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Senna Build Guide by sorakabro

Support [10.15] Sorakabro´s guide - how to carry as Senna Support

Support [10.15] Sorakabro´s guide - how to carry as Senna Support

Updated on August 4, 2020
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16 0 46,353 Views 0 Comments League of Legends Build Guide Author sorakabro Senna Build Guide By sorakabro Updated on August 4, 2020
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Runes: Grasp runes 1

1 2 3 4
Resolve
Grasp of the Undying
Font of Life
Bone Plating
Revitalize

Precision
Presence of Mind
Legend: Alacrity
Bonus:

+9 Adaptive (5.4 AD or 9 AP)
+9 Adaptive (5.4 AD or 9 AP)
+6 Armor

Spells:

1 2
LoL Summoner Spell: Flash

Flash

LoL Summoner Spell: Heal

Heal

Threats & Synergies

Threats Synergies
Extreme Major Even Minor Tiny
Show All
None Low Ok Strong Ideal
Extreme Threats
Ideal Synergies
Synergies
Ideal Strong Ok Low None

Champion Build Guide

[10.15] Sorakabro´s guide - how to carry as Senna Support

By sorakabro
About Me
Hello, my name is SorakaBro and welcome to my Senna Support guide. I have been playing League of Legends for a very long time, and have been High ELO ever since Season 2. I am a Support main who plays mostly Soraka and Senna. In Season 10, I peaked at master, and have peaked Challenger in previous Seasons.

You can catch me live every weekday on my Stream, or watch some of the highlights on Youtube. The goal of my stream- and youtube videos, is to be educational and explain my thought process as I play.

If you found this guide helpful, have any questions or any pointers to improve this guide, please get in touch and I'll definitely take the advice on board to make this guide the best it can be.

If you have any questions or found this guide helpful, please leave a comment and I'll get back to you. Enjoy!

Check out my latest video


Introduction to Senna

Senna, the redeemer is Lucian’s wife from Runeterra. She was recently reborn and now they dominate the bottom lane in harmony together. Senna can be played as an AD Carry, but also as a Support. In this guide, we will be focusing on how to play Senna as a Support.

When played as a Support, she is a poke heavy, skirmish heavy champion who will try to constantly fight and trade with the enemy. Senna is a versatile champion that deals lots of damage in the laning phase while also providing healing and utility for her team thanks to her Piercing Darkness and her Dawning Shadow.

If you’ve not given Senna a go yet, make sure you give her a try as she is an incredibly strong and fun Support to play! Make sure you use all the advice including runes, Summoner Spells, the build and the tips and tricks we provided in this guide!

Runes


There are 2 setups that Senna can take. The first is with Grasp of the Undying and the second with Glacial Augment. Now each set up has its pros and its cons, and some people prefer one over the other. In this section, we will break down each rune setup you can take on Senna. It's better for you to take the rune setup that suits your play style.


Keystone 1: Grasp of the Undying
Grasp of the Undying is your first keystone. It is good in matchups where the enemy has hard engage or tanks like Thresh or Alistar. It helps increase your survivability and lets you poke the enemy quite hard. The only problem with taking this rune is that you do lack damage in comparison to the second rune setup.

In line 1: Font of Life
Font of Life will be your next rune. This is a good rune as it allows your carries to heal whenever you CC the enemy. As Senna has a root on her Last Embrace, landing it will allow your carries to heal if they auto-attack the rooted enemy. There are not any over beneficial runes in this line.

In line 2: Bone Plating
On the second line, you should take Bone Plating. Bone Plating will increase your survivability when trading with the enemy as it offers you a little more protection as the game goes along. As Senna is quite squishy, having any bit of protection will help you win the laning phase.

In line 3: Revitalize
For the final rune, you should take Revitalize. As Senna has healing/shielding through her Piercing Darkness and Ultimate Dawning Shadow, taking this rune will make these abilities stronger which can be the difference between you or your carries living.

For your secondary runes, you should go with the Precision tree and take Presence of Mind which will help you with your mana issues, and Coup de Grace or Legend: Alacrity. However, there are many different secondary rune setups- so feel free to experiment and find what suits you and your playstyle best.


