Lauriel: Not Your Average Mage

Build and Guide Lauriel: Not Your Average Mage

Cheat Sheet
Skill Build

Aim to keep everything even across the board. Lauriel's cooldowns are fast already, but keeping them together allows for more consistent combos.

Items

Loki's Curse, Gilded Greaves, The Aegis, Rhea's Blessing, Hecate's Diadem, Gaia's Standard

Arcana

Ability Power, Magic Pierce and Magic Life Steal are the go-to Arcana here. Cooldown reduction won't make much difference, so focus on these three core stats in your spread.

Talents

Punish, Execute, Daze

Introduction
Lauriel is one of Arena of Valor's more mobile magic users, and a fast-acting mage is one to fear. They're less predicable, quicker to react to the ever-changing feel of the battlefield and can throw out a lot of damage while minimise damage taken by frantically flipping around in a fight.

And Lauriel does exactly that. Hiding a passive ability that causes her targets to explode for additional damage after taking a few hits and healing herself as she dances around her enemies, her wings aren't just for show. Easily killed when swamped, however, her true power is locked behind risky close-range strategies, giving her a distinctively high difficulty curve.

Skill Build
Diving Punishment is Lauriel's choice of Passive ability. Whenever a target takes 4 hits of her abilities, they explode for additional damage in and around themselves, and even severely slows every enemy caught in the blast. On top of that, she gains a quick 110HP heal the moment the fireworks go off. This heal won't mean an awful lot later on, but it makes Lauriel a strong choice for the jungle and some rather unpredictable early encounters.

The Wheel is a rather ominous sounding main ability that's little more than a medium-length glowing road that deals damage as it rolls out and as it explodes. The  road quickly forms in the target direction, dealing damage to those in its path and explodes in a flash of light for an additional hit a second later. A clear way for Lauriel to gain 2 stacks of her passive on a group, it takes a keen eye to hit the same target twice in one go.

Vital in her quest to fill the Mobility role, Blink shoots Laurial a short distance in the target direction, throwing out 3 magical orbs that lock on and strike nearby targets. Assuming all the orbs cause damage, the cooldown of Blink is reduced by 4 seconds from its 10-second base recast time. With item picks on top, this will often benefit from a 2 second recast time. With her Ultimate in effect, it's practically spammable.

Which brings us to Smite, Lauriel's magic circle. This large field of light on the ground vastly reduces the cooldown speed of her abilities when she stands within and deals moderate damage both as it appears and disappears. Lauriel can abuse this by throwing out The Wheel near-endlessly from a short distance, but she's far more potent with Smite being placed in the centre of a team fight. This way, she's able to rapidly alternate between Blink and The Wheel, dancing around the enemy team and throwing out a barrage of spells that, in turn, trigger her Passive for additional damage and survivability.

Smite is the only ability that benefits from a shorter recast time through levelling up, so this will be attained by slotting a point in at the usual levels. The Wheel and Blink, however, will only see moderate damage numbers scale with each point – their recast times are entirely dependant on item picks, arcana and the ability effects themselves.

Due to Lauriel's core strategy of using each ability to reduce the cooldown of the next, it's best to level up her actions evenly so that damage scales smoothly as the match progresses. The Wheel more than doubles its potency from a base amount of 215 at level 1 to 440 at max tier. Blink, on the other hand, slowly climbs from 175 to 250. Both abilities deal this amount with each hit, meaning all three orbs from Blink can cause a maximum of 750 base power to a single target, with The Wheel managing 880 to any and all targets unlucky enough to take both of its hits

Talents
Thanks to her unique way of self-administered triage, Lauriel stands out as a perfect Jungle candidate. Her clothes may not scream rumble in the jungle, but even the Frostbite action itself compliments her own skill set. Both buffs available in the jungle serve her well, with both helping her kill jungle creatures more effectively, and the Sage Buff further boosting her already shockingly low cooldown times. The slight slowdown effect of the Might (red) Golem buff is, as they say, icing on the cake.

Execute is an interesting choice for a mage, but shouldn't come as much of a surprise when found on Lauriel's body. With a somewhat staggered attack range compared to other mage characters, Lauriel makes aims to get upclose and personal as often as she can. Execute, being a borderline melee strike in itself, can be used similarly to Frostbite if she were to jungle. Rather than slow down a target she's looking to pursue, Execute can be used to quickly finish one off.

