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I don't think movespeed is a hugely important stat for Lux.
It's alright, it's not worthless. The thing is Lux is typically in the very back of the team for fights, so she should be the last person getting targetted and has already cast her whole spell rotation once or twice before she takes any damage. That's why damage and CDR are so much higher value, movespeed helps Lux keep herself alive but doesn't help her win the fight or keep her team alive.
In terms of a 1v1 or something like that it's more important. I've acknowledged that Lich Bane is better than DFG in a 1v1 against Tanks or Bruisers in the thread a couple times, but have said that it's not a super important consideration because A - You don't want to be getting in that situation with Lux, and B - Lux typically loses late game 1v1 fights with tanks/bruisers with either item.
Lux is good at kiting people but what makes her good at kiting people is lots of CDR to hit her snare with, not movespeed. Even with Lich Bane her base movespeed is low enough that she's likely not moving as fast as your typical ADC/bruiser/Assassin, since they will have better movespeed items and some sort of movement tools in their kit. So if your snare misses, Lich Bane isn't a big enough difference for you to get away most of the time. I'd say 10% CDR on DFG for more snares and slows is roughly equivalent to Lich Banes MS in terms of kiting.
The other time when movespeed is good is in lane dodging skillshots vs. like a Nidalee or an Orianna or a Gragas, but we're not talking about Lich Bane in terms of laning, we're talking about it as a 6th item, so these aren't super huge concerns. If somebody got Lich Bane to dodge late game Nidalee spears I wouldn't fault them.
The key point that I've been trying to make all this time is that, in terms of damage, DFG is better than Lich Bane. I'm not saying you should never buy Lich Bane, but that if you do so, you are sacrificing damage for some other need.
There are all kinds of individual situations where some other item is more important. I've bought a 6th item Lich Bane on Lux. I've also gotten Banshee's Veil, GA, a second Zhonyas, as well as Sightstone, and none of those are even mentioned in the guide because the circumstances for them are so rare that I didn't feel the need to include them.
The key consideration is that, in a normal game you want to be building damage, and the highest damage 6th item is DFG. That's your starting point. If the specific game necessitates that you deviate from that, then do it. But do it with the understanding that you are deviating from damage to some other requirement.
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I think if you're getting Lich Bane for the move speed you're buying the item for all the wrong reasons. Just get Twin Shadows if you're having trouble surviving even with Zhonya's, it gives you the same move speed, 50MR, and an active slow. Lich Bane is a damage item, so treating its 6% move speed as "but it also helps you survive!" seems like you're trying way too hard to justify the buy.
Twin Shadows as a second item after Athene's when very behind against an AP actually felt like a really strong buy. Build path was perfect for a feeding budget, and the active giving vision + the added move speed and MR made surviving lane a whole lot easier. Playing against a good Veigar when your ping suddenly starts spiking to 200-400 is hard.
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...the last time anyone built that item was on twisted fate, and the only reason it even works remotely well on him is because it helps him catch people after he ults.
Buying that item late is dumb, and buying it early is even dumber. Especially on a mid lux. If i'm going to die, i'm going to die taking someone down with me. No point in living if you do no damage anyways.
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We already did the Liandries math.
The combo damage against squishies is about 2% higher with Liandries, but the DFG active is enough damage on its own, regardless of the target or how well you work it into a combo, to make it do more overall damage in a fight. Then the AP and CDR on DFG makes your shields and sustained damage better, which is a big deal.
When we did the Liandries math we found it was better than I initially thought it was though. I think a 6th item Liandries is fine, but I still think DFG is better all things considered.
As far as Twin Shadows goes, it's important to note that the AP on it was increased from 40 to 50 with the preseason patch. I wouldn't buy it as a late game item like InfSunday suggested because it's not slot efficient, but it's actually surprisingly cost efficient now. Let me walk you through this.
You're playing against some AP mid and you screw up for whatever reason, and you're terribly behind. You can't help from getting your ass kicked in lane now. This shouldn't really happen to Lux, Lux is extremely good at preventing this from happening in basically any matchup, but for some reason it's happened in this example game.
You want to buy more MR to keep yourself from feeding in lane and let you keep farming and catch up. So you buy a Negatron. 40 MR for 720 gold. Now, following this you're too behind for Deathcap to hit the critical 2 item farm timing, so instead you're going to want to get Void Staff first. So the next item you would buy would be a Blasting Wand. 40 AP for 860 gold.
So at this point you've spent 1580 gold for 40 MR and 40 AP, right?