Keystone 2: Glacial Augment
As we discussed, there are 2 main rune setups. The next rune setup takes Glacial Augment which is a fantastic rune that synergizes incredibly well with your kit. The slows it provides makes Senna challenging to deal with and it also helps you cashing in with your Passive.

In line 1: Magical Footwear
The next rune you should take is Magical Footwear. This rune is a good investment as it gives you a free pair of boots. It also gives you additional movement speed once you get them. I think this is a much better rune in comparison to Perfect Timing.

In line 2: Biscuit Delivery
On the second line, Biscuit Delivery is the perfect rune for Senna as it gives her increased sustain during the laning phase. The biscuits it provide gives you extra mana and health, which will come in handy if you’re running low. If you’re doing very well and the enemy has little impact in your lane, you can even sell the Biscuits and get some gold from them. All in all, it’s a very good rune for Senna.

In line 3: Cosmic Insight
The final rune for Senna is Cosmic Insight. Extra cooldown reduction on her abilities, more cooldown reduction on her Summoner Spells and an additional 5% max CDR are brilliant on Senna as she benefits heavily from early cooldown reduction. Cosmic Insight will make her harder to deal with as her Piercing Darkness will be on a shorter cooldown: allowing her to poke more. Her Ultimate Dawning Shadow will also be on a lower cooldown, which can help with saving your allies across the map.

For your secondary runes, again you should go with Precision tree and take Presence of Mind which will help you with your mana issues. For the other runes, you can choose between Legend: Alacrity or Coup de Grace. Again, try them out and see which one suits you best.

Regardless of which rune choice you go with, you’ll always want to take double adaptive damage and armour or magic resist depending on the matchup you’re in.

Itemisation


Let’s discuss itemisation for Senna. Now, the build path for Senna will depend on which rune setup you’ve gone for. We’ll break it down as we go along, but regardless of the rune setup you’ve gone with, you’ll always need to start the same way.
You should always start with Spectral Sickle. This item synergises incredibly well with Senna’s playstyle. As she needs to poke as much as she can in the early game, she will be able to stack this item pretty quickly and also reap the benefits of having extra health, damage and mana regen that this item provides. Aim to get the warding quest on this item completed by the 9-10 minute mark.

This is where the build for Senna can get tricky depending on which rune choice you’ve gone with. Let’s start with Grasp of the Undying build.

The first major item you should be getting is Frozen Mallet. This item is really good for Senna as it provides her with some tanky stats while also giving her some additional damage. The Passive for this item will also be very beneficial on Senna as auto attacks on enemy champions will slow their movements for 1.5 seconds. This will make it easier for her to get Passive stacks and also kite the enemy champion.

The next item you should get are Boots of Swiftness. Like all champions, Senna needs a fresh pair of sneakers. The best Boots for her are these ones as they reduce slow effects and also give her tons of movement speed. Senna is quite vulnerable to CC, so having these boots will help her against champions with slows.

Once you’ve got your Boots and upgraded them, it’s time to get Black Cleaver. This item is excellent on Senna as it gives her AD, health and lots of cooldown reduction. The passive’s also come in handy and make your auto attacks more oppressive to deal with.

Games will mostly end by the time you’ve built Black Cleaver, but if they haven’t, the next item you’ll be looking to get is Umbral Glaive or Edge of Night. Both are very good items on Senna and are both viable on her. You may wish to go Umbral Glaive if you’re ahead and the enemy is squishy, but if the enemy has lots of poke or CC, Edge of Night may be the choice for you. Both provide Lethality and will make your auto attacks hurt a lot!

For the final item, you can go Guardian Angel or Mortal Reminder. If the enemy lacks sustain in team fights (does the enemy have lots of healing or shielding?), go for Guardian Angel. If the enemy consists of champions that have lots of healing and shielding, go for Mortal Reminder to reduce their healing and shielding ability.

