Today’s cartoon is about Pantheon’s rework and the recent trend on LoL skills becoming non-target.

A lot of the old champions have been and are being reworked. Now it’s Pantheon’s turn. As usually reworks do, Pantheon also has awesome skill graphics and high-level abilities and is drawing many players’ attention. Even his splash art is being evaluated as one of the best ever.

What is being noticed more than other things is that Pantheon’s Q skill has turned into a non-target skill. This may not be a major change, but it seems that recent LoL skill trend is non-target; Pantheon’s targetted spear was one of his identities.

It is usually easier to hit a target skill since once the skill is executed, it hits the target. This made the game more convenient to the players who have relatively slower hands to enjoy the game. A lot of the early LoL champions had such a characteristic and champions that had strong target skills were widely popular as champions for newbies.

On the other hand, it’s a whole different story with non-target skills. The mechanics of the player decides everything and has more risks; the efficiency of the champions will vary according to its pilot. As much as it’s riskier, non-target skills would have higher potential. Naturally, the plays become more dynamic.

As there are more and more non-target skills in the game, the players who have slow hands or just want to enjoy the game comfortably aren’t very satisfied. If all champions have a high-mechanical requirement, the whole game would have a higher entry barrier. However, there still are many players that prefer the non-target style skills where they can train themselves to earn higher potential and fun.

There are champions that still have (or rely on) target skills, but among them, there are champions like Fiddlesticks, who will be reworked, so it is anticipated that there will be even fewer target skills in the future. You’ll never know - Teemo’s Toxic Shot may become a non-target skill.

The need for mechanics are becoming higher and higher - are your mechanics okay?