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I thought Thresh was borderline imbalanced with his kit doing so much and being so powerful, but the more I play and look at Lulu, I really have to wonder: is Lulu overpowered?
She has an amazing slow which can be shot at from different angles and attached to jungler so that even if you're not close by, you can still hit. She has a disable which has a pretty good duration/a really strong speed boost (I mostly ignore the AP, as it's very rare where it actually makes a huge impact) and one of the best ults in the game. All of these have pretty damn good CDs, and her mana management is really freaking good. Her auto attack is pretty damn good for a support, doing noticeable damage early on. She can pretty much single-handedly win lanes with only a bit of help from the AD (pressure and some harass) and she doesn't come anywhere near to falling off later on in the game. She doesn't really have any bad match-ups bot, though some can be a little bit more tricky than others.
So I ask again. Is Lulu overpowered, because I'm pretty sure she's more powerful than any other support in the game right now (including Thresh).
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On April 07 2013 06:17 RagequitBM wrote:Show nested quote +On April 07 2013 03:17 kainzero wrote:
i dislike playing support in solo queue. actually i just dislike solo queue.
i've been noticing a lot of subtleties in playing support, especially regarding the positioning and zoning that's constantly going on and where you need to position yourself to possibly deny one or two cs. solo queue support just doesn't have that, and as i prefer supports like janna/nami/lulu/sona to the bigger playmaking supports like leona/taric/blitz/alistar/thresh, it's actually really boring since i just sit there most of the time until laning phase is over. I don't think as Lulu you just sit there. I duo queued with my Plat friend, and he literally won the lane for me by harassing them so hard 1v2 that they had to sit at tower while I just froze the lane. The only support I'd prefer to have over Lulu is Thresh. It was so nice having every key point warded. I love having amazing supports as opposed to just good or okay. Seriously. Purple is strong.
i'm talking about solo queue.
i don't mind playing support with friends. you get real-time feedback over voicechat from what they want to do or what you want to do, you can move in sync and by putting yourself in certain positions relative to your AD carry where you both become a very strong threat that can engage quickly or poke decisively.
you can carry a voice conversation that goes like this:
"if i see an opportunity i'm going to engage on the ad carry"
"don't do it, i want to farm this wave in front of tower and i can't tank creeps for that long"
"kk, i'll back off then"
in the time that it takes for you to type the first sentence.
as for warding, warding is *usually* a matter of map control and allowing your support (or laner, or jungler) to put down wards. if you won lane as hard as you say did, it's easy for wards to be put down in the right spots. when you are behind a couple towers, it's very difficult, and it's usually when you're behind that your solo queue team bitches about the support not warding.
as an example, the wraith ward spot is a really good ward spot in laning phase, but i can't put a ward down there as jungler if our mid lane is pushed in and the jungler hasn't been seen for a while. the risk of being pincered by the mid laner and jungler is usually not worth the ward.
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On April 07 2013 06:44 sob3k wrote:Show nested quote +On April 07 2013 06:20 {ToT}ColmA wrote:
depends, thresh can be like good, bad and in between, i ve yet to see the inbetween blitz thou, he either is super bad or he wins your lane Thats why I like him in soloque, he is like the aggressive version of soraka where he requires no communication. You land a pull and they shoot him, with thresh they can fuck up or overengage or ignore hooks or whatever. but its true I spammed a ton of thresh and it made my blitz awful
this also really weird, but apparently blitz grab can be "canceled" by tristana's rocket jump. i don't really understand it. :/
thresh can get "dragged" by some dashes too, i've had it happen with a corki and shyvana. interestingly though, thresh's grab is not canceled by tristana's rocket jump.
these displacement'grab interactions are all messed up. i can understand the "logic" of a blink avoiding a grab or flash, but dashes are confusing.
EDIT:
yeah, map control also helps you ward. for example, if you win bot lane and take tower as blue for example, you can drop a ward by their blue, which basically gives you vision and control over half (okay, maybe a third) of their jungle. combine that with a ward in the brush by the other mid entrance, and you've got that side on lockdown.
