Hi everyone! I'm Le Kappastorm, a GrandMaster Senna OTP playing on EUW. I've been playing League since season 3, long time diamond stuck, but this season I've been able to peak GrandMaster 600LP and rank 1 Senna at some point by playing almost exclusively this aery build. You can find my op.gg below :
I immediately loved Senna's kit when she came out, her scaling, damage, long range, etc. However, Senna is very fragile, and will die if caught by pretty much anyone. You have to play safe and watch out for yourself. As a support, this is an issue because you want to protect your carry before yourself.
This build gives you the tankiness you need to survive, while giving you the tools to peel your carry, at the expense of your damage.
I did not create this build, and I must credit Kluckadell and Starving IRL for it. You will find their op.gg at the bottom of the guide. I still think that I've played it enough to give you a good enough guide about this build, and Senna in general.
Runes
Let's start with the rune pages. I only use these 3. The main one is Aery, and I switch to Guardian or Fleet depending on my team and the enemy comp. I'll explain the choices below.
Aery
Guardian
Fleet
Aery
Guardian
Fleet Footwork
The best rune page for the peel build. Aery allows you to poke your enemies with auto attacks or Q, and shield your allies during trade. Aery also procs on your allies with your E, up to 3 times if you're close enough to them. This can be useful to counter ignites, or any kind of burn or poison.
Since you're not using the Precision tree, you don't get to play Presence of mind, which is a core rune on Senna. Manaflow provides you the mana you need early game, until you get the mana regen from the Redemption.
Transcendence provides you extra cooldown reduction to spam your Q.
I usually go Gathering storm, as you'll eventually get some damage late game through soul stacking.
You can go Scorch to poke more during laning phase.
For the secondary page, you want to take the resolve tree, and go with Conditioning to get more tankiness.
Revitalize will increase your shields and heals given by Aery, Q, R, Locket and Redemption.
I've only been using this recently, but it works wonders! Swap the Aery rune page with this one against heavily aggressive botlane, or dive comps.
Font of life healsyour allies that hit ennemies that you have cc'ed. As your Q now slows since patch 12.2, this has become a pretty good rune for Senna.
This is the classic rune page for lethality or Kraken Senna. Senna has few HP early game, and can get poke down pretty easily during lane if you try to trade to stack souls. Fleet Footwork gives you extra regen during lane, as well as movement speed to dodge spells and kite later on.
Presence of mind is an amazing rune and gives you tons of mana regen through the game. Combined to your support item, you should almost never run out of mana during the game, allowing you to not build tear, and get your spike earlier.
You do not want to play Tenacity, because if you get cc'ed, you're probably already dead. Bloodline is bad because you already heal with your Q, and you don't have much attack speed to auto attack and heal. Even if Senna has a bad attack speed scaling, Alacrity is the best choice here.
Cut down has great stats, which works even better with Senna with her low base hp. The rune will allow you to deal bonus damages to pretty much anyone. Last stand is bad because you're not a bruiser, if you're low, you either run away, fight but not for long or die. I guess Coup de grace is okay, but not nearly as good as Cut Down.
For the secondary page here, you want to go Biscuit Delivery to get extra sustain during lane
Go Approach Velocity because your Q slows, and it will help you stack souls during laning phase or chase later during the game. Boots are okay too, but not as good as these two in my opinion.
How to choose your rune page
During the champ select, ask yourself the following questions :
Does my team have enough damages ? Do we need a carry or a peel support such as Soraka or Lulu ?
Does the enemy team has backline access ? Will I survive after laning phase during teamfights ?
Will I be able to stack souls during laning phase ? Who is laning with me and who am I laning against ?
If your team has several carrys and damage, you probably don't need to go Lethality, and peeling your carries is the best thing to do here. So you go Aery.
Enemy team has Malphite, Talon, Leblanc, Pyke ? Those are examples of champions that can reach and kill you or your carry without taking much risk. You have no mobility and won't be able to escape if they play well. Is it really worth to go lethality considering that you can die pretty much anytime ? You need tankiness here, and again Aery is probably the best choice.
