Boards›Gameplay

@RiotRepertoir I believe you are buffing Lux in the wrong place.

Irìss·3/28/2018, 10:12:44 AM·83 votes·30,158 views

First off, to give some credibility to the statements I will be making below...I have the second highest amount of games played with Lux in Diamond+ and actively play her in D1+ elo because I enjoy her kit immensely.

**PBE CHANGES: **

The current PBE change is to make it so that Final Spark, her ultimate, has its CD reduced by 30/40/50% if the target dies within 1.75 seconds of taking damage from Lux's ult. This is different from live in that Lux must kill her target with her ult to get the cool down reduction.

WHY THIS BUFF DOESN"T WORK:

There are two possibilities where this buff will influence Lux. 1. In teamfights. 2. With Picks.

Teamfights are diverse and always different, but most of them usually last between 10-20 seconds on average I would say. Even if Lux was to get a kill at the beginning of a teamfight AND was level 16 with 40% CDR, then she MIGHT have the opportunity to use a second ult during that fight, or try to snipe somebody running away. In every other circumstance (Early and mid game), the fight will end, and Lux will awkwardly have her ult up in 10-20 seconds with nowhere to use it.

Picks occur in two ways with Lux

  1. _With you team: _If you are with your team and pick an enemy, then this buff will be beneficial, as you are not always the one getting the kill with your ult, and it is possible that a teamfight may break out 30 seconds later in time for your ult to be back up due to this buff.
  2. _By yourself: _When you get a pick with Lux by yourself, you ALWAYS throw your q, e, and r and blow the target up, usually with your ult getting the kill. So, in this case, the buff does nothing as you are already getting the CDR reduction that is on the live servers already.

So, this buff seems good on the outside, but in reality it is RARELY every going to provide an opportunity to show itself in game.

WHAT ARE HER PROBLEMS:

The main champions I see at higher elo in mid lane are Ryze, Azir, Vlad, Taliyah, Zoe, Twisted Fate. One thing that all of these champions have in common, maybe besides Zoe, is that they can all push in a wave relatively easily using only 1-2 of their abilities once they hit around level 5. Lux, on the other hand, has one of the weakest wave clears...for example: 1. Lux throws e out, hits all minions. **2. **Lux has to auto attack all 3 casters to kill them. 3. Lux has to throw another e out, or use q on two melee minions. 4. Lux auto attacks 2-3 more times to clear the wave. This is a typical wave clear on Lux, and unless you are extremely fed, there is not much variation in this. Her E does not do enough damage to kill casters in one hit, even with Minion Dematerializer (7% extra damage), and this makes her extremely susceptible to being pushed in. While pushed in, she is constantly behind in following up with roams and has very little pressure overall. In my opinion, this is one of the major reasons why she is actually considered the worst mid laner of op.gg right now. She spends so much time trying to farm, she is consistently late to skirmishes and the enemy mid lane gets ahead.

In addition to this, her e mana cost is extremely high for an ability that does so little damage to minions and is relatively weak early on. Her q missile speed is one of the lowest in the game, and is EXTREMELY difficult to land during the laning phase, and i mostly use it for farming because of that reason (It is fine in teamfights, it's just fairly bad in lane). All of these things and more are what lead her to be in an extremely weak state right now up in higher elos, and why you have not seen her in an LCS game in quite some time.

**HOW TO FIX HER: **

My potential fixes are as follow: **1. **Increase q missile speed so that it is easier to land in lane, and in teamfights (Maybe make damage scale based on distance traveled to compensate for teamfights). 2. Reduce e mana cost, and increase its damage against minions. (I think Lux does enough damage when ahead, that a straight buff to her e to champions might be too much) In any case though, Lux somehow needs to do more damage to minions overall early game.

Thanks for reading this if you made it this far and let me know if you agree. I have much more I could have written but I'll spare all of you the details :P

**TLDR: **Lux is too weak in lane, Lux does too little damage to minions, Lux gets pushed in too easily, Riot's buffs to Lux will not fix her abysmal winrate.

157 Comments

RiotRiotRepertoir3/29/2018, 1:48:48 AM58 votes

You're right that these changes aren't likely to fix Lux. I don't disagree. They're pretty much a stopgap until we solve underlying issues with how the best way to influence mid lane is to wave clear well. If we wanted to pull the trigger on just making her E waveclear like the meta drivers, we could, and I have been considering it. The reason we haven't is that her E is still pretty fundamentally unfair if it's also cheap or does more damage, and that adding a bunch of minion damage to it is a slippery slope that could lead to the same treatment being applied to a bunch of champions, and I'm trying to avoid that kind of approach to this. I do think there could be some merit to changing her Q speed or something, but I think that too is subject to being a buff in the "wrong place."

I understand that is probably a more unfortunate or unsatisfying response than you'd like, but I think it's pretty accurate for now.

abca983/28/2018, 12:50:42 PM49 votes

I just want to be able to use W without having to stop moving.

HP Crookshanks3/28/2018, 11:26:24 AM22 votes

I agree her ult is already strong. But her other skills are really weak. All of them have long cooldowns. Q is slow, easy to dodge (if you miss it you usually die btw). W is almost useless in lane it's too weak and only useful in team fights for your teammates (if they don't dodge it) and it's annoying that it roots her unlike other champion's shields. E has low AP ratio with a really high mana cost while being her only wave clear ability. Her passive is also weak. It's really dangerous to get close and auto attack for an immobile mage (especialy against these bursty ADC's. It's really sad that ADC's have better burst than you.) I think some of these problems need to be solved instead of buffing her already strong R.