If you instead go towards Twin Shadows, you're spending an extra 420 gold for 10 AP, 6% movespeed and the active. Based on an NLR we can value the AP at about 200 gold, so that's 6% movespeed and the active for 220 gold. I know somebody is going to be like "But you just said the 5% movespeed on Lich Bane wasn't worth it" and I did, and late game it's not that big a deal. But like I said above, during laning it actually is a pretty big deal, and now we're talking about an item that helps you survive laning.
The active actually works pretty well on Lux in lane, because you can use it to help guarantee a Q or an R hit, or to get away from a gank. I'd say it has better synergy with Lux's kit than with most champions.
Finally, the build path is very friendly. Rather than having to wait to buy a Negatron and then wait again to buy a Blasting Wand, you should be able to buy a piece of Twin Shadows every time you base. And if you get the Null Magic Mantle and an Amp Tome and then decide that's enough to stabilize the lane, you can just sit on the Mantle, sell it late game, and turn the Amp Tome into that Void Staff anyway.
So basically, Twin Shadows isn't an ideal option, you don't exactly want it. But if you need the MR to survive a lane, it's actually more cost efficient now than it was in S3 and isn't so bad as an emergency pickup.
The other option is to buy the Negatron and just sell it later, which is also fine.
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If you' want to talk cost efficient/i'm losing lane and i need help, then get double drings and build towards a morellonomicon. If you have to buy more resists than from what you get from a chalice or an armguard, then the lane is already fucked and you can't do anything anyways.
This is nothing personal, but I really want to shoot people who bring math into itemization discussion. No one gives a shit about the Ap/gold ratio or extra random stats; you need to be caring about what your item is going to bring into the team fight in the future. If you have to itemize more than 1500 total gold into surviving a lane (including wards, boots, and pots) before you start building towards your first big item, you're going to be behind. For reference, that's about the price of 2 drings, t1 boots, 5 pots, 2 green wards, and 1 pink ward. Anything else you buy should go towards your main item. And if you still think twin shadows is a good pick up for when you're behind or you want to throw more cost efficiency bullshit numbers at everyone, the morello is just as easy to build, 300 more gold and gives you +20% CDR and more AP than a grail, and it gives you mana regen.
Moral of the story: Using an item as a crutch to survive the mid lane when you're behind is 100% incorrect. If you're getting killed in lane, learn to position better and get the jungler to help
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You don't want to bring math into itemization discussion, but you do want to suggest a ton of items that are just not very efficient on Lux.
Like, lets say you're losing lane and you go double dring after Chalice. You get 160 HP, 30 AP and a bunch of regen out of that.
The regen is not particularly helpful because you're behind, probably getting in lots of bad trades with the enemy laner, and don't have the CDR to prevent those trades with E farming.
160 HP is alright, but it's not super great for Lux because her defenses scale with resists, not with HP. 30 AP is alright.
Instead you could have just put that 800 gold towards finishing Athenes faster. That gives you all the regen you need, CDR to make use of that regen, more resists and more AP. If you compared Athenes to Chalice, Codex and 2 Drings, it's pretty obvious you'd want Athenes.
Or lets say you're losing the lane after finishing Athenes and you want to buy 2 drings after that. Now the regen you're buying is overkill, so for 800g you're looking at 30 AP and 160 HP. For basically the same price you could get a null magic mantle and amp tome, which gives you better defensive stats (for Lux) and 20 AP, and can actually build into other things. For that matter a Ruby Crystal and Amp Tome would be better.
Not to mention going 2 drings puts you at 5 items (2 rings, flask, chalice/athenes, boots) and makes it difficult to build your next item, but y'know.
I don't think I need to explain that going Morello's after getting Chalice is just dumb, and wouldn't give you the defensive stats necessary to survive a lane in which you're behind anyway.
"Using an item as a crutch to survive the mid lane when you're behind is 100% incorrect" is just bad advice. I agree that if you're getting killed in lane you should learn how to not get killed in lane. That is obvious. But it's not very likely that you're going to learn how to stop a snowball that has already started. You can learn for the next game, but in the current game, not getting killed and preventing the snowball is the correct way to play, even if it means you have to buy an unwanted item to ensure that.
Not to mention that getting a Null Magic Mantle is more or less within this 1500g limit you've set. Since Athenes is your "main item", all you're really buying to survive the lane is Boots, a Flask, Amp Tome and a Null Magic Mantle. That's 1505 gold. The other Amp Tome can go into your next item (Void Staff) (or Athenes for that matter) if you feel like the lane has stabilized and you can start building damage again.
