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Kennen's inability to duel is crippling when games are always over by 10-15 minutes

Yenn··2 votes·2,170 views

What's the point of having a scaling team fight-oriented champion in a meta where games are over both before team fights happen and before scaling happens?

This is exasperated by him being forced to build certain items that prevent him from taking advantage of his scaling, in order to function at all (Zhonya + Protobelt), and general inability to wave clear without running directly into the enemy champion/team.

EDIT: See this video, where I outplay Syndra and Lee Sin and still die because my damage is so fucking atrocious that I can't kill a 50% health Syndra who stays in my ult for full duration. https://imgur.com/GacsVgV

EDIT: Just played against a very unskilled Zed with Hexdrinker and lost, because my damage was so low that I could not kill him, period. At one point, he ulted me while he had 50% health (after he had missed everything on his previous ult and stayed in lane), missed everything, ate every ability and a full ult from me, and still survived to walk away with about 20% health left. This is absurd.

14 Comments

Madsin253 votes

A guy just hit challenger maining kennen like 2 weeks ago.

He takes only phase rush so he can stay alive in lane and come out alive after ulting backlines.

He also talks about how what you max/build with kennen is highly dependent on the matchup.

Go to kennen subreddit to learn more.

Yenn1 votes

{quoted}

A guy just hit challenger maining kennen like 2 weeks ago.

He takes only phase rush so he can stay alive in lane and come out alive after ulting backlines.

He also talks about how what you max/build with kennen is highly dependent on the matchup.

Go to kennen subreddit to learn more.

If you actually look at his matches, he loses 90% of games where he has a match up you would normally see below Challenger, and he also dodges a lot of match ups.

The reason he's functioning at Challenger is that picks are more team oriented. He's laned against a full tank in almost every win. In Diamond, top lane is almost exclusively dive/carry champions, and afair he even explicitly said that there was no way for him to win against these champions.

Pandemic Punch2 votes

They need to rework him if this is true. He is still one the the most frustrating top laners to lane against

SirLapse3 votes

Far from the truth. He is a lane bully in top lane and usually needs PtA for the AD kennen pathing, which due to his really high base attack speed, allows him to just rush BoTRK which got a gold cost decrease. Extremely weak to all-ins against stuff like Darius/Riven and dying once literally ends your lane phase even if you were ahead by 1 kill and CS (lest your jungler shut him down accordingly). You lose too much tempo from dying since you're only ever slightly ahead of the opponent, which is just enough to win lane. It still is the "win lane" Kennen build even with its mid to late game weaknesses.

AP Kennen has preference when it comes to teamfights. Due to lower magic resist on most people before mid game, he can literally secure dragon or bot lane via TP easily. So, all a Kennen has to do is make it past the early game and they become a teamfight menace.

Madsin251 votes

Exactly.

AP kennens make the mistake of trying to hard to win lane and end up just missing tons of CS in the process. Hurting their mid game potential where he is suppose to shine the most.

Also the ganks...way to easy to pull off with kennen. Also tower diving kennen after 6 is a risk because of his mobility and CC.(especially if you take phase rush)

So aslong as you just get pushed in and don't try to hard it's a win win situation.

TheShinx1 votes

Kennen IMO is one of the worst champions in league at the moment. Unless he has a team to back him up to do dmg while he ults + Zhonya's then he is ok. But if his team is even slightly behind or he doesn't have Zhonya's then he is not all that useful. His "rework" sort of nerfed him to shit because he needs to E into a champion's auto range in order to proc the passive. In a team fight it would be useful, but solo lane like top/mid it's not good to use E except when you know where the jungler is and the enemy laner isn't someone who can 100-0 you quickly.

They need to buff or rework Kennen and give him an identity again. His team fight relies on others doing all the damage while he doesn't do much. I'm not sure how they accomplish that tho. I feel like there is a lot of room to improve him tho.

Yenn1 votes

{quoted}

Kennen IMO is one of the worst champions in league at the moment. Unless he has a team to back him up to do dmg while he ults + Zhonya's then he is ok. But if his team is even slightly behind or he doesn't have Zhonya's then he is not all that useful. His "rework" sort of nerfed him to shit because he needs to E into a champion's auto range in order to proc the passive. In a team fight it would be useful, but solo lane like top/mid it's not good to use E except when you know where the jungler is and the enemy laner isn't someone who can 100-0 you quickly.

They need to buff or rework Kennen and give him an identity again. His team fight relies on others doing all the damage while he doesn't do much. I'm not sure how they accomplish that tho. I feel like there is a lot of room to improve him tho.

It doesn't matter even if he does have his team, his ult does atrocious damage without 3 items and he has nothing in his kit to allow him to survive once he's in the middle of the enemy team, and the game is usually decided before he completes Zhonya.

SirLapse1 votes

It doesn't do atrocious damage at all. If you lost lane already then yeah it will, because you were behind already to begin with. But even on the worse team performance games I've seen (and my own games I had with Kennen), you will absolutely maul the enemy if you understand how to win your lane or at least make it past. If your team isn't working as a unit to at least not die then Kennen is not the choice to look for--Vlad is.

Also, your Electrocute choice for runes basically is all-or-nothing laning and only works vs. squishy matchups. Aery otherwise can allow you to beat Urgot, Mundo, Darius, etc. in lane because it's very hard for them to punish you if you understand when to dodge their skillshots.

Madsin251 votes

I mean to be fair his ult actually does more damage than before if you can keep them in it the entire time.

He is a lot like lissandra, they keep his numbers low because of his CC.

TheShinx1 votes

That's the main issue with kennen tho. He ults and uses Zhonya's or ults and dies if either mid or the AD is not inside being stunned. As with Lissandra she can ult herself, E away, W to stun people getting near her, Ult an enemy carry, Q does insane damage and slows.

Kennen is like Liss yes, but Lissandra can offer a lot more in terms of constant dmg as to where Kennen's Combo is Burst then Auto.

5050BS1 votes

Kennen has needed a full rework for 2 seasons now.

Yenn1 votes

This is completely and utterly retarded.

I'm ahead 1 kill and slightly ahead on CS. I have Rylai components, Syndra only has Lost Chapter. Earlier, I dodged her stun and did a perfect combo (E into range, Q + W auto, wait for Q cooldown, stun with W and second Q), taking no damage in the process. She's at 50% health.

And then this happens https://imgur.com/GacsVgV

Can we please increase Kennen's damage in the early game, so I can actually be rewarded for outplaying my opponent?

Yenn1 votes

Just lost to a Wood V Zed because he rushed Hexdrinker and I literally could not do enough damage to kill him.

This video is the only time he landed anything during his ults. Every single one aside from this missed all Q's, didn't hit any E on me, and only got a single auto off when he appeared. He's down about 12 CS and up one kill because our Renekton disconnected during a gank and ran into his turret.

He eats my full ult and combo and still destroys me, having only landed a double Q and one auto. After he finished Hexdrinker, there was a point where I stayed in lane and he ulted me twice without either of us recalling, and failed to land anything during it both times, yet still survived because I could not do enough damage to kill him.

https://imgur.com/Fc5QeJx

Yenn1 votes

Exact same thing again. I'm losing to Gold players, because my damage is just so low that I can't kill them. Outplaying them is pointless, because I can't do enough damage to kill anything unless they stay in lane with 25% health and my ult is up.

This makes Kennen completely worthless in solo queue.

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