Why the heck does lucian feel so lackluster ?

Knight SoIaire ·Jul 10, 2015·16 votes·1,773 views

you start the early game ... you are medicore you lose you are bad as any adc would be you win you are fed and stronger but still medicore you get to late and your passive makes you rather strong due to having basicaly double crit chance but you still feel medicore

i cant even understand this ... his kit isnt that bad ... in fact he was good on release ... not op but simply good (a champion does plainly good ... thats a reason for a nerf now) but after the ballance shenanigans he just doesnt feel impactfull every time i play him i feel like i just need to work twice as hard for stuffother adc's do with a click and i dont get rewarded for that

he is an adc so he is still somehow effective becuase his power is in fact the power of his items ... but there is just something lacking

37 Comments

Original QuitterJul 10, 20157 votes

Gee, I dunno like 12 nerfs and a complete rework for nearly a year might have something to do with it.

Everything that Lucian was, was taken away. Hell he is an adc that has a 0 damage skill.

The instant some moron Rioter was like I know lets give him infinite dashes and create an item just for him item 3508 and a few more small buffs ontop of it was the day he was slated for destruction.

Instead of just saying, oh wow, maybe a 0 second cool down dash by 7 minutes into the game is a little OP lets not do that, they said oh well lets let remove the slow cancel and just let him dash all over.

Then they nerfed him every damn patch after that for like half a year.

SEKAIJul 10, 20153 votes

Rito changed him so he can be the fastest ADC out there, but then they thought that maybe they wouldn't wanna be too stereotypical and so Lucian was outrun and out performed by the infamous ghost lady of the lane track before he had even started sprinting.

Now Lucian sits in his little shadowy corner on the spectator seats, joined by some famous stars from the old eras and otherwise some unknown individuals that he never knew existed. But still, he enjoys the company.

3TWarriorJul 10, 20151 votes

*olaf spews popcorn everywhere

"this is so great! man, I wish I was out there!" noogiees lucian as he laughs deeply

"go get em Garen, you da man!" he weeps internally as garen is often more viable than him as a tanky fighter

"Woo! Darius! Woo! and is that...no it can't be! it's draven, yeah boi!"

many, many annoying fanboy sayings from sideline Olaf later, Lucian is put on firework duty using his ultimate for the victorious team

Earl EulrichJul 10, 20152 votes

yea, he really got a little overnerfed - i really hate the fact that you can´t even win the 2v2 early on anymore vs competent botlanes as he really deals no dmg before he gets some ad, alas the laning should be one of his main strengths. Currently he´s better off as a sololaner. I guess one of the major problems is that his w mostly is used to procc his passive and for nthing else, making him a champ with 2,5abilities instead of 4 in most fights (as the ult is more of a waveclear tool most of the times).

I Miss CannonJul 10, 20151 votes

The ult is for kiting.

Knight SoIaire Jul 10, 20155 votes

looking at its synergy with his w yeah

but in gameplay thats the most rare use for his ultimate

for me the most often use is to simply deal damage to enemies ... his range sucks he has no way of safe poking or safe fighting besides ulting ... and his ult deals a fair amount of damage ... so when i see some guy out of position i do ult him just to chunk his hp down

second use is wave clear

and the kiting is third since its too situational you need someone willing to chase you without dashing to you or cc ing you and interrupting your ult ... that just doesnt happen often the only people willing to chase you are those who can kill you or those you dont want to ult

I Miss CannonJul 10, 20152 votes

Yeah, he pretty much sucks and need buffs. It's just awful how you can destroy the enemy adc so hard in laning phase and there still aren't much who don't outscale you even though they have 1 item less than you. What really would help as a start is buffing his range and giving his W the AD ratio back. Right now that guy just feels like a worse version of Kalista.

Knight SoIaire Jul 10, 20151 votes

i wouldnty say he sucks but he feels lackluster ... he does stuff but feels powerless

i just played a normal with him i won the lane and was realy fed yet my only problem was that i didnt see myself doing damage that would make sence for the amount of gold and advantage i had in the end game screen i saw that i did most of the damage in the game

but in the actual game i had problems dueling enemy adc despite having one item more

what i consider to be the culprit is the range diversity you have your ult which is cool ... damage is realy good and range is realy good ... in certain situations its hard to miss then you have your autos which have short range

if we take the rest of his kit into account we get an adc that can be insanely safe and insanely powerfull ... and the adc that is insanely risky and actualy less powerfull since he dies easily

i think that having those 2 diverse sides is what causes problems with ballance a fed lucian can do most of his work from miles away not so fed lucian wont do anything unless he will go point blank on you and die

Slamurai JackJul 10, 20152 votes

They overnerfed him back when the meta favored him and then left him that way once the meta shifted. The nerf to his passive was totally overkill.

TheXtractorJul 10, 20151 votes

its because he's not a jinx, kalista or sivir who are strong no matter what happens.