If the enemy botlane has a huge spike and will engage you level 2/3 (Pyke, Nautilus, Nami/Lucian to name a few), you can go Guardian instead of Aery. It will allow you to survive early game and hard engage.
In any other situation, Fleet and lethality build is a great option. If you're laning with a tank or bruiser for fasting Senna, you have more kill potential, and the enemy bot will probably not be able to hard engage you, which gives you more time to stack souls. If you feel that considering the enemy team, you're mostly safe, you can go AD and try to carry the game. The thing is, this is rarely the case, your team has probably already enough champions to carry, and you will want to go aery most of the time.
Summoner Spells
Summoner Spells
You always take Flash of course, as you have no dash and you need a tool to escape or secure kills.
Heal is the best Summoner Spell on Senna, as it gives you extra peel.
Exhaust is good too, but later on, you want to stay away from the enemy to not die, and peel with Q, Locket, Redemption and R. The longer the game, the longer your range, and you should not be able to (you must not) be in range to use exhaust. Ask your carry if he can switch to Exhaust/Cleanse/Barrier and go Heal. If he doesn't want to, then keep Exhaust.
I guess Barrier is fine, but I can't think of a situation where it is better than Heal or Exhaust.
Ignite is bad for the same reason that you prefer Heal over Exhaust (range), and because you want to peel. You don't have kill pressure early game with, except for some very rare situations.
Abilities
You want to max Q as it is your main ability for extra heal and damage, then W for the root duration.
Skill Path
Senna
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Ability breakdown
Souls spawn randomly from minions and for every canon minion that you don't kill. They also spawn from large jungle monster (randomly for the small ones), and two spawns from epic jungle monsters, including herald if he dies from old age at 19.45/55, or after he was used by the enemy team.
You also get a soul if you hit 2 separate auto attacks or spells on an enemy champion, with a relatively low cooldown.
Tipfor laning phase : when a soul spawn, her hitbox moves with her, meaning that at first you can take it from where the minion died, and then were she fell, which is usually towards the enemy side of the map. Be very attentive and preshot your auto attack almost every time a minion dies to harvest the soul instantly without puting you at risk.
Use this to poke your enemies during lane. Try to Q first and then auto attack to get the soul, as it will be much easier than auto Q because you proc slow and approach velocity.
You can use this on pretty much everything (Ally and enemy champions, towers, minions, wards). Keep it in mind to setup slows, kills or steals from further away.
In lane unless my carry is really low, I try not to use Q to heal him before level 5 (3 points in Q). Otherwise it's just too much mana for too little healing. The best thing to do is to hit him and the enemy at the same time so you can both heal and do damage.
I don't really have any advice or tip for this ability. Remember that it roots every enemy that is in the aoe when it procs, not only the one you hit. It can be very useful if you hit someone and he flashes away, but actually in his mates and roots everyone. If enemy support is Thresh and you hit W right before they take lantern, you will likely root them both.
This ability is a great tool to disengage, engage by giving movement speed, and counter point and click abilities such as Zed/Nocturne R.
Once you unlock this ability, always keep an eye on the map (I mean you should always do this but do it even more). You can easily turn a fight top or mid in your team's favor.
It's ok if you ks, it's ok if you ult too late or miss the enemy. The shield will proc anyway. Better to be safe than sorry. If you think that it will change the outcome of the fight just a tiny bit, do it unless your ally is 100% dead even if you hit enemy and shield.
Its an amazing ability during teamfights, since you can hit multiple enemies and shield all your allies at the same time.
Even if it looks like a beam, similar to Lux's ult, your R is actually a projectile, meaning that is has a travel time and it can be blocked by Yasuo or Braum walls.
Item Builds
Aery / Guardian build
Fleet lethality
Aery/Guardian
Fleet lethality
Boots
Your core item. Gives you tankiness and more peeling for your team. Try to get it before finishing your boots as it is a huge powerspike.
Fits perfectly into this build playstyle which is AOE peeling. It gives you the mana regen you need and some hp. It has a very long range, meaning you can support your team with both this and your ultimate.
