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Kennen Build Guide by

All about AP top kennen

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Kennen Build Guide By Updated on

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Choose Champion Build:

Lategame kennen
Poke kennen

Runes:

Sorcery

Phase Rush

Nimbus Cloak

Celerity

Gathering Storm

Domination

Eyeball Collection

Ultimate Hunter

Spells:

Flash

Teleport

Items

Starting items & utility

First back

Core items

Example full build

Additional options

Ability Order

Kennen Passive Ability

Threats & Synergies

Threats

Synergies

Extreme Major Even Minor Tiny

Show All

None Low Ok Strong Ideal

Extreme Threats

Ideal Synergies

Jax

Extreme

Everything about jax just destroys everything kennen wants to do. He can jump you at anytime and deal more damage, meaning he bullies you in lane, and at lvl 6 his ult makes your ult useless. He also scales harder than you do. Its just a bad bad matchup and should be a perma-ban.

Synergies

Ideal Strong Ok Low None

Pros / Cons

Pros:

Decent escape mechanic
Good area damage
Great area cc
Good lane phase
Great scaling if build for it

Cons:

Vulnerable when ultimate is on cooldown
Weak vs magic resist
Squishy when caught

Introduction

Hi there guys. So i used to be a Shen main, with kennen as my secondary, but with the recent shen nerf he just doesn't do what he used to do, and i switched them around. Now maining kennen, I've gotten pretty good with this little electric ninja.

Lately I've seen kennen's popularity skyrocket, but with that his win-rate has also plummeted, and i feel like its because people have a misconception of what the champion actually is and does. They see someone going 20/4/15, getting that sweet quadrakill ult and they think the champ is OP.

I am here to break some of those misconceptions, and i hope you will see where mistakes are made when playing this champ. By no means do i know everything, but i do know enough to be a helping hand to those who need one.

The top 2 mistakes!

MISTAKE NO.1: Itemization

The biggest mistake players make, i feel, is itemization. They buy the right stuff at the wrong time and wonder why it works in one game and not in another. Why can you rush in one game and get 3/0, and in another game, do the same thing against the same champ and go 0/3? Well, the answer is simple once you realize some fundamental things about kennen.

The thing is, kennen's damage isn't OP; in fact, he does just enough damage to kill his opponent faster than his opponent can kill him, and the only reason he can actually do it is because of the extra time his CC gives him. Take his CC away and he wont ever get kills, simply because he doesn't do damage fast enough.

Now there is a way to combat this and make him more bursty, and therefore successful kennen builds focus heavily on magic penetration. This is exactly where the problem lies. There is a way to combat magic penetration as well, and that is magic resist. Magic resist throws everything off, and all of a sudden, even though kennen's CC allows him to get his damage out in time to kill his opponent, he now doesn't do enough damage to actually do it anymore.

This is precisely the problem. At its base kennen has enough damage to kill pretty most things, but once they get magic resist at all, you have to offset that by getting even more magic penetration, so if your opponent gets while you rush , you will be behind on damage output until you get , in which time you will be unable to kill your opponent in a 1v1. + can cancel out , but if you see your opponent go , you know is soon to follow, and if that is the case, they are going , in which case you need at the same time or slightly before they get that. If they are going instead, you will be unable to fight them until you get both and either or . You cannot get all those items before your opponent gets , so until you do it is best to avoid direct contact with them.

Most people fall behind on the MP/MR fight because they want to rush hex tech protobelt, and then they dont understand why it sucks one game and is great in another. I find myself with builds like /, , and all the time, at which case only then it may be worth finishing the /, even though those were supposed to be my first complete items. Sometimes i may never finish them, and swap them out for something else for my 6th item.

Itemization adaptation is the key here. You have to understand when your opponent(s) are making more optimal itemization choices than you want to be making, and then adapt to that.

MISTAKE NO.2: Overconfidence

So you did well in lane and you got the items you need, when you needed them. Now you are winning team-fights and racking up those kills with your team by your side. You see this 2/5 running in a nearby bush and you decide to strike. You go in with no hesitation. You are destroying their entire team, this one guy is nothing! You go in, catch him by surprise, spam all your stuff, and somehow...for some reason, he just kills you like you aren't 15/4/12... How on earth did this happen?

There is one big concept you need to understand. Just because you get 4 kills in every team-fight alongside your team, does not mean you are the king of duels. Kennen is build for team-fights, and that is where he shines, and though he can delete squishy champs, he may lose against tanky champs outside of the team-fight scenario. Remember in a team-fight your team is backing you, they are engaging and you are jumping in at the opportune moment to finish it up quickly. Even if your opponents planned for you, you jump in while they are receiving CC from your team and its over. In a 1v1, you are the one and only target from start to finish. Some champs excel in those situations...you, do not...

Know what fights you can and cannot win, and stay close to your team at all times. When you have your ult, you need to force team-fights with your team; When you don't have your ult you are possibly one of the weakest champs on the map. Know this, and play accordingly.

