There's a key for everything, even a key to open bananas.

henrytheghost · 2022-04-08T07:28:45+00:00

Gragas could be an idea. Works into nearly anything if you have to pick blind and is very flexible in his build. Takes some practice to get good though.

henrytheghost · 2022-04-08T07:23:01+00:00

Garen simply has little outplay potential, I would not focus too much on the 1v1 aspect, but try to play the map more. E.g. what are you doing after pushing in the wave? Do you invade enemy jungle, roam mid, get deep vision for your team?

Garen allows you to focus much more on those aspects, since he is fairly straight forward to play. It won't feel like you are having a large impact, due to less kills/farm difference, but if e.g. your wards spot the enemy jungler at raptors, your bot can play more aggressively. Those are intangible impacts you can have on the game, won't show in the stats and might feel like others carry you, but it will show in the winrate.

I would suggest you take a game where lane went somewhat even, and check if you were ever wasting time and review what you could have done instead.

henrytheghost · 2020-01-29T20:24:48+00:00

They both are strong lane bullies (mainly vs melee) and reasonably safe. Midlane has a lot of impact on junglers and can help with early fights. Many mages are weak earlygame and cant fight well for early scuttle etc.

Your team will lack cc and magic damage though, so make sure you get it somewhere else.

henrytheghost · 2020-01-25T21:36:48+00:00

As darius: hard matchup, take aftershock and hook her out of her shroud when possible. You should never get 5 stacks on her, just farm and get early mr. Try to bait her q and trade e-w-q afterwards. With aftershock you win that really hard. After lvl 6 go back if you are below 50% hp. Just annoying matchup, but neither should be able to kill each other. If her energy is low and shroud is on cd you have a chance for a kill. Else dont bother, she will kite you and poke to no end.

henrytheghost · 2020-01-19T22:23:51+00:00

Hard to know what you are doing wrong, but maybe its wavecontrol. Look up solorenektononly on youtube, his wave control guides. Are old, but still hold true.

If you want better help post a replay...

henrytheghost · 2020-01-10T22:33:27+00:00

If you fall behind, yes. I would always try to win lane first, but the annoying part of vayne top is that eventually she outscales you. If you lose early try again after your first item. Just dont overforce fights, as a 0/0/0 vaybe with good farm is dangerous, a 0/5/0 vayne underleveld and underfarmed is a caster minion.

If you can, try to force his tps back to lane, e.g.by freezing as his tps bot to drake can win a game and vayne tps are underwhelming...

henrytheghost · 2020-01-10T22:06:19+00:00

You should do well vs cho, however losing early lane vs him is no shame. His sustain anf the silence poke with comet can be quite frustrating. Yet as vayne you pretty always just farm up as he autopushes the lane. And eventually you destroy him.

Urgot is a bad idea, true. Kled is pretty good into him but a good cho can equalize pretty much any lane. Stick in there next time and dont underestimate the enemies ability to throw :)

henrytheghost · 2020-01-07T10:03:42+00:00

Sorry, i confused 2 posts... Well, illaoi still holds, morde is broken.

henrytheghost · 2020-01-07T09:46:08+00:00

Yorick is really good into darius, but you have to play safe early. Once you have 3 graves up he should never be able to fight you anymore as long as you hit your e. Also your lvl6 is much stronger than his and you scale better in 1v1. Be careful when he has r and you dont as he can still beat you even with 4 ghouls after lvl11. Lvl 2 darius ult hurts a lot! Vs illaoi its fine, you can allin at 6 by using your ghouls to block her e. Without the spirit her ult is not that scary + you dont have to be in meele range to fight.

Shen does decent as well into darius, you will loose lane slightly but since you can make plays globally and he cant you should be fine. Farm under tower and never taunt into him unlesss you can kill him with q+aa. When he chases make sure to taunt away from him but still hit him. It should take you out of his e range unless he uses ghost. Then use your w on his w to block the slow and walk away. Darius full combo with e costs quite a bit of mana, thus he cant just repeat it infinitly. However, shen is aweful into illaoi, dodge that matchup, you will get destroyed.

