Hello girls, guys, trolls and dwarves !

Today, i'm gonna present you 2 ways to play Lulu support : one offensive way (aka "Harass me if you can") and one defensive way (aka "Noone dies on my team"). These are, of course, not the only known ways to play Lulu, but both are very effective, and presents the advantage of being easily playable. Indeed, carry seats are often the one that are rushed by pickups on random games, so knowing how to play support can assure you to always play on a seat you can master.

I tried to make this guide short, and easy to read. Feel free to comment and criticise it.

Enjoy reading !

Pros :

• One of the best harass a support can have
• Powerful armor skills
• Good movement speed ans escapes, to go in and out of fights
• Ability to easily counter jungle ganks
• Pix. Because Pix always wins

Cons :

• Squishy
• High cooldowns
• Hard to master
• Mana weakness on early game

As all supports, you can play Lulu in two ways :

• One is aggresive, and is based on strong harassing opposite team on laning phase. This build needs mana, and needs you to be quick and subtile. More difficult to play, but also a lot more efficient. If you want a really agressive build, you can switch your Glyph of Cooldown Reduction and Quintessence of Gold with ap glyphs and quints. But remember : you're playing support, and you'll need to make your skills accessible, and to buy a lot of stuff without farming.
  
• One is defensive, and consists on protecting your carry and make him easy to farm. You can play this way when the matchup is not in your favor, or against a very agressive opposite duo.
  It's the same build, but you can switch your Exhaust Skill with something more defensive like Heal.

Okay, you've got your starting items. If you took the defensive build, don't hesitate to take the first level of Help, Pix! as first skill. Like this, you can buff your jungler when you're pulling. If you're on agressive way, keep your mana and harass golem just with your auto-attack.

Once you're in your lane, you have 3 objectives :
- First, like every other support, you need to ward and deward the other team. The places to put wards depends on how the laning is going : if you're clearly winning, pink ward river near drake (it's useless to put a ward on there before 3:00/3:30, and you can leave it unwarded until 5:00 easily if the opposite team have got a late jungler, like Amumu). You can put green(or pink) wards on the bushes, like this you'll see your enemy's coming, and can counter other support harass.

- Secondly, you have to facilitate your carry's farming. Your Glitterlance allows you to damage many creeps in one shot, so use it on the creeps waves before they make contact with yours. Like this, when they arrive on your carry's area, he just have to shot one time to finish them.

- Thirdly, and thats the main point, you need to harass the opposite team. That's also why you need a cleary way into bushes : like this, you can secretly approach opposite carry and damage him with Glitterlance. Playing Lulu on laning phase consists on permanently harassing other team, making them backing, then coming back to creeps and damaging them for helping your carry to farm.

Your main goal on laning is to reach 520 Gold. With this, you can take your philosopher's stone and initiate your gold generation machine. Indeed, for a good warding, you'll need a lot of gold on early game(between 150 and 300, depending on how the lane is going).
With a good use of the Health Potion and Total Biscuit of Rejuvenation you took, and a savant placement on the bushes, you wont need to back before level 4. The main point is to synchronize the moment when your mana pool is empty with the one you reach 520 gold.

If you're using the gold masteries, you can take a Mana Potion on starting to increase your sustain and delaying the moment you will need to back.

It's very difficult with Lulu to reach level 6 without backing at least one time, because your wards wont hold all the time you need to. So backing around level 4, preferently when river is warded and your carry on comfortable situation, is pratically unavoidable.

One of the main reasons Lulu is a very good supports consists on her terrible potential in countering ganks. With a good warding on the river (near drake, or in the bush), you'll see the jungler coming. As soon as you see him, call your carry to back, shield him with Help, Pix!, then use Whimsy to transform the opposite jungler and make him impossible to fight for 1.5 secs.
The next action depends on what your carry decides : if he's running to the turret, run with him and secure your flee with Glitterlance, slowing the jungler and the opposite carry.
On the contrary, if your carry decides to attack, support him with slowing the opposite jungler with Glitterlance, then damaging him with autoattack. By the time Whimsy effect would be finished, the jungler should have lost at least 1/3 of his life.

If it's an late gank(after your level 6), use Wild Growth on you or on your carry(depending on how far of the turret each of you is) to knock the opposite team down, and breaking their gank.

Remember one thing : it's better to save your carry than to save you. So, if you both are stuck on a melee, always buff him first.


The strategy is approximately the same in teamfights : focus on your carrys, and also on your engager. On a character like Malphite or Amumu, don't hesitate to use Wild Growth on them(after their ulti) to double the time the opposite team will be down. In full teamfights, remember that you're not there to make damages, but to buff your allies and slow the opposite team. Either if you're winning or losing the fight, Glitterlance should be used to slow a run and not really to make a lot a damage. As a support, you're not built to kill, and making to much damages will just make the opposite team focus on you.

One of the greates advantage of Lulu is her Whimsy, which represents also a good escape and a good chase skill. You can combine it with a Shurelya's Battlesong and a Shard of True Ice to slow or incapacitate the enemy team, helping a carry to finish a kill or making a flee easier.

As always, the rule is simple : if you can make your all team run with Shurelya, use it, but if you can just make one player to run, always prefer your carries to you.

Sona
Her range is much more larger than yours, and her heal can easily cancel all your harass. Against a character like that, you'll need prudence and discretion. Use the bushes to launch your harasses and focus on your carry's farming. Against Sona, you can use pink wards all the time : indeed, as you're dewarding the bushes, she won't be able to see you, so her waves won't hurt you. She also very squishy, so a good harassing will make her back, or at least empty her mana pool very quicly to heal herself and her carry.

Soraka
This consists in one word : silence. As Soraka can silence you easily, she can make the way very easy to her jungler to gank. She can cancel Whimsy and shields, which are your main weapons in teamfights and against ganks. Like Sona, the good way to counter is to have a good warding, an always stay out of range from her.

As a support, your main problem is to farm without killing minions. For this, you have to combine masteries, runes and stuff.

• Greed and Quintessence of Gold : 5 gold/10 secs
• Philosopher's stone : 5 gold/10 secs
• Kage's lucky pick : 4 gold/10 secs

These 3 items makes a production of 84 gold/min, which corresponds to ~3/4 creeps. Without being as efficient as a carry farming, it should allow you to be comfortable with your stuff route.

One way to gain free gold is to finish of creeps when your carry's backing or dead. Like this, you can easily make ~200 gold more.

One way to spill less money is to rush Sightstone on early build instead of philosopher's stone. This way, you won't need to buy additional green wards on laning. In a game that requires much attention to counter the opposite duo and jungler(and so requires intensive warding), it will represent a great economy of money.

• 1/7/13 : Change CD glyphs -> MR scaling glyphs
• 24/6/13 : First publication