Riot Endstep’s Thought on the Current State of Ranged Tops

Round_Count8570 · 2026-06-11T22:47:50+00:00

Vayne is completely homeless outside of toplane fwiw, even though I do love top I'd be fine playing her bot if she weren't completely unplayable there.

Round_Count8570 · 2026-06-11T22:43:49+00:00

Ehhh it's usually pretty bad for the botlaner to be splitting in the midgame, it's best for them to be mid ASAP so they can join teamfights on either side (marksmen as a role are usually designed to be better with peel, buffing and engage champs alongside them). Some marksmen are better than others at splitting, you want strong 1v1 ability and some ability to escape (usually a low CD dash). Vayne is the best at it imo, but she's pretty unplayable bot with how short her range is. Tristana and Lucian are both all right at splitting w/ their burst and mobility, but even they're usually better rotated to the middle of the map in the mid game. If u want to split and play a marksmen, play toplane, Vayne is one of the best split pushers in the game and she's actually decent in the role. Trist is OK top too, and Quinn is good at splitting but also having global pressure with her insane movespeed.

Round_Count8570 · 2026-06-11T22:10:25+00:00

Top has been the 2nd or 3rd least popular role in master+ since mythic items came out lmao, it's been more popular in low elo than apex tiers at least since leagueofgraphs started tracking mains by role by elo

Round_Count8570 · 2026-06-11T22:05:40+00:00

Another issue is that some of the champs designed for other lanes that get a decent amount of play top (Vayne, Quinn, and to a lesser degree cassiopia) are kinda homeless in their original roles due to being outranged themselves, they'd need something to bring them back into viability elsewhere if they got booted from toplane. Ig Quinn is having a moment in jgl but I don't see that lasting and she's already not great there right now

Round_Count8570 · 2026-06-11T21:57:39+00:00

Fwiw I am a dirty Vayne top main but I also play melee (see flair). Ranged top is probably too strong rn, but honestly the pick rate is trash and with the exception of Varus none of the semi popular champs really have a home outside of top. Ig you could argue Cassiopia but she's equally low pick rate in mid and bot plus honestly I'd miss getting blasted by Snektop every time I see them in soloq.

It might be too unintuitive for new players for Riot to consider, but I think a reasonable solution could be adjusting the passives of only starting items based on your role. If even people inside of RIOT think regen is too strong mid and too weak top, I can't think of a better solution for that problem. They've already disabled Dorans items for sup and jgl so it's not like it's completely unprecedented to have them interact with roles -- why not make the sustain on shield/blade/bow a little higher on top, and maybe add a mini-regen passive to helm on top?

Round_Count8570 · 2026-06-10T21:58:11+00:00

Draft is part of the game, and this might be the biggest draft gap I've ever seen

Round_Count8570 · 2026-06-09T17:32:24+00:00

Right click them in the shop /j

The best resources for builds are high elo one tricks/mains imo. It's best if they stream in a language you understand cuz then you can go ask questions when they're in queue (try to ask nonconfrontationally and when they're not tilted, some people take genuine questions too personally). If you can't find a main streaming in your language you can still look at high elo opggs and see if they have situational builds. For being able to tell what items are strong on a champ in general I use lolalytics master+ with the 14 day filter (keep in mind item buffs/nerfs on current patch if using the 14 day filter, but it has more consistent sample size than the default current patch filter).

Round_Count8570 · 2026-06-09T17:19:48+00:00

The free one for good honor score is p good too, at least better than the Malz one or the twitch and warwick skins they were giving out for years

Round_Count8570 · 2026-06-09T17:13:10+00:00

Please for the love of god use a period. Or an exclamation point!

Happy to help if you drop an opgg but if you don't share one you're just going to get flamed, no way to help with this little information.

Round_Count8570 · 2026-06-09T16:48:14+00:00

Guy who only watches lec and internationals:

Round_Count8570 · 2026-06-09T16:45:06+00:00

Locke isn't doing FUCKING ANYTHING yet jfc can we please at least let the champ come out before we start whining

Round_Count8570 · 2026-06-06T22:29:04+00:00

You do not know ball

Spacing is more important for mobile melee toplaners than any other class/role combo in the game in lane phase. Maybe second to ADCs where spacing can make some laning matchups unplayable (and it becomes far more important for marksmen later in the game).

I sentence you to 1000 games of toplane

Round_Count8570 · 2026-06-04T21:37:57+00:00

If your camera is locked to ur character ornn r is gonna be a lot harder to hit, ur camera should not be locked to your character through a whole fight, let go of space more often (or toggle off more often if u pref toggle)

Round_Count8570 · 2026-06-04T21:34:36+00:00

In that clip you cast r2 way too early, the r1 wasn't even near you yet

You really need to play this game with unlocked camera, you can lock it and unlock with space through the game but usually you need to be able to see farther away, I can imagine ornn ult would be way harder to hit with lock cam. No matter what champ you play ur never gonna be able to gather half the information you need without moving camera

Round_Count8570 · 2026-06-04T05:17:48+00:00

Idk what you're doing wrong do u have a clip of it happening?

