As announced previously, Riot Games has gone forward with its plan to put an end to the lane-swapping epidemic that has been spreading through casual and professional League like wildfire. After initially implementing the system, the company went ahead and expanded it with even more ridiculous mechanics.
One of those is that turrets are now able to one-shot champions that trigger the lane-swapping detection system. Just a single hit and you’re gone, which is up from about two or three shots prior to these latest additions. Previously, only minions would get one-shot by turrets, with gold and XP they yield given to the nearest player without them having to actually land a hit of their own. There is also a very clear indicator that you are, in fact, partaking in lane swapping, and you’ll receive continuous messages notifying you to leave the lane immediately and avoid the wrath of Riot’s latest update. This all comes after Riot first introduced its anti-lane swapping system, aiming to stop massive ganks on top and mid in the early game, as well as to prevent controversial maneuvers where bot lane duos would go top as soon as the match starts to avoid a bad match-up.
The radius of this new system is gigantic, especially for the top lane, and if any champion other than the jungler trespasses through it, the system will trigger. This means that a trolling support can easily walk up to top before minute 3:30 and apply a huge debuff on their own top laner, causing them to gain less XP and gold from minions and be completely blocked from approaching the tower for a massive 25 seconds, which is how long the debuff lingers after the violation ends. Of course, the debuff would also apply to the trespasser, but why would they even care if their aim was to disrupt the match, which has honestly never been easier to do.
“Running it down” as a support or ADC who got mad at their team for whatever reason or is just trying to mess things up has also never been easier, as you can go top and be insta-killed by the turret every single time until the fourth minute of the game. By that time, you could’ve died almost a dozen times and the enemy champion would be rewarded with tons of gold and XP, while your top laner has no chance to break through the massive 95-percent damage reduction the enemy turret gets as part of this system. The enemy champion itself gains a 50-percent damage reduction buff, making them nigh-indestructible while the system is active.
The system is currently live on the PBE, with its full implementation into live League of Legends to take place as part of upcoming patches.
Published: Feb 25, 2025 8:14 PM UTC