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Map control's the biggest thing indeed. It's quite frustrating having the team blame the support when he cannot place any wards because we have no map control and no one covering him. Not to mention everyone still seems to believe that supports should buy every ward. I used to just buy 2 wards every back, but now I'm buying 3-4 especially if I'm doing well just so that the support isn't forced to try to cover every spot. I still need to become better at using pink wards though, I'm having quite a bit of trouble deciding when it is and when it isn't worth it to place one to counterward my lane opponent. Thinking about it though, I guess it's worth it every single time if I see where the opponent places the ward and I'm able to destroy it.
Now just to mass-watch asian LoL games to see what makes them so much better than western teams, aside from pure mechanics.
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On April 07 2013 06:53 Dark_Chill wrote:She can pretty much single-handedly win lanes with only a bit of help from the AD (pressure and some harass) and she doesn't come anywhere near to falling off later on in the game. She doesn't really have any bad match-ups bot, though some can be a little bit more tricky than others.
So I ask again. Is Lulu overpowered, because I'm pretty sure she's more powerful than any other support in the game right now (including Thresh).
You could say the same about Sona, and Sona tends to beat a Lulu support in lane, all else being equal. In other words, no.
Only major advantages Lulu has over Sona are her q is better at wave clearing (more important in the competitive scene than solo que) and her polymorph is on a normal spell, while Sona's dancing is on her ult. But Sona has a heal and aoe disable, so there are tradeoffs.
If anything I think there's an issue with some of the older supports being a lot worse due to the changes this season. There's not much reason to ever play Soraka. Janna can be quite good, but I think it's better to play her maxing q second and have her as a wave clearing threat as seen in the LCS, and if you try that in solo que someone is going to want to burn you at the stake.
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Maxing E on janna second is the way to go burst is so much better than wave clear.
Edit: You are not going to go for pushing if you pick Janna support W->E is much strong for lane presence than E->Q
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United States47024 Posts
On April 07 2013 07:17 Shikyo wrote:
Now just to mass-watch asian LoL games to see what makes them so much better than western teams, aside from pure mechanics.
Korean drafts generally feel more cohesive than Western drafts, outside of a few exceptional teams (e.g. Gambit). It belies a much better overall understanding of how the game works.
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On April 07 2013 07:27 TheYango wrote:Show nested quote +On April 07 2013 07:17 Shikyo wrote:
Now just to mass-watch asian LoL games to see what makes them so much better than western teams, aside from pure mechanics. Korean drafts generally feel more cohesive than Western drafts, outside of a few exceptional teams (e.g. Gambit). It belies a much better overall understanding of how the game works.
Also, just watch the positioning and map awareness of top tier Asian teams. It's ridiculous.
They'll appear to be spread out over half the map with the AD farming, the support clearing wards, a couple others pushing or farming the jungle, but most of the time, they can all gather together for a teamfight in like 10 seconds.
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On April 07 2013 06:19 ticklishmusic wrote:
Play too much Thresh, can't land a Blitz hook
Play too much Blitz, can't land a Thresh hook
I had a similar problem in the late season two jungle with Bandage Toss and Dredge Line.
I'm avoiding the equivalent this season by never playing Blitz, h4h4h4h4.
Also, it's a shame you never get to see Nunu botlane after the Blood Boil nerfs :/
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On April 07 2013 06:54 kainzero wrote:i'm talking about solo queue.
i don't mind playing support with friends. you get real-time feedback over voicechat from what they want to do or what you want to do, you can move in sync and by putting yourself in certain positions relative to your AD carry where you both become a very strong threat that can engage quickly or poke decisively.
For some reason, though everyone knows this on an intellectual level and will even say it out loud, people don't adjust their play for it. And it basically ONLY works this way on support. There's obviously way less synergy between jungle/mid or jungle/top in a solo queue environment as well, but people don't try to make the same high-precision plays in those cases.
