I don't like last hit mechanics

I am a noobtard·Aug 29, 2015·6 votes·11,215 views

So there's two instances where I don't like last hitting.

Which should be obvious for the title is last hitting minions for gold. I don't like the mechanic at all. It favors some champions hugely over others. I would say very simply any hero that did damage to a minion when it dies gets a cut of the gold.

If a minion would yield 20 gold on death and 2 heroes hit it before it died, they each get 10 gold. If 3 heroes hit it before it died, they each get 7 gold (round up). I think this would make a much better balance for heroes that can't toss powers out just to finish 5 minions at once.

Now the one that probably isn't obvious for the title is last hitting heroes for a kill. I've actually hated this tactic for a long long time across many games like MMO's and FPS's. I believe the person who does the MAJORITY DAMAGE should get credit for the kill. Not just some guy who saved his power up for the last hit.

This would also alleviate people who stupidly save hard hitting powers up literally just to get credit for a kill. I've seen instances where it's a 2v1 or 3v1 situation and it's already 100% guaranteed going to be a kill just by auto attacking. But people toss out their ults just to get the credit for the kill. How stupid is this.

38 Comments

RiotMeddlerAug 29, 201523 votes

We feel last hitting's good for the game for a number of reasons, including:

It's an important expression of skill

Last hitting, when you're by yourself, is relatively straight forward. As soon as you add in enemy players however it becomes a lot more difficult. Last hitting well, while at the same time harassing the enemy when they try to last hit, watching the rest of the map, looking for opportunities to all etc can be really difficult. Shifting from a model where 'last hit = gold' to 'any hit = gold' or 'proximity = gold' removes or reduces a bunch of laning skills we believe are good for LoL.

It drives action

Last hitting in lane creates moments where at least one champion is vulnerable as they move forwards more than they otherwise would, briefly stand still when they otherwise wouldn't, use mana/CDs to farm instead of saving them or harassing etc.

It offers ways to make champions more distinct

Because last hitting's important the tools a champion has to last hit with or interact with other champions as they last hit are particularly important in lane. To look at an example a notable amount of Ezreal's distinctiveness comes from how he interacts with minions in lane. His Q is a safe, cheap tool that makes it easy to pick up some farm from a distance. On the other hand he lacks AOE wave clear apart from his ult, so he can be denied quite a bit of farm if you push him to his tower.

Electro522Aug 30, 20153 votes

Im surprised you guys take last hitting so seriously. Albeit, I never thought that someone would end up complaining about it, cause I thought it was just a mechanic of the game that everyone took for granted..........like buying items. I'll admit, it is surprising to see this detailed of a response to something so fundamental of the game, very few people ever think about it unless they have kill stolen from them.........and then they forget about it 3 seconds later.

RiotMeddlerAug 30, 20154 votes

Digging into the fundamental stuff that it's easy to take for granted can be really useful in game design. The basic actions that make up the game (movement, last hitting, leveling up, buying items, death timers etc) are the foundation that everything else gets built on. If you don't get that stuff right you could have the best designed characters possible and you still might not have a fun or interesting game. Modifying them can be risky as a result, but there are a number of problems (e.g. excessive income disparities between roles) that are sometimes better solved at that foundational level than with individual pieces of content like items.

HupsisAug 30, 20151 votes

Have you ever thought of changing the way assist gold works? Or rather the amount of gold one gets when they have a bunch of assists.

When a champion is killed, the main killer gets a certain amount of gold, while 50% of that amount is divided up among everyone who got an assist on it. If a player has 2 more assists than kills they earn 30 additional gold for their next assist. If they have 3 more, it's 45, and 4 more assists than kills reaches the bonus cap of 60 extra gold. This bonus cannot be more than the original value of the kill.

I personally think it would be great if some of the assist gold got relocated to the support itemization to balance out the support game where the fed team support is basically another AP carry or a bruiser/tank and the losing team support has to become a warding machine.

Some supports can get up to 80-90% of the teams kills as assists simply by doing very minimal things (shielding/healing/slowing etc.)

RiotMeddlerAug 30, 20155 votes

How gold from assists and bonus gold from shutting people on kill streaks down works is something we're planning to look at a bit later this year come the preseason. No firm plans yet, if time permits might look at some other income tweaks as well. Shifting gold from assists to items would definitely be a valid approach if excessive gold differences for winning versus losing supports is something we identify, not sure yet if that'll be the case though.

