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Choose Champion Build:
- Basic Atk focus
- Spell Focused
- For a team of high speed opponents
Recommended Items
Runes:
Sorcery
Domination
+10% Attack Speed
+9 Adaptive (5.4 AD or 9 AP)
+6 Armor
Spells:
Flash
Heal
Items
Ability Order
Mark of the Storm (PASSIVE)
Kennen Passive Ability
Champion Build Guide
Introduction
Hello, I am PhoenixianSlayer
Kennen is one of those champs that can work in almost any lane. I found that my favorite position for him is support, so I decided to create a guide for it. I have done extremely well with him as a support, carrying 4v5s with well-timed stuns and even killing people in 1v1s, and wanted to pass on my experiences.
Kennen is an AP assassin that focuses on landing three attacks that apply the Mark of the Storm. Therefore, you need to do some prep-work before helping your ADC finish off an opponent, however, your Thundering Shuriken and Electrical Surge make you a great harasser due to their high damage combo and can set up some kills after some pokes.
The general idea of Kennen support is being a fast furball that deals quick damage then backs out before they can retaliate. The secondary function is protection. Kennen can use his abilities to quickly stun someone for 1.25 seconds.
The Basic Attack build is for people who like a well-rounded build.
The Spell Focused build is for people who are really invested in the support role and are focused on maximizing team fights utility rather than solo killing.
The speed build is designed to help you survive against a chase heavy team.
This is the main reason Kennen is viable as a support. Each ability add a stack of this passive onto an opponent. Get three stacks on one person and they get stunned for 1.25 seconds. Any subsequent triple stacks stun for 0.5 seconds. You can easily stun an opponent with your three main abilities or multiple people with your ultimate, Slicing Maelstrom. Stunning also replenishes energy.
This is your poke. Its a straight skill shot that damages the first enemy and applies a Mark of the Storm. Since Kennen is an energy champion, you want to spam this ability as much as possible. Especially since it deals a ton of damage.
This ability makes your poke with Thundering Shuriken more powerful. This skill damages all nearby enemies with at least one stack of Mark of the Storm and adds another stack. This ability also has a passive that energizes every 5th auto and adds a stack of Mark of the Storm to its target. Comboing this with Thundering Shuriken gets you lots of damage and gold. In addition, anyone who understands Kennen's kit will stay away from you when you apply two stacks of your passive onto them. Having an energized auto can turn this into three stacks and a stun. This combo can allow you to zone opponents away from their minions.
This skill is both your engage and escape. This gives you a massive speed boost and allows you to phase through units. Anything you pass through takes damage and gains a stack of Mark of the Storm. Damaging at least one enemy with this ability refunds part of the energy cost. You will mainly use this to disengage and dodge abilities in the early game. If you can foresee an attack, you can use this to get up close and get three stacks of Mark of the Storm on someone easy. The best use of this skill, however, is to get up close and use Slicing Maelstrom on someone, but preferably on multiple people.
This ability is the easiest way to quickly stack Mark of the Storm on people. This ability creates a large circle around you that deals damage 6 times to all enemies inside every 0.5 seconds and applies a Mark of the Storm each time damage is dealt. If you activate this on someone before you get your first triple stack on them, this will apply enough stacks to restun them as the first stun wears off, giving approximately 2 seconds of stun. This ability in combination with Zhonya's Hourglass allows you to stun entire teams during a team fight without putting yourself in danger because Slicing Maelstrom is still active when you are in stasis since it's not a channel. The ult also lasts the same time amount as your ult, so you should be ready to fight/run once your ult is done.
Normally, you want to take Electrical Surge on lvl 2; however, if you are currently in a sticky situation or the opponents are also high damage like Draven or Morgana, take Lightning Rush since you make more money in lane than in the death screen.
Summon Aery is best because of its cycle rate and damage.
Summon Aery is a targeting rune that damages any champion you damage. Its cooldown is your distance from the target of Summon Aery to you plus a second or two more. Arcane Comet is similar to Summon Aery. However, Arcane Comet only activates on damaging abilities and is AOE damage instead of targeting damage. Also, Summon Aery usually take 5-6 seconds to return and Arcane Comet hard 30 seconds with every spell hit decreasing the cooldown by 10 or 20%. Thundering Shuriken is the only spell that grants the 20% cooldown, the rest do 10%. Phase Rush boosts your speed after you land 3 attacks on a single person within 3 seconds.
