Riot Games has announced a delay in the planned rollout of 'last hit indicators' for League of Legends' normal draft and ranked play modes. The feature, designed to assist newer players in mastering the crucial "last hitting" mechanic, will remain available in casual modes while Riot gathers more data and community feedback.
Last hitting, the practice of timing attacks to defeat enemy creeps just as they are about to die, is a fundamental skill in League of Legends that rewards players with gold and experience. The "last hit indicators" were intended to simplify this by visually displaying the damage threshold required for a player's auto-attack to secure a kill on a creep. This tool had been tested in casual modes for several months before the decision was made to potentially expand its availability.
The proposed inclusion in ranked play sparked a divided reaction among the player base. Some players voiced support, seeing the feature as a way to lower the barrier to entry for newcomers without fundamentally altering the game's core mechanics. Others expressed concern that such an assist would dilute the skill ceiling of ranked play, arguing that last hitting is a key differentiator for experienced players.
In response to this community dialogue, Riot Games stated on X that they would be "pumping the brakes" on the feature's implementation in ranked modes. The company plans to keep the indicators enabled but set to "off by default" in Swiftplay, Co-op vs AI, and Normal Draft. This approach will allow Riot to collect necessary data and iterate on the feature before making a final decision on its inclusion in ranked play, indicating that its presence there is no longer a certainty.