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Recommended Items
Runes: Optimal rune page ! (CHECK NOTES)
+10% Attack Speed
+9 Adaptive (5.4 AD or 9 AP)
+6 Armor
Spells:
Flash
Heal
Items
Ability Order Ability route ~ (notes)
Daredevil Impulse (PASSIVE)
Samira Passive Ability
Threats & Synergies
Amumu
CC CHAIN AAGHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH *crying sounds* Q - Q - ULT *WAHHH WAHHH*
Alistar
Really good overall, yet another tank cc chain champion that gives free heals and cc for you to proc passive.
Alistar
Really good overall, yet another tank cc chain champion that gives free heals and cc for you to proc passive.
Champion Build Guide
Introduction! |
Pros and Cons! |
Runes! |
And.. a lot more!
Samira, the Desert Rose |
Samira is a stylish marksman that puts all of her focus into style and combos, showing the enemy whos best with a wild display of combos that are sure to devastate the enemy at hand. Samira does best with supports such as Leona, Nautilus, Renata Glasc, and even more. This daredevil isn't afraid to show who's the real leader! |
Comboing?: Never seen before. Speciality: Slaying on your enemies! Why should you pick Samira? Samira, at the time of writing, is one of the best adc's at the moment (according to u.gg, based on Plat+), able to style on your enemies without a second thought! Although, for real, Samira is able to output high amounts of damage in a short amount of time, the damage being amplified in melee range. Being able to gap close and overall get right in the enemies face means you'll be up close and personal, able to deal massive amounts of damage while lifestealing the damage back with Death's Dance, Bloodthirster, Legend: Bloodline and more! Samira herself is everything you could ask for in an adc - decent amounts of range, a windwall ( Blade Whirl), dashing multiple times and resetting her Wild Rush cooldown, then releasing Inferno Trigger to deal massive amounts of damage! Below, the pro's and con's of Samira are described in more detail. STYLE ON THEM! |
+lots of burst/damage output! +high snowball potential! +AMAZING in teamfights! +W is able to block gamechanging ults! +High skill ceiling - lots of resets, combos, and more to be learned. +Easily the most fun ADC at the moment! Never boring and always fun to combo. Samira, as stated, has much outplay potential and a lot of combos and mechanics that most Samira players wouldn't consider - this could range from auto resetting with passive and q to finding the perfect combo with your abilities, to even flashing out of a wall only to e back to them to head back into the fray! Samira thrives off of getting early kills and snowballing, along with getting early trades to ensure her safety in the laning phase and past that so she doesn't fall off. W can block ults such as Bullet Time, Call of the Forge God, Supreme Display of Talent, Blade of the Exile and more! Bursting down squishies is a primary aspect for Samira, getting her resets off and styling on idiots, as she says. With all of those strengths, teamfights are where she shines, deleting the team with her rapidfire Inferno Trigger. |
-Useless when behind. -Suffers into heavy cc. -Suffers into tanks. -Hard to master, easy to play. -Either devours or is starving. -Fails into assassins. As stated, once behind, Samira turns into a walking sack of gold. There isn't much she can do much assist with tickling them with Flair and similar tactics. If a Zed, Talon, Qiyana, etc. lock onto you, you're also just going to fall and die. There isn't much you can do but try to dodge their abilities and outlive with Immortal Shieldbow or Guardian Angel. Heavy cc kills her but Cleanse can save her in moments along with Black Shield or a tank support that can soak cc. Samira's skill ceiling is rather high, her combos having to be precise to achieve S rank at the quickest time possible to ensure her core damage. Into people like Ornn, you have to be careful or you'll deal little damage while they'll kill you. Tanks are a huge counter to the squishy adc that Samira is! |
