User blog comment:Fbhuvjhvbnvfdkv hfd/KS - Kill steal or Kill secured?/@comment-1330314-20140514023247/@comment-1330314-20140514140917

The point I'm trying to make here is that these situations usually entail zero risk of the target escaping. If the opponent's running away at very low health and the only thing capable of killing them is an autoattack or a skillshot from a very long range, then you should definitely go kill that champion, but the above cases are usually duels where the target's one autoattack or low-cooldown spell away from dying. Suppose you're, say, Syndra, and you land a full combo on your opponent before igniting and ulting them at ~20% health. That's clearly a situation where the victim has absolutely no chance of survival, since the ultimate is more than powerful enough to kill even a tank at that much health. Now suppose a Xin Zhao swoops in and dashes into the victim, dealing the killing blow. Sure, the gold and exp is going somewhere, but it's going to the person who made only a minimal contribution, whereas the player who made the heaviest investment is only getting a fraction of the reward they deserved. It's also not going to the player who'd make the most of it, since Syndra scales better with items than Xin Zhao.

Another situation would be the following: suppose you're a very bursty champ, like Leblanc, and you go alongside a Master Yi to take down a Shyvana. Now suppose you want to be absolutely sure you get the kill, so after throwing down your chain you hold out on the rest of your burst while Yi duels Shyv. Then, when both are at extremely low health, you go in, land your burst, and get the kill. Sure, you both got gold for the kill, and you may even have "saved" Yi's life, but all of this comes from a situation you deliberately engineered to get yourself the kill, to the detriment of the teammate helping you. Again, not every situation is like this, but it nonetheless happens in games, and is a clear situation in which the gold and exp was going to go somewhere, regardless of who got the kill, and was earned in a way that is detrimental to the game's health.