Lohpally's Guide to Lulu The best enchanter!
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January 1st, 1 ⸱ 23 min read
Intro
Hi my name is Derek "Lohpally" Abrams. I've been a streamer/content creator for about 7 years and played professionally for multiple games including League of Legends! I was on teams like complexity, curse (now liquid), and winterfox. I mostly make in-depth content about support so if you are looking to get better as support you should check out my other stuff too at twitch and youtube! This guide will help you get up to speed on everything Lulu support. A lot of what really make's her strong is her ability to keep her carries alive while buffing a ton of damage to them via her passive of help pix. A huge reason why I suggest Lulu for most people also is just how easy she is to play to get power out of her, almost all her abilities are point and click with immediate power and she has a dynamic playstyle with each abilities that you can use them to peel, cc, or potentially be offensive and score kills with her. Her main weakness she runs into is she is short ranged and defensive oriented in nature, so she does struggle against poke in the earlygame but even then her scaling is so potent that being behind in lane doesn't really impact her ability to teamfight really well.
Runes (Loadout)
A lot of people will reccomend that you go aery and while I don't think it's a bad rune I haven't been a huge fan of it. The reason behind this is most enchanters your goal is to stop somebody from dying from frontloaded damage, guardian works really well with this and whenever I take aery it doesn't really feel like it gives me so much more damage that I can all of a sudden win a matchup I couldn't already. Nonetheless I will be showing you both setups to give you options, just know that I personally prefer the Guardian setup over the Aery ones. Also thing to note a common question I get asked is, why not revitalize over overgrowth? Lulu is so strong because of her ultimate, but most people don't know it's a specialized category called bonus health, and that isn't effected by bonus healing/shielding. It's also why it doesn't get reduced when somebody has a healing debuff on them.
- Guardian
- Aery inspiration
- Aery resolve
Summoner Spells (Loadout)
In most scenarios I would recommend going exhaust/flash since it is the most consistent. There is always somebody to exhaust mid/late game and it let's you operate like an anti-carry where you can shutdown anybody doing well on the enemy team while also powering up your own teammate. If you think you can score kills early or there is a healer on their team early game like soraka or yuumi then ignite is fine. Mostly have healer just incase your adc takes exhaust but you don't feel like you can score kills so you can opt into taking the heal instead.
Skill Path
Most matchups going q is the best since it lets you have options of both trading from afar, and also pushing the wave with this ability. You max it last though because its slow is maxed out at rank 1. Mostly recommend maxing out your shield 1st since you also value it's cd. This is because you almost always go Shureyla's so you will be spamming E for movement speed and blocking damage. After that we are going W 2nd max since it increases everything in it's power kit of attack speed, duration of cc, movement speed etc.
Other option is if you are against poke and you wanna stop incoming damage early like vs a lux, xerath etc that outrange you, you are just starting E first instead of Q but the level up path is exactly the same.

Lulu

Lulu
Item Builds
The core of your build is just ability haste and utility. We want to keep our backline alive for as long as possible and power them up! This means though you have tons of items you can choose based on whether you want to keep people alive, or empower them. Choosing between these kinds of items is mostly up to you based on the circumstances of the game. No matter what though you should always be building Shureyla's since it augments your E to now give movement speed, which means you no longer need to give W to move your teammates in and you can save it for primarily CCing people who are diving in.
Matchups
Most Lulu matchups can swing a lot in points depending on what adc pairing you have and the enemy adc you are against. In most cases Lulu just wants to play defensively and get through laning phase to teamfights where she truly shines. Thing to note though is playing defensively doesn't mean passively so I will be giving you tools to understand how to create pressure so that it is difficult for you to get pressured and buy you time to get those levels! Also some of these matchups change in points if you cannot fufill the interactions that are needed to win/prevent losing in those matchups.
These matchups are broken down out of 10 assignments so 0/10 is an auto loss, 10/10 is auto win and everything inbetween is varied on advantages!
2/10 Very bad matchup for Lulu
Lux outranges you and has kill pressure if she ever hits a snare, it's a lot of just defending and making sure the poke from E is shielded from you. Make sure you are paying attention to how close/far away you are from your adc, you need to be in range to shield them incase the poke goes towards them! If snare ever hits your adc make sure to walk up and polymorph the enemy adc to stop follow up damage. If anytime Lux misses her snare this is your time to pressure and walk up, your e+q and auto attack combo can win trades against Lux if she doesn't have the snare threat. This lane can basically be impossible for you if you have something like a vayne and they have a caitlyn, but also more manageable if you have something long ranged like caitlyn, ashe etc. Once you hit 6 anytime a snare misses, make sure to pressure hard and even try for all in's since you have tons of hp to work with, with your ultimate.
