Riot exploring different ways to improve top lane’s impact in League

Don’t worry, top laners—Riot hasn’t forgotten about you.

League of Legends lead gameplay designer Mark “Scruffy” Yetter discussed several potential ways of giving top laners “higher game impact” in high elo in today’s Dev Post. Devs are continuing their efforts to bring some more power into the underperforming role. 

One possible way to fix the issue would be to improve core top lane items, like Black Cleaver, Sunfire, and Hydra items, to give “fighters and tanks more carry power later.” Scruffy also explained that giving early strategic impact to top laners would help players get “integrated” into battles for objectives. This season’s dragon changes made bot lane the more important side to camp. Giving top laners a “more powerful teleport summoner” or adding value to Rift Herald would help even the scales.

Riot wants to help top laners turn their early leads into victories. To do that, devs may experiment giving players a larger payout for bullying opponents, such as increasing melee damage to plates.

Riot previously found that the top lane had little to do with the outcome of a match in high MMR and professional play. Data also shows that the top lane is less likely to be picked than mid or bot, especially in higher elos.

Though these ideas sound good in theory, they’re tentative and liable to change before hitting the live servers.