Can we please stop buffing lux?

FistOfSharkiesha·Aug 23, 2015·58 votes·4,342 views

Her E costs a lot because it's radius is enormous and it's nearly impossible to dodge with anything under 400 movement speed and anything over 30 ping. That was buffed to be even more reliable and toxic in lane.

Now they're buffing Lux further? After she is with the top 10 highest win rate mid laners. Her light binding now costs less mana, and deals double the damage it used to deal to the secondary target (100% instead of 50% damage). She's a crazy safe and reliable mage, especially for a skillshot based caster. Please consider that she's pretty strong where she's at. She certainly doesn't need to be able to spam spells from a safe distance any moreso than she already can.

I'm not saying she's OP or in need of a nerf, she's annoying as hell to play against and not in need of a buff. If they want to buff anything in her kit they need to add counterplay to her E first.

92 Comments

SwapShadowsAug 23, 201521 votes

dragonball super just came out so she needs buffs

InvestaAug 23, 201517 votes

If you're having trouble against Lux, then you're probably not playing Zed. Why aren't you playing Zed?

Spizzle9000Aug 23, 20156 votes

{quoted}

If you're having trouble against Lux, then you're probably not playing Zed. Why aren't you playing Zed?

And all of Zed's people said, "Amen."

Vistha KaiAug 23, 20153 votes

Isn't Zed banned like half of the time, though?

ArkenStormAug 23, 20157 votes

LatetotheRaceAug 23, 20153 votes

{quoted}

If you're having trouble against Lux, then you're probably not playing Zed. Why aren't you playing Zed?

I'm sorry but a good lux baits his ult, snares runs under turret and zhonya's the damage. Lux is a very good anti assassin due to her large double up shield, and her cc.

Binxy PrimeAug 23, 20158 votes

Good zed will harass lux until she goes oom and will dodge most of her spells with W.

DeynaTaggerungAug 24, 20152 votes

And a good lux won't waste spells she can't land, that's kind of a moot point you can make about most mid lane matchups. Does zed have anything specific that counters lux's kit?

LankPantsAug 23, 201514 votes

After she is with the top 10 highest win rate mid laners.

Can we stop acting like that means anything?

Do you know what happened to Lee after he was buffed (direct increase to power)? His winrate fell by 2%. That shows how little effect power actually has on winrate.

General Esdeath Aug 23, 20157 votes

Except for her biggest flaw, she's a mana thirsty bitch that goes oom after about 5 minutes if you're touching your skills at all.

The Bíg TicketAug 23, 20157 votes

There are so many midlaners with higher mana costs than Lux...don't even make me name all of them.

CosnirakAug 23, 20151 votes

Name one.

Raid Boss MordeAug 23, 20152 votes

Galio

The Bíg TicketAug 23, 20155 votes

At max ranks Lux has a combined mana cost of 380 on her spells ( Q 90, W 60, E 130 R 100). Malzahar has 430 ( Q 100 W 110 E 120 R 100) Anivia has 415 if her ult only stays up for 1 second (Q 120 W 70 E 90 R 75 plus 60 for every second it is up) Xerath has 410 (Q 120 W 110 E 80 R 100) Swain has 401 if his ult is up for just 3 seconds (Q 100 W 120 E 85 R 25 per second increased by 7 each second) Veigar has 395 (Q 80 W 90 E 100 R 125) Fiddlesticks has 415 (Q 65 W 120 E 130 R 100)

more?

CosnirakAug 24, 20153 votes

4 champions with mana gaining abilities, a champion who actually can and should build Tear of the Goddess, and a jungler. And they still only barely cost more. Imagine if Lux and Xerath swapped passives. Yeah as someone who plays a decent bit of Lux I'd take that swap in a heartbeat and actually consider playing her in ranked in the mid lane.

The Bíg TicketAug 24, 20152 votes

Lux can build Tear of the Goddess too.

