Diligence109
08-03-2011, 03:49 PM
I made this post (http://www.reddit.com/r/LeagueofLegendsMeta/comments/io2fu/adhybrid_kennen/) on the League of Legends subreddit and now that we have a whole LoL subforum here figured I might as well spread the love. I don't know that many here will be interested in this deep a guide for one build for one champion, but if any of you wanna give Kennen a try, this unconventional build is completely viable and pretty darn fun!
Guide below in the spoiler (it's long as ****):
EDIT: formatting didn't carry over on my copy/paste from reddit too well so things like lists and boldface aren't in the quote below. I'm really, really lazy so if you wanna see the pretty post just follow the link above!
I've been working on this build for some time - build/guide below, broken out into sections so you don't have to read it all if you don't want to. Ideas/critique/discussion welcome!
TL;DR: Just read Build order, Masteries, Runes, Skill Order, and Basic Strategy below and skip the rest of the guide. You've got the gist of it at that point, the rest is just my rambling/theories.
Build order:
Boots/pots
Lucky Pick (optional)/Mejai's Soulstealer (optional)
Sorcerer's Greaves (preferred)/Merc Treads (situational)
Blasting Wand
Giant's Belt
Guinsoo's Rageblade (if hardcore fed, before giant's)
Recurve Bow
For more survivability: Wit's End/Zhonya's Hourglass (order situational)
For more luxury: Frozen Mallet/Stark's Fervor (order situational)
Masteries: 14/0/16, Ignite/Flash
Hitting the Offensive tree's ability power, attack speed, cooldowns, magic pen, and improved ignite and the Utility tree's time spent dead, xp, gold, buffs, movement speed, and improved flash.
Runes: AS reds, Armor Yellows, AP/lvl Blues, and MS Quitns
I don't have all the runes I'd like to have, so I haven't been able to experiment with all the rune setups I'd like. Make up your own! I've been playing him pretty successfully with these.
Skill Order: QWEWWR, R>W>Q>E
Basic Strategy: Early game farm and harass, serious level 6 threat with ult/flash/ignite. Mid game push/farm, massive AoE damage for teamfights but have to get in and get out. Late game split push like a boss, enjoy some AoE damage in teamfights and hard-to-match single target DPS/Assassination/stun lock. Plays like an Assassin/anti-carry (think Akali, Nocturne, Evelynn, AD Katarina, etc)
The Early Game: Kennen likes a solo lane, but can do well without one. He's a fairly competent solo laner but is outclassed by solo laners with stonger lane persistence (i.e. a heal, early lifesteal, no early mana problems, etc; Think Vladimir, Xin Zhao, Nidalee, Karma, etc). Kennen's early lane persistence leans on those potions, so if he's harassed too much he's in trouble. Kennen is squishy, too, so he's terrified of people with some form of CC followed by burst damage that they could pull off before he could stun (like Sion, Lux, Annie, etc). Kennen with a solo lane is great but make sure you know that you're up against someone you can handle. Humbly taking bottom will still get you enough farm to be effective.
Boots and pots help Kennen harass early game - the extra movement speed paired with his Lightning Surge enable him to dodge skill shots and line up his Thundering Shuriken for some early game harass. The boots should be enough to keep you around until level six and if you lane well you'll likely be a serious threat if they are low enough that you could flash-ignite-ult-mash the rest of your keyboard on them and stun them for first blood.
If you get forced out of lane before six, you should still have enough money to grab boots2 (750g) or a lucky pick (765g). I put Mejai's in the guide because I know it's viable, but I personally rarely play with the snowball items. If you hate gp5 items, you can skip the pick. Kennen really likes some early AP - his damage in mid game with enough AP is too awesome to give up (even in a hybrid build) so I start out mostly AP as AD items aren't that useful on him until later when his base attack damage/attack speed are higher.
If you go for Merc Treads over Sorc Greaves know that you're giving up a lot of your mid game damage output. Only do this if you absolutely need the MR against a very bursty lane AND team and absolutely can't pass up the tenacity against this team. If you're playing ranked and can see that you're up against a team that you'd be forced to get merc treads, you might consider playing someone other than Hybrid Kennen cause he's gonna be a sadface little yordle when he can't really burst anyone down for levels
The Mid Game: By level 9 I hope to at least have my Blasting Wand, boots 2, and lucky pick. I'm close to getting my Guinsoo/Giant's Belt and I'm gauging which one I want to nab (is our team ahead and do I want the extra damage to secure kills or is the game fair and do I need to be able to absorb some of their mid game burst?)
Guinsoo's isn't too great on Kennen until later because his AS isn't high enough to ramp up the stacks, which is why I usually follow it with a Recurve Bow because by level 10+ with AS reds and the bow he has enough to make it work for him.
