4 Best Top Lane Fighters in League of Legends for 2025

Season 2 of 2025 is coming to a close sooner than you might think in League of Legends, making this the last chance to hit your ranked goals before a total ranked reset in preparation for Season 3. If you haven’t been having luck in your lane or with your chosen champion, trying out a new lane or a whole new weight class just might seem like an appealing idea. If any of League’s fighters are catching your interest, this list might just help you find a new main.

Just like in my list of the 3 Best Top Lane Tanks in League of Legends for 2025, it is important to remember that skill and experience are the ultimate factors in determining who wins a matchup in League of Legends. While some patches can certainly increase the power of a champion or nerf them pretty hard, a player who really knows their champ will always dominate over a first timer. While these champs are considered especially strong in their class in 2025, grabbing them won’t guarantee an auto win, and you’ll still need to put some time into practicing their kits to really shine.

1) Aatrox

Aatrox was my first and forever main, hitting mastery six and seven on the champ the very same day each rank was added to the game. Despite this, his inclusion on this list is no favoritism. Since his rework back in 2018, Aatrox has consistently dominated the charts as king of the fighters, being consistently good across all ranks and even making a big appearance in professional play.

It’s no secret as to why Aatrox dominates so much in his weight class. His long-range, high-damage, and knock-up-inducing Q gives the champion reach, damage, and crowd control all in one ability, where most fighters have to sacrifice damage for crowd control (or vice versa) and generally lack in reach. The range of this ability also gives Aatrox incredible harassment potential in lane.

In addition, Aatrox’s high self-healing and mono-scaling kit allow him to focus on AD items. Even when losing lane, Aatrox can generally dump his gold into an attack damage item and rely on his self-healing to make up for what he lacks in defensive stats. He also benefits from high synergy with the diverse fighter item pool, allowing him a ton of flexibility in his build order from game to game.

Aatrox’s ability to lock down and damage multiple targets at once makes him a uniquely powerful fighter in team fights. His biggest weaknesses are a slightly better-than-average for his class lack of mobility and his reliance on an early lead to really shine through. While Aatrox comebacks are definitely possible, he doesn’t quite scale as well into the mid to late game as some other fighters do, so falling behind in lane can really slow the game down for this fighter pick.

2) Sett

Sett. The Best Boy Bastard. The Boss. Whatever you call him, Sett’s arrival in the Top Lane in 2020 was as boisterous and loud as the champ himself. This buff, brawling crime-lord arrived with an uncharacteristically simple kit for champions of the time, and one that has maintained its strength across five years of competitive play, proving Sett to be an all-around good pick for all stages of the game, though he loses a bit of favor in high ELO play.

Sett’s kit packs multiple tools that give him an edge over other picks in the fighter class, especially when it comes to busting up tanks. His Q not only provides max health % damage, a highly valued resource in the top lane, but is also an auto-attack reset that, when paired with his unique two-hit autos, gives him a supreme edge in trading. His E ability provides a wide area of effect pull that stuns when grabbing enemies on both sides, which can easily turn an enemy’s gank into your kill.

Sett’s most infamous ability, his Haymaker (W,) is a massive AoE attack that deals true damage in the center and shields him; This ability’s unique scaling properties (The beam shields sett for 50% of his max health, and deals a percentage of that amount as damage based on his bonus AD) gives Sett a distinct advantage with fighter items, allowing him to get incredible value out of both Attack Damage and Health.

Essentially, while other Fighters build health simply for the defensive value, Sett is also getting increased shielding and true damage from the stat, essentially doubling the value of Fighter items for this pick.

What is perhaps Sett’s greatest value to a team, however, is his ultimate, which serves both as great crowd control and deals damage in an area based on the max health of the enemy he grabs. Playing Sett into champions like Sion, Mundo, or Cho’gath literally punishes the enemy team for having these tanks in group fights; It is not uncommon for a Sett to completely one-shot the enemy backline by dropping their tank right on top of them.

Sett’s biggest weakness is a lack of mobility, even when compared to other fighters, and while rushing items like Heartsteel or BOTRK early can be appealing options for Sett, not having Stridebreaker as your first item can make it especially hard to lock down an enemy. This also makes Sett particularly vulnerable to poke damage, which makes him weak to ranged Top Laners and can put him at a disadvantage when faced against our fourth pick in this list.

3) Darius

Darius is an infamously powerful champion in the Top Lane. Darius players at any skill level can easily outperform and dominate their enemy Laner with a very minimal lead.

His strength amongst his class comes from his overwhelmingly oppressive kit. A Q that provides more instant healing than a Soraka W, an auto-resetting slow, a grab attack that gives the champion armor penetration, and a bleed that stacks on every auto and ability. Trading in lane always ends in Darius’ favor one way or another, as his bleed and heal prevent you from regenerating and always lead to Darius getting his health back first. His ability to ignore armor with his built-in pen and true-damage ult makes building defensively against this oppressive monster a challenge, and outright pointless at some stages of the game.

Darius is, theoretically, balanced around his lack of mobility; however, clever Darius players quickly found out that taking Ghost instead of Teleport outright removes this weakness from the champion. The introduction of Stridebreaker to the game also increased Darius’ power tenfold, making him as big a threat to squishy carries as he is to tanks and other fighters.

4) The Four Horsewomen of the Topocalypse

The last entry in this list is a special one, and actually comprises four champions: Fiora, Riven, Camille, and Irelia (with Gwen as an honorary mention.)

These four champs are feared among their class for their incredible damage outputs and insane mobility, with each one being able to totally outmaneuver any other champion in the top lane. The mobility in their kits is abnormal for the class, and while they tend to be less tanky than other fighters because of it, a fed fighter in this list can shrug off damage as easily as a late-game Sion. While they tend to be a bit harder to learn than other fighters on this list, picking them up and practicing them can be a very rewarding decision.

The reason these four are included in one spot of this list is not only because they share the common traits of having high damage and a lot of mobility, but also because they have a very unique reputation. Historically, there has never been a meta in League of Legends where these four fighters have been weak at the same time. This essentially means that, historically speaking at least, having mastery over these four picks guarantees you a strong pick in any Top Lane meta. Should one be nerfed, you simply need to switch to one of the others and continue your climb.

Generally speaking, the Four Horsewomen all falter against the same thing: slow, carefully playing tanks who stack defense stats and avoid those unwinnable early fights. When playing against these champs, the best thing you can do is often to play back, wait for them to make a mistake, and capitalize on it. Without a lead in lane, these hyper carries often don’t shine through quite as bright.

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These four picks are considered by many Top Lane mains to be the best in class for Fighters, at least within the lane itself. While these champs are feeling especially strong in 2025, they all still have their own weaknesses, counter picks, and counter plays. Whether you’re looking to pick these champions up or are wary about playing against them, being aware of these weaknesses can give you a distinct advantage either way.

What do you think of these picks? Are there any champions you feel deserve a spot on this list? Let us know your picks in the comments below.