Kennen LoL Classic Build: Will of the Ancients

Kennen is the third of the Ionian wave and the one that will feel most familiar. Akali is a different champion from her modern self. Shen's Q and W barely resemble what you know. Kennen is broadly the same yordle you have always played.

Except for the ultimate. And the ultimate is the champion.

He arrives on his July 2013 kit, and the one thing that has actually changed is the thing everybody builds around.

TL;DR: Marks of Magic Penetration, Seals of Armor, Glyphs of Magic Resist, Quintessences of Ability Power. Masteries 21 offense and 9 defense. Rush Will of the Ancients, take Ionian Boots of Lucidity, then Rylai's Crystal Scepter, Rabadon's Deathcap, and Void Staff. Zhonya's Hourglass when you need to survive your own engage.

Slicing Maelstrom Is a Different Ability Here

This is the headline and it deserves the top of the article.

The Classic ultimate zaps enemies at random inside the storm. It hits champions only, it strikes each target repeatedly up to a per target cap, and the frequency of the zaps scales with ability rank.

What that produces is a champion who is better in a one versus one and worse in a five versus five than the one you are used to. Against a single target, all those zaps land on one health bar and he bursts faster than modern Kennen. Against five people, the storm distributes its attention by chance, and your teamfight impact is partly out of your hands.

This is not a hypothetical criticism, it is the acknowledged design tension with this version of the ability. Riot's own historical commentary on Kennen describes the niche as diving the enemy team and stunning people, while noting that the randomness of who the ultimate hits leaves his teamfight impact up to chance.

The practical consequence: stop thinking of the ultimate as a guaranteed five man stun. Think of it as a pressure field that will probably stun the people who stay in it. That changes when you press it and who you press it near.

And the cooldown is brutal. Slicing Maelstrom sits on a two minute cooldown at every rank, which does not improve as you level it. Ranking R makes the zaps more frequent, not more available. That means a wasted ultimate costs you two full minutes of being an ordinary champion, and it means anybody paying attention knows exactly how long they have to take an objective after you use it.

The Rest of the Kit

Passive, Mark of the Storm. Every ability applies a mark. Three marks stun. Same as modern.

Q, Thundering Shuriken. Fast moving skillshot, damage, applies a mark. Same as modern.

W, Electrical Surge. Passively, every fifth basic attack deals bonus magic damage on hit and applies a mark. Actively, it damages targets that are already marked and adds another mark.

That is the important distinction. W is not a free nuke, it is a follow up. It only fires at things you have already hit. Your combo has an order and W is never the first step.

E, Lightning Rush. Percentage movement speed, plus bonus Armor and Magic Resist, and colliding with enemies marks and damages them. The resistances are the notable difference from the modern version and they matter more than they look, because this ability is how you get into a position that would otherwise kill you.

R, Slicing Maelstrom. Covered above.

The Stun Rules Nobody Reads

Two details that decide most of your fights.

Marks expire after roughly six and a quarter seconds. So a stun is not something you build slowly across a lane exchange. If you land Q and then wait, that mark is gone before your next opportunity. Your combo has to be tight.

Stuns have diminishing returns. Stun the same target twice within about seven seconds and the second one is shorter. This is why chaining an ultimate immediately after a Q, W, E stun in lane is often worse than spacing them out, and it is why an enemy who has just been stunned is the wrong ultimate target.

The counterplay against Kennen follows directly from those two rules: leave before the third mark lands, and everything he built on you resets on its own.

Kennen LoL Classic Build: Items

Start. Amplifying Tome and a Health Potion. Boots and potions if you expect a difficult lane.

1. Will of the Ancients. This is the first item and the reason is not its own Ability Power.

Kennen casts constantly, and every one of those casts wants damage behind it. The item's own 50 Ability Power is the smaller half of the purchase. The aura grants nearby allied champions 30 Ability Power and 20% spell vamp. So standing next to a teammate pays, and standing next to another Ability Power champion pays a lot. The spell vamp is also what makes a champion who dives into five people survive doing it.

2. Ionian Boots of Lucidity. Kennen runs on energy, not mana, which means every mana statistic in the shop is dead weight to him. Cooldown reduction is the resource item he actually gets to use, and it lets him keep casting through a fight without a mana bar to run dry.

3. Rylai's Crystal Scepter. Health, Ability Power, and a slow that applies from your abilities. On a champion whose ultimate rewards keeping people inside a circle, an item that stops them leaving it is not a luxury.

