What Has Unit Collision Ever Done For Us?

Joke title aside, I think there needs to be a discussion on unit collision, and the impact it has on the game. To clarify, unit collision is the inability to occupy the same space as another unit (you can't move through them), which applies to all units (minions, monsters and champions, both allied and enemy).

While not a particularly high-profile effect, I feel it's deceptively impactful, not just in edge cases but also in common laning scenarios (melee vs ranged, for example). It also looks like a flawed mechanic, for the following reasons:

• It creates situations where you're fighting the game itself: Everyone's had a "minion block OP" moment: you're chipping away at the enemy tower, or moving towards your side of the lane, or just trying to get somewhere, and suddenly, while in only a mildly risky situation, your champion's pathing conspires with the minion wave to prevent you from getting to where you want to go. While mostly just annoying, this can ruin otherwise well-calculated moves, and creates situations where the victim ends up confused more than anything else. Pathing and minion movement aren't always fully predictable, and often there's no visible way to tell when a minion wave is actually forming an impassible wall, so this isn't a mechanic that can be mastered. It's also one that doesn't hinge on interplay between you and your opponent, and in the worst case detracts from it by throwing trades based on random minion block.

• It skews melee vs. ranged laning in favor of ranged champions: One of the big problems with melee vs. ranged both in and out of laning is that most outcomes hinge on how long the ranged champion can outrange the melee champion before they get hit, if they get hit at all. This is exacerbated during laning, where ranged champions inherently get an initial trading advantage by dint of poking their opponent while behind their own minions. While a range advantage in itself isn't unhealthy to laning (melee champions tend to be more mobile and durable), melee champions have their options reduced by the simple fact that, to trade, they have to go through the entire minion wave over to their opponent, and back again. In this situation, unit collision means that melee champions have very limited natural mobility when trying to harass their opponent through a minion wave, and are more often than not dependent on a gapcloser to trade. Even in melee vs. melee, trying to maneuver towards the enemy laner can be difficult due to unit collision. Effectively, unit collision slows down laning by discouraging autoattack-based trades for melee champions, and innately grants ranged champions an advantage.

• Champion abilities treat unit collision as an inconvenience: Alongside champion passives like those on , and , several champions get to temporarily ignore unit collision purely for QoL reasons ( 's blobs and 's axes in the jungle, for example). Immunity to unit collision is also frequently attached to champion mobility ( 's Bear Stance, 's Dark Frenzy, 's Lightning Rush, etc.), to the point where it feels more like a mechanically convenient default, rather than an exciting bonus. Effectively, it's just more mobility on top of mobility, but it also points out that unit collision mostly just hinders proper movement, and that being able to ignore it allows for more reliable movement.

TL;DR: What it boils down to is: what does unit collision do for the game? What is its intended impact on gameplay? What would a League without unit collision be like? The above arguments are all fairly one-sided, so hopefully with the input of more users and maybe even a Rioter, we can get a more balanced and informative discussion going.