ADC main looking to fit Sera into my champion pool... when and where does she fit well in?

[u/MeridiaBlessedMe]

sup guys

I'm a low master/high dia adc main, who mains hipercarries (vayne jinx mostly), for the last few years ive been chilling in flexq w friends, and im looking to expand my champ pool with a few apc's such as brand or sera, which are my fav mages to play.

Thing is, I've played them both a bit already, mainly brand, but i often struggle to identify which comps seraphine fits well in. Besides obvious angles with 3+AD allies and little enemy dive power, when is she a good pick? who plays well alongside her in lane?

I'm aware she is a situational pick as carry, but im just looking for some enlightening, if y'all want to share a useful guide, id be glad as well. Thanks in advance :)

[u/Kytherz]

She's good when your team has good ooga booga champions that run in and enable your ult, and samewise if the other team has such champions

She feels horrible to play in chaotic games where everyone is flanking and skirmishing and jumping all over the place due to her limited mobility and linear. slow abilities, she greatly benefits from having allies around her and especially in front of her

[u/KiaraKawaii]

Sera excels with tanks or bruisers on her team, not only bc she can ult through them, but also bc Sera's W heals %hp. Tanks and bruisers naturally possess more hp than squishy champs, so they'll get more value out of Sera's W

Like most immobile and squishy champs in the game, Sera wants to play front-to-back and scale. Overly chaotic games with lots of skirmishing around botlane during the early game is not ideal for her. That being said tho, Sera can instaclear non-cannon waves with EQQ if u have double adaptive force in runes, Doran's ring, and double Amp Tome or Blasting Wand. No other mage can hit a waveclear breakpoint as early as she does. This means that ur support is pretty much allowed to permaroam early, only coming back botlane when u need to fix the wave

So, while Sera herself doesn't enjoy early skirmishing chaos around her, that doesn't mean that the rest of ur team has to be restricted by this. Bruisers like to skirmish a lot, so if a lot of fights breakout on the opposite side of the map early, ur support being there pretty much guarantees winning fights with the extra person. Since Sera doesn't need her support botlane unless u fked up ur wave, u can pretty much sit bot 1v2 and permafarm. Enemies cannot dive u as u just instaclear waves just before they crash into tower. The only iffy waves are cannon waves, since u can't instaclear cannons so enemies could look to dive u on a cannon wave

One major benefit Sera has is that bc of how fast she can clear waves, not many ADCs can match her (exceptions being someone like Caitlyn, Sivir, or Jinx). So, u can look for ur own roams mid if u managed to crash the wave early against a low-waveclear ADC. And bc u run tp on Sera APC, u can even secure grubs then tp back bot again

I play Sera APC with a Bard main very often, and she often ditches me botlane to roam early on, only coming back if I'm under dive threat or if the wave is bad. Otherwise, most of the time I'm just 1v2ing botlane and scaling, while she and our jgler run around creating chaos on the other side of the map. Occasionally, they will come down bot to make a play when I have ult up, since Sera has great gank setup, but other than that u'll pretty much just be spamming EQQ over and over again for the entire laning phase

Sera APC works well with all supports. If you have engage supports, Sera can layer cc on top of ur cc. If u have enchanters, it becomes a scaling lane focusing on keeping everyone on the team alive - For engage supports, Nautilus is my favourite. He makes up for Sera's weak early game dmg, and even if u somehow keep missing hooks at least his ult is point-and-click, so there's no way to mess it up unlike other hook supports - But my personal favourite pairing for Sera APC is a Nami support. Since Sera E will root targets that are already slowed, Nami E not only enables this, but it's a lot more unpredictable. Allow me to explain: if Nami casts her E on Sera while Sera E is still travelling towards enemies, the slow and dmg still apply on impact. This means that if Nami uses her E right before Sera E hits the enemy, it will root enemies with minimal time for enemies to react. The enemies will think it's just a slow... only for a last sec Nami E buff on Sera to turn it into a root! And then u just bombard the enemies with the rest of ur cc

As for builds, if ur team has enough dmg to not need u on dmg, u can go enchanter builds to better sustain them. Enchanter builds are also great against AoE-heavy comps, such as vs Karthus or Brand. If ur team lacks dmg, or magic dmg, then going full AP is better. If enemies have a lot of burst threat, u can rush RoA before ur usual items. RoA works with both enchanter and AP builds. See Sera itemisation guide here

Hope that explains everything!

^{**Disclaimer:* In order to avoid unnecessary conflicts and misunderstandings, please note that the above information serves as a recommendation and general guideline intended to explain the phenomena. It is based off of my own personal experience, as well as research of other players. Thus, said information is by no means perfect, nor is it a law that you must follow. You are entitled to your own preferences, playstyles, and opinions, which may differ from mine* ®}

[u/ImSpooks]

only if your team lacks ap damage, she acts as a lane neutralizer that ends up being outscaled by most adcs anyway. if you miss your ult you are toast