If the enemy does have someone in lane who provides a lot of healing like Soraka, you could opt to get an early Executioner's Calling to reduce her healing and sustain in lane. This will make it easier for you and your ADC to win lane. You can get this item on your first back but not upgrade it until you’ve got the rest of your items.

It’s time to switch it up. We will now go over the build for Glacial Augment Senna. Just like before, you’ll start with Spectral Sickle, but your first item is going to be Umbral Glaive. This item is very good in a variety of ways. Most notable, it gives you more damage in lane, but it also allows you to clear vision and destroy lots of wards quickly. This item will help you in the laning phase and throughout the game.

After you’ve completed this item, you’ll want to get Boots of Swiftness. We wont repeat ourselves, but the same concept applies from before.

For the third item, Youmuu's Ghostblade isn’t a bad option. It gives you lots of AD, cooldown reduction and lethality. The active is also very good as it can speed you up and help you move around the map while also protecting you against ganks. The passive on this item is also great and shouldn’t be sniffed at.

When it comes to your 4th item, you can choose between Duskblade of Draktharr or Edge of Night. This depends on your play style and what item you prefer. Edge of Night is excellent against poke and CC, while Duskblade of Draktharr gives you empowered autos. It’s up to you really.

For the final item, you can go Guardian Angel or Mortal Reminder. If the enemy lacks sustain in team fights (does the enemy have lots of healing or shielding?), go for Guardian Angel. If the enemy consists of champions that have lots of healing and shielding, go for Mortal Reminder to reduce their healing and shielding ability.


Situational items

Generally, you wouldn’t go too far off either one of these build paths on Senna. However, the only real exception is when you decide to buy Executioner's Calling. If the enemy has lots of sustain, do not get this item last! You need to get it first. Once you’ve completed Executioner's Calling, you can then start to get your first finished item. You do not need to upgrade Executioner's Calling until last, though.

Remember to buy Control Wards and place them throughout the game as it develops. Do not buy tons of Control Wards though as you’ll fall behind in your core itemisation.

Abilities

Senna’s Passive is Absolution
Senna’s basic attacks and damaging abilities on enemy champions apply Mist. If Senna applies Mist to the same target twice, she collects it. Enemy units that die near Senna have a small chance to spawn a Mist Wraith; increased to 2 for epic monsters.

Drops on enemy kills and large monsters like the Dragon or Baron are guaranteed to drop a Mist.
Minions and small monsters Senna kills have an 8.33% chance to drop.
Cannon minions that Senna doesn’t kill are guaranteed to drop Mist while small minions and small monsters Senna do not kill have a 22% chance.

Each stack of Mist grants Senna bonus attack damage. For every 20 stacks, Senna also gains bonus range and bonus crit chance. Once she reaches 100 crit, the excess is converted into live steal.

Senna’s basic attacks deal bonus physical damage on hit, and grants a percentage of the targets movement speed as bonus movement speed briefly.


Senna’s Q is Piercing Darkness

Senna fires a laser in a target direction dealing damage and healing herself. If she aims it on an allied champion, they will be healed.

Basic attacks reduce Piercing Darkness’s cooldown by 1-second on-hit.


Tips and Tricks
Whenever you use your Piercing Darkness on an enemy, make sure you auto-attack them first or after using your Piercing Darkness. Doing this will give you a stack for your Passive and increase your AD! Additionally, to make the best use out of your Piercing Darkness, it’s not a bad idea to aim it up so you can heal your ADC and poke the enemy at the same time. However, this isn’t always possible. Remember, this ability can heal your ADC. If your ADC’s been chunked down after a bad fight, use it to heal them. Finally, do not just use your Piercing Darkness to poke with. You need to use your auto-attacks too. Try and focus on auto-attacking the enemy more rather than relying on this ability as you’ll quickly go out of mana.

Senna’s W is Last Embrace

Senna throws Black Mist in the target direction, dealing damage and sticking onto the first enemy it comes into contact with. After a 1 second delay or when the target dies, the Black Mist spreads out and roots all nearby enemies who are within the Last Embrace area of effect.