Dead flag blues3/28/2018, 11:41:04 AM19 votes

As a m7 lux who always Q > E > R > E (reflex from a long time Lux player), I'm glad that I can finally take advantage from the R CD reduction.

BUT you're right about her wave-clear with E, it always feels awkward to leave minions with 5/10% hp and losing precious time to last-hit them

Hammermancer3/28/2018, 11:34:08 AM13 votes

I think lux need to just reset her ult every time anything dies, allied champ, enemy champ, minion, raptor..... ward

reset the ult every time

that sounds fair

GripaAviara3/28/2018, 11:37:08 AM12 votes

Nope, lux is such a pubstomp in low elo. Dont increase her dmg pls

1374343/28/2018, 5:37:02 PM8 votes

No, her e doesn’t need a buff against minions. You don’t want her quickly instaclearing waves early. In that case she would just sit back throw e and spam laugh. The current damage forces her to come forward and actually interact with her lane by making her have to aa to consume the passive and kill the minion after e.

Sharp Chedarr3/29/2018, 5:22:06 AM5 votes

Make her snare easier to land?? Are you serious xD

Kissie3/28/2018, 12:24:09 PM5 votes

If they change what u want (fast q and more damage e) then that b is gonna be so annoying if anyone takes her as support

BladeSingularity3/28/2018, 1:59:24 PM5 votes

This was a very well written post! And I agree, Riot should consider buffing other aspects of her kit rather than R - her wave clear and W cast time are really my two issues. I think R is in an okay spot right now.

Ifneth3/28/2018, 4:56:52 PM5 votes

They have to rework her E. It’s the reason she’s so weak. They had to nerf so much that she cannot afford to use it against her lane opponent, or else she would just chip them down with undodgeable poke.

Here are two possible fixes.

  1. Decrease its range at lower ranks. Give it 500/600/700/800/900 range. Then, it could have a normal mana cost of 60/70/80/90/100 and do enough damage at rank 3 to one-shot the backline.

  2. Illumination passive tweaks. Lux restores 1% of her maximum mana and refunds 1% of her cooldowns for killing an illuminated target. This would let Lux stay in lane, provided she can keep killing illuminated minions, and keep her ultimate up.

With that said, a poster mentioned buffing W. Here’s are some ideas for that.

-W cancels basic ability animations without interrupting them.
-W grants Lux its full shield on-cast and her allies on-spell-hit. The return hit grants half the amount.
-W, as that poster said, can be cast on the move.

Shadowmender3/28/2018, 3:32:59 PM4 votes

Wow. Enjoyable to see a non-rage post. And it's so well-articulated, even if I don't have the lux experience to really determine its truth value. [slayer-pantheon-thumbs]

ChaddyFantome3/28/2018, 6:40:28 PM4 votes

I knew exactly what this post was gonna be before I came in. So to cut it short, they can' buff her E because it is too easy to land and unfair to play against.

My suggestion would be to simply give it the Gragas Barrel treatment and let it deal more damage over time as it cooks.

Zane Zephyr3/28/2018, 5:48:45 PM4 votes

As nice as a slight buff to her E sounds, I would be kind of against it for a few reasons.

It would end up just making her lane a farm lane because she can just one shot the wave and move back. At least there's a chance to interact with her when she goes up to finish those last few minions off. Also simultaneously making her E cost less mana means she just spams her E and you have to sit by your tower the entire game because she can shove you in the entire time without any real consequence.

There's also not any real balance point where they can specifically increase the damage done to minions without it being busted or worthless. Like keeping the same damage values and make it do like 50% more damage to minions is obviously broken. Gutting the base damage and making it do like 50% more damage to minions is obviously bad. Making it do like 5% more damage is flat out pointless from a balance perspective since it's negligible even if it is a large change to lux's power level. That's why you don't see any minion/monster buffs with that small of a number.

Also riot said in the near future they are looking to make changes to minion health in order to lower the amount of waveclearing in general so we will see how that affects everyone once that happens.

DerMangoJoghurt3/28/2018, 12:50:19 PM3 votes

I think it's still a useful buff since you don't have to wait for your E to pop before firing your ult to get the cd reduction (which I fail a lot more than I probably should). Also the occasional "support" Lux can benefit from the cd reduction without stealing kills.

I agree, it's more a quality of life change than an impactful buff, but a welcome one nonetheless.

Automated Riven3/28/2018, 9:48:00 PM3 votes

I think they are taking a better approach to be honest. And that is nerfing the waveclear on everyone by making minions stronger. Waveclear ATM is too strong and should be nerfed. We should not have more champs waveclearing better.

Your Demon3/28/2018, 8:14:16 PM2 votes

i read sometime ago where a rioter commented that the reason lux's e is the way it is now that it cant oneshot the ranged minions is because of the range and size of e which is pretty easy to land..if u give her good waveclear she will be too strong and the rioter said that lux is supposed to have weak wave clear

Ionian Vulpix3/29/2018, 2:46:30 AM2 votes

If you want to increase her waveclear without making her poke too overbearing, make her E deal more damage if it's not detonated instantly, much like Gragas's Q. That way you'd have to choose between poke or waveclear, and could make her combo deadlier if she uses E to slow and then lands a Q.

Hawthorn Tree3/28/2018, 7:43:11 PM2 votes

Why are they buffing her at all? Like, she's legit just the pre-rework Nidalee where she could throw out her shit, and back off with no punishment if she misses because she just has so much range. And if she hits anything then the reward is immediate and immense.