There is a ton of information available from a support's perspective in solo queue that goes completely unused. I can almost always figure out if my AD will follow or not well before I want to all-in, just from watching him move around, auto attack, and spend mana in lane. You can also figure out other things, generally long before it's too late to do anything about it. Do you need to build tanky and zone hard (as opposed to engaging)? Max a heal/shield in a lane that's normally highly aggressive? Choke off vision with pinks, tank skillshots for your AD and pray? I mean, it sucks when you pick Leona and your AD won't follow you in, but you really should be able to figure that out long before you feed first blood. And then, even though you're on Leona, there are plenty of things that are obviously not optimal in a vacuum you can do to try to save the lane.
I guess you can look at it as a "fuck solo queue" kind of thing, but honestly, it's much more productive to apply the usual "given solo queue, how should I play this differently" logic that you do from EVERY OTHER POSITION. Seems like this particular skill is at least as important as basic warding knowledge and jungle timings if you're going to play support in solo queue.
On April 07 2013 07:15 ticklishmusic wrote:yeah, map control also helps you ward. for example, if you win bot lane and take tower as blue for example, you can drop a ward by their blue, which basically gives you vision and control over half (okay, maybe a third) of their jungle. combine that with a ward in the brush by the other mid entrance, and you've got that side on lockdown.
I generally try to ward in a sort of expanding concentric ring. It's much safer to ward deeper if you venture out before your shallow wards expire.
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On April 07 2013 07:24 Eppa! wrote:
Maxing E on janna second is the way to go burst is so much better than wave clear.
Edit: You are not going to go for pushing if you pick Janna support W->E is much strong for lane presence than E->Q
E is the shield, just to clear things up.
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If you go 11-3-13 support thresh and still get an early bulwark/philo and ruby sightstone on top of your BT zerkers, you should get like 200ip for that win.
imoimo
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On April 07 2013 07:24 Eppa! wrote:
Maxing E on janna second is the way to go burst is so much better than wave clear.
Edit: You are not going to go for pushing if you pick Janna support W->E is much strong for lane presence than E->Q
except then there is like zero reason you should be playing janna, you should be playing lulu whose Q is like way better and longer range and can clear waves as well
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On April 07 2013 07:24 Eppa! wrote:
Maxing E on janna second is the way to go burst is so much better than wave clear.
Edit: You are not going to go for pushing if you pick Janna support W->E is much strong for lane presence than E->Q
Having a Janna able to stop waves from reaching (and threatening) the towers let Dig easily apply map-wide pressure and splitpushing because all their capable fighters where always available and pushing, while the support was strong enough by herself to clear, or even to slow down pushes by 2-3 enemy carries enough for the rest of the team to gather and defend the tower. In the end she had 100+ cs and 2 AP items without hurting her support itemisation too much so she was able to do much more in fights. Of course that's less farm on the carries, but on the other hand it was often farm that'd have been lost either way if she didn't take it.
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On April 07 2013 07:48 sob3k wrote:Show nested quote +On April 07 2013 07:24 Eppa! wrote:
Maxing E on janna second is the way to go burst is so much better than wave clear.
Edit: You are not going to go for pushing if you pick Janna support W->E is much strong for lane presence than E->Q except then there is like zero reason you should be playing janna, you should be playing lulu whose Q is like way better and longer range and can clear waves as well
Lulu isn't so superior to Janna (if at all) that you shouldn't pick Janna in certain teamcomps. Also Janna godlike passive kthx.
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On April 07 2013 08:01 Juicyfruit wrote:Show nested quote +On April 07 2013 07:48 sob3k wrote:On April 07 2013 07:24 Eppa! wrote:
Maxing E on janna second is the way to go burst is so much better than wave clear.
Edit: You are not going to go for pushing if you pick Janna support W->E is much strong for lane presence than E->Q except then there is like zero reason you should be playing janna, you should be playing lulu whose Q is like way better and longer range and can clear waves as well Lulu isn't so superior to Janna (if at all) that you shouldn't pick Janna in certain teamcomps. Also Janna godlike passive kthx.
