Apparently she can hear the souls of others, and Seraphine’s parents made her a device that dampened her magical hearing. Eventually she heard the voice of the device’s core, which had brackern (yes, Skarner’s kind) blood. The voice helped Seraphine to control her power, and to resonate with the voices people had in their souls. Eventually, Seraphine and her parents changed her device into one that amplified her gifts, and Seraphine continued to harness the power of song in order to hopefully unify the cities of Zaun and Piltover. Now let’s take a look at what Seraphine does in Summoner’s Rift.
Abilities
Stage Presence
Seraphine’s passive is called Stage Presence. It lets Seraphine’s basic abilities generate a stack of Echo, stacking up to two times. When she reaches two stacks, her next ability casts an additional time with no cost and a short delay. Another buff provided by Stage Presence is that each of Seraphine’s abilities grant a Note to her and all nearby allied champions. Notes last six seconds and each unit can only have four at a time. Seraphine’s attacks gain 25 bonus attack range per Note, and she fires all of them, dealing additional magic damage for each Note discharged.
High Note
Her Q, High Note, enables Seraphine to hurl a soundwave to the target location that expands into a circle upon impact, dealing magic damage to enemies in the area, increased against enemies with lower health values. This means that High Note would be a great wave clear tool for Seraphine.
Surround Sound
Her W, Surround Sound, grants Seraphine and her allies bonus movement speed upon activation. Everyone also receive shields for 2.5 seconds. This ability will heal Seraphine and all nearby allied champions based on missing health if Seraphine already had a shield at the time of cast.
Beat Drop
Beat Drop, her E, makes Seraphine fire a heavy soundwave in a line in the target direction, dealing magic damage to enemies struck, slowing them by 99% for a second. Take note that the magic damage dealt through this ability is reduced against minions. Enemies that are already slowed are rooted for the same duration, and enemies that are immobilized or grounded are stunned for the same duration.
Encore
Seraphine’s ultimate, Encore, makes her shoot a projectile that deals magic damage to enemies struck and charms them for a few seconds. They are also revealed and for the duration of the attack. Encore’s projectile resets its travel distance every time it strikes a champion. In addition, all allied champions struck gain four notes each.
Strategy
While there are similarities with Sona both in terms of her design and abilities, her play pattern is actually more or less similar to Neeko’s—one could have a pretty comfortable laning phase, where you could use her W for sustain and then her Q and E for clearing minion waves. Offensively Seraphine has a lot of options, where she could use an Echo of Beat Drop in order to immobilize an enemy, perhaps even through minions, drop a High Note, and then maybe weave Encore in between. This information is, of course, assuming Seraphine plays as a solo laner. As a support, she could always harass from a distance, heal up her carry if the need arises, and Seraphine can always use Beat Drop and/or Encore as an engage or disengage tool. In addition, Seraphine can always use her Notes to harass a lane opponent from afar, make sure to make proper use of her passive.
Runes
There are two good keystones for Seraphine: Glacial Augment and Summon Aery.
Glacial Augment
Glacial Augment enables Seraphine to set up for fights better and become more of a team fighter. With the essential items for Glacial Augment, she gets a good amount of ability power, which makes her decent in terms of clearing out the minion wave and going to help another teammate on the map. Perfect Timing and Biscuit Delivery give Seraphine better sustain in the early stages of the game, and the free stopwatch is always worth it. Cosmic Insight is always good for the maximum 45% cooldown reduction. If you’re taking Glacial Augment, Sorcery would always be a good secondary tree for Manaflow Band for the additional mana, and Transcendence for the bonus cooldown reduction at level 10. If you feel like the game is going to go longer, replace Transcendence with Gathering Storm.
Summon Aery
When playing Seraphine with Summon Aery, she gets all of Manaflow Band, Transcendence, and Gathering Storm. If she takes Inspiration as a second tree, she could get Biscuit Delivery and Cosmic Insight. She could also take Resolve as her Second Tree to have Revitalize (for the extra healing and shielding), and perhaps Font of Life (for even more healing) or Bone Plating (for the extra tankiness). The bigger tradeoff is the utility you get from Glacial Augment for a bit more damage and a bit more shielding power when you pick Summon Aery as your keystone rune.
Builds
The thing about builds for Seraphine is that they differ based on two things: whether she is in the mid lane or she is a support, and whether she has Glacial Augment or Summon Aery as her keystone rune. When she has Glacial Augment, Seraphine builds Hextech GLP-800 and Twin Shadows. And then she could go into a more ability power-heavy build: she could go next into Rylai’s and Liandry’s, or she could go straight into a Rabadon’s Deathcap. When Seraphine has Summon Aery, if she is in the mid lane, she builds Luden’s Echo or Archangel’s Staff first, then into other ability power items. If she is a support, after the support item, she should build Athene’s Unholy Grail and Ardent Censer, to make her healing and shielding even stronger.
Final Thoughts
Seraphine is a champion with a lot of utility and rather decent damage numbers. Especially with some items, she is very valuable and can make a decent contribution to her team’s success. Unfortunately, even with a lot of crowd control, shielding, and healing, Seraphine can still be easily burst down, especially once she is hit by crowd control. Teamfight positioning, especially in the mid to later stages of the game, is very important in order to provide shields, heals, and Notes to allies, and so that enemies would not be able to shut her down. Be sure to harness the power of song well so that you could attain victory by empowering your allies!
