by suchdiesel

Intoduction:

As an ex top-elo mage main, Lunox is one of the strongest mages in the game, even stronger than Harith, Alice, Selena, and Gusion when mastered. I was global top 1 lunox throughout the majority of season 9-10 and was playing among and against various top-elo players in S10, with an overall lunox win rate of 84.5%, playing on SE-Asia Server.

This is my personal guide on how to master Lunox at all levels, be it beginner, or high-elo.

(I have since sold my account several weeks ago but my username was Sentinel HAVOC.*)

Why Learn Lunox?

1. Lunox is able to dish out huge amount of burst damage to targets from a mid-long range
2. She can completely negate various skills and abilities for a period of time by using her light Ultimate
3. She has great sustain capabilities and is able to heal huge amounts from using starlight pulse (light skill) on a wave of minions or grouped enemies
4. One of the strongest early-game heroes in the game, able to take on even 2 enemies head-on early game if not cc locked.
5. Able to solo gank a full hp enemy once level 4 with her burst
6. Strong Mid-Late Game when positioned correctly. Incredibly hard for enemies such as chou or akai to lock you down or try to engage you because of your light form ultimate
7. Has Huge AOE damage potential when enemies group, using her light skill, Skill 3, and light Ultimate
8. Her fast ultimate cooldowns allow her to enter in and out of combat multiple times within the same battle

Things To Note

1. Lunox consumes huge amounts of mana, especially when spamming her Chaos Ultimate. This makes Demon Shoes (Mana boots) essential for her. Taking the buff is also highly vital for mana sustain, otherwise you will have to back every single time you use a full Chaos ultimate and burst combo.
2. Lunox is fairly hard to master fully, but is moderately easy to play at a beginner level.
3. If you are below Epic rank, and have not experienced rank drafting yet, it is important to note that Lunox has a moderate ban rate throughout epic to mythic ranks so you will not get to use her every game.

Learning Lunox (Beginner)

1. Lunox has 2 forms, I’ll call them Light and Chaos for simplicity
2. Cooldown does not affect Lunox’s skills; instead, it gives her bonus magic penetration in Chaos form, or bonus resistance in Light form.
3. There are 4 passive tiny orbs below her hp bar that indicate the form she’s in, this will change her passive and ultimate type. These orbs can either glow 2 light, 1 light, 1 chaos, or 2 chaos. This may seem confusing at first, but will be explained in a bit.
4. Lunox has a total of 3 regular skills, and 2 ultimates.
5. Lunox’s first skill deals area damage to all nearby enemies and heals her and we’ll call it her light skill.
6. Lunox’s second skill deals damage to a single target from a mid-long distance and we’ll call it her Chaos skill.
7. Using Lunox’s Light skill will put her Chaos skill in cooldown as well, and vice versa.
8. Lunox’s third skill deals damage to all enemies in a fan-shaped area and slows them too
9. Using Lunox’s light or Chaos skill will change the glowing of the 4 orbs below her hp. Using her light skill will add a light orb, collecting up to 2 light orbs. Using her Chaos skill will add a Chaos orb, collecting up to 2 Chaos orbs. The orbs indicate which form lunox is in and this changes her changes her passive, as well as her ultimate.
10. When Lunox has 1 or 2 light orbs glowing, her ultimate will be a light form ultimate. Using her light ultimate will cause her to ‘transform into a sphere of light’ and enter an invulnerable state while dealing slight aoe damage in this form when passing through enemies for a few seconds.
11. When Lunox has 1 or 2 Chaos orbs glowing, her ultimate will be a Chaos form ultimate. Using her Chaos ultimate will make her dash forward, dealing aoe damage in a tiny fish-shape area to enemies she dashes on. For the next few seconds, lunox is able to cast her Chaos skill with no cooldown (Allowing her to ‘spam’ it).
12. There is a difference between the cooldown of Lunox’s light ultimate, and her Chaos ultimate. The cooldown of her light ultimate is roughly 1.5x longer than that of her Chaos ultimate’s.