Once you have Guinsoo's and the Recurve, you can stun one target twice in a fight, if you start out with a charged auto attack from your W. Once you have Frozen Mallet/Phage, you'll be able to stun them twice even if they try to run away.
I often find that my flat armor yellows give me enough armor to cover me through the mid game. These are just the runes I had handy so it may be accidental genius or there may be other/better options for Hybrid Kennen's yellows.
The Late Game: Kennen pushes lanes really fast with E and W and a high AS. He also wrecks towers with his high AS. He also crosses map relatively fast with his E. He's got everything he needs to split push and then come rushing back to mid to flash in and ult for a teamfight.
If you need armor (because those armor yellows aren't carrying into the late game) grab Zhonya's - even though this isn't an AS/AD item it's just too damn good on this here yordle and he scales just fine with AP (as we know from his more conventional build).
If you need MR, skip the Abyssal Scepter and go for Wit's End. You're going to get the stacks on it no problem at this point and it's enough MR that you wont need anything else. The extra AS will put out more stuns, more single target DPS (Kennen's late game AD isn't bad!), more tower pushing, and more Guinsoo stacks.
If you can afford putting some more money into offensive items, finish out that giant's belt into a frozen mallet. Grab Phage first if you have to, though at this phase in the game I often find I can stay out long enough (especially since Kennen doesn't have mana to worry about!) that I can just buy it in one go. Once you have Frozen Mallet on top of the build, you can pick one person and make them die three times over before they get back to the river from your first tower. Your chasing is off the hook between your frequent stuns, mobility on your E, high AS, and slow on the mallet.
If you want to grab a Vampiric Scepter at some point earlier, feel free - having a way to regain your HP without backing is all Kennen needs to push forever. You push faster than anyone in the game (with the only exception being maybe Sivir) and if you never have to back you are going to keep the enemy team responding to your pushes the entire game. Pack a couple wards and pop E to move around the map faster and you can split push faster than the other team can react to.
The Vampiric Scepter is only useful until pretty late, though - as you need some significant AS/AD to be able to heal up effectively on minion waves/the jungle. It's not unwelcome in teamfights either, at that point. Stark's Fervor is the most effective lifesteal item I've found for Kennen - he synergizes better with it's AS than he does with the damage off of a bloodthirster. The aura isn't a bad perk, either. Just make sure nobody else on the team is planning on buying it, first!
Thanks for reading that wall of text. If you spent all that time reading, be sure to post your thoughts! Corki, Teemo, and Tristana don't have to be the only AD Yordles out there, give Kennen some love!
Guide below in the spoiler (it's long as ****):
EDIT: formatting didn't carry over on my copy/paste from reddit too well so things like lists and boldface aren't in the quote below. I'm really, really lazy so if you wanna see the pretty post just follow the link above!
I've been working on this build for some time - build/guide below, broken out into sections so you don't have to read it all if you don't want to. Ideas/critique/discussion welcome!
TL;DR: Just read Build order, Masteries, Runes, Skill Order, and Basic Strategy below and skip the rest of the guide. You've got the gist of it at that point, the rest is just my rambling/theories.
Build order:
Boots/pots
Lucky Pick (optional)/Mejai's Soulstealer (optional)
Sorcerer's Greaves (preferred)/Merc Treads (situational)
Blasting Wand
Giant's Belt
Guinsoo's Rageblade (if hardcore fed, before giant's)
Recurve Bow
For more survivability: Wit's End/Zhonya's Hourglass (order situational)
For more luxury: Frozen Mallet/Stark's Fervor (order situational)
Masteries: 14/0/16, Ignite/Flash
Hitting the Offensive tree's ability power, attack speed, cooldowns, magic pen, and improved ignite and the Utility tree's time spent dead, xp, gold, buffs, movement speed, and improved flash.
Runes: AS reds, Armor Yellows, AP/lvl Blues, and MS Quitns
I don't have all the runes I'd like to have, so I haven't been able to experiment with all the rune setups I'd like. Make up your own! I've been playing him pretty successfully with these.
Skill Order: QWEWWR, R>W>Q>E
Basic Strategy: Early game farm and harass, serious level 6 threat with ult/flash/ignite. Mid game push/farm, massive AoE damage for teamfights but have to get in and get out. Late game split push like a boss, enjoy some AoE damage in teamfights and hard-to-match single target DPS/Assassination/stun lock. Plays like an Assassin/anti-carry (think Akali, Nocturne, Evelynn, AD Katarina, etc)
The Early Game: Kennen likes a solo lane, but can do well without one. He's a fairly competent solo laner but is outclassed by solo laners with stonger lane persistence (i.e. a heal, early lifesteal, no early mana problems, etc; Think Vladimir, Xin Zhao, Nidalee, Karma, etc). Kennen's early lane persistence leans on those potions, so if he's harassed too much he's in trouble. Kennen is squishy, too, so he's terrified of people with some form of CC followed by burst damage that they could pull off before he could stun (like Sion, Lux, Annie, etc). Kennen with a solo lane is great but make sure you know that you're up against someone you can handle. Humbly taking bottom will still get you enough farm to be effective.
