It appears the out-of-range spell cast changes debuting in today’s League of Legends Patch 10.5 are under scrutiny.
Riot implemented the quality of life adjustments to help beginners use Miss Fortune, Syndra, and Varus’ spells more effectively when out of range. But more experienced League fans believe it only benefits new players and can disrupt gameplay, discussing the matter in a Reddit post.
“Casting on time now is a lot harder when someone is out of range,” one player said. “Why should we take time to adjust to changes that don’t have any benefit for us once we are used to them? According to my point of view this is just a nerf.”
Miss Fortune and Varus’ E, as well as Syndra’s Q, were tweaked to automatically cast at max range in whichever direction you click on. When clicking the abilities out of range, the input would previously walk you into range and then cast the ability. This gave you the opportunity to cancel your cast by right-clicking in another direction.
Though this change might help inexperienced players get used to the range of their spells, it forces MF, Varus, and Syndra mains to learn a new interaction. This is especially problematic for Syndra’s Q and E stun combo.
To counteract this change, several fans suggested in the comments that there should be a toggle option for players who want the old out-of-range interactions back. A toggle option would help quell some frustrations, but it might prove difficult for developers to incorporate into the MOBA’s code.
Riot plans on following up with the changes “if needed.” So if this continues to be a point of contention, the developers will revisit it in a future patch.
Update March 4 2:20pm CT: Riot explained that a bug affecting Syndra’s Flash and Q is being fixed, likely to do with the recent out-of-range spell changes. Champion designer Nathan “Lutzburg” Lutz explained that the changes made in today’s patch are having a “positive impact on player cast success so far.”