Tips and Tricks
When playing against champions who can hard engage, do not use your Last Embrace unless you’re 100% sure that you’re going to land it. If you miss this ability, you’ll be vulnerable and the enemy may look to use the cooldown to play aggressive. Always keep this ability off cooldown in case you need it to defend yourself. When using your Last Embrace aggressively, you can aim it on a target that is about to die to instantly root targets that are inside the area of effect.

Senna’s E is Curse of the Black Mist

Senna surrounds herself with a mist and becomes camouflaged. Allied champions who enter the mist will also become camouflaged. However, enemies will be able to see obscured vision of your allies inside the mist.

While inside the mist, Senna and her allies will gain bonus movement speed, but, basic attacks or casting an ability will remove the camouflage briefly.


Tips and Tricks
You probably will not be using your Curse of the Black Mist in the early game. You shouldn’t really use it at all as it costs a lot of mana, has a long cooldown and leaves you vulnerable. Instead, you’ll only be wanting to use this ability to run away with when you see the enemy Jungler approaching your lane. When you do use this ability, try to stand as close as you can to your allies who are inside of the mist to make it harder for the enemy to see how many champions are inside of it.

Senna’s Ultimate is Dawning Shadow

Senna fires two beams in a target direction, granting vision of the area along its path. In the center of this ability, Senna will deal physical damage to all champions who are hit by it. The broad beam shields Senna and allied champions who are hit by it.

Tips and Tricks
Remember, for it to deal damage, you need the middle to hit the enemy target. Make sure you aim it directly in the middle of the enemy. Map awareness is crucial for all champions, but more so Senna as her Ultimate Dawning Shadow can impact the map. Make sure you keep an eye on your allies at all times and use it to save them. Keep in mind that your Ultimate Dawning Shadow does take some time to move around the map, so you should only cast it if you’re sure that it will make an impact and help your allies in time. If they’re very low, it may reach them too late which would result in you wasting your Ultimate Dawning Shadow.

Skill Sequence



1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
Q
W
Q
E
Q
R
Q
W
Q
W
R
W
W
E
E
R
E
E

Pros and Cons

Every champion in League of Legends has their pros and their cons, and Senna is no exception to this. In this section, we will discuss some of the good things about Senna but also highlight some of the things that are bad about her too.

Pros



Has a global Ultimate. She can impact multiple lanes at once and save her allies with Dawning Shadow.

Is a lane bully. Senna can win lane and win the game just by constantly trading and harassing.

Some built-in sustain. Senna has sustain and healing with her Piercing Darkness. This will increase your survivability during the laning phase

Scales incredibly well thanks to her Passive. The longer the game goes and the more souls she gets, the better she becomes.

Has lots of utility thanks to her kit. This not only helps her during the laning phase, but it also helps her and her teammates as the game goes along.

Can be played as an ADC and Support. Even though we’ve only focused on Support Senna in this guide, she can be played in multiple roles.

Versatile itemisation and rune choice. She can take multiple runes in her first and secondary tree: this means she can always take the best setup regardless of matchup.
Cons



High mana costs. Unfortunately, Senna cannot constantly use her Piercing Darkness to poke with. You’ll need to find a healthy balance between trading with autos and your Piercing Darkness.

Global Ultimate R can be slow-moving which makes it harder for her to use it to save allies at the last second.

Her Ultimate Dawning Shadow has weird angelling so you need to hit the enemy directly to deal damage.

Her heal in the early game isn’t very good. However, any heal is better than no heal.

Lacks an escape ability. Unlike some champions, she doesn’t have an escape or a dash ability. This will make her more vulnerable when her Flash is down.

Unique auto attacks and play style. While she is relatively easy to learn, the way she auto attacks is like no other champion which does take some time getting used to.






Early Game

In the early game, you should go in with the mentality of “win lane, win game”. Senna is one of the most obnoxious Supports around due to her long-ranged auto-attacks, long-ranged Piercing Darkness and constant healing in lane.

Your goal is to be as obnoxious as possible and try to harass the enemy as much as you can in order to not only gain a health lead, but to empower your champions kit and the ADC as well.

