The ONLY Top Lane MACRO Guide You'll EVER NEED - League of Legends

macro is one of the scariest things to try and learn in league of legends there's so many variables ifs and buts and even if you make the right call your team screwing something up could make all of your effort go to waste anyway as annoying as it can be to learn macro there are some very basic concepts that you can apply as a top laner that can net you a lot of advantages and allow you to hard carry games more easily in this guide we're going to be covering how to win lane with macro the most important objective you want to focus on mid game rotations and when to group with your team so you always have a good idea of what you should be doing and trust me we here at skill cap know a thing or two about macro on our website we have over 12 courses just on top lane macro alone whether you want to learn how to split push your way to victory impact other lanes through roaming or the secret macro strategies challenger smurfs use to crush the ranks you're stuck in we got you covered and best of all it's risk free with our rank improvement guarantee so what are you waiting for check out skillcap.com link in the description below now back to the guy the very first thing we have to cover as any top lane maine would know is drafting top is without a doubt the most punishing role in the game because of the melee versus melee nature of the lane whoever is stronger can heavily abuse their opponents since you have to walk up for every single last hit not only that but since you're super far away from the rest of the map at the same time it makes it unlikely that you'll receive help anytime soon if you find yourself in a dire situation as a result learning how to draft is probably the number one skill you should focus on as a top lane main now we can't cover every single counter pick in this guide but we can provide you the best blind pick top laners for season 12. the goal of these selections is to make the lane at the very least playable regardless of what match up you may find yourself in for tank players we recommend cho'gath and gragas to be your blind pickleball tops both of them have great sustained good gank setup and scale relatively well but most importantly they can both pivot into their ap builds if they ever find themselves versus a tank busting counter pick which makes them super versatile options in draft for range top laners you can go vladimir kennen or graves all of them either bully their opponents or out sustain them in lane not only that but they all scale ridiculously well into the late game so even if you flub the early lane you still have some insurance that you can carry as the match goes on unfortunately for you bruiser players almost every single one has pretty bad matchups if we're being honest if we had to recommend a blind pick choice for low elo though we'd probably go with set his ability to go second wind and doran's shield can get him through almost any lane he scales decently and has good ganks set up for his junglers he's an all-around decent bruiser if you have to blind pick one finally if you're feeling spicy nasus and kale are both pretty good picks in low elo even when they're blind picked most low elo players struggle at shutting down scaling picks not only that but there's a billion catch-up mechanics in the game now so even if you do fall behind there's always the hope of making a comeback later if you're remotely confident in your ability to play a stable lane phase where you don't fall too far behind then both of these hyper scaling picks are very solid blind picks in season 12. you're very often going to be able to hit your power spike and be able to 1v9 a lot of games in low elo moving on to actual macro the number one skill you need to master above all else as a top laner is patience top lane is all about slow plays to get big leads over time you absolutely cannot rush to anything in top or you won't get as big of a lead as you should be basically what we're saying is that among the three common wave tactics of slow pushing fast pushing and freezing that you should avoid pushing waves too quickly during the laning phase for top to know why let's break down all these wave tactics along with why and when you should be using them let's begin with the most powerful of all the three for top slow pushing last hitting gradually and building up a big wave is relevant for all lanes but it's especially potent in top think about it more often than not you're in a melee versus melee match-up during the early game minions deal relatively high damage to champions so whoever has a bigger wave will usually win trades simply because they have more backup during the encounter this isn't always true obviously but it is something to consider in most cases not only that but they even keep you safe from ganks especially during the early levels of the game if you've got the bigger wave this usually means that you've killed more minions than your opponent this can often translate to a level lead while you have your slow push going which makes ganking you a very difficult task it's often easy to fight your way out of a 1v2 simply because of the level lead you likely have plus the fact that your opponents had to tank a ton of minions to even fight you and in a lot of cases these advantages can even translate to you being able to score a kill despite being at a numbers disadvantage simply put do not underestimate the benefits of having a bigger wave in top there's a lot of plays you can make just by having the wave advantage over your opponent especially during those critical early levels that being said your actual goal of a slow push is of course the big crash of minions you'll get at your opponent's tower let's cover the major advantages of doing so for starters because there's so many minions at their tower now you are freely able to move around the map while your opponent is stuck farming the wave a potent tactic you can do off a crash is to move from top to gank another lane for example a level 6 malphite crashing a big wave at his opponent's tower can go mid gank the lane with his ultimate and be able to get back down to his own lane in time to catch the wave that his opponent is trying to push into him the more common thing top laners choose to do after crashing a big wave though is to recall basically while your opponent is stuck clearing the way if you base get an item lead and then come back to freeze the wave versus your opponent which we'll cover in a bit now the biggest benefit of slow pushing has got to be tower diving your opponent crashing a wave at your opponent's tower then diving them either with your jungler or by yourself is one of the most devastating plays you can pull off in top lane it's good even if you happen to trade kills while doing so this is because your opponent misses the entire wave that's crashing when you