Shadows and Reflections[]
When we took up these 
weapons, we accepted our mission with pride. Rid Runeterra of evil, they told us. Slay the corrupt. Send the filth of the world crawling back to the hole it crawled out of. Not just anyone can wield these weapons. You need a pure heart. A fearless mind. An inner light that outshines all the darkness in the world. Once I had that light. Now I'm not so sure.
Everything changed. We knew our mission was greater than ourselves. The enemy was not who we fought, but what we fought. Evil. The Shadow Isles? Just another mess to clean up, just a bunch of ghosts. They were abominations, but nothing we hadn't put in the ground before. Until the day we faced 
him. Until the day he ripped her from my life.
Now my enemy has a name. She wouldn't want me to come after her - she knew the risks. But I can't forget her. I won't forget her. I'll hunt down the bastard who took her from me and send him straight to the grave.
Twice, if I have to.
Arm yourself as Lucian, the Purifier[]
By Tyler 'Wenceslaus' Eltringham[2]
Stand against the shadows and obliterate evil with righteous power as 
Lucian, the Purifier. Armed with ancient weapons, this ranged carry excels at pummeling opponents with quick shots, relentless 
dashes, and a 
barrage of light-infused bullets.
- Abilities
- Lightslinger
- Piercing Light
- Ardent Blaze
marks targets. Shooting marked 
targets grants Lucian a short burst of speed.
- Relentless Pursuit
slowing effects. Relentless Pursuit's cooldown resets if The Culling kills an enemy champion.
- The Culling
Relentless Pursuit while shooting.- Gameplay
- Bot lane
A highly-mobile ranged damage dealer, Lucian punishes enemies for straying too close. 
Piercing Light offers Lucian significant harass potential, even through minions, forcing enemy carries to decide between missing last hits as they dodge his shots or taking damage as they farm up. Dashing with Relentless Pursuit or landing 
Ardent Blaze and a follow-up auto attack on escaping targets gives Lucian the speed boost needed to close gaps, score kills, or escape a deadly gank.
Lightslinger enables Lucian to fire two auto attacks in quick succession after using his abilities. This offers ample opportunities for the Purifier to bully his lane enemies and take the upper hand in simple duels. On-hit effects such as life steal, slows, and 
red buff proc twice, making Lucian all that more likely to survive tough exchanges and maintain presence in lane.
The Culling, Lucian's ultimate, is a channeled ability that fires a barrage of bullets in a straight line, damaging the first enemy champion hit. Unlike many channeled abilities, Lucian has the option to dash with Relentless Pursuit as he unleashes The Culling. While on the move, The Culling will continue firing in the same direction as when activated. Simultaneous use of Relentless Pursuit allows Lucian to quickly dash away from his approaching enemies or move in towards fleeing foes. Earning kills with The Culling also refreshes Relentless Pursuit, making Lucian a swift death dealer while his ultimate is active.
- Teamfights
Once teamfights break out, Relentless Pursuit enables Lucian to quickly escape unfavorable situations and kite pursuing opponents, or skirt around the enemy team to single out priority targets. When facing off against a group of foes, tagging multiple enemies with Ardent Blaze gives Lucian plenty of targets to peg for a speed boost while Piercing Light rips through the group.
Quick Gameplay Thoughts 8/13[]
Hey everyone, I’m here to talk about a small Lucian update coming your way in 11.17. A quick TLDR of the changes:
- Solo Lane early damage slightly down
- Lucian gains bonus on-hit damage when buffed by allies (including the Move Speed from W)
- R damage shifted to scale better with crit but starts at lower base damage
Lucian’s been quite weak in regular play for most of Season 11 in all his roles (Bot, Mid, and occasionally Top). We don’t mind when a character is flexible in a variety of roles as long as their counterplay is maintained, and actually think it adds valuable depth to the character. However, problems start to appear when less played roles have much higher winrates than the most played role, and we have to nerf a champion for being too strong in a place where most players aren’t interested in playing them. One noteworthy version of this is when an alternate role dominates in Pro play, leading to the main role being limited in regular play.
