Hey guys, welcome to my AP lucian guide, those familiar with my guides already know, I'm not here to troll and waste your time. These are in depth guides explaining everything I've learned up to this point playing around with off meta builds. So I'm here to showcase my coveted AP lucian. I'm asked all the time, how I get it to work, here it is, after many, many games of trial and error. So gear up and let's dive into AP lucian

Ap lucian has different strengths and weaknesses to AD lucian, while classic AD lucian is pretty bursty, he has to get into the thick of things and the normal builds don't provide you with too much sustain until late game.
AP lucian on the other hand, while dealing less consistent damage, has a much higher range for a much safer play style, and hits his spikes much earlier yet still retains a lot of the same late game burst, so if you're looking for a mobile, poke mage, with incredible waveclear, high sustained damage, and objective control, then lets move on...

Pros
+ Mobile
+ low mana costs
+ high base damages(requiring less strict itemization)
+ incredible waveclear
+ strong harass
+ long range AOE
+ strong self peel
+ high lane presence
+ great roaming capabilities
+ good trades due to doubleshot

Cons
- squishy if caught
- high early game CD's (mostly offset by build)
- skill shot based

Lightslinger is Lucians passive and is pretty simple, basically after using an ability, lucian shoots two shots into the nearest selected target, the first shot dealing full damage and the second shot dealing 40-60% of lucians AD based on level. This passive makes lucian super fun to play, but is also the reason you play AP lucian as a skirmish mage. This passive synergizes so well with the rest of lucians kit and even the build. Hello Sheen. after all it applies on hit effects, so even though we're not getting use from the AD scaling, we can still use this passive to our advantage


Piercing Light is Lucian's Q, lucian shoots a beam of light through his targeted enemy that hits all enemies in a straight line behind the first. This ability is much stronger than you think on AP lucian, not only is it more combo damage, and a free lightslinger proc]] it also deals physical damage, with a high base amount too 85-225, allowing us to have mixed damage into our damage output, synergizing very well with the autoattacks we weave into our combo.


Ardent Blaze is Lucian's W and how incredibly strong it is, Lucian shoots a skill shot that explodes into a star shape, dealing Aoe damage in a pretty decent radius but this spell scales to a wonderful 90% AP. Because of the explosion you can even harass your opponents hiding behind the creep wave, you can even shoot it at an angle to hit enemies at odd angles (think Vel-koz). This ability gets better though. on top of the incredibly high scaling for an AOE spell. enemies struck are also marked, basic attacks by you or even your allies on a marked target give lucian a very decent speed boost. so not only do you have a spell that gives you incredible magic burst, it also speeds you up, allowing you to self peel and kite, or chase down enemies, yes this works on minions too, and best of all you can keep proccing the mark as your basic attacks do not consume it.
you're going to want to max this first


Relentless Pursuit is Lucian's mobility spell, pretty simple lucian just dashes a short distance in any direction. This ability becomes a scary tool in your kit as the game progresses, not only can you lower the cooldown with CDR but it also gets it's cooldown reduced by one second for each Lightslinger proc on an enemy champion, one full proc is 2 seconds reduced, a full combo is 6 seconds reduced, 8 with your ult. Better even still, while starting out with a measly 40 mana cost, at max level this drops to 0, yes it's a free spell at level 5, the scaling of this ability is usually why I try to max it second. as end game it's essentially on a 2-3 second cooldown with no mana cost, and while it technically does no damage, if you land the Lightslinger proc with Sheen you're still looking at 300-400 damage.


The Culling is Lucians ultimate ability, and I say that in every sense of the word
lucian shoots 20/25/30 shots in a straight line, each shot dealing their own damage to the first enemy struck. lucian can move freely throughout the channeled duration but can not change directions until the ability ends. The culling is an incredible multi use tool that deals amazing damage. when you get it at level 6 you're doing 600 damage minimum, which is very very high for a lvl 1 ultimate. the only downside is you may not deal all 600 damage to the same target but dont worry because by end game even with only 600 ap lucians ultimate can deal up to 3,300 damage around 110 per individual shot. In this CDR rush build, though feel free to use The Culling to do whatever you want, take blue buff, push your wave, or ult the enemy team. because end game the CD with this build is only 51 seconds, less than a minute for 3.300 damage, you can choose to pump it into their front line and send him home crying, or divide the damage over their entire team, should they choose to scatter.

while there are a few viable options for ap lucian as far as runes go, I'm just going to cover the page I run, and why I choose to run it. I could go on for a while on my thoughts on each and every rune, but if you're curious you can hover over their rune text for a description...These are just my thoughts on these particular runes.

