The announcement sparked significant discussion on Tuesday evening when the
Patch 26.13 Notes were revealed.
Riot Games initially stated that
Last Hit Indicators would be introduced to both Normal Draft and Ranked games. However, just a few hours later, following widespread negative feedback from players, the developer reversed course and decided not to implement the feature in Ranked play.
The feature has already been available for several weeks in Swiftplay and Co-op vs. AI modes. Its purpose is to help newer players develop one of the game's most fundamental mechanics: farming. In an effort to ease the transition of these players into
League of Legends’ most popular game modes, Riot Games intended to expand the feature's availability. However, many players argued that it had no place in the competitive environment of Ranked.
An Advantage Even at High Elo?
In the patch notes, Riot Games justified the change by arguing that the feature does not diminish the importance of other laning skills. “We think it's better to focus on skill expression in other parts of the game—rather than understanding exactly when you can last-hit a minion—and are also pretty confident that these don't degrade skill expression in lane. You still need to be mindful of positioning, harassing your opponent, considering where both junglers are, understanding power spikes, and more.”
While some experienced and high-Elo players viewed the feature as more of a distraction than a genuine advantage, others argued that introducing it to Ranked would remove too significant a portion of the game's skill expression. Streamer
Dragdar, for example, wrote on X: “
This change is absolutely absurd. Last hitting minions is quite literally League of Legends. (As a laner).”
Karmine Corp Blue Stars toplaner and EUW Challenger player
echoed that sentiment
on his own X account, emphasizing that “
even challenger people miss A LOT of CS (easily 10–15 minimum). There is legit 0 reason to not activate it every time and handicap yourself.”
In response to the volume of criticism, Riot Games issued a follow-up statement just a few hours later, explaining: “We want to get more data and feedback to decide if we should make them an option for Ranked before making that call.” As a result, the feature will be available on Summoner’s Rift across all game modes except Ranked.
