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A basic attack (also called a standard, normal, or auto attack) is the default means by which a unit deals damage. The player orders their champion to perform a basic attack when they right-click on an enemy, or when the "attack-move" command is used (default A); idle champions may also automatically chase and attack targets that venture too close to them, if the option to "auto-attack" is enabled.

Turrets, minions, and most monsters perform basic attacks as their only method of dealing damage.

A basic attack under normal circumstances deals 100% AD physical damage. A unit's attack timer determines the time it takes to fire a basic attack and wait for a new one to be available; it is reduced by attack speed and reset by basic attack resets.

Acquisition

In order for an attacker to initiate an attack, they must first acquire a target. Acquisition occurs when an attacker is ordered to attack a valid target, as a result of an attack command, automatic target acquisition, or the forced action effects taunt or berserk. The attacker will attempt to attack the unit if it is within their attack range, or attempt to move toward it until their attack range meets its gameplay radius, and then stop moving and attempt to attack the target. Acquisition of the target will continue until the attacker is given a new target, attacking is canceled by any means, or the target becomes invalid (e.g. they die or become untargetable).

Auto-attacking

By default, when champions are idle they automatically acquire the nearest enemy unit within their acquisition range as their target. This feature is called automatic target acquisition or simply auto-attacking and can be toggled from the Settings > 'Game' tab.

Auto-attacking can be temporarily disabled by holding down the "hold position" key (default J), or by issuing a stop command (default S), which stops all orders including auto-attacking until a new order is manually provided by the player.

Attack-move

Attack-move commands allow a champion to move toward a given destination location while scanning for a valid hostile within acquisition range. Attack-move has two modes:

When using regular attack-move (default A), the player's attack range indicator becomes visible and they may select either a location or a target by left-clicking. Selecting a location scans to acquire the nearest target to the champion's position. Selecting a target directly acquires it without scanning, like a normal attack order.
When using attack-move click (default Shift + Right Click), the champion performs the above, but without the player having to select separately. The position of the player's cursor when issuing the command is assumed to be the selection position. The range indicator is not visible when using attack-move click.

The "Attack move on cursor" option changes the targeting behavior of attack-move commands. It can be toggled from the Settings > 'Game' tab.

If this option is enabled: the champion may also scan to acquire the nearest target in a circle around the cursor's position within or near attack range.
If this option is disabled, or a target cannot be found using the cursor's position within or near attack range: attack-move commands use the default behavior of the champion's position.

Behaviour

General

A basic attack cannot be avoided under normal circumstances once the attacker has begun their attack; it also cannot lose its target and it may hit them despite any subsequent changes in position. The following are exceptions to this rule and will cause basic attacks to fail:

Parrying effects, which negate the attack's effects entirely:
- Dodge
- Block
- Blind
Attacking becomes disabled, rendering basic attacks unable to be declared. This includes (this lists those that have the capability to do so):
- Crowd control (specifically disarming crowd control)
- Channeling
- Lockout
- Cast time
The attack's windup is interrupted, if the:
- Attacker is issued a different command
- Attacker or the target dies
- Target becomes untargetable
- Target moves too far away
- Target is no longer in sight

Certain basic attacks can be physically dodged (by using mobility spells or quickly moving out of the way) as they do not follow their target after being fired, though they travel fast enough that they are unlikely to be dodged. These are: Graves' New Destiny and Twitch's Spray and Pray.

Champion

When a champion loses sight of an acquired target while pathing to them, they will continue moving toward the last location the target was visible in. If the movement order has not completed and the target re-enters sight, the champion will be ordered to path to the target's location again and attack them. The target's new location after re-gaining sight of them may be the same as when the attacker lost sight or a different one.

When a champion is ordered to attack a valid moving target and acquisition of them continues without manual input from the player, delays in pathing and attacking may emerge. These delays are caused by checks for a potential target, which may be especially evident when the target moves within or out of attack range in a short amount of time. The champion may also not perfectly stop to attack the target at attack range, but may finish their movement at a slightly closer distance before attacking.

Due to this behavior, manual cycling of issued movement and attack commands is faster and more precise than automatic orders.

Many champions have abilities that will affect their basic attacks in some way or form. Such abilities may be treated like basic attacks and/or abilities, meaning trigger on-hit effects and/or ability effects.

There exists a two-game-tick (0.066 second) grace period where a champion's attack windup becomes inherently uncancellable by the player through movement commands and/or the hold or stop commands. This is a strictly unchanging implementation: at incredibly high attack speeds, it may cause any given attack windup to be uncancellable for its entirety, since it would last less than or equal to this grace period of 2 game-ticks.

