[Discussion] What are everyone's thoughts on point to click abilities?

Point and click abilities are extremely necessary. Have you ever heard of a moba by the name of Bloodline Champions? No? There's a reason for that. It sucked. That game's core philosophy was that skillshots are the epitome of coolness and that only by forcing every ability in the game to be a skillshot could their game truly benefit skilled players. And they fell flat because that idea is horse manure.

Mobas are strategy games first and foremost. They require knowledge, planning, judgment, decision making, and reward things like timing, positioning and synergy. Skill comes in more than one flavor. Even people like Vladimir and Garen who are Garen-teed to hit their abilities if they're in range can have huge disparities in how well they are played, because games like this are not (and should never be) decided just on good aim. Some people value consistency over potential, and that's often balanced out by making their abilities less impactful or suffer great weaknesses.

Just because an ability can't miss doesn't mean that player gets success handed to them on a silver platter. Knowing when and how to use said abilities, managing to perform them without dying, judging ideal uses for them, etcetera are skills in their own right, and no one here or anywhere else should ever claim that the struggle to use those reliable abilities to their fullest and climb the ladder with them is easy or obvious. The best players in the world often misjudge, wrongly position, time incorrectly and all make all manner of goof-ups even with abilities that can't miss. The counterplay for those abilities is still there, it just doesn't come in the form of dodging (unless we're talking about handling footwork, in which case you'd be surprised how important positioning is even for things like that) but rather in the form of planning and executing.

I will only ever give two thumbs way, way up to point and click abilities. Let Veigar have his semi-guaranteed execute ultimate, because if he got to the point where he can do that despite how horrendous his early game is, how weak he is against mobility and burst (IE: The only things you see in the game nowadays) and how fast games end, well you're darn right I believe he earned it. Remember: Just because his ult is guaranteed doesn't mean its strength is or his ability to survive moving in to cast it is. He had to perform very well under volatile circumstances all game to earn that consistency. His late game is easy street because he paid all his dues upfront.

For some champions they are necessary like because he already loses a lot by misssing his q, but champions like and should not have point and click abilities

Point and click abilities are necessary to deal with high mobility champions. his w is a point and click root. It's needed to deal with champs like ect. Without it, he cannot engage. make sense to some degree, her point and click ult is her only engage. Remove it and you have to move power elsewhere in her kit. The only place to put it would be her passive or her e. No thanks, they're strong enough.

Other champs like and have no need for a point and click ult. They have enough utility to set up an easier skill shot.

Keep in mind, every AA champ is point and click too.

They're the most effective way to start dealing with

Some more than others, obviously.

I think we need more of them, not less, and they should be on immobile, usually less tanky champions( would be a good example here). give them something to help fight back against the mobile ones, because mobility doesn't seem to detract from max damage allowed anymore.

I think their fine as long as its not suppression. AKA Malzahar or Lissandra. Suppression is too strong to be on un misseable abilities like these. It should be a reward like on Warwick's Ultimate

They're just as good/bad for the game as skillshots are. they're also alot more fair when it comes to melee/ranged difference.

They make certain abilities usefull in multiple situations but are often slightly weaker than if they had been skillshots. (atleast that's how i think it goes)

Let's take Vorpal blade as an example (shen's Q, you might be thinking that's not correct but the shen ingame isn't shen.) He could throw it on a minion for some sustain while farming or at a player as poke, kite, all in, etc. If it had been a skillshot he'd either not be able to use it on minions or it won't be able to pass through minions.

IT also didn't matter wether it was teemo or Jax who was facing you, neither of them can dodge it. Jinx' Zap for example can be dodged more easily by a ranged than a melee, or thresh with his 360 degree hitbox melee range hook.

There's ofcourse some bad examples (imo) like Syndra who can litterally press R and 100- 0 someone or veigar who's already oneshotting you but needs a 1.5k clickon for good measure.

Pretty balanced i guess. Sometime are a low damage but high cc like annie or ryze or lissandra or high damage with low or totally no utility like veigar or syndra. Pro part: they're good vs high mobility champ, they're a guranted shot (if the enemy doesn't have an ability that block damage). Bad part: They cannot be cast through fog of war, sometime the champ that got this ability has no dash skill like annie or cassiopeia or no form of cc like zed or akali or sometime they got both of them but their damage is really low like Seju E Nautilus R or maokai W. There is just some issue from some spell that deal high damage but it's only if you buy on hit damage like trinity or lichbane (Eg Gankplank Q, Ekko E, Irelia Q.....) I think a point and click ability are pretty balanced since their damage is lower than a skillshot ability (Eg morgana Q deal more damage than a annie Q since it's a skillshot and has more CC).

