Should you choose this path, you're going to be hated by the enemy team.

You're going to be the most obnoxious support EVER. I mean it. You're going to make the enemy Vayne spill the salt in the form of tears all over their keyboard. The enemy Rengar will camp you like you're Teemo. Nobody likes that guy.

..Allow me to cut the **** here. I am TheRalic, and I am a low ELO EUW support main. This is my very first MOBAfire guide, and I'm looking forward to writing more of them as I really enjoy sharing my knowledge of the game with others. Any feedback is more than welcome and appreciated!

I hope you guys enjoy!

EDIT: Updating to patch 6.18 this week!

Pros: + Easy to play + Has a snare and a slow + Great at zoning enemies and trading + Can negate enemy poke damage + Can carry + Excels at teamfighting + Stays relevant at all points of the game

Cons: - Hard to master - Extremely squishy - 100% skillshot reliant - Long cooldown windows - Weak to aggro lanes - Lacks sustain - Requires proper mana management early

The thing is, there are many other supports who can do Lux's job better. Sona, for example, does have a strong poke, all whilst having sustain and hard CC with her ultimate. Overall, for the lane, Sona would be a better choice than Lux.

So... why would we pick Lux over Sona?!

Simple.

Lux can carry.

Lux's kit is entirely composed of full damage save for her Prismatic Barrier. Lux WILL outdamage Sona in an all-in, and Lux alone can bring down both Sona and her ADC all by herself! That's why Lux is a strong choice for SoloQ.

This does NOT mean that you should take kills in lane, or neglect your lane partner trying to make big plays. I'll explain this further on.


Lux's playstyle is mainly poke-based. This is due to the ranged nature of her kit: the only way to get kill pressure in lane is to land your Light Binding, in order to unleash 100% of your combo. We'll expand in the skills section of the guide.

If you take a look at the runes taken in both builds, you'll see that we've taken a standard AP rune page. It is a cheap choice for a rune page and it can indeed prove useful.

A standard AP rune page is composed of:

As for our masteries, I have chosen to go offensively (12/18/0) but the more defensive option present in build 2 is also viable. I'll explain both.







Sorcery is BY FAR the only viable choice here. You are not an AD carry, so you do not need any attack speed at all. Unless you're running AD Lux, in which case, there's the door.




You won't be CSing, so Feast is discarded by default. The choice here between Expose Weakness and Double Edged Sword is yours. I personally prefer Expose Weakness as it does benefit my partner without making ME take more damage. But Double Edged Sword synergises well with Lux's bursty damage, so it's up to you. The difference is minimal.




While Vampirism offers a very slight improvement in sustain, Natural Talent scales with levels and gives you extra AP, which you need. Therefore, Natural Talent remains a better choice in any situation.

There aren't really many choices for Lux support as to which spells to take.

As Lux, we have a passive, three spells and an ultimate, much like 90% of the champions in League. I'll explain them in order.






This thing, right here, is your bread and butter. It deals INSANE damage, and the use of this passive is what defines a mediocre Lux from a legendary Lux, even more now that Riot has nerfed your other abilities while giving Illumination a buff.

It works by applying a mark on any enemy you hit with Light Binding, Lucent Singularity or Final Spark. It must be ignited with an autoattack or your ultimate, which then reapplies the mark.

You should BY ALL MEANS try to detonate your passive.This does not mean in any way that you should run between the enemy support and the enemy ADC/in front of the enemy minions. In other words: DO NOT PUT YOUR LIFE AT RISK. Proc it when it's safe.




This ability is what will set up the first blood and most of your kills. You MUST land your Light Binding. The snare lasts 2 seconds, more than enough time to do your full combo, passive included.

There are many forms to abuse this spell. First of all, unlike Dark Binding, it affects up to two enemies, so often times you will be able to snare an enemy that is sitting behind minions without him expecting it. Second of all, the actual hitbox is bigger than the animation, so often times your enemy will be snared without him expecting it!

The trick to landing this ability is the predict where your opponent will move. It can be easily sidestepped, so throwing it directly at where the enemy is at ends up being useless 99% of the times. I strongly recommend watching this video from ScrapComputer, a known YouTuber expert in League mechanics. The video is 27 minutes long, but once you're done watching it you'll save yourself tons of practice.

