SETT ABILITIES
Sett has a simple kit, but is one of the most versatile champions in League of Legends. His main traits — crowd control, tank shredding, and a shield — lend themselves to a variety of roles in the game. Learning how to chain them together in the correct order for each situation is key to playing Sett well.
Passive – Pit Grit
Sett’s basic attacks alternate between left and right punch. Right punch is slightly stronger and faster. Sett also hates losing, gaining additional health regeneration based on his missing health.
Q – Knuckle Down
Sett’s next two attacks deal additional damage based on the target’s max health. Sett also gains movement speed while moving towards enemy champions.
W – Haymaker
Sett passively stores damage he takes as Grit. On cast, Sett expends all stored Grit to gain a shield and punch an area, dealing true damage in the center and physical damage on the sides.
E – Facebreaker
Sett pulls in all enemies on opposite sides of him, dealing damage and stunning them. If enemies were only on one side, they are slowed instead of stunned.
R – The Show Stopper
Sett carries an enemy champion through the air and slams them into the ground, dealing damage and slowing all enemies near where they land.
SETT LANING TIPS
Sett is able to be used in three different laning roles: top, mid, or support. The general gameplay patterns are the same in each role, but the skill order is different in support. Instead of maxing Knuckle Down first, he should instead max Haymaker. Sett doesn’t get many autos off in a duo lane and benefits from the lowered cooldown on his shield.
Sett is manaless, so he can spam his Knuckle Down as often as he can. The trick to his laning is knowing when to use the longer cooldown spells in Haymaker and Facebreaker. While you generally want to open with Facebreaker to try to stun the enemy, Facebreaker should often be saved for the end of the trade. That’s because the more damage he takes, the more Grit he stores for his shield.
For maximum damage, however, it may be worth it to throw Haymaker if you land a Facebreaker stun. Hitting an enemy in the center of Haymaker deals true damage, and that’s obviously easier to do if the enemy is stunned or slowed.
The Show Stopper is a fun ability to showcase your playmaking on Sett. While it’s obviously useful offensively to support a gank, it’s a great defensive tool as well. If an enemy jungler attempts to flank you, you can use your ult on them to move yourself closer to your turret and away from your enemy laner. The threat of that also changes how enemies have to gank you. Be more careful of lane ganks when playing Sett.
SETT JUNGLING TIPS
While Sett is now more often played in a lane, Sett jungle has been and is still viable. That is in big part due to how his kit synergizes in the jungle. Sett is manaless, so he can spam his abilities, even if there are long cooldowns on Haymaker and Facebreaker. Using Knuckle Down on cooldown helps proc Pit Grit even more often, helping him do well in terms of single target damage. For that reason, his pathing should prioritize single jungle mobs like Gromp and scuttle crabs.
Sett has no gap closers besides his ultimate, so his early ganking is weak. He relies on setup from his ally laners or capitalizing on mispositioning from the enemy. Considering that he doesn’t power farm particularly well either, Sett junglers need to read the map well. Challenging for early scuttle crabs can be the difference between keeping pace or falling behind the enemy jungler.
Once you hit level six, Sett becomes a capable ganker. Using Knuckle Down when entering lane helps Sett catch up to his enemies. When there, it’s helpful to use Facebreaker with the minion wave to set up a stun. If the stun lands, Sett can walk around the enemy and use The Show Stopper to force the enemy away from their own turret. If you know the enemy doesn’t have flash, you can also approach the gank from behind and attempt to lead with The Show Stopper.
Sett isn’t exactly a speedy taker of the neutral objectives like dragons, Rift Herald, or Baron. However, his grit passive allows him to stay healthy while whittling them down.
SETT TEAMFIGHT TIPS
Sett generally wants to do the same things in teamfights, no matter the role: crowd control priority targets and soak damage. However, how he approaches fights will be different based on how he has built and how many items he has.
For example, Sett support often isn’t tanky enough to charge into the middle of a fight and get his ultimate off. Instead, he should be looking for flank angles behind the enemy team so he can find a priority target before being burned down. This is also true for a heavy offensive build Sett (i.e. if you rushed Blade of the Ruined King). While you might wait a little bit longer to go in than a support Sett, you still want to be very focused on doing your best to single out priority targets.
However, you can play differently as a tanky Sett. With the speed boost from Knuckle Down, he can charge into an enemy team and choose to use The Show Stopper on a tanky target. Why? The Show Stopper deals damage based on the primary target’s bonus health. If you can ult a tank and crash them into the rest of the enemy team, you can deal massive damage without any damage items of your own. You then also have a great setup to use Facebreaker and Haymaker across the entire enemy team, often ending in spectacular wombo-combos.
The important thing to remember is to always save your Haymaker until the last possible moment. Like Tahm Kench’s grey health, it can bait an enemy team into overextending to try to finish you off.
ITEM BUILD TIPS
As previously mentioned, there are two main Sett builds: tanky and damage. There are also situations where you would mix the two, starting with an attack speed item before turning to tank items. However, let’s go over the two builds that are focused on a specific niche.
When going the tank route, Sett likes to use Turbo Chemtank as his mythic item. The 75% move speed on the active allows him to get in range to use his Facebreaker and The Show Stopper. For the same reason, Dead Man’s Plate is another great tank item on him. Thornmail is another good armor item, useful against teams with a lot of healing in their kits. For a magic resist item, Force of Nature is the top priority for it’s movespeed. Notice a pattern? Boots can be any of Ninja Tabi, Mercury’s Treads, or Boots of Swiftness.
On the flip side, Sett likes attack speed for tank busting in his damage build. Because of this, Blade of the Ruined King is often his first buy. After that, he can get his mythic item – Stridebreaker. Stridebreaker hits all of his wants with attack damage, attack speed, health, ability haste, and extra move speed. From there, Sett will want to build Sterak’s Gage for extra damage and survivability. He can close out his build with Titanic Hydra, his choice of tanky boots, and either Guardian Angel or another tank item.
SETT RUNE TIPS
Like with the item builds, there are two different rune sets depending on the type of build you choose. For the tankier build, Phase Rush is the preferred keystone. With the tankiness of the build, you should be able to get in, proc the buff, and either continue fighting or back away. Going down the rest of the tree, Nimbus Cloak, Celerity, and Waterwalking all synergize with Sett’s kit.
For the damage heavy build, Conqueror is the preferred keystone. It synergizes so well with attack speed. Going down the Precision tree, Triumph, Legend: Tenacity, and Last Stand offer Sett the best combination of stats.
In both builds, Sett should go Resolve tree secondary. Against champions trying to burst Sett in lane, he should use Bone Plating. But against champions trying to outsustain Sett, he should pick up Second Wind. After that, Overgrowth helps by giving Sett extra maximum health.
In the offense tree, attack speed is the preferred choice. Likewise, the flex spot is almost always adaptive force. The real choice is in the defense tree. The decision between armor and magic resist comes down to predicting your lane opponent. When in doubt, armor is almost always useful to help mitigate auto attacks.