Learning Lunox (Intermediate)

Early-Mid Game

1. Always try to secure mid lane, lunox is one of the best gankers in the game and mid lane has the most roam potential, and therefore, carry potential.
2. Do not be scared of enemy mid laners trying to prevent you from clearing first minion wave (You are one of the strongest level 1 hero); at the same time, be wary that enemies aren’t hiding in the side bushes. You will be able to poke back 1-3 enemies while maintaining full hp in the majority of cases.
3. Do not waste mana and time casting Chaos skill on enemies once first wave has arrived. Use Light skill to damage both minions and poke enemies while recovering hp.
4. Avoid first wave poke trading if there are 2+ enemies in lane with one cc hero such as gatot or chouas they will prevent you from healing constantly with your light skill.
5. Always use your light skill and third skill to clear large waves of minions.
6. Early-Game, when clearing and solo tanking jungle camps, always use your light skill. The damage dealt by your light skill is not significantly less than your chaos skill, and it will allow you to recover health (Unless full hp)
7. Try to hit level 4 as soon as possible. Many players will not expect you to go in instantly at level 4, be it in lane, or ganking. At level 4, you are able to burst down essentially all non-tank enemies if you land both Chaos ultimate and third skill followed by spamming Chaos skill.

Mid-Late Game

1. Be map aware, and follow your opposing laner’s map movement. Hide in bushes that he doesn’t have vision of and wait for him to get back to lane if you know he’s coming back a certain way.
2. If an enemy hero is a mobile one such as harley, alice or gusion, when ambushing them, always anticipate where they will teleport to next so you can follow up with an instant flicker if needed because lunox only has one dash which is her chaos ultimate.
3. It is vital for your third skill to land to debuff enemies with a slow and there is a slight animation delay for it to deal damage, which may make auto targeting inaccurate at its hit-box edges; if you’re an intermediate player or above, opt to use manual aiming instead of auto target. (Drag skill and aim manually instead of just tapping) This becomes even more important versus a group of enemies whereby you want to aim your third skill at all of them instead of just the lowest hp target.
4. Constantly leading in team fights with your Chaos ultimate will allow enemies such as chou or kaja to easily focus in on you because you can’t change to light form in time. Depending on the enemy team, slowly learn from personally experience, the best way to team fight and position yourself.
5. Your light form and ultimate exists for a reason, you don’t always have to lead into fights in Chaos form. You can lead in with Light form and sustain for as long as you can before using light ultimate to reposition yourself and enter back into the fight in Chaos form.
6. The main difference between a beginner Lunox user and an intermediate or advanced Lunox user, is knowing how to keep track of your number of orbs and knowing how to time your different Light and Chaos form changes perfectly throughout a fight. A beginner lunox will run around the map with 2 Chaos orbs constantly, and always lead in with Chaos ultimate regardless of positioning.
7. An advanced lunox player should learn how to time his light ultimates better, from avoiding relatively fast abilities such as johnson ultimate, harley ultimate, to being able to avoid almost instantaneous abilities such as aurora’s freeze or saber’s/fanny’s ultimate; as well as being able to anticipate certain unavoidable abilities such as a flicker kick from a chou, a flicker lock-on from a kaja, or a silencing dash from a helcurt.

Well-timed combos and form-changes will look something like this: https://www.reddit.com/link/b4mhxp/video/52l9klstwwn21/player

https://www.reddit.com/link/b4skow/video/q8fnasjzxzn21/player

The account I played on at the time of this video is a low star mythic, first game is a ranked one, second game was a custom between friends mainly in grandmaster to low mythic.

Learning Lunox (High-Elo)

These are the safest tips to play lunox in high elo, versus other top global players where if you aren’t careful, they will exploit every single mistake you make. If playing in lower elo, feel free to play more aggressively.

1. When roaming around the map with no vision, always ensure you have 1 light orb below your hp bar. This gives you a lot of versatility in going immune instantly to escape enemy ambushes, or ambushing enemies clearing jungle by changing back to Chaos form.
2. Only roam around the map in Chaos form when the enemy team has no significant cc heroes that can prevent you from changing forms, or you are aware of all enemy positions and are preparing for a gank.
3. Lunox’s most vulnerable state is after she has collected 2 Chaos orbs from using her Chaos Combo; it will take her at least 4 seconds to revert back to light form by casting her light skill twice.
4. In top-elo games, when there is a stalemate of team fighting and everyone has all gathered, always ensure you have either another allied cc hero standing near you, flicker, or winter truncheon available before even attempting to use your Chaos ultimate to poke enemies.
5. Winter Truncheon is an essential 2nd to 4th item for lunox. Winter truncheon, in addition to taking flicker, and having your light ultimate, makes it incredibly difficult for enemies to target you.
6. There is a 4 second window where lunox is susceptible to being targetted after using her Chaos Combo and being unable to convert back in time to Light Ultimate. This is where Winter Truncheon is most vital. If caught in a scenario where you are being targetted while you have 2 Chaos orbs, always cast light skill once, to reduce Chaos orbs to 1, followed by winter truncheon. The immune phase will allow your light skill cooldown to reset by the time winter truncheon active wears off, allowing you to safely convert back to Light form and leaving the enemies targetting you in a bad position.
7. Never use your light ultimate to poke enemies in high-elo, they will capitalize off this and target you the moment your invulnerability is wearing off.
8. In a game’s end phase, where players are gathering to look for a final team fight, a way to effectively poke enemies safely is to maintain 2 light orbs and use a single Chaos skill (followed by a light skill to revert back to 2 light orbs) in order to poke enemies till you see an opening to go all-in.

