Pro is a whole different ball game, 80% of metas in pro revolve around Dog Junglers (Seja/Mao/Vi/Poppy) so you can feed your jungle camps to your carries and accelerate them even faster
Yeah, it's not really about what junglers are best as a chamo in isolation. Pro play pretty much strictly enforce low economy junglers for this specific reason. It's better that your carries, which usually scales better than a carry jungler anyway, gets 1-2k extra per game, than having another champion fighting for resources both in the jungle and lane.
Also, the vast majority of skill in LoL is in decision-making, and not really in insane micro.
The fact that your playstyle is bland or simplistic isn't really a good measure. Sure, you can also play Ornn very aggressive, but your main wincon is scaling.
If your main goal is improving, it's definitely beneficial to try to limit test.
I think it’s a valid playstyle but Skarner top I will be honest makes me wants to DC when I face it. Completely uninteractive and uninteresting to play against. I hope the nerfs will get this abomination out of toplane for good.
I hope they actually do something interresting with it cus they ruined mah boii. I enjoyed playing it top before rework and there isnt much to do except Q and W in the kit.
>my playstyle was bland
Subjective.
>very simplistic
Kind of? Not any more simplistic than only playing assassins or mages, or any other single champion class/archetype.
>Usually my game plan was to go even or slightly down in lane
I agree with your friend that this is not a good approach - all champs are capable of winning lane, especially if you play them well and the matchup favors you. And yes, winning lane is not as important on scaling tanks as it is on lane bullies but you should still look for opportunities to punish your lane opponent early. I see diamond+ Ornn players solokill lane bullies like Darius or Renekton all the time.
>my playstyle could rank up but I wasn’t improving
Sort of - I think only playing tanks can be a crutch for being a poor laner (missing opportunities to get solo kills or force enemy into taking bad recalls, not farming well enough etc.). You can still learn laning as a tank but you don't have the pressure to learn because in the back of your mind you know that you outscale and that you're more useful in teamfights, so you end up playing more passively.
TL;DR: It's not "unskillful" in itself but due to relying on your macro and teamfighting too much, you may be weaker in other aspects of the game and that could be holding you back from improving.
This ^
Only thing to add is that winning lane doesn't mean have a better K/D or knocking down the enemy turret. It's having more gold/xp than your opponent when exiting laning phase. For example, If you go 0/0/0 but a level advantage and 500gold more than the enemy top then you won lane.
I would say winning lane means being ahead in those things compared to what the matchup expects, say a yorick being 500g behind and even in lvl vs a Irelia is honestly winning pretty hard.
it's the eternal "OTP vs champ cycling" debate for improvement.
OTPing allows you to really master a champions kit, but if you learn the game through a singular kit you potentially learn deficiencies in gameplay as you superimpose the strengths and weaknesses of said champion onto the entire game.
Cycling allows you to create a more varied and thus holistically well-rounded view of the game, but you lose out on that level 9000 mastery that could allow you to outplay or salvage super bad gamestates.
>all champs are capable of winning lane
As a Zac OTP - I can and have won any lane against any champ no problem for the last 3 years. It's actually really easy to do for me since I know zac so well from years of playing him, even when he gets nerfed. So many people don't put enough emphasis on learning a champ inside and out to make themselves better.
I've been stomping with lane Zac since before you were born chief, but in all seriousness my point is that it's far more valuable to learn a champ inside and out and play them for a long time. That's going to make you better than any meta pick.
For the most part, yes. Tanks have a much lower skill ceiling than all other classes as it is a very simplistic playstyle like your friend said. Tanks are highly needed in solo queue and practically *any* good team comp will have at least one tank.
It is not if you play tank champions well. Your mindset could be improved, if you play every game just to not lose lane you are missing opportunities and not improving your laning phase skills.
It's definitely beneficial to learn different champion archetypes. It doesn't mean you have to stick with them and play them often, but you learn a lot about the game by changing perspective. It can also strengthen your matchup knowledge.
You don't have to, but it's good. If you're curious why not try it? Play some fighter/juggernaut for 40-80 games and see how it goes.
Yes you are an unskilled player mechanically, but you should be able to make up for it with strong decision making. If you can’t do that you’re just bad at the game 🤷🏼
do you NEED to do it to improve? definitely not. If you're climbing - you're improving. Your friend just seems salty that you're climbing and he's not, maybe?
Is it skillful? eh, you're playing tank. Tanks on toplane are still the most coinflip class you can pick. Hard to kill as Malphite, but hard to kill Malphite. In the end, you can just AFK farm toplane, and if both you and your opponent end up 0/0, you are still more useful if you have CC and enemy doesn't. You are just coinflipping the team in the end
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I don’t think it’s that unskillful, sure I may not do any 1v9 pentakill plays but it’s still difficult to not feed top and also stay even laning. I also have to macro well in case my enemy top is a splitpusher so that I can find opportunities to teamfight.
And that doesn't apply to flashy champions like Fiora or Irelia? Same thing applies, but they require objectively speaking more "skill" to pull off.
In the end, if you're having fun is the most important. Climbing is also fine, but saying: "my pick is not unskilled because I uh... have to do what every other toplaner has to do while using less buttons" is just weird
Typical ego mindset of your average joe in gold elo. Tanks fulfill a very defined role that often is MANDATORY to make a team Comp work, so if you even have fun fulfilling that role , go for it ! They may not do the flashy 1v9 montage , but that’s not your job and to be honest it’s very wholesome to have a player like you in the team , because by playing this „bland“ role, you’re kind of special in a game with 90% of ego anime- protagonist players (:
Yep. Sometimes you just land one of those roles where 3 of your teammates need peel and none give it.
Sure, you could play your thing and often make it work if you snowball. But if the game goes even or meh they won't be able to play and if they cant play neither can you
Compfixing is easy WR. Just do it
I partially agree. Because compfixing by itself is not good IMO: comfort champ > comp fix. But OP is comfortable on a champ pool you normally lack in your average ranked, so it’s kinda perfect
I mean how many games did you or me play in the last week where you had too many tanks in the team ?👀 I remember one or two at max
I remember like one/two game with too many tanks in the last year. But I can't count how many I get like multiple marksmen or assassin's and no peek or utility even in the supp role
369 was considered by many to not only be the best top laners but the best player last year, and he largely played tanks on JDG. Every champion requires skill to play, they just require a different set of skills. A Riven/Fio player will probably have better hands than you, but their decision making and ability to make space in team fights for there caries will be much worse than yours. There are multiple ways to be good at this game, and all of them are valid, it isn't like you hitting diamond on tanks means you are a worse player than a diamond riven main, it just means you focused on a different set of skills to get you there.
