Main Tree

Inspiration

First Strike



As the most important rune, there are several important things to remember when taking First Strike

The slow on your Lucent Singularity counts as starting combat and procs your First Strike, remember this as your E can last for 5 seconds on the ground but First Strike only lasts for 3.

You have to damage an enemy champion within 0.25 seconds of starting combat. Basically if you get hit you hit straight back.

You have 3 seconds after the first hit to pump any and all champions you see. These 3 seconds will give you a 10% damage buff, use it whilst you can.

After the 3 seconds 70% of the increased damage you did is turned into gold. This stacks up quickly. For example, if you hit a 3 man ultimate for 1.2k damage. You'll do 120 bonus damage equating to 84 bonus gold. From your ultimate alone, you still have 3 seconds after that to do damage.

Early game you definitely should try to keep the rune on cooldown as each hit is at least 6-7 gold, more if you get an attack off proccing your passive. It does mean you should watch for jungle ganks, if your jungler is coming in, hold off on using First Strike until you can burst whilst going for the kill.

Perfect Timing is a free 650g item, which counts as 250g towards your Zhonya's, the only other rune on this row you could consider is Magical Footwear. Lux's Binding root can get her some easy kills/assists early game making this more viable as each takedown takes 45 seconds off the 12 minute requirement for shoes. Don't take Footwear against an aggressive or hook matchup as you'll want your boots early in these situations.

Biscuit Delivery is another strong rune, restoring 10% of your MISSING hp and mana with another 50 mana on top. It's good to know that when you eat the biscuit you gain 50 flat mana straight away as well as the 10% regeneration, so you can multiple of them mid fight for a quick mana buff. Future's Market is the only other possible rune but I don't like the 50g lending fee, and with First Strike you should have gold for days anyway.

Cosmic Insight gives more item haste syngerising well with your Luden's Echo and Zhonya's, as well as your Ignite and Flash which can often set up or secure kills. Approach Velocity is good if you have an ADC that can help you utilise it. Such as Jhin, Senna, Ashe etc. Time Warp Tonic is only a 5% buff and you need to buy a potion to use it. Don't take it.

SECONDARY TREE

SORCERY

Manaflow Band is just free mana and mana regen. Lux is very mana heavy with her low cooldown spells, this allows you to spam them a lot more freely. If you're insane at mana management feel free to take Transcendence for the lower cooldowns

Scorch works really well with First Strike as it's an extra 15-35 damage, translating to an extra 11-25 gold. You could take Gathering Storm if you believe your early game is enough and you won't need the extra damage or gold however I prefer having the more lane control and more gold from First Strike.

Domination

Cheap Shot is a powerful rune on Lux but it's important to know how it works. A single E can proc it, even if it's instantly popped, as it slows before damaging. However, your Q will not proc it on it's own, it either needs an attack or an ability to hit them afterwards for the extra damage to hit. Works with First Strike giving bonus gold from the damage.

Eyeball Collection, the quicker you can stack this up, the stronger you become. At 10 kills or assists you gain an extra 30 AP, 2 per takedown and an extra 10 for finishing it. If you dominate your lane you can easily stack this up and possibly even finish it before the laning stage is over, especially if you're helping your jungler invade on top of this.

Ghost Poro and Zombie Ward are both nice alternatives to Eyeball if you fear your lane won't go well and you won't get any kills. They also provide more vision with their passives, overall I'd take Poro over Zombie Ward as it's down to you to stack it rather than leaving it down to the opponents who never ward anyway. Not only that but your teammates will sometimes steal your wards without letting you get a hit for Zombie Ward.

Ultimate Hunter helps you casts a bunch more ultimates, generally better early game rather than late, as if you've ever played Lux you know her ultimate has virtually no cooldown anyway later on. Stacking it can be a bit more difficult than Eyeball as you have to kill every enemy once rather than any enemies 10 times. Say the enemy top laner tunnel visions and only sits top, you're going to have to run up there to pay him a visit for your extra 5 ultimate ability haste.

Ingenious Hunter is not a rune I take very often but it can be super good in certain situations. It provides a LOT more item haste giving you way more Luden's procs as well as Zhonya's casts. Fully stacked your Zhonya's cooldown goes to 80 seconds! That's insanely low. It also works on any other active items you may buy like Mikael's Blessing if you're against a Malzahar and your cores won't buy QSS, or a Banshee's Veil which gets reduced to 27 second cooldown at max stacks.

Spellthief's Edge

Gives a bunch of AP for you to clap cheeks, gives you vision for your teammates to ignore, gives you an excuse to get aggressive and poke, it's the perfect support item.

Health Potion

Riot haven't broken the game enough to have spell lifesteal yet so you're going to need these for sustain, you can only start dying in the mid game.

