League of Legends: League of Lessons

For our final segment on the Solo Top Bruiser, we're going to cover some of the more popular champions who reign control of the lane, and make pain their game.

Irelia, the Will of the Blades

She's a champion built for tearing through the ranks of enemies, due to her amazing innate passive damage, which gives massive crowd-control reduction. Always pair this with Mercury Treads; it makes CC look stupid on her. Maximising damage on Irelia is key to making her a real pain to handle during the laning phase. She's already equipped with enough sustain from Hiten Style, and the active attack really helps in the damage department.

Most bruisers on top have difficulty handling true damage; you must capitalise on this. With her recent nerfs, you should expect lower self-sustain in the lane. When trading blows with the opponent, make sure to time your Equilibrium Strike just right. It may give you the chance to deal damage, CC the guy, and walk out of the fight with more HP. Timing is everything, so learn it well.

Wukong, the Monkey King

A cheeky champ that is juke heavy, Wukong is a strong, top player, due to his annoying ability to poke the opponent in the lane, but run away unscathed. He can contribute greatly in a team fight with his ultimate attack and its knock airborne utility, along with great single-target dps to remove squishies. Decoy is excellent at messing with your opponents' heads. You have to learn how to use the stop function in-game to maximise his juking prowess.

Just be mindful of when your opponent picks up oracles or a vision ward; the option to juke is greatly encumbered by it. When being chased by enemies, using a combination of Decoy and Nimbus strike, Wukong can be almost uncatchable. Cyclone does give a gradual increase in movement speed while spinning, so using it to escape is also viable. With Wukong, though, fighting is always an option, so don't be afraid to stand your ground if you have no way of running.

Riven, the Exile

Triple Jump Riven, Bunny Hop Riven; despite these comedic names, Riven is not to be underestimated in the lane. She has a strong combination of skills that give her the ability to be highly mobile, and highly disruptive. Her skills all scale with bonus damage--even Valor, her dash-and-shield skill, which allows her to build damage and yet stay pretty tanky at the same time. Her spells have a pretty decent area of effect (AoE), which punishes teams that stick too close together, allowing her to chain her stuns and knockbacks together to heavily cripple the movements of the enemy team.

Her passive skill acts as a damage steroid, boosting her basic attack damage each time a skill is cast, causing many people to underestimate her damage just by viewing stats alone. Her ultimate attack works amazingly well with all of her skills, as it increases damage and range, which makes her AoE even larger than before. That's not all; her ultimate attack has delicious icing on the cake--Wind Slash fires a wave that does increasing damage based on the percentage of missing health. This works as a great finisher to pick off fleeing targets, or to burst down a squishy target really quickly at the end of your combo.