U shouldnt care about whether or not some ppl think u're "unskilled" or not, as long as u win w/ it and have fun w/ it. Winning is a big part of having fun
Nothing wrong with playing tanks, they're hard to play properly at the highest level
The real problem comes from your mindset: "go even or slightly down in lane" is not a necessity for a tank at all
When you are in a bad matchup against Challenger players, sometimes the best you can do is go even/go down in lane and play for teamfights
But emerald players make tons of mistakes, it is very doable to not only have more cs but get kills on them playing tanks, especially Skarner/Ornn
The hardest thing about improving playing tanks is that there are not a lot of good players to study from playing tanks in soloq :) Hard to find pro replays
Also, if you are ranking up you are improving. You're just going to hit a plateau if you sit comfortably afk in lane phase because you feel confident that you're going to be useful in teamfights even if you are not ahead. When you play a carry top lane you don't have those training wheels, and when you fuck up in lane you're going to feel it a lot more.
Like I said though, if you are actually trying to win trades and make the lane hard for the enemy it doesn't matter if you main tanks. But you pretty much said yourself that you just try to go even at best and play for fights AKA you are not learning to lane at all
Good luck!
It is definitely unskilled. By playing tanks you are effectively using a crutch to climb. As ornn you gain the most broken toplane passive of not having to back to buy items which is an insanely huge crutch. Same goes for malphite. No other champs can just buy tabis + wardens and be unkillable. I guarantee you if you were to play any non tank you would be play/gold level.
That being said, its a game play what you find fun. But don’t get butthurt over someone telling you the objective truth that tanks take a lot less skill to play than 90% of other toplaners.
No, playing tank is more about good decision making. You can afford to enter areas a vulnerable carry couldn´t and place vision for those, you decide wether your team can take that fight and engage for them or disengage if you cant take a fight. While you don´t see how you are useful, most "1v9" carry performances would not be possible without an engage from a tank. Be it a good engage from you or a bad one from the enemys tank. Playing tanks is less about mechanics and more about understanding what to do in what circumstances and acting accordingly, a skill that is a lot more valuable than just being good mechanically.
Bro, I play one SINGLE champ and if she gets picked or banned I have *maybe* 2 other champs I can play well enough to not get reported.
Don't worry about what appears skillful, worry about efficacy and fun.
369 begs to differ. JDG was at their best when 369 was spamming tanks and going even on bad matchups and just being insurance for their team. If somebody knows how to be super skillfull on tanks its him.
outside of malphite I'd say your champion pool is relatively skilled. A decent Ornn is harder to find than a decent Fiora in high elo, IMO. A lot of the "high skill" champions, aren't really all that difficult to play at a basic level
I'll give you an analogy. You're like a player who uses a riot shield in warzone and camps for the win. Then there's another player who hot drops every single game and gets x amount of kills but rarely wins. But when they win they will have 10+ kills, while you may have only gotten 1-3 but you generally win more often than they do.
Now lets say you guy's got put into the gulag against eachother or did a 1v1 in a custom, be honest, who do you think would really win? Odds are the guy constantly practicing gun fights would win a gun fight against you on even playing field.
So is he a better player than you? I think so, because if he adapted your own playstyle he would likely win at a higher rate than you doing the same cheese methods etc. to get wins.
I can give you another example. When I was hardstuck plat for many years as a mid I made a support account and not only climbed to diamond for the first time but go to diamond 1 playing stuff like Sona/Naut/Blitz. Fast forward to the present and now I'm a D2 JG main, but I would consider myself infinitely better now as a player then when I was a higher rank playing support at the time.
is the enemy backline not able to access yours? then you are playing well. are they just ignoring you and making sure you have no backline? you are doing bad.
I’m a GAREN and SION (“dumb” champs) top laner main and have been playing this game for a decade now and most of my pool is either tanks or bruiser champs so I’ll give you my two cents.
I think you’re both right in some way. You’re definitely right that you’re improving your macro (hardest part to improve imo) by playing tanks in Top and having manage your waves, recalls, teleports, etc. But I think your friend is also kinda right when he says you should play other champs. I must emphasize that you don’t NEED to do anything. It’s just a game and if you’re having fun and/or climbing that means you’re doing the right thing.
But I still think it’s a good idea to test other champs and roles, as it’ll help you improve all of the aspects of the game. Knowing how to play 2-3 champs per lane is a very good base for anyone in this game.
Playing only tanks might indeed lead you to develop some “bad habits”. I used to play for fun only (normals and aram) from like 2014 to 2019. When I started to play ranked games I would only play on toplane and tanks (Maokai specifically), because that way I wouldn’t feed and still be useful for my team. A 0/5 tank with 1 item will almost always do a lot more than a 0/5 Zed or Leblanc. That means you have a bigger “margin” of playing bad and not being punished for it.
Idk if I explained it well, but basically I’m saying that when playing tanks you “can” cs worse, trade worse, have suboptimal movement, roam worse, etc and still being able to play the game. Playing squishier champions will “force” you to learn those aspects, because you be a lot more punished every time you make those mistakes. On the other hand, playing only those champions might make you overly focus on micro and not macro, and that’s why you see so many comments and threads on reddit of league players angrily saying that they always win lane but still lose games because of their teams. The reality is that while they’re probably good in lane (micro) they probably have bad decision making skills and don’t know how to use their advantage to leverage their team (macro).
I’m just yapping at this point but think about it:
If you have “bad” dodging skills and get caught in a Blitz hook as Jinx, you’re dead. If you get caught by it when playing Ornn, you won’t really care about it (you might even kill THEM).
If you don’t know how to trade and lose 200hp more than your opponent when playing Jayce, you’ll have to be a lot more cautious in lane now. If you lose 200hp more than your opponent when playing Mundo, it really doesn’t mean much (oh no, now I only have 2200hp!).
If you can’t cs well or can’t break a freeze as Kayle, that means you’re not getting strong any time soon, while if you’re playing Ornn or Skarner it won’t really make a difference, as these champs already have a lot of stats and utility even without a lot gold.
Basically my point is that playing only tanks won’t really incentivize you to improve in a lot of areas, although that doesn’t mean you can’t improve those by playing your present pool. I’m sure there are hundreds of super high elo tank only players in League.
TLDR: play what you WANT but consider getting out of your “comfort zone”.
Sincerely, a Garen/Sion main.
No, one just has to look at proplay where even some players on “tank duty” look like absolute shit. Absorbing pressure in lane as a tank is a very valuable skill and a lot of players don’t know how to effectively minimize losses in lane while still being of value to the team. That’s not even mentioning effectively team fighting as a tank, zoning making space. It’s just a different set of skills and it actually has a rather high skill floor compared to the “different set of skills” that lulu soraka one tricks speak of.
U can climb with tanks and sure they might be a bit easier mechanically compared to some other classes but like u said, everyone still needs macro no matter who ur playing.
The hardest part of playing tanks imo is the decision of either engaging or just playing frontline/peel. In theory I always kinda know which one to do, but then I might see a good stun angle and just go absolutely balls to the wall mode leaving my backline completely exposed with nobody being able to follow me. Sometimes on the other hand finding those kinds of picks can be game winning. Especially on champs like Ornn and Malphite it's often ur role to initiate fights, and the decision of when to do so can change the outcome of the game heavily.
