Advanced Mechanics: Auto-Attack Range Spacing

Auto-Attack Spacing High Level Mechanics

As part of our advanced mechanics series that hasn't been updated for umm..four years, I wanted to go over one today that's complicated, but still relatively explainable in a few short sentences. We'll talk about what it is, how it's used, and what benefits you can expect.

Auto-Attack Spacing High Level Mechanics

As part of our advanced mechanics series that hasn't been updated for umm..four years, I wanted to go over one today that's complicated, but still relatively explainable in a few short sentences. We'll talk about what it is, how it's used, and what benefits you can expect.

What is Auto-Attack Spacing?

Auto-attack spacing, or spacing in general is where you move rapidly towards and away from enemy champions to simultaneously get in range to attack while staying out of range of their attacks.

Here's a video example of how it works in practice:

How does auto-attack spacing work?

In the video clip above, you'll see that the match-up is Kai'Sa vs Xayah, both of which have exactly 525 attack range. Meanwhile, Xayah is absolutely hammering Kai'Sa with auto-attacks seemingly uncontested. How does he do it? Here's what's happening:

1. Kai'Sa moves in for an auto-attack
2. Xayah steps out of Kai'Sa's attack range
3. Kai'Sa moves back and cancels her attack command because she can't get in range without taking a turret shot
4. Right when Kai'Sa cancels her attack command Xayah steps forward and hits Kai'Sa with an auto when Kai'Sa is moving forward and the backwards move command occurs but her character hasn't moved yet
5. Rinse and repeat

You'll see that Xayah also mixes up her spells to hit Kai'Sa when she's in range of the feathers but still just far enough out of both of their auto-attack ranges.

What benefits you can expect?

In its entirety, in order to use spacing effectively you need to understand the ranges of your spells and the range of the enemy's spells, then click faster and react faster than the enemy laner. 

If you can do this, you can repeatedly cancel the enemy's auto-attacks and simultaneously hit them with your own for free. It's obviously easier to do it when you have more range than the enemy champion, but as seen in this video it's also very possible to execute when you both have exactly the same range.

You won't be able to perform it perfectly every time, but spacing under turrets gives you a good indication of when enemies will start turning back in fear of turret aggro, giving you a psychological advantage when it comes to your movements.

What do you think about auto-spacing? Have you been able to incorporate it into your game play? Comment below!