Battle Spell

1. Flicker is the most viable spell to take for lunox. She has limited mobility after entering Chaos form and a flicker can be essential to chasing an enemy, or escaping. It will also allow her to dodge slower incoming abilities such as a Chou knockup, or an incoming Gatotkakca ultimate.
2. Retribution is the next viable spell to take for lunox. Take this if you’re playing in solo queue and have been constantly getting teams not willing to give you buff. Buff is very vital for Lunox; without it, you will have to constantly return to base for mana.
3. Purify is the last viable spell to take for lunox. Only opt for this over flicker if enemies have a lot of single target lock-on such as aurora freezes, eudora stuns, chou knockups etc.

Emblem

• Always opt for Custom Mage Emblem unless you did not level it up.

Go for Max Movement Speed, Magical lifesteal, and Magic Worship. This will allow lunox to roam faster, sustain better in lane or versus multiple enemies, and deal greater burst damage to a single target.

• The next best option is Common Magic Emblem.

Go for Max Mana Regen, CD Reduction + Magical Lifesteal, and Magic Power Surge. This will allow lunox to sustain both mana and hp better, as well as give her some bonus magic penetration and bonus temporary burst damage.

Build

Main Build

This build focuses a lot on a mixture of high damage capabilities, and durability from concentrated energy plus winter truncheon. The late game items will allow you to successfully decimate the enemy team from your back-lines.

1. Demon Shoes (Lunox’s skills drain a lot of mana. Demon Shoes are vital to sustaining it)
2. Concentrated Energy (Lunox’s first skill and third skill will benefit greatly from spell vamp in team fights)
3. Lightning Truncheon (Gives a significant increase of burst damage or poke damage from the item’s passive)
4. Winter Truncheon (Vital in potentially saving your life and allowing you to change back to light form)
5. Holy Crystal/Divine Glaive (Opt for Divine Glaive if at least one enemy is building heavy magic resist)
6. Holy Crystal/Divine Glaive/Immortality (With winter truncheon, flicker, her light ultimate, and immortality, Lunox will become incredibly difficult to target and kill)

Clock of Destiny can be built as a second item too for extra durability, and for that extra mana sustain after Lunox’s mana nerf.

Regardless of build, take Tier 1 jungle blade as first item if you will be clearing at least a few jungle camps throughout the game. Sell this away when you reach full item slots.

Semi Tank Build

This build focuses more on Lunox’s survivability and should be built when enemies have a lot of target-locking capabilities or burst damage.

1. Demon Shoes (Lunox’s skills drain a lot of mana. Demon Shoes are vital to sustaining it)
2. Concentrated Energy (Lunox’s first skill and third skill will benefit greatly from spell vamp in team fights)
3. Winter Truncheon (Vital in potentially saving your life and allowing you to change back to light form)
4. Athena Shield (The best survivability tank item in the game. Opt for an armour item such as Dominance Ice if enemy team is 100% physical damage)
5. Immortality/Oracle/Brute Force Breastplate (Opt for Bruce Force Breastplate if in need for some armour; it’s passive will also slightly increase your damage temporarily, and it has good synergy with Lunox’s Chaos Combo, allowing her to chase enemies better from increased movement speed)
6. Holy Crystal (Allows you to still continuously deal significantly high damage to squishier targets despite having a semi-tank build)

Clock of Destiny can be built as a second item too for extra durability, and for that extra mana sustain after Lunox’s mana nerf.

Regardless of build, take Tier 1 jungle blade as first item if you will be clearing at least a few jungle camps throughout the game. Sell this away when you reach full item slots.