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Recommended Items
Spells:
Ignite
Flash
Items
Ability Order
Mark of the Storm (PASSIVE)
Kennen Passive Ability
Threats & Synergies
Extreme
Major
Even
Minor
Tiny
None
Low
Ok
Strong
Ideal
Lissandra
Ideal
Strong
Ok
Low
None
Introduction (Author)
About the Author
Hi there! My username is Daremx and I'm a platinum mid main who has multiple mains. I play a lot of Katarina, Lux, Kennen and Ahri, but Kennen is definitely the most fun out of them. I used him for the majority of my games from Gold to Platinum and he has achieved some pretty stellar things for me. I recently picked him up after getting stomped by him in lane once (awks) and he turned out to be a really fun champ that I really enjoyed and got the hang of very quickly.
I've been playing League since Season 1, but I never really got good at it. I've been getting better at it recently and I was able to get to Platinum this year. As I said before, I currently main mid lane, but I play all roles but ADC. I would love to hear your input on this guide as this is the first one I've made so far.
Enjoy!
Terms I'll be Using
I saw this on LordChiefRocka's [S5] AP Kennen Mid/Top: Electrical Maelstrom of Shurikens! Guide and I decided that this was a really good idea for people who are just starting or aren't fully comfortable with League of Legends lingo yet.
Champions - The characters you play as in League of Legends.
Stats - This is anything from how fast your character moves to how much damage they do. Stats are increased as you level your champion in game and from buying items.
Farm/CS/Creep-Score - Killing minions or jungle 'creeps' to get as much $cash money$, and they better you are at farming, the more money you're gonna be able to get. Most farming occurs in the early laning phase, but it still goes on throughout the course of the game.
AP - Ability Power. Increases the damage of spells primarily from mages. Items like

AD - Attack Damage. Increased the damage of you basic attacks and some spells. Usually bought on fighters and hyper-carries.
ADC/APC - (Attack Damage)(Ability Power) Carry. Mid lane is usually an APC (ability power carry) and bot lane is usually an ADC (attack damage carry) and a support.
AA/Basic Attack/Auto-attack - The attack done by your character when you right-click on an enemy unit.
Ult/Ultimate - The skill that most champions take at a minimum level of 6 and is default mapped to the R key.
Tanky - To be able to soak up as much damage as possible. Things like armor and magic resist as well as health account for a character's tanky-ness
Utility - These are things that champions bring to the game that aren't just damage. Things like movement speed, CC, and buffs for your ally's.
CC - Crowd Control. Anything that stops/reduces the mobility of the enemy champions. This includes things like: stun, slows, roots, silences, knock-ups etc.
Buffs - Both in game and out of game. In game buff's are temporary and help to boost an ally's armor or movement speed etc. Out of game buff's are when Riot/Rito the creators of the game make a champion or item stronger.
Debuff's - In game buffs that are placed on your enemies to make them weaker.
Nerf's - Out of game balance changes that are pretty much the opposite of a buff.
Hypercarry - A champion that is generally weak early-game but excels and becomes much stronger late-game. Examples of hypercarries would be





Early-game - About the first 15-20 minutes of the game. This is where people farm and try to build up enough money for their items.
Mid-game - From about 20 minutes to about 30 minutes into the game. This is where people are starting to fight as a team and work with the few items they have in their inventory.
Late-game - After about 30-35 minutes to the end of the game. This is when people start reaching their #EGF (#EndGameFantasy), which is pretty much when people start getting their inventories filled with items.
Roam - When a laner (Top, mid, bot) 'roams' to another lane and ganks them to try and get kills and have map pressure.
Gank - 'Gang-Kill'. When you take bring in teammates to try and kill an enemy laner. This usually results in a 2v1, 3v2, 3v1, or 4v2.
Counter-gank - Pretty self-explanatory. Turning those 2v1 situations and turning into even fights, 2v2, 3v3, or even bringing more teammates to turn the tides of the fight.
If there are any that I missed feel free to let me know.

