Bizarre League of Legends glitch makes ability cooldowns longer

André González Rodríguez

A League of Legends bug, believed to have been present in the game for years, has been discovered once again, causing abilities to have an unusually long cooldown, specifically due to an issue with ‘Ability Haste.’

Abilities in League of Legends are key, after all, without abilities the core aspect of the game wouldn’t exist. In order to destroy the nexus to win the game, players must be able to get rid of the obstacles in their way such as minions, towers and enemy champions, that’s where abilities come in.

Being able to use abilities is what makes champions unique, that’s essential in a game like League of Legends that has over 140 characters, or champions to choose from. They also have their own unique cooldowns in order to prevent them from being spammed.

Vex, the Gloomist, will finally make her LoL debut this update cycle.
Vex, the Gloomist, is League of Legends latest champion as of September

With the abilities themselves so finely balanced, if the cooldowns are altered in any way, the game instantly becomes less enjoyable.

Bizarre League of Legends glitch makes ability cooldowns longer

First pointed out by the YouTube channel League of Poro, a glitch has been found — or in this case, brought back up — that causes Ability Haste to not work properly upon respawn. The glitch has been around for six years according to League of Poro.

If a player casts an ability a split second after respawning, Ability Haste will not correctly apply. Meaning that no matter the amount of Ability Haste a player has, whichever spell that gets cast will be forced to wait for its regular cooldown duration.

This is a big issue for champions with ultimates that have the ability to affect Summoner’s Rift from vast distances, champions like Karthus, who League of Poro uses as an example in their video, Draven, Jinx and many others such as champions with global ultimates are severely affected by it.

However, this glitch doesn’t just affect Ability Haste either, according to YouTube user Leo in the comments.

“I reported this bug four years ago, it doesn’t affect only ability haste, actually. [The] first time I got this bug – I got it on Soraka, and it actually doesn’t apply AP or items to her ult healing! I got it again on Jinx not so long ago and tested – it’s still here, and still has the same behavior.”

Bugs like these can impact massively on the game, and even more so if they’ve been present for a number of years. Only time will tell if Riot will finally address this issue.