Up against an AP Assassin who can engage on you and force fights, such as Leblanc, Fizz, Kassadin, Akali, Diana, Ekko, Katarina, Lissandra? - Use the Athenes Build.
Up against a Ranged AP poke Mage with skillshots such as Orianna, Ziggs, Xerath, Viktor, Azir? - Use the Athenes build if you prefer a more aggressive early game playstyle with a stronger 1 item timing. - Use the Ludens build if you prefer a more passive early game playstyle with a stronger 2-3 item timing. (By 4 items, these two builds are functionally the same.)
Up against a champion who you cannot pressure in lane and need to prioritize waveclear such as Morgana, Galio, Twisted Fate, Cho'Gath, Master Yi? - Use the Ludens build.
Up against an AD Champion? - Use the Armguard build.
Want to play Lux support? - Use the Support build.
For Merciless, we can be like "Well on average it will increase damage by 2.5%" but that's probably bullshit and favors Merciless pretty heavily.
If Lux put out a steady stream of constant DPS, that would be a reasonable assumption. But Lux's damage is mostly frontloaded burst. If she bursts a target who is already below 50% at the start of a fight, she probably kills them regardless of masteries. So in that case the value of Merciless is actually zero.
If she bursts a target from 100%, it's very likely that the initial Q to lock them down doesn't get them below 50%, so the R doesn't get any bonus from Merciless. If the Q does get them below 50% then the rest of the combo should kill them regardless.
The E probably does get the bonus, but in Lux's combo the E is less than a third of the total damage. Somewhere between 1/4th and 1/3rd.
Yes if the burst kills them because of the small boost Merciless does to E, or doesn't kill them, Merciless starts helping then, but only for Lux's shitty autoattacks and a passive proc or two.
So, theoretically at least, Merciless is really not going to be giving you an averaged 2.5% damage increase in an average fight. We'd have to average it at less than that. How much less than that is situational and very difficult to define.
Meditation is likewise very hard to value with numbers, because mana regen is either the most important thing in the world, or zero value, depending on the situation. Meditation is further difficult because the amount of regen is based on your missing mana. I average this in the spreadsheet, but that is a poor metric because it's easy to manipulate Meditation (and Chalice passive) by spamming spells at high mana, and becoming more conservative when your mana gets low so you have better regen instead of evening things out over an entire siege or laning phase.
Further, mana regen is just more important when you're almost out of mana, obviously.
So if we average our two values, averaging Merciless favors Merciless, and averaging Meditation also favors Merciless.
So given that handicap, what do we know?
We know that in a normal full build, Meditation on average increases the amount of time Lux can spam spells by about 6% (from 37 seconds to 39.2 seconds)
We know that it on average increases the amount of DPS she can put out in a siege without losing mana by 16%, from 61 DPS to 71 DPS.
In both of those metrics, Meditation seems to be better than Merciless, on average.
So if you're expecting extended fights or extended sieges, Meditation is probably better than Merciless late game.
If you're expecting a short fight, Merciless should be better than Meditation regardless of how low the actual value of Merciless is, because if you wouldn't run out of mana regardless then Meditation doesn't do anything.
What about earlier in the game?
At level 9 with a Dark Seal and an Athenes, how much longer does Meditation let you stay in lane?
Without Meditation you can stay in lane: - 182 seconds at 2 E's per wave - 127 seconds at 2.25 E's per wave - 66 seconds at 3 E's per wave - 50 seconds at 3.5 E's per wave
With Meditation you can stay in lane: - 349 seconds at 2 E's per wave - 191 seconds at 2.25 E's per wave - 80 seconds at 3 E's per wave - 58 seconds at 3.5 E's per wave
So basically, after using E once to kill minions, Lux with Meditation in this scenario can use E to harass the enemy champion 1.25 times for every 1 time Lux without Meditation uses it.
