|RANDOM QUOTE|

Like bro. I don't even understand. I literally pixel perfectly play this game out in order to win. Like if I made one other mistake. We f***ing lost. And no other character's like that. Only Katarina's like that. I literally have to drop a tactical nuke, 1v9, pixel-perfect gameplay, no mistakes, or I lose the game.
But the other guy? Was playing Kay-Sante. All he had to do to win the game was press R. How f***ed up is that. But guess what? I didn't play this game for eight f***ing years to get beat by a single click of a button. F*** Kay-Sante. BI*** f***ing character. WHY IS IT IN THE GAME MAN? F*** KAY-SANTE. - KatEvolved (censored just in case)

|P|DAUNTLESS INSTINCT|

After every ability that damages an enemy champion, your next auto attack gains additional attack range and damage. This pairs up very well with the range Ntofo Strikes has and Grasp of the Undying adding additional damage. Into melee matchups, try to take as much advantage of it as possible, but make sure that you are in a safe position. During All Out, you want to use your auto attack on as many procs as possible as the bonus damage will be increased true damage and the Auto Attack applying that damage will also be increased. This is one of the main sources of damage next to Ntofo Strikes.

|Q|NTOFO STRIKES|

This is K’Sante’s main ability. It pokes, clears waves and is the main source of Dauntless Instinct procs. The charged up Ntofo Strikes acts as a pretty good zoning tool, set up, engage tool or helps you position enemies for better All Out positions together with Path Maker

|W|PATH MAKER|

If used properly, this is one of the best abilities in the game. It prevents you from getting bursted easily, you are able to move to safety when cc'd, cancel displacements, move enemies out of position and lets you set up better All Out positions/angles. There are a lot of different options based on the situation and the hardest part is to figure out when you want to use it and for what purpose.

|E|FOOTWORK|

Good tool to keep a distance from enemy laners by dashing towards an allied minion if they want to engage on you or to close the gap between you, for you to follow up on an engaging teammate or to protect your carries from lethal threats.

|R|ALL OUT|

A very hard ability to master. It can serve as your all-in tool, allows you to move enemy threats into bad positions for them, seperate threats from fights or as a escape tool if you dont have any other options available.

|STANDARD SKILL ORDER|

EARLY LEVELS

• Take Ntofo Strikes at level 1. This is your main ability.
• Take Footwork at level 2 to use the mobility and safety provided by this skill.
• Take Path Maker at level 3 to reduce the enemy champion's all in burst or to prevent getting cc'd in place for an incoming gank.

MAX ORDER

• level All Out whenever you are able to.
• max Ntofo Strikes first since it is your main ability.
• max Path Maker second. This will provide additional all in strenght.
• max Footwork last. The cooldown won't decrease a lot and the shield strenght gained each level isn't worth putting points in it otherwise.

|E START|

|ALTERNATIVE SKILL ORDER|

|TELEPORT|

Teleport makes it a lot harder for enemies to punish you. Especially in later stages of the game, where you want to pressure the opposite side of objectives your team wants to focus, it provides a lot of map pressure and you should only use it when necessary to have it available for when it is needed, providing you the ability to join your team or get a good flank position to enter their backline. Some other options to use it for are: Getting a recall to spent your Gold before a level 6 engage. when you would miss a lot of minion experience to keep pressure in lane to prevent dives in other lanes if absolutely necessary.

|GHOST|

Ghost is very consistent and reliable with a decently low Cooldown. Make sure to take Approach Velocity in your rune page for additional sticking potential.

|Flash|

Flash can still be used instead of Ghost if you prefer it, but it is weaker than Ghost. Make sure to take Cosmic Insight instead of Approach Velocity in your runes.

|RUNE SHARDS|

|RESOLVE|

KEYSTONE OPTIONS

The perfect option into matchups where you can reliably proc it. Grasp of the Undying perfectly fits K’Sante's Ntofo Strikes + Dauntless Instinct trading patterns while adding a little bit of sustain and additional Health. Having additional auto-attack range because of Dauntless Instinct makes it safe and easy to proc while being able to space other Grasp of the Undying users, denying them the option to trade stacks with you.

FIRST ROW

Demolish can be pretty hard to utilize. Take it into easier matchups and get as many Turret Plates as possible.

