She has been nerfed twice during season 4, to the point where now I don't think she's that great of a champion anymore.
As a protect-the-ADC support she's pretty much outclassed by Janna. As a poke support Sona and Nami can do it better, because they have a heal.
She's still a pretty strong solo-laner, but if you play her that way then she falls off VERY hard late game, due to having mostly single target abilities.
SmokingPuffin5 votesThe story with Lulu is pretty depressing. Let me tell the story with patch notes:
V3.15
Lulu's defensive capabilities were a little low for a traditional support, so we sent her to the gym to get buff. Like most supports, we're keeping an eye on Lulu as the preseason progresses.
V4.5
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), so we'll look at ways to help support Lulu if she comes out too weak because of these changes.
V4.13
We initially thought solo lane Lulu was a unique addition to the game, so we wanted to let her stay a viable pick in both solo and duo lanes. That said, top lane Lulu is currently shutting down a lot of diversity in competitive play and, because Lulu's solo lane and support power are tied so closely together, we had to go for changes that reduce her oppressive strengths first. As an aside, we know this isn't a great situation where we keep indirectly reducing support Lulu's power to maintain her viability as a mage, so this is something we'll have to really consider for the future.
So, uh, how's that "consider for the future" thing going, Riot? crickets
tl;dr - Solo lane Lulu isn't healthy, particularly against melee champions. Riot was hoping to nerf her in ways that wouldn't affect support Lulu, but just like always, that turns out to be wishful thinking. Support Lulu won't be making a comeback until they can figure out a way to make solo Lulu not such a bully.
Ghiefelstein2 votesI believe Riot did consider the future for support Lulu, but apparently they didn't find a way to make solo Lulu less of a bully. That means support Lulu is stuck in this state. Is it really worth sacrificing support Lulu to keep her viable as a mage?
Statikk 9 months ago:
We're honestly a little torn here on this one. In past situations, we'd take a huge hammer swing to ensure that she was a stronger Support rather than a Mid, but when we do that we are essentially "enforcing the meta" so to speak.
To be honest, I wish Riot took that huge hammer swing to make her stronger as a support again. If you can't make Lulu a healthy solo laner, allow her to be a viable support.
Fadedpf1 votesHer poke is super weak and is squishy. She is too weak in imo
Marmara1 votesSometimes I feel she's only viable in the top lane.
MrBuffington1 votesEasyhoon (the other mid-laner for SKT, in case you don't watch OGN) played a great game of Lulu mid vs KT Bullets the other day. I'd say she's still strong in the right hands; emphasis on "the right hands"; she's a pretty complex champion with the way Pix works, etc. (I'm talking about using her at the absolute top tier of play).
If you're comparing her as a support, a better comparison might be Karma; both have great utility and insane poke potential, much more so than Sona or Nami. Lulu also has targeted, instant hard CC as a basic spell, something neither Sona, Janna, nor Nami has (only other support I can think of that has this is Fiddlesticks).
Also, I think the issue of her falling off late game is more to do with the fact her damage ratios aren't great compared to most mages, also she only has two damage spells (one of which she also wants to use as a shield instead of damage). Single target abilities aren't a problem; Ryze is a late game hypercarry and most of his damage spells are single target. Besides, most of Lulu's damage comes from an AoE pass-through skillshot with no damage fall off.
MAZZ1M01 votesYes. She's still playable if you're familiar with her, but she's nowhere near as effective as she was at the start of season 4. Buffs targeting her ally casts would help tremendously as going back to the enemy casts would cause problems in toplane again :. I think increasing the AP ratio on her passive could improve her poke game a good deal. That would make up for the E and Q nerfs imo.