Senna the Support adc.

Illabethe··14 votes·10,337 views

Welp. We've been there before. An adc used as support.

However, we've never EXPLICITLY been there before with the intent.

Now..... I have an opinion, and many readers aren't going to like it or want to agree with me..... but....

#I think that the Senna Experiment is going to fail.

Don't get me wrong. I like the concept. I like Senna's design a lot myself.

#BUT

Right now, bot lane meta is absolutely destroyed. Duo Mage bot lanes are often more successful than actual adc bot lanes. In other words, ...... I'm concerned that the concept is dead in its tracks.... because even if we do duo ADC bot, they will be outranged, and outkitted by longer and longer range duo synergies.

It seems like right now...... every 500-600 range adc is hard capped in how much they can control their own lane. Kai Sa, Vayne, Lucian... all generally suffer one thing: Existing in a world where both support and the other adc outrange them. All three, on their own, are generally considered strong kits.... but have you ever noticed that the higher elo Lucian goes, the less he gets to poke, and the more he gets boxed under his own turret? Or, that Kai Sa's lane phase is generally slow, and the pace is controlled by how aggressive and how many gaps the other team gives her? Vayne has been a late game champion for at least 3 seasons now.

If Senna has any sensible range as an "Adc Support," she too is going to be subject to these rules of how adcs work.

Furthermore, (and this is a hypothesis) IF Senna actually has support capability, she's going to be broken out of the box, not necessarily favoring wins, but in the fact she will be difficult to balance. In other words, she will be weighing any supporting abilities in her kit (like an ult that blocks and reflects a shield) against the fact she needs to compensate her adc identity with a support's ability to fight at range and help peel an opposing adc. That's a tall order to do correctly.

League will have added a new romance to play and a new champion, but a whole new can of worms in the form of balancing nightmares. She very well could become the next Karma: Can't be allowed to be strong in any one feature, so left to suffer in general.

44 Comments

Chalze12 votes

Honestly every 'gimmick' for the past couple releases have all been balance nightmares or balance failures.

Kalista - Hopping = hard to balance Yuumi - Attachment gimmick = hard to balance Kayn - Transformation = hard to balance (at least initially) Pyke - Hypercarry assassin support??? = hard to balance Sylas - Ult stealing = hard to balance Ivern - Support jungler = hard to balance Yuumi again - Attachment gimmick again = my god Riot

Like I get it, I do like Riot taking risks and trying out new stuff, but in all of these gimmicks, every time there's a broken aspect of it that needs fixing, instead of fixing it, they try to force buffing/nerfing it to be viable (or at least just barely viable)

Jaspers3 votes

In most cases these issue are sorted by removing mechanics but they seem sometimes reluctant to do that as it would hurt the champs identity. Took a long time for them to admit Akali's W was a bit much. Riot shouldn't look at how it feels to play the champ, they should always look at how it feels to play against it (as in each game 1 person plays it while 5 play against it).

Remove Yuumi's damage, she's too safe to deal damage. Remove Pyke's extra gold, he doesn't need it, he's a support. Remove Sylas most of his kit, just because potentially he has no ult doesn't mean he needs all his abilities to do everything else.

The start of the issues was Camille. Legit look at her first kit. Adaptive shield to help in lane when going in against an enemy, true damage auto reset that procs with sheen. 90% area of effect slow that heals her and does % HP damage. Dash for potentially 1200 units that area of effect stuns on hit and gives her attack speed. An ult that means the enemy literally cannot escape (breaking the unstoppable game mechanic) that gives her invulnerability frames and gives her % HP magic damage damage. She has literally everything in her kit that you'd ever need and they cost pretty much nothing. And most of this remains just at tuned levels. The mechanics remain the same.

Daddy Ants1 votes

{quoted}

In most cases these issue are sorted by removing mechanics but they seem sometimes reluctant to do that as it would hurt the champs identity. Took a long time for them to admit Akali's W was a bit much. Riot shouldn't look at how it feels to play the champ, they should always look at how it feels to play against it (as in each game 1 person plays it while 5 play against it).

Remove Yuumi's damage, she's too safe to deal damage. Remove Pyke's extra gold, he doesn't need it, he's a support. Remove Sylas most of his kit, just because potentially he has no ult doesn't mean he needs all his abilities to do everything else.