Shield Bash has become a strong option into matchups where you dont expect to hit the enemy tower to get value out of Demolish. This provides you additional strenght for poke or skirmishes and survivability.

SECOND ROW

Take Second Wind as your best option into ranged and poke matchups but it's also a good standart option if you prefer the additional sustain it provides. It will make it a lot harder for the enemy to poke you out of lane, allowing you to get more exp and gold.

Bone Plating helps you against champions that want to contest waves or possibly try to kill you in the early levels.

If you dont need the other 2 options, take Conditioning. This also applies if you are confident that you dont need Second Wind or Bone Plating in matchups where you would go for it.

THIRD ROW

Overgrowth adds a lot of additional Health. This also provides earlier spikes for your Ntofo Strikes cast time.

Revitalize is a very situational option. It can be good if you pair it with items like Sundered Sky and Sterak's Gage and if your team has a lot of Healing or Shielding.

|INSPIRATION|

KEYSTONE OPTIONS

A strong option into ranged matchups, where it's almost impossible to proc Grasp of the Undying without sacrificing a lot of health in return. Alternatively, you can go Aftershock into those matchups, but we highly recommend that you learn to work with Unsealed Spellbook. Choosing the correct Summoner Spells can cover your weaknesses into those matchups and enhance your planned all-in windows.

FIRST ROW

Not being able to buy Boots early because of Magical Footwear can be a downside, but getting your Boots for free can help your gold economy and the 10 additional Movement Speed granted helps a lot.

SECOND ROW

Biscuit Delivery adds a lot of additional sustain for early laning phase by providing 3 Total Biscuit of Everlasting Will. This makes it a lot harder to punish you or force you out of lane.

THIRD ROW

Cosmic Insight is always a good and consistent option. This allows you to be able to have map pressure with Teleport more often or being able to make more plays with Flash.

Approach Velocity provides additional sticking power with every slow from Ntofo Strikes. This helps avoiding your weakness in getting kitet and becomes very powerful in combination with Ghost's additional Movement Speed or Exhaust provided by Unsealed Spellbook in ranged matchups.

|OTHER RUNE OPTIONS|

This part covers runes that didn't got mentioned in their respective rows. Those are usually inferior choices, are really niche and matchup specific or they don't work well with K'Sante in general.

|

|GRASP+INSPIRATION|

|

|SPELLBOOK+RESOLVE|

Itemization as a tank highly depends on the matchup and enemy comp you are about to face. We can't provide a "build this in all cases" option, but we can provide a run down on the different items and their strenghts in combination with K'Sante's kit and give you examples on how to itemize.

|+|RESISTANCES|

Because of the way K'Sante scales with resistances, you want to prioritize items that offer Armor and Magic Resistance early on to reduce the cooldown of Ntofo Strikes as your main offensive ability while improving all the other scalings in his kit.

|+|HEALTH|

Health is a good stat that makes your resistances more effective because you can survive a lot longer.
While K'Sante uses Health in some of his scalings, he prefers resistances overall which makes pure Health items early on really bad. You are fine building items that dont have any Health like Frozen Heart or Gargoyle Stoneplate.

|+|ABILITY HASTE|

Ability Haste can be pretty hard to obtain. Having a lower Cooldown for All Out allows you to go for more aggressive plays. Being able to use Path Maker more often makes it harder to kill you and easier to take oppertunities to position someone for All Out. It also makes your Path Maker during All Out more lenient to use and potentially provides an additional cast during it's duration.

|/|ATTACK DAMAGE|

Despite having Attack Damage scalings, K'Sante doesn't wan't to prioritize it. It won't add a lot of damage on a tank and All Out benefits a lot more from the Armor and Magic Resistance scalings until you get the Ntofo Strikes minimum Cooldown requirement. Any Attack Damage items mentioned in this guide have an additional effect that work with tank stats.

|-|ATTACK SPEED|

Attack Speed should be avoided. Being able to attack fast wont do a lot on a tank with no Attack Damage and All Out completely relies on the Auto Attack resets granted by Ntofo Strikes and Footwork. Dauntless Instinct also enhances the Auto Attack damage during All Out to make it meaningful damage.

|DORAN'S SHIELD|

The go-to option . It provides a lot of safety and makes it harder for your opponent to force you out of lane.

