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Pros


+ Amazing Harraser
+ AOE Stuns
+ Heavy CC
+ Low Cds
+ Easy & Quick Movement
+ Laning: Energy User
+ He is a Flipping Ninja!


Cons



- Relatively Squishy
- Needs to be in melee range to use Slicing Maelstrom
- Team Fights: Energy User
- Kennen is afflicted by the Law of Inverse Ninja Strength

During the laning phase, being an energy user is very helpfull, you can harras as much as you wan't wihtout ever be afraid of running out of energy. This gives Kennen an advantage over other AP Mid Champs.

But during team fights, Kennen runs out of energy really fast.

Starting Items




Boots of Speed & 3x Health Potions
The Safe Laner
This is the safest way possible. You have the speed and the sustain. Only go this way when I need to avoid a lot of skill shots, like Ahri.

Doran's Shield
The Long Laner
This is a great starting item for Kennen. More health against bursty champs. DO NOT take Doran's Shield against champs with a lot of skill shots. It that case, Boots is better. Kennen has high mobility from the start, and with Lightning Rush. Doran's Shield is the best starting item for Kennen in my opinnion. Combine this with Spell Vamp quints and you will have a lot of sustain!.

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Core Item Build:


Your core build should be attained in the first 20-30 minutes:


That's your core build. From here, we move on to the "Luxurious" items.

After that stage, you should add 3 of these items:

1. The key for me was switching to Spellvamp quints. This together with masteries will give you 9% spellvamp at the start of the game. Together with the essential Hextech > WotA it makes you a beast in terms of sustain. Health quints are not needed, especially since I usually start off with Doran's Shield, and that's enough.
For seals I go flat armor atm, but I think I will switch to energy regens when I can afford them, because of the synergy with spell vamp and being able to spam shuriken more for harass. This might be situational though, in top lane vs heavy AD harass it might be better to keep flat armor. Blues I go magic resists, and red magic penetration. Don't know if its optimal, but it seems to work OK.

2. I run 9/0/21 for some offensive power but main focus on spellvamp and CD reduction which synergizes very well for the super sustain, which is kind of the main theme of my Kennen build.

3. This is very situational.... one thing is certain though, and that is that you should avoid initiating fights, and rather show up when the enemy is already aggroing your tank/initiator, hopefully blowing lots of their CC on him/her. If you get focused a lot anyway, I'd recommend getting Zhonyas or Quicksilver Sash to try remedy that problem.
As for combinations, it might also be useful to consider flash > ult > rush > surge, because it is quite useful to use your rush to proc the passive and add a mark to the enemy team, instead of using it for gap closing. This way when you surge, a lot of enemies will have their third mark added and thus be stunned. Also remember to throw Shurikens at everyone and everything and autoattack a lot. :P

Kennen counters

Ryze, Gragas, Janna, Lee Sin, Alistar, Swain, Annie, Ahri, Vladimir, Irelia

Ego Ignaxio's methodological guide to Kennen click here