In this Champs of the week we have look at the unforgiving top-lane

Each week we take a look at some of the most powerful champions in League of Legends. With each champion we will take a look at a LoLKing community guide that demonstrates how to get the best results. Last week we had a look at the jungle role, this week we look to the top lane; which, with the high-health meta of Season Three, has become one of the scariest places to lane.  

Garen, the Might of Demacia

Over the last month, Garen has seen a surge in popularity and is rightfully placed in the LoLKing chart for Highest Win Rate Champions. While Garen has always been a strong champion, with the high-health meta introduced in Season Three through the power of Warmog's Armor and The Black Cleaver, he has become exponentially more powerful.

The Might of Demacia gains his power from his strong kit, his passive gives him 0.5% of his maximum health a second and his third skill Courage, passively boosts his maximum armor and magic resistance by 20%; and when activated reduces incoming damage by 30% and grants 30% crowd control reduction. Those two abilities alone give Garen a large tank and make him hard to stop. His other three abilities give him increased movement speed and a silence, a slow and a short ranged nuke through his ultimate. His power-level is – some would say – over-powered.

Due to the lack of ranged poke and innate tankiness, Garen needs to be played offensively; guide-maker Azealin suggests 21 mastery points in Offense and 9 in defense. The trick to playing Garen is in the title of this guide, Spin to Win.

Renekton, the Butcher of the Sands

Renekton may seem like a strange pick, he has never been a staple of the League of Legends. Recently, however, he has doubled in popularity due to his success in competitive play – playing a champion well with a couple hundred thousand people watching tends to boost his popularity - who would have thought.

This vicious Croc has a massive bite; he is a hyper-aggressive top lane. Much like Garen, Renekton doesn't use the mana resource but instead uses Fury, which is gained through auto-attacks and when on low-life. Renekton is a scary champion to play against; his third ability Slice and Dice has a double dash, when he has 50 Fury the second dash does increased damage and reduces the victim’s armor for 4 seconds. While the enemies armor is lowered Renekton stuns his opponent with Ruthless Predator and gains health back with Cull of the Meek, which is the only ability with a low enough cooldown to repeat before they get to the safety of the tower. If that isn't scary enough, his ultimate Dominus increases his health and size and deals magic damage to nearby enemies, he also gains 5 Fury per a second while active.

Playing Renekton is all about resource management. You need to make the right decisions; should you spend that 50 Fury on regenerating health, double the stun length or reduce the enemy’s armor. To help you decide we have a guide from Sexycan... who recommends an even split of 15 points each in offense and defense. An important section of this guide is How to press your advantage and How to play when you're behind – something most guides ignore.

Jax, the Grandmaster at Arms

Whether you are hitting them with a lamp post, hockey stick or bat, it doesn't matter – it all hurts the same. The Grandmaster at Arms has seen a small downturn in popularity recently, but don't let that fool you; he is still a very strong top-lane and an asset to the team.

Through a flurry of swings, Jax disintegrates any who stand in his way, be that an enemy champion, tower or nexus. His strength comes from his massive spike damage, chain-up Leap Strike with a Counter-Strike stun and an Empower charge to the face, your enemy will be on a back-foot before he can even react. With his low cooldowns and passive-ultimate combination of increased attack speed and damage, Jax is an unstoppable force. If things don't go as planned, no problem – unleash a stun and leap to safety.

Jax is one of the most agile champions in the league. He has enormous spike damage that will have your enemy running scared, but running from Jax is futile, he will simply leap-stun combo to victory. When it comes to making a swift exit, it is important to remember that Jax can leap onto minions and wards. This top-lane guide comes from Sniper, who is a 2500 LKS (LoLKing Score) player.

Singed, the Mad Chemist

Singed is one of the champions that has been a staple of League of Legends for as long as I can remember. He has been consistently one of the highest win rate champions in the game for a very long time, and is one of the more popular top lanes. This comes from his non-caring – just going to run by your tower and farm your minions attitude. He gets away with it because he is equipped with one of the strongest defense systems in the game – a Poison Trail and an ultimate that boosts ability power, armor, magic resist, movement speed, health regeneration, and mana regeneration.

Singed is one of the toughest top-lanes to play against. He is also one of the most infuriating. Poison Trail allows him to farm minions easily. When he wants to kill the enemy he can throw down his Mega Adhesive, which slows the enemy for 5 seconds, then Fling the enemy over his shoulder – which stops it getting to the tower and leaves it in his poison trail, the most awkward situation possible. Does it run through his poison to get to the tower or run the long way round, if it chooses the latter he will just run it down with his ultimate and slow-fling combo it again. Singed's passive, Empowered Bulwark, grants him 25 health for every 100 mana, which allows him to build those ability power items with high mana and still have high health, making him both a tank and a damage dealer.

As you might have guessed, it isn't as easy as it sounds. So, what better way to learn the champion than the highest rated and most popular guide on LoLKing.net, written by another 2500 LKS author, InvertedComposer. This guide is so in-depth it even has a section named Singed's Hidden Abilities with videos and magical animated pictures – need I say more?

Elise, the Spider Queen

I left this one to last to avoid upsetting those with arachnophobia; seriously, she is a little creepy. The Spider Queen is my personal favorite addition to the game in quite some time. She has all the traits of a great champion, but takes some playing to get used to. Her normal humanoid form provides a stun and strong poke abilities, one of which deals percentage based damage. Chain those skills with her Ultimate, which transforms her into a melee hitting spider with Spiderling minions that are created by using spells in human form and we're on to a winner.

While in spider form her first ability lunges at the enemy to deal percentage damage based on its missing health, the second ability will grant attack speed to herself and Spiderlings. She will also heal on each attack. Elise's third skill, Rappel – previously a stun – becomes a unique ability that pulls her up out of the map making her untargetable. Within those two seconds you can select an enemy to drop on within range or simply return to the same spot.

Rappel is an interesting ability with a lot of potential, but is tricky to use. Primarily you can use it as an engage instead of the lunge attack which is better used when the enemy is lower health, to maximize damage. When you use Rappel, you gain increased vision of the area around you, including vision of nearby brush. Rappel has a range of 1075, which is pretty big and allows you to easily chase down enemies; when you select a target just outside of the circle it can sometimes work, so the range isn't exact. While it can be used to escape, you need an enemy to jump to which, in most cases, isn't going to be there when you need it. In Competitive play, summoners have used Rappel to avoid fatal abilities, such as Karthus' Ultimate, Nidalee Spears and Fiddlesticks' ultimate.

As I said, Elise is a tricky champion to play, with a lot of potential. To help us unlock that potential we have an excellent guide from Babytuxx – Skitter Along.

These are just a few of the many great champions in League of Legends. Honestly, the majority of champions are viable and all it takes is a good summoner to realize their full potential. With the competitive League of Legends scene in full-swing the meta will be constantly shifting as teams look for creative new ways to beat one-another.

Be sure to visit LoLKing.net for more great guides like those shown today. We will be back next week to take a look at another lane – we have already looked at Jungle and now Top.

Chris Rainey, Columnist