Buy Forbidden Idol before Kindlegem for mana regen as you're already tanky from Locket.
Great stats and allow you to fight for vision very well, as Senna has low attack speed.
If you need healing reduction, build this and not the crit one. It gives you HP, and damage, you don't need attack speed and crit since you're not building AD.
Really good if you're full ad or the enemy team has tanks, to shred armor.
Build this if the enemy team has several sources of shield (or just Karma/Lulu).
If you feel like you don't need to build any of the above, you can build this. It fits great into the build because it reduces the cooldown of your ultimate, and also has lethality to increase your Q heals.
I usually keep my last spot for this item, because you're not building to carry but to support, so you might just want to increase your team's vision.
Rush this. Great synergy with Senna and great stats : lethality, cooldown reduction, and the ability to insta kill wards.
Best lethality mythic items for Senna. You proc the passive instantly with Q AA.
I like to do this third because I have enough damages with Eclipse, or because I need to be extra safe against the ennemy team. It synergise very good with Senna since you already have a long range.
Gives great stats and extra movement speed.
Build this against hard engage / cc teams.
This can be very strong once you reach 80 souls (40% crit chance). It's just too expensive in my opinion because you're playing support. It's the best damage item on Senna tho (better than Guinsoo)
New Malmortius is broken (patch 12.3) so build this against heavy ap team comps.
Most of the time you want to build this. Senna needs the extra movement speed to stay at long range and kite.
I always do these boots if I'm playing lethality, because if you're caught, you're dead, and tabis/mercs won't save you.
Build this against heavy ad teams or that rely mostly on AA to deal damage.
Go for these against heavy ap teams or heavy cc teams.
At level 11, with the right runes, your ultimate, Locket and Redemption will all have 90 seconds cooldown, meaning that you can use them at the same time on several occasions. If you time them right, you can give your team a HUGE advantage during teamfights. The downsize is that there is a 90 seconds window where you don't want to take a fight because you have everything on cooldown.
Matchups and bans
I will repeat myself a lot of time here, so here is a quick summary of what you have to do most lanes : Pay attention to the distance between you and the enemy, you often outrange everyone so don't take uncesserary risks just to get a soul. It's ok if you don't pick up some. Try to dodge as many skillshots as possible, and play accordingly to the enemies cooldowns. You can be more aggressive for about 15 seconds if Blitzcrank misses hook for instance.
The key to Senna during laning phase is to know when you can actually walk up to retrieve souls and poke your enemies, and when you can't.
There is a lot that I learned and habits I picked up by playing over and over the same matchups. Don't panic if you're having a hard time, it can only get better.
Matchups
Bans
He is a melee champion so pretty easy matchup, just stay out of his combo range and you should be fine.
During lane, it's an easy matchup. Avoid being aligned with your ally or minions or just dodge his Q to not get stunned.
The problem is that Bard roams a lot, and well. Senna can't follow him, as he is faster with portals and you need to stay in lane to get souls. Ping to your allies that he is missing everytime you lose sight of him during lane (Do that with every champions that is missing tho).
Be careful about dead angles, sometimes it feels that he just went warding, but he can just go get the enemy jungle and put a surprising portal from tribush or blue buff and gank you.
Play safe, hide as much as possible behind minions, and try to avoid his grab. If he misses his grab, you can walk up and stack souls during cooldown.
He will try to poke you with W as much as possible. Try to play around it. Sometimes he will E the minions just to poke you with the aoe, you can avoid that too if you're far enough from minions.
He deals a huge amount of damage out of nowhere so keep that in mind.
I haven't played much against him, try to dodge his Q and remember that he can gap close you by jumping on a minion and engage. His E blocks your R.
Similar to Alistar, pretty easy match up if you pay attention to the distance between you and him to avoid E and taunt.
Try to predict where the tornados will hit. She roams a lot so try to put as much pressure as you can on the enemy adc if you see her mid or top.
She is even more squishy than you so maybe you can kill if you hit W.
This one is pretty hard. She will try to Mantra Q you during lane, which is a quarter of your hp during the first levels.
She can also flash W you if you walk up to close to get a soul or poke.
