League of Legends is one of those games where nothing ever really stays the same. And with every Riot Games patch and hotfix, there are buffs, nerfs, and adjustments that players must adapt to in order to win.
These changes help out the League meta in general. While some lanes receive a lot of attention, others do not.
Changes were made to help bring traditional support back to the bot lane, power reduction to early jungle ganks, and some much-needed buffs to mid lane mage Annie. But there were only a few minor changes to the top lane.
One player, _raimu, asked if there was "any new information about improving top lane satisfaction?" It's like we were the only lane that was not touched on on this patch 13.3 bug-catcher thread on the League subreddit (despair).
Riot Axes, a League developer, explained that "ensuring that the winning top laner could scale throughout the game would increase the amount of agency and satisfaction." In practice, we had to push items further than we could sustainably in order to succeed that way."
The biggest finding after the developers dug into the top lane was that the "bot lane 3v3 slingshot"—that is, how powerful junglers and ADCs can get in the early game—is having a significant impact on the top lane. Resolving that snowball point, he said, should help the other side of the map have more influence in games.
Although the top lane did not receive any updates in the latest February patch, League developers believe that eventual bot lane nerfs will be the key to making the top lane more enjoyable.
If top laners want to bring power into their ranked lobbies right now, they may have to stick to K'Sante—the Pride of Shurimah is a clear power pick in Season 13.