Lucian is one of my favorite ADCs to play and as such I strive to make my Lucian deadly each game I go into.

I DON'T LIKE the Essence Reaver build on Lucian.
My logic goes like this: Crit is unreliable until you get at least 50% crit chance.

If you want to play into the late game then just play a different ADC.
There are much better late game champs than Lucian, namely, Jinx, Twitch, Caitlyn, etc....
They are stronger at late game and are better teamfighters than Lucian.

Lucian is a bully and should be strong early and mid.

PROS ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ + Hilarious lvl 2 Power Spike + Strong Early & Mid Game + Strong Burst Champion + Strong split-pusher + Very mobile and slippery ADC

CONS ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ - Short Range, only 500 units - Very mechanical champion, takes practice - No utility or self-peel - Not so great at teamfighting - Not as strong as other ADCs at lategame

Relentless Pursuit This spell alone is why you want 40% cooldown reduction. With each rank the mana cost is reduced by 10. At rank 5 there is NO MANA COST. Practice, practice and more practice. Once you get a feel for this and his other abilities, you will be dashing any and all projectiles from those mean mages.

Combos start at 1:02
Play Video

Who better to learn Lucian combos from than the main man himself, DOUBLELIFT!

BREAD AND BUTTER COMBO ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

AUTO > DASH > AUTO + PASSIVE > Q > AUTO + PASSIVE

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Ideally, you'll want to alternate Auto Attacks with Spells.
Each Passive will reduce the Cooldown for Relentless Pursuit by 2 seconds!

Is there someone you want to burst and catch up to?
Use Ardent Blaze and immediately cancel into Relentless Pursuit after.

W + E > AUTO + PASSIVE > Q > AUTO + PASSIVE

This will shoot your W and cancel into dash allowing you to catch up and burst.
Sure you lose a round of your passive but this is for burst.

First buy, yes, you get Black Cleaver. It gives u Health, Damage, Cooldown Reduction, Phage speedup, and the ultra important Armor Reduction for your whole team. It's a win-win for everyone. You would be surprised at what you can live through with the extra 300 Health! It cleaves enemies for physical damage dealt which means even your ultimate will cleave them! It's cheaper than Essence Reaver, which means you spike sooner.

This is a strong second item if you came out of lane strong. Buying this gives you AttackSpeed, LifeSteal, Damage, and Damage versus health-stackers! It's 8% on-hit, which means your passive stacks it too. You proc 8% of current HP TWICE in one Auto rotation!!! The active is great utility for teamfights or anytime. Lets you or your team catch up to fleeing targets. * But if you did fall behind then skip this and go into Infinity Edge for damage.

Cooldown boots to get to that 40% cooldown-reduction that Lucian desperately needs. It also means you will have Heal and Flash up more often. It's also a cheap upgrade.

Pretty simple, more damage because, Why not?!!!

I like building this after IE mainly because you will have plenty of damage and when you do start getting crits then they will REALLY START TO HURT. There is debate of RFC vs. Phantom Dancer. RFC is much better mainly because of the extra 150 range you get on autos. You won't need the chase from PD because you already have Black Cleaver speedup and the Active on BoTRK to catch up to people. Phantom Dancer is redundant.

Anything beyond this is strictly situational

Is there a really strong mage that's too scary? Get a Maw of Malmortius or Mercurial Scimitar.

Is there an out-of-control health stacking giant on the enemy team? Get Lord Dominik's Regards or maybe Mortal Reminder for those health-regen monsters.

You might need to switch out Ionian Boots of Lucidity for Berserker's Greaves if you have too much Cooldown Reduction but that's not until final build.

Get Elixir of Wrath for Damage and Lifesteal. The biscuit mastery will make Elixir last an extra 10% for 30 seconds more!

And here comes a very important part that every ADC must learn how to play, the teamfight.

Lucian is pretty unique when it comes to teamfighting. He has his own style which is completely different from all of the other ADCs.

He's not a brainless right-clicking ADC. He is a very mechanical spell casting ADC.

In order to be effective with him you have to know and be comfortable with his combos (see section above for combos). The reason he has a learning curve and takes practice is because you are very SHORT RANGED and have to fight in really close. The only way to dodge abilities besides Flash is dodging them with Relentless Pursuit. Balancing out your passive and spells means you should have at least 2 dashes in between bursts. This is why having 40% cooldown reduction is very important on Lucy.

Teamfighting Basics

1. Identify all threats on enemy team.

2. Identify the strongest damage dealers on enemy team.

3. Identify all of the CC sources on enemy team and stay the f*ck away from them! You are very mobile but if you get stunned then it's usually Goodnight for you.

4. You will want to go engage in rotations. Meaning you go in and use your full combo then leave and wait for cooldowns. Lucian is burst but is capable of DamagePerSec.

5. You are very mobile and can usually catch up to fleeing targets!

Here I try to justify my build and say you get more value than the Essence Reaver Build

Cost: Black Cleaver 3100 + Blade of the Ruined King 3400 + Ionian Boots of Lucidity 900 = Total Cost of: 7400

Cost: Essence Reaver 3600 + Rapid Firecannon 2600 + Berserker's Greaves 1100 = Total Cost of: 7300

Stats of Rambo Build
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Black Cleaver = Health, Damage, Phage speedup, Cooldown Reduction, and Cleaving
Blade of the Ruined King = Attack Speed, Damage, Lifesteal, Active slow, Passive on-hit damage
Ionian Boots of Lucidity = Movement Speed, Cooldown Reduction for abilities and summoners

Stats of Essence Reaver Build ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Essence Reaver = Damage, Cooldown Reduction, Crit Chance, No mana issues
Rapid Firecannon = Attack Speed, Crit Chance, Movement Speed, Range Buff
Berserker's Greaves = Movement Speed and Attack Speed
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With Rambo Build you get more "quality of life" stats and for a decent price, too. In this build I do still get Rapid Firecannon in my build.

With Essence Reaver build you get damage, attack speed, crit chance, cooldown reduction, and no more mana issues. But you are stuck without any meaningful lifesteal which is always my big thing.

When Behind

If I ever fall behind I skip Blade of the Ruined King and go into the rest of the build, Infinity Edge and Rapid Firecannon for max damage RIGHT NOW.