Kennen, the AP Teamfight Lynch-pin (Rework Ideas)
Kennen. He's a poke-mage. He's a caster people play like an ADC. He's a walking ult with few other redeeming qualities.
With a wonky kit and generally lackluster performance, Kennen doesn't see that much use these days outside of niche picks, and even those are more often built around cheesing his ult than actually utilizing overall strengths. With that in mind, I've devised a potential rework idea for the poor little Pikachu.
For the purposes of this kit, I've settled on trying to solidify his kit into something of a harassment mage. Someone whose primary goal is to be a nuisance to those unable to work around him or get him out of the way. A bit like Lissandra, he's intended to get in and around the enemies' faces and skirt around/through a teamfight to apply their damage and CC rather than shoot directly for a specific target.
DISCLAIMER: I am not an active Kennen player. I personally don't like how he feels to play, and his kit has always struck me as a disparate collection of counter-intuitive parts. This rework concept began as a joke and spiraled into a more serious experiment as people started to give feedback based on their own experiences with the champ. The same would be very much appreciated from any other Kennen fans/mains out there!
>Passive - Mark of the Storm > >Enemies hit by Kennen’s abilities are marked by the storm for X seconds, stacking up to three times. At three stacks, the next ability to land will trigger a secondary effect, consume the marks, and restore 25 energy.
There's no reason to mess with this one too much. Outside of stripping the stun off of the passive itself (don't worry, it comes back later), the stacking of Mark of the Storm on opponents has an obvious anticipation/payoff dynamic that players can see clearly in a fight. However, in an effort to give the passive a bit more flexibility, while also allowing power elsewhere in the kit since not everything will be stunning 24/7, each ability interacts with these marks in their own way...
For future reference, the portion of an ability labeled with 'Mark of the Storm' implies that the effect will trigger if the ability lands on someone with three marks.
>Q - Thundering Shuriken > >Active: Kennen throws a charged shuriken in a line in front of him, dealing X damage to the first enemy it hits. > >Mark of the Storm: The shuriken deals an additional Y damage and chains to the nearest other marked target within Z units, dealing [Y-] damage and repeating this effect (will not consume Marks). If there are no other marked targets in range, this damage will be applied to the nearest other enemy (not prioritizing champions) and the effect ends.
The Shuriken isn't the most impressive or recognized ability on Kennen's kit, but it's a solid farming/harassment tool in laning and gives Kennen a means to apply marks at a distance before closing in to capitalize on what he's got. Adding the ricochet mechanic to it when it strikes allows him the chance to riddle a minion wave or teamfight with damage and keep applying stacks wherever he can.
>W - Static Discharge > >Passive: While this ability is off cooldown and Kennen receives more than 5-15% of his total health as damage, X% of incoming damage will instead be redirected to the nearest enemy, prioritizing champions. >This effect cannot trigger more than once every Y seconds, or if there are no enemy units in range. > >Active: Kennen lets loose a pulse of electricity, damaging all enemies within an area. > >Mark of the Storm: The cooldown for Static Discharge’s active component is reduced by Z seconds.**
The passive here is meant to catch the first chunk of damage that comes Kennen’s way, allowing him a touch more safety on the initial engage, while also giving him yet another way to apply Marks to nearby enemies. Ideally, this will save some Kennens from distance snipes and major execution abilities from time to time, but smart opponents will be able to peg it off of him before laying on the heavier damage.
Also, Kennen being able to theoretically use the active of this ability multiple times in quick succession with clever Mark usage is an intended feature. Outside of ult situations, this should rarely allow a Kennen to fire the ability any more than twice.
>E - Lightning Rush > >Passive: Kennen can store three charges of Lightning Rush at a time. For each stored charge, Kennen gains Y% movement speed and his next dash travels ?? extra units. > >Active: Kennen becomes a living lightning bolt, launching a short distance in a direction and dealing damage to all enemies in his path. Kennen will regain X energy for each champion hit with Lightning Rush, and [X-] for minions and monsters. He cannot regain energy from a single target more than once per ?? seconds. > >Mark of the Storm: Stun the enemy for Z seconds.
I've gotten mixed responses with this change. The current form of Lightning Rush is one of the things outside of his (rather toxic) ult that people can point to as being a defining ability. On the other hand, people don't generally think of lightning rolling around in balls. It launches in bolts! It's unpredictable! And most importantly, it's fast!
The passive is in place to give Kennen some trade-offs for the huge amount of mobility multiple dashes can provide. If he hangs onto all of them, it allows him to kite and maneuver on a more predictable level. As he begins to dash around, however, he becomes easier to catch and future dashes become less significant. At the longest, this dash would likely be in the ballpark of Shen's Shadow Dash, if not a bit longer. With the last dash stored, it might be as short as Graves' Quickdraw. Enough to cross a wall in a pinch, but unlikely to pull you out of danger against tenacious opponents.
Note also that this is where the stun reappears. If a Kennen /really/ wants to stun his opponents, not only will he need them to line up for him, but he'll need to have his dash available when they hit the number of marks required to activate the stun, meaning he can't just triple-dash into a teamfight from the sidelines and still lock down his targets.
>R - Whirling Maelstrom > >Active: Kennen tosses his shuriken into the sky, summoning a growing, swirling thunderstorm around himself for Y seconds, with a Z unit eye at its center. Enemy champions entering one of the storm’s arms will be struck by lightning, taking damage and being slowed by X%. > >An enemy cannot be struck by the same arm of the storm more than once every two seconds. > >Mark of the Storm: The slow is doubled and the Marks are not consumed.
In addition to being more visually striking than an electrified circle, the intention of this ult is to give Kennens a lot of power in their immediate surroundings, where they're vulnerable to folks closing in on the safe zone that the eye of the storm provides, while at the same time providing windows of safety in the spaces between the twisting arms of the storm so long as enemies are able to move to avoid them. In a hectic teamfight, particularly where an allied CC-wagon can hold folks still, a Kennen player could still expect the spinning storm to swipe across a given enemy at least twice, which would likely be more than enough to start setting up for some powerful stuns.
So there we have it. A Kennen with a suitable reason to want to dive into the enemy team, along with the tools to make it a more engaging process for both himself and his opponents. As mentioned in the disclaimer above, I'd love some feedback on what people think of this, particularly if you're a Kennen player!