Phase Rush is completely unhelpful in a supporting capacity. While activating it is easy to accomplish, you don't need the speed at that point since they usually are already stunned. Since Phase Rush is useless, Summon Aery and Arcane Comet are the two choices left. Generally, Thundering Shuriken will come off cooldown about the time Summon Aery returns, so every shuriken landed should have a followup Aery. However, it takes 2-3 Q's for Arcane Comet to finish cooling off (depending on your accuracy). In addition, Summon Aery targets while Meteor is an AOE without targeting. In comparison, Summon Aery can be proc'd more often and more easily (since basic attacks also proc Summon Aery) dealing more damage in the long run.
Nimbus Cloak or Nullifying Orb are equally good options.
Manaflow Band gives you a stack that adds max mana when you hit someone with an ability and regens your missing mana when you hit 10 stacks of this ability. Nimbus Cloak gives you a decaying speed boost when you ult. Nullifying Orb gives you a magic shield when you take magic damage when your below 30% health.
Kennen doesn't use mana so he can't use Manaflow Band. The Nullifying Orb only comes into play with magic damage at a certain health level. The shield is small, but its good in fights since most people have mixed damage at this point (the mix might be small, but it still procs the shield), so it has its uses. Nullifying Orb is great for when you are feeling off or have opponents with difficult to dodge skill shots. Nimbus Cloak helps secure kills by giving a major speed boost when activating Slicing Maelstrom. It helps you to make sure everyone is in the stunning zone before possibly using Zhonya's Hourglass. Nullifying Orb and Nimbus Cloak are both useful depending on what you are having trouble with: Dodging or Positioning.
Celerity is best.
Absolute Focus provides extra damage when you are high health, Transendance provides CDR from lvl 10, and Celerity increases all bonus speed by 8%.
The damage boost from Absolute Focus usually won't be in effect during any 1v1's or team fights considering Kennen's close quarters playstyle. It might be active during lane, but once you take some damage, you don't have regen, so you lose the boost until you recall. These two facts make Absolute Focus bad. The cooldown from Transcendence is unnecessary because your abilities already have a pretty low cooldown. In addition, you can't use many of them quickly since you are stuck at a hard 200 energy, so mid to late game, you will be impeded by your lack of resources more than your cooldowns. However, the speed boost from Boots of Swiftness + Celerity makes you pretty unkillable since you have the speed to dodge most skill shots and adding Lightning Rush to the mix can get you out of any gank alive pretty easily.
Scorch and Gathering Storm are both good runes.
Scorch adds some damage to a spell that hits a champion. It has a 10-second cooldown. Waterwalking gives you MS and damage while in the river. Gathering Storm gives stacks every 10 mins that translate to damage (8 AP times the stack number: 8 AP gained from stack 1 and 16 AP from stack 2, so 24 total AP at 20 mins).
Scorch is great for early damage since it ends up dealing a ton with constant procs. Waterwalking isn't as useful because you generally only go where your ADC goes, so you aren't really roaming and are rarely in the river. Gathering Storm is better for a late-game focus. It adds quite a bit of AP, but only starts to be worthwhile around 20-30 mins. While Gathering Storm and Scorch are both good runes, early damage secures kills and early kills helps your ADC snowball, so Scorch is better.
For Spell focused builds
Perfect Timing is so handy since it gives a free Stopwatch at 8 mins. Getting that Stopwatch early in the lane phase usually makes a big difference. For a spell focused build, this is mandatory.
Future's Market is beyond handy since you can buy items without having the full gold total. There is a cap (starting at 100 and growing to 300 or more). It helps you get to your core items sooner. There is no better rune than this.
For Basic Attack focused builds
Cheap Shot and Ghost Poro are both good runes.
Cheap Shot applies extra true damage when you impair someone. Ghost Pro You spawn a Ghost Poro everytime one of your wards die. Each spawned poro gives you a stack which translates to 1 AP with a max of 10 stacks. Reaching max stacks doubles the AP bonus for a total of 20 AP.
Cheap Shot is pretty easy to activate when you go all in since stunning people is your main goal. Ghost Poro is pretty easy to stack because you will be placing lost of wards due to FrostfangIn addition, it gives you longer duration for your deep wards.
Ravenous Hunter and Ultimate Hunter are good runes.
All the Hunter Runes gives a certain stat that increases each time you kill each of the enemy champs for the first time. Ravenous Hunter adds lifesteal to your abilities. Ultimate Hunter decreases your ultimate cooldown. Ingenious Hutner decreases item actives. Relentless Hunter adds out of combat MS.
Ravenousis good for sustain. You can pick up plenty of health with your abilities and your Electrical Surge auto counts as an ability. Ultimate Hunter is good for cycling your ult and getting kills faster. Relentless Hunter is good for dodging opponents and catching people who flee. I think that Ravenous Hunter is most useful for longer sustain in lane, Ultimate Hunter is the next most useful since it helps you secure double kills for the ADC, and finally Relentless Hunter for higher mobility. Ingenious Hunter would be useful for decreasing Zhonya's Hourglass's active, but since the basic attack build is designed to rely more on autos rather than the ult -> zhonya's combo, taking it is pointless.