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Daredevil Impulse (Passive):INNATE - STYLE: Samira's damaging basic attacks and abilities against at least one enemy Champion different from the previous damaging hit made against champions generate a Style stack for 6 seconds, which refreshes on subsequent hits and stacks up to 6 times. Samira gains 0% − 21% (based on Style stacks) bonus Movement Speed. Daredevil Impulse.png INNATE: Samira's basic attacks against targets in Range model.png 200 range use her blade, becoming Projectile.png non-projectile. Blade attacks on-hit, Blade Whirl, Wild Rush and the slash and explosives of Flair deal 2 − 19 (based on level) (+ 3.5% − 10.5% (based on level) AD) bonus magic damage, increased by 0% − 100% (based on target's missing health). Samira's basic attack against an immobilized target is empowered to have an uncancelable windup and deal the attack's damage over 6 strikes in 0.5 seconds. If the target is a monster or is airborne, the attack also knocks them up for 0.5 seconds. Samira will dash into her attack range from the target if they are nearby, though not through terrain. The empowered attack resets Samira's basic attack timer, is affected by critical strike modifiers, applies on-hit effects only once, and cannot occur on the same target more than once every few seconds. TL:DR : Hitting a champion (does not have to be one unique champ) with different abilities in whatever order gives bonus movement speed. You can dash to immobilzed targets and deal the same amount of damage an auto would do. (Note: This counts as an auto reset). If the target is airborne, Samira can knock them up for a short duration. Attacks in melee range deal bonus magic damage and apply on hit effects. |
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Flair (Q): ACTIVE: Samira fires a shot in the target direction that deals physical damage to the first enemy hit. If a targetable enemy is in front of Samira at the time of cast, she will instead slash with her blade in a cone, dealing the same damage to enemies hit. Casting Flair during Wild Rush will deploy explosives in her wake that detonate upon the end of the dash, dealing the same damage to enemies hit. Flair can Critical Strike for (25% + 35% 35%) bonus physical damage and will apply life steal at 66.6% effectiveness. TL:DR: Samira casts a shot in the target direction if out of melee range, otherwise the damage is dealt in a cone in melee range. Can be casted during Wild Rush and Blade Whirl. Flair can Critical Strike for a lower amount of physical damage and applies lifesteal at a lower effectiveness. |
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Blade Whirl (W): ACTIVE: Samira spins her blade over 0.75 seconds, destroying hostile non-turret projectiles within the area for the duration. This includes ultimate abilities such as Bullet Time, Death Lotus, Buster Shot, Vanguard's Edge, and more. Some abilities such as Chum the Waters will be blocked from targeting you but will remain on the ground for its duration until it explodes. You can't block some abilities such as Final Spark, Realm of Death, Soul Shackles, and others. Samira slashes twice during Blade Whirl, each one dealing physical damage to all nearby enemies. The first slash occurs immediately and the second one occurs after the duration. TL:DR: Samira slashes her blade around her twice, blocking all non-turret projectiles. This excludes some projectiles but mostly all of them. The duration of Blade Whirl is only .75 seconds. |
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Wild Rush (E): ACTIVE: Samira dashes in the direction of the target enemy or enemy structure (includes Turret Inhibitor and Nexus), dealing magic damage to enemies she passes through. She also gains bonus attack speed for 3 seconds. Scoring a takedown against an enemy champion within 3 seconds of damaging them resets Wild Rush's cooldown. Samira can cast Flair or Inferno Trigger during Wild Rush. Using Blade Whirl will buffer it to cast at the end of the dash. TL:DR: Samira dashes through a scructure/enemy (NOT allies) and deals magic damage while also gaining attack speed for a short duration. Getting takedowns resets the cooldown of this ability. |
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Inferno Trigger (R): ACTIVE: Samira unleashes a torrent of shots for 2.277 seconds, reducing her movement speed by 30% and rapidly shooting at nearby enemies over 2.013 seconds at sporadic times in 0.2-second intervals each, dealing physical damage with each shot, reduced by 75% against minions. Each shot can Critically Strike for (75% + 35% 35%) bonus physical damage and applies lifesteal at 66.6% effectiveness. Samira cannot attack nor cast Flair and Blade Whirl during Inferno Trigger, but she can still move. Inferno Trigger will end prematurely by all forms of cast-inhibiting crowd control as well as disarm. Root does not cancel the ult, but Suppression, Silence, Airborne, Knockup, and Stun will. Hook's like Death Sentence will also cancel Inferno Trigger. TL:DR: Once at S rank, Samira can cast Inferno Trigger, shooting rapidly in a wide radius and stopping around 2.3 seconds after initial cast. These shots can critically strike and apply lifesteal at lower damage/less healing. Stun/silence/etc. cancels this ult while it's casting. |