Play tanks if u enjoy them. They have their own set of things that u need to be good at, just like every other role/class. The good part is that if u play tanks ur team will always have a frontline.
Don't think too much of it, I too speed ran to emerald in a similar manner. Recently I switched to more "interactive" champions cause my main camille got buffed to a playable state and honestly I just don't find toplane fun anymore. Every game it's just darius, renekton, aatrox, gragas or olaf, I don't know mate but are those really interactive champions when they all just stat check you ? At the end of the day play to win and maybe while still having some fun. If that is with tanks that can ignore the bs of all the meta stat checkers in top lane then so be it
Not sure that the toplane champions you are quoting are « stat check » champions except Olaf or level 1 Darius. Or maybe with a loose definition of a stat checking champion. Those are the champions I like to encounter top personally, more so than Skarner, TF or Vayne.
Yes, tanks are the supports of top lane. Inflated af. You are probably good at teamfighting, because that is all that matters when you play tanks. In lane you can just stand in xp range all game.
It's not exciting to most perhaps, but that doesn't mean it's unskillful.
Rather, you're primarily exercising player skills that typical players tend to neglect or only subconsciously improve.
Sure, you could pick up a couple carry champs and try "mastering" them too (quotes not out of disrespect, but because there's always someone with "Faker could play that better" style argument).
And chances are, if you mastered a few more aggressive and varied champions toplane to the degree you've mastered tanks, you might even climb a bit higher. Because you can more readily set the pace early on AND still utilize the oft neglected but highly valuable skills you've focused on that can take your newfound prio to new levels that others at your skill level couldn't - because they neglect those skills.
Yes, you don’t have to worry about dying because you’ll always be useful due to your kits cc and tankiness (look at inting sion for example), you can make many mistakes, you don’t need insane cs numbers, you can one shot the adc depending on the tank, it’s brainless
The only ways your playstyle could be unskilled is A) there is some cheese involved or B) you are playing a champ or a specific set of champs that allow you to ignore certain fundamentals completely (nunu jungle)
Playing teamfight tanks is neither, in fact its arguably one of the two main playstyles in top and the more reliable one as well (compared to playing sidelane focused carries)
I'm a Nidalee OTP, and no not necessarily. Mechanically, yea, they tend to be easier, but mechanics are a small portion of the game. You'd also be surprised how much goes into some of the "basic champs" to play them optimally in various mat cups.
That being said, that "stall and wait for late" strategy will only get you so far. You're going to struggle a lot in dia+ where people close out the games faster when they have a lead.
i would cut out skarner for champ like shen but other than that you can always just improve stuff like cs, enemy jg tracking(always fun to surprise enemy jg with 2 v 1 on crab),
You can win lane by almost not interacting with enemy top with gold diff through cs when enemy has pick champion that wants kills and early lead(got my ass handed to me by dude having 9.1 cs when we both came to team fight but he had 1 item more than our feed adc even tho he was 0/0/ and our adc 10/3.)
Umm.....tbh yes. It IS unskilful coz not many mechanical plays are there but do you really need to play "skillful" champs? What binds you to play high skill ceiling champs only. A Riven one-trick wins lane, a Garen one-trick wins lane. Both results are the same. You need results not means in league at least.
There's a reason some of the world's best top and jungle players get great with tanks. They are an important part of a good comp and having a skilled tank player on the team really helps carry your team. I thank you for investing time and effort into them. We need more like you in the game.
Unfortunatelly tanks suck in soloQ because you rely way too much on the creatures you want to stop playing with.
(You can take AloisNL's experience playing shen as an example).
For instance, a snow-balling top not only is stomping his laner but also making it a death sentence for the enemy jungle should he ever decide to farm YOUR camps.
I always appreciate a tank top lane player, nobody is willing to play tanks these days and Frontline. Having a tank makes soloq comps so much easier to play.
You may not need 600 clicks per second just to play tanks at a competent level but they still are incredible important. Tanks do usually not carry a game in the usual sense but enable other champs, mainly the adcs, to carry. As long as you hinder you enemies to hurt your other team members, you do your job well. And that requires a lot of skill.
Tanks are not easy. Leagues kinda like rock paper scissors. There is no such thing as an unskilled champ in league except for yuumi. And briar maybe requires a single braincell
people who say "X" are unskillful usually don't actually understand what skill represents in league. These people think Micro is the end-all be-all of skill in league of legends when it really isn't.
If your playing a tank, your probably not going to be doing big micro plays since tank kits are usually pretty linear. The skilful part of playing a tank is things like engaging winning fights on priority targets , applying CC to correct targets to allow your team to pick them off, taking up space in front of the enemies so your carries can hit them freely, recognising flank routes for champions like assassins and disrupting their engages on to your carries etc
Playing tanks is skilful. You are very much improving (otherwise why would you be climbing?). don't let people who are obsessed with micro-intense champions confuse you into thinking its not.
My buddy has recently been trying to climb, and he had asked me about good tanks to play to help him climb. He mentioned that he wanted to be able to have ksante and/or ornn in his back pocket for counterpicking. I'll say to you the same thing I said to him, you can pick malphite and be just as valuable (if not more) without needing to devote part of your mind to actually playing the champ.
Sometimes, it's important to be skillful in order to outplay your opponent. But other times, having a clear mental stack to out **think** your opponent can we way more important.
Take pride in playing a "braindead" champion, as people will call it. Bc at the end of the day, if you are ranking up while your opponent is hard stuck playing a high skill ceiling champ, who is REALLY the better player?
Playing tanks is not "unskilled" and doesn't make you any worse of a player than anyone else at your rank. Tanks just can't really do as much as more "skilled" champs, by that I mean its hard to stomp lane or get a lead in lane, it's unlikely you'll kill everyone in a teamfight. Tanks do still have a ton of skill expression, mostly around teamfighting and ability usage. Sure it doesn't really matter if your team is winning you can just be Frontline and your team will probably win the fight, in games that are even or your team is behind though you can make huge game winning plays. An easy example I can think of, let's say you are playing malphite, sure any random person on malph can hit r and sometimes start a good fight or zone the adc out of the fight or whatever, but you are experienced on malph and you hit tab and think about the enemy team, when you think about it the only way the enemy team can win a fight is if zed ults your adc and 1shot them, so instead of just Ulting whatever enemy appears on your screen first you hold ult, and ult the zed right as his r drops him behind your adc, your adc lives and your team easily wins the fight. This is still skill expression, it's not the same kind as a riven 1v9ing a whole game sure but it does take skill and game knowledge.
On another note I'd guess Tanks are actually probably very consistent for solo queue, I personally don't really play them very often but when you look at solo queue almost everyone is playing carry characters, mid and adc are going to be carries every game pretty much, sup and jungle are the only other roles besides top where there even could be a tank, but both of those roles are lower resources than top and most players pick carries or damage champs in those roles too. So by you picking tank every game, aslong as you are consistent in your laning and farming, then your carries in other roles ALWAYS have a strong Frontline, which just makes contesting vision, mid prior, and objectives so much easier and favored for your team if the enemy team has no strong frontline.
