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Senna Build Guide by

[11.3] Pixel Pocket's Guide to Senna Support

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Guide Discussion (7) More Senna Guides

Runes: Standard (VS Tanky Support)

1 2

Inspiration

Glacial Augment

Magical Footwear

Biscuit Delivery

Approach Velocity

Precision

Presence of Mind

Cut Down

Bonus:

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

Spells:

Barrier

Flash

Items

Starting

First Items

Boots

Core Items

Situational Items

Example Build (Standard)

Example Build (Behind)

Threats & Synergies

Threats

Synergies

Extreme Major Even Minor Tiny

Show All

None Low Ok Strong Ideal

Extreme Threats

Ideal Synergies

Sona

Extreme

I don't find this matchup too bad, but it is statistically one of Senna's toughest lanes. This is because she hyperscales and you NEED to get ahead. Bully her, poke her, all in her. Ping your JG whenever she's low. You must shut her down early and delay her Archangel's Staff which will make her pretty useless until the late late game, at which point you better have ended or she's a monster!

Ashe

Ideal

Slow Gang! Both take approach velocity and run 'em down!

Synergies

Ideal Strong Ok Low None

Ashe

Ideal

Slow Gang! Both take approach velocity and run 'em down!

I am updating this guide, and all my others, as soon as Mobafire allows. Some icons and items are not yet available. I'm sorry if this makes it feel incomplete and I'll be working as quickly as I can to make sure it's up to scratch for you guys!

1. Senna!

Who is Senna?
What can she do?
Why should I play her?

2. Runes

A in-depth look at rune choices to help you decide what to play, when to play it and how to use it best

3. Builds

A look at your build choices, why each item works and how you can itemise according to matchup and gamestate

This guide comes with an In-Depth video!
In it we go over some of the more abstract concepts that are harder to convey over text to really help you master Senna and I suggest giving it a watch!

Hi guys! My name's Pocket and I'm a League of Legends guide creator. I make video guides on YouTube as well as doing VOD reviews with an assortment of high ELO co-hosts on Twitch, and sometimes I even get chance to play the game myself. If you want to check out my YouTube, Twitch or come hang out in Discord click the links below!

Senna!

If you're here, you've probably already decided to play her, but lets take a little look at what she can do and why she works as a support.

So to start, Senna is an AD Marksman. She has a high base range but a number of unique interactions mean that she works in an extremely unique way.

This leads us to her passive. I hope you're sitting comfortably, because this may take a while!

Basic Attacks: Senna's basic attacks are NOT projectiles. They still do 120% AD damage and they do not benefit fully from attack speed. They also have an attack 'ramp up' which decreases with level up to 30%. This means they can go through Yasuo walls!

Senna's Basic attacks can critically strike, but only do 150.5% damage as opposed to the 200% damage on a typical champion.

Senna's actual passive is called Absolution and it allows her to collect mist from enemy champions that she damages twice in short succession. When a stack of mist is collected from an enemy champion Senna deals bonus damage equal to between 1% and 16% of the target's current health, scaling with Senna's level.

Senna can also collect Mist from 'Mist Wraiths'. These are small, target-able items that drop on the ground when enemy and neutral units die near senna. If senna uses an auto-attack or her Q to damage a Mist Wraith then she will collect it and gain one stack of mist.

Lane minions and small monsters that Senna kills have a lower chance of dropping a Mist Wraith than ones that she doesn't. All large jungle monsters and buffs will drop one Mist Wraith. Epic Monsters such as Baron, Drake and Rift Herald (including the summoned form in lane) will drop two Mist Wraiths.

For each stack of Mist gained Senna gains 0.75 attack damage. For each 20 stacks she gains 25 attack range and 15% critical strike chance. Absolution also allows Senna to convert excess critical strike chance above 100% into life steal at a rate of 35% (that is to say, 1% extra critical strike chance will give you 0.35% lifesteal).

Phew. I know that seems dense, and more like something out of a textbook than a video game, but it really isn't as hard to get used to as it is to get through on paper. The important things to note are that her basic attacks do NOT act as projectiles (So they can be used through Wind Wall etc), her critical strikes do massively reduced bonus damage (So Infinity Edge isn't as valuable) and she doesn't benefit from attack speed in the same way as other champions.

Q - Piercing Darkness
Senna fires her cannon at a targetable unit within 600-1100 range (depending on your mist stacks), healing allies and damaging enemies.
The healing beam is larger than the damage beam and the beam extends to 1300 units at all levels and stacks. Not only does this ability apply on-hit effects to champions and turrets but it also damages wards, jungle plants, mist wraiths or any other auto-attackable unit!
On top of all this, each basic attack reduces the cooldown of this ability by 1 second.

