K, I am generally pissed. I articulately wrote a whole essay on the subject and then my phone "ran out of resources" and died on me. Darwin Awards, truly...(note the tone. Coming from a pretty patient guy. -.-)

So...rather than spend another couple 'o hours on this, I'll make it short.

Please add a new keybind to the options menu to toggle smart-cast on/off for Q/W/E/R. It would reduce much of the hassle for the competitive players currently, who re-bind between SCast and vanilla QWER every match, to optimize for each champion. Now they would simply need to toggle it with a keypress or to. A good replacement for the mastery-page-esque profiles people were asking for (which was predictable, considring both had the same origins- if you recall, you used to have to re-spec your 1 mastery page every game, during champion-select...similarly to what people are now doing with SCast binds).

It's not unusual or harmful. In-fact, many games have redundant binds just like this for those interested. I can't see any downsides, so...

Side-Note: I don't mean to offend anyone, but this whole issue only ever happened because of lacking design.

I don't mean any flaws in design, I mean lack off, plain and simple. There are no tutorials or tooltips, nothing to even inform us of the existance and function of SCasting.
In-fact, I only found out about it myself late into my 30's...randomely...from a Youtube video.

By this point, most people'd have already developed their playing habits, and re-training yourself to use SCast at that point can be extremely hard.
That's why people are into this whole re-bind shindig. Rather than adopt their habits to SCast, they adopt SCast to work with their pre-existing playing habits.

I realize you may make the design changes to teach players about SCasting earlier and help them discover it (which, as I said- is hard). Perhaps future generations of League players will benefit greatly from learning to use SCast properly- with the Shift key. It would add an extra element of micro-play to the competitive scene.

Currently however, players who've learned to play the game without SCast who are learning to be competitive are in a pinch.
You absolutely cannot play on a desirably competitive level without SCast, and it's a pain to adjust for it if you cannot learn to use Shift.

Please throw these players a bone. I'm sure everyone would benefit as a result.

Well put, sir.

Bump for activity.

Agree on this, something as simple as right clicking a skill to toggle auto-smartcast on and off would make things so much easier.

Bumping. I don't want this to get burried just yet.

*head-desk* Bump. ^^;;

Why make it like that?

I consider it would be simpler to right click on the ability to toggle between smart cast and normal mode; with abilities set to smart cast displaying a border similar to the one you get when you toggle Ashe's Frost Arrow.

That way, at the beginning of the game, you would just right click the abilities you want to smart cast on and the others off (if they were on from the previous game)

Don't forget to include summoner spells as well, as smart casting is very, very useful with ignite and exhaust.

You don't need an essay to sell me on the value of being able to easily toggle smartcasting on your abilities. We're not actively working on it right now, but I would definitely like to see it happen.

just make it a simple key combo: Hold Ctrl + Alt + S and press Q/W/E/R
(S for Smart Cast)

Its really hard to miss press 3 keys in this fashion (much harder keep them hold) , but still comfortable enough to do it willingly.

Challenge accepted.

In the course of playing WoW I developed an unusual way to deal with the mass of key bindings. I'd use a swap action bar 1 2 macro set to Q and shifted WASD over to ESDF. So what where the results? I could get used to 1-6 for all my primary abilities and just swap back and forth! It was a great savings in keyboard real estate for someone that isn't used to involving themselves in all the keyboard at once.

In contrast SC2 has some hotkeys that get difficult to hit because they occur on the right side of the keyboard. Certainly learning SC2 helped expand me to utilizing more key space but having to hit L is still annoying.

So where does this matter in regards to LoL? Personally I had to develop a different keybind set up to deal with smartcasting vs straight casting. Straight changing WASD over to smart casting didn't seem a good idea. So I now use WASD regular cast and ZXCV smart casting! Recently I've had someone say they use similar with ASDF for smart cast keys. Personally I like DF for summoners so I couldn't get used to that custom keybind. Tried it though.

So part of my point thus far is there are people out there like myself that are unsatisfied with losing regular casting for smart casting and resort to custom keybinds. You may ask why not Shift + WASD but I feel that is unsatisfying for smart casting due to being less responsive. So why do it the way we do? I can't speak for others but can give my own reasoning.

The biggest thing is that regular casting feels better for a number of abilities and has benefits over smart casting. Generally any time you want to take your time checking range, location, and width it's more effective to take the second to look at the regular cast template. This is going to be more true as you learn a champion or try to pick back up a skill you may be rusty on.

Even when you are super used to a projectile's hit box, projectile speed, and cast animation there are times having that bar can be useful. I'm pretty used to Caitlyns Q and mostly smart cast it. However, when I'm in a brush aiming at someone that doesn't know I'm there? I take that extra time to see where they are in regards to the template to make sure their in range. Another notable use is when firing into the Fog of War I may take the time to line up my skill shot and think a bit more about where it's going vs where I think my enemy may be standing.

Also for something like dropping a Caitlyn trap. Quite frankly it's super useful to see that trap trigger radius and compare it to terrain walls to maximize effectiveness.

On the other hand smart casting is really good at getting skills out just that much faster. Continuing the example with Caitlyn. I smart cast my Rs, I often smart cast Qs, I almost always smart cast Es... It's just more effective in combat and I want the option.

How about a support like Karma? I can hit Q to aim my skill shot. I can hit Z to smart cast my skill shot. I can smart cast my shield with C. I can hit r/v and then E to check if my opponent is in range of a shield burst off a minion. I can do all these really effective things just as quickly as eachother.

How about Sion or Taric? Know the target's in range? Smart cast that stun. Trying to check the range so you can estimate if they'll escape? Regular casting let's you do that.



Now so far I've explained how I've adapted my desires around a custom key set up and why it works for me. I didn't really touch on where a smart cast toggle key would be useful! Let's end on that.

A smart cast toggle would allow a player to do what I do with one keybind change vs my Frankenstein monster. It would be easy to give up Z, Ctrl, Alt, Shift, Tab, Capslock to toggle and leave all the regular keybinds alone! Adapting to new keybindings usually involves a period of irritating and frustration as you force out old muscle memory. With a toggle you get to keep that old muscle memory and just have to build a single new one.

Thus adding such a keybind would be providing a simple solution for what is currently a fairly difficult question to answer. It'd add value for players looking for it and make them feel better about the interface as a whole when they find such an easy out. It'd also make it easier to convince players to try smart casting out because they can swap back at any time they feel uncomfortable in combat.



PS: I'll be sticking to my monster because I'm so used to it. I'd likely have adapted to a toggle if it had been available.
PPS: I'm counting this as a short essay and declaring victory.
PPPS: I missed the "don't" because I'm an idiot. Too bad you get an essay anyway.