Limited to three potential picks, Daze certainly isn't the only viable third option for anyone looking to shake things up, it's just one of the skills that closely matches Lauriel's main strategy. Daze can be used in a similar situation to Execute and Frostbite, but would instead lightly stun enemies around the user. A decent ability to pop if you've trapped a team within the Smite circle, but Lauriel's passive typically manages a similar feat if all goes well.

Items
Fast attacks are Lauriel's bread and butter, meaning scaling Ability Power to blast down a target in 2-3 hits before waiting on cooldowns isn't how she rolls. Instead, item picks for this particular magic user revolve around further reducing her cooldown times, lightly boosting her raw power and, most of all, applying even more detrimental effects on her opponents. She isn't built for a 3-shot combo like Veera or Natalya, so she makes up for this with a constant light barrage, baiting her opponent's abilities until they're ripe for the kill.

Do do this, we start things off with either Orb of the Magi or Loki's Curse depending on whether you've opted to Jungle or remain in the lane. Both picks offer scaling Ability Power, with Loki's Curse allowing for a quick and easy grab of the Sage buff to make up for any lost Cooldown Reduction. Enchanced Kicks are a fine choice of footwear for those looking to deal some extra early damage, with Gilded Boots being preferred for more manageable group encounters.

The Aegis and Rhea's Blessing are next on the list, further boosting Lauriel's survivability and reducing the cooldown time of her abilities a further 30%. Additional shield, Magic Life Steal and enfeeblements brought on by these two items  are seen as a vital method to keep Lauriel alive long enough to do her dance as the centre of attention.

Finishing things off with Hecate's Diadem and Gaia's Standard finally give Lauriel the Ability Power and Magic Pierce she'll need to stay relevant in the late-game struggle, with Gaia's Standard specifically offering up a bunch more HP and Magic Defense on top of its HP regenerative passive ability.

Arcana
As unique as Lauriel's movepool and overall strategy looks on paper, she's still a fairly ordinary magic user who focuses on little more than throwing out damage and using that high attack power to supplement her lacklustre native defences. Ability Power will give her attacks the extra push they need early on with Magic Pierce certainly helping later on when the enemy team starts to build on their armor. Magic Life Steal should help shrug off the occasional auto-attack that running around the target won't avoid.

Low-tier arcana users need look no further than a simple Talisman, Absorption, Disruption spread in Red, Purple and Green arcana slots respectively. The idea here is, as mentioned above, to keep Lauriel from falling off the deep end as a match transitions into the late-game phase of bulky tanks and hard-hitting ADCs.

Following this same pattern with Tier 2 and 3 arcana, picks like Corruption, Revelation and Disruption serve a more potent purpose. Those with lots of extra gold to burn can (and will) enjoy Tier 3 arcana like Violate, Devour and Hex with the latter providing some bonus Cooldown Speed.

Anyone looking to build more heavily toward survivability as our item picks suggest could swap out things like Corruption and Disruption for Spellbound and Willpower in the Green slots.

Early Game
With the Jungle role as our main focus for this guide, Lauriel doesn't have a whole lot on her plate early on. He cooldown speeds are already impressive, but she won't be weaving her attacks enough to be much a threat to a single target just yet, so ganking is out of the question.

Start things off with the Red Golem and make the most of its burning buff to strike down the other two creatures around it before moving onto the opposite set of jungle spawns. Cross through your own mid-lane turf here rather than running the risk of a fight in the middle of a lane. Grabbing the Sage buff is top priority here, with the other two monsters being next on the agenda.

Like any Jungle character, you're looking to lap up experience and gold while levelling up as quick as possible. You can start looking into sneaky gank attacks once you've unlocked all of your abilities, have Sage buff active and have Frostbite available by upgrading Hunter's Crossbow to Monsters' Bane. Maxing out the 15 stacks of Loki's Curse should be a priority before leaving the jungle behind, but try to keep the Sage buff on you as often as you can.

Mid Game
With that all out of the way, it's time to start playing your part in bigger fights. Mid and top lanes are where Lauriel tends to shine, but kicking up a fuss in the bottom lane is entirely viable – if not typically a little more risky.

Blink can absolutely be used to close the gap between you and a target, but being slightly out of range will cause reduce it to little more than a second of travel time saved. The orbs won't hit unless it propels you into a close-range situation and will, therefore, be on a fairly lengthy cooldown with Lauriel then struggling to find a way to inflict worthwhile damage. Use it when it's certain to land you close enough to deal damage, otherwise, get close enough for it to do its job regardless of which direction you shoot off too. Follow this up with The Wheel with Smite thrown out right after. If all goes well, the strikes of Blink paired with the natural cooldown reduction of Smite should have Blink available for use again. Tap it to blink behind your opponent, causing them to pivot on the stop and typically remain within the path of Smite for its secondary trigger. This should count as another 4 strikes, triggering your passive for additional damage, slowing their potential getaway and hopefully having them suffer another hit of Smite as it fades. Throwing in Frostbite as you make initial contact with the enemy should keep them in place long enough for the rest of this combo.