Luden's Tempest

Gives 6 magic penetration and another 5 for each Legendary item you have, this includes your support item when fully finished. The active does 100 + 10% of your AP in damage which massivel helps you one shot enemy champions.

Liandry's Anguish

Whenever you hit an ability on an enemy Liandry's starts to tick for (15 + 1.5% AP) + 1% Max Health damage. The % based damage is why we grab Liandry's if the enemy has a lot of tanks. If your team has a natural Liandry's carrier (Shaco, Lillia, Brand.) then you can keep to the normal Luden's.

Sorcerer's Shoes

They make you fast, they give cheap magic pen, they're perfect. These are standard for most games you'll play as every champ in the game has some magic resistance. And with First Strike you'll be able to afford the extra 150g

Ionian Boots of Lucidity

Lets pretend, it'll never happened but lets pretend, you lost lane and you're behind. You can't proc First Strike so you're poor and have 0 items. These are 150g cheaper than Sorcerer's Shoes and give Ability Haste, so they can be a valuable pickup but I know you won't lose lane.

Mercury's Treads

If the enemy have a lot of CC, it can be worth picking these bad boys up letting you get at least 1 ability off before you die.

Zhonya's Hourglass

The be-all and end-all of AP items. Everyone who has one loves it, everyone who doesn't hates it, it'll save your life more times than you can count and it'll save the enemy stuck in your Q more times than you want it to. Plus it's 250g cheaper the the rune Perfect Timing. You can also bait greatly with this, if the enemy jumps on you, it gives your teammates 2 seconds to destroy them whilst you just sit there making a brew

Morellonomicon

You want your enemies to be 0 HP. They regen HP. This prevents 60% of HP regen. Therefore this is the most OP item in the game. Sometimes you should settle for just the Oblivion Orb for the 40% if your team is building anti heal already. But in low elo's getting this early can be really strong.

Horizon Focus

Horizon Focus is an insanely good item if procs even if your E slow touches them. It gives a 10% damage increase to the champ for the next 6 seconds which, when stacked with first strike, gives you a 20% damage buff for the first 3 seconds of combat. Letting you blow up people even quicker.

Void Staff

Eventually, after getting one shot enough times, your teammates will decide to build MR. Fear not, as this bypasses some of it and lets you keep pumping. If they build 6 items of MR it's not worth picking this up as they'll still have an insane amount of MR after the penetration. Go for some utility instead like anti heal, Zhonya's, Cosmic etc.

Cosmic Drive

Speak of Cosmic, and it shall arrive. Sometimes the enemy team is unkillable with a vendetta about your radiant booty. This'll help create a bigger gap, its passive means you get 20-10% (decaying) bonus movement speed whilst in combat after hitting 3 abilites or attacks. This can be a QER coombo or a QE auto. On top of that, it also gives 40 AP until combat ends, on top of the 75 AP for buying the item. It's a very valuable pickup in games against people who can survive your poke or when your team never wants to full commit as you'll get the most use out of the passive in these types of games.

Demonic Embrace

Deals % based damage making it really good against tanks. Also gives extra HP letting you survive for a little longer. I wouldn't pick this up unless you absolutely need it, it's much better to go for burst instead.

At this point you can sell your shoes if you don't need them, especially if you have Cosmic Drive as you'll have a semi-consistent movement speed buff. Final items to sell your shoes for are as follows:


Rabadon's Deathcap

The ultimate "support" item, you don't want anyone to even think they have a chance of surviving your combo. This item gets better the later you buy it since it provides a 35% AP bonus, the downside is it's super expensive and provides nothing other than pure damage so you better hit your abilities. Overall a high risk high reward pickup, which means less of a risk with your bonus first strike gold.

Banshee's Veil

Sometimes to be aggressive, you have to be defensive. This item still gives you a nice 80 AP and 10 Ability Haste, but it also gives 45 MR along with a spell shield. It can really help if you're getting blown up before you can blow people up, it also can give you enough time to react with Zhonya's or get off a Prismatic Barrier.

Shadowflame

One of the new items that came with the 11.23 patch, Shadowflame provides a lot of nice bonuses. You gain 10-20 magic penetration depending on the HP of the enemy champion (Max bonus gained at 1000HP or below) and also if the enemy has recently been affected by a shield you also gain the maximum of 20 magic penetration. Helps you chunk through Lockets, Karma's, Seraphines, and Morgana's Black Shield which any enchanter hates.

Elixir of Sorcery

More AP, more mana regen, and some cheeky true damage. Oof that's a nice potion. You can also buy this if you're defending/ending the game and don't have the money or room to buy a component

If you have any questions or tips, feel free to leave a comment below or join the Discord where I'm constantly available :) https://discord.gg/HK3P8gvKsr