➤Canalization 🕹 League of Legends

Not to be confused with casting times.

A channeled ability is an ability that can be interrupted through specific crowd control effects. Interrupting a channeled ability is desirable either to end its effects early or to prevent the ability from successfully firing in the first place.

Casting Channel

The original form of channel, now called a "casting channel", is a feature of several of the game's older champions. Activating one of these abilities will cause the caster to stop other actions for a specific duration. These abilities are interrupted by crowd control effects that inhibit casting, namely: airborne, forced action, polymorph, silence, stun and suppression.

Some casting channels actively prevent the caster from making other actions (such as autoattacking, moving or casting their other abilities). However, this is a luxury and not a rule; in most cases the caster is still able to perform other actions but doing so will interrupt the channel. Most activatable items and summoner spells can be used while channeling without interrupting, which is particularly useful information for jungle Canalization Fiddlesticks: as consuming Health Potions will not interrupt Drain.

Champion abilities

Champion	Ability	Channel duration	Notes
Caitlyn	Ace in the Hole	1 seconds	Channeling for the full duration is required fire the missile. If the target dies while channeling, the ability is put on a 5 second cooldown.
Darius	Noxian Guillotine	~0.25 seconds	Darius is considered to be channeling during the dash. Darius must complete the channel in order to deal damage. Interrupting Noxian Guillotine does not put it on cooldown or expend mana.
fiddlesticks	Drain	5 seconds	Damage is dealt every 0.5 seconds while channeling.
fiddlesticks	Crowstorm	1.5 seconds	Channeling for the full duration is required to blink and start dealing damage.
Gallium	Idol of Durand	2 seconds	The taunt effect ends early upon the channel being interrupted; but the damage is still dealt in full.
Gragas	Drunken Rage	1 second	Replenishes mana over the duration. Channeling for the full duration is required to gain the attack damage and damage reduction.
Janna	Monsoon	4 seconds	Health is restored every 0.5 second while channeling.
Karthus	Requiem	3 seconds	Channeling for the full duration is required to deal the damage. While Defying Death, it is not possible to interrupt Requiem.
Katarina	Death Lotus	2 seconds	Damage is dealt every 0.2 seconds while channeling.
Malzahar	Nether Grasp	2.5 seconds	Damage is dealt every 0.5 second while channeling.
Master Yi	Meditate	4 seconds	Health is restored every 0.5 second while channeling.
Miss Fortune	Bullet time	2 seconds	Damage is dealt every 0.25 second while channeling.
Nunu	Absolute Zero	3 seconds	Damage will be dealt even if the channeling is interrupted, but the damage will be reduced.
Pantheon	Heartseeker Strike	0.75 seconds	Damage is dealt every 0.25 second while channeling.
Pantheon	Grand Skyfall	2 seconds	Channeling for the full duration is required to teleport and deal the damage.
Twisted fate	Gate	1.5 seconds	Channeling for the full duration is required to teleport.
Urgot	Hyper-Kinetic Position Reverser	1 second	Channeling for the full duration is required to swap positions with his target.
Warwick	Infinite Duress	1.8 seconds	Damage is dealt every 0.334 second while channeling.

Other

Name	Duration of channel	Notes
Greater Relic	3 seconds	Channeling for the full duration is required to capture the objective.
Capture Point	Varying duration	Channeling for the full duration is required to capture the objective. If the capture point is owned by the enemy, it will neutralize halfway through the channel.

All the above can also be interrupted by taking direct damage (this does not include health costs). Shielded champions are not interrupted so long as the shield remains intact.

Recently, several damage over time abilities were changed to not interrupt the above channels:

Toxic Shot
Noxious Trap
Deadly Venom
Ignite
This list is incomplete

Movement Channels

This classification was only recently identified. Movement channels are casting channels that can also be interrupted by crowd control effects that inhibit movement, namely: airborne, entangle, forced action, polymorph, silence, snare, stun and suppression. To put it another way: all forms of crowd control will interrupt a movement channel with the exception Blind and Slow.

This is a fairly new ruling and many of the game's older channel-delayed movement abilities use casting channels. It's unknown if those abilities will be updated in the future.

Champion abilities

Champion	Ability	Channel duration	Notes
Caitlyn	90 Caliber Net	~0.25 seconds	Channeling for the full duration is required dash.
Shen	Stand United	3 seconds	Channeling for the full duration is required to teleport.
Zac	Elastic Slingshot	0-Unknown seconds	The range increases over the first 0.9 / 1 / 1.1 / 1.2 / 1.3 seconds. The cooldown is reduced by half the base amount and half the health cost is refunded if the ability is canceled, interrupted or times out.

