LoL Strategy: Lucian Positioning and Teamfight Guide

Author: MMOsite Writer DJWest

League of Legends newest champion, Lucian, the Purifier, added yet another champion to the roster of AD Carries. AD Carries are one of the only roles that (with rare exception) are only played in one particular lane, with one particular role. Even Mid champions typically have more variety and playable options, but each new season brings with it the so-called "Holy Trinity" of AD Carries, the three most played in the competitive scene.

Still, every AD Carry is viable in the right hands, and each AD Carry has its own play style. The differences between playing Ezrael and Corki may seem minor in comparison to playing a champion like Annie versus either of them, but they can be just as vital to mastering your favorite champion.

Positioning in Lane

Lucian requires careful work to make the most out of his abilities. If you're playing a close-range or highly aggressive team, or one that you can't hope to trade with like a Graves + Soraka combo, you need to use the true range of his abilities to their maximums to avoid being constantly forced out of lane. For instance, Lucian's Q deals full damage to every target in a line. This makes it excellent for killing creeps, even if they are behind other creeps. However, as long as there are several minions in the lane, you will rarely want to fire at your actual target.

The range of Lucian's Q targeting is only about 570, but the range of the last target hit can be almost double that. By using this method and a little bit of proper movement and positioning beforehand, you can shoot a creep at the front lines and kill even a distant caster minion, while never placing yourself in danger. While some champions like Kog'Maw or Corki have abilities that will be able to hit you from this range, you can always use your E to dodge. Even a connecting blow will still be much less painful than placing yourself in the range of potentially multiple autoattacks from both the enemy carry and their support.

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Combining your support's CC abilities allows you to pull off shots with precision to clear minions and harass at the same time.

Be sure to make use of your W as well. While Lucian's Ardent Blaze won't penetrate through minion waves like his Q will, it does explode in a small area, allowing you a bit of leniency in your accuracy. It also makes it so that attacking marked targets gives you bonus movement speed, meaning if you miscalculate and have to follow it up with a passive-fueled autoattack, it will be much easier for you to run away.

Finally, after reaching level 6 be aware of how your abilities interact. While all the normal rules about map awareness and not overextending apply, Lucian has one of the higher escape abilities in the game. His E is on a relatively short cooldown, giving you a quick burst of speed that also negates slows. Furthermore, if you throw out an Ardent Blaze and then immediately follow it up while you're using your ultimate on the target you just hit, Lucian will be able to crank out massive damage while boosting his movement speed. Unless your enemies have major gap closers or pulls (Thresh, Blitzcrank, Ezrael) or have a hard CC (Leona, Zyra, Taric) this will often deter them from chasing you back toward your tower altogether, as long as you haven't let yourself be completely caught out in the open by multiple opponents.

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Despite being caught with a gank from Jungle Vi while pushed…

lol champion aatrox review
Keeping significant distance from the enemy and burning ultimates allows both Zyra and Lucian to escape, with very little damage taken.

The most important aspect to positioning Lucian is always being aware of trade strength. Lucian's passive and fairly lengthy initial cooldowns mean that his early game is all about knowing when you're at your strongest. If you get ahead in the early game and beat your lane opponent to a BF Sword, or even if you're up against a champion with less burst potential like Caitlyn, don't be afraid to be aggressive. Your passive provides you with a level of extra damage that most other ADs can only match with active abilities, and your Q can often harass them from well outside their range to ensure they start any real fights with a significant disadvantage. On the other hand, if your abilities are on cooldown, that also makes your passive worthless, meaning you need to avoid engaging until you regain your full potential.

Positioning Late-Game

Lucian's role as an ADC remains basically the same as any other's in late game. Follow your team whenever they're grouping, and make sure that you've always got a meatshield between you and the enemy team. ADCs getting caught out of position or facechecking a brush are two of the most common causes of games being thrown. Since Lucian's escape isn't as long-range as some others, and because none of his abilities provide a slow, you have to be very careful with his movements in relationship to your team.

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Since he fell behind early in the game, Lucian activates his very long-range ultimate as a teamfight begins, allowing him to stay at the back and use his teammates as buffers while still dealing as much damage as possible.

Awareness of what the enemy team can do is of utmost importance. If the enemy team has pulls, or several hard CC abilities, make sure that you don't stray very far from backup unless you know that the majority of the enemy team is nowhere around you. The farther behind you have fallen, the closer you need to remain with your team.

On the other hand, if all the enemies have are slows and perhaps a single stun or fear ability, you can afford to show a little more aggression. If you remain near a wall that you can leap over, you can even force a particularly over-aggressive enemy to burn a flash this way, or lead them into an ambush.

Finally, since Lucian's dash is fairly short range and on a lengthy cooldown, always be wary of joining in a teamfight after it has started from across the map. Lucian is a champion that benefits from raw AD more than he benefits from Attack Speed - this means that you're unlikely to go into the early late game with items like Phantom Dancer, Statikk Shiv, or even a Zephyr. If you only build items like Infinity Edge, Bloodthirster, and Last Whisper, trekking across the map may take significant time - maybe even more than the average teamfight, if you're unlucky.

This is why, if you leave your team alone and end up on the other side of the map, don't be afraid to push on your own. When it looks like the fight is going to end long before you arrive, sometimes the best thing that you can do is to push a lane as hard as you can - safely, of course. While your team may lose their 5v4 fight, claiming a tower or two can shift the balance of the game even more than a single fight ever could. If you push all the way to the enemy base you'll likely even force them to retreat to deal with the minion wave at their doorstep, preventing them from claiming an easy Baron or some of your own towers while your team is unable to mount resistance.

Team Fights

The bread and butter of the League, and something that troubles a lot of players, especially at lower levels of play. Lucian's place in a teamfight is much the same as any AD Carry, but with a few of his own, personal rules.

Remember that every active ability Lucian has is AoE. While his Q does require you to select a target, it can still hit an entire team if aimed properly, and his R fires so many blasts that it's almost impossible to hit a moving target with every single one. So while you should feel free to hunt down a dangerously low target, remember that using his abilities on clusters of enemies is likely to do a lot more damage than simply picking a target at random. It does help, however, to use abilities as often as possible. Using them at the right location is important, but Lucian's passive can easily make up for the lost damage, especially if you have a few cooldown reducers to increase the number of abilities you can output during a single teamfight.

Also remember that Lucian's ultimate should be used early in the fight. While some players like to initiate with it, and some players like to save it in case of a disengage, there's no doubt that using it early in a team fight is the best way to make a difference. With a total damage that can clear 1k early and easily, if you have a Last Whisper (or your opponents simply haven't built armor), you can watch two or three enemy champions' health bars cave in as the blasts wash over them. Taking out the enemy bruiser as he tries to dive you or even eliminating the tank can outright destroy the enemy team's morale, and especially in solo queue it's not uncommon to see squishy carries go fleeing as soon as one or two team members get downed.

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Here Lucian activates his ultimate right as the fight is initiated, severely crippling Garen and then eating through the minions before taking Ezrael's health down as well - Lucian's ult fires so many shots that it's possible to benefit from it on many, many targets every time you use it.

One last thing to remember, as it applies to all AD Carries, is that going straight for the enemy team's squishiest members is not always a smart idea. If you have to wade through a Xin Zhao, Malphite, Morgana combo just to get within firing range of the enemy team's Varus, it's not a smart play. Above all else, an AD Carry should keep themselves safe while autoattacking and using as many abilities as possible. If you have no better targets, don't be afraid to attack the Tank. Killing the Tank is always better than trying to kill the enemy AD Carry and getting burst fire from the entire enemy team before you can even get within range.

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