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One day, Lucian will not be a top tier ADC

Alenthayn··36 votes·4,562 views

So other ADCs like Draven MissFortune Quinn Tristana Varus can become popular as ADC picks once again.

Please, I know Quinn and Varus are played Top and Mid respectively, just calm down, I'm talking about ADC here

Edit: Wanted to add clarifications about why Lucian not being top tier anymore would diversify the ADC meta.

Well, simply because he's basically the ADC of S4 Renekton.

Remember S4 Renekton? Yeah, him. The croc that literally decided what was meta and what wasn't? If a champion couldn't beat Renekton in lane, it was trash tier, which is why only few picks were still viable (Shyvana DrMundo Trundle)

Well, it's practically the same with Lucian right now.

Every viable ADC has to beat Lucian in order to actually be viable. Hence why the most popular ADC picks right now are Ezreal Caitlyn Jhin Jinx

Ezreal is so safe, Lucian can never kill him, Caitlyn is also mega safe and has the range advantage over Lucian, Jhin is just Jhin and one shots anyone within 4 AAs, Jinx is a little overtuned now (tho she has received some nerfs, so let's see how it plays out)

But right now, unless you are a devoted one trick pony of that champion, there is just no reason to NOT pick Lucian instead of the ADCs mentionned above. I mean, sure, they fill their niche, but there is no reason to pick them, when Lucian can also do their job, and be an overall more safe pick.

Which is why when Lucian wasn't top tier anymore, other ADCs were viable. Remember Pre-S5, when he was literally LOSECIAN? Aside from Vayne in every single fucking game (but she was practically permabanned, so meh), there was a HUGE diversity in the bot lane, as every ADC could be picked without worrying about if they're trash or not.

118 Comments

warpenguin55523 votes

I still would take having Lucian in every game over Vayne in every game like she was at this time last year.

Alenthayn3 votes

I would rather not have any of them in every game :-)

warpenguin5557 votes

Yeah adcs tend to do this annoying thing where only 3 are viable at once and have a play rate of 20%+ while the rest of them have a play rate of under 10%. And the marksman update really only made this worse.

Rockman8 votes

Uh

http://puu.sh/ryG0r/c7137048fe.jpg

Anonagon3 votes

I don't think you quite realize the point Its not that Lucian is overpowered, or even strong its that he's so lane dominate that what is able to be picked in bot lane is enterly determined by its matchup against lucian In fact, that just means Lucian is even more likely to have a negative winrate, because he's only going against people who should theoretically beat him

Rockman4 votes

{quoted}

I don't think you quite realize the point Its not that Lucian is overpowered, or even strong its that he's so lane dominate that what is able to be picked in bot lane is enterly determined by its matchup against lucian In fact, that just means Lucian is even more likely to have a negative winrate, because he's only going against people who should theoretically beat him

??????????????????????????????????????

Mf, Jhin, and Jinx all beat him by a large margin.

At Lucian's best he's got a 2% lead on Kog'maw and Kalista who are both shit right now anyway.

U wot m8.

People got PTSD thinking Lucian is controlling the bot meta right now lmao.

Big Lincoln16 votes

lol ignore his 30% pick rate

Rockman5 votes

[{quoted}](name=Big Lincoln,realm=NA,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=TtYBdWJm,comment-id=000a0001,timestamp=2016-10-05T16:48:14.212+0000)

lol ignore his 30% pick rate

Its almost like Lucian is easy and fun to play.

Vayne has a 20% pickrate so unless you wanna have try applying the same logic to her you should probably shut up.

Big Lincoln2 votes

Vaynes too strong, too and both of these champs are fun because they're OP

what now

Rockman17 votes

[{quoted}](name=Big Lincoln,realm=NA,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=TtYBdWJm,comment-id=000a000100000000,timestamp=2016-10-05T16:57:56.814+0000)

Vaynes too strong, too and both of these champs are fun because they're OP

what now

I'm sorry I forgot this was Gameplay and Bronze.

I'll just leave with my statistics nobody gives a damn about.

Chalizard2 votes

Actually she is too strong and her skill floor is too low for such power. The same is lucian.

Rockman12 votes

{quoted}

Actually she is too strong and her skill floor is too low for such power. The same is lucian.

Please don't respond if you're gonna say this dribble.

Vayne spotting is a game and yet people say this

Chalizard2 votes

If you think that her skill floor is not below average then indeed we have Nothing to talk about.

Rockman5 votes

{quoted}

If you think that her skill floor is not below average then indeed we have Nothing to talk about.