Kennen
The Heart of the Tempest
Lanes: Top, Mid, Bot
Roles: Bruiser, APC, ADC, Support
Key Characteristics: High-Impact Ult, Energy User, Stun Passive, Good Roams, Bully in Lane
|
Pros
|
+ Very underrated thus very rarely gets banned + Has decent harass in lane if ![]() + Has AMAZING level 6 all in with his ![]() + Easy to CS with due to convenient damage on his ![]() + Can create really strong ganks if his ![]() |
Right now, ![]() |
Cons
|
- Low sustain without ![]() - Weak without ![]() - Has a hard time dealing with poke - Generally has to target squishies to be high-impact in teamfights - Has difficult matchups against some of the current in-meta mid lane picks, like ![]() ![]() |
In my opinion, Kennen has a hard time dealing with poke in lane. He doesn't have any built in sustain and he suffers if he isn't at full health when a teamfight starts. This is the main reason that people build items like ![]() ![]() ![]() He is capable of finding good engages without his flash, but he creates much more pressure and presence when he flashes into the carries at the back of the enemy team. He does much more damage there and creates an AoE zoning tool for your team to be able to use. |
Abilities




This skill gives really good harass because your




You're going to want to max out [Thundering Shuriken] before [Electrical surge] and before [Lightning rush].
Tips and Tricks
- If you have the passive part of your
Electrical Surge up, you can land a
Thundering Shuriken, auto-attack them, and then use your
Electrical Surge to get a good amount of harass in.
- Putting another level into this skill at level 3 instead of taking your
Lightning Rush will add in a quite a bit of extra damage on this that your opponent likely won't be expecting.
- Use this to poke your enemy down, but if you are all-in'ing, use this while your enemy is stunned to ensure you hit this. It is a lot of good damage for your all-in.

Passive: Every fourth auto-attack is empowered. It adds a stack of your passive

Active: Activate this skill to deal damage to and add a stack of


You're going to want to max out [Electrical Surge] after [Thundering Shuriken] and before [Lightning rush].
Tips and Tricks
- Use your
Electrical Surge's active quickly after you use your ultimate,
Slicing Maelstrom
- If you land a
Thundering Shuriken on your enemy, use this for extra harass
- Use this after you
Lightning Rush a minion wave mid-late game to instantly clear the spellcasters and maybe the melee's if you're strong enough



You're going to want to max out [Lightning Rush] after [Thundering Shuriken] and after [Electrical Surge].
Tips and Tricks
- Use this ability to run away from a gank and to run back to your lane faster after you recall.
- Use this before you flash in for an all in so that you can flash on them and instantly get a stack on your passive on your opponent.
- For early laning, use this on full health spellcaster minions, and then cancel it. Let the turret hit it once and one auto-attack will make csing under turret easy.

Tips and Tricks
- The second you hit level 6 and if your opponent is under 60% hp, flash in on them and use this and the rest of your skills on them to kill them.
- Flash into the back of the enemy team and try to kill as many of their squishy damage dealers as possible.
- Using
Zhonya's Hourglass will not cancel your
Slicing Maelstrom, so using it when you are being focused in a teamfight is a good idea.
Masteries
Alternates:
Runes
The way I use runes, is to try have each rune be in its 'primary' form. This means that the stats that they give are the highest possible, in comparison to the other rune types.
Marks Are usually associated with AD Damage and Penetration.
Seals Are associated with Regeneration and Armor
Glyphs Are associated with Magic (MR, CDR, AP)
Quintessences Are considered to be Primary for every rune
Because of this, on Kennen I run:
Runes




Marks
Because I always like running the highest efficiency runes, I take

Another option is the greater mark of hybrid penetration for greater harass in lane. This paired with a




Seals
I run


Another great pick can be the

Glyphs
I, like most people, like to run

Another option is to take


Quintessences
I take

Other options are the

Summoner Spells
This is a really strong summoner spell as it can shut down some opponents that heal really hard as well as do some really good damage that will last throughout your combo. Using this in a level 6 all-in allows for really good damage and this summoner spell is probably the best choice for mid-lane ![]() |
This is the MOST IMPORTANT part of your teamfight (other than your ![]() |
Alternates:
This spell is very important for top lane ![]() ![]() |
You can use this on support ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() |
Items
Your Core Items:
This is a really important item on ![]() ![]() ![]() |
This is your core item 100%. Get this in every game you play. (Probably) Every game you play, the enemy team will have an ADC on their team, so the armor from ![]() ![]() ![]() ALWAYS get this item. I usually get this item second, but getting this item first is not a bad idea. I don't suggest building this item as your third or fourth item because its usefulness in teamfights is too important too delay building it for that long. |
I get this item if not very many people on the enemy team are building magic resist. If the carries are already building magic resist then delay building this item. This item gives you a ridiculous amount of AP as well as boosting your overall AP by 35%. This means that getting this item gives you a strong power spike where you begin to deal a lot more damage. You're usually going to get this item 3rd. |
This item is a very important item especially for scaling into the late game. If the enemy carries are building early magic resist, get this item before your ![]() |
This is just the general boots that you should take on ![]() The main part about this item is the Distortion enchantment. This will lower the cooldown of your ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() |
Alternative Items:
With this item being buffed recently, it's looking to be a pretty decent item with ![]() ![]() ![]() |
With the recent changes to ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() |
A lot of other Kennen mains like to take this item. I kind of understand their reasoning for this, because it really gives Kennen the ability to withstand getting poked, but I still don't really like this item on Kennen. I feel like it doesn't give enough AP and is just too slow of an item to start off with, as items like ![]() ![]() NOTE: ![]() ![]() ![]() |
This is a pretty good item for Kennen. It gives good stats and can help you to recover in case you got rekt in mid lane. This is also good if their mid lane just farmed well or roamed, meaning they got pretty fed, or if the enemy team is pretty AP heavy. I like get this item because you don't really need the magic penetration, but I usually don't really need the extra magic resist. I would suggest this item if you don't build ![]() |
Matchups
I'm only going to do the matchups that you're most likely to find on mid lane, and the matchups that I play the most against, and therefore know the match-up better for.
I have general matchup tips for most of the champions up above.
I might do gameplay examples of me facing these champions if you guys really want. Leave me a comment if you really want me to do one.
The champions I'm going to be cover are:
-