This item gains charges (gains a charge every 5~ seconds capping at a max of 3 charges) that are used whenever you damage a tower or enemy champion. The charge adds damage to the attack and gives you 11 gold (all upgrades give 22 gold). It also passively gives you 2 gold every 10 seconds. Killing a minion stops passive gold gain and greatly slows the charge gain time. If you have Frostfang or its upgrade and you have earned at least 500 gold with this item, it upgrades and also gains charges that translate to wards. These charges do not regen and can only be refilled at the fountain. I choose this item for supporting since the idea is to poke/harass the enemy lane and stun enemies on all-ins. All of that suggests one thing, attacking the enemy. Spellthief gives you income for attacking the enemy. This item can get you loads of cash. I don't go past Frostfang with this item since you need Zhonya's Hourglass and Boots of Swiftness over a bit of health. Upgrade this first to get double gold and then move on to the next item.
It gives 55 MS and decreases slows by 25%. Bottom lane is not friendly to immobile champions and CC can be a nightmare. These boots give you the ability to get out of a jam quickly in combination with Lightning Rush. In addition, they give you enough speed to dodge most skillshots on their own. Its extremely necessary and should come right after Frostfang.
This item's active is to put the player in stasis for 2.5 seconds. They cannot do anything and nothing can be done to them while in stasis. Even if you don't use the active as much, its necessary for the lane. Its the only AP and armor item, and since your in a lane with ADC, you need armor. The active is also very good in combination with Slicing Maelstrom. It should always be built first.
The item's passive gains charges for abilities activated near the player capping at 100. using the active uses up said charges and gives you a boost of MS and AP. The item's MS and really high AP on this item gives you a huge power spike. In addition, Kennen's natural ability to spam abilities allows you to save up a ton of AP and MS for emergencies or team fights. A really good item and is built second only because Zhonya's Hourglass is more helpful in lane.
This item's passive creates a shield that negates the first spell to hit a player after not taking damage from enemy champions for 40 seconds. I usually build this third. The spell shield is nice for CC and makes it more likely that you will end up in a good position to use Slicing Maelstrom.
A great item for boosting damage through the roof. It adds AP and a passive that increases your AP by 40%. A good option for fourth or later.
This item has one passive. It slows all enemies hit with abilities for 1 second. A good utility item. Its nice for a fourth item. Its main purpose would be to keep people from leaving your Slicing Maelstrom before they are stunned.
This item has two passives. One passive burns opponents for 3 seconds for 1.5% of their max health. The burn increases to 2.5% if they have impaired movement. The second passive increases damage by 2% for each second in combat, maxing out to 10%. This item gives allows you to burn through tanks. This one would be built instead of say Rabadon's if the enemy comp is tanky heavy or you just need more health.
:
This item's passive is to empower autos with 50% of your AP after an ability. It adds some nice damage and speed. Comboes great with Electrical Surge's AA boost. Lightning Rush + fully stacked Electrical Surge passive + Lich Bane = some major tower damage (assuming you use your Thundering Shuriken whenever its up). This should be your second item.
The item's passive adds 15% of your AP to your auto attack damage. If you are 1v1ing someone, its good, but in team fights, you don't necessarily want to be auto attacking a lot since its not a massive amount of damage.
The item's passive sends out two ghosts who advance toward the two closest enemy champs. It's useful for tracking down enemies who ran into the jungle. A nice item for four or beyond.
When poking, try and quickly go in to throw a Thundering Shuriken or auto attack then back out. Save your Lightning Rush for when you need it, so don't use it to set up pokes. It's not worth landing one Thundering Shuriken if you end up dying because of it. Also, try to stay on the bush side of the lane. While that makes you predictable, this predictability gets you two things.
1:
The opponents stay near the river and your ADC can stay near the bushes side. This makes it easier for your Jungle to gank and harder for the enemy Jungle to gank you.
2:
It is harder for the opponents to hit you because they don't always have vision on you Taking Oracle Lens increases this effect by allowing you to remove any wards they place in the bushes. If you are in a bush when they try to ward it, you can get off some damage when they ward or get a kill.
Make sure and communicate with your ADC. Give updates on Ult status. Let them know when they should go in and leave. Try and let them focus solely on CS while you fend off the enemy champs and keep an eye out for the enemy JG. Get your ADC fed and their ADC dead.
Kennen is a fun champ to use and is great for draining enemy CS. He's pretty flexible and super annoying to deal with. Hope this helped and good hunting.
"Their final moments approach."
"Their final moments approach."
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