League of Legends: Seraphine Guide and Builds

As a champion, Seraphine functions as a hybrid mid-laner and support AP caster. She brings a lot of versatility to the team with her skillset, applying shields and movement speed to teammates, crowd control, and dealing good AP damage. With the recent buffs to her base damage and nerfs to her ability cooldowns, Riot is looking to nudge her more as a damage dealer. Still, her support aspects are effective at peeling and engaging. This guide will provide a detailed look into her abilities and possible item/run builds.

Seraphine’s Pros And Cons

Her kit gives her a nice blend of team utility, damage, and crowd control. She excels at peeling the team carry away from danger with Surround Sound and starting a teamfight with her Beat Drop and Encore skill. Seraphine is as good as her teammates are, but conversely, she can be just as bad as them. Her lack of mobility and weak defensive stats make her especially vulnerable against ganks, plus her low starting mana makes the early game a pain. Playing with the team is vital for Seraphine’s performance as a champion, for what is an idol without her audience to make her shine?

Passive and Abilities

Seraphine’s abilities encourage you to play with your team and enhance their teamfight potential. For her passive “Stage Presence,” every third spell she casts can be cast again at almost zero cost. When she casts a spell next to an ally, she and the ally gain a Note stack, which is expended on spell cast, granting her abilities bonus AP damage and range. This passive rewards Seraphine players who stick to their allies. Being mindful of your Stage Presence stacks can let you make some unexpected plays, as most of your abilities gain bonuses when cast again.

Her first ability, “High Note,” deals magic damage in a radius, scaling with your AP and the target’s missing HP. The spell is quite simple in execution but can still provide a hefty amount of damage in a fight and become poke spell in the early game.

Her second ability, “Surround Sound,” gives her and her allies a shield and a movement speed buff. Surround Sound will heal all nearby allies when this ability is cast while she has a shield. Using her passive’s free cast with this spell can be a potent lifesaver for a teamfight and a great engagement/disengagement tool.

Her third ability, “Beat Drop,” shoots out a projectile that slows the target on hit. If this spell hits a slowed target, they are rooted, and if they are hit while rooted, they will be stunned. This is one of Seraphine’s primary abilities to utilize her passive with; if she has 3 stacks of Stage Presence, she can root targets with one cast. This spell can also immediately stun targets if any of her teammates inflict the root.

Her ultimate ability, “Encore,” charms and slows enemies when hit. Combining this with an empowered Beat Drop will crowd-control targets for a long time and can tip the balance of a teamfight in your team’s favor. Take note that her ultimate will not count for her Stage Presence passive, so save the empowered stack for either Surround Sound or Beat Drop.

Your rune and item setup will determine if you want Seraphine to play as a support champion or an AP burst damage caster. Since she is versatile enough for two roles, it all comes down to your playstyle preference.

Support Seraphine Build

When leveling up, give every skill one point for the early game. When you are able to, allocate all your points to your E skill first, as you’ll want to provide crowd control as fast as possible. Max your Q skill next since you must spam it to build up your empowered E or W skill. Max your W skill last, as the initial shield amount is enough for the early to mid-game. Should the ultimate skill be available to level up, immediately put a point into it regardless of what basic skill you’re trying to max first.

Take Flash and either Barrier or Exhaust for your summoner spells. Flash's utility is mandatory for almost every champion, especially for Seraphine, who lacks mobility options. Exhaust keeps your ADC fed with gold, while Barrier can be a shield source for your second ability.

For rune paths, you will want to take Sorcery and Resolve. In the Sorcery tree, choose between Arcane Comet or Summon Aery for a slight damage boost to your abilities. Next, take Manaflow Band to increase your max mana. Then, take Transcendence for the extra ability cooldown reduction, as you’ll want to cast as much of your second and third abilities as possible. Lastly, you may take either Scorch or Gathering Storm if you want early-game damage or scale up to the late game.