Also note that this spell can serve to disengage and will save your life while you're running away, as many times enemies tend to run in a straight line while chasing, making it an unmissable shot.





DO NOT NEGLECT THIS SPELL. The only spell in your kit that does not apply Illumination, it is excellent to deny enemy poke or minion aggro damage. Note that in teamfights you should always spam W.. It gives your whole team a virtual boost of their maximum HP and it might more than often mean the difference between a lost teamfight, an even teamfight or a won teamfight!

One common thing that happens during an escape where we're extremely low health is that you'll instinctively W anywhere to shield yourself. Prismatic Barrier will always shield Lux. So don't just desperately throw your W anywhere. Try to shield your allies in the process!





This ability is what you we will max first in order to poke and zone your enemies out. I'll dedicate a chapter on this guide to zoning, so leave that for now.

One thing that many Lux players forget is that Lucent Singularity applies a slow. The slow in this ability will more than once save you from the enemy or help you catch up to a fleeing one. . Especially in the jungle. Do NOT forget about it. Just throw it at where the enemy is heading and do not detonate it until the enemy is about to leave the AoE.

Another thing that you will often forget is that Lucent Singularity grants vision of the area affected by the spell. This is extremely useful when it comes to warding. You can use this spell to avoid facechecking brush as Lux. This would often result in the enemy jungler wrecking your sorry ***.

I cry every time. *sigh*





Lux's signature spell. It has an insane range, so it is ideal to steal enemy objectives/buffs or snipe fleeing enemies, but most of the time you'll be using it to all-in your lane opponents. I'll explain more about this in the combos section of this guide.

P.S: Yelling "KA-ME-HA-ME-HAAAAA!" at the screen whilst casting this spell will make it deal true damage. It is a feature that Riot does not want you to know about. Shhhhh....

The optimal skill sequence for Lux as a support is the one that you guys saw above. Let me put it here again:



We take one early point in Light Binding because at any point in the game an ensnared enemy is a sitting duck and more than once snaring an enemy at level 1 will result in first blood. Then we max Lucent Singularity due to its key value in Lux's kit in poking and zoning enemies (which, again, I'll explain later). Then we max Light Binding to boost its damage and lower its cooldown. As with any other champion, we take a point in our ultimate whenever we can.


You can alternatively spend an early point at level two OR level three in Prismatic Barrier to negate damage earlier against annoying poke supports like Teemo or lane bullies such as Lucian or Miss Fortune that will make your/your ADC's life impossible.

OR, you could take a point in Lucent Singularity at level one instead of using it in Light Binding to poke your enemies from the beginning, if you know that you won't land your Light Binding due to the enemy Lulu giving her ADC a movement speed burst each damn time that you try to ensnare them.


You should never, EVER, max Prismatic Barrier first. I've tried it myself, and it sounds awesome as the scaling in your shield plus Windspeaker's Blessing makes your ADC have a shield worth 1/2 of their HP. TL;DR maxing Prismatic Barrier does give a strong shield, but it makes you utterly useless as you WON'T be able to bring anything to the table other than a snare or two when the fights kick in.

And, trust me, if the enemy decides to all-in you as Lux, your only choice is to burst them faster than they can burst you..

Pre-6 combos

Level 1:

Light Binding > AA OR Lucent Singularity > Lucent Singularity (detonate) > AA

This is your awesome, fancy level 1 destroyer combo. It takes away half of the enemy's HP in one second.!

What happens is that you hit your enemies with your spell of choice, then you autoattack once to proc your Illumination passive. This will proc your Thunderlord's Decree mastery, as you've done damage in three parts: your spell, your autoattack and your passive.

Your enemies will be mad at you.

All-in at level 2 and until level 6:

Light Binding > AA > Lucent Singularity > Lucent Singularity (detonate) AA > Exhaust > AA them to death

Very effective, will almost always result in enemy death unless you or your carry mess up.

Poke combos:

Lucent Singularity > Lucent Singularity (detonate) > AA OR AA > Lucent Singularity > Lucent Singularity (detonate)

This is what you will do 90% of the time in lane to whittle the enemy's HP. It will also proc Thunderlord's Decree whenever it is off cooldown. The second combo is the most effective and the one that your enemies will expect the least, your Lucent Singularity travels faster than your AA, so with proper timing you can ignite your Illumination mark literally a split second after your Lucent Singularity has detonated.

