Why won't people let me play ap Lucian mid if I almost always win my lane?

xxxMadLionxxx·Aug 30, 2015·38 votes·8,355 views

I'm really good with ap Lucian and I know his strengths and weaknesses. He does not do a lot of damage early game, but late game he does heavy poke and just as much damage as TF, with lichbane, ludens echo and narshors tooth. In lane I'm able to outplay even zed, and yas by poking them down then going in for the kill.

Every once in a while someone in chat room is like "dont play Lucian mid". I swear, this thing where certain champs are suppose to go in certain lanes pisses me off. I'm so good with Lucian I even went with him ad mid and was still able to outplay midlaners. I just prefer ap Lucian cause of his poke. So there is no reason for an adc to be tied to bot. I don't like to play with a support because they don't know the weakness or strength of ap lucian and tend to get aggressive, and go in, when I know I cannot go head to head with a draven as ap lucian without first poking him down.

What do you guys think? I would like to play a champ i'm good at, where I'm good at it. Not where the meta recommends.

116 Comments

TacoKingAug 30, 201525 votes

AP Lucian? I smell black magics...

VesarixxAug 30, 201517 votes

http://st.elohell.net/public/chill/9032b26ecd751ddb202feca78a1924c2.jpg

Angry MonsterAug 30, 201514 votes

http://www.lolking.net/summoner/na/47627886#matches

cause you dont win

xxxMadLionxxxAug 30, 20156 votes

[{quoted}](name=Angry Monster,realm=NA,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=dQ8ibE0I,comment-id=0016,timestamp=2015-08-30T05:46:36.224+0000)

http://www.lolking.net/summoner/na/47627886#matches

cause you dont win

If you look at my stats, I'm just as good as any regular ad Lucian. If I lose, it's not because I fed. You can't win every game, I do however win my lane most times.

Angry MonsterAug 30, 20159 votes

actually none of your stats are that impressive. Also if you bothered to look at what everyones rank was for the matches; you do not win games that your team does not have higher rated players but have loss where your team was higher rated. You are not winning the matches you are just being swept by the plays of others. From the stats alone i would never say that you were the thing that won the game.

You are not impressing me, it is cheese and not even good cheese. People want to win and you make life harder by being inefficient.

ZaColombianFeb 9, 20161 votes

http://boards.na.leagueoflegends.com/en/c/gameplay-balance/JbeggasT-ap-lucian-the-hidden-carry , i did carry my games, and he is a really good poke.

Sir YamazukiFeb 11, 20161 votes

{quoted}

http://boards.na.leagueoflegends.com/en/c/gameplay-balance/JbeggasT-ap-lucian-the-hidden-carry , i did carry my games, and he is a really good poke.

Really? Did you bother to check the matches you linked? https://gyazo.com/68981e379ee96597d183c3af5657abb8 Really going to tell me you "carried" and the Vlad wasn't the one carrying? He even had double your damage as well. Lu Lu Also first blooded you.

All of your other examples your team mates were stomping, and they out damaged you, which means you didn't "carry".

LimitaneiAug 30, 20159 votes

Because it's not what people want.

When I play Twitch, I use item 3085 as part of my build, but 55% of the time I get yelled at by my teammates for "being a fucking noob".

When my friend plays Bard support, he gets yelled at by the rest of the team 4 out of 10 games because "Bard is a bad support".

If you play something people don't like/are used to, you're going to be bitched at, even if you're good with it.

SalidfingersAug 30, 20152 votes

Problem with hurricane it puts a lot of bad players as an ADC in really bad positions when they think they have to hit more then 1 target with hurricane. Then it comes down to why get hurricane when you can get harder hitting items for single target.

SaiannaAug 30, 20158 votes

As some players say:

Win a lane, lose the game

So what if you won the lane, when in teamfights your damage is like wet noodles making enemy team just ignore you?

Photos of GhostsAug 30, 20151 votes

Because AP Lucian's teamfighting is bad amirite :^)

SaiannaAug 30, 20152 votes

Teamfight enrages
Cast E > AA for Lichbane + passive
Try your luck with AA if you have Nashor
....
Ult in general direction of enemy squishes.
Miss most of shots due to tank blocking or mobility
Blame jungler/support
Lose the game

AP Lucian is playable, but simply too weak to be viable. If Riot were to buff his AP ratio (in a way that doesn't buff AD part), then we'd have healthy, diverse champion capable of fooling enemies with his foxy-like build.

And what we have? "Simple" ADC with lame AP scallings for god knows what reason he even has them.