Domination
the new rune system did leave a few options for AP lucian, but after lots of trial and error I settled on the Domination page as my primary because of lucians early strengths, I feel like this is the best tree to cover his weaknesses and push his strong points in the early game.


Electrocute Is in my opinion on AP lucian, the best damaging keystone, you could run, and for a skirmish mage, you need a damaging keystone. while unlike thunderlord's decree from the old patch electrocute does not work off of Lucian's passive anymore. But the damage it provides in trades is still much more reliable than the other choices, while still scaling pretty well into late game. I choose to run it because the other damaging keystones are just lackluster to the ranged playstyle.


Sudden Impact is a great combination with Relentless Pursuit and thanks to the scaling CDR and no mana cost, it just becomes free stats late game, not to mention the boost it gives to your damage early game. because of Light Slinger just dashing can give your next combo a very large difference in burst by reducing a large chunk of the enemies early armor or magic resist.


While the vision options in alternative to Eyeball Collection are pretty good, I much prefer to take the ap boost to boost early damages, since this is a CDR rush build, the early AP from destroying a few wards, or a first blood helps much more than you think.


Relentless Hunter is the only viable option for AP lucian from the bottom tier, but while the stats it provides aren't amazing, it does synergize well with the passive from Ardent Blaze and allows lucian to peel or chase a little easier.

Sorcery
After running through all of the usual suspects in the other trees, I found I wasn't quite happy with what they had to offer to a spell slinging rapid fire mage, Lucian thrives well in one on ones, and for that reason needs to have maximum uptime in his mixed damage. I chose to run the sorcery tree as my secondary, just to push that CDR over the edge.


The Ultimate Hat really centers this build and puts the icing on the cake, allowing us to knock 8 additional seconds off of Lucian's ultimate, chopping it down to a measly 51 seconds. and while you can actually knock one second off of that by switching trees and going with Cosmic Insight I don't like the other options that tree offers and you miss out on..


Transcendence works out so perfectly in this build, because it grants you the free 10% CDR at the time right inbetween your last item, allowing you to hit that 40% CDR one item earlier than normal. And when you buy your last item it converts that 10% excess CDR into 10 AP.

After Thoughts
While the comet deals a more reliable form of damage, remember you don't have slows and comet has a delay, so you'll probably end up not getting the damage 90% of the time. Scorch while I think it certainly a decent option, it postpones your first spike which is the 40% CDR and trust me after a lot of trial and error, it's very important you hit that as soon as possible. Manaflow Band is wasted stats on lucians low mana costs and the entire Precision tree is based off of teamfight champions, while lucian can dump damage into a teamfight,he's better at one v ones and zoning the enemies out so you'll rarely get to take advantage of the stats and sustain it offers. so while you lose a little teamfight pressure.

you gain in immense amount of lane and objective control, and early power spikes which send you soaring with easy through the mid game, into an unstoppable snowballing Jack of all trades .

This is the most important section in this build, and probably the whole reason you clicked on it to be honest. Many games of trial and error went into the forming of this build, which is why you might see another AP lucian, and they might be successful, but they just can't be this consistently successful.

Starting Shop

for the mid lane the yellow trinket or the Stealth Ward is the best starting trinket, and because of his low cooldowns, I usually just end up keeping it the whole game rather than buying the usual farsight, as I find myself just using Ardent Blaze as my bush checker. keep yourself warded in the early game, as Relentless Pursuit is your only escape tool and it's not much of a good one


because of the new adaptive starts champions have, it's basically impossible for Lucian to start anything other than Doran's Ring otherwise you start the game with 0 AP, while you could run Amplifying Tome you run the risk of getting out sustained, as the Ring provides you with health, mana regen AP and 4 mana on minion kill, which allows for a really balanced start


as I said above it's much better to start the game with a couple of these to heal back from the damage you will inevitably take. They will allow you the safety net knowing you can take a risk or two, and still have the ability to stay in lane for just a little longer.

First Buy

The first item I get in most situations is the Sheen not only because the passive works perfectly with Light Slinger but also for the first 10% CDR and the 250 mana.