I feel like you are giving itemization advice that may make sense for other champions, but not for Lux.
Also PS: Please don't say you want to shoot me. That's kind of rude.
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What I was saying in terms of late game Twin Shadows wasn't phrased correctly because I forgot we were talking about 6th item Lich Bane. I was trying to point out how silly it is to talk about how the 6% move speed on LB helps you survive, as if somehow it's a defensive item. What.
Next time I'll go negatron>void, thanks. Situationally I still feel like Twin Shadows wasn't a bad buy, I had a couple times where I dodged Veigar's stun by inches because of the move speed, and then the slow helped hit stun in ganks. Maybe not 100% efficient or correct, but it certainly felt smooth and it helped me remain alive and grow back into relevancy.
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1. You get double drings before chalice. I used to skip out on drings too when i was playing farming champs like orianna and karthus, but I've realized that if you're not faker, you lose lane control, gank survivability, and skirmish capabilities pre-6, which is pretty important when it comes to all the roaming mids you have to face. Skip them at your own discretion
I personally would rather be down -800 gold in itemization than risk massively losing the lane to the point where I'm a full item behind. If I do lose the lane with double drings, shame on me.
(also, i've never seen a dumbass buy 2 drings after they finish a chalice; what makes you think I meant to buy them after finishing an item?)
2. I don't think I wrote this very clearly because I was in the middle of class but your gold income is split into two categories: 1500 gold for laning + all the rest of your gold for teamfighting. Build whatever the fuck you want with the first 1500 gold; it doesn't matter. People like drings, I like drings, you like ruby crystals and flasks -- doesn't matter. But every penny you make after that needs to go to wards and your main items. I can agree with you that we all want to get a completed item as quickly as you can. What i'm saying is that you have max of 1500 gold to lane with, and building a twin shadow puts you way over that limit. You can take out the drings and replace them with a negatron and no one will give a fuck, but it's been tried and true that 1 or 2 drings will solidify your laning presence
3. Defensive stats are not worth it on carries. Anything more than the resists you get from armguard and from chalice is way too much. 1) you shouldn't be getting caught that much for extra resists to pay off anyways 2) if you get caught you're most likely dead anyways, and 3) you're supposed to be doing the killing and you're useless if you don't do dmg. If you're building extraneous defensive stats on a mid laner, you really need to improve your basic positioning in the lane or stop doing stupid shit. That we can agree on.
But are you really suggesting that if you're heavily losing your lane, that you build defensive items as 1st or 2nd items so you can live 3 seconds longer? Wtf is that going to do in a teamfight? They'll just kill you after they kill the rest of your team because you're 25 cs and 3 kills behind and that you put yourself behind however much gold you spent on extra resists. This is probably the most common noob mistake I see when people going back to buy, and you're actually advising people to buy a 2nd resist item on top of an armguard or a chalice?
Lets say, since you seem to only understand leagues from a mathematical standpoint, you've died to a gragas 4 times and you already have a chalice and double drings (i.e, if you spend anymore on laning items, you're hurting yourself more than you're helping yourself). You back with exactly 860 gold. Do you buy a codex, wand, a negatron cloak, or a mantle + tome? Are you seriously going to suggest to people that "because you're extremely behind, you need to buy survivability items, so you should buy a mantle and a tome because that will give you the most bang for your buck"? Is this what you're getting at?
And then lets say that that that some bronze lux decides to buy a negatron cloak instead of the codex. Getting a negatron cloak puts you -720 gold behind the enemy mid laner in terms of items. That's 720 less gold that you have that can't be put towards AP (unless you spend 1900 more gold for an abyssal). You're putting yourself 2 kills and an assist behind, on top of however many kills and cs you are already behind, so that you can somehow try and farm the lane, when it's most likely 15 minutes in and the lane is already over? This is the idea I'm trying to get at here.
4. Why did you assume I said to build a morello after an incompleted chalice? You build it to get a quicker power spike so you can kill the other guy before he kills you and for a bigger presence for the dragon. That's just how the mid lane works. 880 gold for a chalice then building a morello defeats the purpose of the morello in the first place
On February 08 2014 07:37 InfSunday wrote: What I was saying in terms of late game Twin Shadows wasn't phrased correctly because I forgot we were talking about 6th item Lich Bane. I was trying to point out how silly it is to talk about how the 6% move speed on LB helps you survive, as if somehow it's a defensive item. What.