Minions

Main article: Minion
Minions will automatically attack their closest target by default, but may change targets in a similar manner to turrets.

Monsters

The majority of monsters only use basic attacks that deal physical damage, the exceptions are:

Baron Nashor who also casts abilities.
Rift Herald who also casts abilities.
Atakhan who also casts abilities.
Gromp whose basic attacks deal magic damage.
Rift Scuttler which does not attack at all.

Turrets

Main article: Turret

Turrets have armor penetration, and when hitting a champion, they additionally deal more damage to any champion for each consecutive attack, up to a cap.

The behavior of turrets as well as their basic attacks' damage are described on the corresponding page.

The only exception to the above is the Nexus Obelisk (also called the Fountain Laser) that deals a special type of true damage which ignores all kinds of damage reduction, untargetability and damage immunity effects and its attack does not have a missile travel speed.

Structures

Structures can normally only be damaged by basic attacks. However, some abilities that function like basic attacks (e.g. Fiora's Lunge, Trundle's Chomp, Senna's Piercing Darkness, etc.) and certain effects such as Tristana's Explosive Charge and Ziggs' Satchel Charge are special-cased to be able to target and deal damage to turrets.

Vision

Basic attacking while hiding in brush or in Fog of War will reveal a 300-unit radius centered at them for 2 seconds after the attack completes.

Damage

Basic attacks always deal physical damage, with some exceptions.

The following will modify the attack's total damage to magic damage:

Finally, Yone's Way of the Hunter can modify the attack's total damage to part physical and part magic damage, and Camille's Empowered Precision Protocol will modify the attack's total damage to part physical and part true damage.

Barring the exceptions above, certain items, buffs, and abilities may cause the attacker to deal additional damage of any subtype on top of their base physical damage. The physical damage dealt by basic attacks benefits from the attacker's attack damage stat and is reduced by the target's armor.

When basic attacking a turret, champion attacks deal 100% base AD (+ 100% bonus AD) (+ 60% AP):

Physical damage, if 100% bonus AD > 60% AP
Magic damage, if 100% bonus AD < 60% AP

Attack speed

Main article: Attack speed

The rate at which a champion attacks is called attack speed and is by default capped at 3.003 attacks per second, though certain abilities and runes can modify this value.

Attack timer

Attack timer = 1 ÷ total attack speed

Like abilities, basic attacks have an uptime when a basic attack is available, and a downtime when the basic attack is on-cooldown.

Attacks follow a two-phase period called the attack timer, which consists of:

The windup, during which an attacker executes a basic attack.
The cooldown, during which an attacker cannot execute a basic attack.

Starting a windup also starts counting the attack timer.

When the windup is interrupted by any means, the attack timer stops counting and resets to zero. A basic attack has not been launched and a new windup may begin whenever allowed/possible.
When the windup completes and a basic attack has been launched, the attack timer continues on to incur its cooldown phase. All issued attack commands will be invalidated during this time.
When the cooldown completes, the attack timer also ends, allowing a new windup to begin.

Optimizing movement commands after launching an attack is known as stutter-stepping.

Windup

A unit's attack windup is the portion of their attack which must be completed in order to launch it, different for each unit. The attacker must be standing in place in order to complete the windup.

Upon the windup completing for non-projectile attacks, the attack simultaneously launches and hits the target.
Upon the windup completing for projectile attacks, launching the attack creates a projectile, which follows and hits the target shortly after.

The windup and therefore the attack is canceled by issuing a different command at any point before the moment of launching. After launching the attack, commands may be freely input without penalty.

Normally, a champion's windup time scales the same as their attack's total time, proportionally to their attack speed given both bonuses and cripples. For champions that are given a windup modifier (a value different from the default 1) by the game rules, the actual duration of their windup is scaled against the expected value by that amount. Base windup time refers to the champion's windup time at level 1 and with no attack speed bonuses.

All champions are implicitly given a windup percent by the game rules, the percentage of the attack's total time that the windup takes up. There are currently two different ways of determining the windup percent — most newer champions use an independent formula while all others utilize a constant. This difference does not affect gameplay.

The original way of calculating the windup percent is $0.3 + a t t a c k O f f s e t$ where:

is a given positive or negative decimal value.

