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[Flying Dice]

1. She's already viable in multiple lanes. The nerf is aimed at removing that viability, not adding it.

2. Who said anything about "significant skill changes"? Okay, there's an issue with her E-ing onto minions for really long-ranged Glitterlance shots. How about this: Change Help, Pix! so that it can only be cast on champions. Bingo, no more multi-staged poke. She can still poke with Q, but a single long-range ability is hardly unique (though for some reason it suddenly becomes boring and unacceptable when it's part of a "support's" kit), and now Lulu players have to get within 650 range to land a full combo, which is well inside the nuking range of most ranged midlaners.


Seriously, this is about the point where we need an image of an ADC asking why all their friends have to stay in a ghetto.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

[frostshotgg]

Wait, wait.

"[Insert champion here] has mechanics that suit them for x and y types of lane. They're a bit too good in y lane, and their mechanics are kind of boring there, so let's remove a big chunk of [part of their kit suited for y lane] instead of tweaking them to be more interesting there without changing the style of their x play."

"That doesn't sound like you're trying to force them to stay in x lane at all, no sir."

Stop putting words in other people's mouths so you can make stupid pundits. If you don't think "Make the stupid crap stop" is a valid goal, then you really need to reconsider how game design works. There's absolutely nothing innately desirable about champs that can go in multiple positions.

Let me repeat, because you don't quite seem to grasp the concept the previous times I've said it.

In terms of game design and balance, there is nothing innately valuable about a character that can go in multiple positions. If the state of the game dictates that a character's alternate place is overpowered or otherwise bad for gameplay, then the character can and should be brought into line, either by being nerfed or by sweeping buffs on everything that competes, regardless of whether that's the characters intended role or what impact it may have on other roles.

The fact that you're focusing so much on Lulu's nerfs show how little you actually care beyond trying to make some stupid argument that "omg riot hates supports". Literally, the exact same thing happened to Gragas this patch. Why aren't you complaining about that? Explain your double standard please, as well as why you think it's so critical characters be capable of going in multiple places.

[penguinofhonor]

In terms of game design and balance, there is nothing innately valuable about a character that can go in multiple positions. If the state of the game dictates that a character's alternate place is overpowered or otherwise bad for gameplay, then the character can and should be brought into line, either by being nerfed or by sweeping buffs on everything that competes, regardless of whether that's the characters intended role or what impact it may have on other roles.

I'd say "It's something a significant number of players value and think is fun" is a positive game design wise. Yeah, maybe nobody has thought of a cool game design term to talk about it yet but it's obvious that a lot of players like off builds. I think any good game designer would agree that giving players things they want is good as long as those things don't have greater negative effects elsewhere (AP Tryndamere, etc).

1. She's already viable in multiple lanes. The nerf is aimed at removing that viability, not adding it.

She was overpowered in mid. The nerf was aimed at removing some of the power that made her overpowered. Nerfing something does not automatically make it bad. Considering the things Riot has explicitly said about to the contrary (that I assume you've dismissed as either incompetent babble or deceit to hide their secret anti-support agenda), I really doubt their intention is to remove her viability entirely.

[Flying Dice]

What I was saying was that, unless I'm wildly missing the mark, the major complaint was that Lulu could E onto a minion and then Q from that for free harass. I understand reducing the duration that Pix sticks on targets. I would understand preventing Pix from being targeted at non-champions. I would understand nerfing Glitterlance. I would, in fact, agree with all of those.

What I don't understand is why the damage nerf on the E was necessary. It and Whimsy both have very short ranges compared to a lot of other AP casters--which is fair enough, considering that they aren't skillshots--but which also means that for anything other than Q poke you have to be very close. I completely agree that her in-lane poke potential needs to be reduced, but nerfing the E damage doesn't affect that. If a Lulu gets close enough to land E on an enemy champ, they've been inside the range of most midlaners for at least a second or two already, so as far as I can see the only affect that reduced E damage will have is on her dueling potential.

In other words, nerfing E damage just reduces the risk for people all-inning a Lulu, rather than reducing the overpowered elements of her kit.

But of course I'm just a crazy conspiracy theorist who blindly screams about nerfs every time something doesn't make sense. Balance changes are good when they do what they're nominally attempting to do. Who knows, maybe nerfing E damage will somehow prevent Q poke and the E-bridging off of minions thereof. Maybe I'll have to eat my boots.

[Skyrunner]

In my experience, before items Lulu can walk into range and QQQQQQ the enemy laner to death. It hurts, too. Also, at 6 Lulu's +X HP (rather than heal, gain) plus knockup is very strong.

