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5 reasons why Lulu should be stronger as a support than as a solo laner

Ghiefelstein··4 votes·882 views

Lulu has been stronger as a solo laner than a support for quite some time. That is weird, because everything about her screams that she is healthier as a support. I will use quotes from Riot to make my point, you can find the link to the quotes below. So here is 5 reasons why Lulu should be stronger as a support than as a solo laner:

Gameplay

The most interesting part of Lulu's kit is the offensive / defensive use cases for each of her spells, but they become problematic when she's not actually making any tradeoffs when she chooses one over the other.

Who do I ult? Who gets polymorphed? Trivial questions when you are alone with one opponent. Support Lulu actually gets a choice for her target selection. Solo laners miss this meaningful decision making, the most interesting part of her kit.

Tradeoffs

Ultimately we had to hit some of Lulu's high offensive power, but we're also committed to ensuring this doesn't have a huge impact on support Lulu (who actually comes with tradeoffs like no guaranteed farm or gold generation)

Supports don’t get guaranteed gold and they have to buy things like sightstone. Meanwhile solo lane Lulu gets to buy stuff like mana regeneration and AP. And we all know that Lulu becomes oppressive if she is not gated by mana. Like Riot said, support Lulu actually comes with tradeoffs.

Lore

Lulu decided to revisit her former home, to share some of the lovely things she'd learned […]When the yordles insisted that she leave their land, she turned to a vibrant magical place where those with unusual gifts were not just accepted but adored: the League of Legends.

Oh sorry, the League of Legends doesn’t exist anymore. Thank god, because the story doesn’t fit solo lane Lulu. I guess the new lore will go something like this: When the yordles insisted that she leave their land, she became egoistic and self-centered. Who cares about sharing when you can bully melee top laners alone?

Riot

We initially thought solo lane Lulu was a unique addition to the game […] we know this isn't a great situation where we keep indirectly reducing support Lulu's power to maintain her viability as a mage.

They formulate it carefully, but Riot basically said they no longer think solo lane Lulu is a unique addition to the game, and they are sad that support Lulu had to suffer for it. Now if only they did something about it…

Diversity This game has over 30 champions with the ‘mage’ role. Some of them also fill the support position, but their playstyle is still ‘mage’. And then we have 4 ranged supports: Janna, Nami, Sona and Soraka. For diversity it would be best if Lulu was more support than mage.

Thank you for reading this far. Let’s turn these observations in something positive: How can we make support Lulu stronger without making solo lane Lulu oppressive?

Lulu

Quotes in order of appearance: Statikk, how is that Lulu analysis going? Patch 4.5 notes Patch 4.13 notes Lulu lore The number of mages depends on how you count, but is definitely more than 30.

10 Comments

Sozan52 votes

{quoted} Thank you for reading this far. Let’s turn these observations in something positive: How can we make support Lulu stronger without making solo lane Lulu oppressive?

Q - Glitterlance

ACTIVE: Lulu and Pix, Faerie Companion.png Pix each fire a magic bolt towards a target direction, dealing magic damage and Slow icon slowing enemies hit by 80%, decaying over the duration. Glitterlance deals 50% damage to minions and monsters.

Done.

JJI7442 votes

{quoted}

Q - Glitterlance

ACTIVE: Lulu and Pix, Faerie Companion.png Pix each fire a magic bolt towards a target direction, dealing magic damage and Slow icon slowing enemies hit by 80%, decaying over the duration. Glitterlance deals 50% damage to minions and monsters.

Done.

That just nerfs solo lane Lulu and support Lulu without actually making support Lulu viable.

The simplest solution is just to nerf the AP scaling on Lulu's damaging abilities while upping hte base damage (or lowering the mana costs).

One of the few nerfs I will never understand is why, in an attempt to weaken solo-lane Lulu, Riot nerfed the base damages instead of the scaling. That nerf hit support Lulu so much harder than solo-lane Lulu.

DJ Siamak1 votes

{quoted}

That just nerfs solo lane Lulu and support Lulu without actually making support Lulu viable.

The simplest solution is just to nerf the AP scaling on Lulu's damaging abilities while upping hte base damage (or lowering the mana costs).

One of the few nerfs I will never understand is why, in an attempt to weaken solo-lane Lulu, Riot nerfed the base damages instead of the scaling. That nerf hit support Lulu so much harder than solo-lane Lulu.

No it lets you buff support Lulu since you don't have to deal with solo lane Lulu's cancer.

Sozan51 votes

^My point exactly.