W - Last Embrace
Senna fires a projectile in the target direction, dealing damage and attaching to and revealing the first enemy or neutral unit that it hits. After 1 second it explodes and the unit alongside all other units in it's radius, are rooted for 1.25-2.25 seconds based on ability level. If the unit dies before the 1 second is up, the mist explodes, rooting enemies immediately.

E - Curse of the Black Mist
Senna shrouds herself and her allies in mist, granting them 20% movement speed, camouflaging them and also granting them 'Wraith Form'. Wraiths have obscured vision when they leave the mist. That is to say while you can see where an enemy wraith is when they leave the camouflage, you cannot tell which champion it is!

R - Dawning Shadow
Dawning Shadow is a global beam ult that senna fires two simultaneous beams in the target direction.
One beam is extremely wide (2400 units) and shields all allies within it. This wide beam also grants vision of the entire area that it hits. The other beam is much thinner (320 units) and damages all enemies hit. The shield strength scales with mist collected and the damage scales with bonus AD!
Senna is revealed when she uses this ult, so be careful if you're hidden!

INSPIRATION

is our standard keystone for Senna support. It really helps you chase up those second hits to stack your mist passive and scale super well into the late game, while giving you access to the rest of the tree, which as we will see offers some fanatastic rune choices to synergise with her kit.

Magical footwear is our typical choice here. Free boots save you money, which is very welcome on a support's typically low gold income, but also give you an extra 10 movement speed over boots you buy yourself, which persists when you fully build them. This really helps on Senna who relies on chasing up second hits to stack a passive, or kiting melee and ranged champions alike with her monstrous late game range for safe and consistent damage. is rather useless as we are a pokey annoyance in lane, not a hard hitting engage champion and should only be taken when the enemy is a full AD comp and Guardian Angel is definitely going to be in your build.

offers two things. Firstly, of course, it gives you mana regen and health regen in lane to help with sustain. Secondly it offers you 150 bonus maximum mana (50 per biscuit) which helps to keep your mana pool healthy into the mid game and, if you build , offers a little extra damage as well, as we'll explore later on.

is absolutely mandatory on Senna. While and can both be considered useful, they can't even approach the usefulness of this rune. With both your Q hits and your Auto-attacks slow people, and your W roots people. This gives you tonnes of ability to proc approach velocity, allowing you to chase people down with ease, all while staying at the distance of your choosing so as to not cancel your auto-attack ramp-up. It also now works with ally applied impairments, so if you have an ADC that has a slow (such as or with ) or CC (Such as or ) then you can make even more use of this rune. Take this in every single game with glacial augment.

SECONDARIES

For our secondaries we will usually use the tree with and EITHER or . offers great mana sustain while also giving us an extra 500 maximum mana, pretty much solving your late game mana issues and really helping in lane as well.

Secondly we will choose between and based upon the enemy team comp, with a focus on the support. Into tanky supports like or , then works wonders. escaped the Season 10 buffs to ADC HP scaling so it's even more effective now, on both the supports and the ADCs!
If they have a squishy support though, then take . The scaling attack-speed does help, even though does not scale with attack-speed as well as other champions, and allows for more autos, which is important given your high on-hit damage.

Finally we will take doable adaptive force for the best on-hit and ability damage, with a defensive choice to suit, which will of course usually be armour. Do not ake the scaling HP rune as you want the immediate defensive stats in lane and only take magic resist into APC botlanes such as Syndra or Veigar.

Boots

Boots of Swiftness
The core boot choice on Senna. They give 15 more movement speed than other boot choices allowing you to stack your passive better in lane, and they reduce the effects of slows which helps you avoid being kited.

Plated Steelcaps
The first and most common defensive choice. Personally I only build these into full AD comps or when I'm doing particularly badly in lane, but I always build these into full AD comps. Even when ahead these are just a fantastic build when the enemy are all physical damage auto-attackers and bringing your own scaling down a little to absolutely nuke the enemies damage output is an awesome trade, so don't be afraid of this even when you're ahead!

Mercury's Treads
Honestly, I find myself building these very rarely in this meta. While they do give you the only buyable tenacity for a ranged champion, full or even heavy AP comps are becoming more and more rare. For that reason I find little use for them and often Sorcerer's Shoes are the better pick. It is tempting to buy them into CC heavy botlanes, but I honestly find that the slow resistance and extra base movement speed of Boots of Swiftness work better as they allow me to avoid being CC'd entirely, rather than simply reducing the CC duration. That said if they do have a full AP botlane then just like with Tabis, pick yourself up some Merc Treads!

