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AD Kennen should not be more viable than AP Kennen

Mannny··5 votes·2,028 views

There is no reason AD Kennen should ever be stronger than his AP counterpart and if there is, something is wrong.

In season 5 when AD Kennen was dominating solo queue and professional play, just like it is now, he was given a good power shift and nerf so that what he was made to do was what people were actually doing. I played Kennen tons ever since I joined and Kennen is in the most messed up state he has been in. AP Kennen provides team utility and good pressure all around, but his ult has grown into a stun-bot rather than a powerful ultimate to be feared of when he had it ready. Now people are scared of his auto attacks rather than his ult. I can't count how many times I would target the ADC with simple auto attacks and they flash, but when I ult in they just wait for the stun to be over.

The main reason Kennen is in the messed up state he is in currently is because they hit his ultimate hard, while ADC items were being buffed patches later which brought rise to this AD monster of a top laner we have today. His ult just doesn't do enough damage for it to be useful anymore.

What Kennen needs is another power shift so that he can be viable going AP again. AD Kennen provides wonderful 1v1 potential not only in top lane, but he can usually 1v1 the ADC too. I'm not asking for the dreadful AP Kennen last season to come back, that was too strong, However, I am asking for a better ultimate that can sway a game from a win to a lose like it was made to.

TLDR: Kennen needs a power shift so he can be viable AP again.

19 Comments

Darkdemon6532 votes

Building AD on him isn't, never has been, and never will be more viable than building AP on him, so I'm not sure what the point of this thread is (unless it's that Kennen is weak).

Mannny1 votes

It is currently the most used Kennen build, and is used more often in pro play than AP. This is present in high elo as well. I did not make this post for no reason, AD Kennen is for sure better than the AP counterpart currently.

4o4wRJ9eNS1 votes

{quoted}

Building AD on him isn't, never has been, and never will be more viable than building AP on him, so I'm not sure what the point of this thread is (unless it's that Kennen is weak).

whaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaat

PhDs Nuts1 votes

{quoted}

**hands over ears * * LA LA LA LA LA LA I CAN'T HEAR THE META LA LA LA LA

ftfy

AmazoX1 votes

They already know, AD Kennen has been being played in High ELO and LCS for a very long time now, I wonder what's their plan with Kennen?

P.S: AD Kennen is strong but not dominating, The last time anyone dominated anything was Lee Sin Jungle.

Kivolan1 votes

What are you talking about? There's NOTHING more fun at the moment than getting zoned out of 100% of your CS top because you're a melee champion in a ranged meta!

Especially when they build item 3153 as their first item and completely negate any damage you manage to do to them!

[slayer-pantheon-thumbs]

Dasdi961 votes

Don't forget you can't itemize defensively against him. You build hp? No I have botrk so you get shredded. You build armor? No my base damage is magic so you die. You build mr? No my autos then destroy you.

Mannny1 votes

Yea, AD Kennen covers tons of top laners. It isn't really fair he should be a tank shredder or a 1v1er which is why AD Kennen in my opinion always means he is in a bad state if it is viable.

oSEXYPLATYPUSo1 votes

he is an auto attack ranged champ...

the reason he works cuz in top lane most match ups are him vs melee so he has an advantage to begin with

and the reason why ad kennen works is the MIX DAMAGED cuz its hard to build against him due to his magic damage and ad damage and on hit damage provided by item 3153

it allows him to have a safe laning phase or to completely punish people for bad match up

galio is good vs him cuz if galios kit and you can build armor while still having magic damage reduction from his kit.

i have found a build of item 3194 item 3047 are effective to his mix damage

Mannny1 votes

He does not really have mixed damage as his base AP stats are not extraordinary in any way. He can simply 1v1 most top laners and ADCs with his build which lets him safely split push as he pleases.

oSEXYPLATYPUSo1 votes

he can only do that vs the juggernauts/melees and tanks

he is used to counter those

Sir Fuzzi1 votes

....so remove his AD capacities, replace them with AP capacities. They did this to Lulu. It's not so hard...

oSEXYPLATYPUSo1 votes

how do u remove his ad capacities when he scales with AP ?

and he is an auto attack reliant champ?

i know he has a ad ratio on electrical surge but its only for BONUS AD , i mean sure they could nerf that but it wouldnt change the fact the he still is an auto attacker so ad always works on a champ who autos

Sir Fuzzi1 votes

First off yeah, knock the AD ratio. It's from a far different time.

Secondly, put the emphasis in spellcasting instead of auto-attacking.

Otherwise, he gets an AD build-- simple as that.

oSEXYPLATYPUSo1 votes

so delete kennen?

basically is what you want...

Sir Fuzzi1 votes

Okay, so AD build Kennen is a problem, and it'll always be significant as long as he relies on autos, but his design has to rely on autos?

Is there a way to tune back his efficiency with AD, without nerfing the items for the rest of the cast?

EDIT: I'm just thinking AP Kennen needs a buff if AD Kennen is such a better option, I thought maybe this kind of thing could be solved pointing Kennen more toward mage than AA. But I'm not really huge on Kennen, all I know about him is enter teamfight with ult = stun everyone.

There seems to be the issue that his damage all leads up to stuns which really enables the AD build because there's nothing ineffective about it for him.

oSEXYPLATYPUSo1 votes

but its only an issue vs melee/juggernauts/tanks in lane

other ranged tops, highly mobile , gap closers etc can still deal with him...

think of it like a super teemo

Sir Fuzzi1 votes

Okay so he's an anti-melee then. I mean I've always seen AD Kennens, it seemed more popular than AP because you were punished far less for missing spells and could bring up misses with his passive auto procs.

It's just, there was a lot of attention. It sounded like a much bigger problem.

Why was AP Kennen nerfed? Was his teamfight too terrifying?

oSEXYPLATYPUSo1 votes

alot of it has to do to the burst change on his ult

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