Heal her poke during lane and wait for your jungler. Build Serpent Fang to negate her shields during mid/lategame.
This MU depends only on your positioning. Until level 6 you outrange her hard, just don't greed for a soul and she should never be able to E you unless she flashes, which you should be careful about.
Be careful about her ultimate once she is 6, try to predict when she will ult you and don't hesitate to flash out if you feel like you're going to get hit, as being stunned by her often means death.
One of the hardest matchup imo (during lane only). She will pretty much always outtrade you if you try to Q AA her for soul.
Be extra careful if she plays aery ignite, otherwise you should be safe.
Build Serpent Fang if you feel like you need it.
Nothing much to say here, try to predict E and Q to avoid getting poked or cc'ed. It's all about dodges and cooldowns.
Pay attention to bushes where he will stacks his saplings. Stay out of range of his W.
You can play this MU like you're playing against Blitzcrank. Hide behind minions and play aggressive when her Q is on cooldown.
This a mix between Lulu and Brand. She can outtrade you with her W if you try to stack on her, and burst you out of nowhere with her ad if she's playing electrocute ignite.
Very hard MU. Be careful about his hooks and play safe. Hide behind minions, and remember that he can also flash AA to cc, and then connect hook.
Consider playing Guardian against him.
The hardest Senna MU. While you can play around almost any champions cc during lane, like Blitz, thresh, morg, etc, Pyke has double their range, as he can hook from the same distance, but also use E to gapclose, and has more damage.
If there is no overly broken champion in the meta, he is my perma ban.
Play safe, wait for your jungler, and punish him if he misses hook.
He is my favorite MU. Try to stack on him as much as possible. Even if he hit W, during lane they probably won't have enough damage to kill any of you, so counter engage and trade back.
Try to hit W if he engages as he will probably E back to his ally, and root them both.
He is a problem if you get ganked or in teamfights, but not during lane.
Play this MU as if you were playing against Leona.
Dodge her abilities and play around cooldowns.
Build Serpent Fang for mid/lategame
She will try to poke you during lane, so trade back whenever you can. They can't kill you before level 6 if you play this right.
Serpent Fang and heal reduction might be needed
Try to dodge her Q as much as possible, by walking too close and then back to bait it.
Rush Executioner
Be careful when you think you're safe from grab and walk up too close for a soul or poke. E + Glacial Augment can be deadly. Punish him if he misses his spells.
If you hit someone with W right before they take the lantern, you will root them both, so don't stop chasing !
Fun fact : Once you reach 100 souls, a miniquest will begin. If Thresh dies within 3 seconds of taking damage from you or Lucian, you will earn 30 ap and 30 armor. If you die within 3 seconds of taking damage from Thresh, he will earn 40 ad, 50 range and 30% crit chance. Lorewise it's like the winner frees some of the souls the loser stacked during the game (but he doesn't actually lose anything).
This MU depends on your ability to dodge his poke during lane. If he ults, he is an easy target for yours because he can't move (just like Xerath).
Duck Hunt but you're the duck. Dodge as much as you can and bait his spells to make him waste mana. Punish him as he walks up to auto attack for his passive.
Try to abuse her as much as you can during lane, because once she leaves to attach to the enemy top or jungler, there won't be much you can do.
If you W her and she attach to an ally, you will root them both.
Hide in the minions to avoid her Q if you can, and try not to get AA'ed when she gets out to proc her passive. If you can't, try to stack on her at least.
Rush Executioner.
Like Soraka, try to bait and dodge his bombs. If he hits you, you can go into your wave to make him steal some cs to his carry or to make the wave push towards you.
Very annoying MU. Try not to get hit by E, and heal her poke.
I feel like she's too broken atm, and you don't have any hard cc to counter her. You have no mobility and she can just run you down without any way to be punished because she's Sonic on steroids.
Too many times I've felt like this was a free MU, but even if you get ahead during lane, you can't counter/follow her getting attached to the ennemy jungler or top. She will just outscale you.
Litteraly unplayable
This wraps up my guide. I hope you found it useful :).
