How to play K'Sante top lane and jungle in League of Legends
K’Sante is the latest champion to join League of Legends, here’s how to play K’sante in top lane and jungle.
K’Sante is a juggernaut with unprecedented displacement, a pair of unique Ntofos, and the ability to trade durability for damage and take the fight to his opponents. From abilities to items to runes, here’s the best way to play K’Sante in top lane and jungle.
K’Sante abilities
K’Sante has a rare type of kit in League of Legends, a transformation kit that changes a champion’s abilities as they swap forms. K’Sante’s transformation comes with his ultimate All Out, which changes what all of his abilities do. Here’s the full breakdown of exactly what all of K’Sante’s abilities do.
Dauntless Instinct – Passive
K’Sante’s damaging abilities and auto-attacks mark opponents temporarily. Auto-attacking a marked opponent will deal damage and bonus physical damage equal to a percentage of their maximum health. When K’Sante is All Out, the maximum health damage becomes true damage rather than physical.
Ntofo Strikes – Q
K’Sante slams the ground in front of him in a linear, rectangular area. Enemies hit are briefly slowed and K’Sante gains a stack of Ntofo Strikes for a short duration. If K’Sante has two stacks of Ntofo Strikes, his next cast will pull enemies in the area toward him instead. This ability is K’Sante’s bread and butter and will be the first ability he maxes out in jungle or top lane.
When K’Sante is All Out, Ntofo Strikes’ cooldown is reduced but targets hit are not slowed.
Path Maker – W
When K’Sante begins charging Path Maker, he raises his Ntofo as a shield in front of himself, becomes unstoppable, and percentile damage reduction.
When K’Sante releases Path Maker, he dashes forwards and deals a percentage of struck enemies’ max health. He also knocks back and stuns any enemy champions he collides with, with the crowd control lasting longer the longer that K’Sante charged the ability.
When K’Sante goes All Out, the cooldown on Path Maker is refreshed, and K’Sante gains increased damage reduction. Path Maker also deals additional physical damage based on how long K’Sante charged it, and the dash and charge speed are doubled.
Footwork – E
K’Sante dashes and gains a shield. If K’Sante dashes through an ally, he goes further and his ally is also shielded. K’Sante can cast other abilities while dashing with Footwork.
When K’Sante is All Out, the dash speed is increased, while dashing to a location has further range and can cross walls.
All Out – R
K’Sante’s ultimate is All Out. When K’Sante casts all out, he knocks back a target opponent and unleashes the blades within his Ntofos. K’Sante immediately loses 40% of his maximum health, which persists while he is All Out.
If the opponent being knocked back strikes a wall, they are thrown all the way over the wall in the direction that K’Sante threw them and briefly stunned when they land. K’Sante then dashes after them, arriving on top of the enemy.
K’Sante is then All Out for a long duration, empowering his abilities in the ways described above. Once K’Sante is no longer All Out, his ultimate goes on cooldown and his abilities revert to normal.
K’Sante playstyle
K’Sante is a prototypical tank right up until he casts his ultimate, and he’ll likely be built as such, with an eye on the moments when he’ll need to bring the damage to squishy carries. K’Sante’s ultimate costs so much of his maximum health that it’s best-done part way through a fight once all, or most, of that maximum health is already lost.
K’Sante wants to initiate a fight, take substantial damage, and then abandon his tanking focus to kill exposed threats. K’Sante will lose value if he immediately tries to be a damage threat in a fight like typical juggernauts, so being patient with his ultimate will be a key focus of succeeding on this champion. At the same time, K’Sante’s other abilities offer him enough peel and displacement to manage as a tank until he’s already low health enough that All Out’s health cost doesn’t matter.
K’Sante jungle
K’Sante may have been built for top lane, but it seems pretty clear that he’ll have the capability to jungle if he wants. Ntofo Strikes’ max health damage, a dash with a shield, and damage reduction all work well on junglers.
K’Sante can set up ganks well with damage-heavy laners who can profit from his constant slows. The third cast of Ntofo Strikes can also make for a truly oppressive gank, pulling opponents all the way back from the safety of their tower and into K’Sante and his allies’ waiting arms.
For runes, jungle K’Sante is more likely to play runes like Conqueror and Phase Rush, which offer more value from infrequent skirmishing. K’Sante has the option to take Aftershock, but leaning into his moments of all-out damage seems to be the most likely route for runes in the jungle.
K’Sante top lane
K’Sante in the top lane is a pretty straight forwards tank. He’ll likely be taking Grasp of the Undying in almost every scenario since a rune that rewards constant trading with healing and maximum health is exactly what a tank like K’Sante wants.
K’Sante should be able to bully other tanks, but likely struggles against the most offensive juggernauts and divers like Fiora and Riven. Top lane K’Sante likely looks to build more toward full tank than when in the jungle. The new tank item Goliath’s Ascendancy seems practically bespoke for K’Sante, rewarding him for tanking in an early fight with a burst of damage once he goes all out.
Overall, K’Sante looks to be a welcome addition to the roster of tanks in League of Legends, offering his own spin on the classic damage-soaking role. And, that’s all you need to know about how to play K’Sante.
Nicholas James is a gaming writer with a passion for all things geekdom, as well as live theater. Nicholas is best known for covering League of Legends and other top MOBA titles, but his expertise covers numerous games across multiple genres. When not watching the LCS or playing the latest new release, Nicholas can be found doing some tabletop gaming and painting his favorite miniatures. Nicholas has also published with Hotspawn, TheGamer, Dexerto, Esports.gg and other industry outlets.
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