Jesus is SaviorAug 30, 20151 votes

{quoted}

How gold from assists and bonus gold from shutting people on kill streaks down works is something we're planning to look at a bit later this year come the preseason. No firm plans yet, if time permits might look at some other income tweaks as well. Shifting gold from assists to items would definitely be a valid approach if excessive gold differences for winning versus losing supports is something we identify, not sure yet if that'll be the case though.

Supports aren't the only ones who get assists.

As a jungle Eve main, I need my assist gold or I'm useless.

And if I'm stronger than my allies and end up taking the kills in all my ganks.... My team needs their assist gold, or THEY will be useless.

Please don't shift "support gold" using assists. Assists are not a support-exclusive mechanic.

What you COULD do, which would actually be very interesting, is add bounties to people who have assist streaks. So you can shut down that 0/0/30 Janna and actually get some gold for it. That way if you're the "losing support" and you and your ADC manage to kill that 0/0/5 Leona, you can actually turn the lane (and the game) around by making skillful plays. This would also force the winning bot lane to play more carefully, because if they were both on a streak (one kill streak and one assist streak) and got double killed and double shut down, they would pretty much completely lose their lead for being stupid about it.

HupsisAug 30, 20151 votes

OR they could just increase the money gained from Hunter's Machete as compensation.

Jesus is SaviorAug 30, 20152 votes

{quoted}

OR they could just increase the money gained from Hunter's Machete as compensation.

And then I steal all the kills, and I become broken while making my team useless.

No, they're not going to do that.

VelrexAug 31, 20153 votes

Or they could just make hunter's machete give more gold on assists, akin to a support's new possible item thing. This would, of course, punish carries for not getting the last hit, which in a way, is already in effect, just not as strongly.

SKOBODOAug 30, 20151 votes

Are you looking at Dominion values as well? Some of the numbers seem a bit wonky (base gold for a kill is 100, shutdown gold for someone going 7/0 is 400, 4x the value of a kill!).

LaceUp23Aug 30, 20151 votes

Can you also look at making Fiddles a real champion again? Thanks.

DantilqAug 30, 20151 votes

About driving the action; you still need to push the lane, to damage tower, even if you don't need to last-hit. Look at HotS. The minions still deal damage also.

A possibility to remove last hitting would be to amp up minions damage to champs(and maybe turrets?), which would mean you would be more careful when trading with minions around, which means you need to push up your wave to win, and that means you'll attack minions which also creates a moment of weakness, they would also be more dangerous to towers then.

It is an expression of skill though, and it does create more interesting match-ups at times. In the scenario of stronger minions, you would still push in on Ez, to damage tower, and he would still struggle with wave clear.

Waveclear WOULD be more valuable with stronger minions, and it is already a bit too valuable in current iteration of league, and I don't think LoL would be more interesting without last hitting, it's too far into the lifetime of the game and as it's one of the basic systems of league EVERYTHING on top of it, would have to be reworked.

tl;dr; No last hitting is an interesting concept for a moba, but not feasible to do with LoL at this point, which is too based on last hitting as a mechanic.

turkeyBACONAug 30, 20153 votes

I had a long reply but accidentally deleted it. So i'll make this question short and sweet.

You didn't explain why last hitting champions was also important. It feels counter intuitive and encourages pause of action in the midst of a fight to ensure the carry gets the last hit. Supports need to stop "supporting" and carries need to pause attacking to snipe kills essentially. It also feels like you are rewarding bad players when you allow players that fell behind to be "fed" gold by just being there at just the fringes or the very end of a fight to get last hits when their teammates did all the work/damage.

While I think dealing a killing blow should earn a bonus reward, I don't feel like it should be rewarded as much as actually dealing the most damage in the fight.

KoboldAug 30, 20151 votes

Here is an honest question. What are your thoughts on last hit thresholds that 300 heroes has?

Linna ExcelAug 30, 20152 votes

Don't you think that the bar for last hitting might be a little high during the laning phase?

Shifting from a model where 'last hit = gold' to 'any hit = gold' or 'proximity = gold' removes or reduces a bunch of laning skills we believe are good for LoL.