[penguinofhonor]

What I was saying was that, unless I'm wildly missing the mark, the major complaint was that Lulu could E onto a minion and then Q from that for free harass. I understand reducing the duration that Pix sticks on targets. I would understand preventing Pix from being targeted at non-champions. I would understand nerfing Glitterlance. I would, in fact, agree with all of those.

What I don't understand is why the damage nerf on the E was necessary. It and Whimsy both have very short ranges compared to a lot of other AP casters--which is fair enough, considering that they aren't skillshots--but which also means that for anything other than Q poke you have to be very close. I completely agree that her in-lane poke potential needs to be reduced, but nerfing the E damage doesn't affect that. If a Lulu gets close enough to land E on an enemy champ, they've been inside the range of most midlaners for at least a second or two already, so as far as I can see the only affect that reduced E damage will have is on her dueling potential.

In other words, nerfing E damage just reduces the risk for people all-inning a Lulu, rather than reducing the overpowered elements of her kit.

But of course I'm just a crazy conspiracy theorist who blindly screams about nerfs every time something doesn't make sense. Balance changes are good when they do what they're nominally attempting to do. Who knows, maybe nerfing E damage will somehow prevent Q poke and the E-bridging off of minions thereof. Maybe I'll have to eat my boots.

Hey, I said you were either going to dismiss it by conspiracy theory or incompetence and you went with incompetence. You've repeatedly made assumptions about the intentions of Riot's balance team that explicitly contradict what they've said about their intentions. So you must either believe that they're lying, meaning that there's a conspiracy to hide their secret anti-support goals, or that they're too incompetent to actually achieve their goals.

This post really proves it's the latter, though. If you really don't think they tried the simple, obvious change that you thought up, what do you think they do? Do they just spin a dartboard? They're seeing the same game as you and the same complaints as you - the first thing that popped into your head was probably the first thing that popped into theirs, unless you think they're too dumb to see it.

[DemonOfWrath]

What I was saying was that, unless I'm wildly missing the mark, the major complaint was that Lulu could E onto a minion and then Q from that for free harass. I understand reducing the duration that Pix sticks on targets. I would understand preventing Pix from being targeted at non-champions. I would understand nerfing Glitterlance. I would, in fact, agree with all of those.

What I don't understand is why the damage nerf on the E was necessary. It and Whimsy both have very short ranges compared to a lot of other AP casters--which is fair enough, considering that they aren't skillshots--but which also means that for anything other than Q poke you have to be very close. I completely agree that her in-lane poke potential needs to be reduced, but nerfing the E damage doesn't affect that. If a Lulu gets close enough to land E on an enemy champ, they've been inside the range of most midlaners for at least a second or two already, so as far as I can see the only affect that reduced E damage will have is on her dueling potential.

In other words, nerfing E damage just reduces the risk for people all-inning a Lulu, rather than reducing the overpowered elements of her kit.

But of course I'm just a crazy conspiracy theorist who blindly screams about nerfs every time something doesn't make sense. Balance changes are good when they do what they're nominally attempting to do. Who knows, maybe nerfing E damage will somehow prevent Q poke and the E-bridging off of minions thereof. Maybe I'll have to eat my boots.

Actually the complaint with Lulu is that if she Es a champ (not a minion) she has enough time with Pix on them to fire 2 glitterlances (with some CDR), which equates into massive free poke (because dodging a point-blank glitterlance is damn hard) if they step into E range, so they nerfed the duration Pix stays on something so that you can only get one glitterlance off (the shield on minions change was odd though from a support POV). She also has a huge movespeed buff remember, so getting into range and out again quickly isn't that difficult.

From the point of someone who's played more support Lulu than anything else I don't see much to complain about. It tones down the huge amount of easy poke she gets in midlane without affecting support by much at all, since they typically don't have the CDR and mana regen to sustain the harass patterns a mid Lulu can do.

[Arcvasti]

 

What I was saying was that, unless I'm wildly missing the mark, the major complaint was that Lulu could E onto a minion and then Q from that for free harass. I understand reducing the duration that Pix sticks on targets. I would understand preventing Pix from being targeted at non-champions. I would understand nerfing Glitterlance. I would, in fact, agree with all of those.

What I don't understand is why the damage nerf on the E was necessary. It and Whimsy both have very short ranges compared to a lot of other AP casters--which is fair enough, considering that they aren't skillshots--but which also means that for anything other than Q poke you have to be very close. I completely agree that her in-lane poke potential needs to be reduced, but nerfing the E damage doesn't affect that. If a Lulu gets close enough to land E on an enemy champ, they've been inside the range of most midlaners for at least a second or two already, so as far as I can see the only affect that reduced E damage will have is on her dueling potential.