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Coin (Taunt): Very small add on, but Samira's taunt will deal 1 true damage if the coin casted hits the target. This counts towards Daredevil Impulse's style gauge and can be used in combos. This removes 1 gold from Samira's inventory and gives one gold to the enemy. |
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Flash |
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Heal |
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Exhaust |
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Ignite |
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Cleanse Other spells aren't necessary/aren't good on Samira. This goes for Teleport, Barrier, and Ghost. It's truly up to you though! |
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Bone Plating is helpful to soak more damage and reduce the amount the enemy does, overall a decent rune for Samira if you're going into lanes where you'll be poked to death (I.E Brand). Nullifying Orb is very situational, only helpful into mostly magic damage teams filled with mages and of the sort. It is not the best, but it is not the worst if you need forms of survivability so a roaming LeBlanc doesn't oneshot you. Gathering Storm is useful towards late game where you'll be getting a lot of bonus AD from it. Helpful for late game comps with a lot of scaling champs ( Veigar, Kayle, Corki, etc). If you know you're not gonna win early and want to focus purely on the mid-late game, go this rune. Conditioning is free armor and mr along with bonuses to all resistances in the late early game - helps if you need to be just a bit more tanky in fights so you're not bursted down immediately. Pairs well with Unflinching ( Last Stand also works really well with Unflinching!) to get more tenacity when you're lower in fights, which is inevitable for Samira. Celerity is alright, giving you even more Movement Speed with your Style stacks. ZOOM! Second Wind is... alright, you don't get that much value out of it as long as you can dodge the majority of abilities heading your way in the laning phase. The healing isn't substanstial but paired with Doran's Shield you're going to be alive for a while in lane. Go into lanes with heavy poke/lanes you don't win into. Cosmic Insight is not that good on Samira but it is a choice if you're going to pair it with Approach Velocity or Magical Footwear. You could go this if Galeforce was optimal on Samira like it was before, but now it's not. It's not worth taking this rune but it's up to you. Approach Velocity works if you have somebody such as Ashe support or a laner with heavy slows and cc, you can quickly dash in and get into the fight even faster with this rune. It's not that bad but works if you aren't able to catch up to them due to slows (for example if you're laning into Kog'Maw and he uses Void Ooze). Situational overall! Taste of Blood helps to keep yourself alive with lane with added sustain and just a bit of healing. It's good on Samira and probably what you should go in most games (if you're going the Domination keystone secondary). Sudden Impact gives extra lethality once you Wild Rush. Free damage! YIPEE! Purely up to preference if you're deciding between going Taste of Blood or this rune. Eyeball Collection gives free ad for takedowns. YIPEE! Probably the best out of the 3 ward runes for Samira as she won't utilize Zombie Ward or Ghost Poro much. If you're in high elo you can take either of the 3 as in games you and your support are probably going to spam wards. Magical Footwear is not that good, you need boots in lane to get the bonus resistances to help yourself live but it's alright if you're into a lane you win into, such as Zeri. Up to you! Treasure Hunter is free gold when you get a unique takedown. YIPEE! Helps with snowballing from the early-mid game as you'll get a hefty 700+ gold from this. (NOTE: if you're going Domination keystone then this works really well with Taste of Blood and is often what many Samira mains go). "Buy something nice. On me." Finally, Overgrowth helps to give yourself some bonus health and works really well with Conditioning. Very nice if you need to be a bit tanky for teamfights/general lane/trades/etc. as you'll be, most likely, above the enemy adc's hp. |
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The next few items are very situational.
