Lylia Guide

Lylia excels at poking enemies at range, forcing them off of objectives and allowing her team to push freely. Her Shadow Energy stacks allow her to deal considerable burst damage, and her ability to go back in time four seconds can help her reposition and get out of a sticky situation.

In the early game, Lylia can use her Shadow Energy to zone and harass her lane opponent, forcing them to take damage or miss out on experience and gold. 

In team fights, Lylia is able to stay at range and continue her zoning, placing Shadow Energy on the battlefield and forcing enemies to position wisely or take heavy damage. As a mage, she should be in the back lines applying pressure to the enemy frontline, but she also has her Black Shoes to help her if an assassin jumps her in the midst of a team fight.

Items

As a mage with good range and even mobility with her ultimate, Lylia can build purely offensively, allowing her to maximize her damage just by playing smart and staying in positions where she is in the optimal spot to deal damage and not take it.

Magic Shoes reduce Lylia’s cooldowns, helping her to spam her Shadow Energy more frequently.

Items like Ice Queen Wand and Glowing Wand enhance Lylia’s skills, adding slows and burn damage, perfect for stacking on the pain when hitting enemies with her Shadow Energy and Gloom.

Late game items like Holy Crystal expand her power considerably, with Winter Truncheon giving her the ability to freeze in place for two seconds. This can help Lylia avoid damage when in a bad spot (or even be the thing that saves her, taking her ultimate off cooldown during those two seconds and allowing her to escape with it!)

Abilities

Lylia’s abilities allow her to poke and harass enemies from range, creating hazard zones that they must avoid on the battlefield through her Shadow Energy. Because Lylia can place multiple Shadow Energy, and Gloom will consume them on travel, enemies have to tread carefully around Lylia or face a hefty amount of damage for their missteps.

Use Shadow Energy to zone enemies out and harass them. Try to position your Shadow Energy so that when using Magic Shockwave Gloom will consume as many as possible. Find a nice balance between keeping enemies at bay and maximizing Gloom’s devour.

If your Shadow Energy placement is too predictable, enemies will be able to easily avoid the Magic Shockwave. Sometimes playing mind games with your opponent and making them fear the damage of Shadow Energy and Magic Shockwave is more powerful than using it and whiffing. Find the right balance, based on your own preferences, how your enemy is reacting, and whether or not enemies may be nearby to collapse on you for harassing too heavily.

Lylia’s ultimate ability, Black Shoes, helps her to maximize her damage output and gives the otherwise immobile mage some limited mobility, taking her back in time four seconds and fully recharging her Shadow Energy orbs.

Use Black Shoes defensively when the enemy team has superior mobility and assassins can jump on you and delete you with ease. The ability can be used offensively in team fights as well, allowing Lylia to pump out heavy Shadow Energy and then rewind, doing it all again. 

Keep in mind the enemy cooldowns and what they have at their disposal before deciding whether to use Black Shoes offensively or save it.

Emblems

Lylia benefits most from the Mage Emblem page, with Mastery and Observation boosting her cooldown reduction and magic penetration, allowing her to use her Shadow Energy more frequently and pierce magic resistances the enemy buy to counter her.

Magic Worship helps Lylia inflict even greater burn damage, especially useful when knowing how to land your Shadow Energy and have Gloom consume it for insane damage. Mystery Shop is another viable talent for mages, allowing them to buy items for cheaper and can be taken on Lylia if you’re not confident you’ll be able to land your abilities and successfuly proc the conditions for Magic Worship consistently.