The only problem some people have with this is if you give up a kill or two in certain matchups, you can't farm at all. That means walking out of the laning phase 0-2-0 with 50 CS with the person you were going against is 2-0-0 with 90. You can rarely come back from that. In turn if you have a bad start, the rest of the game is an exercise in frustration as your teammates are constantly complaining about how much you suck.

So, a good skill for players to have means lots of toxicity when you get out played.

Then there's supports who riot always treats like the redheaded step child in discussions of getting gold. I really love the Sins of a Dark Age model for getting supports gold from CS. We need something like that for supports.

Champion SkinAug 31, 20151 votes

The biggest problems with last hitting is that it really drives melee vs ranged matches into the favor of ranged champions especially early game where the melee champions will lose gold/last hits or eat a lot of poke and harass Melee champions often have to go all in to have the possibility to trade with or beat ranged champions however this is often really difficult early game as minions are rather strong early game

TortferngatrSep 1, 20151 votes

I feel like last-hitting is a bit...mixed.

On one hand it makes for interesting lane dynamics, on the other hand it's a mechanical skill gate that can make it harder for new players to access teamfights, itemization decisions, etc--and one that seems somewhat "meh"/arbitrary if you're coming into the game without really knowing the point behind CSing mechanics.

It feels like if I can't play the laning minigame I sometimes but don't always like, I can't effectively participate in the teamfights I enjoy playing more.

I feel like it might be a decent idea to test out a fallback/"forgiveness mechanic" that provides players with less gold than proper CSing, but gives less experienced players more forgiveness (while giving experienced players more options when behind).

For example: hitting a minion applies a mark that, should that minion die in the next 3 seconds, provides a certain fraction of the gold one would get from a "clean" CS. The longer the minion goes without dying, the less gold is earned from the mark. (Maybe 40% gold at the start, and 10% gold at the end?)

Possible: Only the mark from the last champion to hit the minion counts for "who gets gold" purposes.

So Ezreal--especially if that Ezreal was a newbie--would still be able to get something besides soaking XP at his tower, but he probably still wouldn't be able to get nearly as much gold out of the wave as he would normally.

It's a change that would still alter the economics of laning, but less so than completely replacing CSing mechanics.

What do you think of that?

Keon KamoriAug 29, 20159 votes

TLDR Go play Smite.

The last hitting mechanic is crucial to this game's stake in the competitive genre. If gold gained from any damage dealt to a minion, me being better than my lane opponent (player to player) means nothing. The ADC role gets hit hardest by this as any champion with the slightest aoe and poke can force them out of lane, thus making them miss out of being there to damage minions and losing gold.

Also Support champions would want to share gold so they could purchase items quicker, Which further reduces the ADC's gold income. This change would disallow them to purchase their high cost items, which are necessary for them to do their job, effectively removing them from meta if not viability across all levels of play.

To your second point, this game has no Team Deathmatch Mode (TDM) and as such has never been about kills.To my earlier point about league not being TDM kills are only as important as the objective (turret, dragon, baron) a team is able to secure afterwards. This game was never about kills, it was alway about destroying the nexus.

Once again, removing the last hit mechanic from the game here would remove a class of champions all together. This time, it's assassins whose job it is to pick off low health targets. If a target gets bursted down in the heat of the fight, and they are the only one who can secure the kill, it should be theirs.

I am a noobtardAug 30, 20153 votes

[{quoted}](name=Keon Kamori,realm=NA,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=iU6U7bXV,comment-id=0000,timestamp=2015-08-29T23:10:33.384+0000)

TLDR Go play Smite.

The last hitting mechanic is crucial to this game's stake in the competitive genre. If gold gained from any damage dealt to a minion, me being better than my lane opponent (player to player) means nothing. The ADC role gets hit hardest by this as any champion with the slightest aoe and poke can force them out of lane, thus making them miss out of being there to damage minions and losing gold.

Also Support champions would want to share gold so they could purchase items quicker, Which further reduces the ADC's gold income. This change would disallow them to purchase their high cost items, which are necessary for them to do their job, effectively removing them from meta if not viability across all levels of play.

