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Dear Riot, care to talk about Lulu?

Ghiefelstein··5 votes·867 views

It has been a while since you last talked about Lulu, but there are plenty of things to discuss about her. The last comment was in patch 4.13, where you emphasized that Lulu is not in an ideal situation. Could you please tell us your vision for Lulu?

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. [...] 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.

In particular, I would like to know how you plan to balance solo lane and support Lulu at the same time. You said it could be done, but in reality we have seen that support Lulu is undertuned to keep solo lane Lulu under control. These things worry me in particular:

  • This preseason, Lulu did not get the same mana regeneration stats as the traditional supports Janna, Nami, Sona and Soraka (9 base + 0.4 growth). Instead, she got the mage version with worse base and better growth (6 base + 0.8 growth). What is the reasoning behind that?
  • Ability power will always be more effective on solo lane Lulu. She gets multiplicative effects with magic pen, offensive masteries and items like Rabadon's. That means that building AP on support Lulu is less viable.
  • This preseason you added more vision to the game. For example, every jungler can turn his smite into a 6 second reveal. Ignite already reveals a target for 5 seconds. Since Lulu's reveal was nerfed to 4 seconds, it is no longer satisfying and its niche is taken by longer reveal effects.

Dear Riot, you made the bold decision to keep solo lane Lulu viable. It did not work out perfectly and support Lulu suffered from the collateral damage. Just saying 'we will consider it for the future' is not enough. If you make such a drastic decision as you did with Lulu, at least follow up on it. These months of silence have been frustrating. Any sort of vision or plan for the future would be more than welcome. Riot please?

7 Comments

PokladnicaZla2 votes

True true.Hope this gets a RED response.

Lost R2 votes

Her reveal doesn't last as long, sure, but she can use it a lot more often than Smite, AND it deals direct damage, AND she can bounce Glitterlance off enemies and allies.

I think the reasoning behind having a lower base and higher growth is so she's not so overbearing in the early game, and I'm saying this as a support Lulu. Remember that her passive scales off AP, and combined with her basic attack power, she packs quite a punch for a mage. I've bullied many a champion out of a lane just by poking them repeatedly, and her high speed, crowd control, and shields makes it extremely difficult to retaliate if you don't have a ranged ability or gap closer.

BRBGTGBOWFLEX1 votes

Comments:

  1. The reasoning behind it is that if she had support scaling, she wouldn't be as viable in a solo lane for late-game and her support late-game would be hampered while creating a very oppressive early game. Even as a solo laner, her late game functions are more to protect carries, and AP does that via shields/growth/Polymorph. Support does it via item actives + AP. It's fine.

  2. Not really. You're making a trade-off between item actives or the utility of AP. Plus, in a duo lane you probably get more mileage out of the AP on shields, since more of a shield can be consumed when two damage dealers are on your target, most of the shield with solo lane lulu tends to just expire. You seem to be overvaluing Lulu's own damage, vs her utility, which doesn't have MPen associated with its scaling anyways, since no friendly targets are resisting your shields.

Support Lulu cares more about AP/CDR/Utility Items, whereas Offensive Lulu needs to balance those with MPen and survival.

  1. The adding more vision claim is silly. Out of the 10 games I spectated after reading your post, only one out of the 20 junglers went with the smite you're talking about. It was a 0-1 Master Yi.

In short, I don't really think you have very many legitimate points. Lulu is in a pretty good place and is well represented at all levels of play.

Ghiefelstein1 votes

  1. Yes, solo lane Lulu probably needs mage scaling on her mana to stay viable. But support Lulu would benefit more from support mana scaling, bringing the two closer in power. The choice is actually not that obvious, and some clarification from Riot would be nice.

  2. Let me give a specific example. Solo Lulu gets the arch mage mastery for 5% extra AP. Therefore she can buy AP more efficiently. AP on support Lulu will be lackluster to keep solo Lulu in line.

  3. Fair enough, in the first patch of preseason the reveal smite upgrade is not popular. But it is telling enough that Riot gave it a 6 second duration. Apparently it needs a decent duration to be satisfying. Lulu used to have a 6 second reveal too, but it was nerfed to prevent the EQQ combo. Do you think Lulu's reveal is truly satisfying?

Lulu is in a pretty good place and is well represented at all levels of play.

Even Riot themselves said 'this isn't a great situation'. Support Lulu is still viable, but she did get nerfed a lot without compensation. Without changes, she will always stay stronger as a solo laner than as a support. If Riot wants that, it is fine, but it would be nice if they told us then.

BRBGTGBOWFLEX1 votes

  1. I disagree, support lulu benefits more from the mage scaling since at the end of game, her AP scales enough to make her shields and other spells more viable. It may make her laning weaker, but it makes her endgame presence better.

  2. Here's where we have a difference in terms of masteries. I do not see why you would go into the support tree at all with Lulu, since she's a poke/ap scaling support like Sona. I go 21/9 with her, though I've been thinking of going 21/8/1 to grab some mana regen.

I think taking a serious look at the support tree and saying "what do I really need from there" is important. I don't know that I find the gold masteries that useful and I feel like you're better served just having the AP masteries.

  1. I do not find the reveal that satisfying, but its hard because EQQ is just REALLY oppressive, regardless of what role Lulu is playing.

If I have a Lulu on my team, I'd rather have them supporting.

Sailor Mint2 votes

Lulu got a massive mana regen buff. From 5 (+0.5) to 6 (+0.8), it's a 1.3 MP5 increase at level 1 and she matches her old level 18 regen at level 9. Only Taric got a bigger buff in that category.

That's more than enough mana to work with.

Stop picking her into healers (Sona/Nami/Soraka) and you should be fine.

Unironic SJW1 votes

The truth is, solo lane Lulu was never problematic except maybe at release. People just have a hate boner for solo lane supports.

Lulu shoved lane hard, but so did most mids. Lulu had fairly long range poke but she couldn't use it much at all due to mana costs. The issue is that for whatever reason GD wanted the snowbally assassin meta back and Lulu negates the ability for assassins to snowball out of control because of her anti-diving tools. Of course, the solution to that is to play a mage and poke her to death - long range mages simply can stay out of her E range while they poke her down, and even if she does land E on you, she can only do that once or twice because of mana costs that would make someone on Tumblr hit the roof with the level of oppression they impose.

If Zed and Fizz are allowed to be safe and ungankable, why can't Lulu?

If you want to help support Lulu:

Revert the nerfs to Lulu's E duration on enemy cast (which hurt Support Lulu more than Solo Lulu anyway) and create a mana item that builds from Sightstone.

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