kill them not only that but when you both get back to lane the wave will be pushing into you allowing you to continue playing aggressively let's take a look at how effective this can be when a top laner who knows how to slow push fights someone who doesn't understand the value in it here's a jack slowly building up a big wave to crash into the enemy kale's tower now this is very important while you're pushing like this taking even trades with your opponent is very valuable on the other hand if you're the kale you really want to avoid fighting sadly this low elo kale doesn't know that and allows jax to force a heavy trade onto her she continues to fight jax and gets herself super low to the point where she can be dove jax readily takes this trade and kills since he can deny a ton of farm putting him handily ahead as we've talked about to illustrate how effective this is let's go over that exact sequence yet again because the kale had an ego and tried to flame jax over it we're not letting that slide a little later into the lane you might get a case of deja vu jax is building a slow push again the enemy kale who doesn't understand the value of slow pushes calls him out on his supposed mistake maybe if she actually understood the value of building waves she'd realize why jax was doing it and we know for certain that she doesn't because she commits the exact same mistake she did before she allows herself to get chunked as jax is crashing this massive wave if she'd remained full hp jax can't threaten a dive unfortunately for her her mistakes will not go unpunished now that he's got kale super low he just waits for his cooldowns and sets up another dive on her denying yet another massive amount of gold and experience needless to say the top laner with better fundamentals went on to absolutely dominate this lane guys if you're gonna trash talk you gotta have the skills to back it up shame shame shame on this kale as you saw that wasn't a difference in mechanical skill take a look at the same player when he's the one on kale the amount of respect he shows his opponents who have a slow push going is way different compared to his previous counterpart again we just need to reiterate top lane is all about patience there are going to be many times where all you can do is sit back and play safe just like this when your opponent is the one pushing the wave let's talk about freezing now this tactic is very impactful in top lane especially if you don't have a lot of ways to gain advantages off of crashing waves in the specific matchup that you find yourself in for example if you can't tower dive farm jungle camps all that well or roam then crashing waves is pretty meh and doesn't lead to a lot of advantages sometimes here's a perfect replay to show when to freeze and just how brutal it can be in the right circumstances again we're versus a kale she's super popular this patch so it is what it is just remember that the same concepts apply in all match-ups mordekaiser in the exact same way as the previous jax gets a kill onto the ko with a slow push into a dive setup now he's got a solid lead to work with however mordekaiser is notoriously bad at tower diving since he's a dps oriented champion he's not very good at roaming either since he doesn't have good kill setup like camille quinn malphite scion etc and he's not really fed enough to crash waves and farm jungle camps therefore he believes that the best way of getting a lead is to freeze versus the kale he maintains his freeze for a long time and makes it impossible for her to even hit level 6. eventually by just maintaining this freeze forever the enemy kale eventually tilts she walks out of position and the rest is history and that's yet another example of how to properly snowball in top lane once you actually have a lead as you've seen the long-term patient wave tactics will yield the biggest benefits in top lane however there are some cases where you want to fast push waves to keep it simple you want to fast push waves into your opponent's tower whenever you want to leave the lane instantly this could be for any reason like the enemy jungler is top you need a base you want to rotate to a jungle fight or for any other reason you want to get out of lane and that's the simplicity of it if you need to leave lane quickly fast push if you don't need to then use the other two wave tactics we've talked about now knowing how to win lane is one thing but the issue most top laners always struggle with tends to be with their ability to impact the map you're the furthest role away from all the action and games are obviously always decided by which team has the fed katarina those concerns are often true however being so far from all the action can actually be your biggest blessing in disguise if you take advantage of it remember you're usually in a melee versus melee match-up and your opponent is very far away from any help either this makes top lane the snowballiest lane in the game by a long shot once you have a lead it should become impossible for your opponent to even play the game and you should be building massive leads this is the big mindset shift a lot of top lane mains need whether you like it or not you pick the role that has no map impact however if you're actually playing top properly then when you get a lead the map should become entirely about what you can do and almost everything begins to revolve around you it's not about being a smurf 1v9 god the role is just meant to be super snowball oriented and this should be your ultimate goal every single game the champions that go top are all stat checking snowball bruisers they can all do this when properly ahead speaking of snowballing you also have the closest access to the best objective for putting yourself massively ahead rift herald if your opponent is on the back foot at any point in the game then you can often just push them into their tower and rotate to solo the herald almost any top laner can easily solo it as long as you're consistently hitting the eye whenever it spawns the reason this is so important for you is that usually junglers are the ones securing rift herald but that means that when they go to a lane they usually have to share the gold amongst two players as a top laner harold is your best friend because you can take it on your own if you're ahead and what this means is that if you ever find an opportunity to use it on the tower by yourself that you'll get a ton of gold instantly because you don't have to share it with anyone and do remember that when using herald on towers it gets tankier as more and more plates go down so you usually want to use the herald when the tower is at two to three plates left for maximum efficiency not only is it great for giving you a lot of gold instantly but it also opens you up to being able to invade the enemy jungle much easier again this gives you even more access to farm which