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Might be an unpopular opinion about Senna. Also some pyke complaining.

CaptainSeto·11/12/2019, 5:45:09 AM·12 votes·7,491 views

I honestly don't mind the fact that she can fill roles other than support. Having a champion that can fill multiple roles is something I do enjoy, but I also understand the negatives of the character potentially being overbearing and taking over other lanes. With Senna, I feel that she's not game breaking if she's not playing support, though I'll admit I've only played two games with her, and both were top lane. If she's top lane, sure she'll outrange and be able to poke, but considering her lack of escapes outside of W'ing and flash, I'd imagine characters that can lock her down will be able to kill her pretty easy, at least until late game where her heal becomes admittedly a little potent. Mid lane it'll depend on match up, though again, a lack of escape means an assassin should have an easy balloon to pop, while mages I'd imagine vary. As for botlane.... well, that's where she's supposed to be.

Riot has already stated they'll nerf her further into support if she's played too often outside of it, which I find is a slight shame. I can understand wanting to avoid the Pyke problem, but I my bronze opinion, Pyke will forever be more troublesome than Senna, even if she isn't nerfed. Which is something I kinda want to talk about as well, as I do have a bias with this post.

Senna is like older marksmen, and suffers from a lot of the problems older marksmen suffer from. Easily bursted due to lack of tank items, relatively immobile, and relies on expensive items to actually kick off(at least in solo lanes). While her support aspects keep her from suffering too badly in the solo lanes, allowing her to sustain and have better trades due to her heal, she also has the high mana costs that keep her from having no downsides. This is why, outside of maybe a few number adjustments, I feel she should be allowed to keep her versatility in role choice. She has weaknesses and downsides that smart players will know how to handle.

Pyke, on the other hand, I despise. Sure he's relegated to mostly support now, but even still I know once he hits 6, chances are he's heading to another lane because he can easily get fed, and feed his teammate at the same time. His assassin weaknesses are made up for by his support abilities, and unlike with Senna, they feel like the make up for them too much. He's got high damage, can pull you, stun you, has a stealth skill(that admittedly has a decently sized warning indicator), and a resetting ranged execute that gives kill gold. Sure he can't gain max health, but it's not like an assassin normally has a ton of health in the first place, and the fact that damage done in a trade with him can easily be healed off by walking out of sight kinda negates that weakness as well. He's just an assassin who's got built in support for himself, and if I see him in a game I know it's never gonna be a fun time. Sure he's got downsides, and I'm sure there are things you can do counter him pretty well, but I'm normally just too tired to care if I see him, even more so when i see the entire team low on health and know a chain execute is about to wipe out most of the squad.

I guess my point is Senna feels fun to play and I'm sure while playing against her may be a mixed bag, I'd rather be able to see and play her in other roles, rather than deal with a Pyke even if he's relegated to support due to how his kit is designed, and the flawed(in my opinion) mix of assassin and support. Senna's strengths and weaknesses from her hybrid class feel a lot more balanced than Pykes, and while the numbers might need tweaking a bit, I feel like it'd be a shame to have her suffer the fate of being nerfed to support only, though I know I'll likely still take her in other lanes anyways. She feels good to take into other lanes, without also feeling like an asshole for doing so.

I'd love to see what others think, how I'm totally wrong, how I'm right, why my opinion doesn't matter as a low elo bronze player, or how this whole post is a mess because I wrote it while nearly passing out and with only 2 games of senna under my belt(one of which involved the saltiest bot lane I've seen in a long time).

5 Comments

Azurereaper11/12/2019, 7:58:40 AM13 votes

Key thing to bring up vs these two characters. Pykes core design is to deliver utter misery into the game. He has no mid ground, he is a toxic character once fed and a toxic character if unfed.

Most supports get the middle ground of being able to shield heal or bring relatively safe cc to the team.

But pyke, by design is to just wipe the floor with you with little to no warning, or get blown up cause he doesn't have the items to be toxic and then in turn is toxic for the team he is on as there is literally nothing he can do but get blown up on engage.

Pyke seriously needs a redesign, either make him a viable assassin and remove from support or make him more support and remove the carry assassin aspects from him.

Like Senna if fed and with a ton of mist is like having a fed sona with ap lich bane build, she can take 1 or 2 units out, but she wont be able to carry the whole game by herself.

NTrumpWeTrust11/12/2019, 9:08:22 AM2 votes

Her scaling with attack speed is trash, which will forever make her a garbage ADC, and that's on purpose. Stop picking her ADC, she's an AD Support. Every single meta engage support atm shits on her because she has no way to peel those supports off her adc and if she gets caught, she's dead. THAT SAID, she def has way too many free stats.

Wen29411/12/2019, 4:19:14 PM2 votes

I just want them to change senna's passive from 2 stacks a ghost to 1 on ARAM, she's waaay too overbearing on that map.

Ragnaveil11/12/2019, 5:40:21 PM2 votes

My problem with Riot is they leave stuff in terms of stats open to experimentation, then decide "oh, guess this is too toxic, lets just gut and remove it completely instead of making it very punishing". I loved playing Pyke top, and before Riot went wild on the buff and nerf hammer, he was pretty okay in top. Once that went out of control, they removed the solo lane aspects and guess what, buffed the fuck out of the shit people hate about him. They didnt nerf it to make it less viable, they outright killed it. Kayn looked to be a good toplaner, then Riot also said fuck that and tuned him to be more of a jungler. Makes you wonder if trying to keep them contained in a role is worth it if you have to overbuff and overnerf shit just to keep it still.

Meanwhile, i'll just keep chilling in top with my Grasp Senna tech until Riot kills it.