5/10 Even matchup for Lulu
Majority of this lane is playing around soraka q, if she is hitting them then all your poke/trades are terrible, but if dodge them then you can crush soraka since you win all in's. Make sure to take ignite in this matchup since you need it for killing anybody and only all in when you have it. Your poke is more valueable on soraka than the enemy adc so make sure if you can trade, it is mostly on the soraka. When you are initiating all in, if you are the first to trade up, make sure you use ur E offensively to setup q, after the slow is ending you can use polymorph. If your adc is the first to start the trade, shield him and q off him whenever he clears distance and be running in to get polymorph. Also don't be greedy with your ultimate, if you or your teammate who is absorbing damage in the all in is ontop, use R early to abuse the 30% slow, it lasts 7 seconds it's basically an eternity!
4/10 Slight disadvantage
Both Senna and Lulu can trade really hard but Senna has the sustain advantage over you so you can get poked out pretty easily. It's also difficult to just E shield the Q from senna poke through minions. You can win this lane playing really aggro on your trades, remember Senna wants auto+q and backing off building souls and getting sustain trades. This means your best bet is to all in Senna hard whenever she goes for trades like this, reminder though she does have a snare so make sure you are moving a bit while approaching trades. Senna has good disengage with her fog, but if you use ur E offensively it will reveal her in the fog so it is possible for you to kill her.
3/10 Bad matchup for Lulu
Lulu struggles against poke and unfortunately Zyra has a good amount of it. In early levels make sure anytime Zyra uses her Q/E depending on what's first you walk over the passive plant spawns and clear them out. Don't take brushes in this matchup because Zyra can spawn plants into it and they will auto target you since minions are too far from you. Don't be greedy with your shielding and block incoming damage from plants they can add up quickly! Don't be aggressive in trading unless Zyra misses her snare, so if you wanna push pressure you need to bait this ability out first. The best trades will be off your adc where you feed them the shield and speed them up to dodge skillshots and slow across them. Post 6 even if you dodge snare be mindful of how far in you go since her ultimate can split up the fight/knock you up if it's casted and you are in the center of it. Goal should be to not get poked down and make it to teamfights/level 6 without being too far behind.
8/10 Very advantage for Lulu
Have your adc take cleanse and this matchup. Leona obviously wants to engage and focus down a player and you want to play the disrupter and you have tons of tools to deal with it. Basically it's about abusing your polymorph, if leona engages on your adc, shield him and walk forward and polymorph the enemy adc and kite out then burn down leona after they are running back. If the leona engages on you, you can pre-cast the polymorph on her so when she lands she is cc'd so she cannot stun you and you can kite out, if this becomes to difficult just shield yourself and polymorph the adc again if they are on you and then glitterlance to slow them down and burn whoever is closest.
10/10 Auto win matchup for Lulu
Only way to lose this matchup is overplaying under the turret and getting flash pulv+headbutted into the turret. This matchup you can play hard on whoever you want and manage your spacing for combo. You can polymorph alistar as he is in the air and his pulv will not go off and he will just headbutt you away so makes it very difficult to get comboed and can play aggressively. If you do not successfully do this, fear not! You can also polymorph alistar after he is combo'd to deny his auto from E stacking to stop the second form of cc, then like leona you kite out with your slow from glitterlance and build hp advantages. You win this lane at 6 even if you can't do either of these interactions because alistar just don't get any damage at 6 and you have so much bonus hp with ultimate it would take 3/4 people to kill you. Also if you are too far to polymorph the combo at 6+ you can also use your ultimate as Alistar flys towards anybody and cancel his combo with Lulu ultimate knockup.
6/10 Slight advantage for Lulu
Blitzcrank hook can make it difficult to immediately stop the piling on of you or your adc unlike against other tank champions. Main thing to focus on is push, use your Q early and establish that push so you have minions to stand behind. If you are actively getting that push and pressure and stand behind your minion wave you can poke at them when they go for minions and build leads. Main concern is the Blitzcrank running at you and forcing in the wave from knocking up, make sure when they run in you challenge, abuse your glitterlance slow and minion wave! Also don't be afraid if the Blitz gets too close to polymorph him to not let him get on top of you to knock you up with E. You have to do a lot of things to build small leads, and just 1 hook can spell disaster so that's why even though you have tools to crush this lane, it's not as advantaged since it required really pristine play.