|PLATED STEELCAPS|

Prefered option into Auto Attack focused and heavy Attack Damage comps.

|MERCURY'S TREADS|

Buy them into cc heavy comps or high Magic Damage comps where Plated Steelcaps wont do a lot.

|BRAMBLE VEST|

Bramble Vest is the go-to antiheal option. It can be bought on the first recall if you need it and can afford it.

|WARDEN'S MAIL|

A good pick-up into Attack Damage matchups that heavily rely on Auto Attacks. The "Rock Solid" effect reduces their Auto Attack damage by a good amount.

|Iceborn Gauntlet|

You want to build Iceborn Gauntlet into immobile Physical Damage Fighter or Juggernauts. Using the slow to kite your opponent between Ntofo Strikes allows you to stay healthier until they are in all-in range.

|Frozen Heart|

Frozen Heart is a strong and decently cheap Armor option. It is a good source of Ability Haste and Mana and should be used into Auto Attack heavy matchups.

|Kaenic Rookern|

Kaenic Rookern is a high Magic Resistance option that allows you to continuesly trade with your opponent while the Shield is active. Paired with Shield Bash, its a very strong synergy due to Kaenic Rookern constantly applying Shield Bash's benefits. Use this item when your opponents rely on short bursts of Magic Damage.

|Zeke's Convergence|

A strong and insanely cheap item that helps you all-in more mobile or ranged champions very early. The slow from the passive effect makes it really hard to create distance for your opponent. It also provides a good mix of stats but becomes pretty weak in later stages of the game. Make sure to get an early lead with this item and replace it later on. While not as good in this situation, Iceborn Gauntlet can provide the same utility and scales better into the game.

|Force of Nature|

Force of Nature adds a lot of Movement Speed on top of a very high amount of Magic Resistance. This item will help you against mobile or sustained Magic Damage matchups.

|Jak'Sho, the Protean|

Jak'Sho, The Protean should be one of your core items in every game. It provides a massive amount of bonus resistances once you proc the passive effect, greatly enhancing your scalings.

|Randuin's Omen|

Randuin's Omen can be considered over Frozen Heart into heavy crit focused comps. It is more expensive then Frozen Heart and provides Health instead of Mana, but won't provide any Ability Haste.

|Anathema's Chains|

Pick Anathema's Chains if your enemy comp consists of only 1 Attack Damage or 1 Magic Damage Champion, Carry or if they have a Hyper Carry that deals a lot of damage to you. This avoids having to buy a Resistance Item that only affects 1 Enemy. Since it provides a lot of Health, you don't want to consider it before your 3rd item.

|Unending Despair|

Unending Despair prevents you from getting into execute range of specific effects like The Collector or Noxian Guillotine. It also helps you survive in fights if you combine it with Path Maker once your Health is low to bait your enemies. To maximize the effect, you want to face a high Melee Champion comp, but you don't really want to jump into the enemy team as K'Sante and you eventually seperate an Enemy with All Out, making this item an underwhelming choice most of the time.

|Immolate Items|

Despite being a popular item on K'Sante, it's very situational. Sunfire Aegis relies on heavy Melee Comps to get value out of the Immolate effect. The provided Waveclear isn't doing a lot either since K'Sante's waveclear is very good already and it has the same downsides as Unending Despair

Hollow Radiance has the same problems as Sunfire Aegis, just as the Magic Resistance option. The Immolate damage is considerably lower and it struggles to compete against Kaenic Rookern as an early Magic resistance option because of the difference in Magic resistance.

|Spirit Visage|

Spirit Visage benefits a lot from Shielding and Healing from other items or your team.

|Sundered Sky|

Sundered Sky can be one of the best late game Items to choose. The passive Healing has a max Health scaling, allowing you to frequently Heal a lot with the bonus Health you obtained from other Tank Items.

|Sterak's Gage|

Sterak's Gage, similar to Sundered Sky, benefits a lot from a lot of bonus Health. It is a good choice if you struggle against burst damage or the enemy team deals a lot of True Damage.

|Titanic Hydra|

Titanic Hydra adds a lot of damage and a quick burst with the active effect, but in most cases, Sterak's Gage and Sundered Sky are stronger and more reliable options.

|Knight's Vow|

A very underrated item if you have a carry on your team that is ahead. It helps you to protect them and makes it easier to play around them as your win condition. Especially if you fall behind, this item offers a lot of utility for a very low price.

|Abyssal Mask|

Abyssal Mask is a strong option if your team deals a lot of Magic Damage.

|Teamfight Items|

A relatively cheap item with a lot of impact because of the Shielding it provides.

