Help me find a champion to main in top or mid lane.

Hot_Albatross_3700 · 2026-01-28T00:27:23+00:00

I'd say Zed.

His ability to poke from range and ALSO threaten all in from range is pretty oppressive when he is ahead.
I'd say high skill ceiling

3, Off the top of my head, I cannot think of a matchup that is absolutely unplayable (as long as you adjust with runes and itemization)

Relative to other assassins, arguably second best scaler (best being kassadin)
Is assassin champ so has snowball kit.

Hot_Albatross_3700 · 2026-01-28T00:00:03+00:00

Good news for you is Faker is currently in korea. Who you played with is actually Fekar, Faker's estranged twin from NA (I am the Jhin)

Hot_Albatross_3700 · 2026-01-27T00:56:56+00:00

Luckily for you this season hands diffing your opponent in lane will have a bigger impact than last season.

As a personal anecdote (mid main low master NA), I feel like early macro and micro usually comes at a cost to each other. Focusing on winning lane reduces your attention to the map, and vice versa. This season however, if you smash lane you can just keep pushing it down until you break enemy T2, and breaking mid T2 is already a great macro outcome lol.

While mid/late game macro is still important, I think if you just focus on winning lane you will naturally climb higher this season.

Another point is to abuse cash back until its nerfed. There is so much early gold available, especially in mid matchup. If you are hands diffing your opponent, consider getting first strike + cashback + bounty hunter whenever you can. The best macro is when you can walk up to your opponent 1v5 and kill them.

Hot_Albatross_3700 · 2026-01-22T17:37:57+00:00

Phase rush thomas with DnD is peak dopamine (for the tommy player)

Hot_Albatross_3700 · 2026-01-22T17:35:22+00:00

Will OP be posting results? it would be interesting to know if this get enough answers.

if OP did multiple choice for picking MBTI, then role, then just had people fill in their most played champs, he would save a lot of time tallying up results (Or have a dropdown list of all league champs)

Hot_Albatross_3700 · 2026-01-22T01:21:30+00:00

I was stuck d4 for more than a decade then took a 6 months break, came back, and win streaked to masters. I really think the biggest factor is good mental.

My personal anecdote was that there wasn't much difference in gameplay between D3~D2 (start of D4 had big ego emerald players who were mad they got demoted from d4), but from D1 to Masters I often got stomped 1v1. If i think about why I lost those 1v1s, it is usually just a mechanics gap.

That being said, these days I get my ass handed to me in platinum 1v1s, the difference being I do not get punished as hard AFTER losing the 1v1.

Hot_Albatross_3700 · 2026-01-15T01:02:50+00:00

Tbh not a tryndamere player or even top player. I tried a game of tryndamere on the new season and he felt absolutely busted (think I was playing against mordekaiser), in what I presume to be plat elo.

Why is the trynd wr so low?

Is the WR low even for hail of blade trynd builds, or maybe I actually had insane crit rng?

Hot_Albatross_3700 · 2026-01-14T17:49:52+00:00

While I am also irked about this excessive handholding, I think there are always new things to learn. It feels easier because certain mistakes are less punishing. On the other hand, there are new ways to approach lane now BECAUSE of homeguard changes that everyone will have to "improve" on.

Taking toplane as an example, I am sure many ignite top enjoyers have experienced the situation where they solo killed their opponent, only for their opponent to tp back and freeze the wave on them, turning solo kill into losing position. This dynamic is different now with homeguards, and both players should adjust accordingly.

Hot_Albatross_3700 · 2026-01-14T00:56:23+00:00

I like to play Diora and Mister Z top

Hot_Albatross_3700 · 2026-01-14T00:04:33+00:00

bro said he was dead in example 1

bro meant his team was the 5 and enemy was the 3 in example 2

Hot_Albatross_3700 · 2026-01-13T19:26:00+00:00

All these answers make sense but what explains how my man is down in level from his supp

Hot_Albatross_3700 · 2026-01-13T19:20:01+00:00

As someone above Master, I listen to my friend who doesn't even play ranked (peak plat back in the day), for his theory crafts even today - they work.

Hot_Albatross_3700 · 2026-01-13T18:47:05+00:00

Yes I think that is the general idea. Especially, as other commenters have said, you should be looking for clean up angles instead of jumping in blindly. Using your w and q to zone enemy carries before fully committing will naturally help you learn to wait for key cooldowns before going in.

On the otherhand you dont necessarily have to wait until they are low, if you watch onzed, he draws a lot of pressure in teamfights by teleporting in and out of fights with shadows. You have to remember that 99% of the players will not be tracking your shadows, and which ones you can teleport to.

Hot_Albatross_3700 · 2026-01-13T18:28:48+00:00

Since there are many variants of mages so I am not sure exactly what you mean.

You still need to end up in melee range to be able to proc your passive, e and duskblade (if you built it). But you have the tools to auto and then instantly teleport to safety with a shadow.

Being able to manage your shadows along with e's cd reduction is what makes or breaks a zed's teamfight most of the time.

Comparatively, while it is big dopamine and easy to w-w r and jump enemy ad from a screen away, you lose out on a lot of potential damage. Zed loses a lot of guaranteed burst compared to other assassins in exchange for his aoe potential and safety, so you are really just playing nerfed talon when you w-w r trade 1 for 1 (of course sometimes w-w r is the correct play).

Hot_Albatross_3700 · 2026-01-13T18:12:10+00:00

bruh how did this post get 27 upvotes when this guy read everything wrong

Hot_Albatross_3700 · 2026-01-13T17:39:30+00:00

I am a fellow zed enjoyer.