Next time I'll go negatron>void, thanks. Situationally I still feel like Twin Shadows wasn't a bad buy, I had a couple times where I dodged Veigar's stun by inches because of the move speed, and then the slow helped hit stun in ganks. Maybe not 100% efficient or correct, but it certainly felt smooth and it helped me remain alive and grow back into relevancy.
Veigar is countered by merc treads. His W, Q, and R are about 200 range shorter than his max stun range, so he needs like 1 or 2 seconds to walk up to you. You shouldn't have a problem with him until he maxes his stun, which by that time, you should be able to get a banshee after you have a dcap, voidstaff, and chalice
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Like, the advice that you're giving isn't wrong Blind. It just isn't applicable to Lux, for a number of reasons. Let me try to explain.
#1 - Lux doesn't get much from AP, at least not compared to a lot of other conventional mid laners. Orianna for example has 230% AP in her kit and also an AP ratio on every autoattack, and Oriannas AP ratios aren't amazing. Lux has 205%.
This may not seem like a very big deal, but what it means is that opening Dring on Lux is just not as good as opening Flask. On a lot of other mids opening Dring gives you more power in the initial lane, but on Lux it doesn't. I know you don't want me to be all woah math on you, so just trust me on that one.
So you're either going Flask into two Drings, or Flask into Chalice. The thing here is, again because Lux's AP ratios are not great, because she has a really good shield that scales with MR, and because she prefers short harass style engagements instead of one all in in lane, the Chalice makes it easier for her to lane than the Drings against basically everyone. Buying the chalice lets you keep up your harassment since your mana costs are atrocious, and the MR with your shield lets you win trades better than AP does. So you're buying the Chalice first.
After you have the Chalice, getting Drings or Morellos at that point of the game is dumb, like you've said.
#2 - I'm not suggesting that you should want to build extra defenses. You obviously don't want to. Eventually you're going to learn what to do, how to not die when behind (especially on Lux who is really good at it) and all of these things.
But if you're a new player and you're behind in lane in a matchup that you have never played before, and some Leblanc or whatever is dunking you over and over? Yeah, buy the extra MR. It's not ideal, but it's better than you going 0/8 in lane and Leblanc then destroying everybody else on your team. I'd much rather that mid Lux be 0/3 and holding lane with 1000g in stats she didn't want than 0/8 and 8/0 Leblanc terrorizing bot lane.
Ultimately you want to learn how to not get into that situation in the first place. But telling people to just get better isn't the right advice. Get better for future games, but in the current game suck it up and buy some MR.
I do think it's funny that you go into all this about not buying defensive stats and then suggest that vs. Veigar you buy more defensive stats than I ever would, for what it's worth. And I really don't appreciate the tone. The personal attacks are not cool.
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If I seem like im personally attacking you, im sorry; this is just how i normally talk.
I used to play orianna and lux with flask start as well, but I've just found that you either attract too much unwanted attention or not enough attention at all. The more you trade, the more likely it is that you're going to get ganked. And the more you trade, the harder it is to tell if he's just trading or if you're getting ganked. The opposite extreme of that is that you just play your lane super passively and just farm, which is hit or miss depending on how good your other lanes are.
And how is drings > merc boots > athenes, dcap ,voidstaff > banshee more defensive stats that than you would ever buy? And getting defensive stats as the 6th item is completely acceptable; buying defensive before offensive on a carry is dumb.
And we can just agree to disagree on how people should learn leagues; im not about to start creationism vs darwinism ver. LoL
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I think if you're going to buy a Banshee as your fourth big item on Lux then something is seriously wrong with that particular game. 6th item is fine, 4th item ehhhhh. If you do have to buy a Negatron, I would just stop at that. Realistically that should be all or more than all Lux needs for defense.
Merc treads vs. Veigar is a good tip though.
I think dring start is better on Orianna (her passive is redonk) but on Lux it's not. If her AP ratios were just a tiny bit higher I think it might be different, but they're not.
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So, I was dicking around in a custom today and I found something neat.
The +% regen per missing mana from Chalice stacks with the regen from a mana potion.
So if you have Chalice+Flask, it's more efficient to use the flask charges when you're low on mana rather than using them early.
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On February 08 2014 09:08 imBLIND wrote:
I used to play orianna and lux with flask start as well, but I've just found that you either attract too much unwanted attention or not enough attention at all. The more you trade, the more likely it is that you're going to get ganked. And the more you trade, the harder it is to tell if he's just trading or if you're getting ganked. The opposite extreme of that is that you just play your lane super passively and just farm, which is hit or miss depending on how good your other lanes are.