The fuck are you smoking that makes you say she's below average. Any adc w/o waveclear is not below average

Chalizard1 votes

I'm talking about adcs not all champions so it's below average adcs skill floor, better?

Brain Errör 4045 votes

Go play vayne and stomp to challenger. Go, I dare you. "Low skill floor"

"gets 1v1'd by every adc early game" "super hard to come back when behind" "out ranged by every adc because every single adc besides vayne has a global/extended ranged attack" "Has the lowest DPS in the most literal sense of the phrase and actually wins trades by outplaying"

I beat 90% of vaynes I face. She isn't anything special. And this is coming from an ex-vayne mayne.

Chalizard1 votes

Not a single of your states was True, If you beat her then I'm proud of you. But for real in late game she 1 vs 1 almost every champion, her mobility and invisibility makes her range less important, she has one of the highest dps in game and even if she is behind she can Come back easly with 1-2 items.

Anidan2 votes

Actually I can also confirm what he's saying. She wins mostly by out-playing you, not by sheer damage output. Her damage output isn't amazingly low, but it's definitely not the highest for an ADC, not even close. Her lack of ability to quickly push and farm waves also make it hard for her to come back if she's behind because the enemy ADC will likely out-duel her barring a stun if she's behind.

Her skill floor is not low. She is almost exclusively single-target sustained damage with a positioning-based (read: unreliable) CC.

Baron of Bread1 votes

In most 1v1s Vayne does not need to outplay her opponent, she merely needs to play effectively. It is up to the Vayne to misplay so that her opponent can win, unless that opponent is some other "LCS big plays" champ. At that point there can be some amount of back and forth with predictions and what not, but otherwise it is the Vayne's fight to lose come mid/late game.

Spoofghoul1 votes

that kind of reinforces the point he just made.

vayne spotting isnt about vayne being mechically shit, its about vayne players being too cocky and doing dumb shit,

if even dumb people can play the champ then their skill floor is low

anyway skill floor/ceiling should in no way relate to a champions power in any way shape or form imho.

MunchCrunchLunch2 votes

your gold for 2 straight seasons and then you get to diamond skipping plat

op.gg "too many duo games"

ahh. i see.

you have 0 lp at d5. and you haven't played ranked in weeks because you know you will demote if you do all the way back where you belong. which is gold.

rank shame yourself.

Rockman5 votes

{quoted}

your gold for 2 straight seasons and then you get to diamond skipping plat

op.gg "too many duo games"

ahh. i see.

you know

its nice to see somebody who tries to ad hominem your ass when they know nothing about you.

http://puu.sh/ryV95/02fb9dea43.jpg

http://puu.sh/ryVbB/864c072b56.jpg

and the guys I "duoed" with all are plat then and now.

but nice try kiddo.

Sniper 01 votes

Op.gg isn't exactly reliable on this front... if you want a more reliable source use the client, at least for dq purposes. I think Op.gg is taking into account non ranked games for mmr... lol

I mostly played solo zyra to climb to gold but I'm getting that message on op.gg... xD

DeathBot6661 votes

It's cause lucian if fun to play?

I always thought that it was because websites like that aren't even remotely reliable in anything they say. In a game in which Riot reports that 27 million people play the game daily as of 2014:

http://www.forbes.com/sites/insertcoin/2014/01/27/riots-league-of-legends-reveals-astonishing-27-million-daily-players-67-million-monthly/#15eed9603511

That means that those 83524 games which champion.gg (Which that picture is from), is about 0.30934814814% of the daily league population. Furthermore, since that data is collected over a patch (2 weeks), that means that those numbers represent 0.02209629629% of games played that patch.

Now, this is an estimate with old data, as these are the most recent data I could find. The playerbase could have grown or shrunk over those 2 years. My only point is that the sample size is too small to gain any relative data from it.

ChaoticPinecone3 votes

They are reliable. Not sure why youd think otherwise. Champion.gg states that they use only data from Plat+ matches, and limit their data to NA, EUNE, EUW, and KR servers. Most of these sites get their information from Riot's API. Champion.gg is one of the ones listed as a "Community highlight".

If youd like data from all ranks on an individual server (and isnt broken down by patch), try OP.GG. Still says Lucian has a 26.86% pick rate and a 46% winrate on the NA server in the past 7 days. Lucian also has below a 48% winrate in Bronze-Master. In Challenger, he has a 58% winrate.

Now, you can always argue what the data means - like whether or not Lucian's high pickrate despite his low winrate is because he is fun to play. But saying that the data isnt correct is wrong.