4. Rabadon's Deathcap. Multiplies everything.

5. Void Staff. The moment they buy Magic Resist, this is the answer. Ignoring a large chunk of their resistances keeps the storm biting.

6. Zhonya's Hourglass, situationally and sometimes earlier. Armor plus a stasis active on a champion whose entire play pattern is jumping into the enemy team. Ultimate in, then go untargetable while the storm continues ticking. If you are dying before your damage lands, buy it fourth instead of sixth.

Top lane variation. If you are playing him top rather than mid, Haunting Guise is the strong early buy, with its magic penetration sharpening your poke in a lane where you are usually the one starting the fight. Abyssal Scepter supports the same idea against an Ability Power opponent before you finish Deathcap and Void Staff.

Runes and Masteries

Marks of Magic Penetration. Every ability you own deals magic damage, so penetration increases all of it. Nothing in the kit scales with Attack Damage.

Seals of Armor. Protection against basic attack harass in lane, and you are fragile.

Glyphs of Magic Resist. Helps you trade against the other Ability Power champion you are almost certainly facing.

Quintessences of Ability Power. Flat Ability Power gives you a real level 1 and level 2, which is when Kennen's harass is at its most annoying relative to what people expect from a yordle.

Masteries: 21 offense, 9 defense. The offense tree gives you Ability Power, magic penetration, and cooldown reduction, all three of which feed a champion who wins by casting more often than you can respond to. The nine defensive points are there for a specific reason: Kennen has to dive into the enemy team to use his ultimate properly, and the extra Health and resistances buy the seconds he needs to lock people down before he dies. Utility is defensible if you plan to roam, but defense is the split that matches how this champion actually spends his fights.

How to Play Him

Lane phase. Q is your poke and it is a skillshot, so use it at range and do not overcommit chasing marks. The W passive fires on every fifth basic attack, so weaving autos into the wave is quietly building toward a mark you can convert later.

The combo has an order. Q to land a mark, W to detonate against the marked target and add another, then E through them for the third and the stun. W first does nothing, because there is nothing to hit.

Watch your energy. Like the other two Ionians in this wave, Kennen runs on a small energy pool. Missing a Q is not just missed damage, it is a resource you now do not have for the follow up.

Level 6 changes the champion. Once the storm exists, any enemy who steps too far forward can be locked down long enough for a jungler or a teammate to arrive. That is your entire mid game.

Teamfights. Do not ultimate at the front line. The storm chooses targets at random among champions inside it, so the more valuable bodies you cover, the better your chances of the zaps landing somewhere that matters. Lightning Rush is what gets you past the front line, and the bonus resistances during it are what let you survive the trip.

Then respect the two minute clock. After the ultimate is spent you are a poke mage with a skillshot. Play the next two minutes accordingly and do not start fights you need R to finish.

What Beats You

Anyone who leaves. Marks expire in about six seconds. A target that walks away resets your entire setup for free.

Objective timing. A competent enemy team knows your ultimate is gone for two full minutes and will take a dragon or a tower inside that window.

Hard crowd control on your engage. You are diving into five people with a movement ability and no other escape. One stun during Lightning Rush and you are simply standing in the middle of their team.

What Changed From Modern Kennen

• Slicing Maelstrom picks its targets randomly among champions in the storm, with a per target cap and rank scaling frequency. Modern Kennen's ultimate is far more reliable in a group fight and far less bursty in a duel.

• Lightning Rush grants bonus Armor and Magic Resist here. That defensive layer is a real part of how the ability is used.

• Electrical Surge is functionally similar but the interaction is worth restating: the active only damages already marked targets.

• The passive, Q, and the stun rules are effectively what you already know.

The habit to unlearn is treating the ultimate as reliable area control. It is a probabilistic burst tool that gets better the fewer valid targets it has to choose between.

Who Should Play This

Play Kennen if you like champions who dive, and if you can accept an ultimate whose value in any given fight is partly out of your control. In a one versus one he is more dangerous than the version you know, and in a side lane skirmish he is genuinely oppressive.

Do not play him if you want a guaranteed five man teamfight ultimate, or if your team needs somebody reliable rather than explosive. Two minutes is a long time to be wrong about a cooldown.

Want that dive to actually turn into a climb? Read our guides on climbing the Summoner's Journey and leveling to 30 fast.