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The downsides of Senna

iiGazeii·10/31/2019, 1:24:55 AM·68 votes·16,292 views

People seem to be caught up on all the things she can do, but fail to realize that she has a ton of negatives in her kit to balance it out.

First of all, her autoattacks are slow. The cast time on her autos is 0.5 seconds, where most ADCs have a cast time of 0.2-0.3 on their autos. She hits like a truck, but her autos leave her vulnerable to skillshots.

Senna may get free AD from picking up mist, but her AD doesn't go up per level. She gets free crit chance, but her crits do reduced damage.

Her Q is dodgeable. It's just like Lucian's Q. The cast isn't instant, and you can get out the way. The zone that damage enemies is actually quite thin. The cooldown is also long and requires her to push the wave (with no mobility) in order to get the cooldown back faster. It also costs a TON of mana, and her mana pool is very small. Despite her long cooldowns, she has mana issues.

Her W is easy to dodge. It's a slow-moving projectile, and even if you get hit, you have a moment before you get rooted to react. It's less consistent than the CC of other marksman like Jhin or Xayah.

Her E has a long cast time and a long cooldown. It shows the enemy exactly where Senna is standing and roughly where her teamamtes are standing. Entering the zone reveals all the people. It isn't a moving Akali shroud.

Her ult has a huge, telegraphed windup, and the damaging zone is small. It can be easily walked out of if she drops it right on top of you. The cooldown is also ferociously long, and the damage is lower than other global skillshot ults like Jinx or Ezreal.

Senna does a lot of things other champions can do, but her tools are less effective than the specialists and on longer cooldowns. She is a generalist, and will get creamed in a straight-up fight if the enemy plays to their strengths and not to hers.

39 Comments

Makarakarn10/31/2019, 3:38:30 AM47 votes

Wow, it's almost like people were overeacting and making a giant hate train that was completely unwarranted..why am I not surprised..

AquariusGine10/31/2019, 3:38:50 AM20 votes

The champion screams counterplay.

Axxuka10/31/2019, 3:36:01 AM17 votes

And most of all : She got no ''Real'' self-sustain outside high mana cost Q (Looking at pyke pre-nerf W...), no escapes and no peels.

Her dmg potential is strong late game, but everything about her is slow and with no escape or self peel she will pop like a kog'maw if played poorly.

Probs feeding10/31/2019, 4:38:54 AM13 votes

I think they went genuinely out of their way to ensure this wasn't another Pyke situation (Who, god honestly, compared to other overtuned characters really wasn't that bad).

And you know what?

I think they nailed it.

Mr Dalloway10/31/2019, 4:41:23 AM8 votes

All I can see is that she is going to be hella fun in ARAM and that is all I care about. New champs always look OP as hell because the people we see playing them are streamers who are generally very good players playing on the PBE against random bad players.

Posui Gart10/31/2019, 10:56:14 AM7 votes

She has too much safety and mobility for an "immobile" ADC. Don't even compare her to kogmaw. Kogmaw has no bonus MS after EVERY AA, has no camouflage with extra ms, he can't heal or shield himself and he has no hardcc

FelixFurry10/31/2019, 5:36:31 AM7 votes

She is exceptionally well balanced for a new champion, and the Marksmen/Support duality works well because there isn't a lot she can abuse from the opposite kit when she is playing the other. The only thing that I would change is how fast she can collect souls early, because with the games I've played against her, she can get 60 souls by 10 minutes or earlier, and that is a lot of power.

HoldMyPlank10/31/2019, 6:14:09 AM5 votes

I think the only thing broken about her is that her R and Q can be casted at the same time, in any order.

Shad0wCrusher12110/31/2019, 9:20:25 AM5 votes

that's why you are not supposed to compare her with ADC's, she's a "Support ADC"

ZaFishbone10/31/2019, 9:44:33 AM5 votes

To be fair, people were saying she could be broken pending the reveal of her exact numbers.

jama65510/31/2019, 12:26:35 PM3 votes

Is this guy using his brain on the boardS??? BAN HIM!

Rockman10/31/2019, 5:08:52 AM3 votes

I'd say the biggest is when she goes to collect mist. She's stationary for a decently long time.