To your second point, this game has no Team Deathmatch Mode (TDM) and as such has never been about kills.To my earlier point about league not being TDM kills are only as important as the objective (turret, dragon, baron) a team is able to secure afterwards. This game was never about kills, it was alway about destroying the nexus.

Once again, removing the last hit mechanic from the game here would remove a class of champions all together. This time, it's assassins whose job it is to pick off low health targets. If a target gets bursted down in the heat of the fight, and they are the only one who can secure the kill, it should be theirs.

You are talking as if I didn't understand the consequences. I understand them just fine. I think you're over exaggerating about a class being removed.

Plus this is an idea I'm throwing out, something I dislilke about the game probably the most right now other than the fact melee are horrible OP compared to any other game in the history of gaming.

I basically have 3 main complaints:

I hate having to last hit stupid minions just to get gold. Perhaps if a minion isn't last hit by a player, it gives gold to the last player that hit it when it dies.

I don't like having to compete with my allies to get a last hit to get gold. They sit there stealing fucking gold all day and it's retarded. We're supposed to be allies not thieves.

I hate people being retards using powers just to get credits for kills when it was completely unnecessary and could have been better used saving the skill for a possible fight shortly after.

ChimeiTekinaNasuAug 30, 20151 votes

[{quoted}](name=I am a noobtard,realm=NA,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=iU6U7bXV,comment-id=00000000,timestamp=2015-08-30T00:35:14.642+0000)

You are talking as if I didn't understand the consequences. I understand them just fine. I think you're over exaggerating about a class being removed.

I basically have 3 main complaints:

I don't like having to compete with my allies to get a last hit to get gold. They sit there stealing fucking gold all day and it's retarded. We're supposed to be allies not thieves.

I hate people being retards using powers just to get credits for kills when it was completely unnecessary and could have been better used saving the skill for a possible fight shortly after.

You experience these last two complaints less later on. lol. That's only something that low levels do. I see you're level 13. So a lot of lot levels will try to take minions from you, but when you get level 30, other level 30s won't be doing those stupid stunts. At least not as much anyways.

DurzakaAug 30, 20152 votes

[{quoted}](name=I am a noobtard,realm=NA,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=iU6U7bXV,comment-id=00000000,timestamp=2015-08-30T00:35:14.642+0000)

You are talking as if I didn't understand the consequences. I understand them just fine. I think you're over exaggerating about a class being removed.

Plus this is an idea I'm throwing out, something I dislilke about the game probably the most right now other than the fact melee are horrible OP compared to any other game in the history of gaming.

I basically have 3 main complaints:

I hate having to last hit stupid minions just to get gold. Perhaps if a minion isn't last hit by a player, it gives gold to the last player that hit it when it dies.

I don't like having to compete with my allies to get a last hit to get gold. They sit there stealing fucking gold all day and it's retarded. We're supposed to be allies not thieves.

I hate people being retards using powers just to get credits for kills when it was completely unnecessary and could have been better used saving the skill for a possible fight shortly after.

You are literally describing how Smite works.

if you want to keep the gold generation and item buying, go fucking playing Smite.

If you dont want to bother with gold, go play Heroes.

Last hitting is never going anywhere.

BluePolarizerAug 29, 20155 votes

This is usually a low level problem. It all stems from not playing optimally. When you get to a higher level, KSing is not a problem because people realize how to snowball off a single kill no matter who gets it.

Top example: support gets a kill on enemy support. Seems like its not worth right? Wrong. Now you have vision advantage because your support can buy an early pink or early sightstone, denying vision to a critical region on the map (dragon and tribush) so that your jungler or mid can come gank and snowball bot even further. In addition bot lane is now 2v1 and you can zone the enemy ADC.

exe3Aug 30, 20154 votes

Love it or hate it, for better or for worse last hitting is an integral part of the game and should not be changed given how much of the game revolves around it. I think you'd be better off picking up HotS which has no last hitting allowing it to focus much more on action, pushing and objectives.

Akali is SO HOTAug 30, 20152 votes

Wow op actually baited a Rioter with this post nice job dude.

Troy242621Aug 30, 20151 votes

If you don't like last hitting, you probably won't like League. You can Jungle/Support but even then being able to last hit is just a skill you should have.

Angry MonsterAug 30, 20151 votes

This moba is not for for you if you have a problem with a core mechanic like this. Smite or hots might be a better moba for you over all.

