Why does Vladimirs Q have more scaling and base damage than a Lux ultimate?

Unreformed Shaco·Oct 18, 2017·2 votes·880 views

Rank 5 Q does 296 + 111% AP on a click to target self heal with no cost and a 5 second cooldown. Rank 1 R does 300 + 70% AP delayed damage with no other effect.

I'm not saying Vlad is OP, or Lux is underpowered, just confused at why we have all these very low CD skills with incredibly high levels of damage, when you take away all the damage from Assassins skills?

It almost seems like the lower the CD, the more damage it deals..

22 Comments

Meep ManOct 18, 20174 votes

Lux is long range, AoE, and has one of the lowest ult cool downs in the game. Vlad Q is short ranged and single target, as well as requiring a charge up and having a window of time to actually deal that much damage which is pretty easy to avoid if you pay attention. Plus Lux R pops her passive.

ModThe DjinnOct 18, 20173 votes

[{quoted}](name=Unreformed Shaco,realm=OCE,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=O5EvyuXf,comment-id=,timestamp=2017-10-18T10:39:26.356+0000)

Rank 5 Q does 296 + 111% AP on a click to target self heal with no cost and a 5 second cooldown. Rank 1 R does 300 + 70% AP delayed damage with no other effect.

Because you're comparing a rank 5 single-target ability that requires time to charge up to the empowered version with a 2500+ range, AoE level 1 ultimate.

Note that potential one-cast team damage for that Vladimir ability is 296+111% AP. For Lux, even disregarding her passive, it's 1500+350% AP if she hits all five enemies.

In short? Different characters, different roles, different cast paradigms, different timings.

Unreformed ShacoOct 18, 20171 votes

[{quoted}](name=The Djinn,realm=NA,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=O5EvyuXf,comment-id=0008,timestamp=2017-10-18T13:18:55.509+0000)

Because you're comparing a rank 5 single-target ability that requires time to charge up to the empowered version with a 2500+ range, AoE level 1 ultimate.

Note that potential one-cast team damage for that Vladimir ability is 296+111% AP. For Lux, even disregarding her passive, it's 1500+350% AP if she hits all five enemies.

In short? Different characters, different roles, different cast paradigms, different timings.

But similar skills should have similar damage outputs.

When I hear "Ultimate", it should be the best of the best in terms of skills, but then you have champs like Ezreal, who do just as much with his Q as he does with his ult.

Since the game is now literally who can burst eachother out the fastest, what's the point of ultimates when you can spam low cd high scaling skills? Same with auto attacks from carries. They do more than any skill does, but have no cooldown and have range.

ModThe DjinnOct 18, 20171 votes

[{quoted}](name=Unreformed Shaco,realm=OCE,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=O5EvyuXf,comment-id=00080000,timestamp=2017-10-18T14:04:56.492+0000)But similar skills should have similar damage outputs.

I completely disagree with this. What a skill does isn't something that's in a vacuum -- it's entirely dependent on the rest of the champion's kit.

Also, even if this WERE true, Lux R is nothing like Vladimir Q. :P

When I hear "Ultimate", it should be the best of the best in terms of skills, but then you have champs like Ezreal, who do just as much with his Q as he does with his ult.

This is largely a perception issue with the term "ultimate." Udyr, Elise, Nidalee, Jayce, Quinn, Tahm Kench, Ryze...a lot of champions have ultimates that serve specific, potentially powerful purposes on their kits but aren't actually their "huge impact" moments. A lot of carries have something similar -- Ezreal, Kindred, Draven, Caitlyn, Tristana, Varus...these and more have ultimates that are designed to offer uses in specific situations, and don't deal as much damage as just attacking the target. Ezreal's ultimate is for team-wide damage, long-range snipes, and wave-clearing. His Q is for keeping up consistent high damage output. They're VERY different skills with different design goals, and I think that's absolutely fine.

Since the game is now literally who can burst eachother out the fastest, what's the point of ultimates when you can spam low cd high scaling skills? Same with auto attacks from carries. They do more than any skill does, but have no cooldown and have range.