Fiddle is played mid aswell...he is probably even better mid than jungle right now cause he doesn't even have a jungle item. Had a Fiddle mid just yesterday. http://prntscr.com/8850fn

CosnirakAug 24, 20153 votes

Lux can't reasonably build Tear. It takes her ages upon ages to stack.

Fiddle can also wave clear with one button much better than Lux and his button that does that starts at a lower cost than Lux's wave clear ability. It does ramp into the same cost eventually though yes. But also a lot of his lvl 18 mana costs comes from his W also scaling really high in cost and honestly it probably should be lowered in cost.

Despite all that his total costs at lvl 18 comes to 25 mana higher. Not enough for either of them to cast even half a spell at that point.

EDIT: Oh and the whole idea that one champion's mana costs are fine because there are other champion's with mana issues is total bullshit to begin with. Maybe they all should get some mana cost reductions.

CosnirakAug 24, 20151 votes

A better place to compare costs is lvl 9. This is when primary wave clear abilities are usually at their highest cost relative to everything else and first major mana items are either just being completed or almost are. By lvl 9 in most realistic in game scenarios who is the most likely to be oom, Lux or one of the 6 you mentioned? Lux.

Her big problem is that her E is too much of her kit. It's so much more of her damage in a typical 5-15 second fight than most champions rely on from one ability that costs a lot of mana. I wish they'd actually forgo the mana cost reduction currently on the PBE, increase the cost of her W, and lower the cost of her E.

PS sorry for ending up replying in two different posts

The Bíg TicketAug 24, 20151 votes

Lux can build Tear and she always builds chalice/Grail.

She is a very safe champion with high range. Her E is impossible to miss, does good damage aswell as providing vision and slowing enemies. It is totally justified for it to cost 130 mana at max rank. I will agree with you that she has trouble with her mana pool early in the game but she is definitely not the most mana hungry champion out there.

CosnirakAug 24, 20152 votes

She should never build Tear. She almost always builds Athene's because holy fuck her mana sucks. That's the point. That doesn't make it ok. Sadly even with Athene's she ooms rather often. Even after I finish Athene's I regularly leave the fountain with 2 mana pots and sometimes that's not enough. You know what the best solution to Lux's mana is? Taking teleport. That's not a good sign.

Her E is far from impossible to miss. The slow is rarely relevant because usually you pop it immediately to try to make sure it does damage before they get out. It's also a really weak slow and scales terribly with rank and not at all with AP. Providing vision is a common trait of spells like it and not that useful because it costs so much and has a medium length cooldown so you can't often use it for vision.

I never said she was the most mana hungry champion out there. I'd probably give that title to Anivia. Maybe Swain. Channeled abilities with mana costs per second are just going to be mana hungry. They however also work well with Tear.

BakedLotionAug 24, 20153 votes

[{quoted}](name=Danielas Kitten,realm=EUW,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=81vvgVHE,comment-id=0009000000000001,timestamp=2015-08-23T23:21:40.877+0000)

At max ranks Lux has a combined mana cost of 380 on her spells ( Q 90, W 60, E 130 R 100). Malzahar has 430 ( Q 100 W 110 E 120 R 100) Anivia has 415 if her ult only stays up for 1 second (Q 120 W 70 E 90 R 75 plus 60 for every second it is up) Xerath has 410 (Q 120 W 110 E 80 R 100) Swain has 401 if his ult is up for just 3 seconds (Q 100 W 120 E 85 R 25 per second increased by 7 each second) Veigar has 395 (Q 80 W 90 E 100 R 125) Fiddlesticks has 415 (Q 65 W 120 E 130 R 100)

more?

Xerath's is that high because he has mana sustain. Malz is that high because he can 100-0 tanks, along with the fact that he ALSO has mana sustain. Fiddle has infinite health sustain so his W needs to be that high. Veigar ALSO has mana sustain. Swain ALSO has mana sustain. Anivia is just old, and is balanced around mana, so idk why u chose her.

Your examples are so fucking biased it's not even funny. You picked the champions with mana sustain, and knew they would have higher mana costs because of that. And fiddle is just proof, because he's not a mid laner like the rest of them.

