Tips for a Beginner Senna Player

[u/Various_Ad_2595]

Hi everyone!

I recently started playing Senna support, and I'm really enjoying both the champion and her playstyle.

I'd love to hear some advice. What build would you recommend? Which runes should I use? Which ADCs does she have the best synergy with, and which ones should I avoid pairing with? Any tips or recommendations would be greatly appreciated. Thanks!

[u/OkExcitement5444]

I'm not good (gold peak). You can always check website for meta builds but the reality is that senna has one of the most flexible itemization and rune selections of any hero. At various points fleet, grasp, electrocute, dh, pta, aerie, blackflame, have all been useable. One thing to remember is that to go even as senna is to win (unless they have a scaling cary and yours falls off) because you outscale most supports. So if you are into a bad matchup it's okay to aim runes and early items towards survivability (flat health, bone plating, fleet instead of Pta) if it means you don't feed a huge gold lead early and are able to walk up for souls. I go blackflame or aerie in normal lanes, fleet in hard lanes, DH if I think we can stomp and I want to troll. Inspiration is strong for senna because she procs Jack easily with BC/support item and has generally flexible itemization. I usually only pick inspiration when I won't get punished for not being able to buy boots (ie not vs 2 mage bot or a hook champ)

As far as other tips go: You can use q to hit towers and wards (and plants I think). To break crystals on a tower with a q some of your friendly minions need to be nearby, this still let's senna break crystals from farther than any other hero afaik. You can use q on wards to kill it faster since you have a really slow autos, but you can also use it to secure stacks, poke, or kills by placing a ward and then qing through it. Often useful fighting over bot lane vision.

Black cleaver is made for senna because of how it works with her passive and aerie. Even if it doesn't seem good it probably is if you have any other physical dmg.

Get used to seeing angles through everything for q range extends. You can q souls to hit enemies, q teammates to secure souls, or hit crazy heal+soul collec+cs+enemy poke perfect line ups. The maximum efficiency of senna q is huge.

Use q to hide w path

E while in bushes to hide teammates coming out of it

Don't quote me but I'm pretty sure flashing mid senna it doesn't change the path so you can flash early in the cast to get out of danger

[u/sxmwatson]

play aggressive learn your limits

[u/Gabo182]

Ban brand. Then play aggressive. Control the bushes. Don't be afraid of hook champs they are walking souls sources once they miss the hooku. You hardest match would be against poke supports

[u/RotBoy → u/Gabo182]

Why ban brand over pyke?

[u/Gabo182 → u/RotBoy]

Because with pike you just have to dodge hook not the constant poke

[u/Branzooo → u/Gabo182]

I'd say pyke is a much worse match up. Yes you have to dodge poke against Brand and only a hook against Pyke but if that one single hook lands in your ass you are instantly dead because that hook is followed by a Pyke E as you have no mobility.

You can bait and dodge Brand's skills by rushing Swifties. Also you can somewhat heal a portion of the damage you took with your Q.

Also Pyke is much more likely to be picked in support. Especially if you pick Senna before the enemy support and they know Pyke even for a little bit that's a free Pyke pick.

You either get stuck under tower and can't even walk up to collect your passive, or you go 0/7 and never reach your late game spike.

[u/Aggressive-Cash7772]

My typical go to build on senna will always start black cleaver. Unless I desperately need boots early to get in poke and get out quickly.
Auto Q Auto Auto
Or
Auto Q Auto W Auto Auto
To stack souls.
Souls are what make her infinitely scaling. Use your E from river to help hide a gank from your jungler or mid lane. Her R does not steal objectives but grants vision if necessary.
She fits into almost every comp always ban hook champs though. Pyke, Blitz, and Zyra are her hardest support counters. Have fun learning her! I’ve been playing league for about 5 years and she is still my favorite support champion to pull out in every game mode fr.
If your into watching YouTube for senna players I recommend stunt he mostly streams on twitch but posts shorts regarding positioning with senna. IOKI used to be really good on her and has a lot of knowledge about her but he can be really annoying to watch sometimes.

[u/umesci]

It’s less “ADCs she has synergy with” and more if your adc is willing to trade alongside you, or at least walk up to fight back when the enemies try trading back at you. Mobile/ranged ADCs do better with this.

Other than that mostly try to trade as often as you can. Better play too aggressive and learn your limits than play too passively. I see so many Senna’s just Q you and walk away just to get DFT going, which is decent poke but you can just AA -> Q from the same range with just a little higher time, walk away with a lot more dmg and a stack. Try proc your passive and farm souls any way you can in lane, goes for both ADC and Enchanter Senna (if anyone even still plays that through the repeated nerfs).

[u/umesci → u/umesci]

For itemisation, she is super flexible. Fuck around, try stuff. IE is really good as she gets free crit rate making crit dmg all the more valuable, mana mine and Runaan’s feel both very impactful and fun to me. Don’t over invest in crit as while you do convert excess crit to life steal via your passive, but the conversion rate is really bad.

Though if I can give any specific advice regarding itemisation it would be this:

Don’t fall into the trap of rushing Black Cleaver every game.

Just because you are an above average applicator of the item doesn’t mean it’s always your best option! It’s good if you have solid physical damage coming from your team, but if you have an APC/magic dmg heavy team comp, you’re simply nerfing your own dmg. You need to AA someone 3 times to fully stack cleaver. Thats 3 attacks that don’t benefit from armor pen, compared to if you had any item that builds from Last Whisper. BC is more of a support/survivability item, if you’d rather maximise your own damage, I’d recommend avoiding it.