Ability damage

Ability damage is one of the game's archetypal damage types, and is the damage type dealt by most abilities. Ability damage is the pre-requisite for applying ability effects, such as Liandry's Torment and Rylai's Crystal Scepter. Dealing ability damage will also generate aggression from turrets but, by contrast to basic damage, does not trigger the Call For Help AI on minions.

Spell damage, area damage, and persistent damage all trigger ability effects.

Ability damage is never described as such in-game, instead being listed as physical, magic or true damage. However, those typings can be attributed to other archetypal damage types (e.g. basic attack damage can be physical or magical) and so knowing whether or not an effect deals ability damage can be hard to intuit.

Spell vamp benefits from ability damage.

The basic rule is: all damage-dealing abilities, excluding attack effects, deal ability damage.

Non-ability spell effects[]

The following non-abilities will also trigger spell effects:

Items

Summoner Spells

Mark / Dash

Basic attack spell effects[]

The following empowered basic attacks will deal ability damage, meaning they will trigger ability effects. The triggering basic attack will still apply other attack effects.

Abilities that trigger on-hit effects and ability effects[]

The following abilities apply both on-hit effects and spell effects:

Note that, however, the damage dealt by these abilities is not classified as ability damage, except in the case of Whiplash and the magic damage portion of Urchin Strike. Except in those cases, the damage dealt by these abilities will not benefit from spell vamp. It is possible with Non-Damaging Abilities (above)—the implementation of this change could have been to have these abilities deal an additional 0 spell damage.

Gameplay Elements

Targeting Types	Auto (Passive · Self) · Direction · Location · Unit · Proximity · Vector (Collision · Radius)
Unit types	Champion · Minion · Monster · Pets · Structures (Turret · Inhibitor · Nexus)
Effect types	Ability effects · Attack effects (On-hit) · Area of effect · Damage over time · Heal · Multi-hit · Redirected damage · Shield · Single-targeted
Ability types	Attached · Aura · Blink · Buff · Channel · Combat status · Crowd control · Damage (Ability · Basic · Magic · Physical · True · Nexus Obelisk · Execution) · Dash · Debuff · Invulnerability · Pet · Projectile · Sight · Spell shield · Stealth · Tether · Untargetability · Ward

League of Legends Wiki

Ability damage

Non-ability spell effects[]

Basic attack spell effects[]

Abilities that trigger on-hit effects and ability effects[]

Fan Feed