King Braum10/31/2019, 8:24:30 AM2 votes

Some notes.

"First of all, her autoattacks are slow. The cast time on her autos is 0.5 seconds, where most ADCs have a cast time of 0.2-0.3 on their autos. She hits like a truck, but her autos leave her vulnerable to skillshots. " She's a support, even when using slower auto attacks within lane phase she's going to have more freedom to poke using her Dump Truck of a gun simply because of the freedom of not having to farm allowing her to freely position and focus on catching the enemy ADC off guard.

I do agree with many of the other points though.

MaskedMadness10/31/2019, 1:54:39 PM2 votes

in theory these are all true but when you play senna you realize shes still overloaded strong

GelsominoKiller10/31/2019, 10:00:01 AM2 votes

Her autoattack are slow, true, but they also deal bonus damage, speed her up, and have huge (and scaling) range. Overall I'd say her autos are different, but not weak whatsoever. This does make building attackspeed on her suboptimal, though.
Her bAD is tied with the mist, and that's a tradeoff. She gets free crit, but her crits deal less damage. This pushes her away from building crit items, but free crit is still free crit (at 25 minutes, she can reach 80% with one crit item) and there are other build options for her, like lethality or triforce.
Her Q is as dodgeable as a Lucian Q, and has huge range. The damage zone is not thin whatsoever, it's average. The mana problems and the big CD are a limitation only in the laining phase (that's good, but many many spells are mana and cd gated in the early game), while in the lategame the Q spam is absurd: she can Q every two autos, and its range scales with her attack range.
Fair point on the W.
Your statement doesn't really cut away a lot from her E power. While Senna's position might signaled, it's still team-wide camouflage with solid extra bonuses for those ones exiting the area. You don't know how many and which enemies are in there. Getting in there gives vision on the whole pack, but it is akin to facechecking a bush, can you afford it? Not always. Maybe several people were mistaken into thinking it was a moving, team-wide akali shroud, but the reality isn't so different: it's still an incredibly powerful, unique and versatile spell slapped on an already overloaded kit which promises nothing but balancing problems for the years to come.
Her ultimate has INSANE travel speed, and it is just as wide as a Lux R, which is the most comparable skill. Anything you can hit with a Lux R, you can hit with a Senna's R, roughly.

Sexy Jack Rabbit11/1/2019, 4:38:05 PM1 votes

I think a lot of people are so used to Stashu and CT champs they kind of forget that some designers are decent.

Outside of number tuning which literally every champion goes through August/Jinxylord champs have always been pretty fine to deal with.

WorstNightmareD11/2/2019, 8:40:27 PM1 votes

Honestly, I was watching the videos thinking of her as being a support, not an adc, as she seems like a pretty week adc especially in the early game. At least that's where id play her.

Daddy ReTaric11/2/2019, 8:43:45 PM1 votes

So what? People still can be happy to play a new champions. Every champions have downside. Should we stop play the game entirely because every champions have downside? No . Exactly, let people be happy and want to try new champions instead of being so pessimist.

The Fearcrow10/31/2019, 11:05:54 AM1 votes

With her attacks doing more damage base even with reduced crit damage she only loses 1% damage on crit

Champion Skin10/31/2019, 12:14:29 PM1 votes

First of all, her autoattacks are slow. The cast time on her autos is 0.5 seconds, where most ADCs have a cast time of 0.2-0.3 on their autos. She hits like a truck, but her autos leave her vulnerable to skillshots.

Can't you just cancel the auto attack? I mean yes you lose damage but if it means avoiding a skill shot it is probably worth it right

Vlada Cut10/31/2019, 12:32:30 PM1 votes

Keep in mind that her Q + item 3812 is the only burst healing that outsustains a +2.0 Attack Speed adc with item 3153 or item 3072 .

She can 1v1 Jinx without a problem.

She is Jhin, but more rewarding due to her built in sustain burst and utility.

