Doran's Shield has been an extremely dominant item in Season 4, but with patch 4.3, it received a huge nerf. Rushing in to fill the gulf has been Doran's Blade, melee and ranged auto-attackers, and AP tops. Find out more after the break!
Hey everybody, guest-poster Gentleman Gustaf here once again for an analysis of top lane. I've started my own solo League of Legends website at http://gentlemangustaf.com, so feel free to stop by to see my other posts! I'm also working for Riot, and if you want to see my posts there, you can check them out here!
Items
Doran's Shield was the starting item for top laners in well over 80% of the games, week in and week out. But not anymore:
We saw Doran's Blade picked in almost half of all games with a 64% win rate, and Cloth Armor being the next strongest item. Doran's Shield was still picked more, but seemed somewhat weak, coming up with a 41% win rate over 17 games.
European Picks
It's important to note that some of these champion picks are from the EU Super Week, which did not have the Doran's Shield change implemented already. It is likely that these changes will only further drive the data.
First things first: Renekton is still extremely strong. Of the three main top laners (Shyvana/Renekton/Dr. Mundo), he is the only one who can start Doran's Blade over Doran's Shield, and he is the only one with a winning ratio vs champions outside of the power 3. So with those champions falling out of favor, we expected Renekton to stay strong.
Trundle fell off a bit, as he was the passive laner in the Trundle v Renekton matchup, and thus was hit hardest by the Shield nerf.
Auto-attackers with natural sustain (Aatrox and Irelia) were extremely strong in this patch, because their natural sustain made up for the Shield nerfs, while their reliance on auto-attacks was no longer hit so hard by the Doran's Shield nerfs. However, Jax had a hard time, possibly due to his lack of sustain.
North American Picks
North America was a bit more static:
However, the number of Shyvana picks probably represents the mentality of the players, as her win rate was relatively low. Most interesting was the dominance of Trundle/Renekton. While Europe went for melee auto-attackers, North America busted out ranged mages and Jayce, none of whom performed all that well. However, the sample size was pretty low. We've seen Ryze be successful in the hands of Korean tops, including by KT Bullets vs Fnatic at IEM Katowice.
A Rising Trend
Overall, I look to see this trend continue, with Renekton and Trundle remaining dominant picks, while melee auto-attackers with sustain (Aatrox and Irelia), AP Carries (Gragas, Nidalee, Ryze, and Kennen), and maybe even ranged auto-attackers (Jayce) slowly creep onto the scene.
Mattias "Gentleman Gustaf" Lehman is a big time nerd-gamer and mathcrafter who has ranked as high as Diamond 1 in solo queue and Diamond 3 in arranged 5s.
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Posted 3/30/2014 1:27:17 PMwow they played irelia? nice!
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Posted 3/29/2014 2:11:22 PMRevert the Singed Nerfs and Gator is no longer an issue.
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Posted 3/28/2014 9:41:26 PMBasically, the meta shifted from 3-4 champions dominating the top lane, to League of Renekton. If he does not have a higher pick rate it is because he is banned sometimes.
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Posted 3/28/2014 3:50:20 PMI think the Doran's shield nerfs did their job pretty well. I still buy it on tanks and its not completely worthless just now you can use a Blade or some other start without being completely invincible. Renek has clearly gained full dominance since he was never reliant on it unlike Mundo but hopefully nerfs to the Gator will bring about some real variety back to the top lane.
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Posted 3/28/2014 12:54:04 AMI'm not surprised that almost everyone take Doran's Blade or Shield or Ring because they give sustain and AD/AP/Armor which is needed. I don't remember when the last match was where nobody or only one would have bought Doran's item.
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Posted 3/27/2014 11:49:10 PMMaybe riot should have played it safe with 7 HP regen instead of 6. dorans shield needed nerfs but they need to take starting item changes slowly.
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Posted 3/27/2014 8:25:39 PMI agree with Gentleman Gustaf here. With the nerf of Doran's Shield, Shyvana and Dr. Mundo will most likely be shelved later in the LCS and we'll see the rise of ranged top laners like Kennen, Lulu, Kayle, Teemo, Ryze, Nidalee, and Jayce. I always love to play ranged top laners since they're easy to use and lacks intensive skill to play properly. Particularly Kennen, I love to play AD Kennen top with BotRK, Gunblade, Runaan's Hurricane, Triforce, and Frozen Mallet with a lot of dueling potential and sustained damage.
In fact, I should that despite Renekton's early game power, his greatest weakness is that his main gap closer is incredibly short and is susceptible to be kited easily. I can see AD/hybrid/AP Kennen, Jayce, and Teemo being prominent in the LCS competitive scene.
And for the record, Jax top lane is considered to be one of the hardest top laners to master. Sure, he IS the best late-game duelist and split pusher in League of Legends. But his kit is incredibly hard to use properly.
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Posted 3/27/2014 7:57:40 PMOn a (totally) unrelated topic, the pie graph format confused me. I had to read the legend (which is its function) to know what the colors mean, since in the first graph it looks like color is related to slice size. Maybe a bar/double bar graph, or just a wider range of the colormap, would be better, at least for me.
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Posted 3/27/2014 7:28:42 PMIt's kind of unbelievable what their did to Dorans Shield and I don't mean that in a bad way. When I first saw the changes to the item, I was like 'Pfttt that won't do shit to the item, it will still be the best' but after a few games of going with the obvious first buy of getting a dorans shield I could see its serious issues. I mean it's still good, but definitely not broken. Great job Riot balancing this item.
I no longer feel like an immovable object in lane. But perhaps Dorans Blade is too good now :/
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Posted 3/27/2014 5:55:12 PM-
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Posted 3/27/2014 8:48:22 PM-
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Posted 3/27/2014 5:16:07 PMI think Jayce took a few too many nerfs even before all the changes. He's a shade of his former self and there's been a rework floating around for a while. I wonder if Kennen will come back though.
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Posted 3/27/2014 11:47:29 PMJayce is shade of his former self on purpose, when he's good he's busted and problematic, it's the reason WHY he has a rework floating around, reworks can effect power, but power is not the reason for reworks as normal number changes have that covered just fine. Reworks are instead motivated by design flaws Of which jayce had many. I suspect if jayce becomes powerful again they will nerf him again at least until the rework is finished.
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Posted 3/28/2014 12:45:49 PMSerious question, what is the problem with Jayce?
Certainly not "lack of counterplay" I think.
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Posted 3/28/2014 9:32:22 PMI think its more with that he has too many tools. I always think Riot has had problems balancing champions with six skills. Jayce, Lee Sin, and Elise come to mind. I also think the speed buff on his e is pretty crazy for a basic ability.
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Posted 3/28/2014 3:51:47 AMToo many nerfs? Are you serious?