Straightforwaed point-and-click nukes or disables are rarely healthy fun for the user or target. They’re why certain champions cannot be allowed to be good:

Point and click silence and fear Point and click stun Point and click nuke or disables Point and click execute

Riot fortunately made them trigger minion aggro, but even still, they cause frustration, as when Pantheon or Gangplank enjoy ranged poke and melee base stats.

We can and should do better.

There's a time and a place for them, imo. They're definitely not the boogeyman that Riot considered them to be for quite some time, but at the end of the day, an ability being point-and-click just means its mode of application is reliable, which means that if there's not enough interactivity or unreliability elsewhere, it's going to not be as healthy. Trist's E can afford to be point-and-click, for example, because the gameplay isn't about aiming, so much as committing to a particular target afterwards with autoattacks. By contrast, her old point-and-click DoT E wasn't healthy, because you just pressed one button to reliably deal your full damage to someone from a pretty generous range. Similarly, Ryze's Spell Flux is fine as a point-and-click effect, because it's mostly just a setup to his other abilities, whereas Rune Prison's instant, point-and-click root feels much worse on the receiving end, due to how easily it can shut some champions down against him. I think we could do with more point-and-click abilities overall, tbh, because those kinds of effects tend to encourage different types of gameplay besides just skillshots, gameplay we don't often get to see compared to the latter.

On that note, I also think skillshots themselves aren't quite the holy grail of good gameplay they've been made out to be in the past. In a scenario with two champions throwing skillshots at each other from range, they're fine, because either side has the sufficient distance, and thereby sufficient telegraphing, to have a fair chance at dodging. When a champion engages at close range, however, that warning time reduces itself severely, and often the champion on the receiving end of the skillshot then ends up being affected disproportionately by abilities that have much less counterplay for them. This is especially bad at melee range, where the number of massive skillshot nukes or CC is so large that most melee champions in League need some insane bullshit in their kits just to be able to deal with it. As with point-and-click abilities, there's a time and a place for skillshots, and I feel Riot's overuse of the mechanic in the past has in part contributed to the general problems we're dealing with now.

They would be fine if everybody had zhonas and riposte but that’d be weird. So point and click has gotta go. Especially viegar r.

NECESSARY.

I mean Leona, Thresh and Lux I guess~. I play support so I've even played the dreaded Lulu.

I'll admit, Leona's pretty easy, but she's the best thing to have on your team vs a Yi or a Kat. Although it's AA ranged her Q stun is NOT a skillshot, it -is- a point and click. It's that kind of thing, Lulu's polymorph included, that are the most reliable counter for fast-moving or blinking targets providing immediate, teamwide threat. The chain CC champs like Leona (or maokai, or Nautilus) can lay down after their non-skillshots is vital- if you want the champions they counter to exist in the meta, their CC has to exist.

Thresh and Lux, can (if skilled) still have immense issues with Yi, Kat, Yas, Irelia... I mean I'm good at both (for a low elo player), but if I miss my Q on Yi the game's over and guess who's getting flamed (and it's pretty easy to hit on a MS boosted, slow resistant character that can disapear if they get too close). But skill-shot heavy champions have their upside. A Lux that hits everything can and will 1v5 kill your team. (A Thresh is not so blessed)

And an additional thing to remember--- I've had long, intense games on Thresh and Lux, and I have ended the game completely fatigued. I do appreciate being able to continue playing with, Sona for example, after those games.

Necessary evil to deal with all the bs movespeed/dashes champs have now a days.

If it's cc it can still be outplayed by just getting or waiting for that player to blow it on someone else on the team before going in.

If it's something like / ult then the only counterplay is sadly cause other options to block that can be easily dealt with.

there slowly getting removed, but otherwise, the ranged ones are uninteractive while the melee ranged ones tend to have a lot of power behind them at the cost that you have to be standing on top of the person in order to activate it, (unless your garen, you all know what i mean)

I think they are a necessary evil, especially due to the gradually increasing number of champions that dash and blink around like crazy. I'm looking at you Zed, Yasuo, and Irelia.

The main issue is if they are point and click they need to be either on a long cool down or not have damage attached to them, like Fiddlesticks Q or Rammus E. And if they are either of these, they need to last long enough to be worth using and taking into consideration.

I feel they are needed because theres champs like but I feel there needs to be some out play to it not like root that shit is point and click ranged and instant

I think that certain point and click abilities are necessary in the game to help keep mobility creep in check.