Spells

Kennen's passive adds a mark to opponents who are hit by your abilities that last for 6 seconds. Once you mark them a third time, the marks will be consumed and it will stun opponents for 1.25 seconds while restoring 25 energy to kennen. If you stun the same opponent more than once within 6 seconds, the additional stuns will only stun for 0.5 seconds.

All of kennens abilities revolve around getting as many of these stuns off as you possibly can. Even a 0.5 second stun in a team-fight throw everyone hit by it off their game.
During laning phase having 2 marks on your opponent puts you in a position where you can push them away from the creep-wave for a few seconds, and they have to let you or risk getting stunned.

Kennens Q is skill-shot that does decent damage and scales amazingly on AP(75%). When it hits the passive adds a mark on the target. We will want to max this first as energy cost and cool-down are both reduced upon level up, so maxing this first greatly improves its spam-ability.

Use it whenever you can get something from it, whether it is poking an opponent or last hitting a minion.

kennen's W gives him a passive damage bonus every 5 attacks, which adds a mark to our target.(scales on AD). Additionally, he can activate it to hit all marked targets for damage, adding a mark to them.(scales on AP)

This is probably my favorite part of his kit, as you can get 2 marks in quick succession from it. In can be used after our E to wave clear, and it can also be used alongside our ultimate to get the first stun off faster.(use it right after our ult hits its first targets, then when it hits the second time they are stunned)

Kennen's E does lots of things, but it is mainly used to either engage or disengage. Once activated, he gains a large move-speed bonus, along with good armor and magic resist bonuses for 3 seconds, and he can run through units. All enemies he passes through take damage that scales off AP and his passive adds a mark to them. He cannot attack while rushing, but you can stop it early by activating it again. Once he leaves the rush, he gains an attack speed bonus for 4 seconds.
If , for some reason you are invading the enemy jungle, this one is a must pick lvl 1, as it can do damage to multiple opponents, it gives you armor and magic resist while doing so, and it gives you an attack-speed buff at the end. I'm convinced it is one of the best lvl 1 spells in the game in the invading scenario specifically.

Kennen's ultimate unleashes a storm around him for 3 seconds, dealing damage to all opponents in the storm every 0.5 seconds(also adding a mark every hit). The damage scales the more they get hit for a maximum of 150%. This means that though 6 hits are possible, the damage maxes out at 5, and the 6th hit will do the same damage as the 5th one. The max damage late-game easily amounts to more than 2000 damage each target, with CC while doing so. This is very much a pentakill ultimate in terms of power-level.

Skill Sequence

So there are a few combos every kennen player needs to know. Note that the range of all of these combos can be increased with flash. A flash ult especially can catch your opponents by surprise. Additionally with Spellbinder you can increase the AP behind your engagements. Finally, AP=damage, and if you are running celerity, then move-speed=AP. Late-game you can get around 60 more AP out of your E while its active.

Instant Poke Stun = W empowered shot, W active, Q

Wave Clear = E rush through all minions, W active, Q as needed

Disengage Stun = Q, W active, E stun and rush away

Instant Stun ult = R, W immediately after the first hit, Q,E to stun again.

Flash Rush = E rush towards opponents, and wait for opponents to skill-shot you to death, dodge them with flash and R.

Runes

Now when it comes to ruins kennen has quite a few possibilities. There is the Mid predator kennen build which is really fun, but i would not recommend it to new kennen players as it is inferior to the other builds in terms of damage, and it gets its strength from being at the right place at the right time to make the right plays. I will not be going over this build. There is also the On-hit kennen build which focuses on his auto attacks rather than his spells for damage output. It is great against tanky lineups as you rush Blade of the ruined king with a PTA build, but i will also not be covering that one, as i feel like generally in the majority of the games, you will want to go one of the two builds i and suggesting.

The late-game build focuses on getting damage from scaling ruins such as and , and abusing through our keystone and for insane ults, whose cooldowns are reduced through
As mentioned in the notes, you want to pick this if you think you will be evenly matched or even behind in lanephase, or if you think your team will struggle as a whole, as this really makes those powerplay team-fights happen.

The max poke build is designed to make us as scary as possibly through the lane phase so we can destroy our opponent, and scale through an item/lvl lead.
Along with our keystone, we also run , and up top for max damage, while running to keep us above 70% health so we hold onto the effects. It runs and for some mid-game power.

You want this if you think you will have the advantage in lane. This not only shuts down their top laner and draws attention to you, relieving your other lanes, but it also scales off your opponents misery instead of just naturally throughout the game.

Farming

As to farming, you want to use your q when you can, and sometimes i would choose to use a q/w combo to snipe a cannon minion. You want to keep your distance through E in bad match-ups, while you want to put yourself in a position where you can catch your opponent with E if they try to farm in good match-ups. When it comes to pushing the wave, kennen does it well with an E/W active combo, and late-game E/W, Q cannon instantly clears the wave. When playing Aery though, will insta-clear waves much sooner.

xhuggels Kennen Guide

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All about AP top kennen

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