MaximumOgredriveAug 30, 20151 votes

Heroes of the Storm has no last hitting. Try that game

MaikalAug 30, 20151 votes

Your thread should be changed to: "I don't like people kill stealing, stealing cs, or missing cs just because of my crappy auto attack animation/mistiming it rather than actually being denied it." No one likes any of those things. But we have to deal with it for game health.

ChimeiTekinaNasuAug 30, 20151 votes

[{quoted}](name=I am a noobtard,realm=NA,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=iU6U7bXV,comment-id=,timestamp=2015-08-29T22:37:01.145+0000)

I would say very simply any "hero" that

If 3 "heroes" hit it before. I think this would make a much better balance for "heroes" that

lol. "Heroes" though. DotA OP.

Aych PiiAug 30, 20151 votes

Smite has Gods. DotA has Heroes.

ChimeiTekinaNasuAug 30, 20151 votes

Thanks. Edited it. I thought Smite had Gods but was forgetting what it was that had Heroes in it. lol.

I remember when someone was referring to Kailsta as a "toon". Too much World of Warcrack. lol

DecritAug 30, 20151 votes

Let' s reroll a PG then?

Aych PiiAug 30, 20151 votes

Hahaha, I love it.

DecritAug 30, 20151 votes

In honesty i don' t like last hitting itself that much too, but mostly from a design point of view: it feels awkward and inelegant.

But the advantages of such system are really really too much to forsake, and so far i don' t have met another system that expresses so fully the skill, the interaction and the reward of last hitting with enough satisfaction.

Icestar1186Aug 30, 20151 votes

You have two options.

1: Go play something else. If you hate the mechanic that much, don't play the game. What you are suggesting is a drastic change and would remove a core mechanic of the game. It's not going to happen.

2: Get better at last-hitting. If you're good at it, it isn't that annoying. Plus, you will then reach a skill level where people are less likely to try any stupid kill-stealing stunts.

UltraSceptileAug 30, 20151 votes

Go play Heroes of the Storm or some other piss easy MOBA that requires zero thought process then.

yellowbricksAug 31, 20151 votes

Whoever made a PvP game then forgot what they were doing and made it 75 percent pve did a good job making a stagnent boring framework for generations of copy cats to come.

SNSD TiffanyxSep 1, 20151 votes

[{quoted}](name=I am a noobtard,realm=NA,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=iU6U7bXV,comment-id=,timestamp=2015-08-29T22:37:01.145+0000)

So there's two instances where I don't like last hitting.

Which should be obvious for the title is last hitting minions for gold. I don't like the mechanic at all. It favors some champions hugely over others. I would say very simply any hero that did damage to a minion when it dies gets a cut of the gold.

If a minion would yield 20 gold on death and 2 heroes hit it before it died, they each get 10 gold. If 3 heroes hit it before it died, they each get 7 gold (round up). I think this would make a much better balance for heroes that can't toss powers out just to finish 5 minions at once.

Now the one that probably isn't obvious for the title is last hitting heroes for a kill. I've actually hated this tactic for a long long time across many games like MMO's and FPS's. I believe the person who does the MAJORITY DAMAGE should get credit for the kill. Not just some guy who saved his power up for the last hit.

This would also alleviate people who stupidly save hard hitting powers up literally just to get credit for a kill. I've seen instances where it's a 2v1 or 3v1 situation and it's already 100% guaranteed going to be a kill just by auto attacking. But people toss out their ults just to get the credit for the kill. How stupid is this.

I actually think this is one of the CORE reasons why I got bored of heros of the storm after about a month of playing - it simply doesn't have enough things to keep me interested. You go into the game, not having to worry about gold/exp[last hit] and all you have to worry about is trading/fighting with the enemy heros or shoving waves to towers as fast as you can, repeat that for the start of every game, the game gets dull, very, very fast.

Whereas last hitting in lane makes it very interesting and fun, because there are a ton of things you can do during the lane phase to get an edge on your lane opponent, some people ignore the cs and just all ins you level 2/3 to kill you repeatedly, others let you push in the wave a bit, freeze it near tower and safely last hit.........I think you just gotta get good with last hit, since games like heros of the storm that takes out alot of the mechanics commonly found in league/dota becomes very boring very fast