Knight SoIaire Jul 10, 20151 votes

just like every adc his power is dictated by his items

TheXtractorJul 10, 20151 votes

if that was 100% true why would there be so many different adc champions. Different adc's have different roles and strengths. Lucian was popular for a long time but currently kalista is a better lane bully. Jinx is strong for pushing and lategame and sivir is a better teamplay adc.

Knight SoIaire Jul 10, 20151 votes

yet all of them have one thing in common ... their power is dictated by items

TheXtractorJul 10, 20151 votes

Yeh, JUST LIKE EVERY OTHER CHAMPION IN THE GAME.

Did you ever play a champion with 0 items and succeeded? probably not. Your argument makes no sense. You can build the same 6 items on every champion, that doesn't mean that every champion has the same strength when they have the same items. Obviously their power is not dictated by the items. Its influenced by items.

Knight SoIaire Jul 10, 20151 votes

for certain champions having items is just a mean of survival ... their kits are basicaly effective on their own and they use items to just back themselves up ... having one item more or less itns that much for them

for a marksman his items are what dictates his usability ... having them or not is a diference beetwen being usefull and useless

thats what i meant

jinx with less items than graves is worse at everything than graves ... even at the stuff that jin'x kit is meant to do better

just like vayne with less items is a worse tank buster than other adc with more items despite her kit being specialized for that

who cares about their kit as long as they have items

DivewingJul 10, 20151 votes

Well that's actually nothing to do with items, that's to do with leads/advantages, besides, that's an unfair statement to make since you are defaultly handicapping one party, a proper comparison would mean all variables are the same bar 1, in this case, both adcs at equal item strength, with the only difference being their kits.

Even without this however, your argument disproves itself when matched with statistics. There IS diversity in ADC selection, meaning there MUST be some difference between multiple ADCs or there'd be literally no reason to play more than 2 different ADCs in all games as their "power is dictated by items ".

Should you make that claim by comparing perhaps ADCs to Supports, yes you could probably say that's more or less accurate, but not ADC to ADC.

Knight SoIaire Jul 10, 20152 votes

Even without this however, your argument disproves itself when matched with statistics. There IS diversity in ADC selection, meaning there MUST be some difference between multiple ADCs or there'd be literally no reason to play more than 2 different ADCs in all games as their "power is dictated by items ".

ofc i didnt mean to say that there is literaly 0 diference beetwen them but that most of those factors have realy minor role when it comes to marksman class

most of the time the marksman ballance is shaped by rather minor changes like taking or giving champions couple points in base atack damage or atack speed ... those are rahter subtle changes

most of the field thou is dedicated towards the power they gain from items which makes them preety equalized in this field

DivewingJul 11, 20151 votes

Graves has burst, Kog Maw doesn't. Caitlyn has a huge range, Vaynes is short. You're being rather ignorant of the value of the kits of all the ADCs....

Knight SoIaire Jul 11, 20151 votes

caitlyn has huge range ... still can get zoned by a short ranged vayne when vayne has more items

items dictate their interactions ... the fact that caitlyn counters vayne just means that vayne needs a bigger gold lead to turn it around

their kits are basicaly amplifying their items in a certain way ... in the end for marksmen its always items ... at least thats how i feel when i play them ... unless i derp and get rekt

NotDevanJul 10, 20151 votes

Because they nerfed everything in his kit that wasn't making him overbearing.

And then they nerfed what was the problem on top of it (his passive).

Another victory for riot balance

Harrys Nut ShackJul 10, 20151 votes

He's always a strong duelist and his last hitting is very reliable. You need to get the advantage with him in lane or you won't scale as well as Vayne or Kog'Maw. Doesn't mean his dash spam and 150% AD auto attacks from his passive isn't good.

3TWarriorJul 10, 20151 votes

actually his passive if it crits does at most 1.25x AD because his passive only hits for .5 AD

Knight SoIaire Jul 10, 20151 votes

this is also an interesting thing first he needs levels becuase his passive was nerfed (like everything else in his kit actualy) so he needs levels to get that full 50% dmg

next thing is that unlike other adc's lucian just doesnt auto that much ... when other adc's auto constantly lucian is mixing it with casts

so owerall lucian gets stronger but less autos .. i think that it makes him even or weaker compared to other adc's ... since skills dont realy do that much for adc's late ... and only lucians q actualy deals damage

its a hard topic because lucian is realy unique kit wise and he is a marksman ... he certainly isnt weak ... but he certainly does feel like he is

CarryJul 10, 20151 votes

He has a fun kit but he's been over-nerfed.

My suggestion would be to make his spells scale better to be more relevant in the late game, and possibly revert his range to 550 since he's no longer quite as mobile after the e nerfs i don't feel like that 500 range nerf is necessary anymore. And honestly removing the AD ratio off W completely was stupid, the skill does next to nothing now other than proc his passive.

