Senna champion guide: returning from the lantern

Senna has broken free from Thresh’s lantern becoming League of Legends’ newest champion. Senna is a support marksman hybrid with the ability to play both roles effectively. You’ll find runes and builds in this guide for both roles.

Senna’s Skills

Passive - Absolution

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Senna is less likely to spawn souls from minions she kills herself, but will always spawn souls from Large minions, Monsters, and Champions. Senna’s crit damage is lowered by 35% as a trade-off for all of the free stats granted from gathering mist.

Q - Piercing Darkness

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Piercing Darkness’ range will always match Senna’s, meaning that when you gain range from your passive, Piercing Darkness’ range will also increase. It can target almost anything (apart from inhibitors, walls, and brush) which allows for some unexpected angles and sneaky kills. Note that the heal from Piercing Darkness will always hit you. Piercing Darkness also procs on-hit effects making items such as Black Cleaver easier to stack.

W - Last Embrace

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Last Embrace’s range is deceptively long, like Morgana’s Dark Binding. Your opponents may underestimate Last Embrace’s range and get caught off guard, getting rooted. If Last Embrace hits and kills a low health target, the area around it is instantly rooted. You can use this to your advantage to land an unexpected instant-root.

E - Curse of the Black Mist

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Curse of the Black Mist grants you and your allies camouflage — which is visible to Control Wards, Turrets, and champion vision if someone gets close enough.

It’s quite difficult to use reactively due to its cast time. If the enemy is already pouncing on top of you before you start backing away, you’re as good as dead without flash available. Curse of the Black Mist is a lot more effective when used proactively, such as during a fight, utilizing the camouflage to weave in and out of vision, or to set up a gank by hiding your jungler and surprising the enemy.

R - Dawning Shadow

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Dawning Shadow requires you to have map awareness in order to utilize its full potential. Look out for opportunities to help your teammates all across the map whenever they need it. Is your top laner getting dove by the enemy jungler? Aim Dawning Shadow up there to help.

Keep in mind that your ultimate cannot damage neutral objectives or monsters, meaning you shouldn’t attempt to steal Baron or dragon with it.

Skill order Q>W>E

You’ll constantly be spamming your Q to heal your partner and to damage your opponents, so you’ll want the extra healing and damage granted from rank up. W is prioritized second, as points into W increase the root duration, along with upping the base damage allowing you to look for picks more. E is last, as you don’t really gain much benefit from points into E, other than some more movement speed and a slightly lower cooldown.

Senna’s Marksman Runes

Since you always heal yourself with Piercing Darkness, Overheal is great for Senna. Taking Legend:Bloodline is generally better than alacrity on her as, unlike most other marksmen, her attack speed scaling is next to nothing. As for your secondary page, you can choose pretty much anything, but I recommend either Sorcery with Manaflow Band and Gathering Storm, or Inspiration with Magical Footwear and Biscuit Delivery.

Senna’s Support Runes

This is similar to your classic enchanter support rune page taking Summon Aery for stronger poking early-game and better shielding late-game. Manaflow Band is strong on Senna due to her high mana costs. Revitalize from the Resolve tree is useful for increasing the size of your heals and shields.

Some Senna support players will likely test Press the Attack due to how easy it is to proc with the auto-Q-auto combo. Press the Attack will let you amplify your carry’s auto attack damage, which is obviously a good thing. We have seen other supports such as Leona use this before to great effect due to how easily and reliably she can proc it.

Senna’s Marksman Build

Start

• Doran’s Blade
• Health Potion

First Back

• Serrated Dirk
• Boots of Speed

Core

• Youmuu’s Ghostblade
• Duskblade of Draktharr
• Infinity Edge

Situational

• Maw of Malmortius
• Lord Dominik’s Regard / Mortal Reminder
• Mercurial Scimitar
• Guardian Angel
• Black Cleaver
• Bloodthirster

Boots

• Boots of Swiftness

This build lets you become an early- and mid-game bully with lethality items while offering strong late-game scaling once you have a large amount of crit thanks to your passive. If the opponents are building tons of armor, consider getting a Lord Dominik’s Regard or Mortal Reminder if you need to cut their healing also.

Black Cleaver has especially strong synergy with senna as you are able to fully stack it with a simple auto-Q-Auto combo allowing you to shred a targets armor incredibly fast and reliably.

You don’t want to build multiple crit items due to Senna’s passive granting free critical strike chance every 20 stacks. Crit items also usually give attack speed, which is hard to justify purchasing on Senna.

Senna’s Support Build

Starting

• Spellthief’s Edge
• Two Health Potions

First Back

• Frostfang
• Boots of Speed
• Control Wards

Core

• Lethality item (Youmuu’s or Duskblade)
• Athene’s Unholy Grail

Situational

• Black Cleaver
• Frozen Mallet
• Ardent Censer
• Redemption
• Infinity Edge

Boots

• Boots of Swiftness

OR

• Ionian boots of Lucidity

Alternatively, you can try out a Glacial Augment build with Frozen Mallet and rush into Black Cleaver. The cooldown on Glacial Augment lines up similarly to your passive’s cooldown, making it easy to pull souls from your opponent consistently. Frozen Mallet will slow anything damaged by Piercing Darkness, allowing you to kite and chase harder while shredding their armor quickly with Black Cleaver. Slot a Runaan’s Hurricane into your build for even more AoE slows and armor shred.

Senna Synergies

Senna synergises well with anyone who can poke with her, having superior range over most other marksmen and supports. She also likes anyone who can get into the thick of the fight and allow her to get more value from Piercing Darkness. Try out some of these champions to compliment your Senna:

• Jhin
• Caitlyn
• Lucian
• Thresh
• Nautilus
• Leona

Senna Counters

Senna struggles against anyone who can lock her down, as she has no mobility within her kit. Remember that she can still be hit and damaged by skillshots while in Curse of the Black Mist. If you’re facing a Senna and want to shut her down, try out any of these champions:

• Ezreal
• Syndra
• Blitzcrank
• Leona
• Brand
• Zyra

Conclusion

Senna is able to be played in both the support and marksman role successfully, being an early-game aggressor with strong late-game scaling. Expect to see a lot of Senna in your games, and as always, give her a try if you’re after a new marksman or support to add to your roster.