By constantly trading and harassing the enemy, you’ll be able to get tons of stacks on your Passive Absolution- as long as you trade effectively. To make use of your Absolution, you’ll need to auto-attack or use an auto + Q Piercing Darkness to poke the enemy down so you get (mist) souls.

Souls are very important to Senna as they improve her auto attack range, and increase her crit chance. So you need to pick up as many stacks as possible- whenever possible.


Not only does harassing in the early game give you more stacks, but it will also help you complete your warding quest faster. In an ideal scenario, you’ll be able to complete the quest by the 9-minute mark. If you constantly harass with your basic attacks and Q Piercing Darkness, achieving this shouldn’t be too much of a problem. But when you’re in tougher matchups, this may be slightly tricky.

When playing in tough matchups, you need to harass. But you have to be picky about when you push forward to harass. In many cases, you’ll have the range advantage, so you can use that advantage to trade with. Whenever the enemy walks forward to secure minions, you can harass with your Piercing Darkness and an auto-attack. However, you will often find yourself in situations where doing so will put you in range of the enemies CC tools. If this is the case, you may have to focus on poking when the enemies CC tools are on cooldown, or focusing on poking when they’re out of range.

With this in mind, at level 1 you should try to harass the enemy Support or ADC to gain a slight health lead. After a short skirmish and once you’ve cashed in on the soul stacks, start to auto-attack the minion wave so you can get level 2 before the enemy. Getting level 2 in the bottom lane is the first minion wave followed by the next 3 melee minions.

Hitting level 2 is crucial as it can allow you to look for the all-in while the enemy is level 1, let you zone the enemy off to delay their level 2 for a long period, or prevent the level 2 all-in from the enemy. Getting level 2 is a must against champions who have strong level 2’s like Leona, Alistar and Thresh.

From levels 2-6, make sure you focus on harassing and trading with the enemy: getting as many souls as you can and staying as safe as possible. Once you’ve unlocked your Ultimate Dawning Shadow, you need to keep an eye on the minimap and be prepared to save your allies with it at any given time.

While your Ultimate Dawning Shadow deals damage, you’ll use it more as a utility tool. So if the enemy has lots of kill pressure at level 6, keep in mind that they may be stronger than you in a level 6 fight.

Mid Game

Once the laning phase has ended, you need to snowball your lead and get things done. Unfortunately, you can’t really make plays on Senna, rather you need to stay with your team and provide utility and poke. Your goal is to continue to be obnoxious and harass the enemy down, without putting yourself in danger.

If you’re ahead, you’ll usually go mid lane with your ADC, but if you’re behind, you might need to team up with your Jungler and move around the map. If you’re leaving your ADC alone in the bot lane, make sure you have vision inside the bottom side jungle so they can farm without fear of being killed by the enemy.

As you move around the map, make sure you place additional Control Wards and place vision where ever it is needed.

Once there are large scale team fights, you need to make sure you’re peeling for your carries and using your heals to keep them alive for as long as possible. In these sorts of team fights, you’ll need to try and focus down the closest enemy champion to you or the enemy with the biggest threat who is in range of you.

You can use your W Last Embrace to peel for your carries and focus down the nearest enemy champion to root them, or you can try and use your W Last Embrace to catch someone out of position and start a fight. But keep in mind that if you miss your Last Embrace, the enemy may use this as an opportunity to lock you down and start the fight.

A key thing you need to remember during the mid-game is that you need to continue stacking your Passive Absolution so you can get the bonus stats.

Late Game

In the late game, you basically need to copy what you did in the mid-game. Stick with your team and never leave their side- not even to ward. In the later stages of the game, enemies like to set up traps and ambushes on the enemy Support when they’re alone. If you don’t know where the enemy is, do not go to ward alone as Senna is rather squishy regardless of build and will die easily if she gets caught out of position.

If you know where the enemy team are though, make sure you use this to your advantage to go and place wards inside the Dragon and Baron pit and around the map. Having vision in crucial areas will allow your team to know where the enemy is at any given time.