Boots and pots help Kennen harass early game - the extra movement speed paired with his Lightning Surge enable him to dodge skill shots and line up his Thundering Shuriken for some early game harass. The boots should be enough to keep you around until level six and if you lane well you'll likely be a serious threat if they are low enough that you could flash-ignite-ult-mash the rest of your keyboard on them and stun them for first blood.
If you get forced out of lane before six, you should still have enough money to grab boots2 (750g) or a lucky pick (765g). I put Mejai's in the guide because I know it's viable, but I personally rarely play with the snowball items. If you hate gp5 items, you can skip the pick. Kennen really likes some early AP - his damage in mid game with enough AP is too awesome to give up (even in a hybrid build) so I start out mostly AP as AD items aren't that useful on him until later when his base attack damage/attack speed are higher.
If you go for Merc Treads over Sorc Greaves know that you're giving up a lot of your mid game damage output. Only do this if you absolutely need the MR against a very bursty lane AND team and absolutely can't pass up the tenacity against this team. If you're playing ranked and can see that you're up against a team that you'd be forced to get merc treads, you might consider playing someone other than Hybrid Kennen cause he's gonna be a sadface little yordle when he can't really burst anyone down for levels
The Mid Game: By level 9 I hope to at least have my Blasting Wand, boots 2, and lucky pick. I'm close to getting my Guinsoo/Giant's Belt and I'm gauging which one I want to nab (is our team ahead and do I want the extra damage to secure kills or is the game fair and do I need to be able to absorb some of their mid game burst?)
Guinsoo's isn't too great on Kennen until later because his AS isn't high enough to ramp up the stacks, which is why I usually follow it with a Recurve Bow because by level 10+ with AS reds and the bow he has enough to make it work for him.
Once you have Guinsoo's and the Recurve, you can stun one target twice in a fight, if you start out with a charged auto attack from your W. Once you have Frozen Mallet/Phage, you'll be able to stun them twice even if they try to run away.
I often find that my flat armor yellows give me enough armor to cover me through the mid game. These are just the runes I had handy so it may be accidental genius or there may be other/better options for Hybrid Kennen's yellows.
The Late Game: Kennen pushes lanes really fast with E and W and a high AS. He also wrecks towers with his high AS. He also crosses map relatively fast with his E. He's got everything he needs to split push and then come rushing back to mid to flash in and ult for a teamfight.
If you need armor (because those armor yellows aren't carrying into the late game) grab Zhonya's - even though this isn't an AS/AD item it's just too damn good on this here yordle and he scales just fine with AP (as we know from his more conventional build).
If you need MR, skip the Abyssal Scepter and go for Wit's End. You're going to get the stacks on it no problem at this point and it's enough MR that you wont need anything else. The extra AS will put out more stuns, more single target DPS (Kennen's late game AD isn't bad!), more tower pushing, and more Guinsoo stacks.
If you can afford putting some more money into offensive items, finish out that giant's belt into a frozen mallet. Grab Phage first if you have to, though at this phase in the game I often find I can stay out long enough (especially since Kennen doesn't have mana to worry about!) that I can just buy it in one go. Once you have Frozen Mallet on top of the build, you can pick one person and make them die three times over before they get back to the river from your first tower. Your chasing is off the hook between your frequent stuns, mobility on your E, high AS, and slow on the mallet.
If you want to grab a Vampiric Scepter at some point earlier, feel free - having a way to regain your HP without backing is all Kennen needs to push forever. You push faster than anyone in the game (with the only exception being maybe Sivir) and if you never have to back you are going to keep the enemy team responding to your pushes the entire game. Pack a couple wards and pop E to move around the map faster and you can split push faster than the other team can react to.
The Vampiric Scepter is only useful until pretty late, though - as you need some significant AS/AD to be able to heal up effectively on minion waves/the jungle. It's not unwelcome in teamfights either, at that point. Stark's Fervor is the most effective lifesteal item I've found for Kennen - he synergizes better with it's AS than he does with the damage off of a bloodthirster. The aura isn't a bad perk, either. Just make sure nobody else on the team is planning on buying it, first!
Thanks for reading that wall of text. If you spent all that time reading, be sure to post your thoughts! Corki, Teemo, and Tristana don't have to be the only AD Yordles out there, give Kennen some love!