Since the start of the 10th season of League of Legends, Senna has always been among the top strongest marksmen from professional tournaments to solo rank matches. Although she lost some popularity after being nerfed in patch 10.3, the “Fasting Senna” strategy or Senna not farming has made her return to dominate once again.
The imbalance point of Senna is that this champion does not interact much with items, and her power mainly comes from the number of souls collected. Even if the drop rate of souls from farmed minions is reduced, she remains a strong marksman; just don’t farm and let a Support like Tahm Kench take all the minions, both will still earn gold, Senna will still gain souls, and your bot lane remains strong. Thus, Riot Games’ plan to push Senna back to the Support role has completely failed.
Perhaps for this reason, in the latest update on the Public Beta Environment (PBE), Senna continues to be nerfed; this time not in the soul drop rate but in the power of each soul collected. Additionally, the “new” Wukong is continuously being balanced to be as fair as possible since his light rework will debut in patch 10.6. Specific information:
Death’s Dance
New passive: The damage taken will be converted into damage over time for ranged champions at 20%. The number for melee champions remains at 30%.
Senna
The physical damage each soul provides to Senna is reduced from 1.0 to 0.8.
Wukong
Passive – Iron Skin
Each time a champion or clone attacks an enemy champion or jungle monster, the defense from the passive will increase to 62.5% instead of 50%. The stacking amount is reduced from 10 to 8.
Q – Nimbus Strike
Energy cost fixed at 40.
W – Decoy
Damage from the clone is reduced from 60/65/70/75/80% to 50/55/60/65/70%.
The dash distance increases from 250 to 300.
E – Cyclone
Energy cost reduced from 40/45/50/55/60 to 30/35/40/45/50.
Bonus attack speed increases from 30/35/40/45/50% to 40/45/50/55/60%.
Just as previously mentioned, Senna has been nerfed again, this time directly affecting the physical damage received from each soul she collects. This impacts not only her basic attacks but also significantly reduces Senna’s skill damage by about 20%. It is unclear what Riot’s intention is with this power reduction as it nerfs both Senna the Marksman and the Support role.
However, the versatility of Senna is still immense; there likely isn’t any other champion in the marksman role who can be strong without farming like her. If Riot Games truly wants to adjust Senna, they should change the nature of this champion’s skills. Regardless of how much they nerf her, if her versatility remains too high, it will all be for nothing.