The updated way of calculating the windup percent is $a t t a c k C a s t T i m e \div a t t a c k T o t a l T i m e$ where:

is a given positive decimal value in seconds

is a given positive decimal value in seconds, larger than attackCastTime

Assuming:

All attack speed values are in decimal form.
WindupPercent = the statistic as a decimal
WindupModifier = the statistic as a decimal, defaults to 1
currentAttackTotalTime = 1 ÷ total attack speed
baseWindupTime = WindupPercent ÷ base attack speed

Then to calculate a champion's current windup time, use the following formulas:

General form:
baseWindupTime + WindupModifier × { currentAttackTotalTime × WindupPercent – baseWindupTime }
If the champion's base attack speed and attack speed ratio are equal, the formula can be adjusted to:
currentAttackTotalTime × WindupPercent × { 1 + bonus attack speed × (1 - WindupModifier) }
If the champion has no windup modifier and their base attack speed and attack speed ratio are equal, the formula can be simplified to:
currentAttackTotalTime × WindupPercent
or
baseWindupTime ÷ {bonus attack speed + 1}

Resets

The cast of certain abilities and item actives will (forcibly) reset the attack timer to zero. Depending on which phase of the attack the player casts them in, this effect may be detrimental or beneficial to the player:

Resetting during the windup means that the current attack is canceled, thus delaying the windup and launch of the next attack.
Resetting during the cooldown means that the remaining cooldown is negated, thus allowing a new windup to begin faster than normal.

Hail of Blades generates an additional stack when the user's attack timer is reset.

The following abilities will reset the basic attack timer after use:

The following item actives will reset the basic attack timer after use:

Titanic Hydra's Titanic Crescent

Special Cases

Bel'Veth's Void Surge, Kai'Sa's Killer Instinct, K'Sante's Ntofo Strikes, Gwen's Skip 'n Slash, Rell's Ferromancy: Mount Up, Riven's Broken Wings, and Hextech Rocketbelt * are attack resets that aren't considered one for Hail of Blades.

Leona's Shield of Daybreak and Volibear's Thundering Smash are attack resets that don't put the user's basic attack timer on cooldown when using their spell's attacks, resulting in a double attack reset.

Certain abilities that reset the attack timer will cause the caster to dash before they are able to declare a basic attack again, meaning they will not be able to follow up with their next basic attack as quickly due to the time spent performing the dash. In order to bypass this lockout time, the caster can try to end the dash prematurely, such as dashing into a wall or dashing in place (if applicable). This is the case as the caster spends less time dashing and decreases the amount of time it takes to execute their next attack.

Uncancellable Windup

A basic attack that is not interruptible is classified as having an uncancellable windup. Basic attacks with uncancellable windups are only stopped by death, polymorph, Quinn's Vault, and in some cases, untargetability and range. These include:

Ambessa's Drakehound's Step
Aphelios' Severum
Blitzcrank's Power Fist
Briar's Snack Attack
Caitlyn's Headshot
Camille's Precision Protocol
Darius' Crippling Strike
Dr. Mundo's Blunt Force Trauma
Fizz's Seastone Trident
Galio's Colossal Smash
Garen's Decisive Strike
Gragas' Drunken Rage
Illaoi's Harsh Lesson (only within her base attack range)
Jax's Empower
Jhin's Whisper (fourth shot)
Kassadin's Nether Blade
Kayle's Starfire Spellblade
Maokai's Sap Magic
Malphite's Thunderclap
Nasus' Siphoning Strike
Nidalee's Takedown
Rengar's Savagery
Samira's Daredevil Impulse
Seraphine's Stage Presence
Skarner's Shattered Earth
Sona's Power Chord
Shyvana's Twin Bite in Dragon Form
Sylas' Petricite Burst
Trundle's Chomp
Udyr's Blazing Stampede
Vayne's Tumble
Vi's Relentless Force
Volibear's Thundering Smash
Wukong's Crushing Blow
Xin Zhao's Three Talon Strike
Yorick's Last Rites
Yuumi's Feline Friendship

Untargetability interactions

The following table features uncancellable windups that will be cancelled by the target becoming untargetable during the windup and those that will complete the windup regardless of the target being targetable or not.

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Range interactions

The following table features uncancellable windups that will cancel from the target moving too far away during the windup and those that will complete regardless of the target's location.

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Empowered Basic Attack

To see the items and runes that deal bonus damage with basic attacks, see attack effects.

