one of the things I like about support lux is that you can shoot your ultimate on a initiated target and still can help your carries to disengage, while with sona for example I just buff them up alittle. I understand sona the best out of all champions and I know she provides a super strong ult which obv scales hard into lategame on paper, but in the end its just a stun you will hit on 1-3 ppl and 3 is really the maximum amount you are ever going to hit in a teamfight and it happens 1 out of 10 times or so. Often you have to ult 1 guy with sona because that is the target you have to lock down in a particular situation. with lux you can repeatedly do that even if her cd's are fairly high, as support lux you will have max cdr lategame with minimal effort because her kit keeps her very distant. Janna is the other support who can do that and is considered one of the absolute strongest lategame supports. sona is picked over janna if you want more front loaded damage during an engagement, lux does more burst while providing stronger kiting power, while not having passive stat bonuses.

Also people have figured out how to play against sona in lane. A few months ago I was able to just completely rampage in lane with sona but alot of support players are picking extremely bursty stuff like blitzcrank, new taric and leona. You still can win lane against them as I don't think those champions can prevent sona from doing her job in lane, but ad carries and supports started to play extremely aggressive against sona, as she doesnt have tools to keep champions in place: she just deals damage and heals a little. With lux you can do what I'd like to call free damage: with E range you can safely deny farm if you time it on lasthits or you just do damage without providing a hole for them to trade back. With Q you have a major disengagement and killing tool on a huge range, which punishes mistakes really hard. After 6 you can just R anyone you hit with Q as you are not the ap carry you are allowed to do that on a full HP target which makes much more use of her kit than ap lux btw. If you get ahead with lux support in lane you and you can push the lane then the real fun happens. With sona and janna to a lesser extend you can poke ppl under turret to keep an advantage but any of those champions look pale compared to lux when doing that.

And all that is not even her main strength. I think what really makes her a strong support pick is her ability to roam and ward like no other. The champions I like to roam the most with are blitz, leona and janna just because they are fast have strong initiation tools and have the ability to not die while warding/roaming. Lux is even more of that because of the massive range of her spells and the fact that she can check brushes/etc with her skills is amazing. This is one of the major reasons why venge was so popular when I played dota: you could safely check areas you want to go in while warding/ganking/roaming.

What lux does not have is buffs, so she is in the blitz, leona department of buffless supports. I really love those champions but you cannot pick those in any lane/team comp. I think if you want a poke lane, strong roaming/warding and disables your choice needs to be lux/janna atm. If you are worried about disengaging more than about having strong ganks and midgame power then stick with janna, else pick lux.

Kiarip

United States1835 Posts

October 11 2012 16:12 GMT

#162

On October 10 2012 16:11 HaruRH wrote:
Lux is one of my favourite AP mid champions for sure. If you chose lux and was not counterpicked by some mobile champions (ahri, another lux, etc), you would most likely win your lane if you're good. Unless you had a bad day and failed to cast your 'e' properly, you would definitely out-cs your opponent due to the nature of your spells.

Another fun trick i love to use is to duo queue ranked and get your friend to give you blue (only if your jungler is manaless). Then, go and win mid. There's no way any champion can win mid against a Lux with blue at level 1. You just spam E on that poor dude. Once you zoned that guy really heavily (I mean, I have at least 3x more cs than my opponent during 15 minutes), just gank other lanes. Their mid would be useless in mid game and their entire team would most likely crumble under your ganks as a really fat Lux is a really scary one.

you're playing against terrible players if you have 3 times the cs of your opponent regardless of what champion you're playing.

How is Lux's harass any better than Gragas barrel? He does more damage. What about xerath? He has long range even without W, and better ratios and cooldowns. Then there's champion that straight up destroy Lux like Leblanc and Ahri. Morgana does fine against her as well because of black shield. Personally I like to use swain vs lux because any time Lux tries to detonate passive you trade with E and come out ahead.

there are some champions on which I have problems against Lux, but most either beat her in lane or simply out farm her tbh.

remedium

United States939 Posts

November 13 2012 10:17 GMT

#163

Has anyone taken a serious look at Nashor's Tooth on our favorite champion?

The build I've been fiddling with goes something like:

1. Boots of Speed and 3 Health Potions [455 gold] -> standard opening for all mid lane champions.

2. Fiendish Codex [1125 gold] -> builds into Athene's Unholy Grail, and has a devious name.

3a. Sorcerer's Shoes [750 gold] -> if you are filthy rich it is conceivable that you can buy Athene's Unholy Grail before you buy your Sorcerer's Shoes, hence the 3a and 3b designations.

3b. Athene's Unholy Grail [2950 gold] -> Athene's Unholy Grail comes before Nashor's Tooth because it's only 335 gold more and is a bit more useful in lane.

4. Rabadon's Deathcap [3600 gold] -> before Nashor's Tooth because the damage increase you get from Rabadon's Deathcap seems to outweigh the utility from Nashor's Tooth.

5. Nashor's Tooth [2615 gold] -> I build the Fiendish Codex before the Stinger because the mana regen is just fantastic.

6. Void Staff [2295 gold] -> because lasers need love too.

7. Zhonya's Hourglass [3100 gold] -> even Lux needs to be invincible sometimes.

The rationale behind this build is as thus: Lux as a champion suffers from two things: long cooldowns (roughly 7-9 seconds each on her Q/W/E) and a need for a constant mana pool (this becomes painfully evident during the mid-late game when your team is gathered and you do not have a blue buff). The synergy between Athene's Unholy Grail and Nashor's Tooth is pretty amazing: (1) max 40% cooldown reduction (CDR) between the two items (15% Athene's, 25% Nashor's), and (2) +25 mana regen per 5 seconds (15 Athene's, 10 Nashor's). With two items, you can effectively remove the two things that make you spam click Lux until she tells you to stay positive.

The attack speed of Nashor's Tooth is a point of contention, but I think it can help Lux out a lot with triggering her passive damage on auto attacks.

The remaining items are pretty standard for an AP caster and can be substituted situationally.

Quick gameplay note: when using your Q/E combo to bind an enemy, make sure you Q, E, auto attack, trigger your E, then auto attack again. Your basic instinct will likely be to instantly trigger your E, but by waiting that one tick to auto attack, you can utilize your passive bonus damage twice in a single combo.

Here's a definitely-not-photshopped picture of me putting the build into use (Ed. note: the top three games actually happened as pictured):

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Let me know if you play it and think it works!

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A final note: with the recent discussion regarding revamping the guides here on Team Liquid, I decided to spruce up what could have been a five minute post into something resembling order and clarity. The purpose was to put forth an example of what a potential champion build guide post could look like. It is reasonably clear, easy to read, and features links and full names of all items, just in case any new player happens to stumble upon the guide. If you have any comments or suggestions for improving the format of this example or any other guide, I'm sure everyone who writes guides for Team Liquid would love to hear from you (I know there are some really nice looking guides here already).

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Nimbus sent me this beautiful work of art: