Storming the Bot Lane: An Analysis on Kennen as an ADC
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4 Jul 17

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Storming the Bot Lane: An Analysis on Kennen as an ADC

An article to highlight the strengths and weaknesses of Kennen as an ADC.

Week 2 was, without a doubt, one of the most exciting weeks of NA LCS I have experienced in a very, very long time. Between crucial picks and unfortunate missteps, those matches will resonate with me a very long time. However, one specific champion in particular stood out to me the most and that champion is Kennen. Being a currently popular flex pick between the Top Lane and ADC roles, his sustained damage potential and utility brought into team fights makes him without a doubt a very, very strong champion. It is for that reason, that his strengths and weaknesses as an ADC should be discussed, and further dissected to when should he be picked in this role.


Strengths

Within Kennen’s kit, he has the tools to become a great playmaking ADC, especially paired with other high-playmaking champions such as Lee Sin or Thresh. He boasts an average range for ADCs with a range of 550, allowing him to safely throw electrifying shurikens from a distance, and a speed boost through his E ability to get away from enemies from a short time. What makes him stand out right now is the amount of utility he brings through his passive, and the synergy it comes with his W.

Kennen’s Passive reads as following:

Enemies hit by Kennen’s abilities receive a Mark of the Storm for 6 seconds, stacking up to 3 times. At three stacks the marks consume themselves to stun the target for 1.25 seconds and restore 25 energy. If the stun is applied more than once within 6 seconds, its duration is reduced to 0.5 seconds.

Kennen’s W is:

Passive: Kennen deals bonus magic damage and applies a Mark of the storm once every 5 basic attacks. The bonus damage is 40/ 50/ 60/ 70/ 80% AD
Active: Kennen sends out a surge of electricity to all nearby enemies afflicted by Mark of the Storm or caught in Slicing Maelstrom, dealing magic damage.

By themselves, the two abilities synergize well allowing for favorable trades, and creates a hefty initiating tool for his team to follow up on. However, with items like Runaan’s Hurricane and Blade of the Ruined King being exceptionally strong right now, the Heart of the Tempest’s team fighting ability is taken to the next level. With Runaan’s Hurricane in any given team fight, he is able to stack his W passive at a fraction of the time due to the two extra bolts also counting towards the 5 auto attack criteria for his W. Due to this interaction being exceptionally strong, Blade of the Ruined King amplifies this damage output even more, adding additional attack speed, as well a deadly passive through 8% current HP damage per hit. Both of these items combined makes Kennen a deadly auto attacker dishing out consistent damage in team fights, as well as providing high utility for the rest of his team.

In addition to these two items, the third item that is extremely popular on Kennen right now is the addition of Frozen Mallet into this build, giving the Yordle an additional 700 health, 30 attack damage, and a 30% slowing passive for 1.5 seconds on each auto attack. What does that mean for Kennen though? He will be constantly slowing enemies at a maximum of three enemies at once (thanks Runaan’s Hurricane) and increased survivability for any team fight that may occur.

Besides being an exceptional team fighter, with his core items and high mobility, he can serve as an extremely effective split pusher. Through his high wave clearing capabilities, he is able to shove in waves incredibly fast and move on to shredding towers with quick his quick auto attacks. Being able to have a split pusher like Kennan is an invaluable asset to any team. By creating map pressure somewhere else on the Rift, he sets his team up for success through creating situations that force the enemies to make a lose/lose situation often revolving around destroying towers or losing neutral objectives such as Elder Dragon or Baron buff. Having that sort of power in an ADC to force teams to make bad decisions at the rate Kennen can is a valuable asset to any team and can create the map pressure necessary to win your team the game.

Weaknesses

It is with strengths that weaknesses also form, and Kennen is no exception. Boasting a combined core item cost of 9000 gold, it definitely takes some time before Kennen becomes the team fighter he was meant to be, which in return allows for his early laning phase to mid game to be exploited through a strong laning duo such as Xayah and Rakan or Caitlyn and Karma. Another way to exploit his lackluster early game as an ADC is to apply heavy jungle pressure to his lane through repeated ganks or counter jungling on the bottom side of the map, forcing Kennen to have to farm safely from afar, which can lead to the denial of CS and delay his power spikes. While he is a late game team fighting monster, he is very reliant on his team composition to be able to initiate for him so he can get into a position to dish out auto attacks or land a good ultimate without the fear of getting blown up by an enemy, so champions like Zac, Braum, and Maokai all synergize well with Kennen for this reason.

Although Kennen is a naturally quick champion with a built-in speed boost through his W, none of his abilities allow him to dash through walls such as Jarvan's ult, jungle camp walls, or anything else of the sorts, meaning that he is an easily exploitable champion, especially when his summoner spells Flash and Heal are down. Being able to recognize when these abilities are down can result in a quick death for the Yordle when getting jumped on by initiating champions. Knowing this, the Kennen must make the decision to stand back far behind his teammates and lose damage in a team fight or get up close and personal and pray that his team is behind him keeping him safe, which isn't always possible.

So now that we highlighted some of Kennen’s strengths and weaknesses, what are good scenarios for Kenn to actually be brought out into the ADC position? To keep it simple, Kennen is a good champion to pick when you have good initiating tools as mentioned earlier, as well as when paired with others that can assist in peeling for Kennen so he can safely auto attack as well providing high impact CC to assist in setting up the ideal team fight. Champions like Orianna and Thresh are both good examples of those that pair well with him.

With all this being said, Kennen won’t be some “magical” answer to carrying as an ADC. It won’t guarantee that you will stomp your lane or get you a pentakill every game. However, it does have its uses and with the right team members behind you, you can storm the bot lane and surge your way up the leaderboards.

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