Hey guys, in my usual fashion of posting up my favorite off Meta builds
It's Prenora from NA again
Welcome back to another meta break
and I've got a fun one today

I'm asked over and over again in ranked and in normals how this build works so well...
what makes AP Lucian work?

well I'll tell you, I'll let my secrets out.
so without further ado, I present AP Lucian

Pro's


*High Sustained damage
*Strong consistent harass
*Mobile
*Scales well
*Great farm potential
*turret destroyer
*snowballs easily
*so much fun
*one of the few ap carries who can dive into the center of the fight, and deal damage to the entire enemy team


Cons


*Squishy
*no hard CC
*Often Focused
*Lacks the burst needed to delete a single enemy carry (makes up for it in total damage done to the enemy during the teamfight)
*I really can't think of anymore, no seriously,

Good

: Flash is the number one spell to run in every situation, nothing is more versatile and useful than Flash, chase, reposition, escape, you know the drill
Exhaust, now for an in your face champion such as Lucain, this spell halfs the enemies damage to you for 2 seconds, though I usually run ignite myself to get my snowball rolling, this is a much more useful tool, especially when receiving or getting ganked, as well as it also scales better into late game.
: Ignite is what I usually run, it's great for securing slippery kills
but with this build, doesn't add anything special to the combo, if you think you need it take it

Not so good
:against a zed or another bursty champ Barrier is decent, but they'll get their cool downs before you get barrier back. if you're scared of the enemies burst, you could try running this but it's probably not going to do you much good out of laning phase
: can be useful if you're against a champ with a lot of sustain
this is more situational, but as a bully, you shouldn't have a problem in the laning phase
: as a mid laner you should never need to run this, best case scenario you survive an early kill by your oponent, but you sacrifice so much offensive power for it.

I'll keep this short becuase Riot is about to revamp the whole rune system but
Marks- get some flat ad marks and some magic pen
Seals- Run armor seals, best bang for your buck
glyphs- ability power ofcourse
quints- more ability power

the principal here is to build for early snowballing
meaning high early damage from your abilities
better last hitting and some slight survivability

Dorans ring is a great starting item as it provides health and ability power but most importantly mana upon killing a unit, Lucian's spells are very mana efficiant with their low costs and high damages the refunded mana with the ring will boost your ability to keep harassing your opponent. with how easy it is to lose track of mana, running anything else will just cause you to have to back faster and miss valuable gold and experience

: always get a Stealth Ward Lucian has only a short range dash if you get ganked with it on cooldown you're sol, better to know the enemies positioning

you're going to need a few of these to recover from any unfavorable trades or poke

I've gone through a lot of trial and error to come up with this build path but I finally got it down, I'm giving it it's own section because it's very important.

the very first item you get on your very first back should be the Sheen now this is important for several reasons
*+250 mana, lets you spam your abilities without having to worry about conserving mana so much
*+10% cdr- most importantly you get CDR which is the whole basis for this build
*Passive-SPELLBLADE: After using an ability, your next basic attack (on-hit) deals (100% base AD) bonus physical damage
All of this combined is an incredibly cost effective use of a mere 1050 gold, The passive alone adds so much damage since lucian is probably one of the best champions to effectively make use of it

on your second back once again not much gold required, you want to buy a Fiendish Codex
and some Mobility Boots
for only 1200 gold you've now raised your ability power to probably over 100 depending on your runes and your CDR is now 20%
-while other champions have had to buy some sort of mana sustain, we are just grabbing flat mana so at this point in the game you should have the same amount of ap as your opponent only now you have 20% CDR

Third back here's where it gets fun, time to buy your Stinger
oh is that another +10% CDR? yes it is, and because this item only costs 1100 you should have enough gold to also buy your Ionian Boots of Lucidity
since you have the Intelligence mastery congratulations, you just capped your CDR by 12 minutes.

on any other champion this build would do no damage but Lucian's unique scalings benefit from all these items perfectly without sacrificing his early game whatsoever
that's what makes this build so fun, the fact that you stay relevant at every stage of the game and never flat line or fall off

The single exception
there's a brief moment where your damage falls off pretty hard if you're not fed, if you got fed ignore this, you're fine, but after you cap your CDR, in-between finishing the Nashor's Tooth and the Lich Bane your damage won't be the highest, at this point I either roam for ganks or I just farm until I finish my first 3 items.

