My thoughts on Lucian and marksmen in general

Well, I'll try to explain why I think Lucian is not enough strong and why he needs some love from Riot.

First, let the stats speak.

Currently, Lucian has only 46,8% of Winrate, only Urgot is weaker but it's Urgot so whatever, we are waiting his rework.

http://champion.gg/statistics/#?sortBy=general.winPercent&order=descend&roleSort=ADC

Some are gonna say "Stats mean nothing", But it's a fact to take into account.

According to Riot Games, his recent buffs made Lucian in a good spot, let's check the result of those buffs.

http://champion.gg/champion/Lucian/ADC

"Winrate % By Patch"

You can see that Lucian gained 0.40% of Winrate after this patch what is.. Ridiculous. You can also see that his playrate increased due to the placebo effect ; People think Lucian is fine now when he didn't get something amazing. Okay, you're gonna say "People don't know how to play Lucian and that's why his average winrate is low", but if you check Lucian mains stats, you'll see that he has only 47,4% (people who played more than 50 games with him).

Last stat that reveals his weakness is the fact that he hasn't 50% of winrate or more vs any ADC in the game (his best stat is 49% of Winrate vs Tristana).

I will immediately counter idiot answers :

"Lucian is maybe weak in SoloQ but look Azir, he has only 47% of winrate and he's toptier". STOP, it means nothing, if you properly look the stats, people who played Azir more than 50 times have 52% of Winrate with Azir, even 53% for more than 120 games played ; that's why this champ demands skill and is in a good spot. By only looking average winrate, you fail to think.

"Lucian is fine, he's played a lot in Asia". First, players love his mechanics ; that's why he can still get some plays. Secondly, he's NOT PLAYED a lot, he appeared only 2 times by KOO in LCK playoffs. In LPL playoffs, Lucian appeared 1 time.. He had plays during regular season, but has never been a contested pick AND, it wasn't the same meta + picks like corki/kalista/sivir got more games, way more.

LCK stats champion playoffs : http://lol.esportspedia.com/wiki/SBENU_Champions_Summer_2015/Playoffs/Statistics

LPL stats champion playoffs : http://lol.esportspedia.com/wiki/2015_LPL/Summer/Playoffs/Statistics

Well, I have shown that Lucian is the weakest ADC in SoloQ right now and that he's not played a lot in competitive scene (at least, he's not a contested pick at all)

Now ; what are the main problems with this champ when you play it.

First, due to your short range, you're not really a lane winner anymore because you're outranged by most of ADCs. Even vayne, who was considered as the weakest ADC in lane is now FINE because Riot nerfed all the others marskman (Lucian, Twitch, Sivir, Graves, Jinx, well jinx was broken), I mean, there is a big issue there. Riot are not doing a nice job, they always nerf toptier champs, then an undertier champ becomes the new best champ at bottom because you nerfed the others. It will never stop, Riot. By doing this, you're making ADCs weaker and weaker, soon, their abilities and their damages won't be as strong as needed. (that's why, People are now asking for a vayne nerf but it's not the solution, you have to INCREASE the power of the others to make her balanced). Vayne has always been considered as a "Skill ADC" ; if you take only people who play vayne for first 5 games ; they obtain more than 50% of winrate which is not normal.

Well, because this 500 range, Lucian has 90% of time to DASH IN to proc passive, deal damages. What's the problem ? Lucian is known as a kiting adc style, but if you dash in, most of time you won't have another dash to kite, and you're too close to your ennemies. It's a big problem in laning phase and i'm not joking there ; even in Teamfight you can misspositioning because of this. I'd like to be able to keep my dash and deal damages, that's what I can do with vayne, because she has 550 range.

Range in LoL : http://leagueoflegends.wikia.com/wiki/Range

Who are the ADC haven't more than 500 of range ?

-Sivir, toptier ADC due to this teamfight oriented ultimate, gives huge movespeed, huge range with Q (Lucian can't Q under a tower to poke, and W doesn't deal damages), have a spellshield to be able to avoid stuff with that range, so she has things Lucian will never have with that range and she's strong with currently, 52% of winrate. (she became meta for same reason as Vayne, adc's nerfs)

-Kogmaw has 500 of range but.. 710 range with W, ultimate more than 1500.. I think i don't need to speak more about him.

-You have Graves, with 525 range ; BUT his role is not the same as Lucian, his goal is to put Q+R+some auto in teamfight, he's a burster. I can admit Lucian has some burst with his Q and passive but it will never get to graves level, and btw, Graves has fair dash mechanics to reset it. So i'd say Graves range is decent for his kit.

Some say, because Lucian mobility is broken you can't increase his range (Well.. I really don't agree, you can really be fucked if you miss use your e, and at same time, you NEED to use it to make maximum damages with passive and you have to come close to ennemies with 500 range.)

Again, let's see what Vayne have and I mean, that's why she's toptier right now :

-550 Range

-Without CDR, a 2 second CD Tumble (so she has HIGH mobility)

-High kite potential with her Q, E and ultimate (Movespeed also with passive)

I repeat, I don't ask for a Vayne nerf, I'm asking Riot to look what champs have and what others champs have in comparison in order to make decent buffs to marksmans and not start the nerf machine again.

Even Kalista, the champion that can jump and jump and jump has 550 range.

I really think Lucian deserves that range. I'm sure if you just give him it, he won't even be OP and won't get more than 50-51% of winrate. But he will probably be meta.

In the competitive aspect, the meta is oriented hyper carry like Kog/Trist and sometimes Vayne, with a Lulu. I explained why Vayne is now a toptier adc (nerfs of all adc), the 2 others are just Adcs with high range and they're really safe. Lucian is not enough safe, even if we saw 1 guy, Bang, with confidence in his teamates who played Lucian in an hypercarry way.

The others possible buffs for Lucian :

• His W is right now an useless spell in term of damages, hello Riot, you even create an AD scaling for Ezreal E right now on PBE (With Trinity, Ez had some damages with E and it triggered sheen for next auto so it was a decent spell). Just bring back his 0.3 AD scaling, at least his poke won't be ridiculous.. (Sivir Q has 0.5 AD scaling, 2 times to get some poke with her range)

-Some think you have to make Q scales with attack speed but I don't think it's a fair change. Because at the moment, you can dodge this spell (which is not easy, but you can) ; with attack speed scaling, it will just be broken. "I'm losing DPS if I use Q", first i'm not sure, the 60% AD on a second auto is pretty strong (you proc passive by using Q), and Q has an amazing AD scaling like 120%, hiting in AoE ; so I think this spell in nice right now.

• Dash (E) is nice ; if you proc enough time your passive, you have the CD back fast ; I just don't like the use of this spell with 500 range Lucian, the average combo is E>Auto>Q>Auto>W>Auto>Auto>Auto>E away etc, I don't think E should be used to initiate, that's why Luc needs some more range to use E only to kite.

Ultimate : The spell is balanced, don't feel this needs changes.