So in laning, it appears that Meditation also outperforms Merciless. It's worth noting that Merciless doesn't damage minions, so for laning Meditation should be outdamaging Merciless while also letting you farm better and giving you more safety and utility.
The next question is how good is Meditation in the early part of the game? I'm gonna get pretty anecdotal with this.
So, in Filduns two games he's streamed for us in testing atm, both times laning starts at around 1:30, and he bases (or dies to a gank) at around 4 minutes. So he's regenning mana for about 2 minutes 30 seconds. Both times laning stops at level 4.
He's not casting E on cooldown. There are definitely opportunities for him to hit the other guy with E that he doesn't take in both games.
Between levels 1 and 4, on average Meditation gives about 4 MP5. This is a little bit better than a Faerie Charm.
So on average Meditation would give him an extra 120 mana in these lanes. This is enough to cast another E on the enemy champion in one of those opportunities that he had and didn't take.
So, in order for Merciless to outdamage an extra E, he'd need to cast like, 20+ E's in that time. In both games he only casts E 5 or 6 times.
So we can presume that having Meditation and using E more would have increased his total harass damage by as much as 20%, and that Merciless doesn't do that.
I think we can also presume that most starting lanes go to longer than level 4, where Meditate would become even better.
So, basically, my conclusions are that, for different parts of the game.
For initial laning Meditation should be better than Merciless. - Meditation should be increasing your damage by as much as 20% here. - Merciless should be increasing your damage by some amount less than 2.5%
For mid game laning Meditation should be better than Merciless. - Meditation should be increasing your damage by as much as 25% here. - Merciless should be increasing your damage by some amount less than 2.5%
For short teamfights without a poke war beforehand Merciless should be better than Meditate. - Meditation should not increase your damage here. - Merciless should be increasing your damage by some amount less than 2.5%
For long teamfights or teamfights with sieges beforehand Meditation should be better than Merciless. - Meditation should be increasing your damage by something like 5-15% here, depending on how long the siege is. - Merciless should be increasing your damage by some amount less than 2.5%
But this is something that really needs to be tested, because so much of our theorycrafting math is using approximations, averages and guesswork.
Time before OOM (3 E per wave) Athenes: 80 seconds Morello: 62 seconds FQC: 74 seconds
Hmm, based on that, I actually want to test this. Burst damage is similar, and the gold gen + active might be worth the lost CDR.
FQC has been a no-brainer on literally every single AP on lane for a while now. It's simply too powerful when you can get a better twin shadows for less gold with extra gold value every time you fight.
Would love any feedback on different teamfighting decisions that could have helped win. Just started playing, she feels strong, but I have big issues with not really being able to clean up teamfights. I can get 1-2 solo kills pretty easily, but then have to wait for cooldowns and the fights generally lost by that point.
I'm taking an intensive teacher training course atm. At school 8AM-5PM every day, homework every night, etc. And still teaching in the evenings on top of that.
So I'm reeeeeeeeeeeeally busy.
But I'll get back to the guide next month when the class ends. Might have a chance to go over this replay on the weekend, killerdoge.
Another big problem I'm having is mana issues when fights/sieges drag out. I really like morellos just for it's cheapness and high ap. (I can almost always finish it second back,) but later on if I don't have blue, which is often in soloq, I just can't siege properly. Half the fights I'm oom before they're over.