To conclude, during the mid and late game, you need to stick with your team and peel for them the best you can. Kite the enemy in team fights, and be prepared to sacrifice yourself to keep your allies alive.

Ranked Mentality


When playing Senna, you need to go in with the mentality that you’re going to be as obnoxious as possible to get ahead. Remember that you need to poke and harass the enemy as much as possible in order for you to get stacks for your Passive Piercing Darkness. If you go in with the mindset of playing safe, you’re not going to be successful on Senna.

The Pre-game


Make sure you take the best rune set up for Senna every game. There are two rune choices and you should adapt and take the rune page that will suit the matchup best. Are you against melee champions who want to engage? Go for the Grasp of the Undying rune page. If the enemy is a mage or poke champion, go for the Glacial Augment rune setup.

Once you’ve decided which rune choice you’re loading in with, make sure you also change your Summoner Spells accordingly. If you ADC has gone Exhaust, go for Heal. If they’ve gone Heal, go for Barrier.

Builds


Remember that each rune setup has a unique build path. Make sure you take the correct build path with your rune page. There is no point going the Grasp of the Undying rune page and then building lethality/ the other build.

Take the first build if you’re going Grasp of the Undying, and go for the second build when playing Glacial Augment.

Mute your team


It’s better to be safe than sorry. If you’re like most players, you’ll tend to tilt or flame your allies back if they start speaking or flaming you or your allies. If you don’t want to tilt, make sure you mute your allies at the start of the game so you do not have to see them speak. Muting them will prevent you from tilting.

Focus on yourself


You cannot control what your teammates do or how they play, so you may as well focus on what you can do to win the game. For Senna specifically, focus on trading early and getting a lead. If your ADC isn’t helping you trade, then do the trading for both of you. Do not commit to fights if you cannot trust them to follow up.

Play respectfully when you’re in tough matchups


Not every matchup is good for Senna. When playing in a tough matchup or whenever your Flash is down, you need to play respectfully and trade when the enemy is unable to trade back with you or kill you.

Try to stay at max range at all times and be respectful towards the enemy. If you’re not respectful or go to over-aggressive, it will end up costing your life as the enemy can just kill you.

Be picky when trying to fight


I’ve expressed how important it is to play aggressive in the early game, but you’ll have to be passive-aggressive in lane. By that I mean you should look to abuse the enemy as much as you can, but you need to be picky when you do it. For example, when you’re in tough matchups, you may need to wait before playing aggressive.

A good time to try and land auto attacks and use your Q Piercing Darkness is when the enemy is locked in auto-attack animation or when one of their core abilities are down. For example, it can be difficult to trade against Thresh, but once his Q Death Sentence is on cooldown, it will be much safer for you to go and poke him.

Keeping an eye on what abilities the enemy has available to them is very important on Senna, so make sure you keep an eye on what abilities they use and try to play aggressive when they’re on cooldown.

Do not tunnel vision


When trading, make sure you do not tunnel vision on the enemy when trying to poke and harass. Before walking up to harass, take a look at the minimap to see if the enemy Jungler is nearby and ready to gank. Moving forward to harass will put you in a position where they can easily kill you.

Additionally, watch your positioning when trading. Take a look at the minion wave. Standing behind a minion will reduce your damage taken from spells like Thresh Death Sentence or Ezreal Mystic Shot. Making sure theres always 1 minion between you and the enemy when you walk up to harass is important for your survivability in lane.

Conclusion

Thanks for Checking out my Guide!


That about sums up my Senna Support guide. I hope that I’ve made this guide look beautiful and easy to read. And I also hope that you’ve learned something from this guide. Feel free to leave comments and give me some feedback on what you think I can do to make this guide great!


To sign off, check out my social media and drop me a follow. I stream every day on Twtch, so if you want to learn more about Senna or Soraka, make sure you check me out live.
I would also appreciate it if you check out my Youtube channel as I upload some highlights and educational content from my stream on there.
Finally, head over to my Twitter and drop me a follow to see when I next go live.

Once again, thank you for reading and enjoying my guide. I hope you learned something from it.

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