How to make Lux Competitively Viable (Mini-rework)

tl;dr:

• Illumination (passive) now applies a 0.5 second decaying slow.

• Passive slow value scales with Prismatic Barrier (w) level. (5/10/15/20/25/30 @ w level 0/1/2/3/4/5)
• Prismatic Barrier (w) can now detonate passive marks on enemies for 40% damage and half the slow value. Spell still does not apply passive marks.
• Lucent Singularity (e) slow reduced by 5% at all levels. (25/30/35/40/45 => 20/25/30/35/40)
• Lucent Singularity (e) slow linger reduced from 0.25 seconds to 0.15 seconds.
• Kills with Final Spark (r) no longer partially refund its cooldown.

Lux has always been a relatively popular choice in solo-que, but sees next to no professional play. As someone that has played quite a bit of Lux over several seasons, this got me thinking about why she does not see play. After all, at first glace, she appears to have a combination of Syndra pick/incitation and Orianna utility/zone control. I came to the conclusion that it was due to her unreliability and sub-par wave clear.

Most of Lux's unreliability comes from the fact that all of her abilities are skillshots. This cannot be changed without fundamentally changing how she plays or making her design less healthy. The most reliable part of her kit is her hard to dodge e into a passive proc by auto-attack (targeted by nature). The e is generally ok as it is setup for the rest of her kit; it makes it easier to hit q and run up to proc passive while also providing AoE damage and CC. The passive is ... lackluster. It is rather uninteresting as it currently serves as a trade tool that procs thunderlord's in lane and more damage on your ult later as it becomes increasingly dangerous to walk into aa-range. My idea is the give passive a minor slow to allow it to be safer to proc it late game and give her some more (weak) reliable CC, and it also has the bonus of making it "feel" better to proc her passive.

My next idea is to allow Lux's w to detonate her passive on enemies. This does two things: gives her proper wave clear and gives her a greater teamfight presence. The vast majority of champions with wave clear can choose to use two spells to clear the castor minions safely approximately after first back. On live, Lux must auto-attack the castors to kill them with her e, and this puts her in retaliation range while also having a critical spell on cooldown. By allowing her w to detonate her passive would allow her to match normal wave clear with the normal trade-off of having two spells on cooldown, and this will increase her damage and CC in teamfights by comboing e-w with the typical decision of affecting enemies with w or shielding allies. Obviously, because detonating Lux's passive with w would be much safer than auto-attacking, w passive procs need to be mach weaker. Running some numbers, I found about 40% damage is needed to clear the castor minions at a normal game time. I also think that the slow should w lesser to for the same reason, and I think half the value should be good just for evenish numbers. (Do note, e-w would not proc Thunderlord's with this change).

The reason that I want to have the passive slow scale with Prismatic Barrier level as opposed to champion level is that Lux's w currently feels rather "meh" to level and this would make it fell just a tiny bit better to do so. (It would also encourage your solo-que Lux support to not max shield last). Due to the typical spell leveling order, having the slow value bound to w level will keep the slow near neligable during lane as intended.

Naturally, adding all of this would be a pure buff as-is, so power must be removed from other parts of her kit. The ult cooldown refund on kill should definitely go. It is power devoted to "win more", and that is something that is avoided in professional play. It nonetheless concumes power budget, so it allows for buffs when removed. The other nerf that I'd recommend is reducing the slow on Lux's e by 5% at all levels, and reducing the time that the slow lingers after detonation by a tenth of a seconds. This is just about redistributing some e CC power into the passive. Since Lux currently has a sub 50% win rate that only gets lower the higher the elo, I think that these nerfs should be enough. However, if Lux turns out to be overpowered, I'd recommend lowering the passive slow when detonated with w from 50% to 40% base value. If she turns out to be underpowered for some reason, I'd recommend reverting the e slow linger nerf.

Thank you for considering my post. Good luck on the Rift!

X-posted to Reddit : here