ZaColombianFeb 9, 20161 votes

ap lucian does a tone of dmg

SaiannaFeb 9, 20161 votes

tons of unreliable damage.

It's very eas to miss or enemy to dodge your skillshot.

Ultimate? It's meant more as a 1v1 tool.

AP Mf is by far better option.

ZaColombianFeb 9, 20161 votes

not really if you utilize slows and your ult, you can shred people down pretty fast for your team

SaiannaFeb 10, 20161 votes

I have no idea how or why you dig out that old thread... But I'm telling you my experiences of playing as and with or against AP Lucian.

He's really good in 1v1, but in teamfight with all CC/AOE he does far less than standard mage.

ZaColombianFeb 11, 20161 votes

idk man maybe youre playing it wrong, or i have a way of playing him that it makes it work. guess everyone has their own play style.

DarthSpectrumAug 30, 20157 votes

As a mid lane main I am calling you out on your AP Lucian.

It might be viable against low ELO players who are still learning their champion, but against any assassin player you will never win lane. I played as and against Lucian myself (ADC of course), and I am skeptical to how he can out play Yasuo or Zed .

A good Yasuo is going to wind wall all your poke and kill you with the all-in. A good Zed is going to poke you down faster than you can poke him in lane and kill you once he hits level 6. Even Talon , Akali , Leblanc , Fizz , or any other burst champions are going to tower dive you with impunity, and because you are AP Lucian, there isn't a thing you can do to stop them.

Against mages, you will fail just as miserably. Xerath is going to blast you before you even get close. Viktor will finish you off with his 2k AA if you manage to not die to his laser. Annie will just 100-0 you in one combo will you are stunned.

The only lanes I can see this working are against Ezreal , Ahri , Lux or other mid range mages that needs to land skill shots or doesn't have a lot of targeted burst.

There isn't many redeeming qualities about building Lucian AP. Only his W and ultimate have AP ratios, and they aren't that great. Granted, his base damage is great and you can probably leverage that in your lane. However, late game with your terrible AP Ratios champions such as Chogath is going to out damage you even if he only builds item 3027 and item 3116 for AP.

If you miss your W or can't effectively land your ultimate in a team fight, you just screwed over your team.

ZaColombianFeb 9, 20161 votes

what is low elo for you

XonraAug 30, 20155 votes

Same reason people throw a hissy fit when I play or want to play Cait mid. I have legit never lost a game, let alone lane as Cait mid.

No one cares, they just flail and I've had quite a few people dodge or threaten to go afk if I did it.

I honestly don't understand what the problem is. So people can now play Morde as an ADC, but I can't play Cait mid.

Yup. That seems legit.

CrunchyfiedAug 30, 20154 votes

Although you win lane, it doesn't mean AP Lucian is instantly viable. There are many other factors that you have to consider. In higher elo, teamfights occur sooner (around 13-15 min mark) and by then an AD Lucian would be able to deal more damage in that teamfight and will be able to snowball easier than if you were AP doing damage with only one W. Maybe an 0/3 Ahri you beat in lane would deal more damage than you and be more useful overall in teamfights. If it were me, I'd say no to AP Lucian. Your AD Lucian mid I have no problem with though.

Icestar1186Aug 30, 20154 votes

Nobody trusts an off-meta pick. Have you heard the term "Meta Sheep?"

UltraSceptileAug 30, 20153 votes

{quoted}

Nobody trusts an off-meta pick. Have you heard the term "Meta Sheep?"

Call it meta sheep or call it people who actually don't want to lose games? The OP's one argument that AP lucian works is that he wins lane phase. You could win lane phase with AP zed. Doesn't mean you're not trolling.

Photos of GhostsAug 30, 20151 votes

You can win lane with AP Zed, but the odds are so damn low. It requires the opponent to fail all of their actions every time they walk in lane to the point that your base stats (since you don't buy anything that you scale off) outscale their base stats plus items due to the exp advantage. And if it works for 5 minutes, it doesn't work fro 25 minutes. Meanwhile, Lucian has AP scalings on several of his abilities, several of which have decent range. He can be a poke mage. Zed can't be a poke mage, an AoE damage/control mage, an AP assassin. He can just be an AD assassin, or an AD assassin with no stats whatsoever.

