Who Does Seraphine Pair With? A Comprehensive Guide
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Seraphine, the Starry-Eyed Songstress of League of Legends, is a versatile champion known for her enchanting melodies and supportive abilities. Her kit, designed around shielding, healing, and crowd control, makes her a valuable asset to various team compositions. But who truly shines alongside Seraphine? The answer lies in understanding her strengths and finding champions who can amplify them. In short, Seraphine pairs well with damage-focused carries that can capitalize on her crowd control and utility, particularly those who benefit from her movement speed buffs and healing. She also works exceptionally well with compositions that can group up and stay close, allowing her to maximize her Area of Effect (AoE) shields and heals.
Understanding Seraphine’s Strengths
Before diving into specific pairings, it’s crucial to understand what Seraphine brings to the table. She is primarily an enchanter support, meaning her kit revolves around enhancing her allies. Here are her core strengths:
- Shielding: Seraphine can provide a substantial shield to herself and her allies, which is further strengthened when she is already shielded. This makes her quite resilient and capable of protecting her team.
- Healing: While her heal is conditional, it is potent when multiple allies are around her. This encourages team fights around objectives and promotes grouping.
- Crowd Control: Her abilities include a slow, root, and potential charm, which allows her to control the battlefield and set up kills for her team.
- Poke Damage: While she’s not a burst mage, her abilities can inflict considerable damage over time, particularly when using her passive to echo abilities.
- Movement Speed Buffs: She provides movement speed to allies within her aura, which is essential for engaging, escaping, and repositioning in fights.
Synergistic Pairings: Champions That Thrive With Seraphine
Based on her strengths, several types of champions pair exceptionally well with Seraphine:
Hyper-Carries
Hyper-carries, those who scale extremely well into the late game, are excellent recipients of Seraphine’s support. Their main weakness often involves surviving the early and mid-game, which Seraphine addresses well with her shields and crowd control.
- Miss Fortune: As mentioned, Miss Fortune is a prime example. Her high damage output, especially when using her ultimate, benefits immensely from Seraphine’s crowd control, movement speed, and shields. Her ultimate can melt opponents held in place by Seraphine’s root.
- Jinx: Jinx’s long-range attacks and scaling benefit from Seraphine’s protection and engagement power. Seraphine’s movement speed buffs also allow Jinx to kite and reposition effectively.
- Kog’Maw: Kog’Maw, known for his late-game hyper-carry potential, appreciates the peel and support from Seraphine to survive until his scaling can take over.
Aggressive Damage Dealers
Champions who thrive on making aggressive plays and need help with their durability also work well with Seraphine.
- Samira: Samira loves to get in close, making her vulnerable to enemy crowd control. Seraphine’s shields and crowd control can prevent her from getting locked down, allowing Samira to unleash her damage.
- Draven: Draven’s early game aggression can be supplemented by Seraphine’s poke and peel. She can keep him safe in lane and set him up for easy kills with her crowd control.
- Lucian: Lucian’s dash-in playstyle pairs nicely with Seraphine’s ability to follow up with shields and crowd control, enabling him to engage and disengage more freely.
Melee Champions
While Seraphine is an enchanter, she can work well with melee champions that engage the enemy. She can keep them alive while they dive into the enemy team.
- Olaf: Olaf, who often needs to get close to enemies, appreciates Seraphine’s movement speed and shields, allowing him to dive more effectively without fear of immediate retaliation.
- Camille: Camille benefits from Seraphine’s shielding and poke. The two together can control the lane and snowball into mid-game dominance.
Area of Effect (AoE) Focused Compositions
Champions that benefit from grouping up, as it allows them to maximize their AoE abilities and also maximizes Seraphine’s potential, work wonders with Seraphine.
- Galio: Galio benefits from being surrounded by his team which allows him to use his ultimate well. Seraphine is a great support for him as she can keep him healthy as he dives.
- Orianna: Orianna’s ball playstyle and AoE abilities are great with Seraphine’s supportive capabilities, letting her dish out tons of damage while remaining safe.
- Malphite: Malphite is a tank and can get to the backline, creating a great situation for Seraphine to use her ultimate, giving her allies the opportunity to take out high-priority targets.