The start of the issues was Camille. Legit look at her first kit. Adaptive shield to help in lane when going in against an enemy, true damage auto reset that procs with sheen. 90% area of effect slow that heals her. Dash for potentially 1200 units that area of effect stuns on hit and gives her attack speed. An ult that means the enemy literally cannot escape (breaking the unstoppable game mechanic) that gives her vulnerability frames and gives her % HP magic damage damage. She has literally everything in her kit that you'd ever need and they cost pretty much nothing. And most of this remains just at tuned levels. The mechanics remain the same.

Yuumi won't be a fair champion while she can remain untargetable.

Z3SIeeper3 votes

Imagine a world where her W has a duration and in exchange she’s made of slightly stronger toilet paper.

Tomoe Gozen1 votes

Yuumi cannot escape the damage from turrets and projectiles already targeting her.

KFCeytron6 votes

[{quoted}](name=Tomoe Gozen,realm=EUNE,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=RZQPJsBq,comment-id=0002000000000001,timestamp=2019-10-16T12:44:47.169+0000)

Yuumi cannot escape the damage from turrets and projectiles already targeting her.

You know that's a benefit, right? She pulls turret aggro, can't be damaged by champions, tanks a few hits for the carry while they go for a kill under turret, and gets executed. It's a pretty well-known Yuumi strategy.

Tomoe Gozen1 votes

Changing turret aggro is a pretty known strategy with multiple person dives. Every ranged attack is a projectile (some aren't), which means that if Yuumi gets targeted from a turret, she has to come out of hiding and if you manage to even bonk her at that time, it's your free kill.

Yuumi's HP is already so low that she can take 2. shots before dying. Secondly if she's making this "sacrifice", that means she's dead and the only person under that turret is in a very bad spot, in a 1v1.

Daddy Ants1 votes

{quoted}

In most cases these issue are sorted by removing mechanics but they seem sometimes reluctant to do that as it would hurt the champs identity. Took a long time for them to admit Akali's W was a bit much. Riot shouldn't look at how it feels to play the champ, they should always look at how it feels to play against it (as in each game 1 person plays it while 5 play against it).

Remove Yuumi's damage, she's too safe to deal damage. Remove Pyke's extra gold, he doesn't need it, he's a support. Remove Sylas most of his kit, just because potentially he has no ult doesn't mean he needs all his abilities to do everything else.

The start of the issues was Camille. Legit look at her first kit. Adaptive shield to help in lane when going in against an enemy, true damage auto reset that procs with sheen. 90% area of effect slow that heals her and does % HP damage. Dash for potentially 1200 units that area of effect stuns on hit and gives her attack speed. An ult that means the enemy literally cannot escape (breaking the unstoppable game mechanic) that gives her invulnerability frames and gives her % HP magic damage damage. She has literally everything in her kit that you'd ever need and they cost pretty much nothing. And most of this remains just at tuned levels. The mechanics remain the same.

Camilles R magic damage is % CURRENT HP btw not % max.

It's more effective versus targets who are missing less of their total health.

Jaspers1 votes

I didn't put max or current, couldn't remember which it was without looking. I know W does Max HP physical. She essentially has all the tools to deal with ALL of the problems. Her weakness seems to me to be more the person playing her than anything, I'd say range too but you know, 1200 unit dash. :P

Ionian Vulpix2 votes

Ivern didn't seem that hard to balance. People really just didn't find him fun and he just came out at a time where enchanter support items were insane.

Sirsir1 votes

Attachment gimmicks aren't that hard to balance. Yuumis attachment gimmick isn't hard to balance the way they did it, it's impossible. She needs more HP and a CD on her W starting AFTER. Dawngates Mina, Abathur in HotS... dota has one but i don't know anything about dota. But its probably balanced. Because there are actual windows. Attaching has a downside. Except for Yuumi, who can't afford to NOT be attached or one Kha Q kills her.

Pyke would be fine if his ult didn't reset. Or if it was melee range and force him to play a little more risky. Sure his base kit is annoying but that's ok, lots of even more annoying champs already exist.