In other words, nerfing E damage just reduces the risk for people all-inning a Lulu, rather than reducing the overpowered elements of her kit.

But of course I'm just a crazy conspiracy theorist who blindly screams about nerfs every time something doesn't make sense. Balance changes are good when they do what they're nominally attempting to do. Who knows, maybe nerfing E damage will somehow prevent Q poke and the E-bridging off of minions thereof. Maybe I'll have to eat my boots.

Actually the complaint with Lulu is that if she Es a champ (not a minion) she has enough time with Pix on them to fire 2 glitterlances (with some CDR), which equates into massive free poke (because dodging a point-blank glitterlance is damn hard) if they step into E range, so they nerfed the duration Pix stays on something so that you can only get one glitterlance off (the shield on minions change was odd though from a support POV). She also has a huge movespeed buff remember, so getting into range and out again quickly isn't that difficult.

From the point of someone who's played more support Lulu than anything else I don't see much to complain about. It tones down the huge amount of easy poke she gets in midlane without affecting support by much at all, since they typically don't have the CDR and mana regen to sustain the harass patterns a mid Lulu can do.

I think the removal of the shield on allied minions was to encourage more counterplay. Killing the minion would remove Pix from it so Lulu can't fire off a Q from it at you. Before, the large shield prevented you from doing that. I'm pretty happy with these changes, playing support Lulu a lot. I might consider maxing W over E now. And I'm sure my allies will be fine with me KSing them a bit less with instant nukes. I haven't played support Lulu since the new patch, so maybe I'll recant my current views later, but it seems like their nerfs were decently well applied to the problem areas with minimal collateral damage. I might disagree with support Lulu lacking CDR and Mana Regen as I get an Athenes Unholy Grail as one of my first items[After Sightstone of course], but I suppose mid Lulu would get that quicker having the ability to CS freely. Actually, the best nerf to mid Lulu[IMHO] might just be having her Q do 75% damage or something like that to minions. That way her really good wave-clear would be lessened. Which is probably good since I've heard mid Lulu is nasty.

[DemonOfWrath]

Yep, I of course meant that in terms of speed in getting the items, as a support almost certainly won't get Athene's before laning is over without sacrificing wards/potions, while a mid Lulu can easily get that and some spell penetration during laning.

I suppose that might be why they want to remove the shield, but being able to screw with opponent's CSing and letting minions take extra tower shots were very nice subtle options.

[Flying Dice]

See, that's what I'm talking about. Things like that make sense and add depth to play and counterplay, cutting nearly a third of the base damage from the E doesn't. My point was and remains that there are a multitude of ways to deal with the issue that are both more interesting and more relevant--like, as mentioned, removing the minion shield and reducing the follow duration. The only point where the E's direct damage becomes important is for an all-in, otherwise it's tangental at best to the real issue of her Q and the way the E mechanics facilitate it.

tl;dr: Balance changes that make the game boring without doing what they're apparently intended to are bad.

want to make sure that the reasons for choosing her weren't due to her low-interaction (and high-obnoxiousness) lane harass pattern where she can get instant damage with Help, Pix! before following it up with two high-powered guaranteed Glitterlances

There are two issues mentioned here: the E damage which requires the player to get close enough to land it, and the Q, which is much easier to land, both directly by shooting it through the wave and after landing E. The E damage by itself is decent, but hardly outside the norm for trading in midlane; the Q damage by itself is much the same. Ergo, the real issue is that landing the E can be chained into free damage.

Actually, there's a pretty apt comparison which was introduced just recently: Vel'Koz has a Q which is, statistically speaking, nearly identical to Lulu's Q: Glitterlance has very slightly higher base damage and 0.1 less AP scaling, Plasma Fission has 125 more range, both have the same cooldown and slow duration, Plasma Fission has slightly lower mana costs, and both have a way to hit enemies who are hugging their minions. I've not really seen much in the way of complaints about Plasma Fission, which in turn leads me back to the conclusion that the real issue at hand with Lulu is not her E or her Q individually, but the way they can interact.

That, naturally, returns to my original point: when balancing a champion in response to a certain issue, it is perhaps best to remedy the actual problem instead of reducing irrelevant stats.

tl;dr for real this time: The changes that made it more difficult to chain an E hit into free damage are good. The straight base damage reduction on the E was not, especially because it was a reduction of the base damage, which will be more detrimental towards a Lulu building for support than a Lulu who is going to be stacking AP. It really shouldn't be this hard to parse my damn posts instead of making assumptions, especially when I've taken pains to be as clear as possible.