UltraSceptileAug 30, 20152 votes

[{quoted}](name=Photos of Ghosts,realm=EUW,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=dQ8ibE0I,comment-id=001e00000000,timestamp=2015-08-30T20:04:34.947+0000)

You can win lane with AP Zed, but the odds are so damn low. It requires the opponent to fail all of their actions every time they walk in lane to the point that your base stats (since you don't buy anything that you scale off) outscale their base stats plus items due to the exp advantage. And if it works for 5 minutes, it doesn't work fro 25 minutes. Meanwhile, Lucian has AP scalings on several of his abilities, several of which have decent range. He can be a poke mage. Zed can't be a poke mage, an AoE damage/control mage, an AP assassin. He can just be an AD assassin, or an AD assassin with no stats whatsoever.

Ok, I can play AP Vi and win lane. AP Vi is now perfectly ok to play in ranked and feed because she has an AP ratio and [CAN] work.

IcyPepperAug 30, 20151 votes

Not really. AP Vi sucks, it's nowhere near the level of AP Lucian.

However, there are some strong off-meta picks. Annie support had to start somewhere (it wasn't always meta), and don't even get me started on the terror that is AP Kog'Maw.

There's a sliding scale of trolling to truly meta breaking. ADC Singed is basically trolling, and AP Kog'Maw would be the greatness of meta breaking.

UltraSceptileAug 30, 20152 votes

{quoted}

Not really. AP Vi sucks, it's nowhere near the level of AP Lucian.

However, there are some strong off-meta picks. Annie support had to start somewhere (it wasn't always meta), and don't even get me started on the terror that is AP Kog'Maw.

There's a sliding scale of trolling to truly meta breaking. ADC Singed is basically trolling, and AP Kog'Maw would be the greatness of meta breaking.

AP Kog Maw works because he has three AP ratios, CC, and poke that isn't blocked by everything and has a very small AOE with a really long cooldown.

He also has range. Lucian has....none of that. His only range is his ult which has a huge cooldown and is difficult to hit and doesn't do a lot of damage even with AP.

IcyPepperAug 30, 20151 votes

Like I said, it's a scale.

AP Lucian isn't all that strong, probably only good for poke. On a scale of 1 (troll) to 10 (godly meta-breaking), I'd rate it a 4.

UltraSceptileAug 30, 20152 votes

{quoted}

Like I said, it's a scale.

AP Lucian isn't all that strong, probably only good for poke. On a scale of 1 (troll) to 10 (godly meta-breaking), I'd rate it a 4.

I give it a 2 or maybe a 3.

People think AP rengar's bad, I give that a 6. AP Lucian is just bad. I think if you played this in ranked and feed it should be punishable. But hey good thing for OP I don't work at Riot.

The Sword SaintAug 30, 20154 votes

I'm not knowledgeable of ap Lucien in particular, so I'll stick to general reasons that may come up:

Lane phase is a small portion of the game compared to the rest, and the game isn't won in lane phase
People don't understand how to work with ap Lucien in team comps so they are afraid of failing
Generally teams want some cc or instant burst potential from the midlaner to round out their ability to make picks and peel divers off of themselves/the adc
Your teamates may have picked a composition that relies on a more traditional mid and now things are akward
Your team may think you aren't taking the game seriously / your pick may damage team morale

Some reasons may be more or less reasonable, and I'm sure there are more but as I don't know much about ap Lucien I can't get into specifics.

stealthfox94Aug 30, 20153 votes

Because of this

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e9HX-F5sbjQ

TotalJerkAug 30, 20153 votes

Even if you are good at it. How are we supposed to know you aren't just some Solwolf wannabe? You could be the best goddamn AP Lucian that ever existed, but the rest of us have no way of knowing that, and it's safer not to trust you because 80% of the time when people go THAT far off-meta, they are just trying to be different while having no real understanding of whether their off-meta pick is actually good.

Spizzle9000Aug 30, 20153 votes

Here's why: people don't KNOW you'll do well and that you aren't a troll. I can't count how many times I'm in teambuilder and I see someone playing something off-meta, then they fail and feed. For instance, I've only seen AP Rengar work in URF (I never watch ranked or LCS, so maybe others know how to make it work, but I dunno), so recently I allowed a Rengar jungle going mage on my team in teambuilder.

He fed harder than the Red Cross. This is only one cause of mishaps in off-meta picks I've seen. Sometimes they work, but people don't want to risk a loss.

People tend to stick with what they know works. It's human nature. Go ahead and break the meta if you want, but, it will be sure as hell hard to get picked in teambuilder, even though you almost always win your lane. People have no reason to trust a random stranger on the internet, so, sorry, but that's just the mind-set of a lot of people.