Not sure if athenes fixes this, but it's build is so much more awkward, but meditation means losing some important masteries. :s
I watched the first 5 minutes of the vod, things I noticed so far: - You don't cover any jungle entrances at level 1. If you covered the entrance just below you it would have prevented the first blood. - Auto one minion at level 1, with new creep changes all minions will become low at roughly the same time so autoing one minion at level 1 makes it so that csing becomes easier, plus you wouldn't have had to use your E, which then could have been used to trade with karma/pick up the ranged minion you ate a Q for. - Stand besides the wave at level 1/2, your E-auto combo trades pretty well vs Karma if she goes for Qs on you, plus it makes dodging easier. - Don't do this anymore when jungler ganks are possible (unless you have that side warded) - The E at 2:22 gave me cancer - Use more autos, this will save you mana - Take W at level 3 - At 2:50 you waste an E and a Q for no good reason, next time tank 3 creep hits and let them hit your own minions out of tower range so you can lasthit them with your autos. (and dodge the Karma Q) - Your jungler went full retard, unlucky. Next time dont waste your mana on helping him. - Ping Kindred back at 3:22 - Dont use E at 3:23, auto the cannon instead (assuming you took Savagery) - Get W at level 3 - No reason to E at 3:45, you push the lane with it and it doesnt actually help you cs. - If you decide to back, do so. Don't just stand around for a minute having no mana and thus not being able to do anything.
Build seems fine, except at 9:23 you could have bought sorc shoes instead of the amp tome, but it doesn't really matter that much. That was a pretty random dark seal. FQC still pretty good as well for setting up easy Qs. You really need to learn how much damage her spells do at early levels, there were a lot of times where you just fire out random Qs while praying it would get the last hit, which in turn makes you go OOM very fast.
You also need to practice reactive Ws. At 12:23 or so there is a Lee that shows up in your lane, you really dont need to be afraid of him at this point, you can easily solokill him if he does anything stupid.
First teamfight, 13:30-14:30: All your Qs are never gonna hit, even if the enemy actively tries to dodge into them. If its not gonna hit you should just save it. Use your shield more! Its really good in teamfights. There is a moment where you try to hit Poppy with a Q and she Es someone instead so it doesn't hit. That was a rather predictable Poppy E so in the future it might be better to just aim at the spot where she's gonna be. Don't lock your camera on yourself so much. Half the fight you don't see whats going on above you, which is really important when playing Lux.
I watched the first 5 minutes of the vod, things I noticed so far: - You don't cover any jungle entrances at level 1. If you covered the entrance just below you it would have prevented the first blood. - Auto one minion at level 1, with new creep changes all minions will become low at roughly the same time so autoing one minion at level 1 makes it so that csing becomes easier, plus you wouldn't have had to use your E, which then could have been used to trade with karma/pick up the ranged minion you ate a Q for. - Stand besides the wave at level 1/2, your E-auto combo trades pretty well vs Karma if she goes for Qs on you, plus it makes dodging easier. - Don't do this anymore when jungler ganks are possible (unless you have that side warded) - The E at 2:22 gave me cancer - Use more autos, this will save you mana - Take W at level 3 - At 2:50 you waste an E and a Q for no good reason, next time tank 3 creep hits and let them hit your own minions out of tower range so you can lasthit them with your autos. (and dodge the Karma Q) - Your jungler went full retard, unlucky. Next time dont waste your mana on helping him. - Ping Kindred back at 3:22 - Dont use E at 3:23, auto the cannon instead (assuming you took Savagery) - Get W at level 3 - No reason to E at 3:45, you push the lane with it and it doesnt actually help you cs. - If you decide to back, do so. Don't just stand around for a minute having no mana and thus not being able to do anything.
Build seems fine, except at 9:23 you could have bought sorc shoes instead of the amp tome, but it doesn't really matter that much. That was a pretty random dark seal. FQC still pretty good as well for setting up easy Qs. You really need to learn how much damage her spells do at early levels, there were a lot of times where you just fire out random Qs while praying it would get the last hit, which in turn makes you go OOM very fast.
You also need to practice reactive Ws. At 12:23 or so there is a Lee that shows up in your lane, you really dont need to be afraid of him at this point, you can easily solokill him if he does anything stupid.
First teamfight, 13:30-14:30: All your Qs are never gonna hit, even if the enemy actively tries to dodge into them. If its not gonna hit you should just save it. Use your shield more! Its really good in teamfights. There is a moment where you try to hit Poppy with a Q and she Es someone instead so it doesn't hit. That was a rather predictable Poppy E so in the future it might be better to just aim at the spot where she's gonna be. Don't lock your camera on yourself so much. Half the fight you don't see whats going on above you, which is really important when playing Lux.