Lux has no sustain whatsoever, and her e is usually what she'll be using the entire laning phase. And that's more mana cost than her ult

Aeolian MelodiesAug 23, 20152 votes

[{quoted}](name=Danielas Kitten,realm=EUW,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=81vvgVHE,comment-id=00090000,timestamp=2015-08-23T22:24:17.762+0000)

There are so many midlaners with higher mana costs than Lux...don't even make me name all of them.

I'll be kind - name three.

The Bíg TicketAug 23, 20153 votes

named 6 above...want me to name more?

FistOfSharkieshaAug 24, 20152 votes

But she spends less for more effect overall. You can hit maybe 1/2 of Zigg's Qs or 90% of Lux's Es. Lux can get most mid laners so low that they're forced to back or risk death simply from auto attacks before she goes oom.

AdanimAug 23, 20156 votes

Buffing Lux won't do anything to her power. Her weakness comes from hard engage and tanky opponents. Her strength is staying back and poking the other team before unleashing her ult to pick off one or two of the carries, and then pushing with her team. The current meta counters her well, so I don't think buffing her will do much.

On a thematic level, why is Q applying the same effect to both targets? Light disperses, and is absorbed by objects that come into contact with it. idk I feel like that change is meaningless and not needed.

Kat HeadAug 23, 20156 votes

I have zero clue why this already strong champion is being buffed. Champions who can safely build item 3041 and already possess a high winrate should receive no more than quality of life adjustments at most.

Dr PoroAug 23, 20156 votes

Lux is my go-to midlaner and I agree. She doesn't have to be more popular than she is right now. These aren't huge buffs (the mana effect won't kick in until 8, by then it's not so big a deal anymore) but they are buffs nonetheless and will increase her strength. I think the double damage on second target is a way bigger buff than the mana. I'm not saying I don't want these buffs, I just don't understand why they decide to buff her. She's in a very good spot after those recent QoL buffs.

FistOfSharkieshaAug 24, 20154 votes

Which is exactly the point I was trying to make. She's not incredibly strong, but she's reliable and has enormous range. I'd rather duel her as a jungler than someone like Swain or Annie, but I despise laning against her. If she has any more power added to her kit it tips the scales so that she has tremendous kill pressure throughout the entire game while remaining way too safe.

Aeolian MelodiesAug 23, 20155 votes

her E was just changed so that it's reliable around 100 ping as well - what it does now could be done by people with lower ping, they just made it fairer to the whole player base

Vistha KaiAug 23, 20154 votes

It made it reliable at higher pungs by increasing its AoE range. Got it.

kDrakariAug 23, 20152 votes

The thing which made it reliable on higher ping was the "pre-detonate" thing, which let high ping players still get it to go off almost instantly as opposed to having it be ping-dependent. They also didn't increase it's area, they just increased the visuals to match the effect.

Vistha KaiAug 23, 20154 votes

Want me to prove you wrong?

Patch Notes 5.12

E - Lucent Singularity SLOW ZONE RADIUS 300 ⇒ 350

CosnirakAug 23, 20151 votes

Slow zone yes. Damage zone no. They made them overlap better (though it's still off a little).

Vistha KaiAug 24, 20151 votes

The thing is the old slow AoE was perfectly fine at having counterplay to the skill. If they'd bring the damage radius to the slow it'd be completely fine.

But as is now it's completely up to Lux to miss, which is bad. Better buff her Q instead.

CosnirakAug 24, 20152 votes

They changed the old radius because it was so different from the visual (and thus damage zone). It was the tiniest buff imaginable and almost never matters at all. Heck the entire slowing part of her E rarely matters at all. If they got rid of it and lowered her E's cost by 10 mana in exchange I'd consider that a buff.

You absolutely can dodge her E, even early on. It is not just up to her to miss. If you can never dodge it it's because you suck at dodging or your ping is like 150+.

Vistha KaiAug 24, 20151 votes

The slow radius was exactly as visuals, it was the damage beind dealt outside of it.

If Lux throws E dead center at you, you either have a huge movement speed or some form of a dash. Else you get hit, no "but"s.

CosnirakAug 24, 20152 votes

The slow radius was not exactly as visuals. I remember that clearly from playing her a lot at the time.

If Lux can easily throw her E dead centered on you you should already be moving. Are you ever just standing still in range of her E? It isn't that fast flying and it has a cast time, if you're not real close to her you can easily dodge it by just having semi random movements all the time like you should and paying attention.

Mostly Lux can't just spam it at most champions endlessly and kill them unless she gets in other damage as well. Let the passive wear off while at a safe distance, dodge the Q and R. She'll oom before you die.

Lots of champions can also easily shove the wave hard against her forcing her to lose her turret early as well as some cs or spend most of her mana trying to keep up with the waves while you safely don't stand on your minions and come out ahead.

Vistha KaiAug 24, 20151 votes

From playing multiple times aganist Lux I can tell you that the slow radius was identical as visuals.

Multiple times I even tested the ability and were standing right outside the circle and were damaged despite not being slowed.

As to dodging it... it has 350 range which means you need at least this much movement speed to walk out of the range before the singularity stops. So boots are a must on every but 3 or 4 champions in the game. The only thing I don't know is the ability travel speed.

CosnirakAug 24, 20151 votes

"From playing multiple times aganist Lux I can tell you that the slow radius was identical as visuals.

Multiple times I even tested the ability and were standing right outside the circle and were damaged despite not being slowed."

The damage radius might be the tiniest hair further than the visual, I'm not sure and it's hard to test due to the funkiness of champion hitboxes. The point is a minor change to the slow radius to match the damage radius is not a reason to nerf or not buff anything of any kind in regards to Lux so whatever.

"As to dodging it... it has 350 range which means you need at least this much movement speed to walk out of the range before the singularity stops."

No it doesn't. What ever gave you that idea? It has a cast time and a travel time and that travel time depends on how far away it's sent from Lux. If it appeared instantly at your feet the radius obviously wouldn't matter. There's no one exact speed you need to dodge it. Also it's almost never going to be cast exactly at your champion's center because there will always be some latency and human reaction speed issue. If you don't want to get hit by it, stop being predictable.

Vistha KaiAug 24, 20151 votes

You think 50 units bigger radius on an ability is nothing? That's the average width of a champion in this game, you know.

I did include the ability's travel time in my calculations, but keep being biased and spam "git gud" comments. Please do.

CosnirakAug 24, 20151 votes

"You think 50 units bigger radius on an ability is nothing? That's the average width of a champion in this game, you know."

It doesn't matter. It's rarely up for more than .1 seconds and is a weak slow at every rank.

"I did include the ability's travel time in my calculations"

What's the max travel time on her E then? And why didn't you mention it before? You just said the radius and declared that meant a certain speed was needed. And seriously, if you think every Lux E is perfectly cast at your champion's center you're delusional.

Vistha KaiAug 24, 20151 votes

I did mention it, but it seems I need to put it bluntly for some people.

The average MS for other mages is about 330. Lucent Singularity travels to it's maximum range in less than a second. It has 350 AoE range afterwards.

A champion with 330 movement speed will need 1.06 second to get from the center of the AoE to it's edge and then additional 0.2 second to fully walk out of the AoE - for an average champion hitbox of 65.

TL;DR You don't need to cast it perfectly to ensure damage will be dealt, because of how huge is the margin of error.

CosnirakAug 24, 20151 votes

"I did mention it, but it seems I need to put it bluntly for some people."

Just double checked, no you didn't mention its speed. You just assumed I knew.

"Lucent Singularity travels to it's maximum range in less than a second."

How do you know that (not saying it doesn't)? How long exactly does it take? Are you counting just the time for it to travel or are you including the cast time?

