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The trouble with Lucien

Void2258·10/31/2013, 3:55:30 PM·2 votes·492 views

Lucian has issues with low mana levels and high mana costs, but his issues extend beyond that to a problem of design versus actual play. Lucien is soundly designed, but does not match the way the game is actually played.

His passive is fine in theory, but his mana levels cause there to be problems. Because he needs to cast to keep his damage up using the passive, most of the time he is continually mana deprived. While this can be compensated for by good casting discipline to an extent, it means that he has to wait around for very large openings or ganks, because otherwise he blows almost his entire mana pool in one exchange trying to get off enough damage.

His Q is fine, except that the cooldown encourages spamming and the mana cost punishes it. Most Lucien players end up depleting their mana supply to use this to poke, which seems like it should be the logical use case, but is not meant to be.

His W is problematic. Due to the range and not needing to hit an available minion, it is used primarily as long range poke during disengages. However as designed, he is supposed to hit with it and then use the speed boost to stay in range to continue kiting. In fact, most Lucien players will purposefully HOLD OFF on using W to get in added burst after the enemy leaves AA range. Most of the time it is used, he isn't in range to hit even 1 Autoattack, must less begin a chase. Thus his kit, which needs him to have the speed boost from this skill, is rendered less dangerous by people not wanting to use it that way to try to offset his short range.

His E is an OK gap close or disengage.

R is problematic due to how real people react. Namely, most people can easily walk out of his R. Upon seeing him ult, they will walk, blink/tumble/etc. or flash out of the path, taking only one or two hits. Because it is completely linear and Lucien's movement speed in low, most characters can, if not completely flank him while it goes on, at least maneuver so that they stay out of the ult for the duration even though he can move. The fact that he can move and dash during the ult does almost nothing to help him keep it on target. Compare to MF's ult, which roots her but puts out a hard to dodge cone, which forces the opposition to either rapidly close and escape through the narrow end (If this happens you were doing it wrong) or run far off to the side or back. As long as it is used well, it is very effective at damage and deterrence. With Lucien, you can walk a very small distance to the side and then run directly at him, making it neither good for damage nor deterrence. All in all the ult, while good in theory, in practice is almost worthless.

These factors combine to make Lucien ineffective and unreliable as an ADC, to the point where in 100% of the games I have played with a Lucien on either team, the Lucien has fed to some extent. He is simply not able to successfully engage in lane or in teamfights.

5 Comments

Solan Stonewhip10/31/2013, 4:09:58 PM2 votes

it's spelled lucian

but your points are sound. even the pro's seem reluctant to play him except in very specific comps. that's not the hallmark of a balanced champion.

perhaps adding a slow to his ult or giving him the ability to control it more like corki's gatling gun would be more appropriate

204Bumrush10/31/2013, 5:09:21 PM2 votes

Something must be done about him!

TerrifiedApe11/2/2013, 2:40:39 AM2 votes

Yep Lucian needs a complete overhaul in the areas mentioned, im thinking maybe his mana regen gets tweaked instead of the costs of q or he will end up too much of a lane bully, but omg that ult has to change. No adc ult should put you in a position where you are LESS likely to get a kill than if you used another course of action. Im in favour of changing his ult to be aimed wherever your cursor is pointing, including changing direction to do so, like urgots q mechanic. I cant see this ult being fixed any other way besides changing it entire ult from scratch.

TBirdUSA11/11/2013, 9:34:06 PM1 votes

I disagree on most of these points. Lucian, in my opinion, is a rather strong marksman that most people just aren't playing properly.

Lightslinger (Passive: You talk about this passive as if it needs to be used constantly to be effective. This is not the case. While it would obviously be awesome if you could just be slinging spells constantly and always have this Lightslinger going off, that is not how it is meant to be used and judging because we want it to work that way isn't fair.

Lightslinger is an AMAZING passive in lane that almost guarantees you will win trades. An AA + Piericing Light + AA (with Lighstslinger) will win most trades with the opposing marksman. Extending the combo with Ardent Blaze or Relentless Pursuit will only up the damage.

In short, Lightslinger makes Lucian a great lane bully, especially against champions he outranges or don't have quick escapes (in my opinion he straight up murders Jinx in lane, and I have been quite successful doing that).

Aside from being a lane bully, Lightslinger also makes it easier to last hit in lane and then just provides extra damage in teamfights/engages. Trying to proc it constantly is going to get you into trouble. That isn't a flaw in the champion, it is a flaw the player's application of the champion.

Piercing Light (Q): Since they patched this ability to track champions if it is cast on them, there is almost nothing wrong with this ability at all. Is it's mana cost high? Yeah, a little bit, but like I said with Lightslinger, it isn't meant to be used constantly (except in teamfights). If you are constantly poking with it in lane or using it to farm then you are going to run out of mana, but that's because you are going too hard. Many marksman (Ashe, Miss Fortune, Caitlyn) can have the exact same problem if they spam their spells (Volley, Double Up, Piltover Peacemaker) but you rarely see people complain about those mana costs.

If you use Piercing Light conservatively (occasional poke, part of combos in engages) you won't have a lot of mana issues. Similar to Lightslinger, using Piercing Light all the time and running out of mana isn't a Lucian problem, it's a player problem.

Ardent Blaze (W): This is actually where I agree with you entirely, Ardent Blaze is easily the weakest part of his kit and needs some love. It has a lot of cool ideas built in but the application isn't quite right. Right now I mainly use it to scout or only in combos. It isn't even worth poking with it before engages because the damage it does is horrendous and is less than an autoattack for most of the game.

If I were given the opportunity to tinker with this ability, I would change it so that hitting and marking a champion with it provides HALF of the movement speed bonus it currently gives (40) automatically. If Lucian then hits a marked enemy (including said champion) the movement speed increases to the full amount. Therefore, if you hit a minion and do nothing after you don't get a bonus, but you can get a small bonus for hitting a champion with it, even if you don't follow up.

Relentless Pursuit (#): Here I agree with you again, nothing wrong with Relentless Pursuit. I personally wish the cooldown was a bit shorter, but I can understand why it isn't.

It could be interesting if Relentless Pursuit's cooldown reset anytime Lucian kills a champion with ANY ability, not just The Culling. I could see it being a lot more interesting in team fights if it worked this way and really make Lucian the mobile marksman that some Rioters said they wanted him to be.

The Culling (R): The Culling definitely has its issues, but I don't think it is as bad as people make it out to be. Could its damage be a bit higher? I definitely think so, but I can see why Riot is hesitant to raise it.

Do I think there is something wrong with it mechanically, though? Not really. The straight line of shots is quite good when used properly. I think too many people are comparing Lucian's ultimate to others that do high single target damage (which the Culling CAN do) which isn't fair.