Senna is about to hit the live servers for League of Legends, and we’ve compiled a comprehensive guide for her so you can hit the ground running with the newest LoL champion.
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Senna is one of League’s most versatile champs released to date. She can be played in solo lanes, although she truly thrives in the bot lane as either a support or a carry.
However, she has an incredibly high skill cap and an unconventional play style that’ll take some time to get used to – no matter if you are a seasoned player or a first-timer.
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If you want to pick her up as she hits live on Patch 9.22, here’s some tips and tricks to make sure you are well on your way to picking up some wins and getting ahead of the curve.
What are Senna’s abilities?
Senna’s kit has some light crowd control, defensive utility with heals and shields, and tons of late game scaling with her passive. This makes her passable in the laning phase, but a beast to be reckoned with once the timer ticks over 30 minutes.
Her passive, Absolution, introduces the mist mechanic. Attacking a champion applies mist, and Senna can collect it if she attacks them within three seconds. Each stack of mist gives her one bonus AD, and every 20 stacks gives her extra range and critical strike chance.
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Her passive also includes how her basic attacks work. Senna’s Relic Cannon is similar to Jhin’s weapon. She doesn’t gain AD through levelling up, and she doesn’t scale off attack speed. However, her attacks do extra physical damage, and give her bonus movement speed.
Her Q, Piercing Darkness, is her primary poke and sustain tool. Allies in a line are healed, while enemies in a line take damage. It takes its name after Lucian’s Piercing Light, and works in a very similar way, although with more range and Senna can still auto attack during the cast. She can use her Q to collect mist on the ground.
Her W, Last Embrace, is a skillshot crowd control ability. If it hits a target, they are marked and consequently snared after a second. It also snares nearby enemies. Because of how slow her W is, she synergises well with a laner who has some form of crowd control. This can be as simple as a Bilgewater Cutlass on a Lucian or Ashe, or a full on tank like Thresh or Nautilus.
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Her E, Curse of the Black Mist, is her strongest ability. Senna disguises herself in a shroud, granting camouflage to her and her allies. Her allies are disguised once they come out of the shroud until they attack, meaning you can surprise enemies by baiting them with different allies.
Finally, her ultimate, Dawning Shadow, is a global-range skillshot which damages enemies in a slim line, and shields allies in a much bigger line. The damage values on the ability aren’t too significant, but because of its global range, it can change the tides of a fight anywhere on the map.
Senna’s should look to max her Q first and her E second in 99% of circumstances. The 1% is if the enemy team has a lot of melee champions, in which case, going for W second might be worth it.
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Best runes for Senna
Summon: Aery stands out as the optimal keystone for a defensive setup for support Senna. It gives her shields a bit more power, and can help her poke down foes in lane. Gathering Storm gives her some extra late game scaling, while Manaflow Band helps with her early and mid game mana issues.
If you want to go all-out aggro, Dark Harvest and the rest of the Domination tree is incredibly strong. Dark Harvest is forever scaling, and she can easily farm stacks in lane thanks to her aggressive nature. Eyeball Collection gives her extra scaling, and Sudden Impact synergises incredibly well with her shroud for maximum damage.
Senna also benefits a lot from the Resolve tree, with Revitalize boosting the power of her Piercing Darkness heals and ultimate shields. It also gives her a bit more defensive power, which can come in handy as she is quite squishy otherwise.
If you decide to run a bruiser solo lane Senna, Conqueror is a decent keystone. You can take it with Triumph, Legend: Bloodline, and Coup De Grace for a healthy lane setup that scales well into late game.
Best items on Senna
Senna should always be taking Spellthief’s Edge. We still have one patch left on Season 9 and the old support items, but once Season 10 comes along, the Spellthief’s passive / High AD item will be the way to go.
Senna doesn’t scale well off a traditional marksman build, but it is possible with Infinity Edge to capitalise on her passive critical strike chance. Instead, Lethality or bruiser seem to be the two optimal paths, capitalising on her need for AD and cooldown reduction over attack speed.
Duskblade of Draktharr and Youmuu’s Ghostblade are insanely strong thanks to her high AD scalings. They allow her to get around the map fast and burst down squishy targets, while still having a decent amount of supportive utility.
For a more bruiser style build, Black Cleaver and Death’s Dance will help her stay alive while shredding down her lane opponents. Into the late game, Guardian Angel is incredibly strong regardless of build path, as it allows her to stay in the fight longer.
How to play Senna
Playing Senna in the bot lane compared to a solo lane is distinctly different. Senna in the bot lane thrives on playing aggressively, trying to step forward with her allies and take trades to farm up Absolution stacks for the late game. She can disengage trades quickly with her shroud, meaning your lane partner should take minimal damage.
On the other hand, solo lane Senna should look to poke down enemies, but not take trades too aggressively early. While she can dodge ganks easily with her shroud, her general squishiness and low damage early means she won’t be able to fight back. Once she hits six, she can start having a presence across the map, and by level 11, she can hold her own.
If a melee champion gets on top of Senna though, it’s pretty much game over. They can see her through her shroud, and as long as they have the sticking power, should melt her down pretty quick. Be aware of this if someone brings a melee champion down bot, or you are playing in a solo lane.
In team fights, she plays out like a marksman more than anything. Because her Piercing Darkness provides a lot of sustain, and her shroud a lot of utility, she should look to use these abilities off cooldown to help her team stay alive and get out of danger, or get on top of the enemy carry. Be sure to keep auto attacking, as it reduces the cooldown of her Piercing Darkness.
Senna is expected to hit the live server some time in Patch 9.22, which is released on November 5.