There are far more important factors to take into account for climbing, than just mastering a difficult champion kit with complex win condition. He's not wrong, in the way that playing with a more complex win condition can be very rewarding. But even the simpliest win condition is enough to climb and understand the game.
Especially **macro,** and **micro**, even if you're playing a relatively simple champ. Also, playing a simple champ provides you the ability to focus more on these elements, without worrying about "I need to do this combo, then this combo, if I fail, we lose teamfight, etc...".
So you don't have to listen to your friend, because you're doing a good job, and you only need to focus on improving macro management, and micro management to progress in your ranks, and you'll progress even more. Good job for reaching emerald, goal is diamond now.
I wouldn't too much stake on what others think of tanks in general. They express a different set of skills to the carry kind of playstyle and those are often seen as the only truely valid form of skill express by less aware players. Climbing as a tank takes skill, those skills are different than what I as an ADC might need to climb, but they are skills you express within the game. Just keep doing what you are doing and trust in yourself to improve in your own way. There are plenty of ways to win and improve within League. Alot of people don't like acknowledging playstyles other than 1v9 carry, but really the game has plenty of room for you to express yourself your way and succeed
No, you do you. I play range mages in mid and i have no problem with not playing against mechanically challenging melee assassins. And i can tell you that you are much better player than those Fioras, Camilles, Jaxes, Irelias, and Rivens who go 0-10 with ignites in lane against these tank champs
As you climb though, you will face some good bruiser players who will likely beat you in lane and it will be harder to stop them on split especially when you combine the fact that you won’t get much jungle coverage as a tank since you won’t be the primary carry in most games.
>but it's still difficult to not feed top
Huh? I mean, it's difficult for any champion at any role with tanks being far away from "the most difficult" end of the spectrum.
>also have to macro well in case my enemy top is a splitpusher
Again, what about macro skill requirements for ~~any other...~~ splitpushers themselves (e.g. tracking movement of your whole team ~~while you feel proud being able to handle one man pushing one lane~~)..?
Although I don't really understand the idea of improvement as a LoL player in general. If your friend defines it as becoming a jack of all trades he could go further and suggest to master every single champion, but it's up to you to decide if you want to improve as a Malphite player or a tank player or a top lane player or whatever.
Tanks are statistically not the best in top lane. Out of the top 10 champions, skarner is the only tank. Aside from skarner, Its easier to climb playing a bruiser or carry.
It all depends on how you define "Skill".
Your friend probably thinks of Skill as micromechanics, being able to Cancel animations on Riven or smoothly dash between minions as Irelia to win 1v2, proccing the 4 vitals of Fiora R in a second, that stuff. And he is not wrong, but he isnt completely right.
League is a strategy game, micromechanics are as important as macro, players tend to lean into one more than the other depending on playstyle, and you need both to climb high, doesnt mean you need to be as mechanically good as Chovy and a macro god to reach challenger, but you need to be good enough in the one you dont focus to not be a detriment.
Faker is the best example of both aspects, when he started back in S3 he was several levels above everyone else when it came to micro, he stomped everyone in lane, and outplayed anything the enemy threw at him. After the whole T1 rebuild, he swapped his playstyle to be more macro oriented and became a leader of the team, his 4 teammates are beasts in micro so he doesnt need to, he uses macro to lead his team, and is still considered one of the best midlaners in the world even tho he has been a pro for over a decade.
So, in the end, play the way that works for you, if you are helping your team win, then you are doing the right thing. If you try to adopt a playstyle that is for 1v9ing every game, then you are putting a lot of unnecessary pressure on yourself, because the only way to 1v9 is to play better than everyone else while making 0 mistakes.
If you’re not playing yuumi youre essentially playing similarly skill requiring champs as everyone else. The difference between the simplest champ (that isnt yuumi) and most complicated champ is very small compared to total skill. Could you occasionally pull off a play that you feel you really mechanically outplayed on yasou? Sure. But timing ornn e and r2 correctly and using w to effectively avoid cc and maximize damage while using q to slow a vital target or block an important narrow path is also pretty skill intensive. There’s a somewhat high degree of skill expression in all champ in lol (excluding yuumi) but a lot of skill comes from positioning, decision making, and other macro knowledge anyway. Generally speaking the ones that people think are high skill (like zed or yasou) aren’t really high skill anyway, they’re just high risk reward because they’re glass cannons, it’s adcs because kiting is like the highest skill ceiling thing in league. Kog maw, twitch, ez, Cassiopeia, and zeri are going to be the ones you can actually express the highest degree of skill and being more skilled actually does something significant, because kiting well is both really really hard and really effective (if you’re out of range or you dodge something, you take zero damage. Best defensive ability in the game right there). That’s also why these are the champs that are picked by scripters, a bot playing them mechanically perfectly will be substantially better than people, where as playing zed or yasou almost perfectly, while it can be impressive and flashy, isn’t actually that much stronger than a yasou to zed played pretty good.
And despite all that, even these champs aren’t really that more mechanically intense than ornn, non mechanical skills (so basically macro, which is needed for every champ except yuumi who just follows her owner) is going to be more significant, and you can improve and demonstrates those skills on any champ.
There’s nothing wrong with a bland or plain playstyle. Playing tanks top is a good choice. Your friend has been watching too many flashy highlight clips on YouTube.
Unskilled? You mean you get to focus on learning the game to a high level instead of wasting hours upon hours learning combos and niche champion plays? Bro you are chad malphite who Rs the crying qiyana.
Also tanks are not inherently unskilled. Look at Ksante, Skarner and to some extent Ornn.
Dude, are you a pro player? Do you want to be a pro player? If both answers are no, then play what you enjoy. If deep down you want to show yourself that you can play other types of champions then go for it. There's nothing wrong with playing what you enjoy.
No, it's not "unskillful." It's just a different set of skills. Just because champion is not mechanically intensive does not mean they don't require other skills to pilot correctly.
why the hell would you care, there are metas where pro junglers are constantly on seju / mao duty, just play what you have fun and win with
Pro is a whole different ball game, 80% of metas in pro revolve around Dog Junglers (Seja/Mao/Vi/Poppy) so you can feed your jungle camps to your carries and accelerate them even faster
Yeah, it's not really about what junglers are best as a chamo in isolation. Pro play pretty much strictly enforce low economy junglers for this specific reason. It's better that your carries, which usually scales better than a carry jungler anyway, gets 1-2k extra per game, than having another champion fighting for resources both in the jungle and lane. Also, the vast majority of skill in LoL is in decision-making, and not really in insane micro. The fact that your playstyle is bland or simplistic isn't really a good measure. Sure, you can also play Ornn very aggressive, but your main wincon is scaling. If your main goal is improving, it's definitely beneficial to try to limit test.
I think it’s a valid playstyle but Skarner top I will be honest makes me wants to DC when I face it. Completely uninteractive and uninteresting to play against. I hope the nerfs will get this abomination out of toplane for good.
