Lucian Wild Rift Build & Guide

Innate Passive: Lightslinger

After using an ability, Lucian’s auto-attack strikes twice. The second attack deals 50% damage and can crit and apply on-hit effects. The second strike is considered a separate attack and it will also stack counters like Conqueror, Black Cleaver’s Sunder, and Braum’s Concussive Blows. 

Lucian’s passive sets him apart from other ADCs who rely heavily on auto-attacks. Lucian instead, needs to cast his abilities in between attacks to activate his passive and increase his DPS.

If you killed your target with the first shot, the second shot transfers to the nearest champion or other enemy units if a champion is not present.

Q | 1st Ability: Piercing Light

Lucian fires a laser in the target direction after a short delay and hits all enemies in a line. The laser extends over its casting distance by an equal amount.

Because of the firing delay, walking up to an enemy and casting it is usually disadvantageous, especially in the early game. The firing delay will allow the enemy to attack you or cast their abilities at you. It also grants them enough time to outplay the ability by using their dashes like Vayne’s Tumble or Ezreal’s Arcane Shift. 

One method to counteract the delay is to cast it on minions. This way, the enemy won’t have much time to react. Plus, the full range of Piercing Light is longer than most champion’s attacks and abilities and you are going to cast this so this method has little counterplay. If you have a hard time hitting enemy champions using this method, wait for them to come close to the wave when they are going to last hit minions. And, try to hide your intent by moving randomly. As if you move forward as they move forward, it will signal them to avoid your line of fire.

W | 2nd Ability: Ardent Blaze

Lucian fires a shot that explodes in a cross pattern. Enemies hit are briefly revealed and are marked. When marked enemies are damaged by Lucian or his allies, Lucian gains bonus movement speed.

Ardent Blaze fires at a faster rate compared to his 1st ability, Piercing Light. Because of this, this ability works best as an opener or to reactivate Lucian’s passive, Lightslinger.

Since Ardent Blaze fires in a cross pattern, you will be able to hit minions or enemies that you cannot normally reach with your auto-attacks.

In situations where you are chasing enemies, you can use Lucian’s 3rd ability, Relentless Pursuit to cancel the backswing animation of Ardent Blaze. The downside to this is that you will lose a Lightslinger proc. So, if you are close enough to your target enemy, do not do this as not to lose a sizable portion of your combo.

Always look to hit enemies with Ardent Blaze before casting Lucian’s ultimate, The Culling because the bonus movement speed will make it easier for you to land more shots on your target enemy champions.

E | 3rd Ability: Relentless Pursuit

Relentless Pursuit makes Lucian dash a short distance. Each hit of Lightslinger reduces this ability’s cooldown by 1 second, twice on champion hit so you can potentially reduce this ability’s cooldown by 4 seconds.

Relentless Pursuit in itself is just a simple dash. But combined with Lucian’s passive, Lightslinger, and its cooldown reduction mechanic, it becomes the very thing that makes Lucian so strong. With 25 ability haste, you will be able to almost reset it after just 2 abilities and with a full CDR build (150 ability haste – not recommendable – it is fun, though), you will be able to reset Relentless Pursuit with one Lightslinger proc.

Since Lucian’s auto-attack range is short, you have to take advantage of his mobility to freely hit enemies from behind your allies. When against melee champions, abuse walls to frustrate them.

R | Ultimate: The Culling

Lucian rapidly fires in a direction. Lucian can still move while firing and he can reposition himself using his 3rd ability, Relentless Pursuit, Flash, or Protobelt. 

The Culling is usually used to deal lots of damage from a distance to finish off fleeing enemies. Remember to cast Lucian’s 2nd ability, Ardent Blaze for the bonus movement speed so it will be easier to chase down your target and follow their movements as they try to sidestep their way out of your ultimate.

The Culling deals its damage at a slightly faster rate when used up close because of the shorter travel time. This is a double-edged sword of course since your enemy has more room to fight back because you are within their range as well.

The Culling can also be used at the start of fights, especially against crowd-controlled opponents or when fighting enemies in tight spots, especially in the jungle where they have less room to evade your ultimate. It rapidly applies Black Cleaver’s sunder passive because each hit registers as separate physical damage. Curiously, it does not do the same thing for Conqueror. 

The Culling can be stopped before its duration ends by pressing the button again. Immediately do this once the enemy manages to position themselves at an angle where your ultimate cannot hit and you have already exhausted your means of repositioning yourself. Most of the time, it is better to just end the ultimate early instead of burning Flash just to land a few more hits.

Try to target The Culling parallel to the enemy’s escape route so you can cover more ground and possibly land all hits on them.

Lucian’s combo revolves around maximizing his 3rd ability, Relentless Pursuit dashes. With at least 40 ability haste, you will be able to comfortably reset it every two procs of his passive, Lightslinger.