League of Legends: Patch 10.4 Top Lane Aggregated Tier List

League of Legends. Photo courtesy of Riot Games. /

We take a look at the League of Legends top lane meta in Patch 10.4.

With the menaces that were Soraka and Sona top lane nerfed in Patch 10.4, League of Legends players everywhere breathed a sigh of relief. New challengers have risen to take their place and…yeah they’re about as annoying as you would expect. Here’s how the top lane stacks up after all the changes in Patch 10.4.

Top Lane Tier List

S tier: Darius, Sett, Ornn (⇑)
A+ tier: Garen (⇐⇑), Mordekaiser, Kled, Fiora (⇑)
A tier: Jax (⇐), Singed
B tier: Shen (⇐⇓), Kayle (⇐), Vladimir (⇓), Camille (⇓), Malphite, Renekton, Illaoi, Tryndamere, Quinn, Vayne (⇑), Maokai, Nasus (⇑), Rengar, Teemo, Poppy (⇑), Pantheon, Aatrox
C tier: Gangplank (⇐⇓), Sion (⇐⇑), Volibear (⇐), Irelia (⇓), Yorick, Riven (⇓), Gnar, Kennen (⇓), Yasuo (⇓), Sona (⇑), Cho’Gath, Urgot, Jayce (⇑), Sylas (⇑), Rumble, Lucian (⇒)
D tier: Dr. Mundo (⇓), Ryze (⇓), Zac (*), Olaf, Heimerdinger (⇓)
F tier: Soraka (⇐⇓), Akali (⇓), Cassiopeia (⇓)

Dropped: Nocturne, Wukong, Hecarim, Karma

Key

* = new to the tier list this patch
⇑ = improved (rated at least one tier higher than the previous patch)
⇓ = declined (rated at least one tier lower than the previous patch)
⇐ = borderline-up (within 10% of being in the next-higher tier)
⇒ = borderline-down (within 10% of being in the next-lower tier)

Observations

More from Blog of Legends

Bye-bye Soraka top lane, no one is going to miss you. From S tier down to F tier in a single patch, she had the biggest drop not only of any champion this patch, but maybe of any champion ever. Unfortunately, Sona proves a tougher case to crack, as she actually rose from D to C tier in Patch 10.4.
That could be because Sona is still the winningest top laner in Patch 10.4, sporting a 57.8% win rate and a 1.4% pick rate in top lane despite being nerfed! Behind her are F tier Cassiopeia (54.1%) and Maokai (53%). However, the best top laner with a pick rate over 5% is actually Garen with a 52.5% win rate and 8.1% pick rate in Platinum and above.
The worst champion in the top lane going by win rate is Akali (45.2%), ahead of Ryze (45.2%) and Irelia (46.2%). Both Akali and Ryze have pick rates below 2%, so even their most ardent mains are struggling in Patch 10.4.
While Soraka took the biggest dip in our ranking from the last patch (with a special shout to Cassiopeia, who fell two whole tiers in Patch 10.4 as well), the biggest rise in our rankings belongs to…oh no. It’s Vayne top, who went from mid-C to mid-B tier.

Buffed Champions

Garen

The buffs to his Decisive Strike and Courage propelled the Demacia man into the A+ tier and gave him the best win rate of any champion with a substantial pick rate. And that’s before even getting into the Sunfire Cape buffs and the buffs to his jungling.

Gnar

Similar to Garen, Gnar got buffs both targetted at his laning and his jungling. For lane, it was a tradeoff of base health for bonus movement speed on his Passive (overall, a buff because he’ll have the extra move speed in Mega Gnar form while it evens out in Mini Gnar) and shifting his ratios on his Gnar! after realizing that no one builds AP on Gnar.

Gnar’s win rate didn’t move as a result of these changes, but he has been picked a lot more in Patch 10.4. As a result, his rating in our C tier is still about the same, but slightly up from the last patch.

Jayce

Riot didn’t try to push Jayce into the jungle and instead elected to go straight for his base stats and To the Skies! for buffs. Jayce did improve to C tier after the buffs and both his win rate and pick rate are up. However, he continues to remain below a 50% win rate.

Sylas

Buffs to his Chain Lash’s damage didn’t really affect his win rate, but Sylas top may be on the verge of a return. He rose from the D tier into the mid-C tier in Patch 10.4, also seeing an uptick in his pick rate.

Sunfire Cape Users

The buffs to the Immolate passive on Sunfire Cape were really only a buff to top laners with immobilizing abilities (knock-ups, roots, snares, stasis, stun, suppression, etc.). Here are all the top laners with at least one immobilizing ability who also buy Sunfire as one of their most common core item builds (i.e. their first three items not including boots) and how their ranking changed following these buffs.

Malphite = -0.045
Maokai = +0.229
Ornn = +0.397
Poppy = +0.204
Shen = -0.025
Sion = +0.512
Volibear = +0.224
Average = +0.214

As you can see, the Sunfire buffs have been a boon to top lane tanks, who are overall far stronger than they were last patch.

Nerfed Champions

Singed

I didn’t get the Singed nerfs when they came out, but there’s no denying that he felt the effects. His win rate is down over 1.5% and his pick rate is down. He remained in our A tier, but it wouldn’t shock me if he fell further in future patches.

Sona

The nerfs to Sona, increasing her mana costs but giving her mana back when she tags an ally, should have taken her out of top lane. However, it seems like Sona is doing just fine, sporting the best win rate in the lane. She is scheduled for further work and has been hotfixed since the patch released, so we’ll have to wait and see if these additional changes take her out of the top lane.

Soraka

Just a myriad of nerfs have left the Starchild unplayable in the top lane. With the biggest drop in our tier list, Soraka top is now a completely unviable pick. Even if she does still have a respectable 47.8% win rate top lane (with a 0.5% pick rate).

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Methodology: These rankings were determined by finding the average standardized score of a champion from nine different tier lists from sites around the internet. This is done by assigning a certain weight to each different score, rank, or grade given by these sites (for instance, both a “Diamond” rating and “A” grade would be worth a 90 score). The standardized score is then determined by looking at the average score given to all champions in every role by that site as well as the standard deviation of scores given (so that sites that give out more high grades will not have their As be worth the same as a site that gives out very few high grades).

The full, underlying data can be found here. This link also includes the full listing of how the scores are assigned. Champions must be rated by at least half of the sites audited in order to qualify for our tier list.

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