Ivern wasn't hard to balance because he's a support, but because of his 'befriend camp' mechanic which made counter jungling too easy. Every smite was a camp denied the enemy.

Kayn essentially being 2 champions make him twice as hard to balance.

Mártir5 votes

To the OP:

  • Man, we havent seen Senna's kit... Relax Lmao.
  • You talk about Kaisa, or "Low range ADCs" in general... You realize Kaisa and Xayah are the most broken ADCs right now? Followed by Lucian and Sivir. And hey , guess how much range they have... 500~525
Illabethe2 votes

We've seen part of it. Enough to know

  1. She has a Rail Gun (long range weapon)
  2. Her Ult is a Damage Reflection feature
  3. She likely has a Dash as one of her skills

You're talking about adcs in a bubble. You may hate them, but right now:

Kai Sa is rank 14 of 16 adcs https://u.gg/lol/champions/kaisa/build

Vayne is close to 50% https://u.gg/lol/champions/vayne/build

Xayah is rank 10/16 at 49.66 Win rate. https://u.gg/lol/champions/xayah/build


Now look at Jinx/Caitlyn/Ashe:

https://u.gg/lol/champions/jinx/build #2 https://u.gg/lol/champions/ashe/build #1 https://u.gg/lol/champions/caitlyn/build #6

Ranged wins bot right now hands down. You may see short range adcs have burst performance in a game, but they are losing lane hands down, which are tilting their overall games in favor of the other team. Even if they make a combat later, it usually isn't enough to turn around the game.

The DrBonjigollo4 votes

Just wanna put this out there, Riot never said the next champion(Senna) would be an adc, just a "very non-traditional marksman."

Though of course whenever we see "marksmen" we'd usually assume adc but that doesn't always have to be the case for example, Teemo is classified as a marksman but he's mainly ap, likewise for Azir when he first came out he was said to be a Mage with marksman as his secondary role.

Lauchmelder3 votes

I think preseason will fix that. If botlane gets less xp than mid and top those mages will mostly go back to midlane as they scale better with levels.

Illabethe2 votes

Bot lane already gets less XP than mid? They do it because item 3098 + CC kits = more gold and accumulated control over a game than mid does. It's effortless gold vs contested gold and poor mana management and resourceless assassin mids.

Vel Koz mid: Gets jungle ganked or approached from a side alley. Vel Koz Support: Near free spam of skills that if they hit almost guarantees a kill.

Brand Mid: has to throw a ton of auto attacks, risking counterpoke Brand Support: Just has to focus champions and can stay almost entirely safe from poke.

Vel Koz + Morgana Bot = GG. Have to dodge 3 linear skill shots every time they volley, which is almost impossible.

Xerath Bot: Double the DH stacks, almost risk-less farm.

None of this has ANYTHING to do with bot getting too much XP. It has to do with their lives being far simpler as supports. Period.

Tomoe Gozen1 votes

None of this has ANYTHING to do with bot getting too much XP.

Yea, it does. Think about if for a second, if generally bot lane is under the average level of your team, that's the scaling and damage they don't have in levels over a champion that can gank them. The dynamic of bot lane doesn't change much on paper but relative to the other lanes, you can't demolish the opponents turret and come out stronger than a mid or top laner and contest their objectives with relative ease once your "stronger" lane wins.

This means that Marksmen definitely outscale bot support mages given that they can't pocket as much gold with poke as they would being mid lane, getting kills and CS.

If you try to reduce "bot mage" damage, you inevitably end up cutting the legs off both Support and Marksman counterparts. Marksman mage counterparts would not have a reason to be played if their damage is lower and outscaled by a Marksman. Support mages would fade away if their damage gets outscaled from poke, only being reduced to being CC bots.

Daddy Ants1 votes

{quoted}

I think preseason will fix that. If botlane gets less xp than mid and top those mages will mostly go back to midlane as they scale better with levels.

Hopefully.

Bot Lane is meant to be the scaling lane where you put a Marksman and a Support.

It's not meant to be a lane where high base damage mages can go bot and get a free game.

KFCeytron3 votes

Like most new and reworked kits these days, yes, it will be a balance nightmare.