"A champion with 330 movement speed will need 1.06 second to get from the center of the AoE to it's edge and then additional 0.2 second to fully walk out of the AoE - for an average champion hitbox of 65."

You're not only still assuming perfect or near perfect target placement obviously (which almost never happens), but also no extra move speed. Runes and masteries can give extra speed. Several mid laners start boots + pots. You're also assuming 0 latency.

"TL;DR You don't need to cast it perfectly to ensure damage will be dealt, because of how huge is the margin of error."

Bull. Shit. The margin is not huge unless your dodging skills are crap.

And best of all, you still don't have a point. There are champions with actual unmissable abilities like Annie's Q. But that doesn't mean you just die or lose lane to it. Lux in particular will actually run out of mana before killing you if all she hits you with is her E early on. Lux is pretty awful in lane before her first back unless you screw up pretty bad against her.

BakedLotionAug 24, 20152 votes

[{quoted}](name=Vistha Kai,realm=EUNE,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=81vvgVHE,comment-id=00080000000000000000000000000000,timestamp=2015-08-24T01:21:58.335+0000)

The slow radius was exactly as visuals, it was the damage beind dealt outside of it.

If Lux throws E dead center at you, you either have a huge movement speed or some form of a dash. Else you get hit, no "but"s.

You'll never throw something dead center at you because you're always moving (atleast you should be) You're probably one of those people who walk predictably. If you see her throwing it at you, chances are, she's throwing it behind you. Move to the sides or walk TOWARDS her

Rico NastyAug 23, 20155 votes

What I don't get is why people keep whining about her high mana costs. Okay, yeah, her E has a high mana cost. But she also has insane damage, cc, an instant shield, and multiple nukes. She's gonna be pick-or-ban status now.

DanofDemaciaAug 24, 20153 votes

[{quoted}](name=karma or feed,realm=NA,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=81vvgVHE,comment-id=000e,timestamp=2015-08-23T20:36:50.230+0000)

What I don't get is why people keep whining about her high mana costs. Okay, yeah, her E has a high mana cost. But she also has insane damage, cc, an instant shield, and multiple nukes. She's gonna be pick-or-ban status now.

she will never be pick or ban

Only Play DariusAug 23, 20151 votes

Idk why but I can never win lane against her as Katarina her supposed counter

But every time I play this guy Yasuo against her I completely destroy her

Kat HeadAug 23, 201510 votes

[{quoted}](name=Jelly Mac,realm=NA,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=81vvgVHE,comment-id=0010,timestamp=2015-08-23T20:39:30.461+0000)

Idk why but I can never win lane against her as her supposed counter

But every time I play this guy against her I completely destroy her

Much easier with Yasuo, Win wall is op and lux will be much less willing to trade autos with Yasuo than she is with Kat. You can force her flash fairly early in lane with Yasuo or land a tornado and reck her. Yasuo is made to counter mages. Kat is not a 1 v 1 champion she is all about roaming and team fight with op clean ups.

With kat it is a harder match up. You need to shunpo her bindings (they are hard to see and go through minions) and she can bully the crap out of you with her passive. You can win vs lux but you need to make a play to make it happen, the lane is not in your favor but the game can be. I have never had a easy lane vs Lux, it always seems to be hotly contested. Every Lux I have ever laned against has always been really aggressive (and my jungler afk). I assume the Lux players are playing it correctly, if they were not that aggressive I would slowly poke them down with Q and suddenly combo ignite them before they could flash or shield.

CosnirakAug 23, 20154 votes

Kat counters Lux once you hit lvl 6 and complete your first item. Before that it's the total opposite. Lux DESTROYS Kat in the really early game. In fact it's possibly Lux's best pre 6 matchup in all of League and one of her very few good ones period. If you're Kat just play super safe, farm what little you can, and roam early and often for kills and assists until you can insta burst Lux.

ShonjlAug 24, 20151 votes

Have you seen how much Lux's spells cost? She is one of the most expensive champs in the game, the least that can be done for her is either up her mana regen or lower some cost. There is a reason she is rarely played anymore.