All-in at 6/post-6

Light Binding > AA > Lucent Singularity > Lucent Singularity (detonate) > Final Spark > AA


Wait, Ralic! Aren't you wasting Lucent Singularity's stack of Illumination?

No! Final Spark ignites any stack of Illumination that has already been applied to the target. That's why it is possible to full combo your opponent in two seconds, your Light Binding's snare duration.

Note: This combo needs practice to be executed at an optimal speed. First of all, make sure that your Light Binding has landed. Sometimes we think it'll land, but the opponent will Flash out of it or simply dodge it. Second of all, make sure that you detonate your Lucent Singularity before you cast your ultimate. You could detonate your Lucent Singularity while you cast your ultimate, but there's only a split second window for you to do that.

TL;DR If you can't execute the combo in 2 seconds, don't worry. Take your time, but execute it to its fullest.

One important thing to note

Very often, when you all-in, you'll kill the enemy all by yourself. There is nothing wrong with Lux taking kills, as Lux also benefits her team by snowballing herself. This does not mean that you should KS your ADC.

What I am trying to say is that if it is very obvious that the low hp enemy is not going to escape (Summoners down, no spells, support is dead, etc) you should not throw any more spells. Just let your ADC kill him.

If your ADC cries about 'omg noob ks' when you do your full combo to the enemy and you kill them, just ignore them. They are not realizing that:

a) They have obtained gold through the assists
b) They are now ahead, as they have more XP, can free farm and take objectives without competition
c) You can also carry your team

TL;DR: Should you Light Binding an enemy, you all in the **********er like there's no tomorrow.

As Lux, we can build several items. Let me break those down into several sections..

But first...





OMG WTF Y U NO TAKE Frost Queen's Claim??!!??!?!111?!?!

While Frost Queen's Claim provides us with 50 extra AP over Eye of the Watchers, which is a HUGE boost, and grants us an awesome Twin Shadows active which can indeed be useful, it would force us to lose an item slot to get a Sightstone. We simply get more AP and more benefits by building, say, a Morellonomicon, over Frost Queen's Claim.

And if you were even thinking of not building a Sightstone item... forget about it. You ARE the support. Warding is your job. Your team should also always put a Vision Ward down and use their Stealth Ward/ Farsight Alteration, but granting extra vision and having your lane covered is your job.





Vynertje suggested in the discussion of this guide that rushing Sightstone over Frostfang is a smarter choice. Here is why I disagreefully agree:






Now, this gold lead generated by Frostfang could finally win you the lane, right?

Well, yes and no. You can get your extra gold, but being able to save yourself from enemy ganks is much more valuable in the end. And, no, they're not instant buff deliveries. They're death deliveries, and they're not the ones dying.

TL;DR The gold denied to the enemy by saving yourself from enemy ganks > the gold earned from an early Frostfang over a Sightstone.

Now, let's get started.

How do I zone?

As Lux, you are a squishy champion, so zoning seems hard, right?

NO! It isn't!

You can take advantage of your huuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuge ability range ( Lucent Singularity!) to poke your enemies, lowering their health. You can then progressively shove them back, because when they have around 1/2 of their health they'll fear an all-in from you.

Ideally, what you want to do is:

1) Take control of the brush closest to them
2) Autoattack/use your trading combo them whenever they go for CS, as they won't be able to retaliate
3) Immediately return to the brush to reset minion aggro
4) Rinse, repeat until you force them back
5) Punish them if they enter your zone

But, what if I'm being zoned?

It happens. You'll be facing aggro lanes such as Blitzcrank, Thresh, Leona, Shen that will shove you back, should you not want to get killed. What do you do in such a case?

You respect their zone.


Allow me to repeat that.


YOU RESPECT. THEIR ZONE.


Does that mean that I'm gonna let myself get shoved back to my tower, making my ADC lose CS and exp?

Yes. All you can do is wait. Wait for them to make a silly mistake, then you punish them with all your might. Simple as that. The enemy Leona leaves to ward the river brush? You immediately go ham on Jhin, netting yourself a kill or forcing them back to base, which will eventually mean that you'll regain zone control.

Either that, or you pray for a jungle gank/mid roam.

