Riot are trying to force Lucian back into League of Legends bot lane

Lucian’s reign as one of the supreme top and mid lane picks in League of Legends may be over. Riot are trying to tame the marksman and bring him back into the bot lane, starting with some significant Season 11 changes.

Lucian has been thrown around Summoner’s Rift for years. The League of Legends marksman has been played in every carry role across the map. His roots lay firmly in the bot lane, but he’s been losing his identity across the last couple of years.

While bot lane Lucian is still the predominant pick in solo queue ⁠— making up 57.6% of all games according to stats site LoLalytics ⁠— in pro play across 2021, he has only been picked in bot 8.98% of the time (22 out of 245 games).

He’s much more of a threat in mid lane where he has 80.4% presence in pro play, compared to just 34.6% in solo queue at all ranks.

While his win rate isn’t that great in solo queue, his flexibility has made him a must-have in pro play. Riot wants to change that by tying Lucian down to the bot lane ⁠— where he can be reunited with the likes of Senna ⁠— with some new duo-centric buffs ahead of LoL patch 11.13.

“Our tactics are to increase bot lane bindings. Currently we’re testing reduced base stats and some nerfs to his early abilities, but in exchange he gets new empowerments when he is Healed or Shielded by an ally,” lead game designer Jeevun Sidhu explained on Twitter.

Lucian is also potentially getting a bonus for laning with CC-heavy supports like Leona, Braum, and Alistar. Riot are testing a buff to give him bonus damage against immobilized targets, but this is less set in stone than the other changes.

“We can’t guarantee that any of this makes it to live,” Sidhu admitted.

No Lucian changes are currently on the PBE for League of Legends patch 11.13, set to launch on June 23. However, we will keep you posted with the latest updates as they get pushed towards live servers.