RussiaKitty10/31/2019, 3:53:29 PM1 votes

I think she was, in some way, meant to be a glass cannon type champion. I mean she is holding a cannon, it would be weird if she didnt do damage. But I think her pure lack of mobility outside her E makes up for it. Also from what ive seen you can still CC her in her mist form so she isnt completely unstoppable. All we can do now is just wait for her to come out. But im actually excited for this kind of support as theyr making the role more interesting and put thought into this champion design and made it fun and interesting.

General Esdeath 11/1/2019, 1:19:21 AM1 votes

OK but who is gonna step into her mist to see her team? That seems risky unless you're a 6-0 Darius

asamu11/1/2019, 3:31:34 AM1 votes

Uh, sure, but she scales super hard because of her passive, has CC and a movement speed steroid in her kit. Has insane range on her AAs (If you don't have 80 stacks by 20min game time, you're probably not playing her all that well, and 80 stacks means you have 60% crit and 700 range). Her crit scaling is relatively poor, and her AS scaling isn't great, but her overall scaling is quite good because she's able to stack armor pen without losing out on the multiplicative scaling altogether like other ADCs, and scales harder with raw AD because of her passive 20% bonus damage per attack and multiple reasonably strong AD ratios.

Her auto attack speed scales with attack speed just like every other ADC, if not as well, and because she has such a slow attack rate to begin with, moving between each shot isn't as punishing. Take a shot -> Move -> take another shot, and her E works with duskblade, since you can pop in and out of the camouflage by attacking. Kog'maw has 710 range with max ranked W active; she gets more AA range than his max if she gets to 100 stacks, while also having multiple movement speed steroids, a heal, and a root. Once she gets to 775 range - 140 stacks, which isn't unreasonable to get in longer games, she out-ranges towers.

Yeah, she gets wrecked if a malphite or someone flash ults onto her, just like any other ADC, but she can kill pretty much anyone squishy in an Auto+W+Q combo with a high AD/lethality build.

If you think Kog maw will kill her before she can kill him, you're mistaken. Her ult also does around 1k damage late game, and hits a large area, and she can't even be targeted until she attacks with her E active unless someones within ~400 range of her. So she's pretty much guaranteed to hit him first.

Have you even played her yet? She's pretty mobile for an ADC, does great damage safely, and scales hard. She may not have quite as much DPS, but she makes up for it with strong burst and range, a cheaper build, and a stronger mid-game than most ADCs.

She's not much of a support though. She pairs way better with engage tanks/supports like Leona, thresh, alistar, Taric, etc... because she can combo her W on their CC, make their aproach safer/easier with her E, and both heal them and damage the lane opponents with her Q during trades.

ImTheJuggernauty11/1/2019, 1:24:25 PM1 votes

I still think her E is a little bogus, but the OP makes some solid points. Time to wait and she how she does. Oh, and I think some of her passive permanent stats need to be slightly toned down.

If she has an uncapped amount of potential AD, and MS boost on E, and permanent, uncapped increases in range, then she either shouldn't have any bonus MS for simply auto-attacking an enemy, or it needs to be cut in half at a minimum. If not, then her bonus range and bonus AD needs to be capped after a certain number of stacks, like say, 60 or 80 stacks of mist. Because someone with 700 range or more (80 stacks), 80 bonus damage (as opposed to the approximately 63 base damage growth for most adcs), 60% bonus crit chance (albeit, reduced in power), 20% bonus AD on hit damage, and even bonus lifesteal for overcapped crit chance, should ABSOLUTELY NOT BE ABLE TO GAIN 10-20% movement speed from simply auto attacking enemies, even if her AAs are slower. That's just absolutely bonkers. Like, as a juggernaut main, I understand that juggers need to be kiteable, but she would be beyond simply kiting juggers, she'd be farming them. They'd have zero chance if they didn't already have flash (a 5 minute cd sum that she will also have) and or ghost (she will get faster when auto-attacking them based on their movement speed boosts anyway). and of course, they will be easy targets for her W, and in the worst case, she pops E for added time for outplays, CDs, etc, plus MS.

Yeah, on second thought, her concept is neat, but she is almost certainly overtuned. Remove the bonus MS on her passive entirely, she already has enough tools and stats, she doesn't need to be a power hitting, long ranged, generalist.