Hey everyone,

I'm currently living in China right now playing Chinese LOL, but since my Chinese sucks, I thought I'd just ask here. When considering answers, please just answer as if I'm playing NA since, to me, both meta's seem almost identical.

Anyway, to start. I realize that lux is strong early game. That being considered, should I be ganking top and bottom lanes pre level 6, or should I wait until level 6? Please post thoughts on this.

2nd, what in the world is up with the tanks? As lux, I go full 100% glass cannon. I try to get the most powerful bind/shield/singularity/ult as I can, but even with 100% AP, I can barely scratch a tank's HP, while a tank who is 100% tank build can kill me easily. It's complete ****. When 50% of the enemy team is tanky, and I'm COMPLETELY USELESS against them, I feel like that isn't right.

If someone is tanky, they should have to sacrifice something. I've played as garen, and he simply face rolls people. He can fight a 3 v 1, and just tank them while he kills, while I can max AP my lux, and barely scratch tanks.

Simply put, my opinion is that Riot is making tanks OP, and it's making Lux no fun to play.

Your job as lux is to destroy the squishies with your extreme range and high burst, and support your allies with your shield. Tanks are designed to destroy squishy AP mages like Lux

You've asked a series of complicated questions, and i'm not prepared to even attempt to give you a comprehensive answer. Instead i'll just address the part about lux killing tanks and leave something for future respondents.

What are you building on Lux? If you are literally building 100% AP (rabadon's and 5 archangel staffs) its no wonder you aren't having good results versus tanks. If you are building a deathfiregrasp to get through a chunk of hp and a void staff to bypass much of the hefty MR that most tanks will have, then i'm not sure.

Garen isn't a tank. He is tanky DPS. If you have a super fed tanky DPS, then it might have a good chance to 1v3.

Also, how can we know without knowing your actual build?

However, Lux's mediocre AP ratio is probably a factor since her normal abilities have a lot of utility to them.

As mentioned above, Lux isn't an AP carry, she's actually an AP support who's capable of going head-to-head in mid. A support is never going to 1v1 a tank, ever. The way you get a tank is to isolate and outnumber them, where you can focus them down. But preferentially, you'll focus on the squishies first: in a team fight they're also more dangerous.

As for when to gank, if taking Lux mid, I'd think you should wait for the end of lane phase to worry about ganking; this will generally mean at least level 6. Only exceptions are obvious opportunities/emergencies, such as your own lane opponent just MIA'd, or a similar situation (you killed them or forced them to recall) and you see, say, your solo top about to get focused down. (if they're already near-death and the enemies are pounding the turret, you're almost certainly already too late)

Personally, I am reluctant to gank as Lux, because her ganks are not very strong. She is rather slow and fragile, so if the river has not been properly warded, then the enemy team might just counter-gank you when you run through the river. Her ulti makes good tool for sniping dragon and blue, but running all the way to top or bot just to finish off a running away enemy with her ulti puts her in too much risk.

As for Lux v tank, it just comes down your AP + magic penetration v their HP + MR. If you can get your AP and magic pen to a reasonable number, then you will be able to hurt tanks a lot too; if the tank is fed and has a lot of MR before you can get your AP up, your bursts will be weak. In any event, you are better off directing your spells to their carries and let your team deal with their tanks.

As Lux your greatest strength is in your early game. That being said, if you see an opportunity to gank a lane pre 6, go for it. Just your damage output from your Q, E and passive procs should be enough damage to turn an engagement in your team's favor or clean up enemies that are over extending with low health. Knowing when to gank and when not can only come from experience. Once you have your ultimate, you should be able to make a mess of any squishy members on the enemy team.

Tanks are a different story as you already know. They give up a lot of damage output and the advantage of ranged abilities(in most cases) for their defensive stats. This allows them to live through a fair amount of damage. Similarly with Lux, you trade a lot of your late game relevance for early game power. There is going to be a point in the game where you start becoming less effective. Generally speaking, your goal as Lux should be making the most of your early advantages and not giving the enemy team the chance to draw things out. It can be frustrating at times, but if any champion could just nuke everyone into the ground at any given time there wouldn't be much of a point to their being over one hundred champions.

as lux you shouldnt be having much trouble with tanks getting on you. you should be able to snare/slow them before they are in range to jump on you. make sure you are taking advantage of your shield when they are attacking you, if you are building ap it will pretty much take all the damage they can dish out before expiring, and make sure to be using you passive. if they are stacking a lot of item that give magic res invest in getting void staff and hunting guise for the magic pen. also if your team has more then just you doing magic damage make sure someone gets a abyssal stepper to fearther cut down their magic res.

AFAIK, the only technically ranged tanks would be Kayle and Cho'Gath. They (along with Nidalee) are the only ranged-autoattack-capable champions that get magic resist on level up: all other ranged champions keep their fixed base 30 from level 1 to 18.

As for relevance, technically anyone that's not a carry (AD or AP) is going to surrender some of their importance over to their respective carries: that's part of the design. Not that a support becomes less important, or that a support needs to ensure the game doesn't last long. Rather, it's just that their role will shift: early-game a support is fearsome and dangerous, while their paired carry less so, and it's the support's job to ensure kills for the carry and protect them, while later on it's the carry's job (well, one of them) to protect the support by nuking anything that tries to touch them, while the support keeps the field tilted in their favor.

Lux, while not QUITE making the cut for a full-on AP carry, (not all AP mids are carries, though pretty much all AP carries are mids) is still very dangerous. She may be, in fact, the most capable of all with her zoning powers; she gets TWO AoE CCs, including a highly persistent one; few will willingly walk through her E for fear of it detonating on them. Lastly, the cooldown on her dreaded Final Spark gets low enough that it can help keep the enemy from grouping too tightly out of fear of all getting hit, hence making for a less-dense target easier for the carries to pick apart and focus down.

...

How the hell is Kayle "technically" a tank? Mediocre peels and mediocre initiation.