DeathBot6661 votes

2 things.

  1. OP.GG only uses from plat and up. It literally says that right under the "Champion Analysis" header.

http://na.op.gg/champion/statistics

  1. You completely missed the point of my entire post. It doesn't matter where they get their data from. There not using a large enough sample size for anything they say to actually be accurate. I could ask 1 person in a group of 100 what their favorite food is, and then claim that to be the favorite food of everyone there. However, I'm only talking to 1% of the people there, so those results aren't going to be accurate. It's the same thing with any of these websites. As I stated in my first post, the results are based off of an incredibly small group of people, roughly 50X smaller proportionally than the analogy I just used. I'm not questioning whether the info they get on games is accurate, I'm stating that the amount they gather isn't enough to be an accurate representation of that character.
ChaoticPinecone1 votes

http://na.op.gg/statistics/champion/

Yes, the "Champion Analytics" uses data from Plat and up. This gives information such as skill order and build order. If you look at the "Statistics," you can find the overall pick rate (but doesnt break down into ranks), the overall winrate, and the winrate-by-rank and games-played-by-rank. Which is why under "Statistics" Lucian has a 46.32% winrate overall, but under the "Champion Analytics" it shows a 47.88% winrate.

And the reason why you think your second point is valid is based on your misinformation about the first point. If we are to believe op.gg, its not a sample - its all the data from Riot's API from all ranked games. And i mean, its not really hard to believe that na.op.gg uses the entire data pool instead of just a sample of it: Lets look at the data from the past month:

  • Lucian has a 30.11% pick rate in ranked in the past month
  • He has been picked 781,750 times in ranked in the past month
  • From those two numbers, we can see that there were 2,596,313 ranked games in the past month.

Now, youre trying to say that this data is a sample, and a small one at that. I'm saying that this is a full analysis of every single player.

You gave the number of 27 million daily players/64 million per month from Forbes. Forbes recently stated that League has 100 million per month. But these are just player numbers - we dont actually know how many games or ranked games there are. But lets do some math anyway:

  • If we are to believe unrankedsmurfs.com, who also gets data from Riot's API, NA comprises of 14.63% of the entire League community.
  • So 100 million players per month means 14,630,000 are on the NA server.
  • Of those 14.6 million unique players on the NA server per month, some dont play ranked.
  • But on the flipside, of those 14.6 million on the NA server, many players play multiple ranked games per month.

Now this part might be a little subjective based on your experience - use what you know about the rate of ranked/normal/aram games that people play. Do you encounter people who play a lot more ranked or a lot more normals? Do you see people play a lot more ARAM or a lot more ranked? For me, I know and see a lot more people play ARAM or Normals than those who grind out ranked every time they play. I'm one of those guys who looks up players in my ranked games to see if they consistently perform badly, consistently perform well, or if they are playing an off-position. I generally see that the number of ranked games each person plays is lower than their overall number of games. And this takes only into account people who play ranked - there is a portion of the community who doesnt play ranked at all, or only plays the minimum required to get skins.

Taking all this into account, is it really hard to believe that there have been 2.6 million ranked games in the past month? Or, if you think its still just a sample, is 2.6 million ranked games for 14.6 million players (again, taking into account that some dont rank and others play multiple times, along with the fact that each game takes 10 players) - do you think thats small sample by any means?

Lugg6 votes

The problem with Lucian is that he doesn't have any significant weakness at all. He is strong at every stage of the game and has great mobility and counterplay. There isn't any good counter to him at all.

Utility Veigar4 votes

Here's a suggestion. Give his dash mana costs. And by that, I mean not have it go down per level. That's partially why Essence Reaver isn't bought on him. 0 mana level 5? Are you serious?

DunkinNoobs6 votes

{quoted}

The problem with Lucian is that he doesn't have any significant weakness at all. He is strong at every stage of the game and has great mobility and counterplay. There isn't any good counter to him at all.

Lucian is only strong early and when he's fed. Otherwise, his mid and late game suck ass, like among the worst of all adcs.

Can't believe people are complaining about Lucian when his experience curve looks like this:http://imgur.com/a/PfgxK

Even the best Lucians don't win half their games. Face it, this champ sucks ass in Solo Q, at least for most of the playerbase.

Lugg1 votes

{quoted}

his mid and late game suck ass, like among the worst of all adcs.

You need to find some new crack. That stuff you're smoking is killing your brain. Lucian has a strong mid and the only ones who beat him late are the hyper carries.