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Samiras early is a little better than a lot of Marksman, depending on your laners/support. Pre 6 you are missing LOTS of damage but this does not mean that Samira cannot do as much, still. If your support (somebody such as Nautilus or Thresh) hits a hook, go in and commit to the fight, even if it costs you a death. Early gold is essential to hitting her Immortal Shieldbow powerspike, or an earlier one, Vampiric Scepter. Try to fight in melee range so you get that little extra magic damage from your autos and Flair. If you are going into a losing lane, farm with Flair and be careful to not get too close. If you can, try to force a fight at level 2-3 (depending on your support and their abilities) and go all in to try and secure kills. Rotate to Drake when necessary or wait for when they're low afterwards to go and clean up. Early kills are essential for Samira to snowball, but be careful to not int and die a lot. |
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Around the start to middle game, you should have at least two items which is a massive powerspike for you. With that, fight with your team for objectives and turrets but do NOT forget about farming. You NEED to farm on Samira if you want to snowball and get ahead of their gold, so farming is essential. DO NOT forget about farming!! SERIOUSLY!! Try to get 1v1's out and kills, and be careful to not overextend for Turrets and of the sort. That Volibear is ZOOMING towards you right now! You can split push but if an objective is about to be up, go to the lane closest to towards it and prepare for a teamfight. Likewise with early game, if you cant engage in a fight, you can always clean up afterwards, like Katarina can! Getting picks teamfights is very essential but do not try to 1v1 the 0/2 Vayne or somebody similar. SHE WILL DEFINITELY KILL YOU. TL:DR: focus on farming and getting picks and rotating to teamfights. Don't overextend for turrets but shove waves if you must. Clean up fights or engage if you are fed. |
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Okay, just to preface, late game is HARD for Samira. By this point everybody has scaled even if Samira scales a lot. Champions like Vladimir, Kayle, Viktor, etc. are going to halfhealth you or even more with one ability. You have to wait for the right moment to engage or you're going to die immediately. BE CAREFUL in late game and wait for moments where you can cleanup a fight or get a pick beforehand to make the fight a little more in your favor. If the team is filled with Tanks and similar champions, you are going to struggle a lot. Overall, late game is challenging for Samira because you're going to get bursted down quickly before you can deal your main source of damage ( Inferno Trigger). Wait for ults/summoners to be used then put yourself into the fight. THIS DOES NOT MEAN that you should sit around and do no damage. Hit them with your Flair and maybe some autos to stack Conqueror. As well, try to stick with your support and go off of their cc and similar abilities. They can easily carry a fight! HONOR YOUR SUPPORTS! <3 |
I want to preface this by saying Samira has tons of combos with many different variations. There are many, and I won't put *all* of them, however here are a few key ones.
This is probably the easiest combo that Samira can do in a safe manner. Begin by autoing into your Flair, then auto, Flair, auto, Flair and you'll have S rank. This is one of the safest to perform as you'll be able to stack both style and conqueror and be able to get your S rank from a safe distance without them immediately killing you.
This one is very similar to the combo above, but this utilizes the Wild Rush into Flair mechanic where your q now does damage in the line where you dash when casted. At the very end of this combo, you can quickly auto - then Inferno Trigger.
This combo is a bit harder than others to pull off, but thanks to some solid programming, if you time it right, this combo will always work. Blade Whirl - Wild Rush - Blade Whirl works like this - the first slash can hit the target if in range, once you e onto them, the ability will buffer until the end of Wild Rushs dash and will thus combo. In simple terms, this guarantees W1 - E - W2 AS LONG AS Blade Whirl is being casted during Wild Rush. I hope this isnt confusing!
This one is hard to decipher due to very quick autos and animations that aren't very visible when looking at it in normal speed. The slow mo is below!
This combo is a favorite of mine as it gets you to S rank in under 3 seconds. You have to time your autos right, casting Wild Rush at nearly the same time that you casted your auto, then auto into Blade Whirl and auto once more. It's very easy to mess up but with practice you can get it nailed down fairly quickly!
I am not going to post every single combo because most you can learn on your own after playing a lot of Samira. These are purely interchangable and depend on how YOU cast your abilities in a fight and how you weave autos into it! The majority of fun in Samira's kit, for me, is her ability to combo in different ways in every game, even if some are faster than others. Her versatility comes from the fact that it depends on how YOU play on Samira - do you prefer to play safe and get your autos and abilities in from afar or are you throwing yourself into the fight to get your S rank as soon as possible? It's up to you how you play and each player differs in every way! Combos are completely up to you, is what im trying to say. Play how YOU want to play!
