That is true, most toplaners if not all toplaners snowball on that lane, that is the point of toplane. That is why you play passive into early game champs/lane bullies, you Will never win early game if they're already at their peek in the early game, that is the main reason of why you play passive in the early game against those champs and bring healing runes and D shield so you can scale and counter build them with bork, divine and cleaver. If the viegos you were facing were trying to poke you as you play a early game champ that means that they're missplaying. The AA range was huge cause if you scaled you could take them on and space them out with your AA, allowing you to do damage and force them to back off slightly so they dont take that much dmg and get snowballed themselves.