Balance changes which remedy the issues they are intended to address = good
Balance changes which do not remedy the issues they are intended to address as well as they could = bad, or at least a little bit lazy

I'm not accusing Riot employees of being incompetent or part of some fucking sinister conspiracy, so I'd kindly request that certain hypocrites stop putting words in my mouth. I'm suggesting that just maybe a portion of this part of this patch might not be as good as it could be, but of course people become omniscient when they're hired by game developers so that can't be true.

[frostshotgg]

(flaming removed)

[Arcvasti]

Actually, there's a pretty apt comparison which was introduced just recently: Vel'Koz has a Q which is, statistically speaking, nearly identical to Lulu's Q: Glitterlance has very slightly higher base damage and 0.1 less AP scaling, Plasma Fission has 125 more range, both have the same cooldown and slow duration, Plasma Fission has slightly lower mana costs, and both have a way to hit enemies who are hugging their minions. I've not really seen much in the way of complaints about Plasma Fission, which in turn leads me back to the conclusion that the real issue at hand with Lulu is not her E or her Q individually, but the way they can interact.

I think the difference is that Vel'Koz's Q doesn't go through minions and can only hit 3 enemies at once. Plus I'm pretty sure Lulu's Q fires fast and has a wider area because of the second bolt. Its also pretty hard to angle Plasma Fission to hit correctly through minions unless you rush Catalyst the Protractor or something. I'd say a better analogy would be Urgot and the way his Q and E interact. You hit your E and then you have free damage from your Q. Except  on Lulu, the E can't miss and is more short-ranged and Lulu's Q is a potentially dodge able skill-shot. I'd say reducing her E's damage was more of an incidental trimming of power. Lulu was and still is a very strong support. Her stats were in need of nerfing anyways. Its never a good sign when I can build full support tank and still beat their Yi/Trynd in a 1v1 most of the time. They've already been aiming her E towards being a defensive ability or an offensive one, rather then being an offensive ability with the potential to be used as a last-resort shield. I believe they already reduced its ratio by 0.1 in a previous patch[Probably in late Season 3]. I think they might be trying to add gameplay by making the shield and defense portion more relevant and thus making shielding allies a more viable option in a teamfight/skirmish. I don't think this E damage nerf is that much of a problem and it might open up a couple new options with regards to her E's usage as defense/utility vs damage. If it becomes a horrible issue and ruins Lulu, Riot will give her compensation buffs. If for no other reason then if they over-nerf my Lulu to hell, I'll walk over and start feeding them their spines.



EDIT:

There's a point when a discussion ceases to be a discussion and becomes a debate. There's a point where a debate ceases to be a debate and becomes an argument. There's a point where an argument ceases to be an argument and becomes stupidity. We're so far past the last it isn't funny. You're wrong, whether or not you choose to accept it.

Frostshotgg, please be civil. Mr. Flyingdice here has made many good points about the subject he is discussing. I'm sure that prior to that statement you just made, you have also made good points. In any case, I'm pretty sure that the Lulu E base damage nerfs have been killed to death. Perhaps we should seek a less emotionally charged topic related to this game? The URF mode is still out, there are rune changes, there are Gragas changes. Plenty of food for discussion and debate. I do agree that this debate/argument/brouhaha about 80 less points of damage on one ability has rather overstepped its bounds. I'm done with this thread for the night.

[Sharp]

Actually, there's a pretty apt comparison which was introduced just recently: Vel'Koz has a Q which is, statistically speaking, nearly identical to Lulu's Q: Glitterlance has very slightly higher base damage and 0.1 less AP scaling, Plasma Fission has 125 more range, both have the same cooldown and slow duration, Plasma Fission has slightly lower mana costs, and both have a way to hit enemies who are hugging their minions. I've not really seen much in the way of complaints about Plasma Fission, which in turn leads me back to the conclusion that the real issue at hand with Lulu is not her E or her Q individually, but the way they can interact.

I don't really care about the argument anymore but trying to compare Vel'Koz's Q with Lulu's is super silly. Hugging minions protects you perfectly fine from Vel'Koz Q, doesn't protect you from his W though. Hugging minions only works against Lulu if she doesn't E the minion your hugging and then Q you via that. I don't think Lulu is less deadly in lane with the change because her shield is pretty damn strong, it does mean it's harder for her to nuke down enemies but she was never about nuking down enemies and always about strong harass.

[DemonOfWrath]

This may just be me being confused here but how does hugging minions protect you from glitterlance (or rather, from Lulu) in any way? It simply does full damage to everything it hits in a line.

[Baneling]

As I recall, each projectile of Glitterlance only actually damages one thing, but the projectile keeps going.