Modified Damage

The following champion abilities have their basic attack dealing modified damage:

Bonus Damage

The following champion abilities will empower their basic attack to deal bonus damage:

Damage over Time

The following champion abilities will empower their basic attack to deal additional damage over time:

Others

The following champion abilities do not do additional/modified damage to their target but will empower their basic attacks to give another bonus:

Trivia

Each unit that can perform basic attacks has a unique firing and recovery animation for their attack's windup and winddown which represents the physical action of drawing into and away from an attack.
- A champion's basic attack animation may be modified by skins.
- Turrets only display their acquired target and the fired attack, for game clarity purposes (also, turrets are thematically stationary).
Hostile turrets are the only units in the game that visually and unambiguously mark an acquired target, specifically with a line from their apex to their target.
In the initial iteration, the icon used to denote basic attacks is reused from an alpha item with unknown effects called Long Staff.
"Basic" comes from the fact that "attack" used to refer to any hostile action a champion could perform, with "special attacks" referring to ability-based actions. Effects such as Unbreakable used to refer to "attacks" in their in-game tooltips, referring to what we would now distinguish as basic attacks and abilities. The use of "attack" to refer to anything other than "basic attacks" has generally been discontinued, but affixing the term with 'basic' remains.
The majority of champions' windup time makes up around 15–30% of their attack's total time.

References

Gameplay Elements

@@ Line 40: / Line 40: @@
 ** Attacker or the target {{tip|death|dies}}
 ** Target becomes {{tip|untargetable}}
-** Target is too far away
+** Target moves too far away
 ** Target is no longer in {{tip|sight}}
@@ Line 46: / Line 46: @@
 === Champion ===
+When a champion loses {{tip|sight}} of an acquired target while pathing to them, they will continue moving toward the last location the target was visible in. If the movement order has not completed and the target re-enters sight, the champion will be ordered to path to the target's location again and attack them. The target's new location after re-gaining sight of them may be the same as when the attacker lost sight or a different one.
-When a champion is ordered to attack a valid target and acquisition of them continues without interruption (meaning the champion is left to continue attacking the same, valid target on their own), delays may emerge. These delays are caused by {{tt|potential target checks|These delays are especially evident when the target moves out of attack range in a short amount of time.}}. The champion may also not perfectly stop to attack the target '''''at''''' attack range, but may finish their movement at a slightly closer distance before attacking.
+When a champion is ordered to attack a valid ''moving'' target and acquisition of them continues without manual input from the player, delays in pathing and attacking may emerge. These delays are caused by checks for a potential target, which may be especially evident when the target moves within or out of attack range in a short amount of time. The champion may also not perfectly stop to attack the target '''''at''''' attack range, but may finish their movement at a slightly closer distance before attacking.
 : Due to this behavior, manual cycling of issued movement and attack commands is faster and more precise than automatic orders.

General	Abilities (Casting resource) · Basic attack · Combat status · Cooldown · Damage (Ability damage · Physical · Magic · True · Damage modifier) · Experience · Kill (Death · Assist · Execution) · Strategies · Unit radius (Collision · Selection · Size)
Targeting Types	Auto (Passive · Self) · Direction · Location · Unit · Proximity · Vector
Unit types	Champion · Minion · Monster · Pets · Structures (Turret · Inhibitor · Nexus) · Jungle plants · Wards
Effect types	Ability effects · Attack effects (On-hit) · Area of effect · Damage over time · Grievous Wounds · Heal · Redirected damage · Shield
Ability types	Attached · Aura · Blink · Buff · Channel · Crowd control · Dash · Debuff · Invulnerability · Pet · Projectile · Sight · Spell shield · Stealth · Tether · Untargetability

Interrupts:	Interrupts attack windups (excluding uncancellable windups and windups against the Source) and all channeled and charged abilities, as well as overrides previous Forced Action effects.
Reduction:	The duration is affected by Tenacity.
Resist:	Resisted by crowd control immunity and Dr. Mundo's Goes Where He Pleases.
Removal:	Removed by Cleanses or when the Source dies.

Interrupts:	Interrupts attack windups (excluding uncancellable windups and windups against the acquired target) and all channeled and charged abilities, as well as overrides previous Forced Action effects.
Reduction:	The duration is affected by Tenacity.
Resist:	Resisted by crowd control immunity and Dr. Mundo's Goes Where He Pleases.
Removal:	Removed by Cleanses.

Interrupts:	Does not interrupt any actions, but will prevent on-hit effects from being triggered by basic attacks.
Reduction:	The duration is affected by Tenacity.
Resist:	Resisted by crowd control immunity.
Removal:	Removed by Cleanses with the exception of Mikael's Blessing.