The Nerf Lucian REALLY Needs

Anonagon·Nov 4, 2014·4 votes·1,302 views

Its no secret that Lucian is OP, and I believe he is still going to be pick/ban after his nerfs in 4.19. Its only a nerf to his lategame, the nerfs simply don't reduce his absolute bullshit ability to shit on any other ADC in lane.

The nerf Lucian absolutely needs is to his passive. His passive should only proc when he hits an enemy champion with an ability.

What would this do? It would:

reduce his waveclearing ability
reduce his tower-pushing ability
reward enemies for dodging Q and W
reward good Lucians for landing Q and W
make it so he can't simply run people over with E even if he sucks

Because lets be honest - Lucian's strength should be killing other champions. Not minions. Not towers. Not objectives. Its in his identity, he is trying to purify, to hunt the wicked.

14 Comments

HitsFromTheBombNov 4, 20142 votes

"He was a pretty fun champion to play because of his playstyle, which is why people keep picking him (not because he's OP). People aren't going to stop picking him until he's no longer fun to play (we're getting pretty close to that)."

riot game balance 101 do they even have a clue what drives people to play this game or the champs in it sometimes

LegendariNov 4, 20141 votes

Eh, I think they've nerfed Lucian plenty already. First, they nerfed Blood Thirster, which changed his entire itemization and delayed his early game power spike, forcing him to rush an IE. Then, the nerfs to his W, AA range reduction, Q range reduction, clense effect removed from E, E cooldown increase, E mana cost re-added, etc... Now W nerfed again and his ult CD nerfed?

I played Lucian a lot earlier in the season, but I rarely even bother picking him anymore. He has to get so close to the fight that it's pretty much suicide unless you're super fed or your team is excellent at peeling for you (good luck with that in lower elo). If you lane against anyone with a half a brain, you'll get harassed in lane until you're low hp and/or out of mana, then zoned indefinitely.

He's still super strong if fed early game, but that pretty much goes for any ADC. He was a pretty fun champion to play because of his playstyle, which is why people keep picking him (not because he's OP). People aren't going to stop picking him until he's no longer fun to play (we're getting pretty close to that).

Sightless66Nov 5, 20141 votes

He was a pretty fun champion to play because of his playstyle, which is why people keep picking him

Yeah, that's not a thing that makes someone a top pick in competitive play. He has the power to back up his pickrate.

AnonagonNov 5, 20142 votes

He's still super strong if fed early game, but that pretty much goes for any ADC.

He does ridiculous amounts of damage whether he gets fed or not. It is impossible to 1v1 him mid game on even footing.

He was a pretty fun champion to play because of his playstyle, which is why people keep picking him (not because he's OP). People aren't going to stop picking him until he's no longer fun to play (we're getting pretty close to that).

No. People pick him because he is OP. He has the highest pickrate in the game, not the highest but in the top 10 banrate, and he still maintains a 51-52% winrate. There is no arguing that he isn't too powerful. His winrate may decrease a little with the 4.19 nerfs, but with how absurdly powerful he is, he still can easily close a game before those lategame nerfs effect him significantly.

Kuroi86Nov 4, 20141 votes

Last I heard, Riot intended for him to be exceptionally strong late game while giving up some early game power. Though many think they failed.

AnonagonNov 5, 20141 votes

Last I heard, Riot intended for him to be exceptionally strong late game while giving up some early game power. Though many think they failed.

I don't think there was ever an intention for Lucian to be "late-game"

He has always been a lane guy

Kuroi86Nov 5, 20141 votes

Idk, could be how I ready the patch update when he was rebalanced. I'm copy/pasting it here so you can see, idk if you'll see what I saw or not. http://na.leagueoflegends.com/en/news/game-updates/patch/patch-412-notes#patch-lucian

"Our design philosophy when approaching a strong champion is to highlight their strengths while also emphasizing their weaknesses (I told you we'd be repeating this a lot). This mostly relates to the concept of meaningful choices, where we want that champ to maintain their strategic value while also having some tradeoff that enemies can play against. Specifically for Lucian, his high generic power (a strong early and late game, high burst, high mobility, etc) meant he could just be blindly picked without much consideration for the enemy team. For a while, this is what made Lucian such a strong competitive pick - he could adapt to any team and could still perform well.

Ultimately our changes are focused on highlighting some of Lucian's strengths as a spell-slinging, mobile marksman, while also emphasizing new weaknesses - like having a lower range. At higher levels with some items (cooldown reduction!!!), Lucian can fluidly chain Es together as long as he has a target to hit with his passive. This also means Lucian will be one of the most mobile mid-range ADCs in teamfights (there are some concerns that he'll be... too mobile thanks to E removing all slows, but we'll keep a close eye here). Having a lower range, however, also means Lucian will need to take more risks in order to get E's cooldown back up, and he might have some tougher matchups during the laning phase (where before he could win almost any lane). This gives us a lot more space to emphasize Lucian's unique traits, and we'll be watching how he performs after these changes."

AnonagonNov 5, 20141 votes

Idk, could be how I ready the patch update when he was rebalanced. I'm copy/pasting it here so you can see, idk if you'll see what I saw or not. http://na.leagueoflegends.com/en/news/game-updates/patch/patch-412-notes#patch-lucian

"Our design philosophy when approaching a strong champion is to highlight their strengths while also emphasizing their weaknesses (I told you we'd be repeating this a lot). This mostly relates to the concept of meaningful choices, where we want that champ to maintain their strategic value while also having some tradeoff that enemies can play against. Specifically for Lucian, his high generic power (a strong early and late game, high burst, high mobility, etc) meant he could just be blindly picked without much consideration for the enemy team. For a while, this is what made Lucian such a strong competitive pick - he could adapt to any team and could still perform well.

Ultimately our changes are focused on highlighting some of Lucian's strengths as a spell-slinging, mobile marksman, while also emphasizing new weaknesses - like having a lower range. At higher levels with some items (cooldown reduction!!!), Lucian can fluidly chain Es together as long as he has a target to hit with his passive. This also means Lucian will be one of the most mobile mid-range ADCs in teamfights (there are some concerns that he'll be... too mobile thanks to E removing all slows, but we'll keep a close eye here). Having a lower range, however, also means Lucian will need to take more risks in order to get E's cooldown back up, and he might have some tougher matchups during the laning phase (where before he could win almost any lane). This gives us a lot more space to emphasize Lucian's unique traits, and we'll be watching how he performs after these changes."

In that instance they were talking about how, at the time, we was both strong early and late, and they wanted to reduce that "generic power"

Kuroi86Nov 5, 20141 votes

Well I rarely play ADC and haven't ever run into a Lucian, but from what everyone says, they failed to do that.

AnonagonNov 5, 20141 votes

Well I rarely play ADC and haven't ever run into a Lucian, but from what everyone says, they failed to do that.

which is why I made this thread

Kuroi86Nov 5, 20141 votes

Well, the AD ratio from his W has been removed and his ult cooldown has been increased, we'll see what this does to his popularity.

HayaishiNov 4, 20141 votes

He needs some of his burst gone. And buff his mobility so he actually fits what Riot wants: Maneuvering through the battlefield, not 3 shotting people.

AnonagonNov 5, 20141 votes

He needs some of his burst gone. And buff his mobility so he actually fits what Riot wants: Maneuvering through the battlefield, not 3 shotting people.

My proposed nerf reduces his burst by making it so he no longer gets his passive from E and making it so he doesn't get his passive from missed Qs and Ws