JJI7441 votes

[{quoted}](name=DJ Siamak,realm=NA,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=YV78naAW,comment-id=000000000000,timestamp=2015-01-06T20:08:49.863+0000)

No it lets you buff support Lulu since you don't have to deal with solo lane Lulu's cancer.

Fair enough. Just as a stand-alone change it wouldn't actually buff support Lulu, which she kinda needs at this point.

DJ Siamak1 votes

{quoted}

Fair enough. Just as a stand-alone change it wouldn't actually buff support Lulu, which she kinda needs at this point.

It's a start and then they can buff support Lulu.

Sire Hippington2 votes

Who do I ult? Who gets polymorphed? Trivial questions when you are alone with one opponent. Support Lulu actually gets a choice for her target selection. Solo laners miss this meaningful decision making, the most interesting part of her kit.

more targets allways mean more choices, that is equaly true for every champ. play zed bot cause you have to choose who to ult, better gameplay... oriana shouldn't be a midlaner, cause who to shield is trivial in midlane..

The choice between offense and defense is equaly true for a sololane as it is for a duo with lulu. Do i shield my self and use AAs to win the trade, or do i use E for the nuke and run away? Do i use my W for the cc or to speedbuff my self?

the problem with sololane lulu is that she'S a nasty lanebully, abele to cockblock any all-in atempts while winning the poke duel with e+Q while also winning longer trades with her passive.

Also, her gameplay outside of lane is extremly teamfocused, still fitting the lore. 1 off the main things makeing her strong at a sololane is th3at she still scales good into late even though she's a lane bully, cause she offers so much utillity to clashes. even if she should fall behind in lane, she stays relevant late.

Ghiefelstein1 votes

First of all, let me say that I don't want to destroy solo lane Lulu, she can exist in both roles. However, my claim is that she is healthier and fits better in the support role.

You are right, duo lanes offer more targets and therefore more choice. Solo lanes offer gameplay around farming and minion control. The question is where a champion fits best. I would say Orianna and Zed fit better in solo lanes. They would have more targets in a duo lane, but that does not outweigh the gameplay benefits they get as solo laners. For Lulu target selection is more prominent while not having healthy gameplay in a solo lane. Therefore she fits better a support.

Almost all Lulu's skills are targeted, and glitterlance is hard to miss. It even becomes targeted with E+Q. Combine that with huge safety and lane bullying and you get a very low counterplay champion. Such a champion fits better in bottom lane, where there are meaningful choices to be made.

Your last comment is true: she scales well into late game with all her utility. That sounds like the description of a support.

SmokingPuffin1 votes

{quoted}

First of all, let me say that I don't want to destroy solo lane Lulu, she can exist in both roles. However, my claim is that she is healthier and fits better in the support role.

I don't think solo lane Lulu is acceptable without either reworking Lulu or reworking a ton of melee champions. Melee champions absolutely cannot lane with Lulu. She's absolutely insufferable as long as she has the EQ combo for guaranteed damage and W for guaranteed not taking damage.

Now, as it happens, I'd like to break the EQ combo, and then life would be considerably better for melee Lulu opponents. I think Lulu is more fun when you're using the EQ to get a really long range Q off. I'd like to find a way to make Q still a reasonably dodgeable skillshot even when aiming it at the Pix target.

SmokingPuffin2 votes

I totally want to play support Lulu. Super fun to harass with Q. Interesting decision making on W. Super fun R. Currently is fairly weak.

Enemy E->Q feels too reliable, probably should try to incentivize ally E more. Bigger shield? More damage amp from Pix bolts? A variety of things to consider. Also should figure out how to make it harder to land Q on the E target. Maybe give Pix a visible windup and casting time so juking is possible.

The main difficulty with support Lulu is ensuring that mana gating works. A Lulu that can spam her spells with impunity is really oppressive -- we see that in the top lane case when she used to build double Doran's into Chalice. Unfortunately, fixing this has meant that support Lulu has a really small mana pool to work with, because she doesn't get to build those items for lane phase. Maybe now that Chalice is no longer a ridiculous item, there is more room for reducing support Lulu mana costs.

tl;dr - Buff E. Encourage Lulu to rank E first and use the ally cast effect.

Proposed buff: Ally E shield increased to 100/140/180/220/260 (+0.6*AP). While the shield holds, Pix deals 50% increased damage. Proposed buff: E mana cost reduced at higher ranks to 60/65/70/75/80 mana. Proposed nerf: Q magic damage reduced at higher ranks to 80/115/150/185/220 (+0.5*AP).

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