League of Legends is a team game, but sometimes, you can’t help but feel utterly alone if you get counter-picked by the enemy team or lose the lane early. While reacting to a Tyler1 streaming clip, former pro player Doublelift said he believes top lane is the role that affects a player’s mental the most in today’s iteration of the game.
“Top [lane] is, by far, the most mentally devastating role, and it’s not even close,” Doublelift said. “It’s because half the shit that happens to you is because the enemy mid laner and jungler are gapping you, or pick order, or support randomly roams top. It’s up there with AD carry in terms of like, ‘Only psychopaths would enjoy top lane.'”
Later on in the stream, Doublelift also talked about how easy mid lane is in comparison to top lane, since there’s so many more opportunities to affect the game state and find advantages. For example, if you lose lane as a mid laner, you have the option to help the jungler out in invades or roam over to bottom lane to help get your AD carry and support ahead.
In a similar way, supports can also do the same thing since they can roam to help out their jungler and mid laner—but only if their ADC is willing to play a bit safer while they’re gone or if the wave is in an advantageous position for them to leave. In either case, there’s a lot of variance with the gameplay in both roles.
Top lane, on the other hand, doesn’t have these luxuries in playstyle, save for the occasional teleport play. Top laners are usually much more reliant on their own individual solo play in lane or their teammates, their mistakes are punished a lot harder, and they take much longer in coming back from a deficit since they don’t have different venues to affect the overall game state.
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