League of Legends May Change Single-Target Spells to Draw Minion Aggro

A significatn change to the way League of Legends champions fight in lane has been proposed that would make targeted spells draw minion aggro.

"We're currently testing a change where single target click to hit spells that deal damage (e.g. Brand E or Annie Q) will draw minion agro in the same way auto attacks already do," Riot Meddler said. "Not guaranteed that change ships yet, it's still in testing, but if it does it would definitely be in a large patch (potentially 8.2 or 8.4)."

The goal behind this change is to make certain champions who are known abusers of these spells easier to balance. It would also make certain champions viable in lane because they'd be able to be rebalanced for a laning position while also making champions like Pantheon a bit less frustrating to lane against.

"Historically we've had to balance a lot of champs with click to hit spells around the assumption they'll often just be spamming that spell on the enemy until either the target dies/is driven back to base or the caster runs OOM. Pantheon's a particularly clear example of that. The result is a fairly limited play pattern, with limited options for their opponents too (suffer through it or trade back harder). We've had to do things like heavy mana gating, range nerfs, pushing champs out of lanes entirely, conversion of abilities to skillshots as a result to keep some champs in line."

This change is currently just being considered as a possibility and isn't guaranteed to make it into a patch, but if it did, it'd be in one of the larger patches that League is looking to implement with the new small patch, large patch cycle. Champions that would be nerfed by this change wouldn't be totally left without buffs to help make up for the change in their playstyle, but Meddler said that Pantheon is one exception as a champion who is "possibly excepted, given his current strength."

Other champions such as Jhin with his "Q" and those with damage over time abilities would also be affected, but the change is still very much a work-in-progress and will almost certainly be detailed further in the future.