I fully believe that Riot has secretly embraced DotA's "if everything is OP, nothing is OP" motto, and one day there will be no more reasonable kits left in the game.

50CaliberHecate2 votes

{quoted}

Like most new and reworked kits these days, yes, it will be a balance nightmare.

I fully believe that Riot has secretly embraced DotA's "if everything is OP, nothing is OP" motto, and one day there will be no more reasonable kits left in the game.

Just imagining a perma version of ranked where every champ is a Doom Bot instead of what it is now.... Lux with a complete 360 ult that covers the entire map... Ashe with her moba version of ult where the arrow can bend and follow the enemy.... Akali having a micro stun in her ult, healing in her q, and obscurity in her w... Teemo having 100% cdr on his shrooms with unlimited kit... Annie dropping 6 bears at once... Yasuo ulting all things on the map regardless if they are knocked up... Heimerdinger with 20 units instead of 3...

floo3 votes

{quoted}

Like most new and reworked kits these days, yes, it will be a balance nightmare.

I fully believe that Riot has secretly embraced DotA's "if everything is OP, nothing is OP" motto, and one day there will be no more reasonable kits left in the game.

Even disregarding 2018/19 champions being terrible balancewise, the entire concept of both having supporting capabilities and being a marksman is pretty much doomed to add to that list. She needs damage and range to qualify as a marksman and some supportive aspects. I also doubt she'll be without some form of mobility, but that isn't given.

Baby Ghoul3 votes

I'm tired of mages bot lane in general.

Riot never rebalanced them when they did the Sightstone changes.

Before mage supports were a risk to play consistently into every match up because AP damage items were expensive and therefore unreliable because supports get no farm and generally have the least amount of gold. They're usually the last to hit level 18 as well.

Mage supports were always loathed by those that didn't play them, but outside of Zyra occasionally becoming OP, they generally relied on overwhelming an inexperienced bot lane early on. Of course we still have to deal with Morgana's deceptive Q hitbox in 2019, which still results in her being one of the most banned champions, thanks Riot. Happy 10th.

Anyways, what they had going for them was a lot of cheese, but now they have no drawbacks because they can poke and poke while making bank as well as get vision with Frost Fang.

I'm not saying that mages bot lane gotta go, but they do need to be toned down and become a little more risky to play so that there's some skill required to play them because a mage support that gets the lane ahead is one of the most oppressive situations you can be in bot lane.

Illabethe1 votes

The problem is how to do that without actually deleting them from play. Most mages with a few exceptions DO struggle in bot lane. Morgana (I know you hate her) generally DOES die in bot lane because her fight is linear and predictive, and her auto attack range is low, and her W damage low. The ones that generally are considered toxic in Bot are actually those who:

  1. Hook like Swain/Morde
  2. Outrange everyone in the game (Ziggs/Xerath)
  3. Has spammability/and significant damage output AND range (Vel Koz)
FSRER3 votes

Riot saw people's reaction on the first Assassin "support" and they decide to create a ADC support.. Damn, those guys at Riot team really do not care about the playerbase

preternatural3 votes

can't you like iunno first wait to see the kit? :/ like wtf nothing about nothing is known right now. what are senna's scalings? does she build AP? she gonna be a mage on the side if that's the case.

Illabethe1 votes

We've seen part of it. Enough to know

  1. She has a Rail Gun (long range weapon)
  2. Her Ult is a Damage Reflection feature
  3. She likely has a Dash as one of her skills

She is likely to be like Jhin, with a shot cap, due to her weapon, but like Caitlyn in terms of range. They may not instill large damage boosts like they did to Jhin.

We've seen enough of her kit to generally know quite a few things.

preternatural1 votes

{quoted}

We've seen part of it. Enough to know

  1. She has a Rail Gun (long range weapon)
  2. Her Ult is a Damage Reflection feature
  3. She likely has a Dash as one of her skills

She is likely to be like Jhin, with a shot cap, due to her weapon, but like Caitlyn in terms of range. They may not instill large damage boosts like they did to Jhin.

We've seen enough of her kit to generally know quite a few things.

how do you know that's her ult and not her E? :/ hello? :/ lemme google to see if her kit has been released yet. no not yet. how do you know she has a dash? xayah doesn't have a dash and her pair match has one. don't say all the recent releases have had dashes cause that isn't true either.

