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@Riot: why Lulu is no longer in line with your design values

Ghiefelstein··16 votes·1,085 views

The key to mastery with Lulu is adaptability. You have to react differently in every game or fight to get the most out of her kit. Her abilities have various use cases and it is not always obvious which is the best. Sounds like a perfect example of Riots design values at work. However, I believe that the recent changes to Lulu greatly reduced her adaptability and that needs to be fixed. Read on to see if you agree.

First let me explain why I think adaptability is so important for Lulu’s playstyle. An ability like her W can be used for kiting, initiating, roaming or dodging on various allies. It can also be used as a polymorph to disrupt any enemy. The player has to decide what is best in a given situation. Similarly, her ult can be used on the frontline for the knock up and slow, or on the back line for the health. Adaptability is also the reason why Lulu works as a support or a solo laner.

Solo lane Lulu was a problem and she needed nerfs, but the changes went completely against your design value adaptability. To preserve both roles for Lulu you greatly reduced her adaptability in skill order, ability usage and build. Let me explain how each of these aspects was impacted by the changes over the past few months. You can find the source for the Riot quotes at the end of the post.

  1. Skill order: Old Lulu could max E first in a difficult lane for the shield. She could also max W last if she primarily used it for the speed boost, since the speed boost did not scale with levels. New Lulu had E nerfed at later levels, W nerfed at early levels and W’s mana cost buffed at later levels. That cemented the skill order Q>W>E, I honestly cannot think of a situation where you would skill in a different order. “Admittedly, we've probably significantly weakened Support Lulu players who maxed E first instead of Q, and maxing Q will probably the way to go right now (not sure on this, only theoretical).” - Statikk
  2. Ability usage: “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.” - Statikk Shield 80/120/160/200/240 (+60% AP) for 6 seconds plus pix damage on autos Nuke 80/110/140/170/200 (+40% AP) for 4 seconds plus reveal Can someone tell me where the tradeoff is for nerfed E? Old offensive E had at least a longer reveal and the possibility to land two glitterlances.
  3. Build: “When we made our 2014 Season changes to supports, we wanted to make them feel good about buying AP items.” - Patch 4.5 notes. After removing the utility ratio from Q, there is only the ratio on half of W. I rarely feel good about buying AP items on support Lulu. I would only buy AP if it helped me with my primary goal: protecting my team and disrupting the enemy. Damage is just a secondary benefit.

My conclusion is that you heavily limited the choices and options for a Lulu player, seriously reducing her adaptability. Support Lulu has suffered enough to allow solo laning, please bring back the interesting tradeoffs she once had. This is the reason why you formulated design values in the first place, act upon it. Do you agree with the following points?

  • Adaptability is a form of mastery in Riot's design values. They should reward players who remain adaptable through system and balance changes.
  • Lulu has or at least had an abundance of adaptability as a character, so much that it is part of her identity.
  • Balance changes over the past few months have reduced many choices and tradeoffs on skill order, ability usage and build for Lulu.
  • This reduction is the opposite of Riot's design philosophy and therefore needs to be repaired.

I would love to discuss how we can make Lulu as healthy and interesting to play as possible.

Quotes: Statikk on skill order and ability usage http://boards.na.leagueoflegends.com...g?comment=0003 Patch 4.5 notes for Lulu on build http://na.leagueoflegends.com/en/new...es#patch-lulu2

tl;dr Adaptability is vital for Lulu, but recent nerfs removed many choices on skill order, ability usage and build. Please fix.

8 Comments

Eapenator4 votes

Lulu has an amazing Kit.

The problem is other top laners were never created to deal with ranged enemies, which are rather recent additions to the league. Top laners like shen, malphite, jax, are extemely weak now because they lack sustain or early game fighting ability. When Riot first introduced jayce, people didn't know where to put him because the concept of having a top lane actually scale into something other than a high tanky champion never existed. People thought jayce was a shit champion because people were picking teams that relied on the top laner to tank. Then, when people start building him right (high cdr/damage), he began to stomp the other top lanes who couldn't deal with the range. They then nerfed jayce to the ground and moved on.

This started the idea that top laners do not have to become super tanky, but instead, can facilitate poke, damage, or utility (in lulu's case)

Now that they nerfed shyvanna and mundo meta, the same thing is happening again. In solo queue, soraka became a beast who could beat any enemy laner, top or bottom, and then they nerfed her to the ground. Lulu started to become popular again when the 1v2/4v0 meta died. Nidalee is an absolute horror to face when they reworked her to top lane.

Top laners need tools to deal with ranged enemies because currently they only have

a) They got their items or b) They got levels and had access to their skills

While these are decent, ranged top lanes need to be significantly weaker to create counter play.

Ryze is the perfect example of what a enemy ranged top laner should be. Extremely annoying, will poke the shit out of you, but one mistake, and boom, you are fucked for most of the early game .

