So lets begin with the different roles in your standard League match:
Top, Mid, Jungle, Support and ADC (Attack Damage Carry)
This guide will cover the basics of Top lane.
Top
As a top laner in League your responsibility to your team is in almost every single case to provide tankiness, jump into the back line and disrupt the enemy carries from harassing yours. Similar to jungle, many top laner champs include: Renekton, Kha'Zix, Nasus, Xin Zhao, Jax, Rengar, Olaf, Pantheon, Dr. Mundo, Gangplank, Chogath, Maokai, Zed, Trundle, Sejunai, Lee Sin and our new dearest friend the squishy blob (Whose name escapes me now ffs). As you can see most of these champs have blinks such as Zed and Maokai with his roots, disruptors such as Chogath who have massive CC (Crowd Control) with silences and stuns. Many champions such as Xin Zhao, Jax, Rengar, Kha'Zik and Renekton have hops or jumps to enemy backlines.
You may be wondering what items are good for top laners, but in almost every single case a couple solid items will win you the game. Remember your goal is more to take out the enemy carries and be in the middle of the fight taking the damage while protecting your carries. Sunfire Cape, Warmogs, Warden's mail, Thornmail (when enemy is heavily AD), Frozen Mallot and for those who wish to deal more damage I love Ravenous Hydra. This item only works for melee champs and for every basic attack, it deals AOE damage (Area of Effect) while providing lifesteal and health regen. Some other viable items are Maw of Malmorthius and Quicksilver Sash for Magic. An old item that I loved was Force of Nature (for you season 2 nerds) that got cut sadly :(. However for your assassin champs such as Kha Zix and Rengar I recommend a Bloodthirster or Ravenous Hydra as one of your early game items. It'll help you assert damage as you both can be a tanky owner and damage dealer in teh backline. Plus it'll allow you to life steal from minions.
Early Game: For almost every top champion early game will consist of a pot start. Most top laners use crystaline flask if there mana dependent + 2 health pots. If you wish to get early game tankiness I recommend cloth armor + 5 health pots (4 health pots and 1 mana if abilities are high mana cost such as Olaf's axe throw). For assassin champs such as Kha or Rengar I recommend a standard boots start with 3 pots because of the late roaming potential. As a top laner there are 3 things that you always should remember: Farm, Poke and Ward.
As a top laner if you get underfarmed you are screwed for the rest of the game and your team will suffer from it. Make sure to always to last hit minions because if you don't get enough gold then you'll be screwed late game and easily be taken down in late game teamfights. In midgame as well the 1v1 potential you have with other champs will be completely erased because you won't be the tank that your team needs you to be. Remember as a tanky bastard you'll not have the same amount of damage as others so remember to properly judge damage and remember to use your abilities for faster wave clear.
Almost every top laner will have some sort of CC ranging from a grab to Darius to a silence from Chogath or Rengar's bola strike or hops from brush. You need to continually to slowly poke down an enemy champ. Its the small engages early game that will help you assert dominance in a lane as the other top laner will be less likely to try something drastic. It'll also slowly back off the enemy champion so you'll have a free lane to farm and get ahead. This will help you get tanky early game and increasing roaming potential early game.
This is a video to show an example of how to poke with a Nid or kite.
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Ward coverage early game to mid game is essential. As explained by Nexis's topic, a top laner is one of the easiest spots for a jungler to catch you out and get ahead. Not only will you allow the top laner to push up your lane and deny you farm, it set you behind in kills. A properly placed ward in the tri bush should allow you to escape and allow the other team to push the wave up to you for easier farm. Remember pings are essential to alert your teams jungle that you've spotted someone in the bush.
Locations of teemo shooms 1,2 or 3 are ideal locations for wards by blue and purple side.
The Infamous Split Push: Many teams allow their top laners to split push and I would recommend it under certain conditions. If you have a teleport or playing a Shen or twisted fate with the ability to teleport as an ultimate if the 4 remaining members of your team get into a teamfight. SPlit pushing is a great technique mid to late game where you can backdoor an enemy team by taking bottom or top turrets while the rest of your team is drawing attention away from you while you take down turrets. I recommend this if your team is ahead, around the same level or starting to fall behind as its a great source of gold from farming and global gold for taking turrets. Please refer to images from Dignitas website to get a better idea.
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For runes I recommend anything that comes standard with the champ or is recommend in gudies. Right now I just play with flat attack damage, magic resist and armor with attack damage quints.
Thanks for the time you took for reading this, but now you should know how to play top. Feel free to post a reply and I'll work on the other rolls soon. Tell me if its bs if it is I don't care that much. I'll just be able to create better guides in the future. Cheers!
Edit: Ytube link not working, if someone could help would be appreciated.