I suggest trying to stick with pre-mades because off-meta picks will generally get you raged at. That's because people remember bad things more easily than good things. People are going to remember the time a Katarina supported and fed hard instead of the time someone went full AP Aatrox mid lane and pub-stomped. It's human nature to remember the bad things. It's what kept us alive before we had technology.

Dar RaksadaAug 31, 20151 votes

{quoted}

Here's why: people don't KNOW you'll do well and that you aren't a troll. I can't count how many times I'm in teambuilder and I see someone playing something off-meta, then they fail and feed. For instance, I've only seen AP Rengar work in URF (I never watch ranked or LCS, so maybe others know how to make it work, but I dunno), so recently I allowed a Rengar jungle going mage on my team in teambuilder.

He fed harder than the Red Cross. This is only one cause of mishaps in off-meta picks I've seen. Sometimes they work, but people don't want to risk a loss.

People tend to stick with what they know works. It's human nature. Go ahead and break the meta if you want, but, it will be sure as hell hard to get picked in teambuilder, even though you almost always win your lane. People have no reason to trust a random stranger on the internet, so, sorry, but that's just the mind-set of a lot of people.

I suggest trying to stick with pre-mades because off-meta picks will generally get you raged at. That's because people remember bad things more easily than good things. People are going to remember the time a Katarina supported and fed hard instead of the time someone went full AP Aatrox mid lane and pub-stomped. It's human nature to remember the bad things. It's what kept us alive before we had technology.

Ap Renger was nerfed shortly after release for being too strong, the thing about ap rengar is that he's mostly an aoe 'mage' that can burst all his damage and then needs to wait for his w to come up again. It used to do 2ap iirc, now it's something like 1.6ap?

KVbqbFsC8eAug 30, 20152 votes

Well, generally those things don't work. Whenever someone in ranked says something like "trust me" "believe" and "it works", more often than not it doesn't and they feed. I don't mind those wacky builds, but most people certainly wouldn't want that on their team.

xxxMadLionxxxAug 30, 20153 votes

You know what funny, when I get those people who say don't feed, and we lose, I'm usually the best on my team.

The Bíg TicketAug 30, 20152 votes

Cause it is a trollpick that has one damaging spell outside of his ultimate which has a 10 second cooldown. So after oyu use it you have almost 10 seconds of doing nothing in a teamfight.

xxxMadLionxxxAug 30, 20152 votes

[{quoted}](name=Danielas Kitten,realm=EUW,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=dQ8ibE0I,comment-id=000c,timestamp=2015-08-30T03:42:14.413+0000)

Cause it is a trollpick that has one damaging spell outside of his ultimate which has a 10 second cooldown. So after oyu use it you have almost 10 seconds of doing nothing in a teamfight.

You see that's where people are wrong. Once you get lichbane and narshor tooth, AP luc does just as much magic damage as TF, but more consistant like an adc. His passive doubles narshors for 40% ap and lichbane adds 50% for a total of 90% on first auto.

UltraSceptileAug 30, 20154 votes

{quoted}

You see that's where people are wrong. Once you get lichbane and narshor tooth, AP luc does just as much magic damage as TF, but more consistant like an adc. His passive doubles narshors for 40% ap and lichbane adds 50% for a total of 90% on first auto.

Yeah except TF has, what? Reliable waveclear, reliable burst, utility, map presence.

Lucian has....one damaging spell, he builds one attack speed item....and then has a very narrow MF ult that can doesn't do that much damage to tanks.

His waveclear is limited to a very long cooldown spell that usually won't hit more than one champ in a teamfight.

He has ZERO CC. Nothing to help his team out in roams.

Just damage. Only damage. And if you wanted damage, go AD. You'll do way more damage and you'll kill towers like a boss too.

Literally ZERO reason to play AP Lucian except as a gimmicky build. You can claim it works, and it may work. For you.

AP rengar is better than AP lucian. At least Nightblue could win games with AP rengar in challenger. AP lucian is useless and outclassed so badly it isn't funny. Breaking the meta is fine. But AP lucian? It's like playing AP wukong. Troll pick.

IcyPepperAug 30, 20152 votes

I hear you, man.

I like to test stuff out in customs, then take it to norms when I have it down. People bitch at me all the time, and I don't play it if they do because I'm nice, and it takes forever to find people that won't have an aneurysm if I play on-hit AS Soraka jungle (3-2-14 first time, bitches) or Morgana jungle. Or anything jungle. Or any support jungle. You main a champion long enough, you get bored of the meta lane.

