Triggering 
and any other melee-speccific interactions.
They use special animations for their auto attacks in close range, looking identical to any melee champion's autos. These should count as melee.
DerMangoJoghurt1 votesI don't think that's an unpopular opinion, it makes a lot of sense. But I don't think it's something that can be easily done and since Rakan usually doesn't take 
and Thresh has his E passive it's unlikely they will actually spend the resources to implement that.
kattzkitti1 votesI remember once, long ago, that a Rioter actually commented about this in a thread where someone brought up your same logic about the melee range attack using a different animation. They essentially said that while it's true that the game registers the variable range, the flag that makes a champion melee or ranged (for the purposes of items and such) is something that can't change on the fly like an animation can.
That being said, with these backend engine-level rebuilds they're doing (like the audio system rebuild this patch), it's possible that they might actually be able to do this for these few champions down the line.
Nahui1 votesThey made Rakan slightly ranged on purpose so he couldn’t build relic easily because they didn’t want him giving Xayah more sustain than he already does. It’d make their synergy way too strong, plus the overlapping shields on him would also be ridiculous.
I don’t agree with it and would love if those two could build them, but the more you know.