Illabethe1 votes
  1. The amount of care and interactions of that skill require it to be an Ult. 1) It had what looks like a charge up. 2) It is both a shield and a reflect damage. Riot has NEVER put both functions on the same common skill and probably wouldn't. 3) The sheer size and animation involved in it suggests it's not a common skill.

  2. Dash: Both the video has a Dash, AND she IS lucian's partner, and both had similar training. Her kit beckons to have mirror aspects of his. This doesn't guarantee anything but it's extremely likely.

  3. Riot has a tendency to show as much as they can in these cinematics We don't have absolutes yet, but we do have quite a bit of information. It's not like we're going in blind.

  4. She'll be on PBE soon, so we'll see.

preternatural1 votes

{quoted}

  1. The amount of care and interactions of that skill require it to be an Ult. 1) It had what looks like a charge up. 2) It is both a shield and a reflect damage. Riot has NEVER put both functions on the same common skill and probably wouldn't. 3) The sheer size and animation involved in it suggests it's not a common skill.

  2. Dash: Both the video has a Dash, AND she IS lucian's partner, and both had similar training. Her kit beckons to have mirror aspects of his. This doesn't guarantee anything but it's extremely likely.

  3. Riot has a tendency to show as much as they can in these cinematics We don't have absolutes yet, but we do have quite a bit of information. It's not like we're going in blind.

  4. She'll be on PBE soon, so we'll see.

her ult reflects one ability only after requiring a charge up time? what charge up time there was no charge up time :/ we looking at the same cinematic? she only has one weapon all her attacks are gonna come from it.

she doesn't have a dash according to the cinematic, you've confused her respawn animation with a dash :/ and why doesn't xayah have a dash if her partner has a dash? you see? :/

rito have shown that she has a supportish spell that can reflect some meager dmg, ok.

one week :/ also, all champion releases are handled differently. :/ how much to show, how much not to show, there is no overlap to be considered outside of it all being from rito games. the aims are different for each release, either they want to show off gameplay, or lore connections, or just an expanded lore ala kench/pyke/sylas, but sylas get's special overlap with gameplay because it mattered that he was going to be able to steal ultimates but mostly he's been used as a makeweight to transition the demacian narrative. :/ what mattered here was that "senna isn't evil/corrupted" and "the bullets don't hurt if she doesn't want them to." she is perhaps scarred, changed, but not corrupted by the shadow isles. when we look at something like qiyana which people claim had a muted release, that release would speak for itself on the rift with it's gameplay, and it did :/ the trailer for her was all gameplay by comparison, pyke got no gameplay in his there were other ambitions around his release, kench the same, i don't even know what to say jhin's was supposed to be, some art house piece surely :/ only gameplay ideas we got from him was that he liked the number 4, and he liked making art of corpses :/ kled? that he rides some overgrown lizzard, that's the gimmick :/ camille got a whole comic, no ult used :/

ivern https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D6PHb5xTO64 "lookie me i don't hurt jungle creatures and i make brushes, but daisy isn't in sight."

it's more likely senna's Q or W or E allows her to target allies and enemies for different effects. like lulu and her moves. though really it just looks like it applies fiora's old parry onto an ally. :/ probably gives some minor shield too. :/

Daddy Ants1 votes

{quoted}

True, mages are start getting control over bot. Zoe APC - https://www.leagueofgraphs.com/match/euw/4230360397#participant10 Varus ADC - https://www.leagueofgraphs.com/match/euw/4230402360#participant10

"starting"

They already have control of bot lane :)

Sylaelque2 votes

{quoted}

"starting"

They already have control of bot lane :)

Ops seems I forgot to remove start. :P

Oleandervine2 votes

Senna is a marksman. She's so far not been pitched as an ADC. There's a difference between just being a marksman and being an attack damage carry. They can be mutually exclusive of each other. So let's not pre-emptively muddy the water here by confusing marksman and ADC. Senna is a support who is a marksman, she is not a support who is an ADC. That would be Pyke. He is explicitly designed to be an attack damage carry and a support simultaneously.

softest boy1 votes

Mage supports are, by my prediction, going to fall out of favor. They are reducing duo exp gain, which will further hinder the scaling of mage supports. Since they rely on scaling more than traditional supports, traditional supports will be more sought after.

