The new cooldown pings added in patch 6.14 are a step in the right direction for increasing the quality of ranked games. League of Legends is a game centered around taking advantage of small timing windows as a group of 5 players. This is almost always extremely difficult when it is your very first game with 4 unique players. The new pings allow your rag-tag group to easier communicate key information.
Patch 6.14 makes it possible to communicate your key cooldowns, current HP and mana, major item completions, jungle timers, and summoner spells. The power of this information should not be underestimated!
When to use the new pings:
- When you hit level 6 and strongly believe you can easily kill your lane opponent with help from your jungler.
- When your team is posturing for a fight but you are low HP or mana.
- When you are on your way back to bottom lane and need to communicate your summoners to your lane partner to ensure you are both aware of your current all-in potential.
- When you just finish a major item and hit a big power spike. You and your team can look to fight or contest objectives during this time.
- Every minute before a key objective is spawning (Dragon, Baron)
New Pings a Major Buff to Solo Ranked Play
Being able to convey more information to your teammates without finding time between CS’ing and trading to type it out is a big deal. By making detailed communication easier, Riot has increased the skill ceiling a group of random players can play at.
This is especially nice for players who find themselves Platinum or lower. Players around this level often awkwardly stumble into plays their teammates weren’t ready to commit to (guilty!). These changes will have less of an impact at the top of the rankings, but still increase the potential for cleaner gameplay.
All in all changes like this are vital for the evolution of non-competitive play. If we want the level of ranked play to continue to rise, we need more changes like this.
