WASD Hits League of Legends PBE: Everything You Need to Know

26 Aug

Foo Zen-Wen

The much-discussed WASD controls have hit League of Legends PBE today. After announcements came back in mid-May that WASD would be a new movement input option for League of Legends players, discussion surrounding it has soared – everything from its expected impact on current LoL meta (what champions would benefit best from the new movement input option) to the challenges it would present to the playerbase as a learning curve. After nearly 16 years, League of Legends continues to evolve. Here is everything you need to know about WASD.

What is WASD Movement?

WASD Movement is the industry standard for essentially every first and third-person game on PC. The shorthand corresponds to the 4 keys on a standard QWERTY keyboard, allowing players to move in 8 standard directions:

W – Forwards/Up
A – Left
S – Backwards/Down
D – Right

Combining any two of the corresponding keys typically produces a diagonal travel for the character in a game.

WASD Goes Live on PBE

Riot Games’ decision to introduce WASD to League of Legends now is a strategical choice aimed at providing new players with a more familiar set of controls as they set out to learn and master the game.

However, for older players, WASD will provide a fresh new method of approaching the game. It’s a big change for any game to update with new movement key commands. But click-to-move is not going anywhere. Moreover, even while WASD is enabled, click-to-move will still be enabled concurrently, allowing players the option to approach the game they want to.

Advantages of WASD

As opposed to the existing method of clicking to move, WASD will offer a completely new dimension for players in certain skillsets. For example, sidestepping skill-shots with WASD will be far easier than with the traditional necessary quick inputs of clicking. Kiting, one of the fundamental skills required for ADC players to master to reach the highest level, will now have the benefit of separate commands for movement and auto-attacking.

Whether this raises the overall skill floor of the playerbase or reduces the skill ceiling remains to be seen.

Balancing and Testing

WASD will be tested on the League of Legends PBE live server starting today. According to Riot Meddler, the first balance levers to be tested for WASD movement are:

Delaying swing timers when using WASD and holding down movement.
Not animation cancelling WASD movement at the earliest possible frame.
Nerfing attack speed if player is using WASD and holding down movement.

More changes and balances are sure to follow as the playerbase slowly tests and figures out the advantages and disadvantages of this new movement input. Where it will eventually lands is still a mystery, but one thing is certain, it has the potential to create one of the largest ripple effects in modern League of Legends balancing.

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Featured Image Credit: Riot Games

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