You and your ADC your immediately leave to guard your jungle buff entrances. Should your jungler need a leash, you leash for him. If he doesn't, and you're starting blue side, consider taking Krugs. Else, go back to your lane at 01:30.

What are Krugs?

The Ancient Krugs are the jungle monsters that spawn next to your inner turret on blue side. Once killed, they grant a massive XP/Gold lead that can more often that not win your lane.

You should take Krugs whenever your jungler is not starting on your side, and you know for sure that the enemy bot is leashing their jungler (in other words, also going to arrive late to lane).

How do I do Krugs?

Your ADC should tank three hits, then you should tank the rest as you're starting with three Total Biscuit of Rejuvenation. Stay in range so that you and your ADC both take the EXP, but let your ADC last hit both monsters.

But, Ralic, what if I'm starting red side?!?!?!

If you were starting on the red side, you could do Gromp. Except that you can't, because Gromp can't be kited and you're not as tanky as Leona or Braum, so this would mean you chugging more pots.





If you can, you start creating a zone, as we've seen earlier. Your ADC should be autoattacking the minions to reach level 2 ASAP.

If you reach level 2 first

You immediately all-in the enemy, as they cannot retaliate at all since they only have one spell and you have two. This should consolidate your zone, force them out of lane, burn their summoners, or even net you first blood. In the best of cases, all four!

If they reach level 2 first

Sit back and wait to reach level two as well. Should they decide to all-in you, you can disengage with your Light Binding and/or your summoner spells if necessary.

If you're getting zoned

If you are forced under turret, help your ADC CS under turret by autoattacking the enemy caster minions once. Ask for jungle ganks/mid roams whenever possible, but do not get frustrated and remain calm. Just don't get killed.

Peeling

Peeling is the act of protecting a fellow squishy by using any CC at hand to prevent the enemy from ever engaging on them.


While Lux is not as efficient peeling as Leona, her Light Binding can sure provide some distance between the enemy and your ADC, and Lucent Singularity can slow them down. Just keep that in mind.

Good moments to:

Recall: - You are low on Health and could risk dying - You have a lot of gold - The enemy has recalled - You should always push the lane! Roam: - You have taken their turret and: - The enemy mid is shoved in - You want to take mid turret - You want to force a teamfight

Call Dragon: - The enemy has recalled - You have your team's help and: - You've just taken their turret - You've just killed the enemy Take their turret: - You have killed them - They have recalled - The enemy mid/jgl is not nearby - Your jgl/mid can help you

Please note that these are just a few cues to give you a notion of when to do these things. You should never blindly follow these rules!

With changes in patch 6.15, securing turret first blood is going to be a very important objective for your team. The Fortification tower buff has been removed for botlane, meaning that dying is going to be much more punishable, often resulting in you losing your tower.

What to do during a teamfight?

When laning phase ends, most of the time most of your team will be sitting around mid/objectives such as Baron Nashor or Dragon in order to force a teamfight.


Your job here is to input as much damage as possible to the enemy before the teamfight breaks. Whenever possible, you try to Light Binding an enemy to create a pick for your team. When the teamfight breaks, you should start shielding your teammates with Prismatic Barrier to negate incoming damage, and then combo whoever comes into range.

Please note that you should always be positioned behind your team (at the backline) to avoid being focused and bursted in a split second. You should sit further back behind your team if the enemy has an assassin like Zed, Akali or LeBlanc that can kill you in no time and subsequently dash to safety.

Sieging

Very often, if your team is ahead (or can afford a 4v4/5v5 situation), it will want to force a teamfight by sieging mid. Sieging means attacking the enemy turret while the enemy team tries to defend it: if the enemy can't zone you or force you to stop sieging (say, they haven't got some sort of assassin which could eat you for dinner ( Zed, LeBlanc) or hard engage (remember Xin Zhao Flash + Audacious Charge + Crescent Sweep?), your job will be to help siege in three different ways that do not exclude each other:


1. Attacking the enemy turret:

This is pretty much straightforward: you autoattack the ******* thing, then walk back a few steps, then walk to the turret to attack again. Yes, your autoattacks deal a ton of damage to the turret (when you attack structures it also takes Ability Power into account).

Why do you want to walk back between attacks?