Gnar is also an extreme example of what ranged top laners should be like (I would go as far as to say his ranged form needs to be better)

The problem is that Lulu has way too much of everything. Lulu used to be an amazing support (and still is), however before alot of top laners got nerfed, she was at an adequate power level, where she was not strong enough to beat top lane champions (except in specific cases, which I think is healthy to have that kind of versatility). When they added more ap ratios to her, they were practically inviting people to play her top. She has wave clear, ms boost, cc, a shield, ranged on hit poke that scales, low mana costs, and the ability to choose anyone to because really tanky.

They need to remove something that is not important to her support role, but will hurt her top lane. With Soraka, they killed her wave clear. I think this is the best route for Lulu as well. Perhaps make her q not effect minions (like sona's ultimate) or deal reduced damage.

I personally think that Riot wants to keep lulu in a spot where she can be played top, but she is best suited for support, but I think that without significant changes, this will never be completely balanced.

Thunder Dreamss3 votes

Adaptability is why I used to like Lulu. With her nerfs ... it's not all gone but it's definitely reduced.

Adaptability is a form of mastery in Riot's design values. They should reward players who remain adaptable through system and balance changes.

Unless you've been looking elsewhere when Riot spoke about adaptability there weren't talking about a given champion having choices at all, they were just talking about rotating the FotM keeping as many champions as possible viable in competitive play.

Judging from the history of balance changes Riot makes it seems like adaptability within a champions kit is low priority at best. Lulu is the example on display but look at things like the Yi rework. He used to have distinctly different build paths and play styles to chose from allowing him to adapt and forcing his enemies to adapt in turn. Now he only has one style somewhere between the two old ones.

AbiwonKenabi2 votes

Riot constantly says how they prefer champions to have meaningful tradeoffs when deciding when to use abilities or not. This might be a "put your money where your mouth is" situation, but I'm inclined to believe this is truly what they are aiming for, as evidenced by Nid rework and even Skarner and Sona reworks. Nidalee is very strong atm sure, but she now has to decide when to be in which form and when. There is a decision process as to whether she should follow up on her hunted mark or continue to poke. This is an example of Riot stressing player choice and adaptability. They make mistakes sure, but I think this is their general aim.

Using Yi as an example, you forget the fact that playing against AP Yi was a total pain. There was nothing you could really do to him; he was untargetable for the first 2 or 3 seconds of the fight, he couldn't be slowed, and then he just healed back anything that managed to land. There was no real skill or meaningful choices, and there wasn't much counterplay other than "don't get low and let Yi clean up" or "don't feed Yi early." In addition, at any given point in time there was clearly a favorable build (either AP or AD) and going the other was disadvantageous. All in all, I'm glad Yi was changed, because his 2 build paths weren't enriching the game any, they were making it unfun.

On the subject of Lulu, they definitely need to work on her. I think any designer at Riot would admit to that. But the solution is not so simple, and might take some time to discern. Like Nidalee, she needs to have a reason to use the other side of her skill at any given time, but also has to be tuned fairly.

Thunder Dreamss1 votes

I'm only silver so maybe I never played up where AP Yi wrecked faces but I never found him to be that big a problem. Sure, he could get ahead and kill everyone but so can almost any champ. Fed Trist? Everyone dies before they get close enough to hit her and you can't run from that jump. Fed Voli? After all the effort and half your team to bring him low he just heals back up with his passive. And so on.

People repeat things like "AP Yi was toxic" as gospel but the truth is his Alpha Strike telegraphed his destination making him easy to cc and he was always squishy enough to burst down.

Besides, the things people quote about Yi being toxic were mostly not changed, they were just shifted over onto his AD build.

he was untargetable for the first 2 or 3 seconds of the fight

Check.

he couldn't be slowed

Last I checked this is still true.

and then he just healed back anything that managed to land.

Well his healing has been nerfed but it's still strong.

So in what way has his toxicity been reduced? His choice has been, he can only go AD carry/AD bruiser with no AP assassin or tanky AP option available any longer, but the thing you quoted as bad for the game very much remain.

AbiwonKenabi1 votes

They definitely toned down some of the aspects that made AP Yi annoying. First off, his Alpha Strike can't just reset instantly whenever he gets a kill; anyone below a quarter health (since his Alpha Strike had an unnecessarily large AP ratio) would basically guarantee Yi was untargetable for at least 3 seconds thanks to multiple Alpha Strikes, which is a looong time in this game: case in point, the nerf to Morgana's Q so it only snares for 3 at max rank because it was so strong. Second, his healing was ridiculous on AP Yi. Of course it still has its strengths, but it is no where near as strong as it once was. AP Yi could tank towers with it and end up with nearly full health, and that was without building primarily tank stats. Mundo might be able to do that sure, but that's Mundo's thing, he builds tank not damage and the ability that allows him to straight up tank a tower is his ultimate.