Because skills serve purposes, as indicated previously. The game isn't really just about burst damage either -- it may be a little too high right now, but I think you're definitely taking this to a little bit of an extreme.

To take a design perspective of the issue, you don't always WANT damage heavily tied to an ultimate. Doing so creates issues when you want a character who has consistent strong damage -- Ryze or Vladimir or Cassiopeia, for example. If you sink a large portion of their damage into their ultimate, they suddenly lack that powerful consistent damage when it's on cooldown, or they get to high a burst when it's up. As such, often a flashly utility ultimate (or off-role ultimate like Ezreal) can be a strong design choice.

Nanuk PihoqahiakOct 18, 20172 votes

Are we somehow forgetting that Lux's ultimate is 3,340 range and has the potential to hit 5 people, wave clear when being sieged every 30 seconds, or even snipe objectives?

MortekaiserOct 18, 20171 votes

because vlad has to get pretty close to use it (usually in range of a mage's combo)

meanwhile lux can use it from fog of war

Unreformed ShacoOct 18, 20171 votes

{quoted}

because vlad has to get pretty close to use it (usually in range of a mage's combo)

meanwhile lux can use it from fog of war

But so do 90% of mages with click to target skills.

Brand E doesnt have that scaling. Annie Q doesn't. Akali Q doesn't. Malzahar E doesn't. Most of these skills don't have the bonus of healing either.

Now we look at good Ol' Shaco, who up until Meddler decided that his E was too spammable, had a LOWER base damage, LOWER Scaling, HIGHER cost and HIGHER cooldown.

Literally everything his E did, Vlad Q did better. 'Cept only one of them was nerfed.

YrzenOct 18, 20172 votes

Comparing abilities without looking at their contexts is fallacious.

Vladimir's Q is the strongest ability in his entire kit. His ult has no up-front damage and his E goes both unmaxed and underwhelming for a large part of the game. For that matter, his ult has little damage attached to it, relying instead on the 12% damage amplification effect, which is nice, but overall only very significant in team fights.

You said in your post how Lux's R has no additional effect attached but I don't think that's true. In my experience as a Lux player, I think it's unwise to use Lux's ultimate without hitting an enemy with her Q first, not just to make it harder or impossible to avoid, but because her R's damage relies on being able to proc her passive at a relatively safe distance. (As well as applying it again, allowing you to extend your rotation if your target tries to jump you afterward or if they fight better at a distance than you) Any Lux player worth their salt can tell you that they need to take into account her passive when trying to gauge how much damage her ult will do, particularly when deciding to go for a snipe on a target without her passive.

MortekaiserOct 18, 20171 votes

[{quoted}](name=Unreformed Shaco,realm=OCE,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=O5EvyuXf,comment-id=00000000,timestamp=2017-10-18T10:59:35.260+0000)

snip

you're comparing a bunch of different champions to a close-medium range drain mage. its like if I compared tristana to morgana

brand E has ways to spread to others and is usually followed by a stun from Q, annie Q usually has a stun tied to it when used against champions, akali is a cancermonkey and boosts players who play that shit, malz E spreads through minions with application of his other spells, shaco can decide if he wants to use E and has the comfort of his Q stealth to get close enough to apply it.

vlad walks up to you, and he has one of the most telegraphed patterns imaginable.

Unreformed ShacoOct 18, 20171 votes

{quoted}

you're comparing a bunch of different champions to a close-medium range drain mage. its like if I compared tristana to morgana

brand E has ways to spread to others and is usually followed by a stun from Q, annie Q usually has a stun tied to it when used against champions, akali is a cancermonkey and boosts players who play that shit, malz E spreads through minions with application of his other spells, shaco can decide if he wants to use E and has the comfort of his Q stealth to get close enough to apply it.

vlad walks up to you, and he has one of the most telegraphed patterns imaginable.

Telegraphed yes. You either take half your health, or you run away for a few seconds. Repeat every 10 seconds.

AhrisOct 18, 20171 votes

Better comparison will be Ahri's 400? Range w with damage of 224+ 0.48 ap.

Edit: To be fair, Vlad is probably the most broken midlaner atm.