The Resolve tree has plenty of options to enhance Seraphine’s support capabilities. Take the Guardian rune for even more shield sources to augment your second ability. Next, take Font of Life to give your team passive healing whenever they attack a target you slowed with your third ability. Conditioning, Second Wind, and Bone Plating are situational based on the enemy champions you’ll be laning with. Take Conditioning for extra armor and magic resist if the matchup is easy, Second Wind’s health regen after taking damage for sustain against aggressive pokers, or Bone Plating’s flat damage reduction for insurance against burst damage. Alternatively, you could swap out the sustain runes for Revitalize, which further improves your shield and healing output.

For items, you’ll want the following:

• Spellthief’s Edge
• Ionian Boots of Lucidity
• Moonstone Renewer
• Chemtech Putrifier
• Watchful Wardstone

Spellthief's Edge is a good starting item to gain passive gold while laning with your ADC, which can be upgraded to Frostfang to give you more Stealth Wards. Next, upgrade your boots to the Ionian Boots of Lucidity to get bonus spell haste stats since Seraphine greatly benefits from spamming her spells.

For your core items, Moonstone Renewer enhances your sustaining output by a bonus of either 35% heals and 40% shields in groups or 60% healing and 70% shields to individual allies. Chemtech Purifier will help your team by increasing the healing that your targets take by 10%, ensuring that your heals will matter more. Watchful Wardstone allows you to store Control Wards, which can provide more map visibility to your team. Lastly, Shurelya’s Battlesong will grant movement speed on shielding or healing your allies, which boosts the hefty speed buff that your W skill already provides.

The overall goal for this Seraphine build is to give utility to the team, ensuring that they will win their fights easily and stay in the fight longer. This Seraphine build is a safety net for your team with her shields and a nuisance for your enemy laners by poking them with your CC skills.

Mid-Lane Seraphine

For the levelling process, maximize your Q skill first, as this will be your primary source of damage for the entire match. Next, max your E skill to help set up your empowered Q burst. Max your W skill last, as you won’t be spamming this skill as much except for emergencies when getting ambushed.

For runes, pick the Sorcery tree and the Inspiration tree. Like the Support rune build, take Summon Aery, Manaflow Band, Transcendence, and Scorch. In the Inspiration tree, the Biscuit Delivery rune will keep you topped up on mana, as her base mana in the laning phase will make her spells feel expensive. Cosmic Insight grants a small but permanent ability haste bonus at the start of the game and will strengthen your spamming capabilities later.

For your items, purchase the following:

• Sorcerer’s Shoes
• Liandry’s Anguish
• Seraph’s Embrace
• Rylai’s Crystal Scepter
• Zhonya’s Hourglass
• Morellonomicon

Sorceror’s Shoes provide magic penetration, which aids in bursting down tanks with plenty of MR. If you feel that you need more cooldown reduction, you may buy the Ionian Boots of Lucidity.

Liandry’s Anguish should be your first core item as not only does it provide you with the necessary AP, ability haste, and mana for this build, but it will also burn targets for extra damage and even scale your damage against higher health targets. Seraph’s Embrace will provide AP scaling based on your bonus mana, which enhances your burst potential. It also acts as an insurance policy by providing a shield when your health goes below 30%, which also serves as a shield source for your second ability’s healing.

Rylai’s Crystal Scepter adds a slow effect to your damage skills. This item can let you take full advantage of your Beat Drop ability by damaging a target with your first ability, using your empowered Beat Drop to root the target on the first hit and stun them on the second. Next, buy Zhonya’s Hourglass to make yourself untargetable if you're being ganked, and buy enough precious time for teammates to defend you. Buy the Morellonomicon last, as this will apply Grievous Wounds to a target on hit, countering the healing effects that enemy tanks may gain.

Despite this build focusing on burst AP damage, Seraphine still needs proper teamwork and coordination to be able to get good picks. With a good team, this Seraphine build will shine as her damage and CC capabilities will make her a suitable anchor for your team.