Lulu bullies lanes, Janna gets bullied.
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On April 07 2013 07:45 red_ wrote:Show nested quote +On April 07 2013 07:24 Eppa! wrote:
Maxing E on janna second is the way to go burst is so much better than wave clear.
Edit: You are not going to go for pushing if you pick Janna support W->E is much strong for lane presence than E->Q E is the shield, just to clear things up.
That is what i ment. Jannas presence sucks hard in lane and in small fights with shield max first, 2 or 3 levels in e then maxing W makes a ton of difference the added ms, damage and slow wins fights.
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On April 07 2013 07:18 zer0das wrote:Show nested quote +On April 07 2013 06:53 Dark_Chill wrote:She can pretty much single-handedly win lanes with only a bit of help from the AD (pressure and some harass) and she doesn't come anywhere near to falling off later on in the game. She doesn't really have any bad match-ups bot, though some can be a little bit more tricky than others.
So I ask again. Is Lulu overpowered, because I'm pretty sure she's more powerful than any other support in the game right now (including Thresh). You could say the same about Sona, and Sona tends to beat a Lulu support in lane, all else being equal. In other words, no. Only major advantages Lulu has over Sona are her q is better at wave clearing (more important in the competitive scene than solo que) and her polymorph is on a normal spell, while Sona's dancing is on her ult. But Sona has a heal and aoe disable, so there are tradeoffs. If anything I think there's an issue with some of the older supports being a lot worse due to the changes this season. There's not much reason to ever play Soraka. Janna can be quite good, but I think it's better to play her maxing q second and have her as a wave clearing threat as seen in the LCS, and if you try that in solo que someone is going to want to burn you at the stake.
Lulu's Q is a pretty strong slow with many ways to hit multiple targets. Sona has her E which needs her to use it 3 times and then auto attack. Q also does similar damage to Sona's Q, with close to the same early mana cost and same cooldown. While Sona's lets her deal more damage with an auto after 3 uses, Lulu's slows, so not too bad a trade-off.
Lulu's W can function as a speed boost like Sona's E, and while Sona's is slower it affects multiple allies. However, Lulu also has a great disable attached to her W, which actually lasts longer than Sona's ult (though single-target and not a stun like Sona's). However, it's on a much lower cooldown (140vs18).
Lulu's E has a shield (damage mitigation) which can be somewhat compared to Sona's W (although it's not really fair to do so). Her heal is similarly priced, on a lower cooldown and gives resists as well. Lulu's E can also do a fair amount of damage, and helps to get good Q hits.
Lulu's Ult is just better than Sona's ult (imo). While Sona's has a better chance to hit more targets for longer and does damage, Lulu's cc isn't affected by tenacity, is on a lower cooldown, gives bonus health not affected by ignite and gives an aura of slow around the target. 30sec difference at lvl 6-11 is pretty important. I find that the slow around the target makes up for the smaller chance of multiple targets being hit, as your initiation/bruiser/tank just became a lot harder to kill/ignore.
Sona also gives auras after using her abilities, which actually gives a pretty good amount of "invisible power" for your allies (6%ms, 4dmg, 8resists being nothing to laugh at for free), and powerchord does give Sona some pretty good options in combat. This is easily a lot better than Lulu's passive, which only gives a bit of damage with each of her autos. This is where Sona's base stats concerning survivability come in, with 3 less armor and 80 less health at lvl 1. The gap only gets bigger as the game goes on. This makes it much more difficult for Sona against many tanky supports (Leona, Blitz, Taric, etc), and because Sona has no hard or decent cc until lvl 6, these match-ups are brutal for her.
So, it seems as though I was wrong, as the difference between them in term of power were not as big as I thought. Comparing Sona and Lulu, while I think she's better, it could be argued pretty easily that Sona is better (though Sona suffers from worse match-ups than Lulu, making her a worse support to pick early in the draft). I'm not sure if I should do it, as my experience vs Thresh is fairly limited, but I do wonder how big the gap between Thresh and Lulu actually is.
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EPT
