Kennen is a champion with powerful teamfighting and carry potential but is one of the most difficult champions to play. Most experienced Kennen players make a huge impact in fights while newbies tend to overestimate his capabilities of diving the entire enemy team. Let’s take a look at some of the best Kennen tips & tricks that we’ve learned from watching veterans and professional players who have mastered this champion.
The Best Kennen Tips & Tricks
Kennen is a powerful solo lane mage that specializes in dominating the laning phase and becoming a massive threat in teamfights starting from the mid game. He has one of the most powerful ultimate abilities in League of Legends when combined with his passive ability so he is a popular choice among coordinated teams. This champion has an easy time during the laning phase and can harass any melee champion away from the lane.
Despite having a powerful kit, Kennen has a lot of exploitable weaknesses since his playstyle is predictable. Being able to utilize his kit while preventing him from dying too many times will be our primary focus in this Kennen tips and tricks guide. Mastering this champion will take quite some time but understanding the do’s and don’ts of this pick will give you a better chance at playing him more smoothly early on.
Stun-Locking Opponents
The most important thing to note among all Kennen tips and tricks is understanding how your stun works. Kennen’s passive ability – Mark of the Storm – allows him to apply up to 3 marks on a target when they are hit with an ability. This means that landing all three of your basic abilities will guarantee a stun but his Q ability has a short enough cooldown that he can land up to three of these abilities within 6 seconds of each application.
There really isn’t a “proper” timing on when to apply a stun during the laning phase but you need to keep in mind that you should maximize the time you have when you do manage to CC them down. Kennen has a lot of tools to deal damage to the opponent and make sure to bully them out of the lane by applying kill pressure every moment. You can also stun opponents multiple times if you can apply your passive consistently. The best way to do this is by using your ultimate which can easily apply 3 marks.
Proper Energy Management
The hardest part about playing Kennen is managing your energy resource during crucial moments of the game. A lot of beginners underestimate the importance of managing energy since the refresh period is relatively short compared to mana. However, Kennen and most other energy-based champions are extremely vulnerable and mostly useless when they run out of energy in the middle of a fight. Remember that energy is a resource that can quickly run out if you’re not careful.
Kennen has two ways to refresh his energy bar during fights. The most common method is to apply a stun on a target which can instantly refresh 25/100 of his energy pool. The more difficult method is to make sure that when you use your E ability – Lightning Rush – you try to pass through an enemy unit. Don’t use your E ability simply to increase your MS so that you can get closer to an enemy. Try to pass through as many champions as possible since this ability also applies a mark to them.
Try to Apply a Mark on Multiple Targets
The power of Kennen is that he has the power to apply a mark on multiple enemies at the same time which almost always leads to a teamfight victory. Kennen has three abilities that apply stacks on multiple targets which are his W, E, and ultimate abilities. The key to using any of these three abilities to apply marks and stunning multiple enemies is to find a position where the enemy can’t prevent you from running them down.
While Kennen is a ranged champion, he likes to get in the face of his enemies. For his W ability, auto-attacking enemies from a safe distance will make it difficult for them to stay in your range since they will be aware of your marks. The E ability and ultimate ability require Kennen to dive into the enemy team and passing through as many of them as possible so that marks are distributed efficiently in fights.
Maximize Your Auto-Attacks!
Kennen may be a mage champion but his auto-attacks are extremely important to his kit’s overall function. We already discussed how auto-attacks apply a stack of his W ability that will allow him to Crowd Control the enemy team. However, Kennen’s basic attacks are also a large part of his overall damage output in the laning phase so treat him like a marksman by trying to kite out the enemy while consistently dishing out auto-attacks and weaving your Q and W ability in between.
Kennen’s E ability is the main reason why you should maximize auto-attacks. After Kennen leaves his lightning rush form, he briefly gains bonus attack speed and is able to bypass the attack speed cap of the game. During that time, you should maximize your damage output by staying just within range to dish out autos so that the enemy can’t launch a counter-attack. In a teamfight, it might be harder to prioritize auto-attacking but make sure that you still weave in a couple so that you can be a top damage source.
Positioning Yourself Intelligently
One of the most important Kennen tips that players can give you is remembering to position yourself efficiently. Kennen is a champion that thrives when he can get in the middle of more than 3 champions at the same time since his ultimate and W ability can instantly shred the health bar of the enemy team while applying an AoE stun that will give your teammates enough time to finish all of them off.
Flanking is one of the strategies that you need to learn when playing this champion so find ways to find a route without the enemy seeing your position. When flanking, try to kill the enemy AD Carry and Jungler as your top priority. If you can reach the backline, the fight is almost instantly decided. Never play Kennen by trying to dash in from the front because it’ll give the enemy a good enough idea of how to stop you.