Thanks
Yeah I'm still getting the hang of last hitting/early levels. Regarding a few things.
Is w at level 3 really worth in all matchups? I find in most matchups that if I'm taking a trade level 3 it's because the other guy fucked up, and I'm punishing him, which generally means he isn't able to fight back without getting completely dumpstered, so getting the +45 damage feels very worth. It also gives me a lot more wave control early on as i can outshove almost anyone if I need to. Also makes mana feel easier to manage but that might just be a result of bad last hitting.
Dark seal was because I could see if I also started feeding we'd lost anyway, and karma seemed pretty trash, so I might as well go yolo.
The reason I was shoving so randomly at like 3-4 minutes was because I was just super afraid of karma. she was massively ahead in xp, had a dorans on me, and red buff. So what I wanted to do was base and buy a second dorans and a pink and some pots so laning would be slightly less painful. It's something you need to do often on tf when a matchup starts going bad, just sack 5-6 farm now, so you won't be zoned off the next 30-40, but I guess maybe that's not neccesary on lux. (It did completely fail in this case, but if I'd just stuck the recall safely after the first attempt rather then dithering, would it have been worth?)
I agree I need to be more sparing with my q's in teamfights. Part of that is just still feeling out the character, so my insticts on q are still trash :p
The main thing I'm curious about is just how I was meant to be playing the lategame teamfights though. I was super strong, and basically in a perfect position to kill everyone. But I couldn't work out how to get more then 1-2 people a fight.
Skimmed over it on 2x: - Your laning is pretty bad, you waste so many skills that don't even help you last hit. You're basically <50% mana the entire time. I think you're better off running TP if you're gonna keep playing like that - Your positioning in teamfights is fine, really far back which is good for Lux (though a few times you were too far back, try stick next to the caitlyn and CC whoever shes hitting). I found most of your "skill timings" to be weird, like you would throw out Q/E/ult without thinking about if you need to save it for a later skirmish. Especially when you use ult to farm right before pushing which means you lose your the kill/zone pressure - The fight at 29:00 wasn't Kindreds fault. Your entire team basically split against really good skirmish champions. You have a strong kiting backline with Leona+Shen, you would've won if you moved & sieged together. - You type WAY too much. That Leona was aggressive but you probably tilted her even more. Just follow her as as team and use her as bait next time
I don't think your playstyle is wrong for Lux but you could have played more aggressive. I don't think you procc'd your passive once in a lategame teamfight. Especially when you have Flash up, their team didn't have much threat of blowing you up so you could've been in their face a lot more
On February 10 2016 02:54 Inflicted wrote: - Your positioning in teamfights is fine, really far back which is good for Lux. I found most of your "skill timings" to be weird, like you would throw out Q/E/ult without thinking about if you need to save it for a later skirmish. Especially when you use ult to farm right before pushing which means you lose your the kill/zone pressure - The fight at 29:00 wasn't Kindreds fault. Your entire team basically split against really good skirmish champions. You have a strong kiting backline with Leona+Shen, you would've won if you moved & sieged together.
This is part of what I'm not really sure on. If I have the choice between blowing a q-e on a tank, or holding them incase a squishy jumps in, should i just not shoot them off? It felt like I was capable of pretty seriously chunking most of the frontline, I even bought a void staff for this purpose, and I didn't think anyone else was going to be able to do it. Whereas outside of shen flash taunting ez, we're never gonna get on him or karma (cleanse.)
And there weren't that many occasions where I felt like I was being punished for having blown a combo on poppy or lee. But at the same time I was almost never able to actually kill anyone important. Should I actively be trying to run past/around the frontline to get at the backline?
I was considering just going forward, and just flash q'ing the second shen gets a taunt on a squishy, but with karma having cleanse we'd only get ez, and then I'd 99% get oneshot. And trading myself out 1 for 1 when I'm the main damage source felt not worth.