Lucian falls into the latter. Despite Mid Lane having a lower winrate than Bot Lane in most skill bands, whenever Lucian is viable in solo queue, he quickly starts to dominate Mid Lane picks and bans in Pro play. This means that without a way to buff Lucian only in Bot, his Bot power in regular play is bound by his Mid power in coordinated play.
We wanted to fully understand why Pros value Lucian Mid so much, despite his weak performance in regular play. After asking our Game Analysis Team of former analysts, pros, and high MMR players, the answer boiled down to the following: Pros value early power better, Pros can intentionally draft mixed-damage compositions to offset the lack of an AP mid, and Lucian’s ultimate is a powerful solo-lane tool where there’s more room to be aggressive and fewer people to bodyblock.
After understanding the core reasons why Lucian is more powerful in coordinated play, we moved on to seeing how we could address some of these points to hit the ultimate goal of the project: give power to Lucian Bot without Lucian Mid and Lucian Top dominating Pro Play. Explorations centered on the most obvious difference between the lanes... bot lane Lucian almost always has a support.
Our first pass tried to gate Lucian’s early power by increasing his Mana costs. On the flip side, if Lucian was laning with an ally, he’d get even more mana, letting him spam Q/E and run loose in the bot lane. There was even a wacky iteration where Lucian would restore mana to himself and an ally, leading to hilarious tests where supports like Taric/Lulu would have unlimited mana to pump buffs into Lucian. However, there was a core problem here: Lucian isn’t always with an ally all game. While bot lane has 2 people, there are many cases where Lucian wants to split push since he can win many duels. And that independence is a core part of why players love Lucian. Goal 2 became: Rather than make Lucian feel bad without being near an ally, make him feel even better with an ally in ways that he won't miss dearly when playing more independently.
This brings up a critical third goal. Lucian is already incredibly fun, he’s just a bit weak. We’re not aiming to reinvent the wheel and create complex rules and hooks that take away from Lucian’s core appeal. Sometimes, simple is all that’s needed. Keeping this in mind, we landed on granting Lucian bonus damage whenever buffed by an ally. This version creates a new avenue for supports to help Lucian bully enemies early-game, and also doesn't warp Lucian’s spell-spamming, highly-mobile pattern. With some new power to snowball a lead in Bot Lane, Lucian can remain a more relevant threat before he begins falling off during the endgame.
Lastly, there's Lucian’s ultimate, an ability that scales heavily with levels, which come faster in solo lanes. That extra XP means solo Lucian gets his ult earlier than bot Lucian too, so it impacts a longer portion of lane phase. Threatening to kill level 6 opponents from pretty high health is also a big part of how solo lane Lucian can completely take over a lane. To solve this, we shifted one of The Culling’s scalings (number of bullets) from experience-based to item-based, which is more consistent between lanes. This way, Bot Lucian doesn’t have to wait till levels 11 and 16 for his next spike in ultimate damage. Also, watching The Culling blast more bullets as you get more items is pretty freaking cool.
After a few more touches on base stats and visual effects, Lucian should have a few more tools to help him feel better about heading to the bot lane while still sticking close to his independent, gunslinger identity.
Media[]
- Related Music
| Lucian's Theme (Music and Voice) |
| Lucian's Theme (Music Only) |
- Related Videos
- Main article: Summoner icon
- Main article: Emotes
Trivia[]
- Lucian was originally voiced by Patrick Seitz. After
Senna's release, TJ Storm voices most of his lines, along with High Noon Lucian and 1Lucian in Legends of Runeterra. Storm also voiced Lucian in Dark Passage, Shadow's Embrace, and Ruination.
- Kog'Maw and Renekton are also voiced by Patrick Seitz.
- Lucian's Japanese voice actor is Rikiya Koyama.[4]
- Lucian's voice actor in Brazil is Marco Antônio Abreu, who also voiced his High Noon skin, Yasuo and Nightbringer Yasuo.
- Lucian's theme 'The Purifier's Resolve' was composed and performed by The Crystal Method (live at the Season 3 World Championship finals).
- Senna's theme was composed by the same group.
- Lucian's title during production was 'the Gun Templar' (was called such in Polish localization and his teaser 'Shadows and Reflections').[5]
