Hey Boards, You Remember Kennen?

With a glorious new Kennen skin coming out, I've been giving this champion some thought, and wanted to see if other people agree with the conclusions that I've made.

https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-er9Um0E03Mw/VsUL8aRuDlI/AAAAAAAA4E0/7OxBm9tEhnM/s1600/Kennen_Splash_6.jpg

Kennen is a champion design with serious issues When was the last time that you played Kennen, or played against him? For me, it's been quite a while; the last time that I saw him was when I used to play him bot as ADC. Now, it's possible that this is just a situation in which Kennen is undertuned, and were he to get buffs we'd see him all over the place. But I suspect that it's something more than that.

1. Kennen can be strong, but entirely relies on his team If you think about what Kennen brings to his team, it's a pretty-easy-to-dodge, teamfight-centric, short stun every 120 seconds (Zhonya cooldown). That (his ult) is the reason to pick him, and it just doesn't work in solo queue. Now, when you can be communicating with your team that "hey guys, position, I'm going to flash->R->W->Zhonya riiiiiiight... NOW!" then everyone can capitalize on it. Otherwise you, the sad Kennen who just flashed right into the center of the enemy team, are going to die. But when this is done correctly, Kennen can be pretty strong. He can stun everyone on the enemy team for 1.25 seconds, dish out a bunch of damage, and run around getting more tiny stuns on people after the fact. And that's the situation around-which Kennen must be balanced. Consider; if they made Kennen strong enough to work in solo q, would he not be used all the time in team play, where he is so much stronger?

2. Kennen is no fun to play against When you go to face a Kennen, you just know that you are going to get stunned. There's no way around it, and there's no playing around it. He can apply that stun with AAs, with his Q, with his W, with his E... and with his ult, on top of all of that. So, playing against Kennen becomes a lot less about "don't get stunned!" which could be a fun expression of skill, and a lot more "Outdamage Kennen even taking his stun into account," which is not an expression of skill at all.

3. Kennen is no fun to play as Who actually enjoys Kennen's playstyle? Does running into the enemy team, pressing R, pressing W, using Zhonya's, and praying that the enemy team is dead before the active wears off, strike anyone as fun? That's all that Kennen gets to do in teamfights, and as described above, it relies on your teammates instead of on your own skill. Even in one-v-one battles, Kennen feels pretty boring to play as because he has no real moments of success. Sure, landing a Q is a nice thing, but it's not necessary to succeed, and it's also not particularly rewarding because of that. And if you do get your little stun off, it matters so little both for your damage and for the CC itself that you don't actually play any differently! Kennen never gets to go "Aha, I can kill you now, so I'm going to execute this combo skillfully, and get rewarded with gold and XP and the praise of my team!" If you do get someone down enough, you just run onto them and press R, stand right next to him, and press Q so you can't miss. And that's no fun for you or for them.

4. Kennen, as an Energy-based champion, doesn't fall within the Mage rework The Mage rework that's coming up is unlikely to help Kennen at all, since it will mostly be about binding mana and CDR to mages. Kennen doesn't care about mana, and as one of the few Energy champions who actually cares about Energy, and since he has to wait for an item activate, anyway, also doesn't actually like CDR.

SO, Kennen should get an individual rework

Now, I've given this rework some consideration, too, and I've developed a new kit on which I would love to get feedback! But, if you don't care what some silly person such as myself has to suggest, certainly post your own suggestions how to fix these problems (if you do in fact agree that they are problems!).

KENNEN REWORK Going into this, there were a few things that I wanted to hit:

1. A unique fantasy
2. Windows of power in which Kennen feels very strong
3. Opportunities for skillful play
4. Rewarding Kennen for making those plays
5. Removing Kennen from the very center of a teamfight, and therefore taking away his reliance on a team to follow up, and on Zhonya

I'll admit, that I actually already had the inkling of a kit before realizing that what I was designing was a pretty good fit for Kennen's fantasy of the lightning-themed Heart of the Tempest. Let's talk about that fantasy first.

1. A unique fantasy and 2) Windows of Power The idea that I had was about making a character who wants to get into and stay in a Stance for as long as possible. There are two close instances of this in League already, but I don't think that either of them hit the itch; they are Gnar and Shyvana. Gnar's stance change is all about getting enraged, and then staying that way in order to be able to use all of your tankiness and CC to full effect. I like that, and I play a good chunk of Gnar myself, but it is a little bit too undependable to fit exactly what I'm thinking about. Shyvana's stance is about using your ult and staying that way by continuing to AA things to maintain the form. That's very nice, but at the same time doesn't feel different enough from normal Shyvana. Also, ults are tied very specifically to these two forms; Gnar requires enraged stance in order to ult, and Shyvana requires ult in order to enter the dragon stance. I'm looking to fill in a middle ground here, too.

So, before discussing these things more, let's look at the kit that I have in mind! Keep in mind that I have no way of knowing the balance of damage for a kit, so I'm leaving that out entirely. The hope is that the kit is interesting enough, with enough places for number tweeking, to feel cool and powerful regardless of the balance state.