helps you snowball and it screws over the enemy jungler at the same time now that you've crushed the tower you begin to transition to mid game macro this applies to all rolls but for the most part you're usually not grouped with your team unless there's an important objective up technically all three lanes should be covered by the top mid and adc players so that no one is sharing farm and the solo laners are getting experience all to themselves obviously your teammates are more often than not just going to hug each other in mid lane and not follow these rules but you shouldn't be a top laner's natural home is in the side lane regardless of what they're playing so what can you actually do in a side lane to have pressure there's multiple strategies you can pull off to hard carry games so let's break those down first and then talk a bit on how to play when you're behind the first is really simple if you have a lead and your opponent can't contest your pushing then you want to time wave crashes based on when objectives are spawning for example mordekaiser notices that the dragon is spawning soon and pings on his way 40 seconds before it comes up but before doing so he crashes a wave at the enemy kale's tower what this does is it forces her to respond to the push while mordekaiser can rotate over to the fight this is how to exert a ton of pressure on the map you should constantly be able to force 5v4 fights by keeping your opponent catching waves the whole game now here's a common question what if you push out a lane and your opponent doesn't respond they just go group with their team at the objective what do you do then you have two options if you think the objective is not worth fighting over you can just ping your team back and just keep pushing to get a tower in exchange this is usually a very good option because your opponent is missing a ton of gold and experience while they're away from the lane and you spike in gold because you get a free tower the advantage will help you keep side winning later into the game or you can just rotate and fight a fair 5v5 with your team if you think you're likely to win anyway you get the added benefit of knowing your opponent is missing a ton of waves in the lane they abandoned which is a win-win in a lot of cases now the actual best way of winning a game as a top laner is by becoming so strong from snowballing your lane that you can duel multiple people at the same time if the enemy team is constantly being forced to send three or four players to deal with you then the rest of the map will obviously be very easy for your teammates to take advantage of now looking at this scene we know what you might be thinking those are the same players you're playing with look at them do nothing while nasus is 1v5 however this is actually nasus's fault before trying to force people to collapse on you you should technically wait for your teammates to be in position to pressure something first that way they can actually make use of your side laning nasus did no such thing he was just having fun and felt like fighting this is a common mistake we see and something you should avoid if you're really trying to win and we will repeat this in any split pushing guide we make at skillcap don't think for a second that tanks can't do this either for example take a look at this tank cho'gath who is doing fairly okay he's just farming side waves and has a few kills under his belt there's nothing outrageous about his score line but that's the thing about top lane in low elo with proper farm you can become literally godzilla regardless of what champion you're playing it takes five players to take him down and all the while his own teammates were getting into position to take the dragon soul uncontested thanks to his pressure let's reel it back a bit though don't feel like you're going to be this 1v9 monster every single game and that if you're not that you suck that's just what you should try to do if you properly got ahead during lane there's plenty of games though where you won't be too strong or too weak in those games you just pick up waves farm some jungle camps and sides and then group up with your team during important objective fights that's it macro isn't this super complex thing oftentimes it's just about not doing something really stupid now let's talk about when you're the one that's behind and it's the enemy tryndamere split pushing all your towers here's what you have to do hopefully you took teleport if you didn't your life will be much harder make sure you don't waste teleport on unimportant fights like a random 2v2 skirmish in top is something you shouldn't waste it on try and save your tp for important objectives then just sit in the sideline at your tower and hold on for dear life that's all you can do if the enemy top laner doesn't rotate to objective fights then just keep defending them from their split push so you don't lose your entire base if they do rotate to objective fights then that's why you've saved your teleport at the very least you can join the fight and hope you and your team can win the 5v5 ultimately that's what playing from behind will look like there's no secret technique that will help you come back every time you just play safe and hope the enemy throws don't overthink it anyway guys that's all the macro essentials you need to play top lane in season 12. we hope this guide helps you climb by carrying more games all right guys before we wrap this up let's tell you a little more about skill caps so we offer a five division rank up guarantee and think that's a pretty crazy thing to offer it's like a gym membership guaranteeing you'll get ripped your local gym would go bust if they offered that right not us we've offered this for years because our service really does work it works so well in fact that we're able to produce by far the largest catalog of premium lead guides on the internet we add over 20 videos a week with over 1600 guides curated into over 100 courses no one can compare we've also sent challenger players into ilo hell 714 times and counting where they commentate how to carry live they also respond to all questions asked sign up today for as little as 6.99 a month if you are serious about improving as always thanks for watching we'll catch you next time

Channel: Skill Capped Challenger LoL Guides

Views: 428,523

Keywords: league of legends, league of legends guide, lol guides, league of legends tips, league of legends coaching, league of legends season 12, skill capped, lol tips, lol tips and tricks, top lane macro, macro guide, lol macro, top lane guide, how to top lane, league of legends macro, how to improve in league of legends, league of legends rank up, lol macro guide, lol top lane guide, top macro guide, league macro guide, top lane coaching, challenger top lane, lol guide

Id: kpik7BHRTV4

Length: 16min 47sec (1007 seconds)

Published: Fri Jul 15 2022