EASIEST to HARDEST role, with explanations
(We are not talking about SoloQ. We are talking about the role.)
ADC
• Simple game plan: your role is meant to soak up as many resources as possible to hit your key power spikes or start a snowball with a lead.
• There aren’t any difficult game-changing decisions you have to make from early to mid game; it’s all about being as efficient and effective as possible.
• You are meant to be babysat throughout the game in order to scale efficiently. You’re not the one making the important decisions.
Toplane
• Usually low agency on the map, which makes the role ignored most of the time and results in it feeling isolated.
• By the time toplaners get “strong,” nobody can really pressure them anyway due to their level differences and Quest.
• They can scale fairly confidently without needing to take huge risks or make difficult decisions. Going even inherently means they will become strong regardless, depending on the champion played.
• Game plan is generally simple: laning, Grubs, hovering second Drake, TP plays, split pushing.
Support
Very hard decision between Support and Mid, but Support takes 3rd for the following reasons:
• The role is heavily impacted by your decision-making efficiency but has less solo-carrying potential. Still, the decisions you make can completely turn the tide of the game.
• It’s below mid lane because it’s less mechanically intensive than mid, not because you don’t need mechanics (being good mechanically on support is actually important).
• You get more freedom than a mid laner, and that freedom (or the cost of a missed opportunity) is less punished because catch-up XP is currently overtuned and supports generally don’t need a consistent stream of XP throughout the game (except certain supports that benefit from XP).
Midlane
• The skill ceiling for a mid laner is very high because the role sits at the center of the map in the early to mid game.
• You make decisions in small time windows that can truly turn the tide of the game.
• It’s basically an all-in-one role: laning, roaming, vision, spotting the enemy jungler, objective control, and playmaking, while still being under threat of getting ganked by quite literally everybody.
• You become a second hybrid toplaner in the mid to late game, but your focus is generally less on split pushing because mid laners usually can’t side lane as well as toplaners.
Jungle
• The nature of jungling means you need to know almost everything about the game almost perfectly. Other lanes’ matchups and all the small details actually matter to you (for instance, ganking a Garen top with Stormraider’s Surge is different from ganking him if he has Conqueror).
• Any decision you make inherently impacts the map in the early, mid, and late game.
• The further you go into the game, the more valuable you become because of Smite. That much agency and map control comes at the cost of becoming a high-value target.
• It’s a difficult role because your decision-making is constantly challenged throughout the game.
• Jungle proficiency scales directly off your general knowledge of everything, not just your jungle matchup.