Why do Pros skill an ability so late?
It happens a lot when you see their streams.
I notice it more on High Tier Players (around Challenger/Diamond/Master) and Casters often say that the player leveled some ability late.
I usually get out of base and skill my ability right away.
The times that I don't do that are just because I forgot or I went to get something to drink.
Why do most pros put a point into one of their abilities at like 1 minute 50? Are there any benefits for that?
What's their thought process through that?
Best Answer
DropDeadSander covered the general case well, there are also specific champions where you might leave picking a skill even later though.
For example with Tristana I usually skill Explosive Shot first but I don't even always skill it immediately I reach lane unless I see a chance to harass. This is both because as soon as I have it the passive starts pushing and it means I can pick Rocket Jump in an emergency.
In lane-swap situations pros have been known to reach level 3 or 4 with Tristana while only having one point in rocket jump and nothing else because they want to freeze the lane and as soon as they pick up Explosive Shot the passive starts pushing the lane out rapidly. Those sort of situations are very rare in normal play though so I wouldn't expect to do this yourself, generally as soon as you actually start farming in lane you want to select an ability.
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Answer 2
I'd guess it really depends on the actual ability/available abilities and their progression.
While I typically don't watch eSports, I'd say you could largely see this for abilities that have scaling cooldown/costs that increase rather than staying constant or decreasing, or those that are equally good early on (so it's hard to pick a favorite).
Also you might want to wait to see what strategy your opponents are trying to push for, for example you might prefer getting your skillshot early, while in other games you might want that extra survivability from another skill first.
Last but not least you might be unsure or wouldn't want to use your abilities immediately anyway. Some champions work pretty well even without abilities, but your abilities might allow you to abuse situations to your advantage. For example, Sivir could grab her Q to get a kill otherwise lost, but she might as well grab her E first to dodge that one skillshot that would kill her.
Answer 3
At level 1, you've got absolutely no advantage having a specific skill levelled to 1 than not; you've got way more options if you leave it unlevelled until you've found a reason to do one or the other. You're able to adjust immediately to any conflict.
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