People need to learn how to chill and balance out the will to win with the need to have fun. Not too much, not too little of either.

LuggAug 30, 20151 votes

AP only helps his W, all other abilities scale better with AD. So AP Lucian is much less efficient than AP. You can make it work, but why take the harder route?

xxxMadLionxxxAug 30, 20152 votes

{quoted}

AP only helps his W, all other abilities scale better with AD. So AP Lucian is much less efficient than AP. You can make it work, but why take the harder route?

Lucian r scales of ap also and passive can double narshors tooth. That plus lichbane gives lucian passive Auto attacks 40% - 90% ap per passive in addition to 90% ap from w

LuggAug 30, 20154 votes

Still, at best, he will break even. I'm not saying you couldn't win with it, just that the AD route is more efficient.

JingerbeardmanAug 30, 20152 votes

pretty much this. ap varus is the same way

NefasAug 30, 20152 votes

Awful comparison. Varus has tons of AP ratios.

Ariel the CruelAug 30, 20152 votes

Varus has %max health AP ratio. Same with Koggles. It's the core reason they build AP.

DrCyanideAug 30, 20151 votes

Because if you want to take an ADC mid lane and build them AP there are much better choices.

Ezreal, Corki, Miss Fortune, Kog'Maw, Tristana and others I'm probably forgetting have better AP Scaling.

The problem with the Nashor's/Lich Bane/Luden's argument is that anyone can be played AP with those three, even if they don't have a single AP scaling.

xxxMadLionxxxAug 30, 20153 votes

Well, Lucian passive acutally doubles the damage of nashors tooths, so he does use it better than other champs. Just think for 1 second. If I had Nashors, tooth and lich bane and used all my skills and passives repectively at lvl 18. Here is the damaga output.

Q = 200 physical passive = 90% ap (Passive doubles narshor for 20% ap per hit and lichbane adds 50% ap),

W= 90% ap passive = 40% ap (from nashor and lichbane is still on cd)

E = 40% ap (from nashor and lichbane is still on cd)

R = 200% ap scaling as physical damage from 20 bullets

passive = 90% ap (Passive doubles narshor for 20% ap per hit and lichbane adds 50% ap),

Doesn't that look like more ap scalling than some mages?

DengedenAug 30, 20151 votes

To be fair, both Yasuo and Zed are fairly easy to deal with if you know how they work (after their nerfs and whatnot, heck, Yasuo has to build Tri before IE, that's expensive as balls)

But more importantly, AP Lucian, tell me more. What do you do to avoid getting pushed in early? Hybrid Runes? Do you rush Nashor's? How extreme are his mana problems? (I always get wrecked as Luc ADC because of them Q_Q.) Max Q or E second? I imagine he has similar problems to AP Kog (or Nid, I guess) in the sense that he needs to poke to make up for his lack of 100-0 burst. How do you generally deal with that? (I sometimes ran Gunblade on AP Koggy for some sustained damage. Would/Does that work on your Lucian too?)

And here I thought I was cool for playing Karma mid and TF jungle ^_^

xxxMadLionxxxAug 30, 20152 votes

The best item I've found to start with is luden's echo. Magic pen rune really help with sorc boots. It give you almost true damage on squishes. It also make you really mobile and safe because, when your w procs ludens echo, you gain the passive movements speed from w without auto attacking. Then rabadon deathcap. Next you want nashors tooth as this give you the ap scaling Lucian is missing on other abilities. It give your passive 40% ap so after each ability, you gain 40%ap scaling. Then Lichbane as 40% ap on an autoattick is not enough. then you can even add rylies to slow your target when you ult, helping you to land your full ult. void staff for tanks.

Another really good thing about lucian is if you have decent mana regen from masteries and dorens ring, his w is very spammable in lane. I rarely have manner issues so I'm able to poke targets to about 30% hp, dash in ignite, passive attack, q, passive attack, w and ult.

His e or dash can be used to dodge skill shot like oriana q. it can also be used to reposition yourself to get a solid w shot on target behind minions.

gunblade is good but I hate that the ad doesn't do much late game and the its active has such a high cooldown, but with it, you can 1 shot a mage with w passive and gunblade passive.

also, his w ult combo can 1 shot a mage too late game.

I've been testing nashor tooth as the first item, but found ludens is better simple because you dont have to get in auto attack range. but overall nashors does the most damage as each ability gains 40% ap through his passive activation. I think it is still weak on him though as champs who use nashors have ap scalling already built into the attack like kayle