Champions To Avoid Pairing With
While Seraphine has significant synergy with many champions, she struggles with specific pairings. These include champions who thrive in split-pushing scenarios, champions who require disengagement, and champions that have extreme mobility and rely on playing far from the team.
Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)
Here are some frequently asked questions about Seraphine pairings, along with detailed answers:
1. Is Seraphine good with aggressive early game ADCs?
Yes, especially those that rely on getting kills in lane, like Draven, Lucian, and Samira. Seraphine’s poke, crowd control, and shields provide valuable support for these aggressive ADCs, allowing them to snowball and dominate the lane.
2. How does Seraphine work with scaling mages?
While not her primary focus, Seraphine can still support scaling mages like Veigar and Viktor by shielding them in fights and providing crowd control to protect them, allowing them to reach their late-game potential.
3. Is Seraphine a good support for tanks?
Yes, to some extent. While she doesn’t directly increase their damage output, her shields, heals, and crowd control can help tanks like Malphite and Galio initiate fights more reliably and survive the initial burst of damage. However, pure tank supports might be better for specific tank compositions.
4. What about pairing her with enchanter supports?
Having two enchanters can lack the tanky frontline that a team needs. However, Seraphine and another enchanter such as Janna or Sona can make a great lane that allows for a lot of shielding and healing.
5. Can Seraphine work in a poke-centric composition?
Absolutely. Her abilities, combined with her passive, allow her to poke effectively in lane. This is effective with champions that also have poke abilities like Ezreal and Ziggs.
6. Is Seraphine a good choice if I am playing a split pusher?
No, Seraphine excels in team fight scenarios and prefers her team to be near. If you are a split pusher like Tryndamere or Fiora, Seraphine is not ideal as a support.
7. How should I play Seraphine with melee carries?
Play more around peel and keep your damage dealers alive. Use your abilities to lock down enemies that are focusing your melee carries, or give them a boost in speed to help them get in range.
8. How important is positioning when playing Seraphine?
Positioning is extremely important for Seraphine. You’ll want to stay close enough to allies to provide shields and heals, but far enough to avoid being easily targeted by enemies. Make sure your allies are in range so that you can maximize your W’s heal.
9. Which summoner spells are best on Seraphine?
Flash and Ignite are most common for Seraphine to increase her kill potential in lane. If your team needs more healing and durability, Exhaust can be an alternative, while Heal is more commonly used in other roles.
10. What are the core runes for Seraphine support?
Summon Aery is the common keystone. Other important runes are Manaflow Band, Transcendence, Scorch, Biscuit Delivery and Cosmic Insight.
11. Can Seraphine be countered in the bottom lane?
Yes, she has several counters. Maokai, Pyke, Ashe, Yuumi, and Xerath can make things difficult for her in lane.
12. What are the common builds for Seraphine support?
A common build includes items like Shard of True Ice, Ionian Boots of Lucidity, Echoes of Helia, Rylai’s Crystal Scepter, and Chemtech Putrifier.
13. What should I do if Seraphine gets targeted?
If Seraphine is focused, utilize her shield and try to disengage. Utilize her crowd control to keep enemies away from you and allow your allies to peel for you.
14. How does her passive impact champion pairings?
Her passive, Stage Presence, is very important. It allows her to do extra damage and gain extra range. This is great with damage champions. The notes she gets from being around allies are useful for increasing her damage, and allow her to use her skills again, maximizing her output.
15. Is Seraphine a beginner-friendly champion?
Yes, Seraphine is considered easy to learn. Her abilities are straightforward, and she doesn’t require complex mechanics. You’ll want to spend the time to learn her positioning, her abilities, and when to fight.
Conclusion
Seraphine’s versatility makes her a viable support in many team compositions. However, to truly maximize her potential, pairing her with the right champions is crucial. Champions that can capitalize on her utility, such as hyper-carries, aggressive damage dealers, and melee-focused carries, will benefit the most. By understanding her strengths and weaknesses and choosing the right ally to sing alongside her, you can unleash the full power of the Starry-Eyed Songstress and create beautiful symphonies of victory.