Other

Name	Duration of channel	Notes
Enhanced Recall	4.5 seconds (4 seconds with Improved Recall (Season 3 Mastery) Improved Recall)	Channeling for the full duration is required to teleport.
Recall	8 seconds (7 seconds with Improved Recall (Season 3 Mastery) Improved Recall)	Channeling for the full duration is required to teleport.
Teleport	4 seconds (3.5 seconds with Summoner's Insight (Maestría de la 3ra Temporada) Summoner's Insight)	Channeling for the full duration is required to teleport.

With the exception of Teleport, all the above can also be interrupted by taking direct damage (this does not include health costs). Shielded champions are not interrupted so long as the shield remains intact.

Recently, several damage over time abilities were changed to not interrupt the above channels:

Toxic Shot
Noxious Trap
Deadly Venom
Ignite
This list is incomplete

Attacking Channel

With the release of Canalization Lucian, a new form of channeling was added to the game. Unlike previous forms of channeling, The Culling is interrupted by attack-inhibiting crowd control effects rather than casting-inhibiting effects, namely: airborne, entangle, forced action, polymorph, stun and suppression. Unlike other forms of channel, silence does not interrupt the channel and entangle will.

The only example of an attacking channel does not inhibit movement.

Champion	Ability	Channel duration	Notes
Lucian	The Culling	0-2 seconds	Damage is dealt over the duration at a rate proportional to Lucian's attack speed.

Charging Skills

With the launch of Canalization Varus, a new channeling subtype was added to the game: Charge. A charged ability has two activations (or casts): the first activation initiates the charge and the second will trigger the ability. During the use of the Intelligent Spell (Smartcast in English), the player must keep the key pressed to load the ability and it will trigger when the key is released. Unlike Channeled Skills, the player can move freely even using Canalization flash the Dark Passage.

Charging is a sub-classification. The forms of crowd control that will interrupt a charged ability depends on the ability's supertype.

Champion	Ability	Charge duration / type	Notes
Varus	Piercing Arrow	0-4 segundos; casting channel	Damage and range increase over the next two seconds. Varus recovers mana if the ability is canceled.
Vi	Vaultbreaker	0-4 segundos; movement channel	Damage and range increase over the next 1,25 seconds. The ability's cooldown is reduced to 3 and mana is restored if the ability is interrupted.

Pending his rework, Canalization Arcanopulse of Xerath will feature the charged mechanic. Unlike current examples of the mechanic, interrupting Xerath will automatically trigger the second activation - rather than canceling the ability.

Casting Times

Most champion abilities that are cast (like Canalization Disintegrate) have a very brief casting time that will interrupt other actions, such as movement or attacking (most will automatically have the champion continue in their previous actions, although some will interrupt previous actions indefinitely). These casting times cannot be interrupted except by the caster's death. Casting times will show a channeling bar on screen, although the bars of short casting times will often not be drawn except on very high framerates.

Champions will ignore crowd control effects while casting, with the exception of airborne/knockabout effects. This is different from crowd control immunity as the effect can persist the duration of the casting time. If a champion is knocked about while casting, the skill will still fire from the point of cast regardless of the caster's position at the time of fire (although it's worth noting that the animation will occasionally fire from the new location). For blinks and dashes, they too will move toward the selected target after the casting has finished regardless of crowd control effects suffered during the cast time.

"Casting" is sometimes referred to as "charging", although charging was assigned to a new mechanic with the release of Canalization Varus.

Some notable examples of longer casting times, or casting times that are frequently labelled bugs on account of their ability to ignore crowd control:

Champion	Ability	Cast duration	Notes
Caitlyn	90 Caliber Net	0.1 seconds	Caitlyn is further unable to activate abilities during the animation.
Ezreal	Arcane Shift	0.25 seconds	There is a wind-down animation upon landing, however this is not forced and Ezreal can move instantly.
Ezreal	Trueshot Barrage	1 second	Casting for the full duration is required to fire the missile
Kassadin	Riftwalk	0.25 seconds	There is a wind-down animation upon landing, however this is not forced and Kassadin can move instantly.
Luxury	Final Spark	0.5 seconds	Casting for the full duration is required to fire the shot
Tristana	Rocket Jump	0.25 seconds	Tristana cannot move or attack during the animation, but may use her abilities
Xerath	Arcanopulse	0.75 seconds	Casting for the full duration is required to fire the shot
Xerath	Locus of Power	0.5 seconds	Casting for the full duration is required to begin casting other abilities
Xerath	Arcane barrage	~0.2 seconds	The beam will appear instantly and has an ~0.5 second delay. Casting for the full 0.2 seconds is required for the beam to fire. If Xerath dies before then, the blast will fizzle.