The Fiendish Codex is pretty simple, it gives you 30 AP and another 10% CDR
I usually try to make sure I dont go back to base until I can afford both of these items, as it's a combined
20% CDR and it gives you a little AP to work off of. level one harrasing with just Ardent Blaze isn't worth it until you get the codex


The next time I shop, I make sure I have enough to buy the Ionian Boots of Lucidity for the obvious mobility they provide but more importantly the additional 10% CDR, bringing you up to 30%
And remember, right about now, Transcendence should be kicking in to cap you at 40%
40% at level 10...yeah.


While at the shop buying your boots, you should also grab your stinger, I love the spike this item gives to your waveclear, and your trades, as the 35% ATK speed it provides makes a huge difference. not only in your ability to last hit but in your trades as well, due to Lucians innately high base atk speed. And dont think that this is just a wasted stat item because thanks to Transcendence it also gives you 10 AP as well, which while not a huge amount, is basically just free gold worth of stats.
and thats it, thats your first powerspike at about the 8 minute mark,

Next goal


you already have the components now just go ahead and finish it out. The first full item you want to rush is the Nashor's Tooth and it really gets your ball rolling, giving you 15% more atk speed, 80 AP, and on hit damage with works so well with the Sheen and your Light Slinger passive as both shots will proc the 15(+15%AP) on hit damage


The Lich Bane is the next item you want to finish, also giving you 80 AP and 7% movement speed which combines with Relentless Hunter and Ardent Blaze to give you a very good amount of movement speed during fights. Lich Bane works so well with Light Slinger it's almost mean to be, while it wont proc the Moonflair Spellblade twice it's still bonus damage on top of your bonus damage

While you do finish your first two items, I don't consider this quite a power "spike" there's still something missing


I'm counting this as the next item you want to buy because once you purchase the Haunting Guise that's when you feel your second power spike, This item gives you everything you're missing up to this point and flawlessly fills the gap you needed to stay healthy into the rest of your build, providing you with 200 health, a dash of AP and a much needed 15 flat magic pen. This item concretes your mixed damage at a very good point in the game.


Since you have the guise already, go ahead and finish Liandry's Torment it gives you even more health, a good bit of ap, and the %hp burn passive (while we dont have slows to make full use of it) really tears tanks apart since your rapid fire playstyle constantly resets the damage burn.

The next items I get are the big ticket AP boosts.


Up until now we've only gotten small AP boosts here and there, because of the mixed damage and low CD's we've been able to keep our damage relevant but the Rabadon's Deathcap is where we really start to feel OP. It's a huge power spike in itself


Luden's Tempest is the kind of item that pushes your strengths even farther, adding a nice boost of AP, even more moventspeed, which is invaluable to a skirmisher, and even more AOE damage on top of your AOE damage


Defensive Items
There are two options in defensive items for two different situations.


the Hextech Gunblade is an item that I really wish I could work into this build every time, and trust me I've tried. As a mixed damage mage, it sounds great to to get AD and AP and for a skirmisher the Active slow and damage is amazing. The downside of rushing this item is the lack of clear direction it chooses. it's a very expensive bundle of stats made for assassins. The reason it's on here for a defensive item is because the passive healing works really well with the rapid fire style and works amazing with The Culling casting ult once can heal almost 3/4 of your health
if you find yourself late game in extended teamfights, I'm talking fights that keep dragging on, and your health is slowly getting whittled away pick up the gunblade. it will keep you in the fights longer

on the other hand

Zhonya's Hourglass is what you want if you keep getting instantly popped by enemy assassins. the stasis plus low cooldowns allows you to dash in, dump your spells and get out, while offering AP and armor to help negate some of the enemy damage. but really it's situational, and I don't normally run it.

after you hit your 40% CDR cap, if you find yourself with extra gold to spend go ahead and sell your ionians for the sorcerer's shoes, as the 15 magic pen really puts a damper on the enemy front lines day, combine that with the 15 also from Haunting Guise and you're negating an entire items worth of magic resist

Less Viable options

The Morellonomicon is an extremely common rush on most mages, but it doesn't pop out any of your strengths, you're going to find yourself coming out lackluster in trades and your overall combo output goes down, significantly pushing back your first two item spike

Abyssal Mask is a possible defensive item against a lot of magic burst, but because you're mixed damage, you dont get much use off of the magic resist debuff it offers

Banshee's Veil can be decent if you're against a team with a lot of cc but it doesn't offer too much else besides it's spell shield, and being forced to buy this item really reduces the overall damage output

Ok, so we've gone over the abilities and the build, but how to we make the magic happen? How to we put it to work?