Suggestions:

Q - higher AD scaling so it's more relevant in the late game W - change damage type to physical, change scaling from AP to AD and/or possibly give it a passive that gives % Pen to his spells (5%/10%/15%/20%/25% or something, so he gets some benefit out of ranking w) so that his spells are effective on tanks throughout the game

rest is fine imo

terkmcJul 10, 20151 votes

His W exist only to really make use of his passive. The damage is negligible and the ms boost is meh. Graves utility spell can potential fuck with the entire back line, Varus and Ashe utility can cc an entire team, Sivir utility bring mobility to everyone, JInx utility in a slow and an aoe root. His W is just so damn bad

FalconPawwwwnchJul 10, 20151 votes

Because he was God tier for a year and can be left bad for awhile

SaltyToplaneGoatJul 10, 20151 votes

Bronze noobs whined on the boards long enough and this is the result. Nothing unusual here...

Calibretto9Jul 10, 20151 votes

He was awesome back when I took a break from the game pre-season 4. Came back about a short while back and he's been nerfed into oblivion. As others have stated in this thread, it's kind of hilarious to me though because his mobility combined with his damage was the problem, so they nerfed him and then created Kalista. To me, it's a bit facepalmy.

I do definitely see the problems with pre-nerf Lucian, where he had high mobility and really high burst, whereas Kalista takes time to ramp up the damage on you, but ultimately the problems are pretty similar. I think a few minor tweaks would have him back in action. He's not that far from being competitive again. Maybe add the slow removal back to his dash, and ramp up the damage on his casted abilities if they want to push him in the direction of being a caster. They just took away too much in too short a time - range, slow removal, etc.

Leu07Jul 10, 20151 votes

Eww nooo he is okay as he is right now, I have been destroyed by some good Lucians as he is. He was waaaayyyy too op before, he is very well right now IMO.

Knight SoIaire Jul 10, 20152 votes

if ill play it good ill destroy you even as a bard building only wits ends

the thing is whether its equaly strong compared to other stuff

the equation is as follows ... similar champions take similar amount of skill ... but if one gets weaker it takes more skill to win with that champion that it did before the nerf

even champions like elise win games ... and some good players can carry games with those

so the question is if lucian has to work harder than other marksman to be effective and on surrender at 20 there was already a post that riot is looking at him so i have my answer ... wonder what they will come up with

Rabid HuskyJul 11, 20151 votes

i think the big problem is his stuff just doesnt scale well when compared to graves who kinda does the same thing but even better i dont even think his spells scale to 50% ad and i believe they do magic damage (sorry i dont play lucian and i try to grit my teeth and get through the game if im stuck with him on aram so im not the best person to give advice) so i totally agree lucian has a decent kit but he just feels so useless compared to other adcs

Knight SoIaire Jul 11, 20151 votes

maybe its that ... but then his short range ... if not the shrotest among normals adc's (to exclude urgot) vayne has 550 ... quinn has 525 ... lucian has 500

if his damage would be adjusted to fit his range he would probably blow up anything that gets into his sight

the longer this thread gets the weirder the conclusions get

QarekeoJul 12, 20151 votes

I know "I looked at your match history, and..." is often an awful way to start a discussion, but you last played him in 2014 and won at 26 minutes with him. I wish you would clarify why you are saying he's underwhelming.

He's my favorite marksman right now because of his Spell-AA-Spell-AA gameplay flow and really flashy abilities. I think the important thing with him is to proritize damage and cooldown reduction rather than attack speed like most marksmen to use his passive. I would imagine a good end-game build would look like:

item 3158 item 3031 item 3087 item 3071 item 3004 item 3072

This is to use his abilities as much as possible with extra mana regen and CDR to use his passive more, which often is more efficient than relying on autos only. You can often burst combo enemies down with this (though I still can't fight Vaynes with it...) and your attacks have more punch than others. One AS item is only to cancel auto-animations faster to use spells faster. It could be replaced with a BotRK if desired for lifesteal.

Knight SoIaire Jul 12, 20151 votes

but you last played him in 2014 and won at 26 minutes with him.

impossible ... i play him from time to time

not to often thou ... every time i pick him up i end up feeling unrewarded for doing a good job as an adc

QarekeoJul 15, 20151 votes

Then I wonder why I couldn't see that. Personally, I like how his lack of need for Attack Speed opens up other build options and how rhythmic his playstyle is. That's just me though, You don't need to agree.

Knight SoIaire Jul 15, 20151 votes

in fact i doo agree that this is something special and unique for him that realy gives him that special feel when you play him

the only problem i would have with that is his ult scaling of atack speed ... this means that lucian is forced to commit gold into something that he doesnt realy synergize with as his passive kills the requirement for atack speed and his atack speed scaling on his ult is actualy quite a significant increase in damage

this creates a certain fight beetwen the ballance of both build paths and i think that currently lucian is better off building like any other adc would