Similar to locket of the iron solary but with Healing. Since it doesn't provide any resistances, it's a worse option.

|First Item|

• Iceborn Gauntlet helps you kite immobile Fighters or Juggernauts and prevents them from staying on top of you.

• Zeke's Convergence makes your early all-ins stronger and allows you to stay on top of your opponent.

• Frozen Heart' Attack Speed slow makes Auto Attack focused matchups a lot easier.

• Force of Nature grants a lot of Magic Resistance and Movement Speed into immobile and sustained Magic Damage focused matchups.

• Kaenic Rookern allows you to continuesly trade with burst and poke based Magic Damage matchups. They won't be able to deal a lot of damage to you if you play around the Shield.

|Follow up examples|

Standard build example

Antiheal

Single AP comps

Single AP comps

K'Sante is unique in his Tank - Warden and Fighter - Skirmisher split.

Knowing when to utilize your utility, peel and protection of the warden aspect combined with a lot more tankyness and when to use the damage heavy but squishy Skirmisher form will have a lot of impact and can decide a lot of outcomes differently.

You can also approach fights differently. By being a tank frontline, soak damage for your team and eventually find your way towards their backline, protecting your carries or go a more bruiser/skirmisher approach and flank the enemy backline, making them waste their time on you while your team handles the rest of their team and eventually going All Out to kill them or seperate them from their team.

While in a lot of situations, you don't rely on most of those combos, they still provide you a basic concept on how to use the tools you are given.

In some cases, using Path Maker is optional or should be held to prevent burst or getting cc'd. This is especially important during All Out.

|TRADING PATTERNS|

SHORT TRADING 1

Works with any stage of Ntofo Strikes. Great lane harass, hard to trade back against. Use the range as much as possible. Grasp of the Undying heavily enhances the combo damage. Try to combine it as much as possible.

SHORT TRADING 2

Same as Option 1 but Footwork allows you to gap close. Make sure the enemy can't engage on you.

EXTENDED TRADING 1

More focus on the partial auto attack resets granted by Ntofo Strikes and Footwork. Any stage of Ntofo Strikes works here.

EXTENDED TRADING 2

[Placeholder]
Goal of this combo is to force Path Maker once you hit a Q3 on your enemy and to use Footwork to jump back to safety. Make sure you don't overuse this combo or you will run out of Mana really fast.

|SETUP COMBOS|

GUARANTEED FLIP COMBO

Path Maker > Q3

This combo relies on the stun of Path Maker to guarantee the knock up from the third instance of Ntofo Strikes. This combo works as setup for ganks, All Out or trading. You can combine this with Footwork at the beginning.

ALL OUT SETUP

Allows you to move your target towards a desired location for better All Out angles.

FULL ALL OUT COMBO EXAMPLE

Combination of multiple combos. Make sure to rotate between abilities and auto attacks to maximize Dauntless Instinct bonus damage.
Using an additional auto attack after the first Path Maker could allow the enemy to move. Skip it if the enemy has some form of tenacity.

|GENERAL TIPS AND TRICK|

• This has been mentioned multiple times so far, but use Ntofo Strikes range and the additional Auto Attack range granted by Dauntless Instinct.
  
  Working with both tools properly makes it a lot harder for enemies to trade back while it gives you the potential to win short trades for free.
  
  
• Use the partial Auto Attack resets granted by Ntofo Strikes and Footwork on towers.
  
  This way you get a lot of additional damage on a tower in the same amount of time. It's especially important once you have Sheen.
  
  
• You want to use Path Maker to push the melee minions into the caster minions.
  This allows you to hit all of them at once with Ntofo Strikes while your minions move slightly closer to the enemies side.
  

|NTOFO STRIKES|

• Position yourself at an angle that allows you to hit 1 target in a clump of enemies. This prevents hitting multiple minions at once and potentially causing the wave to push if you dont want that to happen.

• The first 2 stacks of Ntofo Strikes can also hit champions behind you. This does not work for the charged version.

