Pure Power: A Quick Guide for Syndra by BloodWalk

Pesky Leblanc giving you trouble? Enemy jungle ganks getting on your nerves? Then why not try Syndra, and for one easy payment of only 6300 ip or 975 Rp who could go wrong? Some might say that her high skill cap and lack of serious consideration in current meta might mean that Syndra is a risky purchase, but after trying out your new Syndra for the first time, you'll come to realise the "unmatched power" she likes to talk about often.

Hey guys, this is a beginner guide (I know, the start was immensely cheesy right?) on how to play Syndra, the Dark Sovereign.

You'd be lying to me if you said Syndra was a popular champion, at least on some of the lower population servers, I moved to OCE when the server first came out have probably seen maybe two other Syndra players other than myself. To be honest she does have a moderate to high skill cap and she does require some significant amount of play to perfect, but once you can play her she is probably one of the coolest and mechanically fun champions in game.

So, here are some do's and don'ts of Syndra:

Do:
- Try and get all 7 dark spheres out at once, this ensures you have the most damage you can.
- Max q early to keep the enemy midlaner off minions.
- Bully your lane as much as you can.
- Keep scatter the weak up if you think you are overextending, and use it if their jungler ganks.
- Ask for a lot of ganks, This goes for most midlaners, but ganks go great with the hard cc Syndra brings.
- Try and fight as much as you can around the jungle. Unleashed power followed by scatter the weak can stun an entire team in such close quarters.

Don'ts:
- Position yourself around a dark sphere, always use force of will to reposition it before using scatter the weak, it makes you less predictable.
- Try not to spam abilities early on, stick to harassing with dark spheres until level 4 or you'll run out of mana very fast.
- Pick Syndra just because she "counters" someone, this goes for everyone...

 

Abilities, tips and tricks:

Not going to go crazy with stats, but I am going to go kind of in depth with playstyle/strategies for using Syndra's abilities (Cooldowns, Ap/Ad Scaling Ratios etc) but what I will do is give you a brief overview of what each skill does, and when to use them.

So where do I start?

Syndra's passive "Transcendent" just gives every one of her abilities an extra effect at max level, I'll explain what each one does in each abilities' respective analysis.

 

Starting with the most important ability, her Q, "Dark Sphere". This is the foundation for setting up any combo and her primary damage dealer pre level 6. Her passive makes Dark Sphere deal increased damage to champions at max rank. Basically you need to Q to do anything decent. Take it at level 1, always.......

 

Next up is "Force of Will" Her W. This ability lets you pick up and throw ANY enemy minions, neutral creeps and dark spheres, when I say any, I mean any.....Tibbers, Heimerdinger Turrets, Yorick Ghosts, basically anything with a hp bar. Throwing a blue or red buff gives a minor extra effect on hit, blue buff gives 10 mana and takes 1 second off the cooldown of "Force of Will" and throwing red buff applies the red buff debuff on the enemy hit. Her W causes a slow to all enemies hit, and her passive makes the slow longer at max rank, simply said. Use it to secure creeps/buffs and to reposition your Q.

 

The last of her basic abilities is her E, "Scatter the Weak". Her E is a knock back that pushes champions+ anything you can pick up, basically, in a small cone back a short distance. If a dark sphere collides with an enemy it stuns them for a short time. The dark spheres pushed back do not stop when they hit an enemy so you can theoretically stun an entire team with a single Q>E combo, but it's rare that their whole team will just stand in a line for you. It gets a 50% width increase at max rank so it's a lot easier to push more people back.

 

Finally her ultimate ability, "Unleashed Power". Her ult is one of the biggest base damage nukes in game, but you wouldn't know it if you aren't doing it right. Syndra has 3 dark spheres floating around her, it might sound dumb but these ensure you have at least 3 spheres out for the least base damage possible. In saying that, every dark sphere that you spawn adds at least 180 damage to her ult, up to a maximum of 7 spheres possible, for a total of around 1200~ base damage. I'll tell you how to get 7 out in the tips/tricks section.

 

Tips/Tricks:

-You should use Q to push lanes, it gives you really good wave clear when coupled with your W.

- Pre level 6, try to harass with your Q, then chain it with a stun, repeat this and bully your opposing midlaner until you can lock them down and ult them at level 6.

- As mentioned before, you can pick up almost anything, nothing is more satisfying than killing Annie with Tibbers or throwing an enhanced Hiemerdinger turret far away from your team.

- Save your E for after you ult, if you've done it right you should be able to send 7 dark spheres into the enemy team, almost guaranteed to hit someone.

Now, the magical 7 step 7 ball combo:
1st: Q, simple right?
2nd: As soon as it spawns pick it up with your W
3rd: Q again, keep holding onto that first Q though
4th: Q again, super hard right?
5th: Throw the first Q, preferably towards an enemy
6th: Q one last time, if there aren't 4 you haven't done it right, repeat step 1...
7th: You have around 1 second to ult so act quick, Find the adc/midlaner and press R as soon as the last Q spawns, win.

So there you have it, a super simple guide for one of my favourite champions. Hopefully I see more of you guys playing her, she is really fun so give her a shot and you won't regret it, I promise.

Thanks for reading, GLHF people,
Bloodwalk