Riot Games has revealed their latest champion to us at last. Lucian, the Purifier, is the upcoming ranged AD carry we can look forward to, bringing a pair of relic pistols to the Fields of Justice. His abilities bring a mix of unique AoEs and direct skillshot punishment.
Passive: Lightslinger
Lucian’s passive ability is a simple enough damage steroid. After using an ability, Lucian’s next auto-attack will shoot twice. The second shot will do reduced damage, but this is still something very capable of building up over the course of the game, and on an AD carry, no less. Given careful timing of ability use, it could easily end up adding more damage than Corki’s passive (a straight 10% true damage) depending primarily on the cooldown of his abilities.
Piercing Light
Another very simple ability, Piercing Light is a skillshot damaging all targets in a line. Given how simple it is, this ability is likely to be the one whose usefulness is most dependent on the raw numbers associated with its damage. It might end up being useful in laning phase as a ranged poke that can pass through minions, but it would need either a very short cooldown or some very impressive damage numbers to match up to the likes of Varus or Caitlyn on that front.
Ardent Blaze
This ability is where Lucian starts getting much more interesting. Ardent Blaze fires a shot at a target that explodes in a star-pattern AoE, marking targets caught in it. If Lucian hits a marked target with an auto-attack, he gets a short movement speed boost.
The AoE is entirely unique, making it a trickier one for other players to avoid than might initially seem plausible. Diana taught us all how changing up the way abilities travel or the area they cover can really throw off players who have spent so long getting used to very specific methods of avoidance. This star-shaped AoE could do the same thing all over again, and a brief speed boost on an AD carry is never something to sneer at.
Relentless Pursuit
Any champion lacking a gap-closer in the modern meta needs to have some serious damage potential to make up for it. Lucian, however, does have one, and specifically as an escape it is a rather powerful one. Relentless Pursuit dashes a short distance and removes slows. Anyone who has tried to chase a ghosting Garen knows how obnoxious it is watching someone clear the slows you’ve stacked on them to ensure you can keep up.
The other obvious use of the skill is in chasing, letting the player get close enough to land an Ardent Blaze for the speed boost could sometimes be just enough to secure the kill. Since the ability refreshes each time Lucian kills a champion, he can be an absurdly dangerous opponent to have alive at the end of a teamfight. If he catches one person, he could very easily chase down the entire team one by one.
This ability also adds some extremely tricky possibilities to Lucian’s ult, which is…
The Culling
Lucian’s ult fires repeatedly in one direction, with shots stopping at the first enemy hit. In some ways, it is Miss Fortune’s ult with a much smaller AoE and lack of piercing. The advantages it has are big, though.
For one thing, Lucian can move freely while using the ability, meaning while Miss Fortune’s ult might result in her doing a lot of damage and then getting killed for being stuck in one place, Lucian can throw his ult without fear, even while running away to punish someone chasing him.
On top of that, Lucian can freely use Relentless Pursuit while channeling his ult, meaning he actually retains full mobility the entire time, also enabling him to get certain angles to fire his shots into a teamfight if necessary. It could also be a great way to rapidly finish off a target to refresh Unrelenting Pursuit for any of its myriad uses, or a way to punish someone trying to anti-carry and jump on top of you.
Lucian has a lot of potential and a lot of style. Keep yourself practiced and watch for him to hit the Fields of Justice soon!