RctegOct 18, 20173 votes

{quoted}

Better comparison will be Ahri's 400? Range w with damage of 224+ 0.48 ap.

Edit: To be fair, Vlad is probably the most broken midlaner atm.

AhrisOct 18, 20171 votes

{quoted}

No

Yes

ChiTenshiOct 18, 20171 votes

Single Target Ability vs. AoE Ability.

MordepoolOct 18, 20171 votes

Someone got beat by Vladimir recently? Lol

Nut on my ButtOct 18, 20171 votes

As annoying as I currently find vlad to be, you're comparing the base dmg of a lvl 5 skill to the base dmg of the ultimate. I'm on my phone right now so I can't be bothered to check, but I wouldn't be surprised if those were the values for the empowered q as well.

You also left out that Lux's ult procs and reapplies her passive, significantly increasing its dmg in a combo.

It's silly to compare single skills like this anyway.

Unreformed ShacoOct 18, 20171 votes

[{quoted}](name=Daddy Issues,realm=NA,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=O5EvyuXf,comment-id=0004,timestamp=2017-10-18T12:08:24.568+0000)

As annoying as I currently find vlad to be, you're comparing the base dmg of a lvl 5 skill to the base dmg of the ultimate. I'm on my phone right now so I can't be bothered to check, but I wouldn't be surprised if those were the values for the empowered q as well.

You also left out that Lux's ult procs and reapplies her passive, significantly increasing its dmg in a combo.

It's silly to compare single skills like this anyway.

It was just an example, why do low CD skills have such high damage?

Nut on my ButtOct 18, 20171 votes

[{quoted}](name=Unreformed Shaco,realm=OCE,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=O5EvyuXf,comment-id=00040000,timestamp=2017-10-18T12:43:36.656+0000)

It was just an example, why do low CD skills have such high damage?

In vlad's case, he revolvesv around his q, as all of his other skills cost significant hp and it's his only reliable way to get it back

InfernapeOct 18, 20171 votes

Vlad's Q has to be charged twice in order to deal that amount of damage.

SchenixOct 18, 20171 votes

That's his empowered Q though. It compensates for the horrible damage his Q has two thirds of the time so he can time his trades and engages to mean something.

InfernapeOct 18, 20171 votes

Not to mention his empowered Q is visible. All you've gotta do is run away from him until the bar drains.

Shuyin178Oct 18, 20171 votes

1st, a few things I would like to clear up for those who don't know the scalings for Vlad.

Rank 5 Q does 296 + 111% AP on a click to target self heal with no cost and a 5 second cooldown.

This is the empowered version not the base version you'll start off every fight with. Base Rank 5 is 160 (+60% AP). 2nd

Rank 1 R does 300 + 70% AP delayed damage with no other effect.

Your math is wrong it's 75%, it does have added effects, and Vlad's Q is more delayed than Lux's ult because you need to use the base Q 1 or 2 times before you can even use the empowered version. As for the added effects, it triggers her passive to boost its damage further and re-applies her passive afterwards to be triggered again. It also refunds some of its own cooldown if it kills a champion. Not to mention it is also a very long skillshot that pierces. As for the damage, if you are using Lux correctly, her ult damage should be calculated at rank 1 as 300 (+75%AP) + 70 (+20%) (70 and 20% being her passive's damage at level 6) coming out to a total at rank 1 level 6 as 370 (+95% AP). She also gets 100 damage per ult rank, so the numbers jump up to 510 (+95% AP) and 670 (+95% AP) with her passive damage scaling added in.

So at the end of the day we're comparing Vlad: 160 (+60% AP) 296 (+111% AP)

Lux: 300 (+75% AP) 370 (+95% AP) 400 (+75% AP) 510 (+95% AP) 500 (+75% AP) 670 (+95% AP)

For the sake of argument, I'll say Rank 1 Final Spark + Passive is equal to Vlad's Rank 5 Empowered Q. However, every rank past that her Final Spark is superior in every way outside of being dodgable. If I was to add in the damage from the spell that set up her Ult + Passive then there would be no contest as to which champion dealt more damage, even if you added in your base Q's damage compared to Rank 3 Final Spark.