• The knockup and displacement of this ability can move targets over thin walls.

• Don't use Q3 unless you have a reason to.
  
  A lot of times, K'Sante players use the charged Ntofo Strikes for the sake of using it. Most of the times this goes into the enemy minion wave.
  This causes the wave to push a lot faster and put yourself in bad positions if you don't want to crash the wave.
  
  It is better to use the duration of the stack to zone the enemy champion instead, providing you some breathing room and wave control.
  If the Ntofo Strikes charge is about to fall off, you can try to fish for a hit on the enemy champion or use it to lasthit a minion thats far away, otherwise you don't need to use it since there won't be a benefit or punishment in doing so.

|PATH MAKER|

• Path Maker can catch and push enemies that are slightly behind you.
  
  While it seems underwhelming, this is a very important aspect of using the Footwork > Path Maker Quick setup combo.
  It provides you additional range and enemies wont expect it.
  

|ALL OUT|

• All Out can be used to dodge skillshots and other forms of CC like Lillia's Lilting Lullaby sleep proc.
  
  
• When using All Out over terrain in a teamfight or skirmish, make sure that you dont seperate yourself too far unless you just want to prevent an enemy champion from joining the fight. Once you killed your target, you want to join the fights as soon as possible again and working with shorter distances makes this a lot easier.
  
  
• If an enemy Teleport's to a tier 1 or tier 2 turret while your minions are pushed into tower range, you can (with good timing) precast a charged Ntofo Strikes or Path Maker to move them closer to a wall and All Out them away.
  
  
• Make sure that the blast cone near their tower isn't available if you are red side.
  
  This will just provide a free escape if you angle your All Out into that direction.
  
  
• All Out ignores any movements the enemie does between you clicking the ability on the target and the knock-back part.
  
  If you time this well and predict an enemy dash or blink ability, they will fly back to the initial end location.

LANING PHASE ALL OUT ANGLES

ADDITIONAL ALL OUT ANGLES

WiP

In this section we will cover everything you need to know to improve as K'Sante. The informations provided aren't the only options to play him, but it is what we think will be the most consistent option.

K’Sante is a very reliable champion if he has to be weak sided. There is always outplay potential against every common matchup or you can play really safe with decent range poke and escape with Path Maker and Footwork if needed while focusing on farm and experience to scale.
You don't want to permanently fight most lanes until you reach specific power spikes but you outscale most enemy top laners if you manage to stay even.


Despite having those informations, K'Sante will need experience to be played well. Feel free to test your limits.

• One of the most important things of learning K’Sante is understanding minion waves, your strengths, power spikes and windows of opportunities. Being able to manipulate the wave into favoring your weak early is a good start to improving with K’Sante, because every game starts with the early game, and its something that can put you very behind if you are not careful.
  
• Knowing when and when not to fight your enemy is a big knowledge gap between good and bad players.
  • How do I approach my target?
  • What do I do if they do x?
  • What if i do x?
  For example, you might not want to just run into a Warwick level 1, but an overextended Illaoi without Test of Spirit is a lot safer.
  This is also part of understanding the different types of threats in each matchup, you can ask yourself these questions:
  • What is the dangerous part of the matchup and how can i avoid it?
  • How might I play when the enemy uses their key- or threatining ability?
• If you understand all of the key power spikes on K’Sante you can succeed with him very well. Understanding when you will hit level 6 or how you will play differently with Iceborn Gauntlet makes all the difference between a winning and losing lane. K’Sante has a very slow lane meaning he does not do anything crazy for a bit, but once you get level 6/ Iceborn Gauntlet you completely flip in terms of playstyle and if you are able to catch your opponent in the small window they make a mistake, you can punish them a whole of hell lot harder.
  
• Windows of opportunities is important, every champion has an ability that stops them from being knocked over, for example Sett's Haymaker, Camille's Hookshot, Pantheon's Aegis Assault. These abilities are crucial for winning a fight in top lane and also have a long Cooldown, so if you notice that the enemy abruptly uses it or suddenly wastes it, you can look for a kill window when it is on its big Cooldown.

|Level 1-5|

• Your Priotity should be wave management during this time. Ensure that you maximize your experience and gold income.
• Try to keep the wave near your tower or bait your enemy into pushing the wave. This allows you to stay in a safe position until level 6.
  