7/10 Decent advantage for Lulu
Main thing to worry about is lantern, lantern ganks are the way to die a lot in this matchup but the straight up 2v2 is good for you. For starters, make sure to check Thresh by clicking on him, if he has the stacking power buff he has flay, if not he has hook. Manage your spacing against him if he has flay and make sure to not auto trade early with him, just glitterlance from far and focus on hitting the wave. If he has hook then just sit in the wave and focus on push and punish if he tries to push back against you. If your adc ever gets hooked and you are staying close to him, you can polymorph the Thresh and deny his flay. Without that combo they should never have kill threat and then you can swing the trades by slowing and playing aggressive on them back. If you are focusing on getting pushing advantages you play it a lot like vs Blitzcrank and stand in minions to not allow hooks to occur and just focus on harassing the enemy adc when he goes for last hits. If this pressures the Thresh to play aggro walking up+flaying then you can poly him and lay damage into him quite easily. Once you hit level 6 it becomes incredibly hard for the Thresh lane to have damage to kill you without being very far ahead so once you make it over that mark you can all in very easily.
5/10 Even matchup for Lulu
Main thing to tackle is an interaction most people think works which doesn't. If the pyke starts casting his Q hook and you walk up to polymorph it will most likely NOT stop the pyke hook coming out. This is because poly has a travel time so you can't reliably stop hook unless you cast it before he has started channeling it. This matchup you defending all in's and getting to 6 where you can retake advantages in this matchup if you aren't too far behind. Make sure you focus on pushing in the earlygame to have access to the wave to block hooks for laning phase. If pyke comes in to all in and E's across, use your polymorph when it occurs this way he cannot Q hook you or your teammate off the stun, do NOT try to race the Q channel hook by polymorphing. If your adc gets caught by a hook, walk past and stop the enemy adc from piling on by polying him. If he does miss hook or the enemy adc is giving you free opportunities dont be afraid to harass them since most poke doesn't do nearly as much on pyke since he has built in sustain. If you hit level 6 anytime pyke casts ultimate you trade your ultimate and the bonus hp will usually take them out of execute range and you should be good. If you don't feed and get to teamfights pyke becomes way less powerful.
3/10 Bad matchup for Lulu
This matchup can move a few points up or down based on who you have for adc and who they have for adc.
Main issue is that Lulu struggles against poke and this is a poke matchup who can also push the lane. Early lane i recommend going E and just playing man to man on the Karma following them around. It is a lot easier to shield yourself then your teammate who might be out of range for the Mantra Q early so make sure you are just pulling pressure to yourself. If the Karma is throwing spells at you they aren't pushing the wave and you can be in a lot better shape, lane becomes really hard if you get stuck under the turret. You are really just trying to absorb pressure from your adc so they can farm safely and manage the wave and get to level 6. You also want to be putting your autos and q into the wave while staying off on the side so Karma has to make choices of either harassing you or pushing the wave, don't stand in the wave and give them both! If you can get to level 6 you have an easy time pushing through the poke and forcing an all in with the extra power of having an ultimate vs Karma not getting much power at level 6. If you are leaving this matchup out of lane just even you are doing great since you outscale so insanely hard.
5/10 Even matchup for Lulu
Main thing to watch out for this one is tornado from Janna. Make sure to not stack on minion waves so the tornado isn't hitting you and the wave at the same time. You do way more damage as you get to level 3+ because your autos just do more damage so just make sure to not lose hp early to tornado or poke trades. If you are shielding damage and she is too you should win since your autos just hit way harder. Things to note is make sure you are actively pushing the wave since Janna can full tornado the wave to get push earlygame. If she does do something like this or just uses tornado in general, treat it like a thresh hook, force past the wave and harass/trade them. Once you are level 6+ make sure to hold your polymorph to stop the channel of Janna ultimate so it doesn't heal much and you should be quite advantaged in full all in. You lose this lane by trying to hard to trade when tornado is up and getting hit by that, slowed and traded on where your adc can't follow up.
1/10 Incredibly disadvantage for Lulu
Main part of this matchup is just dodgeball and trying to shield as much incoming damage as possible. If you stand off the wave and draw pressure to yourself you can potentially gain push level 1/2 and that will make the matchup significantly easier. If you get pushed in at level 1 you will never gain it back. If you find yourself under the turret make sure you are shielding as much incoming damage as possible on your adc/yourself. Put yourself up there and walk up whenever your adc needs to last hit to spread the damage and don't be afraid to reset early after absorbing damage for your adc.