Early Items and Power Spikes

Serrated Dirk
It's not a full item, but boy if this isn't a power spike then I don't know what is. For just 1100 gold you get 30AD and 10 Lethality. If you're new, just trust me, it's a lot. This is my first back item every game, and if I back or die before it I simply buy two Long Swords to build into this. It gives you such a damage spike that the enemy pretty much cannot trade with you in lane if you get it early and your poke becomes very oppressive.

Executioner's Calling
One of the best things about Senna is being able to buy Executioner's Calling. It's also nice to be able to simply hold this cheap sub-item in your inventory and not bother finishing the full item until later on, as really all you need early on is the passive! That said, after a lot of testing on stream I've come to the conclusion that, even into the most oppressive of botlane healing matchups such as Yuumi and Soraka, you should build this after Serrated Dirk. The damage spike on Dirk in the very early game out-does the healing reduction of enchanter supports and unstacked runes, so while you DEFINITELY do want to buy this early on into healers, don't get it before Dirk!

Mythic Items

Eclipse
A pure damage item, and a very good one at that. It deals percentage max health damage when you hit an enemy with two separate attacks or abilities within 1.5s.
This of course synergises very well with your passive, as you can collect couls and proc this together for big chunk damage. It also offers omni-vamp which is very nice as you deal a lot of ability damage as well as auto-attack damage

Core Items

The Collector
I used to build Umbral Glaive second, but since The Collector no longer takes minions and Senna's scaling is so good, I would suggest picking The Collector up second unless you have been obliterated in lane. If you do happen to find yourself being very far behind, then take Umbral instead as you will not want to be stealing kills as easily as you do with The Collector

Rapid Firecannon
So you've build your lethality items and your ward item, so it's probably well into the mid or even late game by now, which means you've stacked nicely and are approaching 100% crit chance, while also having a huge auto-range. This is exactly where Rapid Firecannon shines. It gives you 20% crit chance, likely pushing you up to 100% and it's passive gives you periodic on-hit damage with an extra 150 range! This makes your first auto hit hard and hit safely from a massive distance, following up with you 1000 range Q should then be pretty simple and you've got yourself a free trade and a stack of mist! It even gives you a little attack and movement speed too and all for a cheap price!

Infinity Edge
Senna now stacks so easily that IE has become core due to it's full passive activating immediately at 60% crit chance! A very good item to get last on Senna as you will certainly have the 40% crit (+20% from building the item) necessary to unlock it's full potential!

Situational Items

Youmuu's Ghostblade
A fantastic item once you have Umbral Glaive and Eclipse, especially into very squishy enemies it gives a huge amount of damage while the active can be used to keep you in safe kiting range during teamfights (especially combined with your E!)

Guardian Angel
So, you may have noticed that the core items, plus support item and boots, add up to a pretty full inventory. That means situation items are really quite rare to build on Senna and the list is pretty thin. Build Guardian Angel into full AD comps or when you are being focused by an AD assassin such as Zed or Talon. It gives damage and armour and also a periodic revival passive allows you to come back to life, which is great into assassins who will be out of burst damage and vulnerable, forced to back off and let you live.

Use your wards to kill their wards!
Have you ever placed a control ward over the wall only to see they have it warded, but been unable to safely clear their vision? Well with Senna you can target your Q onto your own ward, hitting their ward up to 1300 range away with the right positioning, and killing it without having to travel around the wall. This requires you to have completely built Umbral Glaive, which gives you triple on-hit damage to wards, instantly killing stealth and farsight wards and taking 3/4 of the health from control wards.

Target your abilities on the champion icon above the map!
Less useful on Senna than the 'typical' enchanter, it can still help. In big hectic teamfights, or even just large minion waves under tower where there are tonnes of target-able units, using the champion icons to target your Q can help ensure you target it to the right ally. Likewise if you see your toplaner from the healthbar is low it can be a quick way to fire your ult up and help him without scrolling your vision!

Take Barrier!
When Barrier first started becoming the go-to summoner spell on Senna I was skeptical. I always thought Ignite or Exhaust was the best for the majority of supports. However after a lot of testing I find Barrier to 100% be the best pick for her. She is monstrously squishy, especially as she escaped the HP buffs to regular ADCs so she has even lower HP compared to other botlaners now. Not only this but she does a lot of damage and has a high range. Therefore I think barrier is good as you don't need to get into ignite range when kiting to get use of it, even if you still die you do a significant amount of damage in the extra time that barrier keeps you alive for and, of course, if it does save your life you feed the enemy less gold, which is super important on a squishy!

Thanks for reading!

I really hope this has been helpful to you and if you've got any questions come hop into my twitch stream or my discord server and I'm sure I can help you out!