Guide to playing Samira 2022
A quick guide to help you get through laning phase and start shining in style
Introduction
In the following guide about Samira, the desert rose, I will talk about some Pros & Cons for as to why you should add her to your champion pool. Then I will guide you through your Runes, Items, Summoner Spells and Skill pathing Setups and give my insights about each and every choice. Afterwards I will tell you about how her laning phase should look like, as well as some sneaky mechanics, finishing the guide with a brief Matchup & Synergy analysis.
About me
Greetings fellow Samira enjoyers. My Summoner Name is currently RAT TA TAT TAT, and I held Masters on Euw in season 11 and peaked GrandMasters in Season 12. As my name suggests, Twitch is my favorite champion, but im by no means an otp. Ive played all adcs to atleast mastery 7 and Samira is one of my prefered pickups because I enjoy her unique playstyle a lot.
Why should you play Samira?
Pros:
-Fairly easy to pick up
-Strong potential to solo carry games
-Very strong duel 1v1 power to enable sidelaning
-Varying Gameplay, so playing her never gets boring
-Spammable low cost Q ability to secure last hits from afar
Cons:
-Weak early laning phase and long cooldowns
-Short range
-Team comb reliant
-Low Objective DPS
Overall Samira is a fun and interactive, ability based Marksman, performing best in quick skirmishes. Her SoloQ carry-potential is top notch once you got through her tough early levels and in the right hands her Potential is immense all the while staying fairly simple to pick up.
Runes (Loadout)
Samira's runes primary are pretty straight forward:
-Conqueror as the main fighting Rune, ramping up her ad, quickly due to her fast spell rotations
-Presence of Mind is what I recommand to keep the mana pool up, without it, your damage is reduced significantly, but Triumph is also a viable option to keep staying alive [you can even run Overheal if your Lane is relaxed, but Triumph and PoM keep outperforming it statwise]
-Legend: Bloodline since her kit scales greatly with Lifesteal.
-Last Stand, as it compliments your damage output at 30% HP, which is also shieldbows threshhold (You can also run cut down and coup de grace as optional options. Try to stay adaptive)
For secondaries you can run either tankyness with Boneplating/Conditioning and Revitalize or go for a more snowballing setup with Eyeball collection and Treasure Hunter
Note to runes: As mentioned above, it is vital to be adaptive when it comes to rune choices. Do not be afraid of opting into Legend: Tenacity + Unflinching to counter cc. Against a poke based lane, you may also run second wind combined with Dorans Shield. Burst based lanes are best countered with bone plating in the early game, or conditioning to double down on midgame tankyness.
- Casual Snowball Rune
- Defensive Option
- Heavy Poke
Recommended Items & Spells
- Classic Adc Samira
Item & Summoner explanations
Summoners: You will most often find yourself running Flash + Exhaust. Having the option to reduce heavy burst damage with exhaust allows Samira to stay alive longer during skirmishes allowing for better Ultimate Value and overall better short trades/ all-ins.
A second option you shouldnt sleep on is Flash+Cleanse. Samira has one of the quickest burst combo out of all adcs and she always has to be close range. Thus enemies will often want to counter you with Exhaust. You can use your Cleanse to remove the damage reduction to fully use your high burst damage allowing for more kill pressure and stronger all ins. On top of that, Cleanse is a very strong tool to negate most CC-Based-KeySpells to shutdown adcs in mid- & lategame.
Items: Your first purchase is pretty much guarenteed to be Shieldbow. The item offers Samira everything she wants, including AD, Lifesteal, and a big ass shield to keep you alive for longer. All the while Galeforce and Kraken are not good fits for her, as she already has build in mobility and is not autoattack focussed.
Second Item can vary between Bloodthirster or Collector. In most cases will Bloodthirster outperfom Collector. This is because Samira needs to be upfront in fights, so staying alive is her main priority, with her base kit granting her enough damage output. Thus we want to support her staying alive with bloodthirster granting 18% Lifestyle and up to 300 effective Health in ShieldValue. Collector on the other hand only improves her Damage, which she already has plenty of. You can still purchase it when vastly ahead, to ensure oneshotting the enemy and snowballing even further.
Third Item is always going to be game dependend and you must choose an Item that fits best into your Situation. As for Boots I personally like to always invest into either AR or MR boots
Are you ahead -> infinity edge to steamroll the enemies.
Are tanks blocking your damage -> Lord Dominiks Regards to shred Pen and deal bonus damage based on Max. HP
Are you already super OP -> Become harder to shutdown with Guardians Angel
Are you easily bursted -> Slot in a tank item like Randuins Omen, Spirit Visage or Deaths Dance
Skill Path
- Common
Samira
There is not much to say here, its a straight forward R>Q>E>W Maxing priority. If you need to skill W level 2, to avoid hooks or overall danger that is good too, but you'll lose the availability to all-in level 2 via dash.
