Buff Lucian Bottom Please
So Lucian used to be one of my favorite marksman and is one of my most played champs of all times. Admittedly he was overpowered at a couple points, but since has been nerfed so hard that the only way to play him is in mid lane where he can abuse his mobility and comboing with higher base damage since he will be like a level ahead of where he would be in bottom lane. I'd like to throw out an idea or two to make him strong in bot lane again without making him op, and without making him even stronger in mid since I think he is well situated as a lane bully niche pick mid (although with new runes I think he could probably even use a leg up mid).
First, let's identify a couple problems with earlier iterations of Lucian that made him overtuned: His Q is his primary burst as well as his poke and wave clear. The issued is that if you buff this spell, it buffs everything about the champ. Lucian wants to get in your face and combo, he has low range so you can punish him. If his main damage spell gets buffed, it covers too much of his weaknesses as he could poke you back, wave clear better with you. Suddenly poke and push stuff like Ashe and Varus doesn't feel quite as good. Instead of good at killing and pretty bad at poke n push, he becomes really good at killing and decent at the other 2. Damage on his W was also unhealthy, as again, he can use this to reliably poke and last hit from far away, not something a champ like this should be able to do (and something I think is a problem also with current iterations of assassins). There are other issues but I think these were two of the bigger ones.
Now let's look at the issues now: Damage is too low to provide kill threat. I'm not saying it's not possible for Lucian to kill you. But anyone who has played him recently knows that laning with him now is more about taking repeated trades to try and force the enemy off CS or out of lane rather than killing. A big problem with this is the strength of Shields and Heals and just inherent sustain, he often goes oom before he can accomplish anything. Now he needs to get in a good first shop for a BF or a cutlass to have decent threat. Laning with him is more like E in-Q-Passive combo then run away, or W-Q-E away combo. Only time you ever really use your full combo to continue fighting and going forward is with a gank. By the time Lucian gets a first shop in, the multi man ganks, TP plays, roams are well under way. Lucian needs to be able to exploit the straight 2v2 window, which is smaller now than ever.
Here's my proposal: Add a bonus damage effect (not on his Q) that interacts with other champs and plays well into his lore. Lucian is a bounty hunter right? And Double Tap is the idea that you pop someone twice either to make sure they dead, or because the theory is that in a quick draw and shoot situation the second shot will be more accurate, thus more impactful.
Option 1 - W is a spell that "marks" a target. Make it so he is marking an enemy for his team's benefit too. Effect: after landing W on a target, if Lucian and an ally both deal damage to that target within 2 seconds they take a small burst of damage. You'd want it to be magic damage because hybrid damage is better in the early-mid game. (I like this option because it plays well into his lore, and makes it a lot about all ins and not poking back and forth) Option 2 - The first Double Tap proc after a target is CC'd by ALLY ONLY (no BORK abuse), does slight bonus damage. You'd need to put a longish CD on this like 12-15 seconds as our goal is to promote all in aggressive comboing and not the repeated quick trades pattern.
Why these work: They both play well into his style and lore, his kill pressure makes it worth the risk of all ins, and since both of these skills are tied to ally champions, it doesn't help his mid laning except in terms of receiving ganks.