Can't believe people are complaining about Lucian when his experience curve looks like this:http://imgur.com/a/PfgxK

Here is a much more relevant graph: https://champion.gg/statistics/#?sortBy=general.overallPosition&order=ascend&roleSort=ADC

Even the best Lucians don't win half their games. Face it, this champ sucks ass in Solo Q, at least for most of the playerbase.

They have to balance him for ranked and pro play. In pro hands he is pretty OP. Ranked you have to play him quite a bit, but you can still climb with him pretty easy.

DunkinNoobs5 votes

{quoted}

You need to find some new crack. That stuff you're smoking is killing your brain. Lucian has a strong mid and the only ones who beat him late are the hyper carries.

He's statistically among the worst adcs in the game past 30 minutes. http://imgur.com/a/TLN1s

Lucian is a snowball or lose champion. If he doesn't get ahead in the laning phase, he almost always loses, especially since his Armor Pen build is currently the standard and Armor Pen builds necessitate being ahead to be truly effective. A Lucian that's behind in the mid and late game is the worst adc in the entire game and we have the stats to prove it. Hell, the only real adcs with worse late games than Lucian are Ezreal and Varus, and only because their poke builds are their predominant builds and lack the DPS to do their jobs late game. Even Kalista is better late game than Lucian is, and she's been gutted so hard that she's practically unviable.

Lugg1 votes

If he is so horrible, why is he the most picked ADC in the game by a large margin? He is also the 4th most banned.

Reason is he has no bad matchups bot. He will snowball and get ahead of the hyper carries and he goes pretty even with the lane bullies.

His numbers seem awful because he is played a lot by bad players.

DunkinNoobs6 votes

{quoted}

If he is so horrible, why is he the most picked ADC in the game by a large margin?

Same reason Lee Sin is the most played jungler despite being mediocre at best outside of competitive play. Same reason Riven is usually the highest pickrate top laner no matter how strong she is. Same reason Thresh is the most played support despite a solid 10 champs being better supports than him.

He's fun, he's cool, and he feels really good to play. He sported similar playrates with an even lower winrate for most of season 5. And we all know how trash Season 5 Lucian was. He's a safe but mediocre pick that's really enjoyable to play. That kind of champ will always have a high pickrate no matter how bad they are.

And come on, 4th highest banrate among adcs? It's 1.7%. What an utterly meaningless statistic. There's still like 70 champs with higher banrates that Lucian.

Lugg2 votes

I have to ask at this point, do you even play League?

Lee is way better than mediocre. If you think this, you really don't understand the game at all. Lee Sin literally has no weaknesses left in the game. His utility is so high that it covers up the slight drop he has late game. Riven is faceroll until you get to Plat. Thresh is played most simply from people trying to copy #LCSBIGPLAYS.

I just can't believe you think he is a weak ADC. He isn't OP, but he is strong enough to face any matchup.

He is banned more than 13 other ADCs. I'd say that's pretty significant.

DunkinNoobs3 votes

{quoted}

I have to ask at this point, do you even play League?

Lee is way better than mediocre. If you think this, you really don't understand the game at all. Lee Sin literally has no weaknesses left in the game. His utility is so high that it covers up the slight drop he has late game. Riven is faceroll until you get to Plat. Thresh is played most simply from people trying to copy #LCSBIGPLAYS.

I certainly understand the game far better than a guy that's never gotten past silver. Hate to go there, but I have to. Lee Sin is mediocre at best in Solo Q. So is Lucian until you get to the very top of the ladder. Riven isn't faceroll in any elo. The only point you're right on in that whole rant is Thresh.

And Lucian can still be a strong enough laner to face any matchup and still be bad. Being strong in lane doesn't automatically make you a good champion, otherwise Aatrox would be top tier. You're right: Lucian can handle any matchup in bot lane if he plays cards right. But guess what? That isn't good enough. Lucian needs to win bot lane. He needs to be ahead in gold by a significant amount by the time mid game rolls around or he simply doesn't do enough damage to make up for his lack of range and utility. Going even in lane is losing lane for Lucian because other adcs have more range, more dps, and more utility than he does all while outscaling him more and more as the game goes on.

crippler382 votes

lee has strong ganks and decent teamfight for an assassin with the mobility for good objective control, his damage is good and he has some cc (albeit minor outside of his ultimate) and he has good dps with his passive.

In what way is Lee mediocre at best? Get good with him and you can still carry pretty well!

He might not be top 3 right now but if you're saying someone who knows how to play lee can only make him mediocre you sure are cray cray!