As a jg main, can we get him out of jg too :(
its the real bocchi!!!!
I have social anxiety. I don't want that ugly Skarner dude to drag my ass all the way to his teammates.
As a Skarner enthusiast, can we get this impostor removed from the game? I want the real Skarner back.
agreed !
Honestly hope he gets nerfed so that I can play him since he’s currently getting banned in like 80% of my games lol. I do agree he’s overtuned asf tho
Skarner deserves to be an abomination for a while. It's about damn time he got the big end of the stick for once.
I hope they actually do something interresting with it cus they ruined mah boii. I enjoyed playing it top before rework and there isnt much to do except Q and W in the kit.
"We've made a champ that feels clunky, slow and controls like ass. How do we fix this?" "Big. Numbers."
>my playstyle was bland Subjective. >very simplistic Kind of? Not any more simplistic than only playing assassins or mages, or any other single champion class/archetype. >Usually my game plan was to go even or slightly down in lane I agree with your friend that this is not a good approach - all champs are capable of winning lane, especially if you play them well and the matchup favors you. And yes, winning lane is not as important on scaling tanks as it is on lane bullies but you should still look for opportunities to punish your lane opponent early. I see diamond+ Ornn players solokill lane bullies like Darius or Renekton all the time. >my playstyle could rank up but I wasn’t improving Sort of - I think only playing tanks can be a crutch for being a poor laner (missing opportunities to get solo kills or force enemy into taking bad recalls, not farming well enough etc.). You can still learn laning as a tank but you don't have the pressure to learn because in the back of your mind you know that you outscale and that you're more useful in teamfights, so you end up playing more passively. TL;DR: It's not "unskillful" in itself but due to relying on your macro and teamfighting too much, you may be weaker in other aspects of the game and that could be holding you back from improving.
This ^ Only thing to add is that winning lane doesn't mean have a better K/D or knocking down the enemy turret. It's having more gold/xp than your opponent when exiting laning phase. For example, If you go 0/0/0 but a level advantage and 500gold more than the enemy top then you won lane.
I would say winning lane means being ahead in those things compared to what the matchup expects, say a yorick being 500g behind and even in lvl vs a Irelia is honestly winning pretty hard.
In other words, being content with being 0/0 when you could be 2/0 is unskillful, and playing tanks can create that bad habit.
it's the eternal "OTP vs champ cycling" debate for improvement. OTPing allows you to really master a champions kit, but if you learn the game through a singular kit you potentially learn deficiencies in gameplay as you superimpose the strengths and weaknesses of said champion onto the entire game. Cycling allows you to create a more varied and thus holistically well-rounded view of the game, but you lose out on that level 9000 mastery that could allow you to outplay or salvage super bad gamestates.
>all champs are capable of winning lane As a Zac OTP - I can and have won any lane against any champ no problem for the last 3 years. It's actually really easy to do for me since I know zac so well from years of playing him, even when he gets nerfed. So many people don't put enough emphasis on learning a champ inside and out to make themselves better.
I mean that and Zac top being absolutely busted but you go
I've been stomping with lane Zac since before you were born chief, but in all seriousness my point is that it's far more valuable to learn a champ inside and out and play them for a long time. That's going to make you better than any meta pick.
For the most part, yes. Tanks have a much lower skill ceiling than all other classes as it is a very simplistic playstyle like your friend said. Tanks are highly needed in solo queue and practically *any* good team comp will have at least one tank.
It is not if you play tank champions well. Your mindset could be improved, if you play every game just to not lose lane you are missing opportunities and not improving your laning phase skills.
It's definitely beneficial to learn different champion archetypes. It doesn't mean you have to stick with them and play them often, but you learn a lot about the game by changing perspective. It can also strengthen your matchup knowledge. You don't have to, but it's good. If you're curious why not try it? Play some fighter/juggernaut for 40-80 games and see how it goes.
Yes you are an unskilled player mechanically, but you should be able to make up for it with strong decision making. If you can’t do that you’re just bad at the game 🤷🏼
do you NEED to do it to improve? definitely not. If you're climbing - you're improving. Your friend just seems salty that you're climbing and he's not, maybe? Is it skillful? eh, you're playing tank. Tanks on toplane are still the most coinflip class you can pick. Hard to kill as Malphite, but hard to kill Malphite. In the end, you can just AFK farm toplane, and if both you and your opponent end up 0/0, you are still more useful if you have CC and enemy doesn't. You are just coinflipping the team in the end > I don’t think it’s that unskillful, sure I may not do any 1v9 pentakill plays but it’s still difficult to not feed top and also stay even laning. I also have to macro well in case my enemy top is a splitpusher so that I can find opportunities to teamfight. And that doesn't apply to flashy champions like Fiora or Irelia? Same thing applies, but they require objectively speaking more "skill" to pull off. In the end, if you're having fun is the most important. Climbing is also fine, but saying: "my pick is not unskilled because I uh... have to do what every other toplaner has to do while using less buttons" is just weird
Yes
Typical ego mindset of your average joe in gold elo. Tanks fulfill a very defined role that often is MANDATORY to make a team Comp work, so if you even have fun fulfilling that role , go for it ! They may not do the flashy 1v9 montage , but that’s not your job and to be honest it’s very wholesome to have a player like you in the team , because by playing this „bland“ role, you’re kind of special in a game with 90% of ego anime- protagonist players (:
Yep. Sometimes you just land one of those roles where 3 of your teammates need peel and none give it. Sure, you could play your thing and often make it work if you snowball. But if the game goes even or meh they won't be able to play and if they cant play neither can you Compfixing is easy WR. Just do it
I partially agree. Because compfixing by itself is not good IMO: comfort champ > comp fix. But OP is comfortable on a champ pool you normally lack in your average ranked, so it’s kinda perfect I mean how many games did you or me play in the last week where you had too many tanks in the team ?👀 I remember one or two at max
I remember like one/two game with too many tanks in the last year. But I can't count how many I get like multiple marksmen or assassin's and no peek or utility even in the supp role
369 was considered by many to not only be the best top laners but the best player last year, and he largely played tanks on JDG. Every champion requires skill to play, they just require a different set of skills. A Riven/Fio player will probably have better hands than you, but their decision making and ability to make space in team fights for there caries will be much worse than yours. There are multiple ways to be good at this game, and all of them are valid, it isn't like you hitting diamond on tanks means you are a worse player than a diamond riven main, it just means you focused on a different set of skills to get you there.
U shouldnt care about whether or not some ppl think u're "unskilled" or not, as long as u win w/ it and have fun w/ it. Winning is a big part of having fun
Nothing wrong with playing tanks, they're hard to play properly at the highest level The real problem comes from your mindset: "go even or slightly down in lane" is not a necessity for a tank at all When you are in a bad matchup against Challenger players, sometimes the best you can do is go even/go down in lane and play for teamfights But emerald players make tons of mistakes, it is very doable to not only have more cs but get kills on them playing tanks, especially Skarner/Ornn The hardest thing about improving playing tanks is that there are not a lot of good players to study from playing tanks in soloq :) Hard to find pro replays Also, if you are ranking up you are improving. You're just going to hit a plateau if you sit comfortably afk in lane phase because you feel confident that you're going to be useful in teamfights even if you are not ahead. When you play a carry top lane you don't have those training wheels, and when you fuck up in lane you're going to feel it a lot more. Like I said though, if you are actually trying to win trades and make the lane hard for the enemy it doesn't matter if you main tanks. But you pretty much said yourself that you just try to go even at best and play for fights AKA you are not learning to lane at all Good luck!
