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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.
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.
Skill usage
- Autoattacking between your skills, proccing
Lightslinger, is an efficient way to boost your damage and also reduce the cooldown of 
Relentless Pursuit. 
Piercing Light can hit target out of its cast range, cast it on minions to damage enemies behind.
- However, beware that it has a ~0.35 sec delay, during which the target may dodge it.
- Missing one once a minute or two is acceptable, but can get unmanageable if you have a bad aim/your opponent can avoid it.
- Lucian is a high-burst based marksman; a quick combo of
Relentless Pursuit- Lightslinger- Piercing Light- Lightslinger- Ardent Blaze- Lightslinger- Relentless Pursuit can be used to deal massive damage to someone and dash away safely early in the game(only on patch 4.12). Later on, The Culling can be used if your target slips out of range or to provide even more sustained damage.
- Remember that Relentless Pursuit will also proc Lightslinger, so you can use it to contribute to combos.
- However you are better off saving it for The Culling allows you to re-position yourself if the intended target moves away.
- The Culling will also proc Lightslinger, so deactivating it can give you a bit more burst damage if you need it.
- Remember that
- Ardent Blaze produces a flash of light where it detonates, which reveals nearby area. Use it to check bushes. Additionally, enemies hit will be left sparkling with energy for a few moments, revealing their position a little longer.
- A smart tactic to escape is to use Ardent Blaze into your enemy, dash away with Relentless Pursuit and use The Culling, proccing the mark from Ardent Blaze and accelerating yourself.
- Ardent Blaze's damage quickly slips off as the ability is usually not maxed out, the range is long and the mana cost is fairly low, but the damage is simply underwhelming.
- By levels 1-4 the damage is actually good and you can use it to harass from a long range
- By levels 4-10 it completely slips off and offers mediocre damage. Use it mainly to chase/last-hit someone or to proc Lightslinger.
- The damage improves by levels 10-18 as you are putting points into and your AD makes it scale decently. It will tickle a tank or a fighter but hits decently against a mage or other marks(wo)man.
- Lightslinger second shot is performed a very (very, 0.2 sec) short delay after the base-first one, but if you move away Lucian will still perform the attack (with a special animation), it can be smart to blow a Piercing Light, Lightslinger and Relentless Pursuit while getting away with the full damage.
- You may need some practice to fully utilize Ardent Blaze's cross shaped explosion.
- It will hit enemies directly behind the main target in the same angle as the projectile, this may be the easiest way to utilize it.
- Aiming The Culling on a target affected by the Ardent Blaze buff procs it, increasing your movement speed and making it easier to keep up with their possible dodging maneuvers.
- Try to aim The Culling in a straight line rather than diagonally, this will make it easier to position to hit the target.
- The Culling can be a very good way to scare off enemies attempting to turret dive you.
- You can also use The Culling to quickly clear minion waves when your turret is being pushed, allow it to target enemy champions if they attempt to take it down.
Build usage
- Although The Culling scales with attack speed, Lucian benefits more from attack damage, due to Lightslinger and Piercing Light.
- Keep in mind that the active of Youmuu's Ghostblade does work together with The Culling but not the active of Sword of the Divine .
- Keep in mind that the active of
- Trinity Force is an overall effective way to boost Lucian's kit.
- Sheen and potentially Lich Bane can be a good way to improve Lucian's burst as it increases the damage he will deal with any Lightslinger combo.
- The boosted Zeal stats are good on any autoattack reliant champion.
- The Phage component gives him some attack damage and health, providing damage and tankyness, also the Rage passive effect of Phage and Trinity Force gives him huge kiting and chasing potential.
- The Sheen component gives more burst potential with the 'Spellblade' passive while also giving him increased mana, which gives more spammability" to his spells.
- Fitting extremely well with his "bursty" nature, Trinity Force can be "rushed" on Lucian
- The boosted
- Iceborn Gauntlet is a slightly cheaper alternative when still seeking the 'Spellblade' passive of Sheen and also provides a large amount of both mana and armor and some cooldown reduction to help with spamming spells.
- Although the 'Spellblade' passive is not as strong on Iceborn Gauntlet as it is on Trinity Force, in exchange it provides a significant AoE slow, giving Lucian some effective CC when combined with the short cooldown of Piercing Light at higher ranks.
- Although the 'Spellblade' passive is not as strong on
- Runaan's Hurricane is an efficient item on Lucian, because of the large attack speed bonus it gives, along with its unique passive.
- When Lightslinger procs, Lucian will fire a total of 6 shots, which is useful for wave-clearing, meaning that there won't be a large threat of your lane being pushed.
- Additionally, the bonus attack speed it gives will have synergy with The Culling, increasing your damage output by a fair amount.
- When
- The Bloodthirster is an excellent item for Lucian, because it grants him a hefty amount of attack damage, while the life steal it offers grants Lucian much needed sustain, especially with Lightslinger.
- As one of the core items on any Marksman build, The Bloodthirster can also be 'rushed' on Lucian, Trinity Force however might be a better pick if Lucian is not taking heavy poke early on, but if he does, the lifesteal path of The Bloodthirster could be a better option
- As one of the core items on any Marksman build,
- Statikk Shiv is a good item for Lucian, because it offers attack speed, critical strike and movement speed.
- It should be also noted that the Statikk Shiv passive will stack much faster by procing Lightslinger, as each shot will provide another stack, building it twice as fast.
- It should be also noted that the
- Blade of the Ruined King is effective on Lucian, granting him attack damage, attack speed, life steal.
- It is worth mentioning that Lightslinger procs both the life steal and passive that Blade of the Ruined King offers.
- It is worth mentioning that
- The Brutalizer can be a good way to improve your damage, due to the armor penetration while providing some cooldown reduction, and its two upgrades have benefits.
- will grant a boost of health and attack damage, and its shred can quickly be stacked with either Lightslinger procs or The Culling.
- Youmuu's Ghostblade, while it doesn't give as much attack damage as a The Black Cleaver and may not grant the % armor shred, gives a useful active to boost, giving about 2 extra shots as well as movement speed, making it easier to follow the target, while the increased flat armor penetration makes it easier to kill squishier targets.
- will grant a boost of health and attack damage, and its shred can quickly be stacked with either
- Last Whisper will grant a good boost of attack damage as well as high % armor penetration, making it useful against targets with lot of armor.
- Because Lightslinger's second shot can critically strike, an Infinity Edge is a cost efficient item for him.
- Lucian using lich bane can also be build AP as sheen s active, nashor tooth and wits end passive synergizes with Lucians passive building rabbadon gives a huge burst, also the AS of this items add more shots to his ultimate.
- Lucians W's AP scaling grants him more range and a decent amount of poke damage, allowing to trade without taking damage.
Countering
- With the great mobility, Lucian has a one of the lowest attack ranges as a marksman, at 500 units.
- Early game, Lucian's passive Lightslinger grants him a lot of trading potential. Try to avoid getting hit when he has the effect ready.
- Dodging Piercing Light during the 0.35 second delay, with fast reactions or an ability like Vayne's Tumble, is a good way to lower Lucian's damage output.
- Also, try to not stand in a line with allied minions and Lucian, as it denies him every chance to line up a shot.
- Also, try to not stand in a line with allied minions and
- Be careful when you are hit by Ardent Blaze, affected by the spell's mark, Lucian can easily engage with the bonus 40 movement speed.
- Although The Culling's damage may seem to be terrifying, moving sideways can help dodging at least a few shots, because the angle of fire cannot be altered once chosen.
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