To Smart cast or not to Smart cast

Casting your abilities is one of the most important things in League of Legends, whether it is already a smart casting or an auto attack reset. It is really important that you are able to hit your abilities at crucial times. Smart casting could be the reason your gameplay has gotten better, or amazingly worse.

With many abilities you use, you automatically see that there is a range. The range does not change when you level the ability up. The only increased range from leveling up, which comes to mind, is the auto attack range from Tristana. The reason this is so important is because there are so many different abilities that require you to be in position to use. For example, Mordekaiser, The Master of HUEHUEHUEHUE, has his Siphon of Destruction which requires you to be in position to attack. If you smart cast this spell out of position you are forced to walk there.

Benefits of Smart Casting

When you are able to cast quicker you are able to lock down champions faster. Let us paint a scenario, say you are playing middle as Anivia. You are half way up your mid lane when a surprise Udyr flashes in and tries to Bear Stance stun you in place. All you have to do is point your cursor, throw your Flash Frost and activate it, and finish it with the Crystalize ability. Imagine the same situation with hard casting, you having to aim it at Udyr, make sure it comes out, and activate it again. It takes a lot more effort to choose your ability, aim it, and click to activate it. When really all you need to do is just press the ability and the projectile is released.

Being able to use your abilities together is important. What is even more important is using those abilities together in a manner that provides more damage or set up for other teammates. Being able to use all your abilities in a single second is what could provide you with a better position or escape. Going through your cycle of abilities really easily and effectively will put your team ahead. The best example of effective smart casting has to be the QWQEQRQWQEQ combo of Ryze. Since Ryze’s passive is the reduction of a second to each of his abilities, global cool down, Ryze could cast his Q right after casting one. Given that it may take a second but it is generally like that.

Flaws of Smart Casting

Since smart casting does not give you a chance to aim the ability after you cast it, you are running the hugerisk of completely missing your spell. That means that for the next 15 seconds, your most important spell has just been wasted. This flaw is performed best with Soraka. Since Soraka’s Astral Blessing has a cool down of about 15 seconds, casting that spell on a minion could be the worst situation with absolutely no benefits.

There are a lot of champions that have a skill shot based ability that deal a massive amount of damage but also have a huge cool down. There are a lot of champions that would really lose a lot if they use their Ultimate away from their enemy instead of towards them to actually hit.

In team fights a lot of action could be going on with not a lot of understanding of what is actually happening without the complete knowledge. That knowledge helps you aim your abilities at the right time, to the right person, or effective area. Having your smart cast on could mean you are aiming at the tank, or aiming at the wrong person. For example, what if Corki is in the fight and you need to stun him as Taric. You send your Dazzle but, to your amazement, it is traveling to the Nocturne with his Shroud of Darkness activate ready to block your Dazzle.

The benefits and flaws of hard casting are the exact opposite of the benefits and flaws of smart casting. You have better aim with your abilities with hard casting but it’s a lot slower for you to cast. You are able to cast abilities really fast with smart casting but your abilities may miss a lot more then usual. Personally, I have recently switched my casting to smart casting and it has greatly improved my game play. Though there are times where I am not in proper range to cast abilities, I am able to create better plays as Lee Sin.