Strategy in Lane
Before we go over some Key points to look out for regarding Samira's level bases strenghs and weaknesses, I need to mention that: As an All-In based Lane, you need space to run the enemies down so try to manage your waves in a way, that keeps them close to your tower and properly thinned out to around 3-5 minions.
Level 1: you most likely want to safely farm minions and avoid being poked out. Keep your HP pool high even if it means to drop some CS. You will need it to all in later on. If possible aim to get level 2 before your enemies unlocking your second ability and remember, being Level 2 will always wins vs Level 1 enemies in a duel!
Level 2: If you have an engage Support you'll be able to find all-ins and battle to the death if you have enough space to run the enemy down. [Keep in mind to stay meele for extra magic damage]. If you have an enchanter, you might wanna stay put and safely get to level 6.
Level 3: With level 3, you unlocked all your basic abilities allowing you to be a bit more aggressive in lane, as you got quite the dueling power, but don't force anything as you are still an easy target for quick bursts and poke due to your short range.
Level 6: If you successfully made it to level 6 without dropping to far behind, you can now actively force duels/ all-ins and look for Jungle skirmishes and early Objectives.
You are a powerhouse level 6 and youll win most fights, if you avoid being interrupted in R!
Onward: Since you are now a strong fighter, use that strengh to conquer objectives such as Drakes/ Heralds and the first towers of the Lanes. Keep looking for potential skirmishes and expant your lead slowly onto Turrets and Baron fight later on, aiming for that sweet Nexus.
Some extra Mechanics
-Samira is unable to cast Q during R, but she can cheat through that by casting E+Q during her Ult. Thus she will fire her Q alongside your dashed E's path, bypassing the restriction.
-Samira's W can block up to all projectiles, except Jhin's W. Use the ability to either block high damage instances such as Jhin 4th Shot or annoying CC like Lulu's Polymorph or blitz hook.
-Try to look for some Q's before teamfights to get Conqueror and your Passive stacked up.
-Samira's passive stacks grant movespeed and her Ult uses up the stacks, so using her Ult will cause you to be slower, keep that in mind, if you want to chase people down. Its not always worth to ult immediatly.
-Her Passive attack against CC'd enemies reset your autoattack timer. You can also spellweave your Q to maximize DPS.
-E grants attackspeed after the dash. This becomes somewhat useful when trying to take a tower, as you can also dash through it to optain the buff and thus push faster. Just make sure you do not need it in the upcoming 15 seconds.
-Samira will always deal great amounts of damage, so its vital to stay alive during fights for as long as possible. Stick close to teammates that enable that, and asking your support to go for Locket and Knights Vow, also helps alot in terms of surviability.
-Every action in meele range will deal additional magic damage based on missing health, including Q and W and passive auto.
-If you need to escape from enemies, run behind them and dash towards your safe zone with E.
-With the right combo you can get max Style within a second. Feel free to watch some YouTube Videos about that topic and practise them. Quick Reminder your W has 2 damage instances and can thus also provide 2 Stacks of Style if done correctly.
Matchups and Synergies
Lanebully champions that make laning overall more difficult will obviously result in tougher Matchups for Samira as well, so be vary of Champs like Lucian, Draven, Caitlyn, and Miss Fortune.
It is important to understand how the opposing enemy champion works, in order for Samira to beat them.
Picks like Lucian rely on heavy burst, so you will want to avoid being killed before killing him.
Draven, Aphelios, Xayah are all marksman that have some sort of Key Ability that greatly inhances their damage output. Luckily for us, Samira's W can prevent them from using it, making us the victor of most duels, so long we keep track of them.
High range Combinations such as Caitlyn + Lux can be the most stressful for Samira, as you can never match their wavecontrol nor range. You are constantly forced to play passive and reactive, so try to abuse every window of oppertunity given. It also helps a lot to understand that by constantly pushing you in, they make themselves rather vulnerable to ganks, so ask your Jungler for assistance and help him out by clearing wards preamptively.
- Matchups
I hope I was able to help you find out new stuff about Samira, the desert rose. May you be blessed with lots of LP and feel free to leave additions and Feedback onto the guide, so I can work on improving it. Happy grinding in 2022!
S12-Grandmaster Adc player. Participated in PrimeLeague. Playing every Adc. Other role peaks: Top - Dia 2 Jungle - Masters Mid - Gold 4 Supp - Dia 4