The change wasn't to make this not happen, it was because you could animation cancel it anyways so they just made it so you always get that extra time.
This is a different issue that also needs to be solved, but the patch notes are pretty clear in what's up with the animation duration change.
Yep, this is correct. Before 11.18, if you used empowered W on Renekton and didn't input a movement command between the 0.525s and 0.75s period, he would remain locked out until 0.75s passed (including e.g. basic attacks). This is now 0.525s for both regular and empowered W. We recognize that this was something that could be bypassed consistently by skilled Renekton players (or accidentally by anyone), so we standardized it as always 0.525s. The "before" clip in this video shows a player bypassing the 0.75s lockout by inputting a movement command.
Also, as an aside, we recognize that we overswung on Renekton here. I'm looking into buffs for him right now, and I'm sorry for the inconvenience caused by Renekton being too weak in the meantime, and generally that Renekton is weaker in non-pro play as a result of pro balance this season. Hopefully we can take larger steps to resolve this more permanently in the future.
Can I ask what the reasoning was for making a change like this at all? Aren't animation cancels and other forms of mechanical skill expression intentionally put in? Way back I remember it was even a meme when riot would put "x change is to separate the great players from the good players" in the patch notes. Many champions have them from riven entire kit to proper orb walking on adc's or even flash kicks on Lee sin.
Sure. Skill expression is a high value in our game, but there are still good and bad versions of it (or better and worse, at least). This wasn't some clever expressive animation-cancel that enabled interesting gameplay, it was an effect that punished players for certain input sequences without good feedback on what was happening. Many players believed that Renekton empowered W stunned him for longer than the base effect, because that's what the animation indicates.
If we aren't critical of the types of skill expression in the game and optimize for maximum skill expression blindly, we eventually end up with lots of cases that are needlessly difficult, obtuse, and punishing, rather than designed skill expression that feels appropriately rewarding.
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