It might be hard to see, but a mechanic with Wild Rush is that the dash will ALWAYS dash to the very end of its length. This means that you can't control the dash length itself, but you *can* change it depending on where you are standing when you cast it. As shown in the clip, the dash always went to my ping, aka the end of its range. If you stand farther away, this will put you closer to the target. Closer to the target, you'll be sent farther away. It's an inverse relationship that's based on your position when Wild Rush is casted. This also does not change based on the angle of where you cast it from, the dash will always go to the very edge of the range. THINK FAST!
Im going to start by saying adding your Taunt, Coin, to your combos is NOT practical in most cases. There are ways to do it but in most fights you won't properly be able to add it onto your combo gauge. HOWEVER, there are some neat combos you can pull off, such as the one below!
This is very hard to decipher so I'll break it down for you.
First, I hit the target with Wild Rush after casting Taunt, which gives me E rank, then I quickly Blade Whirl which gives D. At this point the Coin hits so I get C rank, and afterwards I Flair behind me, which gives B. Then, the second slash of Blade Whirl goes off so I get A, and I get to S rank with an Auto. This combo requires very precise timing with your coin so be sure to practice it beforehand. Coin combos are NOT easy but once you have practice it becomes a lot smoother and easier to accomplish!
It might be hard to see, but Samira can dash over the wall with Gromp, Raptors, Wolves, Blue Sentinel, and Red Brambleback (last three not shown). For Red Brambleback, this does NOT mean the thicker portion of the wall. It is possible to dash over wall with Krugs, but this is a lot harder, you have to get them very close to the wall, then dash over. She cannot dash over a wall with a Drake because the range is too short/ Drake wont get close enough to the wall. This also applies to Baron Nashor because it never moves close enough to wall for you to Wild Rush onto it. Samira can't dash to Honeyfruit, Blast Cone, or Scryer's Bloom, also. Samira can dash over manmade walls such as Crystallize from Anivia as long as a target is near it.
Oh, also, she can dash to enemy Turrets but not your own, shown here!
Well, with basically everything I stated, the guide is coming to an end shortly ! Here are a few other noticeable aspects of Samira.
The video below is what it looks like if you Wild Rush, get a reset, and Wild Rush again! You can basically fling yourself across the river if timed right. This is very good for escapes combined with your Flash.
People have stated that there is a difference in healing when using auto - Flair / Flair - auto, however, with multiple tests, I found no differences at all. Do note however that Flair gives reduced lifesteal (at 66 percent).
Wild Rush - Flash is smoother than Flash - Wild Rush. I've tested it many times in my hours in practice tool/ingame and there is a big difference.
Hitting an enemy with the same ability can be used in a precise combo if done right. Say if there are two enemies in front of you and you Wild Rush and Blade Whirl - Wild Rush will give you E and Blade Whirl will give D. If your Wild Rush is still going off and goes through the second enemy (or the same but the abilities are in a seperate order), this will give C, then Blade Whirl's second slash will give B. TL:DR: The same abilities can stack your passive if timed right.
Finally, look below at the last topic!
Although the fact that Samira is a Marksman and works in bot lane the best, she CAN go top lane and mid lane. I've done it many times, and although it is situational ( Assassin s are still going to oneshot despite the durability update... probably!), it does indeed work. Pick it if you would like to try it because bot lane is not for everybody and other lanes do work for Samira if you would like to try it out. Have fun! <3
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Andd with that, my Samira guide is over! Thank you so much for reading through this, I've always wanted to do this for a while now but never got the motivation to do so until a few days ago. This guide took a few days to construct and I'll be uploading it if major changes occur, but again thank you so so much for reading this through. I hope I helped you in your journey to becoming a Samira player, if you wanted assistance on builds/runes/items/etc, and other aspects. This guide would not be possible without Jhoijhoi's Making a Guide... Guide! . This helped tremendously with coding and saved me overall with everything I needed to know beforehand. Thank you very much! <3 I'll be eyeing this guide for changes following the durability patch (12.10), which at time of writing came out yesterday. I'll be making changes when necessary to ensure the guide is as accurate as possible. And with that, this guide is over! Have fun being a stylish daredevil on the rift with Samira! Bye bye! Also, if there are any errors/mistakes, comment them and I'll be sure to change it. |
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