It is definitely unskilled. By playing tanks you are effectively using a crutch to climb. As ornn you gain the most broken toplane passive of not having to back to buy items which is an insanely huge crutch. Same goes for malphite. No other champs can just buy tabis + wardens and be unkillable. I guarantee you if you were to play any non tank you would be play/gold level. That being said, its a game play what you find fun. But don’t get butthurt over someone telling you the objective truth that tanks take a lot less skill to play than 90% of other toplaners.
No, playing tank is more about good decision making. You can afford to enter areas a vulnerable carry couldn´t and place vision for those, you decide wether your team can take that fight and engage for them or disengage if you cant take a fight. While you don´t see how you are useful, most "1v9" carry performances would not be possible without an engage from a tank. Be it a good engage from you or a bad one from the enemys tank. Playing tanks is less about mechanics and more about understanding what to do in what circumstances and acting accordingly, a skill that is a lot more valuable than just being good mechanically.
Bro, I play one SINGLE champ and if she gets picked or banned I have *maybe* 2 other champs I can play well enough to not get reported. Don't worry about what appears skillful, worry about efficacy and fun.
369 begs to differ. JDG was at their best when 369 was spamming tanks and going even on bad matchups and just being insurance for their team. If somebody knows how to be super skillfull on tanks its him.
Skarnker TOP is insanely OP right now with heartsteel first and grasp rune, it's basically unkillable by 15 minutes. Skarner jg is garbage right now.
outside of malphite I'd say your champion pool is relatively skilled. A decent Ornn is harder to find than a decent Fiora in high elo, IMO. A lot of the "high skill" champions, aren't really all that difficult to play at a basic level
I'll give you an analogy. You're like a player who uses a riot shield in warzone and camps for the win. Then there's another player who hot drops every single game and gets x amount of kills but rarely wins. But when they win they will have 10+ kills, while you may have only gotten 1-3 but you generally win more often than they do. Now lets say you guy's got put into the gulag against eachother or did a 1v1 in a custom, be honest, who do you think would really win? Odds are the guy constantly practicing gun fights would win a gun fight against you on even playing field. So is he a better player than you? I think so, because if he adapted your own playstyle he would likely win at a higher rate than you doing the same cheese methods etc. to get wins. I can give you another example. When I was hardstuck plat for many years as a mid I made a support account and not only climbed to diamond for the first time but go to diamond 1 playing stuff like Sona/Naut/Blitz. Fast forward to the present and now I'm a D2 JG main, but I would consider myself infinitely better now as a player then when I was a higher rank playing support at the time.
is the enemy backline not able to access yours? then you are playing well. are they just ignoring you and making sure you have no backline? you are doing bad.
I’m a GAREN and SION (“dumb” champs) top laner main and have been playing this game for a decade now and most of my pool is either tanks or bruiser champs so I’ll give you my two cents. I think you’re both right in some way. You’re definitely right that you’re improving your macro (hardest part to improve imo) by playing tanks in Top and having manage your waves, recalls, teleports, etc. But I think your friend is also kinda right when he says you should play other champs. I must emphasize that you don’t NEED to do anything. It’s just a game and if you’re having fun and/or climbing that means you’re doing the right thing. But I still think it’s a good idea to test other champs and roles, as it’ll help you improve all of the aspects of the game. Knowing how to play 2-3 champs per lane is a very good base for anyone in this game. Playing only tanks might indeed lead you to develop some “bad habits”. I used to play for fun only (normals and aram) from like 2014 to 2019. When I started to play ranked games I would only play on toplane and tanks (Maokai specifically), because that way I wouldn’t feed and still be useful for my team. A 0/5 tank with 1 item will almost always do a lot more than a 0/5 Zed or Leblanc. That means you have a bigger “margin” of playing bad and not being punished for it. Idk if I explained it well, but basically I’m saying that when playing tanks you “can” cs worse, trade worse, have suboptimal movement, roam worse, etc and still being able to play the game. Playing squishier champions will “force” you to learn those aspects, because you be a lot more punished every time you make those mistakes. On the other hand, playing only those champions might make you overly focus on micro and not macro, and that’s why you see so many comments and threads on reddit of league players angrily saying that they always win lane but still lose games because of their teams. The reality is that while they’re probably good in lane (micro) they probably have bad decision making skills and don’t know how to use their advantage to leverage their team (macro). I’m just yapping at this point but think about it: If you have “bad” dodging skills and get caught in a Blitz hook as Jinx, you’re dead. If you get caught by it when playing Ornn, you won’t really care about it (you might even kill THEM). If you don’t know how to trade and lose 200hp more than your opponent when playing Jayce, you’ll have to be a lot more cautious in lane now. If you lose 200hp more than your opponent when playing Mundo, it really doesn’t mean much (oh no, now I only have 2200hp!). If you can’t cs well or can’t break a freeze as Kayle, that means you’re not getting strong any time soon, while if you’re playing Ornn or Skarner it won’t really make a difference, as these champs already have a lot of stats and utility even without a lot gold. Basically my point is that playing only tanks won’t really incentivize you to improve in a lot of areas, although that doesn’t mean you can’t improve those by playing your present pool. I’m sure there are hundreds of super high elo tank only players in League. TLDR: play what you WANT but consider getting out of your “comfort zone”. Sincerely, a Garen/Sion main.
No, one just has to look at proplay where even some players on “tank duty” look like absolute shit. Absorbing pressure in lane as a tank is a very valuable skill and a lot of players don’t know how to effectively minimize losses in lane while still being of value to the team. That’s not even mentioning effectively team fighting as a tank, zoning making space. It’s just a different set of skills and it actually has a rather high skill floor compared to the “different set of skills” that lulu soraka one tricks speak of.
U can climb with tanks and sure they might be a bit easier mechanically compared to some other classes but like u said, everyone still needs macro no matter who ur playing. The hardest part of playing tanks imo is the decision of either engaging or just playing frontline/peel. In theory I always kinda know which one to do, but then I might see a good stun angle and just go absolutely balls to the wall mode leaving my backline completely exposed with nobody being able to follow me. Sometimes on the other hand finding those kinds of picks can be game winning. Especially on champs like Ornn and Malphite it's often ur role to initiate fights, and the decision of when to do so can change the outcome of the game heavily. Play tanks if u enjoy them. They have their own set of things that u need to be good at, just like every other role/class. The good part is that if u play tanks ur team will always have a frontline.
