Trying to gut Hecarim I see. Hard. Not a fan, like they want him to be unuseable and they took away one of his signature things. The passive made it feel like a bruising war horse. Now he'll just get staggered on minions like everyone else.
And that ult nerf is brutal. Really now.
Darius is a no, I jungle him sometimes but if you get a team with ranged cc that is even half decent, even at low elos your carry ability can be woefully diminished.
I personally powered my way out of bronze using Hecarim when I got jungle. He is a low elo nightmare if he isn't banned. In bronze, a lane often isn't warded, but even if it is not a lot of folks know where to place them to better see the horse at farther ranges or how to deal with him as he comes bursting out. He still has decent dmg and an ult that can cause team havoc that bronze isn't used to. So destroy lanes, feed even terrible laners, win.
it can teach some bad habits like ignoring creeps for last hits and a few other things but it does help me on some things a lot.
Team fighting, it's there, immediately and rapidly. It's given me opportunities to practice just that instead of slogging through x minutes before we get to that phase. Lets me try the abilities, some strats. I've already learned new tricks to do with Sejuani, Vlad, and others.
It gives you a chance to try builds and makes you play some champions. I keep getting stuck with ones I didn't play or was terrible at and suddenly. Bam. I'm learning them to a capable level. Especially top champions, since I fill a lot I was pretty rusty and inexperienced with some of my top placed champions.
Variety, it has helped me here. I have so rarely played against some champions like Sion, Heimer, Xerath, and others that when they pop up in a game I'm at a loss what to do other than the most basics that usually apply to everyone. Thanks to ARAM I have played against everyone plenty now and that experience has already helped me in other modes.
I have to disagree on Anivia being limited by her mana bar. In fact, she starts stronger than a lot if you just forgo boots at the start and straight up get a chalice. I've done this several times already in aram when I got lucky enough to get her or someone would trade me for her. It lets her spam her q as a poke and because of the rapid fire money of ARAM she can very easily afford the rest of athenes on her first death without even that cautious of play.
Also, her egg. It's extremely powerful in an environment where you can't go back to a fountain. I've several times I've purposefully jumped into spears or a lux beam to go down to egg so I come back at full hp which which put me in a much better position for the incoming team fight or to trade for some more poke. Often for life they will not get back. Not so much a bird fan boy but after getting to play here there a few times and having played her a lot in soloque I can say her mana starved start isn't nearly as bad in ARAM in fact with that chalice start, it's a non problem.
I think people think about the healing damper on morellonomicon far to much. It's not about that, it has never been about that. It builds out of a gp5 item for cheap. So its' a cheap statstick to give you cdr fast a long with a chunk of ap. I often rush it on lux and when I don't I feel it every single time that I do not.
But I can't help but think her costs and early game would be padded by solid regen, which does include Athenes. Gonna have to run her more and get a feel.
The grab really scares lower elos so he still sees a lot of bans there, and it can win a game but he isn't what he once was and there are supports who are more aggressive, give more poke, and also have sustain that he doesn't give. Thresh is a nightmare compared to him, everytime I have to face a Thresh, not a blitz, I groan. Everytime I get to play Thresh I feel like I make a difference for my team with far more than hey I got a grab. I got a grab, I bumped a kat out of her ult with my e. my ult screwed up their entire assault or escape, my lantern has done amazing move tricks and saves.
There is also a lot of counter play to Blitz. Use minions to hide from grabs. Grabs can be the game maker, or the destroyer. How many bad grabs have we seen that bring jungle malphites? Support Leonas? And others into the middle of the team only for them to drop their ult and other cc right into the middle of your team.
Not saying Blitz is bad, oh he definitely has his place and you should still treat him with respect. The thing is, there are a lot of other folks now winning games for the team than him. Hecarim, Thresh, and in the pro circuit the pros who have that super character for them. It eats up ban space rapidly, and especially in soloque blitz has been banned so often few actually know how to play him. So it's one bad blitz after another that you destroy before you get a good one but still cry because they banned him instead of that Elise that is now 5/0, and Hecarim that just ran past your wards to gut you before blitz could even make a grab.
Having been in some games I know are pretty much dead. Afks, deliberate feeder trolls, the carries are splattered by no small margin, 0 kills 10 deaths sort of thing. I do sympathize heavily because of this but there have been quite a few games where I had people who wanted to surrender because the score was just 11 to 15 and farm was equalish. Finally lane phase ends and we fight some team battles, and low and behold we're winning. But everyone but me wanted to quit, in fact top started playing stupid for a lil bit because he considered it a trash game and our support threatened to quit. If we had surrendered at ten minutes, this win would have been a loss. This isn't a rare thing for me to see either, it's frightfully common.
I like to be the tactical pusher which usually gets me burned in solo que. How many times could me and the adc burned the tower then took dragon but as support my adc ignores pings, to get dragon which isn't so bad... or farm minigolems because we're pushed into said tower, or just recall for items instead of cracking tower.... in fact. I see in a lot of soloque games people actually scolding other players for toppling a tower. I actually got bitched out just recently over pushing and tearing down a tower in bot lane while both sides went b.
Janna is good, I really don't want to trash her and in certain comps and with certain partners she can perform very very well. However, that said, I find it's easier to harras and zone her adc than with Sona, Taric, Thresh, and Lulu.
As with Lulu, you will not shield every poke and sometimes it will be on CD. The others will poke at the adc and Janna herself a lot. She can't heal it like Sona or Taric and her poke is not as heavy hitting as Thresh who hits hard without any items 1-5. Lulu's harrass is so fraggen annoying, with multiple methods peel and save ass. Her ult save ass is in fact more dependable than Jannas even if Janna's can be admittedly devestating and a solid peel, there are times when it should be cast at all if it would shove that bruiser next to your adc.
Janna's dmg is really nice if she gets her items which can put her in parity with the others easily, but this discussion is not about if you have items it's about if your bot lane got mauled to death and you the support are behind which leads some like Thresh with grab, peel ult, shield, brilliant save ass with lanterns and ult bothering e in a pretty good position vs her.
Just about everything you can do has been said here. As a Lux player I love seeing Diana because I usually feel that it's in my advantage, even a good Diana isn't something that I'm ever at risk of feeding. Ever.
But the ones who do the best have sustain, Lux has terrible sustain at the front. Long cooldowns and bleeding mana. So use those minions, if she misses q try to punish her for it. All those things suggested are pretty much what does best against me when I play Lux.
Now there are somethings I haven't seen mentioned. If you're against a solid Lux, she might very well not leave you much to do. So you just need to play safe in the minions get farm without risking yourself till jungler is available and do not let her roam freely. A roaming Lux is a sour pill for your team as a whole, and at this point your going to be needing them for the mid game when they will probably let you get at her or the adc.
The e spam is actually what I tend to use a lot since I can just needle down Diana. It's still costly, and you can still keep around the minions. If she wipes them out while trying to nail you, successfully or not, she'll end up pushing her lane and put her more vulnerable to a jungler gank. It's also still not cheap, so if they've picked a sustain start I ruffle them a bit but they don't get as easily forced out and still more importantly, get their farm for mid game.