AP Lucian is a mixed damage skirmisher, with massive contributions in zone control, wave management and AOE damage, But he's a snowballing mid game champ. to get to that point you need gold.

Laning Phase

your first main goal is gold, all that should be on your mind is that 40% CDR at level 10 which is an incredible spike just a few levels after your ult. with your decent poke you can harass your enemies while last hitting with ease. But in these crucial early levels don't worry about trying to bully. Lucian is very good at zone control and farming, so focus on just that. until you can buy your first two items which you'll need right around 2,000g

early trading
it will inevitably happen, maybe your enemy wants to trade, maybe they've overstepped and are out of place
you can begin trading at level 2 or as soon as you have Relentless Pursuit as it can be used to dodge abilities and counter attack with Lightslinger
once you're level 3 and have your full kit, you can begin punishing your enemies, but try to keep away from trading, instead zone them from their creeps, because your abilities can penetrate the wave, you are very good at scaring the enemy away.

level 6
With your waveclear feel free to push the wave then look for other opportunities, with your mobility and your ultimate, you are a pretty good threat to other lanes by means of offering ganks. coordinate with your jungler, or go solo, but do not, sacrifice gold, do not leave your wave exposed, you want to hit this 40% cdr asap

first spike
at this point, once you've hit your 40% CDR you can now start punishing your mid lane, your ult is up every 50 seconds, and your Lightslinger Sheen Nashor's Tooth combo destroys towers. At this point, you want to split push, farm and split push until you have your Liandry's Torment, by doing this you offer your top laner a chanced to front line for early teamfights, and you open up objective control by pushing your vision to their side of the map.

once you hit your second item spike with liandry's
group with your team, look to push into towers, you can destroy a front line and push the enemy back in the blink of an eye.

Teamfighting
Here's what you're all wondering, yeah split push, but how do I carry?
zoning
when the teamfight break out, you want to focus one target at a time, and split the enemies up, because of the rapid fire abilities, you can easily force certain enemies away from their allies, either witch damage, or just the fear of damage. And once you have a pick, that's when you shine, AP lucian can 1v1 like the devil, even in teamfights.
on the other hand, say you're on the retreat, you can either peel yourself with your ultimate or do the same, try to focus one enemy and kite them, Lucian is very good at kiting with the movement speed passive and the reposition from Relentless Pursuit

remember you are really good at siege-ing, so take advantage of that in the late game

Light Slinger
* your passive will proc after every single ability you cast, even your ultimate
take advantage of this during fights and trades as it gives you up to 8 extra shots
* think about Sheen CD when using your passive, waiting in between abilities can really take advantage of sheen's uptime
* it's a great tool to help you clear waves, and last hit, if you're not sure about a last hit, be safe and use Light Slinger to secure the gold
* remember the bonus damage from Nashor's Tooth applies to both shots, take advantage of this when killing towers or even trading


* saving this for when your opponent goes in to last hit, can really punish them for hiding behind their creep wave
* Piercing light stops your movement for a split second, when kiting keep this in mind, as using this ability may actually give the enemy an upper hand
* if cast on the back line, you can extend the range quite a bit, to hit farther enemies
* if you can't reach your enemy with it, cast it on a minion, as you can still make use of your double shot passive


* keep track of the explosion radius as you can tag your enemies while hitting the creeps
* the farthest point from the explosion actually goes just a little passed the range indicator
* if in need of a movement speed to chase or escape , remember the mark from Ardent Blaze Can proc off of minions too. autoattacking marked minions can give you the boost you need
*stay unpredictable by constantly casting it at different angles, your enemies will learn to walk between the explosion points when they see it coming
*the large blast radius makes it ideal for checking bushes
* keep in mind it stops on the first target hit, make sure creeps aren't in your way
*remember your allies autoattacks count towards the proc to speed you up too, use this to close an otherwise unclosable gap, or gain some distance if need be