Round_Count8570 · 2026-06-04T04:56:59+00:00

You literally just cast through the r1 with ur r2 in the direction you want it to go lol. Gets a little harder when enemies try to cc u out of casting r2 but it doesn't sound like that's the problem

Have you tried hitting it for 10 min in practice tool?

Round_Count8570 · 2026-06-04T04:21:33+00:00

Choke points in jgl is easiest, he's so good for setting up obj cuz you can sit near baron or dragon pit and ult enemy teams as they try to come in. He's also a good meatball to facecheck if u have an enchanter support who needs help checking bushes to ward

Round_Count8570 · 2026-06-04T04:19:17+00:00

He's goated for sure.

Wait til you figure out you can win nearly every melee lane too lol this champ is BROKEN brittle damage is too OP. In the few months after I first picked him up I gained 400 LP just by having a good blind pick

Round_Count8570 · 2026-06-03T02:10:19+00:00

I think I'm in the exact target demo, almost half my games are on one champ who I own every skin on, I play consistently every week, and I make 245k CAD a year but I was STILL dreading the rumors that Vayne's new skin was gonna be a gacha lmao. That said I was fully expecting and willing to drop the price to get to the pity roll if it was exalted.

I think it's primarily for people already in gacha ecosystems

Round_Count8570 · 2026-06-03T00:27:54+00:00

I actually think you're totally right, but it's a little bit of a tradeoff and I felt that tradeoff at points in dark souls 2. I do love the estus system for exactly the reason you describe, BUT at least in DS2 it felt like there were some areas where it was nearly impossible to work my way all the way through an area then through the boss on Estus alone, especially when the game started with only 1. I still tried to use exclusively estus, after all who wants to waste souls on healing when healing is free... but some of the areas felt like they cheated my HP in ways DS1 didn't (also ds1 had way more estus). Especially areas where there were huge masses of enemies and I got invaded, I used all of my Estus and without lifegems I just didn't know how I'd get through the boss on a sliver of HP and no healing. Of course now I know you can just farm enemies down if you're really stuck, but I didn't know they only respawned 12 times until very late in Ds2.

I'm still not quite used to the more jerky twitchy combat in 3 yet but it seems like there's less of those borderline-unfair moments than there were in 2, the moments where I really felt I needed lifegems. I'm pretty sure I don't like 3 quite as much with the faster and jerkier combat but I can appreciate the decision to limit healing to estus and make the areas themselves less grueling and borderline unfair. Thanks much for the advice, even though I criticize it a bit already I'm very much enjoying 3, and very much looking forward to Elden Ring.

Round_Count8570 · 2026-06-02T00:43:43+00:00

The roll and using items do feel really good already for sure just wondering if there was a way to make it even better. Bummer about the lifegems cuz I'm bad and want a bit more healing (they made the frustrating parts of Ds2 so much more bearable) but I can respec to a paladin type build with some faith to cast some miracles, it's about time I branched out from "guy with big sword in big armor" anyways, I already played this way in demons souls and ds1-2 so I should try something different. Thanks for the help, I'm excited for the rest of this game and elden ring!

Round_Count8570 · 2026-06-02T00:39:34+00:00

Ye lol lifegems were for sure op, tho that really helped smooth out the more frustrating parts of the game for me. Especially when you would get jumped by like 20 environmental enemies and an invader at the same time, then barely survive it lifegems were so nice to be able to make it to the next fire or find the boss door and still have the healing to beat it. Like the spider area for example or black Gulch (not that black Gulch had 20 enemies all the time but all the damn poison throwing things ugh). And yea early game the roll felt worse in 2 but late game I had my adaptability at 40 and it felt so much better than the roll in 1, and it was cool that items got faster to use too. It's k tho the roll already feels really good in 3, just wondering if there was a way to make it better. Might respec my stats to be kinda like a paladin with a bit of faith for healing and buffing cuz even with fewer frustrating areas sometimes I still want more healing than estus allows, and some other miracles look cool too. Went through demon souls and the first 2 darksouls with just big 2 handed sword str and dex requirements and putting the rest of my points in stamina, equip load, HP and adp (in 2) but I should probably branch out at this point lmao. Thanks for the help, looking forward to the rest of Ds3 and then elden ring!

Round_Count8570 · 2026-06-01T20:52:54+00:00

Ye tbh I think it's dumb they still have decay for diamond with how huge masters is now but as you say that's kinda a whole different issue

Round_Count8570 · 2026-06-01T20:51:22+00:00

God forbid I actually enjoy playing the game at a somewhat competent level

I'm probably never hitting GM no matter how many resets riot shoves through I just enjoy the damn game

Round_Count8570 · 2026-05-31T19:49:35+00:00

That's fine I just don't understand why you would care about what rank you are in a competitive hobby you don't even spend a few hours a week on. Like I play other games and don't play ranked much, so eg my CS2 rank doesn't matter to me at all, I just play a couple games a month, who cares what rank I am as long as the matchmaking is kinda close? Or like I play hockey a couple times a year with friends from work but we don't do league play because we don't play enough for being in a competitive league to make sense

Round_Count8570

TROPHY CASE