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Let's talk about Lulu

FFirebrandd·4/7/2014, 7:00:07 PM·2 votes·402 views

Alright, for those of you who don't know what the Lulu changes were they are as follows

E - Help, Pix! ENEMY FOLLOW DURATION 6 seconds ⇒ 4 seconds REMOVEDMINION CAST Minions gain a shield BASE DAMAGE 80/130/180/230/280 ⇒ 80/110/140/170/200

She got said nerfs because she was becoming a bit of an instant pick mid.

Now... why did Lulu mid become a thing? Lulu is VERY difficult to kill if played right. Why is that important for mid? Two reasons, firstly mid has gotten taken over by assassins for the most part and mid is arguably the easiest to gank. The other reason is that Kayle pretty much fit the same niche as mid Lulu until her burst damage got nerfed.

Now whether Lulu is too powerful when played mid or not I don't know. I personally think she's simply an anti meta pick because she's countered by any mage that doesn't mind a farm fest and outscales her hard. Those mages however are generally bad against assassins and ganks which are common.

My opinion of the nerfs however is that she got hit in the completely wrong places. Let's look at where she got hit.

Enemy Follow Duration: Pix reveals enemies when he follows them (including stealth), so that nerf hurts Lulu's utility that semi counters in combat stealth. It also hurts Lulu's ability to use her glitterlance slow, because it used to be easy to Q-E-Q during a chase for 4 seconds worth of slow, now that is much much harder.

No longer can shield minions: Firstly Lulu was like the only person who could do that so goodbye some champion uniqueness. Secondly Lulu has very bad base AD and AS probably to encourage her to E teammates and give them her passive. What that means is support Lulu is very bad at pushing towers outside of shielding minions so they can tank more shots, and now that's gone.

Base Damage Reduction: Now granted this change doesn't hurt Lulu as much as the others because support Lulu will probably be mostly using this as a shield. However I would like to point out that Mid Lulu can use what AP scalings she has for more damage, Support Lulu not so much. That means a base damage nerf will take away a much larger percent of support Lulu's damage.

Here's the big kicker. When Annie was getting played a ton in support but almost never played mid what happened? The answer is she got power shifts and not nerfs. Lulu was in pretty much the same situation, played a ton mid but almost never support, but she got straight nerfs. Why?

Anyway those are my thoughts on Lulu's nerfs, please post your own. I'm also going to add a poll.

3 Comments

Ray The Ruler4/8/2014, 5:04:55 PM1 votes

As a Support Lulu main, who has and continues to play her support after her growing popularity in mid and nerfs, I didn't feel the impact of the nerfs.

I always considered Lulu's initiation combo to be: W herself -> E then Q, Qing first without an aim assist is difficult and can easily be dodged. Support Lulu though is a lot better at playing reactionary than initiation support. Glitterlance's power as a utility spell is particularly noteworthy when enemies dive your front line straight on, only to get their initial burst shielded by Lulu and a quick glitterlance to the face (especially effective the more enemies it hits). Lulu is all about anti-burst; her W silence is an incredible spell against melee assassins that try to dive the backline. She has a shield, she has a massive give 1 person HP now button with a cc attached, she has a line skillshot that slows all targets hit incredibly hard. The nerfs, while impactful in some ways (particularly her shield onto ally minions), don't really impact the way Support Lulu should and usually can be played. The nerfs to Lulu were centered around her E; E is a big part of Lulu's strength in mid and her burst potential, so that spell gets maxed 2nd. On Support Lulu, you get at most 2 points in E; then max W 2nd because it helps you better manage mana, get around the map for warding, running, closing, and maxed W has a huge silence duration that just wrecks any kind of dive assassin if used in time. Level 3, 4, and 5 E very rarely happen for Support Lulu cause games don't get that long; frankly I just don't see how the nerfs were of any significant consequence to support Lulu as opposed to mid Lulu which got hit hard.

I've played nearly 180 Support Lulu solo ranked games in my career (which is a lot for me cause my 2nd most picked is 112 games). I don't see much impact beyond an extra 2 seconds on her stealth reveal utility and the potential to deny farm with shields on minions. The minion denial mechanic is a bit much for support Lulu to be doing anyway, considering how tiny her mana pool and base mana regen are. I'm someone who is eager to see the trend of Mid Lulu and Mid Soraka die horribly; I like my supports to stay that way. When Zyra came out I played her mid over and over until she was my favourite champion, she got nerfed to the ground and is now only really viable as a Support. Thankfully I main support now but I miss Zyra's viability in mid, I don't want to lose my favourite support, Lulu, to the clutches of mid lane. If you wanna buff Lulu's utility, be my guest Riot; but as a Lulu support main, she's still as strong as she was back in January.

AbiwonKenabi4/9/2014, 8:31:10 PM1 votes

I think it might be her W that makes her so good in midlane. Since it now has an AP ratio on the speed-up, and it's CD is relatively low, she simply can't be caught, especially in a lane as short as mid. In addition, her shield makes harass exchanges with most other mids go in her favor.

While I think the duration nerf was misplaced, I don't feel like my support Lulu has suffered too much for it. Is it a nerf to her support role as well? Yes, and I'm not sure her support needs nerfs right now. But for the time being, she still does well in her intended role.

On an off-note, I've been laning with Varus and Vayne more and more, so I almost always pick Lulu now, since she helps peel for these two during their sketchy lane phase. What's up with all the Vayne/Varus picks all of a sudden?