League of Legends: A Game of Hitboxes, Skillshots, and Dodging

Ever wondered: “HOW DID THAT SKILLSHOT HIT ME?!” as Blitzcrank’s rocketgrab pulls you to your death and a gray monochrome screen? No, it isn’t a visual bug, although admittedly Riot could do a better job of making some skills look more “clean.” Rather, let’s learn about hitboxes and skillshots (including how to dodge them) while taking a look at some stranger abilities hitbox-wise.

Hitboxes: How do they work?!

The first thing that we, players of League of Legends, have to keep in mind is that League of Legends is a computer game. Therefore, the people at Riot had to design and program everything that happens within the game, including champions and skillshot interactions. A champion’s hitbox is not only what you can see of it on your screen: the model’s hitbox (from which skills can hit them) actually extends a little bit around the champion. This is especially apparent if you take a look at champions and their shadows.

The actual hitbox of many champions actually includes parts of their shadow, and some skillshot projectiles also have a hitbox that’s bigger than it seems because (most) skillshot projectiles have shadows too!

 

 Reworked Nidalee Spears: Programmed the same, though not as bad as before

Take a look at this gif of (updated/reworked) Nidalee’s spear:

(GIF courtesy of EPride EUW here)

Here, it looks like Nidalee’s spear should have missed if we strictly looked at character models, as the Aatrox’s back moves in the process of its attack animation, and seemingly avoids touching the spear. However, with our information now about hitboxes and shadows, we know that Aatrox’s hitbox includes his shadow and thus, the Nidalee spear hits Aatrox by hitting his shadow! Extra props for the spear very narrowly avoiding the minion near Aatrox as well.

Coincidentally, Nidalee, before her rework, used to be blamed the most for “unclean spear hits” because the width of her spear was much wider and the resulting hitbox included the shadow of that wider spear! Although Riot may have reworked Nidalee and her spear width, the fact that the game has hitboxes which include shadows will probably never change as long as they use their current system (gameplay having no real z-axis (or 3rd/3D axis), for those of you more mathematically inclined).

 How might someone use this knowledge to help their gameplay? Well, when aiming skillshots, aim not only at the character model, but, more precisely, aim towards the character model’s feet because that’s generally where parts of the shadow are included in a champion’s hitbox. This becomes essential when dealing with champions that have strange character models like Vel'Koz — besides floating, his outer tentacles swaying aren't actually part of his hitbox!

 

Blitzcrank's RocketGrab (Q) and its hitbox

Many people know Madlife as the “God of Hooks.” There are many reasons why Madlife is god but here is one particularly impressive Blitzcrank rocketgrab in an OGN semi-final game in the Winter 2012-2013 season (slowed down to .25 speed).

(GIF courtesy of TVOngamenet here)

It might be hard to tell, and it seems as though Caitlyn walked into it, but the grab actually hits Caitlyn’s shadow and not her actual character model. Here's an additional screenshot to show what I mean.

The rocketgrab looks like it already went past Caitlyn but the grab’s hitbox is actually a little bigger than just the glove (includes part of the shadow) and Caitlyn’s hitbox is a little bigger than just her feet (includes part of the shadow around her).

Actually, if you have the time, just watch that entire OGN video, which is dedicated to Madlife’s best grabs in that series. Many of those grabs are grabs which connect through shadows: Blitzcrank’s rocketgrab/the glove’s shadow connecting with an enemy champion/enemy champion’s shadow.

This is why one of Riot’s tips for Blitzcrank is that he is right-handed. The glove’s shadow, as well as the shadow of minions and champions, makes it so that it’s easier and possible to grab an enemy very close to a minion if it’s just to the left of the rocketgrab because of how shadows and Blitzcrank’s grab works. This is just one of the more visually odd abilities that work this way.

 

Other visually odd abilities

There are a couple more visually strange ability hitboxes, notably Morgana’s snare and Leblanc’s chains. Anyone who has played against them might end up having come across one of these situations.

 (GIF courtesy of Shaclone here)

(GIF courtesy of Neonknight8 here)

I would like to say that these are the result of the hitbox/shadows of either the enemy champion or mentioned skills, but I actually can’t guarantee that 100%. Just know that when playing against these champions with visually stranger ability hitboxes to dodge farther away than usual.

Finally, that’s great and all if you want to aim skillshots, but what about dodging them? Knowing shadows might help a bit here, but generally, it’s not that reliable and doesn’t help as much in dodging compared to aiming (this isn’t Touhou after all, where you get extra pointing for grazing/edging projectiles). Here are thus two far more reliable tips for dodging skillshots.

 

Tips for dodging skillshots

#1 — Prediction: in some cases, you can tell what a champion wants to do based on its reaction e.g. moving closer to a wall when cornered against multiple enemies usually means a Flash over the wall. Especially in higher elo, players generally know the cooldown of most champion abilities and can thus be more prepared to dodge to the left or right the instant the ability comes off cooldown and is fired their way.

#2 – More clicking closer to your champion when wanting to move: when dodging it’s far easier to dodge if you click very quickly and closer to your champion as opposed to far away from your champion. It’s partly mathematical: it’s faster to rotate/move your mouse if you click closer to your champion as opposed to farther away. This allows for very fast juking to the right or left whenever the situation calls for it.

Hopefully by reading this information about hitboxes, shadows, where to aim and how to better dodge, summoners can improve their League of Legends game further than before. Good luck and have fun!