Use whichever abilities become available throughout its duration to keep your opponent on their toes. Just be mindful of Blink; you may need it to retreat if enemy reinforces are on their way. You still won't stand up to a group. Remember to keep the Sage buff on you as long as possible, and just travel between lanes throwing out your rapid cooldowns to keep up the pressure. Kills should only be attempted if your passive triggers, as launcing yourself into range of the tower will typically spell disaster. Those orbs will hit a target and you will become the tower's little toy.

Late Game
Assuming you've reached Hecate's Diadem and have the Sage buff active, Lauriel becomes a busy bee indeed toward the closing moments of a match. When stood inside her Smite circle, Blink and The Wheel enjoy near non-existant cooldown times with her mana being unbroken even when frantically spamming her abilities all over the place.

Highlighting the need for all those defensive items, the only way Lauriel can reliably trigger her passive ability at this point is to land both The Wheel and Blink on a single enemy. Spreading either will still deal similar damage numbers, but spreading the orbs of Blink will make it tougher for Divine Punishment to trigger – and having a target accumulate stacks and explode around their teammates is exactly what Lauriel aims to do; typically in quick succession.

In a team fight, you're more or less required to get within melee range to make the most of your skillset. Quick retreats are possible (and somewhat vital) when it comes to the rapid cooldown time of Blink, but you're still susceptible to a quick stun/shutdown combo when flinging yourself into harm's way. The aim remains the same, however – you just have to pull it off numerous times in quick succession.

If you're at a distance, start with The Wheel to essentially mark your target. Follow up with Blink and them immediately again with both Smite and Frostbite to keep your target somewhat stationary. While inside Smite Lauriel's cooldowns are practically invisible, so quickly aim and Blink and The Wheel so that you're rapidly shifting position around the enemy team (within reason). This, tied with the damage inflicted by your skills and Smite appearing and disappearing, should trigger Divine Punishment a handful of times on more than one opponent.

The aim is to assault a group, causing a chain explosion of sorts as they all accumulate Divine Punishment stacks and detonate around each other while Lauriel herself avoids targeted blasts by flying around with Blink. This won't stop auto-attacks and other auto-aim abilities from hitting her, but that's why you're often looking for backup to keep the brunt of damage away from yourself. The HP regeneration of your passive exploding multiple times should work well with the Magic Life Steal of Rhea's Blessing and arcana picks to recover smaller attacks that clip you as your work your magic.

Just keep on your toes and aim to make the opposite team dance the same dance. Consistant slowdowns and the chance for rapid AOE strikes around the team should make for plenty of opportunity for your team to follow up with their own attacks and single out anyone who needs to die first.

FAQ/Tips
Unless you're certain you want to keep up the assault, aim Blink manually. Tapping it will always launch you behind your target, and that's typically toward danger.

Both Smite and The Wheel deal damage again as they reach the end of their time on the field. Using Blink is a good way to keep an enemy within range of this follow-up attack

Try not to think about how many stacks you've accumulated on a target. Just go with the flow and the benefits will speak for themselves.

Lauriel can absolutely win 1v1 battles if she's ready, but shouldn't initiate a group fight. She's too brittle for that.

Matchups
Probably a fine character to hold Soaring Aura herself, Lauriel would greatly benefit from a tank or less fragile character being around her at all times. Sustained magic damage is her thing, and having nearby allies apply a sizeable Magic Defence debuff to her targets would allow for her constant AOE moveset and passive triggers to deal an even more impressive amount of damage while keeping her relatively safe with their own enfeeblements.

Try to avoid a 1v1 situation with Lauriel unless you're certain her Smite ultimate is unavailable. Her cooldown times are non-existent when inside and she'll often run circles around you as your health dips and her's inches up every few seconds. Characters with lingering AOE moves and aimed attacks will struggle to land hits as she dances around, but ADCs who focus on high auto-attack speed and damage shouldn't have too much trouble so long as they stay on their feet.

Archers stand out here as they can typically attack before she can get too close and then auto-attack without much worry. Fast melee assassins, who usually shut down mages without much trouble, will have to change up their tactics as Lauriel can dance a finer dance. Think Tel'Annas, Fennik and Valhein rather than Butterfly, Wukong and Murad