• Trading should be minimized. K'Sante has really high Mana costs early on and won't deal a lot of damage. Go for Ntofo Strikes + Dauntless Instinct and Grasp of the Undying trades if your opponent gives you an oppertunity, but don't force them.
  
• Try to reset before level 6 and get resistance components.

|Level 6+|

• Trade more aggressively once you hit level 6 or shortly before it to prepare for an All Out all-in.

Additional Informations

|PLAYING WHEN AHEAD OR EVEN|

• Try to apply pressure in sidelanes. Make sure you know where the enemies are or you expect them to be. K’sante is a very effective split push champion. He wont take towers as fast as a bruiser since he is a tank, but Iceborn Gauntlet's Sheen passive, Ntofo Strikes and Footwork's (partial) Auto Attack resets and Demolish can take towers down decently fast for a tank.
  
• Try to get attention from multiple enemies and try to position yourself in good areas to separate them with All Out and make a 1v2 or 1v3 to a 1v1 situation or even Ult them into your teammates.
  
• Group for objectives and try to anticipate skirmishes. If you have Teleport available, make sure to use it in a beneficial position early in the fight. You can approach fights as a tank and be the frontline for your team or as a skirmisher and flank their backline, soak their damage and All Out them, separating them from their team and killing them.

|PLAYING FROM BEHIND|

• Try to group with the team more often and look for picks and objectives. Try to clear waves in sidelanes whenever you think there won't be anything happening.
  
• Look at your team and identify who is the most likely to carry fights and eventually the game. Make sure to play around them and protect them whenever you have to.
  
• Even from behind you have the potential to 1v1 a squishy enemy carry.

• At this point of the game you should always group with your team for objectives, contest towers and help setting up vision.
  
• If the enemy team has already set up near an objective, you can engage first as he is extremely tanky and hard to kill with 4+ items. Use Path Maker to soak all their damage and bait out cooldowns. This makes the incoming fight a lot easier.
  
• When pushing and defending towers, look for opportunities to Q3 and push an enemy carry to your team. This can single handedly win teamfights or force the rest of the enemy team to back off.
  
• In teamfights, save All Out until after the enemy has used most of their CC abilities and their main damage has already been used up. Try to All Out a target who will have a hard time killing or getting away from you and then return to help your team.
  
• at Dragon/Baron fights, try to stack Ntofo Strikes using the objective if you are unable to reach the enemy frontline. If you are taking the objective, hold on to Q3 until the enemy comes close, if the stacks fall off, try to get Q3 ready against as fast as possible.

This chapter covers details about K’Santes scalings.


Bugs and other issues
Click here for a list of bugs we are currently aware off.

header

During All Out, K'Sante will lose 85% bonus armor and magic resistance and 45% max Health, but he also retains the original Health and resistances, which also affect any effects that interact with it.

Here is a breakdown of how the Health Threshold and the Resistance reduction works.

|Health Threshold|

While All Out's tooltip implies that K'Sante loses the Health, it actually just adds a threshold that limits how much Health K'Sante has. This also means that any % max Health damage, Healing or Shielding effect won't be affected by the threshold.
This can be tested easily with items that have Health scalings, the cast time of Ntofo Strikes or Footwork.

In this example, we use Sterak's Gage.

Without All Out


During All Out




Both Shield amounts are identical.

|Resistances|

While All Out implies that K'Sante loses 85% of bonus resistances, it's actually not the case. The 85% mentioned will be subtracted from the base resistances.


Without All Out


During All Out



As seen in the second image, K'Sante's base resists will go into the negative but still maintains all his bonus resistances.
This means that all Item's and other bonus resistance scalings won't be impacted by this.

|NTOFO STRIKES|

Ntofo Strikes cooldown scales from 3.5s to 1.75s at 250 bonus resistances.
During All Out, Ntofo Strikes cooldown is reduced by an additional 25%.




Ntofo Strikes cast speed scales with bonus health. Starting at 0.45s to a minimum of 0.25s at 1600 bonus health.

|INTERACTIONS|

Any effects that will increase or decrease your Resistances will affect your ability scalings. This means that Items like Black Cleaver will reduce your damage and effects like Jak'Sho, The Protean's passive will increase it.