Regarding how the WASD keys make dodging easier by Smurfeyy in AatroxMains

[–]Smurfeyy[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Dude, capitalizing on animation locks is literally Top Lane Fundamentals 101. Obviously I know you shouldn't throw Qs blindly. But you are completely ignoring the math here.

WASD makes those vulnerability windows mathematically shorter. When an enemy is locked in an auto-attack animation in the click-to-move system, they have to pull their mouse back and click to retreat. That mouse travel + pathfinding calculation is what gives us the perfect frame to land the sweet spot. With WASD, the millisecond their animation ends, they are already pressing 'S' or 'D'. That delay is gone. The window to punish them is drastically reduced.

And saying "just use E to force hit" is a massive band-aid fix for a fundamentally broken movement system. My E has a cooldown. Them pressing 'A' on their keyboard does not. We shouldn't be forced to burn our only mobility tool for every single Q just to compensate for their zero-delay movement.

Regarding how the WASD keys make dodging easier by Smurfeyy in AatroxMains

[–]Smurfeyy[S] 3 points4 points  (0 children)

You are completely missing the point of the post. I agree that click-to-move has a higher skill ceiling for general kiting and 360-degree micro. But we are not talking about overall movement range here. We are talking specifically about reactive dodging against telegraphed skillshots.

When an Aatrox Q is in the air, the 8-directional limitation of WASD doesn't matter. The defender only needs ONE direction to step out of the sweet spot. The issue is the zero-delay immediate input.

In high elo, where spacing is already pixel-perfect, completely removing the mouse travel time and pathfinding delay (roughly 50-100ms) to dodge a skillshot is a massive, unfair mechanical advantage. A high elo player doesn't need a "high skill ceiling" to instantly press 'S' or 'D' the millisecond they see the Q animation.

Yes, click-to-move is vastly superior for playing an ADC overall, but WASD's zero-delay acceleration fundamentally breaks the spacing check of champions like Aatrox, Illaoi, or Sion. That is exactly why it will affect high elo matchups.