-

-

-

-

-

![]() He was just recently nerfed in this patch, so he shouldn't be as hard to lane against, but it is still a difficult matchup. |
![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() |
![]() Sometimes... It really does depend on the ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() With this in mind, and her ability to 100-0 you without really giving you much time to respond means that a good ![]() |
![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() If you want to win, you have to play passive and hope to god that you can kill him in your all-in. |
This lane is usually pretty easy. You can start with ![]() ![]() ![]() |
This lane is kinda hard because his damage is really high, and he has the potential to be able to outplay you as well as run from your all-in's. To be honest, I don't know too much about this matchup, but I do know enough to say that it's a difficult lane. Once you get ![]() ![]() |
Tips and Tricks
I'm not going to have very many of these right now, but I'll hopefully update this guide and put some new ones as I learn more and more about Kennen.
Going All-in
LEVEL 6 =

This is the spell that makes Kennen,

This spell is crazy good when combined with


Once you hit level 6 or 7, try flashing on your opponent to all-in them.
When to go in
I usually try to go in on my opponents when they are around 60-70% health. Obviously, if they are anything under that all-ining will work. If you opponent is playing too far back to poke, just play passively yourself and just try to match them in farm.
Bullying your Lane Opponent
Sometimes, it will be better to start a

This is highly recommended against champions like


This gives you really strong harass with your auto-attacks and allows you to start

Whenever they come up for cs, just auto attack them a couple times and use your


Ganking Lanes
Once you hit 6, you really have 3 options to choose from:
- All-in your opponent (I like this one)
- Play passive and farm for some nice shiny items
- Gank the enemy bot lane
Sometimes, if my lane is really passive, I like to gank bottom lane. They are excellent targets as they are usually pretty squishy, and as long as they don't have an

People tunnel-vision all the time, so even if they have wards, it never hurts to try a gank out.
Plus, if you gank them and it works, it'll get the entire enemy team salty and in solo queue that is a nice +1.
Usually ganking will replace your all-in in lane. You're generally going to have to burn all your summoner spells and your


Teamfights
To be honest, I don't really have much to say for this one. I play teamfights like I play any other engage, I use my



One thing that I will say about teamfighting though is don't use your


What you are going to want to do instead is chase after one of their carries (if you can chase both at the same time, perfect). Go for the carry with a higher threat to your team and you should be able to secure the teamfight.
Using your

This spell is a really strong spell for your teamfights. But be careful, if you use it too early or too late, it won't be at its full potential.
You are going to want to use it around 0.75-1.25 seconds after you pop your

If you use this at the right time, it will accelerate the speed at which you are stunning the enemy carries and adds a good amount of damage into your teamfight.
Remember, if you use this spell too late, the enemies might not even have any

Using your

Your


One really interesting use that I found, was that at early levels, you can farm the caster minions much easier under turret. If the minion is at full health, your

Once they walk into turret range, use your

Anther thing you can do if you're really fed is to use your



Thank you for reading my guide.
I would really appreciate input on my guide, and tell me how to improve on anything here, as I'm planning on making some more in the future.
I really want to thank jhoijhoi's Making a Guide because without it I would be super lost in the creation of this guide.
This is the first guide I've made so criticism is highly appreciated.
Thanks again for reading my guide and I hope to make more in the future.
I would really appreciate input on my guide, and tell me how to improve on anything here, as I'm planning on making some more in the future.
I really want to thank jhoijhoi's Making a Guide because without it I would be super lost in the creation of this guide.
This is the first guide I've made so criticism is highly appreciated.
Thanks again for reading my guide and I hope to make more in the future.
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