The fight at 29:00, if kindred and poppy had just both died, I'm pretty sure we all just back out after the 1 for 1 and our team is left in a much stronger 4v4. The few autos everyone wasted on poppy stalled us long enough for us to get collapsed on. It's also much harder to judge what's happning in game then from a vod, especially when a kindred ult catches you completely off guard :p
As for leona I disagree, she's either literally silver, or intentionally suiciding, and being nice solves neither of those. She'd already suicided like 4 times before I even mentioned her, and at that point the only chance is to hope she's silver, and hope you can drive home how important it is that she stops going alone by any means necessary. But that discussion isn't really relevant anyway.
You should be Q/Eing tanks but I feel like you were just throwing out Q/Es for the sake of it rather than actively trying to land them. I'll try to find some examples but that's the general feel I got.
The fight at 29:00 was lost regardless of the Kindred ult. Leona caught under you and Shen just abandoned the team which let Poppy get into your backline. It would've been 2v4 even if Kindred didn't ult but you guys just overstayed. I mean caitlyn just stands there hitting a Kindred ult'd Poppy, can't blame the Kindred for that.
edit
Hm, I don't think your lategame teamfighting was that problematic, your entire team just didn't have a single good fight after 29:00.
Could you point out which fight you're talking about with the wait for cooldown problem? I feel like most of the fights were lost because you got picked off one by one beforehand.
With the way you're playing, your job isn't really to burst anyone. It's to keep the caitlyn alive and let her destroy the enemy frontline which of course relies on your adc being good. It's not a wrong playstyle with the team comp you had but if you want to be bursting people, you need to be willing to go much closer and outplay them Take advantage of the fact that you're a much bigger threat to Poppy/Thresh than they are to you. They basically have one chance to engage and if they screw up, they can't get out between your constant Q/Es so you can afford to walk up to them
I watched the first 5 minutes of the vod, things I noticed so far: - You don't cover any jungle entrances at level 1. If you covered the entrance just below you it would have prevented the first blood. - Auto one minion at level 1, with new creep changes all minions will become low at roughly the same time so autoing one minion at level 1 makes it so that csing becomes easier, plus you wouldn't have had to use your E, which then could have been used to trade with karma/pick up the ranged minion you ate a Q for. - Stand besides the wave at level 1/2, your E-auto combo trades pretty well vs Karma if she goes for Qs on you, plus it makes dodging easier. - Don't do this anymore when jungler ganks are possible (unless you have that side warded) - The E at 2:22 gave me cancer - Use more autos, this will save you mana - Take W at level 3 - At 2:50 you waste an E and a Q for no good reason, next time tank 3 creep hits and let them hit your own minions out of tower range so you can lasthit them with your autos. (and dodge the Karma Q) - Your jungler went full retard, unlucky. Next time dont waste your mana on helping him. - Ping Kindred back at 3:22 - Dont use E at 3:23, auto the cannon instead (assuming you took Savagery) - Get W at level 3 - No reason to E at 3:45, you push the lane with it and it doesnt actually help you cs. - If you decide to back, do so. Don't just stand around for a minute having no mana and thus not being able to do anything.
Build seems fine, except at 9:23 you could have bought sorc shoes instead of the amp tome, but it doesn't really matter that much. That was a pretty random dark seal. FQC still pretty good as well for setting up easy Qs. You really need to learn how much damage her spells do at early levels, there were a lot of times where you just fire out random Qs while praying it would get the last hit, which in turn makes you go OOM very fast.
You also need to practice reactive Ws. At 12:23 or so there is a Lee that shows up in your lane, you really dont need to be afraid of him at this point, you can easily solokill him if he does anything stupid.
