Recently a practice tool was added to League of Legends, finally satisfying a large portion of the player base and, to quote Riot Games, "finally destroying an ancient and exceedingly dank meme."
What the practice tool allows players to do is effectively utilize unlimited resources and an incredibly large time limit to test abilities or mechanics in ways they would normally be unable or unwilling to do. Prominent features include cool-down refreshing, unlimited resources, and structural immunity.
When you first enter the practice tool you are given the option to have a bot (a computer-controlled player) be in the game. This bot can have 2 difficulty settings and be any variety of characters.
You can then select your character from the ones you own, as well as configure your summoner spells, runes, and masteries.
Upon loading in to the game, it becomes very apparent that this is different, due to the large bar of options situated on the left.
Auto-Refresh Cooldowns makes it so that you can use your abilities again immediately after casting them. This is helpful for certain mechanical gimmicks like Lee Sin's ward hopping or Riven's animation cancelling.
Auto-Refresh HP makes it so that your health is always at maximum, thus preventing accidental death while practicing.
Auto-Refresh Mana/Energy causes your secondary resource bar to always be filled, preventing the sometimes annoying instances where you wish to practice something but don't have the resources to use an ability.
Add Gold instantly adds 10,000 gold to your inventory, allowing you to buy items instantly to test a character's full build.
Level-Up increases your character's level by one, up to a maximum of 18, if you want to test all of your character's abilities, while Lock XP Level makes it so that you cannot gain anymore experience or level up, if you wish to test something specifically at a certain level.
Teleport to Cursor allows you to instantly teleport anywhere on the map, perfect for going to specific areas in which you wish to practice.
Revive instantly brings your character back to life, in the event that you were dead.
Toggle Tower Invincible makes it so that all structures are invulnerable and will not die, Toggle Tower Fire makes it so that structures will not fire projectiles at opposing units, and Toggle Minion Spawn prevents the minions from progressing down the lane, and will also kill any minions already on the field.
Fast Forward 30sec causes the game to, well, fast forward 30 seconds.
Spawn Enemy Dummy and Spawn Allied Dummy will create target dummies on either side, up to 4 for each side. Clear Target Dummies will remove all of them.
There is a second page of options, which can be accessed through the arrows at the top or bottom of the tab. The upper half of Spawn options all relate to various creatures inside of the jungle, while Reset Game will start the practice session over from scratch.
The Practice Tool is something that I feel will become an incredibly important tool for people wishing to improve their skill in League of Legends, and will likely become vital in the near future to become a player at the very top of the skill ladder.