Also, since we're talking about adaptability here, dual build paths aren't going to make Yi more adaptable. You aren't going to go into the game wanting to build AP and then suddenly switch to AD...you are already set on a path. As far as multiple playstyles...I don't see it. Yi still wanted to play clean-up regardless of whether he built AP or AD. Heck, he still excels at that.

Ghiefelstein3 votes

Adaptability is why I used to like Lulu. With her nerfs ... it's not all gone but it's definitely reduced.

This is a lot better as a tl;dr than my own version :).

Unless you've been looking elsewhere when Riot spoke about adaptability there weren't talking about a given champion having choices at all, they were just talking about rotating the FotM keeping as many champions as possible viable in competitive play.

Quote from the dev blog about mastery: *"Adaptability is both your ability to learn and respond to new ideas, new threats and new changes, along with your ability to play in a variety of styles. Different players are adaptable in different ways. Some choose to pick up a large number of champions, while others spend that time deeply mastering one along a variety of builds. We try to support both, but fundamentally believe that to pursue mastery in League is about being an adaptable player." * That is where my post came from. The next alinea does talk about making many champions viable.

Judging from the history of balance changes Riot makes it seems like adaptability within a champions kit is low priority at best. Lulu is the example on display but look at things like the Yi rework. He used to have distinctly different build paths and play styles to chose from allowing him to adapt and forcing his enemies to adapt in turn. Now he only has one style somewhere between the two old ones.

The difference is that Yi's AP build was problematic to play against and unhealthy for the game. The unhealthy thing about Lulu is that she invalidates many champions as a solo laner. Riot is fixing that with balance changes, now they need to bring back Lulu's adaptability.

YGW Caspie2 votes

I still play Lulu as a support because I main support and I love Lulu so much! Her voice acting, character, and lore are just amazing as well as her kit.

That being said I agree there really is only one way to skill order which is Q>W>R>E, however that can be said about most champions since there is usually always an optimal skill order.

Ability usage: “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.” - Statikk

This quote bothers me a bit since the trade off is that you can either use one or the other, you either use it offensively or defensively it doesn't act as both. You can't ult your Tank for follow up engage AND then ult your ADC for peel. It is one OR the other, not BOTH. How you choose to use Lulu's abilities in any given situation is where experience comes in. It's not always obvious as to how you should use your ability but for Statikk to say you aren't making any trade offs is in my opinion false. How you use your abilities in a situation is a trade off, however I think what he means is that no matter how you use your ability even if you used it sub-optimally it still does something, but the trade off between optimal and sub optimal is a trade off in itself.

That being said, I do disagree about adaptability. Support Lulu can itemize according to the situation since there is no clear cut build for her, but this is less true for solo lane Lulu. Also since you can use your abilities offensively or defensively you can adapt in team fights as to how you use your abilities. Lulu's ability to adapt to situations based on what champions your team has and what champions your enemy has as well as the situation is where Lulu's kit shines, so in my opinion she is still very adaptable.

I do remember them saying they would compensate in some form if support Lulu is having trouble seeing play and I am curious as to what they have planned if that happens or if they have any plans. I don't think Lulu is in a bad spot though at least as a support. However one thing that annoys me is how slow Pix catches up to a target when they use mobility, especially after the duration from 6 to 4 seconds on enemies the amount of time it takes Pix to travel back to the target when they flash or use mobility can make it so you can't even utilize an E-Q combo let alone a Q-E-Q combo.

I am curious as to why you think Lulu has no adaptability in ability usage, and build. I do agree her skill order is fairly concrete though. There are very few situations I can even think of where I would change it. Although I have been messing with the idea of only putting 3 points in Q then switching to maxing W. The idea behind that would be that past level 6 your poke as support Lulu is minimal and you mainly use Q to slow, so maxing the CC and speed from W quicker could prove useful, I have yet to try it in a game though.

Ghiefelstein2 votes

Maybe I formulated my first post to strongly. I do not think that Lulu has NO adaptability, as a matter of fact I think she still is one of the more adaptable characters in the game. However, I believe that she was even more adaptable and I miss that part of her. Few champions have the luxury of multiple skill orders. Lulu used to have that but she lost it due to nerfs.

As to ability usage, you explain very well what the tradeoffs for her ult are. W also has this opportunity cost. The reason is that these abilities have very different effects. Sometimes a speed boost works better, in other situations the polymorph is optimal. Now E is about dealing or mitigating damage, which comes down to which number is higher. The answer is always the shield, unless none of your allies is under attack (you were already winning). The reveal would be a reason to consider offensive E, but it got nerfed to 4 seconds.

For build Lulu has various actives and auras at her disposal, and she can itemize CDR, tankiness and MS. Support champions with similar roles like Nami, Janna or Sona can build that too, but they can also build AP. Unlike Lulu, they get better at their core job of helping their team with more AP thanks to their utility ratios. When Lulu builds AP, she just gets higher numbers on her damage and shield. I did feel good about building AP when the combined utility ratios on Q and W could help kite a fed Udyr.

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