Simple: say someone in your team makes a huge mistake: Amumu accidentally presses Curse of the Sad Mummy with no enemies nearby. The enemy team decides to capitalize on that mistake and engages on you: you'll be safe because you'll already be on the way back to safety!


2. Poking the enemy team


You simply do what you'd do in a normal teamfight: abuse your kit to lower the enemy's HP, creating picks with Light Binding for you or your team to commit to. Without the enemy Karma, their team might decide to back and give up the turret. And if they don't, just get it and kill 'em all.

Remember to shield your teammates with Prismatic Barrier.


3. Peeling for your damage dealers


You'll want to protect your fed Caitlyn, because, be 100% sure, the enemy team craves to kill her. If you know that an enemy engage can happen, save your kit for whenever you see someone that can engage on your damage dealers. This will render Xin Zhao useless!

Except if the enemy team has Olaf.

...


I cry everytime. The only way to counter Olaf while he's using Ragnarok is to whittle him down to death before he can even touch your backline, which is extremely hard due to his tanky nature. Good luck with that.


**** Olaf.

Lux can really be played with any ADC, but there are some carries that deserve an honorable mention because of their extra viability, or because they are not viable at all.

I've included non-meta supports for the sake of normals and troll comps, but, meh.

I have not had the chance to play against Anivia yet. Any help towards writing her chapter would be appreciated.

They are in alphabetical order except Amumu, Leona, Nautilus, Sion, Volibear, Rammus and Vi, which I have decided to group in one chapter called "Aggressive Supports". They are still explained in detail.

I'd like to thank:

jhoijhoi for her awesome BBCode and Making a Guide guides. They've helped me a lot throughout this week of intense writing, but, especially, since I lack any sort of graphic content in my guide, I'd like to thank her for sharing her Line Dividers with everyone! Also, her Ashes to Ashe's guide helped me learn some useful concepts which I then applied to this guide. TYVM!

IceCreamy for his How to Use Columns guide. In which, by the way, he also uses Lux as an example! :D

Vapora Dark for their ADC guides. I have improved my ADC skills thanks to them, but most importantly I've learned some key concepts as a support that have helped me improve this guide.

katt5 for her wonderful Lux support guide. Reading her guide made me discover a whole new concept of a more passive support Lux build that I have implemented to my guide.

Jabroni1337 and BlueMoon01 for their feedback. Much appreciated, boys!
Re4XN for his extense feedback, which has given me appropiate guidelines to follow.
Will, do, thank you!
One of my best friends in League, Best Riven EUW for proofreading this guide. Thanks, mate! <3

Vynertje for making me reconsider my choice of Frostfang over Sightstone.

Finally, I'd like to thank YOU, yes YOU right there, for reading through this guide. It really makes me happy that I can share my knowledge to help others!

Feel free to comment, PM me or add me in EUW (TheRalic) to provide any feedback, which is more than appreciated!

7/25/2016: Guide is LIVE!
7/25/2016: Added ADC synergy page. Stupid me forgot to add it to the guide before publishing it!
7/25/2016: Added katt5 to the Thank You list. Without her Lux support guide, I wouldn't have been able to see beyond my full AP idea of Lux.
7/26/2016:Fixed minor BBC fails (Shoutout to BlueMoon01, thanks man!) Changed guide title to [6.15] as none of these changes affect Lux (who would build multiple Ardent Censers or Mikael's Blessings on this girl?)
7/26/2016: Added Re4XN to the thank you list for his review of my guide. Thank you, man!
7/26/2016: Removed AD Lux rant for the sake of brevity.
7/26/2016 Added Frostfang vs. Sightstone section
7/26/2016 Added a few lines to the Krugs section about Gromp
8/17/2016: Changed first build's splash art to spellthief Lux cause ohmaigad it's so awesome.
8/19/2016: Updated Pros & Cons section, edited tips from the laning phase guide, added sieging guide and added a few matchups.
To do:

-Add Detailed Matchups
-Do custom artwork for this guide (= find someone who can do it for me)
-Finish simple matchups
-Fix small BBCode fails
-Add more graphic content
-Respond to feedback
-Keep guide up to date (always doing!)
-Extend ADC synergy section
-Restructure Pros & Cons section
-Fix small grammatical mistakes (stupid commas!)


This list will always be changing thanks to feedback, so don't forget to come back in a few days to see if something's changed!