is riot trying to remove point and click damage abilities

Rustling Bush·Apr 10, 2015·3 votes·807 views

i certainly don't have a problem with this but i've notice that after ryzes and vegiars reworks, they're main point and click abilities were pretty much converted into skill shots. thoughts?

4 Comments

67chromeApr 10, 20153 votes

is riot trying to remove point and click damage abilities

I'm not sure about "remove", but certainly lessen.

auto-attacks are point-click damage, and there are a lot of point-click damage abilities that would be difficult to see implemented as skillshots (especially on melee champions). There are also point-click abilities that, for most purposes, are essentially skillshots themselves. Vayne's Condemn is a pretty solid example here.

So - really depends on the skill in question.

Teridax68Apr 10, 20153 votes

I think Riot's mainly trying to remove overly reliable, low-interaction gameplay in lane, which is often due to point-and-click nukes. Even then, Tristana kept her point-and-click E, and Ryze still has a point-and-click root and E. The issue with stuff like a point-and-click Overload, or a point-and-click Time Bomb on Zilean , is that in the laning phase it pretty much translates to a guaranteed X damage per second against your opponent until one of you leaves lane. It's not particularly interesting for anyone involved, and prevents those nukes from being too powerful, since you can use them to full effect every time it comes off cooldown.

With that said, I think Riot's also working on making point-and-click abilities more interesting. Trist's new Explosive Charge is a point-and-click nuke, but one with a ton of interesting gameplay, interaction and unreliability, and even Ryze's new Spell Flux has a distinct flavor as an anti-crowd tool (your opponent can run out of minion waves to take a lot less damage, and you can also use this ability to force your enemy into the open for an Overload blast). Skillshots are definitely the easiest way of making an ability more variable, but I think Riot's also becoming more comfortable with point-and-click effects at the same time. Hopefully we'll be seeing more interesting point-and-click effects in the future alongside non-targeted abilities.

qetzelApr 11, 20152 votes

This is a good analysis.

I would add to that "When people claim that Riot is removing all point and click skills they forget what Riot has kept. Recently kept point and click skills include Cassiopeia's E, Ryze's W, Ryze's E, Maokai's W, Tristana's E, Kassadin's Q (several times) and Viktor's Q. While point and click abilities are being removed there is nothing to suggest that Riot has a quest to remove them all."