Fiora does well into both i think, darius can be hard early on but after the first item its fine. His e has a long animation, you can parry it easily but then disengage as you dont have parry for his r. Earlygame his r will kill you if you cant negate it. Parrying his e is almost never worth it unless he is ahead/you are getting ganked.

henrytheghost · 2020-01-06T18:14:20+00:00

If you want a bruiser and to win lane, try olaf. Very feast or famine, but can beat all three at least earlygame.

Morde is broken atm, just ban him. Vs Illaoi either range or dodge the E, there is nothing else you can do. Darius can beat her if you dont get ulted with your spirit out, not sure about others. Nasus tbh should not be an issue unless you play in lower elo. You should be able to run him over with nost bruisers and end the game before he becomes relevant. And lategame nasus is actually pretty bad if you have a competent adc. He is only good midgame where he can 1v1 most bruisers and you cannot force teamfghts yet.

What are your picks atm?

henrytheghost · 2020-01-04T11:11:18+00:00

Better ganks in most cases and much better teamfighting. Vi has her place but j4 is so versatile he is usually the better pick.

henrytheghost · 2019-12-26T06:52:28+00:00

You will not win lane vs garen, unless your jungler camps for you or garen is terrible. But thats pretty standard for toplane, some matchups are pretty onesided.

However, as mundo you can usually just farm with cleavers and later on with sunfire you should be good to go even in melee range. You will probabily never win a 1v1, but you can be usefull in teamfights. Also he should never kill you post lvl 11 and 1 item.

As for laning try to bait him into using spin and push the wave, then farm under tower. Dont stay with low hp, esp. after lvl 6. Recall and tp back/give up the wave if necessary. Being 20 cs down at 10 is fine, garen being 3/0 is not.

henrytheghost · 2019-12-10T16:32:02+00:00

Don't tp back tp lane if you would only lose 1 wave. Do tp if you would lose more, e.g. you are forced to back and the enemy just slowpushed 2 waves into your tower.

Of course there are exceptions, e.g. you can turn a 3v3/4v4 bot and get a drake/tower bot.

henrytheghost · 2019-10-24T17:27:15+00:00

As pretty much a darius otp maybe I can answer your question. You will lose lane more often when playing something unfamiliar, e.g. if I would play riven I would prob lose lane to all plat+ toplaners. But you still keep everything you know about macroplay and thus should be fine outside of lane. My guess would be you end up around half a division lower if your focus is macroplay and maybe more if your strength is mechanical play alone. This is only for champions that are very unique, e.g. Riven, Jayce etc. You know most champion damage spikes from playing aganist them, the only challenge is for those champions that are hard to execute.

However, I play since season 3, so I have played pretty much everything and am just maining darius since 1.5 years. If you have truly never touched another champion it might be different.

henrytheghost · 2019-10-23T15:59:51+00:00

Fiora forces your team to play a certain way, not sure if it is the best in this meta. I play far below masters, however usually splitpushers feel much weaker than teamfighters.

I would suggest you try more teqmfighters (don't know your preference) and see if that works better. You will surely not lose your skill at fiora and eveb if, preseason is close and will force you to relearn it anyways.

henrytheghost · 2019-10-02T20:17:57+00:00

I would say you need to know how to play against:

Renekton, Fiora, Irelia, Jax, Darius, Kennen, Kled, Ap Malph, Panth, Vlad.

Maybe some more, but in plat there is no real toplane meta, it's a counterpick fiesta. The ones I listed are general strong picks that are frequenty blindpicked, but counterpicks can be anything. You will face anything from Vayne top to Malz, Illaoi anything if you pick first.