* using this as a counter attack can catch many enemies off guard, instead of dodging away from them, dodge their ability but move towards them, it gets you in range to hit them with your combo, while they are an ability or two down.
* you can use this to extend the range of Ardent Blaze by quite a bit with Relentless Pursuit> Ardent Blaze you can get a little extra distance to secure that kill... on the same note, you can also use it to dash passed or to the side of the minion wave for a clear shot of Ardent Blaze
* Remember while the dash distance is short, you can use this to dash over small walls
* combined with Sheen Nashor's Tooth and Light Slinger, just using it to proc your passive can turn it into a very potent damaging ability.
* When kiting remember Light Slinger shots lower the cooldown
* Cast it first to start your combo, as the rest of your combo, will lower it's cooldown
*try to Queue your next abilities or auto attack before casting, as can close up an gaps in your combo allowing for quick damage and also keeps you unpredictable
(you can do this by auto-ing or casting abilities just out of their range, so when you dash into that range, they will instantly cast.
* Saving your dash till the last second can bait an enemy into wasting abilities or out of place, for you to counter with your own combo


* If you need to back, wait for the enemies wave to just arrive at lane for you to ult it, your enemy will not get in the way as to avoid damage, and you will be able to instantly push their wave into tower using that next 30 seconds to safely back without losing a single creep.
* Remember you can Cancel your ultimate early, which usually throws the enemy off guard.
* cancelling early still allows you to use your passive instantly
* you can use Flash and Relentless Pursuit while channeling, and can even go over walls, while mid ult or to extend your range by a very large amount
Relentless Pursuit > The Culling
* shots from your ult while not counted as an auto-attack do still proc the movement speed from ardent blaze. Hitting an enemy with ardent blaze into your ultimate allows you to be much stickier should they try to move out of the way, before casting your ultimate always try to tag the enemy with Ardent blaze for this reason Ardent Blaze > The Culling
*for an even bigger burst, cast The Culling while ardent blaze is still airborne
* don't be afraid to use this ult whenever you have it up, it comes back every 51 seconds
* starting the fight with this ability is a great way to clear the wave for your allies
* you can use the fear of the damage to, part the sea sort of speak, cast this down the center of the teamfight to split your enemies up into easier to deal with groups for your team. or zone an enemy out so you can 1v1 them.

This applies to all abilities
*when taking towers, don't destroy the minion wave right away, by rotating your abilities on the creeps, and on combination with Sheen uptime, you can use Light Slinger passive to it's maximum potential, in other words, taking your time on the tower, will result in much more damage, on it..you can use this same principal in 1v1, by slowing down and spacing your abilities out, you can counter attack much better, keeping a clear head and taking advantage of your passive's full potential.

* by weaving your spells and autoattacks you actually become a very reliable source of mixed damage for your team, so stick close to your front line but more towards the edge, in fights, so your team can take advantage of your mixed damage

Lucian is more poke harass but in trades your basic level 2 combo should be
(wait for an enemy to use an ability so you can counter)
Dodge the ability towards the enemy with
Relentless Pursuit> Light Slinger> Ardent Blaze>> Electrocute

very rarely will you get to unleash your full combo rotation because in the early game, your rotation will be mainly used when you're kiting. but it would look something like this
Relentless Pursuit> Light Slinger> Piercing Light> Light Slinger> Ardent Blaze> Light Slinger> The Culling
if the enemy dodges out of The Culling it's better for you to just cancel it early to get the Sheen/ Light Slinger proc
The Culling> Cancel< Light Slinger

like I said your full rotation will be very rare, as you mostly just use abilities as soon as they come up, your combo is always different but in all situations, if possible you always want to combo, Ardent Blaze(immediate) The Culling if done right, ardent blaze will hit the enemy at the same time as your first culling shot, resulting in a very decent and unexpected burst.

That just about wraps up this guide, and all know about AP Lucian. I hope this guide was fun, but more importantly I hope you learned something. Keep in mind while you may get flamed or called a troll this is not a Troll guide. I am confident enough in this that I take it to ranked with me all the time, and while I'm not saying I'm a great league player, I know enough to know that this build is certainly viable, with the unique strengths it can offer.
If I missed anything, or if you have any questions as usual feel free to leave a comment, I check quite frequently and would be happy to hear your input. but I'm sure you're ready to rock the rift, so get out there and surprise your enemies, carry your team, and show the ranked meta just how Powerful it can be to break it.

-Prenora