**Passive: ** While moving during combat, Kennen gains Static. Upon reaching 100 Static, Kennen enters Lightning Stance. Kennen loses Static slowly upon having gained none for 5 seconds. During Lightning Stance, Kennen's basic attacks gain extra effects and consume (50,40,30,25) Static. When Kennen uses an ability or does not have enough Static for another basic attack, Kennen drops out of Lightning Stance. Kennen's empowered basic attacks cause lightning to chain between **Conductive **units and two non-Conductive units near his target. This lightning applies **Conductive **and magic damage (based on level and AP scaling) to all enemies hit. Conductive lasts __ seconds.

**Q: ** Kennen throws a charged shuriken in a line in front of him, dealing magic damage to the first enemy it hits. If the enemy is Conductive, the enemy is stunned for (1/1.25/1.5/1.75/2) seconds. Enemies stunned this way will be stunned for 50% length on successive stuns within the next 5 seconds.

**W: ** Kennen calls all of his lightning back to himself, removing **Conductive **from all nearby affected units. Kennen deals magic damage to these units, and recovers 5 Static and 10 Energy per unit (doubled for champions).

**E: ** Kennen turns into an incorporeal ball of lightning. He cannot AA during this time, becomes ghosted, gains increased Movement Speed, and cannot be affected by movement-inhibiting Crowd Control (stun/knockup/knockdown/fear/root/slow). During this time, Kennen counts as in combat and gains twice the normal Static from movement. If Kennen collides with a **Conductive **unit, lightning branches from his target to all nearby **Conductive **units, dealing magic damage.

**R: ** Kennen leaps into the air, becoming temporarily invulnerable, and then slams back down to the ground. Upon landing, he deals magic damage and applies **Conductive **to all nearby enemy units. If he affects at least one enemy unit, he gains (1/2/3) temporary empowered AAs, and enters Lightning Stance. These extra empowered AAs work like normal Lightning Stance attacks, but do not cost any Static and disappear after __ seconds.

As you can tell, the way that stances are a part of this kit are through the use of Lightning Stance. Lightning Stance greatly increases Kennen's threat, as it is how he starts his combos and deals most of his damage. Lightning Stance can be entered in a bunch of ways, so that it's not tied directly to his ult, and he's a danger without said ult.

Now, I realize that people are going to see a few things here:

1. Multiple forms of CC dodge (and even a Fizz-style invulnerability)
2. No longer running into the enemy team and stunning all of the things.

And let me address these here as best as I can:

1. is not a problem, in my opinion. Dodges are a reasonable class of skill, though they have not been used wonderfully in League in the past (looking at you, Fizz). To use them properly, E is not a damage-mitigating dodge at all (unlike on Live Kennen, who gains defensive bonuses), but rather a skillful way to bait out CC skills, much like a spellshield, but more in line with being an incorporeal ball of lightning. R is on a long cooldown, and is used partly as a way to allow the enemy time to react to Kennen's ult so that the enemy can play around it. Both are on pretty long CDs, and are reasonable to use in ways other than just to dodge things. I personally think that these would be cool to play with, while not being unfairly frustrating to play against.
2. is quite possibly a problem for Kennen players. Stunning is a LOT harder on this new kit, as every stun requires you to land a skillshot. But, each stun is therefore much more impactful; at max rank, the stuns last 2 seconds instead of 1.25. And, Q's CD can be relatively low so that you can use Q to land stuns on multiple enemies on the same application of Conductive.

Let's see, then, if I think that I'm fitting my goals:

1. I love the idea of a Lightning Stance, so I think that I'm hitting this without taking any of the cool Lightning-centricity from Kennen's Live kit.
2. Kennen is now focused on moments of power when either he has Lightning Stance, or the enemy is Conductive. I think that this allows us to pump impact into those times, such that they feel great to Kennen but not overwhelming to the enemy.
3. With interesting combos, chances for counterplay on the enemies' part, and tools to counter enemies himself, I think that this Kennen has a lot more to offer in terms of expression of skill. If Kennen can manage to get 100 Static while the enemy is standing in a wave of Conductive minions? Well, prepare yourself for the Lightning Stance->AA->Q->W->Lightning Stance (Static gained from all those delicious Conductive minions!)->AA deeeeeeeeeeath. Which, obviously, suggests that maybe you shouldn't stand in a bunch of Conductive minions when playing against Kennen! Maybe you guys can find some more cool combos, too.
4. Dodging that big CC or that huge burst, or suddenly being way stronger than the enemy thought you would be, are just a couple of the cool things that a good Kennen can expect from this kit.
5. While Kennen thrives in the center of a teamfight if he's not being focused, he needs to be active in order to do that. Zhonyas is no longer the way on him, and he can do just as well from the outskirts of a fight, utilizing Lightning Form from an ADC-like position and throwing in stuns on key targets.

I'd love to hear suggestions and reactions to the kit, but since we all know that it's not going to happen, I'm cool with just starting a conversation about Kennen. Do you guys agree that he needs a rework? Do you have any hopes and dreams about how cool he could be? Let's get tongues wagging, and maybe we'll actually see the little screaming Yordle in a game at some point!