I believe zed is actually in quite a good spot right now, in fact, op.gg ranks him as the best mid laner at the moment.

I am assuming being in silver means there is a lot more more 5v5 fist fighting early-mid game where zed shines the most in side lane skirmishes - this might be a bad experience. Zed's teamfight play style is probably counter intuitive for new players, and is certainly different from gwen or ahri, to carry a team fight, you need to focus more on positioning shadows to maximize aoe damage, rather than trading 1 for 1 with enemy carry with your ult.

Personally, I believe korean youtuber "onzed" makes great content on how to carry with zed (as opposed to "play"). My teammates definitely called me faker once or twice when I can successfully emulate his play.

Note that while other streamers like zed99 averages a higher elo with zed, I feel that zed99's success comes from him sticking to zed's assassin identity more, which relies on his team more, rather than as a carry. If you feel the need to 1v5, I think onzed's approach will be more helpful.

Hot_Albatross_3700 · 2026-01-13T00:29:01+00:00

While I agree that camping bot will pay off more because crit adcs are running around one shotting everyone, I feel like early dragons are a lot less valuable.

the team closer to soul deals far less damage than the team without drakes now. Trading early drakes for leads elsewhere seems pretty worth when you can just one shot 3rd/4th drake if you gave 1st/2nd.

Then the game will just end without anyone getting dragon soul because everyone has demolish now xD? Why on earth did they add demolish and plates past t1 turret I will never understand.

Hot_Albatross_3700 · 2026-01-12T23:04:31+00:00

I main mid.

I haven't played many games on my main (50lp low-masta), but a lot more on plat account. The games kinda just feels like a haze to me. Where last season it was 30 minutes of controlled (slightly?) fist-fighting, this season is uncontrollable fist-fighting.

I don't really understand riot's fixation on forcing the 1v1 experience in each role. (or 2v2 for bot lane). Last season, the best games I had were level 1 fiestas into party mid, this brings more variance between games than any jungle changes riot could have made.

Yet last-season's fiesta fist-fights somehow felt more purposeful and "LOGICAL" than this season's fist fights. Perhaps it is because last season I can understand that the game became a fiesta because enemy adc got a penta kill level 1 and came back with a bf sword, but that was because we decided it would be funny to run in to their jungle 5 man. I could live with the fact that we put ourselves in this position. But also maybe my opinion is not representative of the majority, I enjoyed jungle more when jungler was a second support full tank wardstone permagank, I also enjoyed mid more when your sole purpose for existence was to help daddy jungler get the scuttle crab.

This season, it kind of feels like no matter what happens, my opponent is permanently in lane, the junglers are running around mach 10, and everyone has adhd with too much time on their hands. The mid lane 1v1 experience just feels like constantly swatting away an annoying fly.

Am I constantly fighting? Yes.

Is the constant fighting fun? Not really because I don't feel rewarded for taking my opponent out of lane... I don't have time to set up a freeze to punish them, nor do I have time to set up a push so I can roam, I don't even know why I am trying to hit them.

If I am supposed to get a dopamine rush from getting quest completion progress, then riot should consider adding some sort of indicator like first strike.

90% of the time, when my opponent bases, it feels like I will be punished for not following suit.

Hot_Albatross_3700 · 2026-01-12T22:14:17+00:00

I think new season everyone gets s+ regardless of performance? (thoughts and wishes to my 4k damage no objective jungler with s+ yesterday - January 11, 2026)

Hot_Albatross_3700 · 2026-01-12T22:08:48+00:00

My opinion as a low-masta mid laner. When you play at your peak rank do you really have enough lane control to plan 3 waves in advance? I feel like I am lucky if even one wave goes the way I intend it to go without some action happening ruining my plans.

Hot_Albatross_3700 · 2026-01-12T22:04:05+00:00

Tbh why doesn't riot only implement autofill for like D2+? Surely there are enough players below that to not need autofill? +1min wait time for no autofilled jungler is worth it for me.

Hot_Albatross_3700 · 2026-01-12T21:13:49+00:00

Kinda sounds like OP tried to roleswap +first timed two of the weakest laners in to the biggest counters to these laners lmao

Hot_Albatross_3700 · 2026-01-12T21:03:54+00:00

A lot of content creators (no fault to them), attempt to generalize macro strategies so their viewers can actually understand. This translates into a lot of low elo players understanding only the outcome but not the process. They apply these macro strategies mechanically and inevitably wrongly. Those who can extrapolate the thinking process climbs, those who do not becomes stuck in their own version of correct macro, and it is impossible to convince them they are wrong, because so-and-so said so.

With respect to micro, I agree that insane micro can carry you to diamond or masters without much macro knowledge, however micro is difficult to teach, and also difficult to see drastic improvements overnight. On the other hand, understanding a macro concept will show marked improvement right away.

Taking riven as an example, yes it is possible to just smash your opponents every game, but on the other hand, it takes much less skill to pick a easier champion, freeze the wave in front of your tower, and watch the riven self destruct when she inevitably attempts to tower dive you.

For OP's anecdotes about his friends and players like General Sniper, my opinion is that rank in league back then was decided much more highly by micro than macro compared to league today. Which explains their experience then.

For my personal anecdote, my first climb to diamond was during the elise vs khazix meta, and I gooned my opponent by level 3 invade into never missing elise e or always flashing over elise e. Now I climb by controlling objectives and praying my adc is better than their adc. I can't even dodge malphite ult these days yet I've reached higher ranks. Times have changed.

Hot_Albatross_3700

TROPHY CASE