First teamfight, 13:30-14:30: All your Qs are never gonna hit, even if the enemy actively tries to dodge into them. If its not gonna hit you should just save it. Use your shield more! Its really good in teamfights. There is a moment where you try to hit Poppy with a Q and she Es someone instead so it doesn't hit. That was a rather predictable Poppy E so in the future it might be better to just aim at the spot where she's gonna be. Don't lock your camera on yourself so much. Half the fight you don't see whats going on above you, which is really important when playing Lux.
Thanks
Yeah I'm still getting the hang of last hitting/early levels. Regarding a few things.
Is w at level 3 really worth in all matchups? I find in most matchups that if I'm taking a trade level 3 it's because the other guy fucked up, and I'm punishing him, which generally means he isn't able to fight back without getting completely dumpstered, so getting the +45 damage feels very worth. It also gives me a lot more wave control early on as i can outshove almost anyone if I need to. Also makes mana feel easier to manage but that might just be a result of bad last hitting.
Dark seal was because I could see if I also started feeding we'd lost anyway, and karma seemed pretty trash, so I might as well go yolo.
The reason I was shoving so randomly at like 3-4 minutes was because I was just super afraid of karma. she was massively ahead in xp, had a dorans on me, and red buff. So what I wanted to do was base and buy a second dorans and a pink and some pots so laning would be slightly less painful. It's something you need to do often on tf when a matchup starts going bad, just sack 5-6 farm now, so you won't be zoned off the next 30-40, but I guess maybe that's not neccesary on lux. (It did completely fail in this case, but if I'd just stuck the recall safely after the first attempt rather then dithering, would it have been worth?)
I agree I need to be more sparing with my q's in teamfights. Part of that is just still feeling out the character, so my insticts on q are still trash :p
The main thing I'm curious about is just how I was meant to be playing the lategame teamfights though. I was super strong, and basically in a perfect position to kill everyone. But I couldn't work out how to get more then 1-2 people a fight.
I didn't get to the last teamfights yet, I'll post an update soon tm.
As for your post, W level 3 is pretty essential if you're trading because it negates minion damage and any trading that the enemy does back on you. So if you're trading cuz he fucked up you don't take minion damage/random karma Q (really good) and if you're trading cuz he's trying to trade you win cuz W OP.
About the whole shoving thing, I don't see how shoving helps you if you're scared. Lux farms pretty well under tower if you know her damages plus you can last hit pretty much fine if the wave is at 1/3 lane, even if the enemy is scary. They can't allin you and since Lux is the master of trading at range it's 100% fine (as long as you have mana). Your problem was that you don't have mana because you waste your spells doing basically nothing and as a result you had to back early. Shoving to try to back doesn't work when you have 100 mana.
I think if you stuck to your back at 500 gold it would have helped a lot. Consider getting amptome + pot though, you can't defend your pink anyway. Sitting under tower with 100 mana does absolutely nothing for you, might as well back.
Early teamfight positioning was fine except for UNLOCK YOUR CAM. Please. You don't even know what you're aiming your spells at half the time.
The only time when you should use your ult outside of fighting is either when it's a complete farmfest and you want to pick up blue/their blue fast or when you're gonna back and wanna shove the wave out quickly. You often just randomly ulted the wave while there was a real possibility of a fight happening in the next 10-20 seconds.
Been having a bit more success in teamfights going more yolo and actually trying to predict who the enemy is gonna jump on.
Have another interesting game, I've been trying to use less mana cs'ing, and miss a fair few as a result, but i do gain some more pressure from it. But I just felt like in this game that I couldn't utilise my early lead for anything. She just bought negatron, and any hope of killing her is gone, so i kind of desperately tried to roam top because malph had no mr, but that just ended up being dumb. Then voli just sat on me and I didn't feel like there was anything I could do.
Luckily yi snowballed stuff, but how am i meant to play lane when the jungler is being that agressive? Do I just never ever use q in lane or what? Obviously I don't want to just afk under tower but it felt like every time I even just moved to ward or cs or follow or roam or anything, I just die.
EPT
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