Illabethe1 votes

It'll reduce the scaling of both adcs and supports by a flat rate if they do so, so relative to the position, Mage would STILL be superior if they were to do so. When they adjust XP gains, it's not like they say...... "Nami can have 63 XP on a large minion and Vayne can have 73 XP." They say "If there are two units in proximity, they both get a 25% XP reduction." In other words, Brand will STILL get the same XP as Nami, yet he would be more useful than Nami, because Nami relies on 1) getting to her ult 2) scaling heals and 3) get her HP up (which is abysmal and often gets 1 shot as is)

softest boy1 votes

But I’m saying they will scale less in the scheme of the entirety of the game. Mage supports are picked for their scaling into late game, but not in relations to their enemy laners alone.

The Brand support will scale less than the other lanes— lesser than a brand support already does. So he will encounter his spike later than say the actual mid-laner and top-laner, thus being less effective than a support that does not rely as heavily on scaling. They will have a higher impact in relations to the entire team.

Smyrage1 votes

It's another "can't think outside of laning phase issue". Duo mage is only good at laning and killing. It's all fun and games without an ADC until it comes to towers.

Illabethe1 votes

You go vs a Morgana/Vel Koz duo which applies so much pressure that they 2v5 both in lane and out of lane because of the skill shot pressure, and fact Vel Koz got fed as hell just from existing, and get back to me on that.

Oh. And Ziggs isn't worthless post lane. He can 4 second a turret, control objectives.

And if vs adcs, the adcs are so far behind they never recover.

Pika Fox1 votes

Senna will be similar to pyke if she is an adc as we all practically know;

Pyke is a support first, assassin second, and physically cannot kill on his own. Senna will likely be similar in that her budget will likely be more towards support than straight damage.

Illabethe1 votes

With a Rail Gun....... doubtful.

P.S. Pyke CAN kill on his own, but it is MUST take to both have Lethality built up and Electrocute, and the target be something other than a juggernaut. I've went 27/0/9 on Pyke before, and 8 were technically an Octokill .... (3 Ressed and I killed them in their base after I chased the 4th/5th to base, killing 1 at a time, 15-18 seconds apart so my ult would keep resetting)

What Pyke CAN'T do atm is generally aoe farm, making him a worthless laner/jungler. But an adc is an adc...... most are already single target.

Pika Fox2 votes

{quoted}

With a Rail Gun....... doubtful.

P.S. Pyke CAN kill on his own, but it is MUST take to both have Lethality built up and Electrocute, and the target be something other than a juggernaut. I've went 27/0/9 on Pyke before, and 8 were technically an Octokill .... (3 Ressed and I killed them in their base after I chased the 4th/5th to base, killing 1 at a time, 15-18 seconds apart so my ult would keep resetting)

What Pyke CAN'T do atm is generally aoe farm, making him a worthless laner/jungler. But an adc is an adc...... most are already single target.

Pyke can kill on his own if

  1. he is fed as fuck, in which case so can anyone else, except better

  2. you arent at full hp, which i mean, anyone else can do the same.

His damage is almost entirely on his ult, which at best can only do 50% max hp, and only when fed to the nines, making pyke himself irrelevant. Missing the execute even drops the damage significantly. Ontop of that, youre looking at 10s CDs, making him near impossible to actually solo kill a target. He needs someone to chip in.

Illabethe1 votes

Once he has a couple items Q is a 4 second cooldown. Please don't try to argue with me on Pyke. He can kill. Q can put an adc down to 60% HP by itself. If he then E's that's enough to put them down to 45%. A couple more auto attacks = ult = dead.

BUT, as I said, this only applies generally to mages, adcs, supports, etc.

And Pyke with "Your Cut" doesn't exactly take a lot to get fed :S.

Wúlf1 votes

Senna is for a good reason a Support, every other role on her plays absolutely boring and is a afk farm festival until u hopefully do some dmg if people find out to stay out of her range, she becomes basically a "soraka only use e!" champ

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