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Seraphine, the Starry-Eyed Songstress, is League of Legends’ newest champion.
While the community at large has noted her similarities to Sona both in terms of playstyle and design, there’s a bit more depth that goes into understanding her than the original music champion. Since her kit evolves based on certain criteria, like Seraphine being shielded or enemies already being crowd-controlled, playing according to which champions your teammates pick can make Seraphine even more potent. Players looking for a new poke and utility mage should consider adding Seraphine to their champion roster.
Here’s everything you need to know about how to play Seraphine:
Runes and abilities
As a mage that specializes in utility, burst, and poke, Summon Aery is a potent rune that synergizes with Seraphine’s kit and helps accentuate your strength in the laning phase.
If you want to be more offensive-minded, you can drop Summon Aery in favor of Arcane Comet. If you find yourself in a good matchup against an opponent with a weak early laning phase, Arcane Comet will help provide extra harassment. Since your E slows enemies, Arcane Comet is nearly guaranteed to hit each time you activate it.
If you’re confident in your laning abilities, you can also consider Phase Rush as an alternate rune. Phase Rush will help with your teamfight prowess since it’s fairly easy for Seraphine to activate it. And once it does, the movement speed will help its user position to wherever they need to be.
Here are all of Seraphine’s abilities:
Passive: Stage Presence
Seraphine’s passive has two major components. The first half of her passive is Echo, which enables her combo system. Whenever Seraphine activates a basic ability, she gains a stack of Echo. Once she has two stacks of Echo, the next basic ability she casts will activate a second time for free in quick succession.
The second component of her passive is Harmony. Whenever Seraphine activates an ability, temporary stacks of Notes are placed on yourself and your allies. Champions can have up to four Notes at a time. For every Note that is on a friendly champion, your next basic attack has extra range and launches all the notes around you, dealing bonus damage.
Q: High Note
Seraphine launches a large circle at a target area around her. High Note also deals bonus damage based on the target’s missing health, up to a maximum of 50 percent bonus damage if the target has only 25 percent of their health remaining.
Due to the size and speed of High Note, this is your primary poking tool throughout the laning phase. In teamfights, if your team has a bunch of enemies grouped up, you can doublecast this using your passive for massive damage.
W: Surround Sound
In a circular area around her, Seraphine grants her and her allies a movement speed bonus in addition to a shield. If Seraphine was already shielded at the time of the cast, she also heals herself and her allies around her, with an extra bonus for each ally champion around her and if their health is low.
While Seraphine would prefer to have champions or items on teammates that could shield her, she is able to activate Surround Sound’s healing on her own if it was double casted with her Echo passive.
E: Beat Drop
Seraphine fires a rectangular shot forward, slowing any enemies hit. If an enemy is already slowed when they are hit by Beat Drop, they are rooted instead. If an enemy is already immobilized when hit by Beat Drop, they are stunned.
Like Surround Sound, Seraphine can trigger the ability’s bonus effects on her own thanks to her Echo side of Stage Presence’s passive. Seraphine can also activate the root with her ultimate, and the stun by herself with items.
R: Encore
Seraphine shoots a wide musical energy blast that deals damage, charms, and slows any enemy champions hit. Anytime Encore hits a champion, whether its an ally or enemy, the range of the skillshot keeps moving forward, resetting to its full distance. In addition to this, hitting allies with your ultimate grants them four Notes each. You cannot use yourself to extend the range by flashing into Encore.
In this example clip, the potential of how far Encore can travel is shown. While you shouldn’t expect this ideal scenario to happen each time, it shows you how far you can take your ultimate if you find proper angles and look for the opportunities.
All of the new items and what to consider picking
Since Seraphine is joining League at the same time as the new item system, there are multiple ways to build depending on the composition for both the enemy and ally teams.
For your choice of Mythic Items, Liandry’s Anguish is powerful if the enemy team is filled with bulky champions. If you’re looking for more control over a teamfight, Everfrost will help provide an extra slow/root to hit with your Beat Drop. Hitting with the center of Everfrost will grant you a root which lets your Beat Drop stun. Luden’s Tempest can also provide extra burst if your team lacks the damage but has the crowd control.
Once you purchase your Mythical Item, if you’re against aggressive champions, then picking up a Zhonya’s Hourglass (against heavy physical damage) or a Banshee’s Veil (when facing magic damage or multiple crowd control) will help you survive any incoming burst.
If you’re ahead and confident in your matchup, aiming for a Seraph’s Embrace will amplify your damage and allow you multiple chances to cast more spells due to the extra mana. Once you’ve built enough ability power, picking up a Rabaddon’s Deathcap will multiply your already massive ability power and push it to incredible heights.
How to navigate the early, mid, and late-game
During the early laning phase, whether you’re solo laning in mid lane or playing as an AP carry in the bottom lane, you should always attempt to harass your opponent with basic attacks, High Notes, and Beat Drops if you have the range advantage. If you do not have tempo or control in the lane, then you should focus on last-hitting, and throw out High Notes to try to whittle down opponents and wait for potential ganks.
If your jungler does gank for you, you must assess if it’s best to save your Beat Drop to have it serve as a root or stun if your jungler has crowd control, or to use it early to help your jungler close the distance.
Once you have enough items in the mid-game, you can often find opportunities to pick off opponents with your Beat Drop. If your team is massively ahead of the opposing team, then you can use Surround Sound to boost your team’s movement speed and find opportunities to wipe unsuspecting opponents off the map.
During the late-game, when both teams are fighting for objectives and vision control, you can use your teammates as a conduit or bait to hit opponents with a long range Encore. Oftentimes, if you’re positioned behind a wall from your teammate, you can usually hit an Encore against enemies through your ally and get a pick against high-priority enemy champions. Once an enemy is caught out by crowd control, you can blast them with an Echo-boosted High Note.