EDIT: my point being that you got to balance champs around those that can play them real well otherwise you're basically going to set it up for them to stomp face or do nothing. I'm sure you know that but I can't look at lee sin and think 'oh this guy is meh at best'

DunkinNoobs2 votes

He's mediocre in the sense that, if you're good enough at Lee to make him worth picking, you could just pick a top tier jungler like Nidalee or Graves and dominate instead. He simply takes far too much effort and is far too easy to mess up for the amount of power you get out of him. That's the very definition of mediocre: not worth the effort.

Lugg1 votes

First off, someone's rank has little to do with their game knowledge. This is the first thing that shows your ignorance of the game. That's like saying a pro football coach knows nothing about football because they have never played the game.

Lee Sin's numbers are mediocre in solo Q because so many people play him that have no business playing him. He is a mechanically challenging champ for sure. However, just watch Worlds right now and try to tell me that Lee isn't a strong champ.

As for Lucian, yeah you have to win lane against the champs that outscale him, but that's pretty easy to do. You said "Lucian can handle any matchup in bot lane if he plays his cards right". That right there completely proves my point and it's your own words.

DunkinNoobs2 votes

{quoted}

First off, someone's rank has little to do with their game knowledge.

The biggest thing separating players from one another is their game knowledge. If you had good game knowledge, you wouldn't be silver. It's really that simple. You don't understand this game if you're stuck in low elo. Why? Because low elo is trash and they make massive, nonstop mistakes that any player with decent game knowledge will recognize and punish. The fact that you don't necessarily means you lack the game knowledge necessary to recognize their mistakes in a timely manner.

Hell, you think Lee Sin has "Tons" of utility. That's the dumbest shit I've ever heard. The whole reason Lee falls off so hard is due to his LACK of utility. Which "tons" of utility are you referring to exactly? His shitty ass shield that doesn't scale? His shitty melee range slow that decays? Or perhaps you meant his 1 hard CC that's super predictable and impossible to use as lockdown except in very specific situations? The whole reason Lee falls off so hard is because once his damage falls off, he has literally nothing left except his kick, which is an unreliable skill at best.

Lugg1 votes

http://memecrunch.com/meme/1H9XZ/lol-mechanics/image.jpg

This is the biggest thing until you reach Diamond. Just read the forums here and you will see that the majority of Diamond players have little to no game knowledge. That's why they are stuck in Diamond, they can't progress because of that.

Saying Lee Sin doesn't have utility may be the dumbest thing I have read on the forums. Every Plat+ player who reads that is going to laugh their ass off. Comment is actually so dumb I'm not going to discuss it further.

DunkinNoobs1 votes

{quoted}

http://memecrunch.com/meme/1H9XZ/lol-mechanics/image.jpg

This is the biggest thing until you reach Diamond. Just read the forums here and you will see that the majority of Diamond players have little to no game knowledge.

You're actually that delusional. That's hilarious. Good to know to not take you seriously ever again.

Lugg1 votes

I can actually hear the community laughing at you right now.

Honestly, who doesn't think mechanics are vital to winning?

DunkinNoobs1 votes

They are. They just don't get you to Diamond alone. You have to have good game knowledge to get to diamond, even if it's just game knowledge derived from experience. Mechanics without game knowledge is worthless. They may not necessarily be able to articulate that game knowledge to other people, but they do have it. Hell, the average diamond player understands this game so much more than the average low elo player that it's not even the same ballpark. "Mechanics" don't do shit for you except help you execute on the game knowledge you have. Without knowledge, mechanics are worthless.

Lugg1 votes

Don't get me wrong, game knowledge is very important. In fact, it gets more important as you move up the ranks. However, at low elo, mechanics is more important since you have to be able to execute that game knowledge.

I agree that most Diamond players have a very good understanding of the game. But there are quite a few Diamond players that are there mostly on great mechanical skill.

bad manner kid5 votes

One day LeeSin, Elise, and Rumble will never be seen at worlds. Until 2030, I won't hold my breath though!

Big Brain Plays5 votes

Is this a joke post? The ADC pool is probably the healthiest its ever been.

Drehirth2 votes

I had same reaction; I thought it's been great ever since he recieved his nerfs awhile back.. and this seemed to come out of nowhere, but apparently a lot of people agree...

ll Ainz Sama ll3 votes

And lucian hasn't been a problem for months now... Jhin and Ezreal are stronger, dont know why this post was even made lol

TeCoolMage1 votes

ADC pool is least annoying but diversity probably goes to mid, people just tend to separate mid into assassins and mages, though when they're both merged into mid the diversity is a huge wad of 50 different flavours of cancer and one shots.

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