Ok so the first item you want to complete is going to be Nashor's Tooth the bonus damage from the basic attacks is just a bonus that syndergizes well with your Sheen but the main thing is the ability power and the 50% bonus to atk speed, getting this item first significantly increases the early damage output of The Culling on top of that, since we already happened to buy both its combining items, finishing it out only costs 1000g
Now that you finished your first item you're going to want to start working on the Lich Bane, this basically is the sheen only with a pretty big ap boost
waveclear time, if you're not ahead in gold, go farm, destroy a tower or two with you lich bane- Nashor's tooth combo damage
then come back to the fight with a...
Time for the big damages, this will boost your burst by a pretty big amount, keeping your damage relevant for the late game
Ok so now's time to add some survivability to the build,
the stats are decent but really you buy this for the passive stasis effect.
since Zhonya's Hourglass gives you CDR you can actually sell your ionians for Sorcerer's Shoes if the enemy is building MR, but you lose 5% CDR

Lucian's Passive is Lightslinger and while it doesn't entirely provide insane damages, it's really useful and very fun.
after every ability Lucian casts he follows up with an doubleshot deling decreased damage on the second shot but still applying on hit effects such as I don't know, bonus damage from Nashor's Tooth this is fantastic tool for wave clearing as it basically translates to your spells doing more damage for less mana if you can use it effectively
most importantly though, a single spell and the double hit from Lightslinger procs Thunderlord's Decree .

Lucian's first ability is Piercing Light, lucian locks onto a selected enemy and fires a skill shot through them hitting all units in it's path
while this spell has no ap scaling, it does provide relatively high base damages wih just your base ad at max level, it deals around 300 damage

I put a point in Piercing Light at level 3 just to harass enemy champions who stand too close to their minion wave but mainly you want to get this to add a bit more damage to your combo as it also procs Lightslinger. if you're against a melee midlaner, or someone you can safely get in their face then take this at level two

Here it is, the bread and butter, Ardent Blaze is Lucian's W spell this ability is so much more useful than some people know, honestly adc lucian players should play ap lucian just to learn how good this spell is
Lucian shoots a skill shot that explodes into a star shape at the end of it's range or upon colliding with an enemy unit, scaling to a wonderful 90% ap providing vision and incresed movement speed if lucian basic attacks any unit struck by this ability.

This is your main form of harass at a hilariously low cost of 50 mana per shot you can spam this spell over and over, while it doesn't technically pierce through minions the blast radius is so large that just aiming it at the caster minons will probably hit your lane oponent too or the other way around, it's also insanely hard to miss, you're almost guaranteed the damage

this is also a great tool for checking bushes, for only 50 mana you can check the entire bush for enemies, because the blast radius is so large

Premier kiting- the movement speed this provides while kiting is incredible but the best part is, your allies can proc it for you, by merely casting this on an enemy, any allies that basic attack them too, speed you up allowing you to kite or chase enemies so easily

Mechanically fun- so because it bursts out in a star shape you can actually use this to hit otherwise out of reach champions think if it like Vel-Koz Plasma Fission by casting this at an angle you can use the points of the star to hit enemies hiding behind their wave

Lucian's E is Relentless Pursuit Lucian dashes a short distance in a target direction
this ability is a great gap closer or escape tool
use it to re-position quickly or to proc Lightslinger
the best part is besides the 8 second cooldown at 40% CDR you also reduce the cooldown by one second for each shot of Lightslinger and two if it hits a champion]] meaning that during teamfights, this ability can be up very near 80% of the time or more if used correctly
if you're against enemies with skill shots, ahri, brand get a point in this at level two
at the very least you can dodge their skill shot, if played well, you can counter strike by dodging their ability while re positiong into their face to deal damage

The Lucian's ultimate is The Culling while 10% ap scaling doesn't sound like that much, I should tell you that, it's per shot, so at level 3 with only let's say 500 ability power you're dealing 100 damage per shot for 30 shots...that's carry the one add the 0 ....3000 damage if you hit every shot oh and it does triple damage to minions, so that big fat juicy wave that pushed into your top lane tower, all yours
and with a meager 55 second cooldown at 40% CDR which is minute 12 by the way, you will always have this ability up for teamfights, so feel free to farm with it if you have to.

you should always level this up every chance you get as with any ultimate
oh did I mention The Culling scales with attack speed too? well it does...so noticably in fact that the mere 50% atk speed from the Nashor's Tooth is enough to send it into over drive, now while it doesn't actually increase the amount of shots you have (it will always be 30 at level 30 it speeds up how fast you fire all 30. Turning a nice slow and steady aoe/dot into bursty hellfire