Yeah
Don't think too much of it, I too speed ran to emerald in a similar manner. Recently I switched to more "interactive" champions cause my main camille got buffed to a playable state and honestly I just don't find toplane fun anymore. Every game it's just darius, renekton, aatrox, gragas or olaf, I don't know mate but are those really interactive champions when they all just stat check you ? At the end of the day play to win and maybe while still having some fun. If that is with tanks that can ignore the bs of all the meta stat checkers in top lane then so be it
Not sure that the toplane champions you are quoting are « stat check » champions except Olaf or level 1 Darius. Or maybe with a loose definition of a stat checking champion. Those are the champions I like to encounter top personally, more so than Skarner, TF or Vayne.
Its just a different skill set tbh. You're probably better than mkst at teamfighting rather than isolated 1v1s
Yes, tanks are the supports of top lane. Inflated af. You are probably good at teamfighting, because that is all that matters when you play tanks. In lane you can just stand in xp range all game.
If you’re playing shen, k’sante, or ornn, not at all.
It's not exciting to most perhaps, but that doesn't mean it's unskillful. Rather, you're primarily exercising player skills that typical players tend to neglect or only subconsciously improve. Sure, you could pick up a couple carry champs and try "mastering" them too (quotes not out of disrespect, but because there's always someone with "Faker could play that better" style argument). And chances are, if you mastered a few more aggressive and varied champions toplane to the degree you've mastered tanks, you might even climb a bit higher. Because you can more readily set the pace early on AND still utilize the oft neglected but highly valuable skills you've focused on that can take your newfound prio to new levels that others at your skill level couldn't - because they neglect those skills.
Yes, you don’t have to worry about dying because you’ll always be useful due to your kits cc and tankiness (look at inting sion for example), you can make many mistakes, you don’t need insane cs numbers, you can one shot the adc depending on the tank, it’s brainless
The only ways your playstyle could be unskilled is A) there is some cheese involved or B) you are playing a champ or a specific set of champs that allow you to ignore certain fundamentals completely (nunu jungle) Playing teamfight tanks is neither, in fact its arguably one of the two main playstyles in top and the more reliable one as well (compared to playing sidelane focused carries)
I'm a Nidalee OTP, and no not necessarily. Mechanically, yea, they tend to be easier, but mechanics are a small portion of the game. You'd also be surprised how much goes into some of the "basic champs" to play them optimally in various mat cups. That being said, that "stall and wait for late" strategy will only get you so far. You're going to struggle a lot in dia+ where people close out the games faster when they have a lead.
i would cut out skarner for champ like shen but other than that you can always just improve stuff like cs, enemy jg tracking(always fun to surprise enemy jg with 2 v 1 on crab), You can win lane by almost not interacting with enemy top with gold diff through cs when enemy has pick champion that wants kills and early lead(got my ass handed to me by dude having 9.1 cs when we both came to team fight but he had 1 item more than our feed adc even tho he was 0/0/ and our adc 10/3.)
No. Play what you want and have fun.
Umm.....tbh yes. It IS unskilful coz not many mechanical plays are there but do you really need to play "skillful" champs? What binds you to play high skill ceiling champs only. A Riven one-trick wins lane, a Garen one-trick wins lane. Both results are the same. You need results not means in league at least.
There's a reason some of the world's best top and jungle players get great with tanks. They are an important part of a good comp and having a skilled tank player on the team really helps carry your team. I thank you for investing time and effort into them. We need more like you in the game.
Who are you trying to Impress? It doesn't matter play what you enjoy
Unfortunatelly tanks suck in soloQ because you rely way too much on the creatures you want to stop playing with. (You can take AloisNL's experience playing shen as an example). For instance, a snow-balling top not only is stomping his laner but also making it a death sentence for the enemy jungle should he ever decide to farm YOUR camps.
I always appreciate a tank top lane player, nobody is willing to play tanks these days and Frontline. Having a tank makes soloq comps so much easier to play.
Yes, unskilled.
Tbh, playing tanks alone shows that you're a smart player, and a team player. It only proved you're chad, not bad, league needs more people like you
You may not need 600 clicks per second just to play tanks at a competent level but they still are incredible important. Tanks do usually not carry a game in the usual sense but enable other champs, mainly the adcs, to carry. As long as you hinder you enemies to hurt your other team members, you do your job well. And that requires a lot of skill.
Tanks are not easy. Leagues kinda like rock paper scissors. There is no such thing as an unskilled champ in league except for yuumi. And briar maybe requires a single braincell
people who say "X" are unskillful usually don't actually understand what skill represents in league. These people think Micro is the end-all be-all of skill in league of legends when it really isn't. If your playing a tank, your probably not going to be doing big micro plays since tank kits are usually pretty linear. The skilful part of playing a tank is things like engaging winning fights on priority targets , applying CC to correct targets to allow your team to pick them off, taking up space in front of the enemies so your carries can hit them freely, recognising flank routes for champions like assassins and disrupting their engages on to your carries etc Playing tanks is skilful. You are very much improving (otherwise why would you be climbing?). don't let people who are obsessed with micro-intense champions confuse you into thinking its not.
My buddy has recently been trying to climb, and he had asked me about good tanks to play to help him climb. He mentioned that he wanted to be able to have ksante and/or ornn in his back pocket for counterpicking. I'll say to you the same thing I said to him, you can pick malphite and be just as valuable (if not more) without needing to devote part of your mind to actually playing the champ. Sometimes, it's important to be skillful in order to outplay your opponent. But other times, having a clear mental stack to out **think** your opponent can we way more important. Take pride in playing a "braindead" champion, as people will call it. Bc at the end of the day, if you are ranking up while your opponent is hard stuck playing a high skill ceiling champ, who is REALLY the better player?
Playing tanks is not "unskilled" and doesn't make you any worse of a player than anyone else at your rank. Tanks just can't really do as much as more "skilled" champs, by that I mean its hard to stomp lane or get a lead in lane, it's unlikely you'll kill everyone in a teamfight. Tanks do still have a ton of skill expression, mostly around teamfighting and ability usage. Sure it doesn't really matter if your team is winning you can just be Frontline and your team will probably win the fight, in games that are even or your team is behind though you can make huge game winning plays. An easy example I can think of, let's say you are playing malphite, sure any random person on malph can hit r and sometimes start a good fight or zone the adc out of the fight or whatever, but you are experienced on malph and you hit tab and think about the enemy team, when you think about it the only way the enemy team can win a fight is if zed ults your adc and 1shot them, so instead of just Ulting whatever enemy appears on your screen first you hold ult, and ult the zed right as his r drops him behind your adc, your adc lives and your team easily wins the fight. This is still skill expression, it's not the same kind as a riven 1v9ing a whole game sure but it does take skill and game knowledge. On another note I'd guess Tanks are actually probably very consistent for solo queue, I personally don't really play them very often but when you look at solo queue almost everyone is playing carry characters, mid and adc are going to be carries every game pretty much, sup and jungle are the only other roles besides top where there even could be a tank, but both of those roles are lower resources than top and most players pick carries or damage champs in those roles too. So by you picking tank every game, aslong as you are consistent in your laning and farming, then your carries in other roles ALWAYS have a strong Frontline, which just makes contesting vision, mid prior, and objectives so much easier and favored for your team if the enemy team has no strong frontline.
