Champion Balancing: Lux

In this article, I will address potential problems with different champions in League of Legends. For the first champion, Lux, I have created some potential changes to her kit that I believe will make her a more viable pick in today’s metagame. Currently Lux combines her high burst potential, with a more supportive style of play in the form shields and soft crowd-control. She is burdened however with high mana costs, and a lack of mobility. Instead of just varying her numbers slightly, I decided to look for possible to tweaks to her kit, addressing all of her issues. All of these changes are independent of one another, and could be implemented without the implementation of another.

            First I’ll take a look at her passive, Illumination:

“Lux's damaging spells mark any enemies with light energy for 6 seconds. Her autoattacks or Final Spark will consume the mark, dealing 10 + (8 × Lux's level) (+ 20% AP) magic damage to the target.”

This is Lux’s most recently changed ability, and I really like how it was taken to be more late-game oriented. The change allowed her to compete with other mid-laners in terms of late game damage, without making her early game too overbearing. This is where I would address Lux’s current mana issues, and here is what I had in mind for an addition to this passive.

“Consuming a mark on an enemy champion will restore [35-200] mana, based on Lux’s level. This ability has a static cooldown of 20s.”

Applying this change would help promote what Lux’s early game playstyle is intended to be. That is, using her abilities along with well-timed auto attacks for efficient trading in the laning phase. As with all of my changes here, the specific numbers can easily be changed for better balancing, but the idea remains the same.

            Light Binding:

“Lux releases a sphere of light in a line, striking up to two enemy units along its path. It deals magic damage to the first enemy it touches and half that damage to a second enemy behind it. Additionally, the first enemy struck is rooted for 2 seconds, and the second enemy is rooted for 1 second.”

Light Binding serves as the foundation to Lux’s entire design. With it, she is able to safely proc her passive, and easily land her other moves, Lucent Singularity and Final Spark. Light Binding also serves as her main form of survival when being ganked, and this is where I see a problem. Not landing this skillshot will almost always result in death under the pressure of a good gank, and even landing it is sometimes not be enough. It is highly unlikely that this ability will hit both the opposing mid-laner and jungler, at which point if either opponent successfully lands a form of crowd-control, there is a good chance Lux will not survive that gank. Here is my proposal to hopefully slightly buff her mobility.

“If Light Binding hits an enemy champion, Lux gains a [100] movement speed boost for 1.5 seconds (This ability does not stack, but will be refreshed if Light Binding hits a second target).”

This will reward Lux for hitting her key skillshot, thus allowing her to avoid early game ganks easier. This implementation will also improve her mobility at all stages of the game, which has been addressed as a problem by many after her base movement speed nerfs in 3.5 (Base movement speed reduced to 330 from 340). The exact numbers on this, as far as movement speed and duration of the increase, would need to be tested to ensure that it is not too overwhelming, or even underwhelming.

            Prismatic Barrier:

“Active: Lux shields herself for up to 3 seconds and throws out her wand in a line, applying the same shield to allied champions in its path. Her wand then returns to her, again shielding allied champions in its path and Lux herself upon return. When reapplied, the shield does not stack, but is refreshed.”

This move is where I had the most trouble deciding on how I could tweak it, without making it too strong. My first idea was to provide a movement speed to both her and her shielded allies affected by the shield, but only when a certain amount of allies were hit with it. This seemed problematic, especially in the later stages of the game. Having a 40% CDR Lux with a now 6 second cooldown on this buffed Prismatic Barrier seemed too strong, regardless of the specific numbers. I wanted to include my initial thought process just in case it could somehow be built upon. In the end I decided against any changes here, as making too many changes becomes problematic when trying to decipher the impact of each individual change.

            Lucent Singularity:

“Active: Lux sends an anomaly of twisted light to a target area, slowing enemies within 300-range and granting sight of a slightly larger area for up to 5 seconds.

At the end of the duration or if Lucent Singularity is activated again, the zone will detonate and deal magic damage to enemies in the area.”

Lucent Singularity is Lux’s main form of wave clear and poke damage throughout the entire game. The biggest potential change I came up with is here, so first we’ll look at the current damage, as all other factors will remain the same.

“Magic Damage: 60 / 105 / 150 / 195 / 240 (+ 60% AP)”

My plan here is to reduce the damage but have it scale with time. Here are some rough values.

“Magic Damage: 50 / 90 / 130 / 170 / 210 (+ 60% AP)

Damage increases up to 50% over 3 seconds.

MAX Magic Damage: 75 / 135 / 195 / 255 / 315”

There are a few reasons why I like the basis of this change. This synergizes well with Lux’s Light Binding, by rooting the enemy inside of Lucent Singularity. It also adds more depth to her play, by having to strategically decide when to activate this ability again, before giving the enemy the opportunity to escape. The other reason for this change is to help in the mid-late game. Unless Lux has gotten a large early lead, she has many problems with clearing waves. Since minion movements are fairly predictable, it will be easy for Lux to position Lucent Singularity for maximum damage, and be a significant improvement to her ability to wave-clear.

            Lastly we have Lux’s signature move, Final Spark:

“Active: After gathering energy for half a second, Lux fires a broad and long-range beam of light in a line that deals magic damage to all enemies in the area.

Any enemies that are already marked by Illumination have it ignited for additional magic damage, then re-applied.”

This is what comes to player’s minds when they think of Lux, and because of that it becomes a very hard move to want to tweak. On top of that, it is a rather one-dimensional move, aside from its interaction with her passive. The most recent balance update to this move came in patch 3.5 where the cooldown was increased to “80/65/50 seconds from 80/60/40”. I fully agree that this was needed, because Lux scales very well with cooldown reduction. A 10s difference at max rank, or even a 6s difference (40% CDR) is huge on a move with a power level as high as this. This nerf helped minimize any chances of Lux being able to cast this move twice in any single team fight, which can be game winning on its own.

Conclusion:

            Overall I believe these changes would properly address the current problems that Lux faces. Lux already relies on a kit fully based around skillshots, and even when successfully using all of them can be underwhelming at many aspects of the game. Along with the recent changes to Morellonomicon and Athene’s Unholy Grail, proper itemization has become very difficult. These champion changes aid Lux’s mana problems, lack of mobility, and inability to efficiently clear waves. As previously stated, the specific numbers I presented here would need testing, but the basis behind every change could remain the same.