If you keep up with your warding i think there's no such thing as too much attention (unless you outscale and can/want to win safely) until their jungler hits 6. Well at least for solo Q since you don't know if you're the worst laner in your team or have a pre-made strat or whatever.
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On February 08 2014 09:15 Ketara wrote: I think if you're going to buy a Banshee as your fourth big item on Lux then something is seriously wrong with that particular game. 6th item is fine, 4th item ehhhhh. If you do have to buy a Negatron, I would just stop at that. Realistically that should be all or more than all Lux needs for defense.
Merc treads vs. Veigar is a good tip though.
I think dring start is better on Orianna (her passive is redonk) but on Lux it's not. If her AP ratios were just a tiny bit higher I think it might be different, but they're not.
Banshee's vs Veigar is a pretty valuable early buy against Veigar because he can't catch you out if he has to lead with his Q. His primary means of killing someone is picking them with a cage and then nuking them. BV means he can't pick you with the cage. If he can't pick you with the cage he can't kill you. You could also go QSS. After you've got your primary damage items this type of pickup makes a lot of sense, but only because Veigar is a special case
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What does anyone think about getting blue trinket on Lux particularly for blue steals with ult, which is one of the best ways to get ahead early as Lux. it could also help with drag/baron steals and snipes. Yellow trinket can help with that too, but you have a pretty small window there and regular wards are not always affordable. IMO the blue trinket sucks but my nostalgia for old-school CV support makes me want to love it. Maybe transitioning into it later could be useful too since trinket swaps are free.
Also, the instant Ziggs gets nerfed (likely into the ground, gg Riot) I am hopping on the Lux train!
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I haven't tried the blue trinket yet, but as cool as the plays might be in my head, I think as far as practical purposes go it's just not as good.
If its cooldown was a lot lower then maybe. 1 second of vision on a 150/90 second cooldown is just not worth it IMO.
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So, there was an interesting post in GD today about Archmage vs. the Hybrid Pen mastery. I did some math for this re: Lux.
What I found was that when you have lots of AP, Archmage outdamages the pen. At level 1 the hybrid pen outdamages Archmage (even the first point of Archmage).
I didn't consume myself with looking into how much AP you need in order for the positions to reverse, but here's the way I see it. As Lux you're not going to buy any AP until after you have boots, chalice and flask, which means you're usually at minimum level 7 or 8 before you get any AP at all. If the pen mastery is better at level 1, it's going to continue to be better for quite some time since your base damage will increase and you won't be buying any AP. I think it's very likely that it's still better at least until you've finished Athenes and started building Deathcap, which means as far as even the first 20 minutes of the game.
So I'm content with keeping the Hybrid Pen mastery over Archmage, although when going 24/0/6 you take both obvs. But basically here's how it works in terms of masteries so you can decide what you want when going 21/9/0 or 21/0/9:
Spell/Blade weaving: Good early game, weak late game Hybrid Pen: Middle ground Archmage: Good late game, weak early game
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On February 10 2014 11:31 Ketara wrote: So, there was an interesting post in GD today about Archmage vs. the Hybrid Pen mastery. I did some math for this re: Lux.
What I found was that when you have lots of AP, Archmage outdamages the pen. At level 1 the hybrid pen outdamages Archmage (even the first point of Archmage).
I didn't consume myself with looking into how much AP you need in order for the positions to reverse, but here's the way I see it. As Lux you're not going to buy any AP until after you have boots, chalice and flask, which means you're usually at minimum level 7 or 8 before you get any AP at all. If the pen mastery is better at level 1, it's going to continue to be better for quite some time since your base damage will increase and you won't be buying any AP. I think it's very likely that it's still better at least until you've finished Athenes and started building Deathcap, which means as far as even the first 20 minutes of the game.
So I'm content with keeping the Hybrid Pen mastery over Archmage, although when going 24/0/6 you take both obvs. But basically here's how it works in terms of masteries so you can decide what you want when going 21/9/0 or 21/0/9:
Spell/Blade weaving: Good early game, weak late game Hybrid Pen: Middle ground Archmage: Good late game, weak early game
I dont get why there is even a choice between them? I almost always get both.
This is what I've been running mid lane (1 point in cdr/butcher is personal preference). Masteries
Edit: This was my 666'th post, forgot to mention Teemo is evil.
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I don't know how you possibly manage without those regen masteries man.
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