Ok- so you made it this far, here comes the fun stuff

Here's some basic tips and combo's for your laning phase

It takes 7 minion kills to get lvl two, this is your first, and only goal, get to lane and hit level two, poke with Ardent Blaze deny the enemy their farm, you have such high range and damage that you'll want to bully the enemy away from as much CS (creeps) as you can

level two combo
if the enemy is within auto-attack range then this combo does the burst first
Ardent Blaze > Lightslinger = Thunderlord's Decree > Relentless Pursuit > Lightslinger
or if you're worried about your enemies damage simply reversing the combo, lets you jump in, then jump out with the movement speed buff while also lowering the cooldown of Relentless Pursuit twice as much
Relentless Pursuit > Lightslinger Ardent Blaze > Lightslinger = Thunderlord's Decree
for enemies that are playing from really long range, you can use relentless pursuit[[ just to add a little more range to your [[ardent blaze that most enemies never see coming.
Relentless Pursuit > Ardent Blaze

level 3. ideally you want your full kit before you all in but you want to bully your enemy as much as you can but never ever ever sacrifice CS to harass your opponent.

level 3 combo isn't too much different, Piercing Light leaves you so immobile for roughly half a second so unless I know my enemies spells are on cooldown I don't like to use it
Cast Relentless Pursuit first in almost every scenario as the CDR it gets from Lightslinger allow you to dash in and then dash back out
Relentless Pursuit > Lightslinger > Piercing Light > Lightslinger > Ardent Blaze > Lightslinger
dont worry if you miss the Lightslinger procs in between, this is just an example of the ideal combo order and how to maximize damage
The reason you want to cast Piercing Light second is because of the lack of mobility, by casting it in the middle you can still have time to get the movement speed buff from Ardent Blaze at the end of the combo rather casting it first then leaving you immobile for the rest of it. This allows you to dip in and out efficiently while still dealing full damage

once you hit level 6 things change completely
you no longer want to focus on all inning the burst mages you're probably going to be laning against, but instead just poke them down with Ardent Blaze as much as you can
if you're confident in your all in then feel free to engage on them or if you know their spells are on cooldown. but mainly you want to clear the wave then unleash on them with The Culling
note that The Culling procs the movement speed buff on Ardent Blaze on every shot for up to 6 seconds meaning that if you
Ardent Blaze > The Culling you get the movement speed buff for 6 seconds on every shot that hits them
this is amazing for chasing enemies, who try to walk out away but even more so for those who are chasing you down, remember also you can dash while you use the culling as well, but you only get to one time as there's no way to proc Lightslinger to lower it's cooldown
so use it wisely

early roaming one of the best things about the laning phase is the ability to match or even out wave clear your enemy. while still harassing you can easily push the wave into their tower
when you do this, roam top lane, why top lane? while you can roam bottom lane this build is more focused around single target skirmishing. so unless bot lane is low on health and pushed in, chances are you're not going to be making a huge impact down there (I've tried many times it just doesn't work out) if you cant roam top, either go back to shop or keep farming
if you can roam top, go , get in there, you deal massive consistent damage at your early levels, you can roam even before you hit 6, you can roam as early as level 4 if you want but be careful you're not giving up CS or experience.

Team Fighting
Ok so this build is centered around long range skirmishing, and siege-ing, prep teamfights by whiddling down the enemies health bars as much as you can then when the teamfight starts you want to make sure you're positioned right on the outskirts of the fight,
if you're team has a lot of CC stick close to those champions, as the provide a lot of the peel that you need, and allow you to get close without risk of getting deleted. being able to dash in deal damage then get out is very important (don't worry, with your low CD's you'll be able to get right back in)
unless you've bottlenecked the enemy team you'll want to save your ultimate for the end of the fight, as during the beginning the tanks are still healthy enough to just absorb all of your damage, you want to save this for the carry's

If you're not finding many opportunities to teamfight, then push towers instead. with low CD's combined with Lich Bane you can kill towers better than any other midlane apc
and can push wave after wave for very low cost.

So there you have it, while this build is pretty much cut and dry, it's one of my favorites from merely just how fun it feels to play.
so go ahead get out there, I want to see some ap Lucian in the midlane
but most importantly guys. I want you to Have Fun.

Feel free to leave a comment if you liked what you saw, if I made any mistakes or if you might have an improvement to show me. This isn't an ironclad build but just something I've figured out, from a lot of trial and error. so once again thanks for stopping by and I hope you learned something new.

Prenora out ^___-

*update I'm not going to go over every mid lane matchup, but if there's a champion specifically you'd like me to go over in the *against champions* section, let me know I'd be more than happy to.