Riot Games pulls last hit indicators from ranked modes in 26.13 patch notes after mixed community reception

Craig Robinson, Senior Editor

Last Updated: 24/06/2026

Riot Games introduced a new in-game accessibility feature with last hit indicators in the latest Patch 26.13 notes. However, there was mixed reception to the change, and so Riot is pulling Last Hit Indicators from Ranked play hours after the patch went live.

The announcement sparked significant discussion when the Patch 26.13 notes were revealed. Riot Games initially stated that Last Hit Indicators would come to both Normal Draft and Ranked games. The aim was to make it easier to indicate when it was clear to last hit a minion, ensuring it became easier to secure the creep, get your gold and help pace the game faster.

The feature shows a white indicator on a minion’s health bar when it can be killed with a basic attack, helping newer players secure CS more consistently. The intention with Patch 26.13 was to help transition players into being better in ranked modes. Ultimately, it should help speed games up, with better gold income and a better understanding of game mechanics, pacing and more.

The LoL community has mixed reception over LoL’s initial Last Hit Indicators feature

Yet many in the community strongly disagreed with the Ranked element of that. Many players argued that last hitting is a core skill expression in League of Legends, and that introducing indicators into Ranked would undermine one of the game’s most fundamental mechanics. It’s extremely important for roles like ADC, where last hitting is a key part of the game. Mid laners also tend to have a harder time understanding last hit ranges, with lower AD and armour pen scaling in their champion designs outside of wave clearing.

Personality Dragdar, known for his Ezreal in solo queue, summed up the sentiment bluntly on X, writing: “This change is absolutely absurd. Last hitting minions is quite literally League of Legends.”

On the other hand, former pro jungler William “Meteos” Hartman, of C9 mentions he opted to turn it off anyway as he found it annoying, seemingly unbothered about it being in the game as a feature.

Karmine Corp Blue’s top laner and EUW Challenger player Alexis “Koala” Gonzalez also weighed in, arguing that even Challenger-level players miss a significant amount of CS and that there is “legit 0 reason to not activate it every time and handicap yourself.”

There’s clearly a mixed bag of responses from high-ranked players. It seems like a decent compromise, leaving it in more casual modes, allowing players to learn the game in a much better environment. The average player base can’t seem to come to consensus, so Riot seems to be damned if they do, and damned if they don’t. The current response feels like a solid middle ground that helps players learn the game without compromising the integrity of ranked modes, regardless of skill bracket.

It’s not the first time new features scare ranked play

Over the last year, Riot Games also tested out a feature known as WASD, which aimed to add in a new control scheme using more familiar UX playing games. LoL sees it origins ported over from RTS style game, relying on select keybindings, mouse and clicking around. That too brought fear over its potential to abuse in-game mechanics of League of Legends, with the likes of Kalista often being promoted as the most abusable champ. That has been in ranked queues since April and is not often discussed. Admittedly, Last hitting features are more abusable as they will help skill expression over core game fundamentals. But, if it goes the way of WASD, perhaps if it does come to ranked, the initial reaction could be more overblown. We all know that gamers don’t like change, especially when it makes the game they’re good at a little bit easier for the plebs amongst us.

There’s no news if changes are coming in 26.14. All we know about that patch is the T1 World Skins will be in there.

Craig Robinson, Senior Editor

Craig began his career with Esports News UK back in 2015/2016, looking to write about a passion while studying at Manchester Metropolitan University. He stayed there for several years before moving on to other websites to begin his career after graduating. Now he's back, covering esports adjacent topics and UK stories.

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