage.
This list of top-tier champions can be affected depending on a number of things. Sometimes the meta shifts for no apparent reason other than players’ tastes, but usually there’s some kind of balance change behind it. It can be difficult to keep up on the flavor-of-the-month champs, so let us do that for you.
Here are our top five top laners for League’s Patch 11.6.
Sion
Pros
- Well-rounded kit
- Infinite health scaling
- Easy to play
Cons
- Relies on teammates to carry
Sion became popular recently after multiple top laners received nerfs. The champion provides a lot of crowd control, while also having innate tankiness due to the infinite scaling on his W. He can withstand both AD and AP opponents with ease and has a lot of flexibility regarding his items. If you want to be the frontline for your team, feel free to pick Sion and tank all the skillshots from opponents with barely any repercussions. He is slowly becoming the best blind pick top laner in the game and will maintain that status unless players figure out a decent counter in the current meta.
Item build
The primary rune page you should take as Sion is Resolve. It gives you access to various great runes such as Grasp of the Undying, Shield Bash, Bone Plating, and Overgrowth. Grasp of the Undying with Overgrowth are mostly aimed to make you tougher to kill in the mid to late game, while Bone Plating and Shield Bash are early-game runes to help your laning phase.
The secondary rune page is Inspiration for the Biscuit Delivery and Time Warp Tonic. Both will help you out early on and improve your mana regeneration which is a major problem due to your high mana costs. Since you want to start with Corrupting Potion to fix your mana issues, Time Warp Tonic will improve your sustain by a lot.
Ability priority
Sion’s skill priority is R>Q>W>E. You want to max your Q since it is your primary wave clear and damage ability against the opposing champion. Afterwards, prioritize W for the additional shield and maximum health damage increase. E is maxed last due its lower utility compared to Q or W.
Game plan
Sion is one of the easiest top laners to play, and he has a well-rounded kit with clearly defined power spikes. You have a lot of tools to either do damage or crowd control the opposing team. But early on, you are quite squishy and due to your high mana costs you need to be careful to not get harassed too much. If you do, you can fall off and become an easy target for ganks since you don’t have mobility spells outside of your ultimate.
Aim to acquire a Frostfire Gauntlet as your first item since it will allow you to control the teamfight pace better and the stats of the item are great overall. You will get health, armor, magic resist, and ability haste, four great stats which benefit you a lot. As the game goes on and you scale, look to group with your team and attempt to go for plays with your ultimate on the opposing squishy carries. Early on you can blow them up easily with your basic combo if they’re not careful enough and get hit by your ultimate.
In the late stage of the game, look to split push and take down towers before joining your team with a Teleport or ultimate if a teamfight is about to happen.
Aatrox
Pros
- Strong sustain
- No resources required for abilities
- Exceptional team fighter
Cons
- High cooldowns
- High skill-floor
Aatrox’s passive healing and high damage can be painful to fight against. Additionally, Aatrox has strong wave clear and excellent engage potential. His healing and CC allow for outplays all around. He isn’t simple to play due to his dependency on skillshots, however, and he struggles against some of the strongest picks in the meta, like Pantheon or Darius. But if you put in an effort to learn how to play Aatrox, it’s likely going to pay off.
The recent Mythic items impacted Aatrox positively, especially Goredrinker, which allows you to be unkillable when combined with the sustain from the new items and runes.
Item build
The Precision tree is core on Aatrox. It grants you adaptive force via Conqueror stacks, which you can stack quite easily. The tree also grants additional healing with Triumph and Conqueror when fully stacked, Tenacity to reduce crowd control, and Last Stand to do increased damage when low on health. The secondary Domination tree will improve your sustain and allow you to be deceptively tanky in teamfights even without tank items.
Ability priority
Aatrox’s skill priority is R>Q>E>W. Your Q is the bread and butter of your kit. It allows you to poke, clear waves, knock up enemies, and is the most flexible ability of your kit. You should invest time in learning its sweet spot to receive maximum benefit. E second will grant you additional mobility to either stick on your target or run away from a fight. W is maxed last since the ability has a delay before it is activated, and maxing Q and E is much more powerful overall.
Game plan
Try to poke your opponent with your passive and Q when not on cooldown. Learn to combo your dash with your Q for surprise attacks. Don’t be afraid to fight the enemy in a one-vs-two situation if the enemy jungler comes to gank. Aatrox is beefy due to his self-healing capabilities and combined with the runes above is deceptively tanky. Once you get your core items, you should focus on split-pushing since you’re a great duelist, look for teleport flanks on the enemy team, and focus the backline.
Renekton
Pros
- Strong sustain
- Strong duelist
- Good split pusher
Cons
- Falls off late game
Renekton is back in the meta after falling off due to the latest item rework. He synergizes well with the Goredrinker Mythic item, which allows you to unleash havoc in teamfights and be a beefy frontline, while also dealing a lot of damage.
He’s one of the best top laners in the game currently due to his ability to impact the early game pressure and create room for his jungler to gank or take top side crab alongside Rift Herald.
Item build
The Precision Tree is core on Renekton. It grants you access to Press the Attack or Conqueror. Both keystone runes amplify your power both in and outside the lane. While Press the Attack is usually taken to dominate the lane, Conqueror is taken to have better scaling into the later stages of the game.
Other notable runes are Triumph, Legend: Alacrity, and Last Stand. All three runes sync well with your kit and teamfight presence, increasing your damage the lower your health gets.
The secondary rune page is more flexible with some players preferring to go for Domination while others favoring Resolve. Resolve has two great runes that allow you to increase your lead in Demolish and Bone Plating. Considering your plan is to engage on your opponent as often as possible, Bone Plating ensures you get the upper hand in the trades.
