Talk:Lulu/@comment-89.67.168.214-20121019204917/@comment-3486816-20121019222411

Keeping control of the bushes is pretty important for both landing lulu's skills and making sure the enemy doesn't land theirs. To this end, I take the extra gold on start masteries and typically start with either 4 green wards, or 2 green wards and a pink ward, and throw one in the bush when needed. It works pretty well for me.

As for skills order, I'm actually working on that myself, and I feel like this is where the playstyle is really split between Lulu players.

Some players, like myself, prefer to max E first and shoot Q's primarily after putting pix on the enemy. This approach is good because shield is usable for both defense and offense and makes for more reliable harass that only takes up mana if it hits, but it limits your good harass to 650 range, which can be downright dangerous against some champions. The skill order is E>W>Q, balancing early game strength with utility (Q doesn't get more utility from ranks, so it's left at 1 until it has to be ranked).

Other players prefer to put more ranks into Q for the superior long range harass. This is a lot better against lanes that are capable of countering your E>Q harass strongly, like Sona or Taric lanes, but it requires more skill -- any glitterlance you miss drains your mana more with each rank, so it becomes more and more important that you hit them. It's also problematic in that it leaves you without a strong whimsy or shield, so you have to be more careful about staying out of range of your enemy. I do intend to try this against what I perceive to be Lulu's weaknesses, but as I said, I prefer E>W>Q in most situations.

More early ranks in whimsy would be interesting if you're constantly dueling, but I don't see it being a standard build, largely because it doesn't add to your damage at all and the movement speed buff is pretty situational during laning.