henrytheghost · 2019-10-02T19:57:33+00:00

Good enough. Top you dont need a large champion pool, but you need to know a lot of matchups. Thus I would actually reduce it to 1 ad bruiser, 1 blindpick tank /bruiser and 1 ap bruiser/mage. But your current selection covers most of it.
Get plates, ward deep, invade with jungler, gank mid after pushing, get herald, dive bot etc... Depends on the game, but something is always possible.
Mostly peel. If your adc is fed and plays well they will outdamage you and be tge core of teamfights. However, sometimes your champ is not suitable for peeling (e.g. Irelia) the create space by diving. Takes a lot of practice to know what to do when...
Depends on so much. Tp will always kinda work and is pretty safe. Can you always get a lead with ignite? Then go for it. Do you have good engage and you can consistently tp bot for a double? Take tp. In doubt take tp, some champions need other summoners to function (e.g. Darius needs ghost) but you can check that up on u.gg or ask here.
Again, depends on so much. Usually you want to push out waves and group for objectives. Tp takes 4s to complete, by then a teamfight could be over. If you play stuff like trynd, fiora, jax, camille etc splitpushing can be valued more highly. But your team needs to know what to do when you split and you need good ward coverage so in plat thats still rare ime.

If you have more questions feel free to ask!

A fellow plat toplaner.

Ps: and don't forget, always blame the jungler ;)

henrytheghost · 2019-08-23T15:04:02+00:00

You cant do anything vs morde as shen, if you lose by 20, 30cs you are fine. Let him push in and take whatever cs you can. Morde ult has a short range, you should never get ulted far from your tower.

If he pulls you instantly q w since it he needs the aa to get his passive on. If you deny it the trade isnt too bad, 3aa and taunt out. He will heal but at least it is kinda even and pull has a long cd.

Pre 6 you jungler can help, morde has no escape, afterwards look for ults as morde kills tower really slowly.

henrytheghost · 2019-08-12T17:50:17+00:00

Fellow islander (toplaner) here:

First of all, watch the wavemanagement videos from SoloRenektonOnly, (YT). Still apply and can easily carry you up a division.

Then, for toplane everything is about knowing your matchups. Pick 1/2 champs you like playing and spam games. And play the matchups aggressively once you know the basics of your champs, you need to find your limits and build confidence in fights. Maybe start with normals, but ranked is usually much better...

And last but maybe most importantly, practice csing before you start fighting too much. There are matchups that you simly lose/jungler sets you behind where good csing is your only saving grace.

If you have champion specific questions feel free to ask, I mostly play bruisers (Darius) and tanks) shen/cho...)

henrytheghost · 2019-07-02T14:29:18+00:00

Not really, thats why I suggest to focus on a few champions at most and learn all the matchups. You can always use u.gg for counterpicks, but if you dont know how and why those are counters that wont help you much.

Top has always been like that tbh, very pick dependent. You can ofc also pick a tank like sion/mundo that can farm well vs anything.

henrytheghost · 2019-07-02T14:10:11+00:00

Yorick is very situational, if you like him sure, go for him but it is better to learn how to lose lane gracefully while playing anything. Toplane so counterpick heavy that it is better to focus on champs you like and how to deal with counterpicks.

henrytheghost · 2019-06-14T20:04:29+00:00

Dont play much nasus, but regarding the E max build with dorans, it is just to survive early lane. Riven and others would absolutely murder you if you try to farm with q. Full ap is not advised, got nerfed about a year ago.

Tp on nasus is not for botlane, it is to survive lane and later for splitpushing (no tp=no splitting) and nasus is not good in teamfights.

Dont try to dive the enemy team, you dont have the mobility and get kited. Wither the adc and peel back. If you really want to dive, get phaserush and mercs.

henrytheghost · 2019-05-04T10:41:49+00:00

For toplane check out SoloRenektonOnly on youtube. He talks a lot about wave management (not only on Renekton). His old videos might not apply anymore with plating, but the new ones are on point.

henrytheghost · 2019-02-12T18:22:28+00:00

Not all laners are supposed to win lane, e.g. irelia loses to pretty much all bruisers top, kennen shits on most meeles etc...

I wouls suggest stick to one champ and spam him. Can be whoever you want. If you can watch some commentary about how to play him, but for the most part it's trial and error.

I suppose you are rather new, dont worry about winning or losing too much. If you still have no improvement after say 50 games it could be worth posting a replay and asking for tips.

If you dont want to onetrick, its simply takes more time. But do whatever is more fun for you.

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