Ability priority
Renekton’s skill priority is R>Q>E>W. His Q is the best skill in his kit, arguably better than his ultimate due to its amount of healing damage. You want to use your fury to empower it and do major damage in trades during the laning phase. Maxing E second is recommended due to the additional mobility you’ll have with its longer uptime. While W is a great ability overall, the utility from Q and E outweigh it.
Game plan
Your goal as a lane bully is to make sure your opponent never goes unpunished for every attempt at last hitting minions. You should try to go for trades as often as possible since your most powerful period is the early to mid game. Once your opponents start scaling, you’ll most likely fall behind.
Try to aim for a Goredrinker as soon as possible since it grants you everything you need and can extend your lifespan significantly since it can be used in combination with empowered Qs to gain a lot of health back. Once the laning phase is over, look to split push and maintain pressure over the map.
If the opponent sends one member, you can usually farm up well against it and keep pushing to get a tower or an inhibitor. If two or more members try to come for you, you can usually take them down if you’re farmed since your kit relies on fighting multiple opponents to fill your rage bar so you can use empowered abilities. Use your teleport to aid your team and not tunnel on split-pushing. Your tankiness will come in handy during a teamfight, since you can usually soak damage from the opponents, giving your team enough time to do damage and kill enemy champions.
Gnar
Pros
- Great kit
- Scales well
- Rewarding to play
Cons
- Squishy ranged form
- Needs time to scale
Gnar has become one of the most popular top laners in League after buffs in Patch 10.13. His great kit and scaling make him one of the best champions to fit into most compositions in the game. While he might be hard to get used to at first, Gnar is rewarding to play if mastered. He has a huge skill floor and ceiling, so players who are looking for easy wins without investing time into understanding the champion should look to play something else. In the later stages of the game, your combo of R into W stun can be devastating to opposing teams and can help you turn the tides of battle in crucial moments.
Item build
There are a couple of viable rune builds for Gnar, but Resolve with Domination is the most popular one. It grants you access to a lot of sustain and additional tankiness to cover up for the fact that you’re squishy. In the Resolve tree, you want to go for Grasp of the Undying for the additional health granted and damage every couple of seconds. From the basic runes, Demolish is picked up to help you take down towers, Bone Plating to avoid dying early on, and Overgrowth to make you harder to kill the longer the game goes on.
The secondary rune page gives you access to Taste of Blood and Ravenous Hunter. Both are great sustain runes that should help you reach your power spikes.
Ability priority
Gnar’s skill priority is R>Q>W>E. Your boomerang is your core ability to farm and poke, so it should be maxed first. After that, going for W is a priority since it deals a lot of damage every couple of attacks, which is great to deal with any tanks on the enemy composition. E is maxed last since the utility from it is lower compared to Q or W.
Game plan
Gnar is one of the most unique top laners in the game who excels once he gets a couple of items. While you can play aggressively early on and try to snowball, it’s not recommended since you’re quite squishy and can be set far behind to a point where you can’t recover from.
As the game goes by and you start acquiring enough gold to purchase your Mythic item, look to group up with your team if they’re going for a teamfight. Before you teleport in, make sure to build up your rage bar so you can transform into your Melee Form for the crowd control you have in that form. It’s better to delay grouping up with your team for five seconds instead of appearing in your ranged form because throwing boomerangs won’t do that much damage later on.
Once you’ve reached the late game, look to splitpush and continue applying pressure on the opposing team. Your W allows you to easily deal with tanks, so they’ll be forced to either send a bruiser, mage, or ADC to clear waves and stop you from wreaking havoc.
Darius
Pros
- Strong one-vs-one duelist
- Exceptional sustain
- Good at punishing immobile champions
Cons
- No dash
- Falls off in later stages of the game
The Duke of Dunk is a strong pick in the meta simply because of how much raw damage he deals—if you’re playing against a melee champion. If you’re ranged, or a Pantheon, he’s going to have a tough time getting close enough to deal damage, but there aren’t many melee champions that can match his power early in the game. He has one of the best level-one damage outputs in the game, and he’s excellent at getting an early snowball rolling to run away with the match. With so many tank top laners dominating the meta, Darius is a great answer due to his resilience and true damage.
With the new Mythic items, you can have a small dash to circumvent the lack of dashes in your kit or get Goredrinker to have even more sustain and become an unkillable top laner.
Item build
The Precision tree is one of the core trees on Darius. While there are some players who prefer to go for Sorcery main for Phase Rush, most go for Conqueror since it grants you a lot of damage and healing when stacked up. The Precision tree is great since it gives you additional sustain via Triumph in teamfights and the Legend: Alacrity will make your attacks more fluid and more frequent. Additionally, Last Stand does increased damage when low on health. The secondary Sorcery tree will make you stick easier onto enemy champions since mobility is the biggest problem of Darius.
Ability priority
Darius’s skill priority is R>Q>E>W. You want to max your Q since it is your primary waveclear ability, alongside heal, and poke. E max second over W since you need the lower cooldown on the drag. It’s better to have a gap closer more often than the additional damage from W.
Game plan
Darius is one of the strongest early-game fighters. His passive alongside Conqueror allows for easy outplays on both the enemy top laner and jungler. Engage on your opponent with E when they go for last hits, stack your passive, and let them bleed. If they try to engage on you, your passive alongside Conqueror will overpower most top laners and give you a chance to pick up easy kills.
If you have Ghost, group up in teamfights and avoid split pushing since you won’t be able to match the enemy teleport. In teamfights look for the immobile carries and charge towards them with Ghost or Flash. They are the easiest targets to pick off and allow you to get your passive stacked to be stronger for the remainder of the teamfight.
Source: https://dotesports.com/league-of-legends/news/best-top-lane-champions-lol-15564
