K’Sante joins LoL as one of the most interesting heroes that have landed in Summoner’s Rift in recent times. A top laner designed to be a complicated tank to play and who has the ability to transform his defenses into damage when he uses the ultimate.
But before starting with the guide on runes, builds and matchups, it’s worth knowing the champion’s abilities:
- Passive: Fearless Instinct.
K’Sante’s abilities that deal damage mark enemies hit for a short period of time. Attacking a marked enemy consumes the mark to deal damage in addition to the physical damage of maximum health.
All out: Instead, attacking a marked enemy deals physical damage and additional maximum health true damage.
- Q – Ntofo Strikes
K’Sante slams his weapon, dealing physical damage in a small area around him and briefly Slowing targets hit.
If an enemy is hit, K’Sante gains a stack for a short duration. At 2 stacks, K’Sante instead fires a shockwave that Pulls enemies
All Out: This ability’s cooldown is reduced and no longer slows targets hit.
- W – Path Maker
Begin Charging: K’Sante raises his weapons defensively for a short duration, becoming Unstoppable, and reducing incoming damage.
Release: K’Sante rams forward, dealing a percentage of max health physical damage, Knocking Back, and Stunning enemies he passes through for a short duration based on charge time.
All Out: This ability’s cooldown is refreshed, the damage reduction is increased, it deals an additional amount of physical damage based on charge time, and the charge and dash speed are both doubled.
- E – Footwork
K’Sante dashes, gaining a shield for a short duration. If dashing to an ally, the distance is significantly increased and they are also Shielded. Other spells can be cast during this ability.
All Out: This ability’s dash speed is increased. Dashing to a targeted location has increased range and can go over walls.
- R – All Out
K’Sante shatters his ntofos, dealing physical damage and Knocking Back an enemy champion. Enemies that hit a wall will take a greater amount of physical damage, are Knocked Back over the wall and are briefly Stunned. K’Sante then dashes after the enemy and goes All Out for an extended duration.
All Out K’sante loses a percentage of max health, bonus armor, and bonus magic resistance. K’Sante gains attack damage, omnivamp, and transforms his abilities.
K’Sante: Runes, Build, and Order of Items
K’Sante was presented as a character capable of inflicting large amounts of damage to opponents, even though he is a character who needs to buy not a single offensive item. The champion’s grace lies in his ultimate, which, when pressed, changes his form and transforms part of his armor and magic resistance into damage.
Runes
-We suggest choosing Grasp as your initial Keystone.
After landing Ntofo Strikes and gaining more range for his auto attacks with Dauntless Instinct, K’Sante finds it slightly simpler to proc Grasp. Grasp does damage equal to a percentage of your maximum health, permanent health gain, and minor healing. Overall, if you are unclear on when to take other Keystones, this is the greatest Keystone to employ.
-Once you are confident, you can use Conqueror.
When K’Sante uses All Out, Conqueror is completely stacked and ready to go for additional damage and healing, which is insanely quick to stack up. It basically just comes down to personal taste, but in my opinion, Conqueror has better carry potential than Grasp.
Ntofo Strikes+AA+ Path Maker+AA+ Ntofo Strikes+AA will fully stack Conqueror.
A fantastic rune to use to snowball your lane off of Turret Plates is Demolish. You receive 175g when you reach an enemy Turret and successfully activate Demolish. Demolish should only be used in lanes where you are confident that you can reach the opponent’s Tower and are powerful enough to break plates.
The best scaling rune to use against K’Sante is conditioning. It offers more AR/MR and, when used with All Out, can result in greater damage.
You can maintain your strength in poke lanes by using Second Wind. Lanes like Jayce, Gangplank, and Quinn will be much more manageable if Second Wind is used in tandem with Doran’s Shield.
Tenacity is a fantastic rune to use, particularly in compositions with high Critical Chance and when combined with Unflinching. Tenacity will probably make the difference between getting off numerous abilities, which will be the difference between you getting killed or getting kills, if you are up against strong CC.
Builds
Jak’Sho is the better option overall for later teamfights, but Iceborn Gauntlet will be more valuable in difficult-to-stick-to-hard-lane and AD Ranged matchups (Quinn, Gnar, Jayce). It is simpler to play less interactively and employ Iceborn Gauntlet for Damage Reduction and kiting in lanes where you cannot mechanically prevail.
Heartsteel is only effective if you can regularly stack it AND you don’t face a lot of HP damage.
There are a few good uses for the Divine Sunderer against hyper-tanks like Sion, Cho’Gath, and Ornn. That doesn’t mean it’s better or worse than Jak’Sho or The Protean; it’s just another alternative.
A core build that focuses on attack damage defense will have Frozen Heart at its core. Massive amounts of 90 Armor and damage reduction that lasts throughout All Out are provided by Frozen Heart.
A great Magic Damage Defensive Core Build may be made with Force of Nature. You receive 50 HP, 70 MR, and 5% Movement Speed from Force of Nature. Once this item’s passive has been fully stacked after being hit, you earn an additional 10% in movement speed and a 25% reduction in AP damage, both of which carry over to All Out.
Your offensive core build should be Sunfire Aegis. Sunfire offers a much purer waveclear, passive melee magic damage, and a respectable 500 HP and 50 Armor.
Normally you will choose between one of these three items depending on the enemy composition and the following items are usually very situational depending on the needs of the game where we can see Gargoyle Stoneplate, Randuin’s Omen if the enemy team has many auto attackers and critical damage, Thornmail if the enemy team heals a lot through auto attacks … etc.
Matchups
If you choose him blind pick, some of the more frequent ones would be:
Cho’Gath
A lot of sustain, damage, and CC are present in Cho’Gath. His sole drawback is that losing a significant portion of your maximum HP will bring you perilously near to his R Feast threshold, which makes him simpler to kill once you get access to your R.
For any tank player, Fiora is a true nightmare. Your CC is quite predictable, so Fiora can respond with W. She can use Vitals and Grasp to knock you out, and going all-in is quite risky. You can fight back with your R, but Fiora certainly prefers it.
Mordekaiser can quickly assess your stats, but shouldn’t have much trouble hitting. You can use your E to protect yourself from his Q harm and your W to prevent getting pulled by his E. To reduce the amount of damage you take if you get stuck in his ult, stack up your Q3 and try to CC him. You should have an easier time dueling him once you have some MR.
Enchanters and K’Sante have incredible synergy. When you’re engaged in a teamfight, having extra healing, shielding, and movement speed can all aid you just enough to survive and finish everyone off. After all of this, Lulu, Soraka, and Sona are excellent choices for near K’Sante.
Some extra tips
K’Santes abilities are fairly simple and can be used in whichever order you would like depending on your position relative to the enemy. K’Sante has a lot of displacement to work with, so once you master the usage and decision-making revolved around his abilities, you will be extremely hard to disengage from, and create a lot of space for your team.
Activating the ultimate reduces our maximum health by 45% and reactivates the cooldown of the W. Try to take advantage of these two conditions and don’t use it at the beginning of the fights.
The E (Footwork) can go through walls while the ultimate is active. Keep this in mind when escaping or chasing.
The third activation of Q always knocks down enemies in K’Sante’s direction. Reposition yourself with E (Footwork) to reposition and adjust where enemies will end up.
And this concludes the small introductory guide to the champion that is currently causing havoc in the competitive scene. Remember that the more time you spend with a champion the more fluidity you will get with him and don’t be afraid of losing some LPs, because it’s not how it starts but how it ends.