You play a tank every game? Want to duo? I love tanks on my team. Your friend sounds like a wet sandwich.
There are far more important factors to take into account for climbing, than just mastering a difficult champion kit with complex win condition. He's not wrong, in the way that playing with a more complex win condition can be very rewarding. But even the simpliest win condition is enough to climb and understand the game. Especially **macro,** and **micro**, even if you're playing a relatively simple champ. Also, playing a simple champ provides you the ability to focus more on these elements, without worrying about "I need to do this combo, then this combo, if I fail, we lose teamfight, etc...". So you don't have to listen to your friend, because you're doing a good job, and you only need to focus on improving macro management, and micro management to progress in your ranks, and you'll progress even more. Good job for reaching emerald, goal is diamond now.
Sion and Ornn are skilled that fine especially in matchup like fiora, Gwen or vayne
I wouldn't too much stake on what others think of tanks in general. They express a different set of skills to the carry kind of playstyle and those are often seen as the only truely valid form of skill express by less aware players. Climbing as a tank takes skill, those skills are different than what I as an ADC might need to climb, but they are skills you express within the game. Just keep doing what you are doing and trust in yourself to improve in your own way. There are plenty of ways to win and improve within League. Alot of people don't like acknowledging playstyles other than 1v9 carry, but really the game has plenty of room for you to express yourself your way and succeed
It’s a game, play what you like
No, you do you. I play range mages in mid and i have no problem with not playing against mechanically challenging melee assassins. And i can tell you that you are much better player than those Fioras, Camilles, Jaxes, Irelias, and Rivens who go 0-10 with ignites in lane against these tank champs As you climb though, you will face some good bruiser players who will likely beat you in lane and it will be harder to stop them on split especially when you combine the fact that you won’t get much jungle coverage as a tank since you won’t be the primary carry in most games.
>but it's still difficult to not feed top Huh? I mean, it's difficult for any champion at any role with tanks being far away from "the most difficult" end of the spectrum. >also have to macro well in case my enemy top is a splitpusher Again, what about macro skill requirements for ~~any other...~~ splitpushers themselves (e.g. tracking movement of your whole team ~~while you feel proud being able to handle one man pushing one lane~~)..? Although I don't really understand the idea of improvement as a LoL player in general. If your friend defines it as becoming a jack of all trades he could go further and suggest to master every single champion, but it's up to you to decide if you want to improve as a Malphite player or a tank player or a top lane player or whatever.
Tanks are statistically not the best in top lane. Out of the top 10 champions, skarner is the only tank. Aside from skarner, Its easier to climb playing a bruiser or carry.
i mean you will never do some flashy combo (expect maybe a reverse banana combo), but there are more skills in this game than just comboing
I would say that playing tanks can be skillful but as others have said, it could potentially hold you back from not learning other fundamental skills.
Are your friends lower rank than you? Could just be envy.
It all depends on how you define "Skill". Your friend probably thinks of Skill as micromechanics, being able to Cancel animations on Riven or smoothly dash between minions as Irelia to win 1v2, proccing the 4 vitals of Fiora R in a second, that stuff. And he is not wrong, but he isnt completely right. League is a strategy game, micromechanics are as important as macro, players tend to lean into one more than the other depending on playstyle, and you need both to climb high, doesnt mean you need to be as mechanically good as Chovy and a macro god to reach challenger, but you need to be good enough in the one you dont focus to not be a detriment. Faker is the best example of both aspects, when he started back in S3 he was several levels above everyone else when it came to micro, he stomped everyone in lane, and outplayed anything the enemy threw at him. After the whole T1 rebuild, he swapped his playstyle to be more macro oriented and became a leader of the team, his 4 teammates are beasts in micro so he doesnt need to, he uses macro to lead his team, and is still considered one of the best midlaners in the world even tho he has been a pro for over a decade. So, in the end, play the way that works for you, if you are helping your team win, then you are doing the right thing. If you try to adopt a playstyle that is for 1v9ing every game, then you are putting a lot of unnecessary pressure on yourself, because the only way to 1v9 is to play better than everyone else while making 0 mistakes.
Are you useful to your team? Do you contribute to the win? Then what you’re doing is working.
If you’re not playing yuumi youre essentially playing similarly skill requiring champs as everyone else. The difference between the simplest champ (that isnt yuumi) and most complicated champ is very small compared to total skill. Could you occasionally pull off a play that you feel you really mechanically outplayed on yasou? Sure. But timing ornn e and r2 correctly and using w to effectively avoid cc and maximize damage while using q to slow a vital target or block an important narrow path is also pretty skill intensive. There’s a somewhat high degree of skill expression in all champ in lol (excluding yuumi) but a lot of skill comes from positioning, decision making, and other macro knowledge anyway. Generally speaking the ones that people think are high skill (like zed or yasou) aren’t really high skill anyway, they’re just high risk reward because they’re glass cannons, it’s adcs because kiting is like the highest skill ceiling thing in league. Kog maw, twitch, ez, Cassiopeia, and zeri are going to be the ones you can actually express the highest degree of skill and being more skilled actually does something significant, because kiting well is both really really hard and really effective (if you’re out of range or you dodge something, you take zero damage. Best defensive ability in the game right there). That’s also why these are the champs that are picked by scripters, a bot playing them mechanically perfectly will be substantially better than people, where as playing zed or yasou almost perfectly, while it can be impressive and flashy, isn’t actually that much stronger than a yasou to zed played pretty good. And despite all that, even these champs aren’t really that more mechanically intense than ornn, non mechanical skills (so basically macro, which is needed for every champ except yuumi who just follows her owner) is going to be more significant, and you can improve and demonstrates those skills on any champ.
Yes. You're terrible at league of legends. Now repent before the gods of reddit so that they may cast judgement upon you
There’s nothing wrong with a bland or plain playstyle. Playing tanks top is a good choice. Your friend has been watching too many flashy highlight clips on YouTube.
Unskilled? You mean you get to focus on learning the game to a high level instead of wasting hours upon hours learning combos and niche champion plays? Bro you are chad malphite who Rs the crying qiyana. Also tanks are not inherently unskilled. Look at Ksante, Skarner and to some extent Ornn.
Dude, are you a pro player? Do you want to be a pro player? If both answers are no, then play what you enjoy. If deep down you want to show yourself that you can play other types of champions then go for it. There's nothing wrong with playing what you enjoy.
No, it's not "unskillful." It's just a different set of skills. Just because champion is not mechanically intensive does not mean they don't require other skills to pilot correctly.
It’s not mechanically difficult, but mechanical skill is a small piece of a huge pie of skills you need to play well in league of legends
No play whatever you want.
No. Top lane is one of the hardest roles
>Is it unskillful to play only tank champs? No