Why does Alpha Strike no longer give invincibility?

Yenn·Feb 10, 2016·1 votes·449 views

Topic. It's pretty obviously not doing anything right now.

7 Comments

IcyPepperFeb 10, 20161 votes

What?

It makes you briefly untargetable.

Sightless66Feb 10, 20161 votes

It's horribly bugged right now. The untargetability is extremely unreliable, and you can still get hit by targeted or AoE spells under many conditions. I've been stunned out of alpha stike by Syndra, Sejuani, Malphite ult, etc. Oftentimes, you're not untargetable, just kind of invisible, but you can still get hit.

It happens a lot to Cowsep. Always makes him lose his goddamn mind, which is just great.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=epB0C2Wez6I&feature=youtu.be&t=1m27s

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LimM9a2ajE4

Gotta love a champion with no DoT getting a kill on you while you're alpha striking.

It also has a bug making the alpha strike sometimes fail if the target leaves your vision range after you've already gone untargetable, and there used to be (and may still be) a bug making meditate uncastable. Different issues, but still funny.

67chromeFeb 10, 20161 votes

LoL, those are amusing.

Most of those are probably due to something I noticed with playing a lot of Fiora in Dominion and a mechanic that's really prevalent in fighting games though:

Start-up frames. Active frames. Recovery frames.

Start-up frames are the time after you press a button to perform an action where you're character starts playing there animation but isn't actually -doing- anything yet. Such as Ashe taking an arrow out of her quiver and notching it in her bow while drawing the bow-string back.

Active frames in LoL are usually just 1 single frame where the damage of a melee attack/ability is delivered or the projectile from a ranged attack/ability is set loose: though with skills like Alpha Strike, Blade Waltz, or channeled abilities you'll actually have a decent amount of active frames. With the Ashe example: this would be the moment she releases the arrow.

Recovery frames are the animation that plays after the business-end happens, and canceling these frames is pretty crucial to orb-walking or kiting with ranged champions. With the Ashe example, this would be Ashe holding her bow while the bow-string gets pulled taught and she readies her now empty right-hand.

What appeared to happen in several of those was Cowsep's Yi was caught during the start-up frames of Alpha strike in that vulnerable point where you can die with the dissatisfaction you spent mana, incurred a cooldown, and your ability did literally nothing. Riot has actually buffed a wide range of champions to have their CD refunded if this happens to their ultimate, and from personal experience playing a lot of Dominion where the action is pretty nonstop and this happens fairly often: it always feels pretty terrible to be playing a champion where you ult, get killed during the start-up frames of casting your ultimate, and then get stuck with a massive CD. While it isn't a bug: it certainly feels like you're dealing with one.

Dying in Kindered's ultimate seemed like complete BS and a legitimate bug though.

Sightless66Feb 11, 20161 votes

While it isn't a bug: it certainly feels like you're dealing with one.

Well, it actually is a bug, because it's only recently that it started working this way. In the past, you had way more actual untargetability frames. The loss of those untargetability frames is a bug. That's also why you saw Cowsep complaining about the Q not jumping him to people when he used it on people who were leaving his vision. In the past, the Q would have activated by the point they left his vision range, so he would have still jumped to them.

Do not underestimate the bugginess of the Yi Q right now.

67chromeFeb 10, 20161 votes

Alpha never gave invincibility at any point in LoL's history.

It always and still does grant untargetability, which is a different mechanic. Namely, untargetability still allows a target to take damage-over-time from any effect that targeted them when they were targetable and places a debuff on them. Mainly this is relevant for damage-over-time effects: summoner 14 Teemo Darius Cassiopeia Mordekaiser Singed Untargetability also doesn't break tethers, so fun times trying to escape that Fiddlestick's Drain damage. Because you won't. Not by using an unsuitability skill.

While it's no longer relvant now that Fiora got reworked as she was the only champion that 'auto-attacked' while untargetable, untargetability also didn't prevent when-hit damage from Annie item 3075 .

Untargetability =/= Invulnerability. Those are 2 different mechanics.

Poptart EvelynnFeb 10, 20161 votes

A lot of these people posting here are unaware of Yi q being buggy atm and are just assuming people are dying to dot's but that's not the case. It's actually bugged atm.

Alpha strike is currently not dodging things like Riven Ultimate, Liss W, and etc.(It sometimes dodges and sometimes doesn't)

YennFeb 10, 20161 votes

Alpha Strike doesn't seem to ever dodge AoE. Earlier, I died to Liss's Q in the middle of a full duration alpha strike on a spread out minion wave.