5/10 Even matchup for Lulu
Nautilus wants to engage and force fights as often as possible, Lulu wants to deflect them and then slowly chase back down with her glitterlance and auto attacks. In the early stages don't stand away from minion wave and give Nautilus a free hook. If you are standing in the wave and autoing Nautilus has to expose themselves to help push back and you force harass then. Don't be afraid in the first wave or two to immediately use glitterlance on the wave to get early push. Outside of that if you are standing in the wave you need to challenge the Naut anytime he comes up to auto, if you pull back away from the wave you give him angles to hook you in the open. If for whatever reason this occurs and you are in range, use your polymorph on Nautilus in the air. The reason behind this is he needs to auto to snare you so if you poly him it should give you the time to scoot back out of range and then turn the fight. Once you begin turning make sure you pressure hard since hook cooldown is a lot longer than any of your spells. Recommend resolve for this matchup too because the main way you die post 6 outside of jungle ganks is really getting full 100-0 combo'd as the Lulu and locked out of ultimate and shield. If he hooks you into ultimate you can die instantly so make sure you are positioning tightly near your adc so you can be in range to help eachother on both trades and all in's. If you make it past laning phase your teamfight is way stronger as items add up!
8/10 Very advantage for Lulu
Only real concern in this matchup for Lulu is bard roaming/portaling jungler into your lane, so this is mostly what you need to pay attention for. Laning early you win longer trades since help pix passive never leaves, Bard wants to burst trade since he only has 1 meep early. Main thing to focus on is getting the wave early so you can establish vision deep to not die to ganks/portal setups. Glitterlance on the wave and get that push going Bard cannot match it whatsoever. It is also incredibly hard for them to have enough damage even off stuns to kill you, so just make sure if stuns are connecting you are shielding the follow up damage so you don't get poked down early laning phase. If ganks occur try your best to stand in the middle of the lane so you aren't next to any walls to get stunned off. Most of this lane you really don't want to be polymorphing the Bard unless you are preventing him for portaling away, most of the time polymorph will be on the adc trying to follow up or the jungler that is assisting this lane. If the bard spams roaming then make sure to play for plates early on and don't be afraid to dive especially post 6 since you have a lot of hp to work with! For dives make sure you tank first dump all your spells then go to the edge and absorb as much damage as possible before leashing it, this will require pings and some practice. You cannot catch the Bard with his passive, portals, and most likely mobi boots so don't try to match roams outside of off resets where you walk middle.
9/10 Incredibly advantaged for Lulu
Only way to die in this matchup is to get binded multiple times, if you are shielding the binded target you will most likely not die the first round (outside of caitlyn morgana) so you are playing against binds. The best way to avoid binds is to guarentee push and stand behind minion wave so glitterlance early and start that autoing so you get push! Main things to be careful about though is polymorphing into black shield, usually recommend waiting for black shield to be casted and you either breaking it by putting damage into it with ur e+q, or just waiting it out before using it. Post 6 just be mindful that if you are too close to Morgana she can ultimate into binding on you and flashing won't usually get you out with the slow and bonus ms to her. If you are pushing her under turret or just sticking behind minions it becomes impossible to get binded and as the game goes on you crush her and outscale her with your utility. If you do nothing crazy and just play consistently you are at huge advantage.
7/10 Decent advantage for Lulu
Rakan struggles to have enough damage in all in to usually kill you or your adc so it takes a lot of bad trades/jungle assistance to struggle here. You can if you are really fast/predictive polymorph the dash in by Rakan but it isn't reliable way to play. Focus on stopping follow up not the Rakan! Anytime he goes in, make sure to walk forward and poly the adc to stall follow up and shield whoever is taking damage. All of your autos and damage/cc should be on the adc because Rakan is just too slippery for you to lock down or make damage stick on. Thing to note once you break level 6 is, it is a lot easier for you to cancel dashes in with your ultimate so keep an eye out for engages by Rakan and get that timing going. After you stall dashes still do the same play pattern of ccing and focusing on their adc that is trying to follow up.
2/10 Very bad matchup for Lulu
Since Lulu struggles with poke this one is mostly about paying attention to where Brand is standing. Main things to note is do your best to not be nearby minions so you don't give Brand the ability to shoot W on you and the minion wave. If he does this he can also E off it and debuff you and push the wave, very bad scenario. Ideally you want to stand off the wave but not too close to Brand so he cannot E+Q combo you. If you are spacing well then you should only be in range for W and you will have to continuously shield this. If you can meet all these conditions the lane is manageable, obviously not always the case nor easy. Start Q in this wave at level 1 and just accept you will either have to dodge or soak damage from W and focus on pushing. If you start getting put under the turret it becomes a lot harder to do the positioning I broke down so focus on push early game. If you can keep the wave in the middle or on their side you can manage the lane but once you start losing it's really important to be nearby your adc to be in range to shield them incase they get harassed.
Most Lulu matchups are about not getting destroyed early by poke/harass and then gaining levels and winning all in timings at level 6+. That being said if you dodge skillshots or take good trades she can 1v2 win lanes if you are E+Qing across the enemy players. Auto attacks early on do so much damage from her so take advantage of that! Also your matchups vary a ton based on how your adc is playing, and what they are picking.