SERQET Guide - by dignitas/Lassiz

INTRODUCTION

Serqet is a very mobile assassin with her 1 and 3 abilities (her dash and her jump). She has fantastic gank potential thanks to her ranged taunt/CC as well as top tier escape and pursuit capabilities.

BUILD

Starting items

Bumba's Mask	Boots	Hand of the Gods	Healing Potion	Mana Potion
These are my starting items. Other junglers could go into Hand of the Gods Tier 2 instead of Boots, though I prefer this start since you are closer to getting your Tier 3 Boots. Also, you get more mobility which is very important as a jungler. Rotations are key and with this you are better equipped to force an unfair fight.

Full build

Warrior Tabi	Jotunn's Wrath	Deathbringer	Malice	Titan's Bane	Magi's Blessing
First up, I rush Warrior Tabi for the physical penetration and movement speed of course. This is followed immediately by Jotunn's Wrath for the cooldown reduction as well as the mana and flat physical penetration. Next I try and rush Deathbringer for the crit damage and increased crit chance. I do this because not just Serqet's auto attacks can proc crits but also her 1 ability. Afterwards I go Malice instead of Rage or anything like that. This is because Rage doesn't build stacks when you dash through people with your 1, only your auto attacks do. It can execute the stacks, that's about it while Malice can proc on the 1 and give you more bonus damage over time if you crit them. My last two items are Titan's Bane and Magi's Blessing. I'll go Titan's Bane first if I need the percentage increase on physical penetration and Magi's when I feel like I need the CC immunity.  This is my usual build. If anything, I maybe replace Malice with a Witch Blade for the movement speed and extra physical defence. I don't really do anything differently in ranked games compared to competitive, as you generally want to practice how you are going to play in tournaments.

ACTIVES

			OR
Fist of the Gods		Greater Purification		Greater Aegis

As a jungler I naturally always start with Hand of the Gods, which I build into Fist of the Gods. I don't really prioritize rushing Fist of the Gods but you can in some situations. You could rush it if, let's say, there's a Thor or Nemesis on the enemy team as you can HoG stun the Nemesis shield or the Thor spin. Usually, though, I'll look to finish it anywhere from mid to late game.

My second active item is either Greater Purification Beads or Greater Aegis. If they have a lot of burst, like a NuWa or Thantos or even something silly like an Ymir, Aegis is a good buy as you can immune all the damage from their channelled ultimates which you can see coming and prepare for. I get Beads when I feel the cleanse as well as the cooldown reduction from Tier 3 are more important. I probably get Beads Tier 3 before I finish my third item, sometimes I get it even earlier, depending on the team comp.

ABILITIES

When levelling my abilities, I always prioritize my ultimate due to its true damage. Next up you should max your 1 as it does the most damage, can crit and hits three times. My following priorities are the 2 and finally 3.

(1) Deathbane: Many players use this ability primarily for damage and forget what a good escape mechanic it is.

(2) Cobra's Kiss: This ability is great because if you hit two seperate gods, it'll make them attack each other and stack them up. This ability is REALLY good by the way. Sometimes when you land it on both, you can use your 1 and pretty much get six total hits out of it, 3 on each. Now they're both totally chunked and if you can get a good ult off and spread the poison, you're almost guaranteed a double kill. Using your 2 on two gods followed up by your 1 just guarantees so much poke. Definitely try and practice getting two seperate targets instead of just one with your 2. You have to be very quick with your mouse, but it's very much worth your practice time.

(3) Ambush: This puts you in stealth, so if you're patient enough, you can wait at the speed buff or any gap or intersection where people might cross. Without vision they won't expect you which can net you an easy kill. A good thing to do as a junger, but especially as Serqet, is to buy counterwards. Especially if you want to gank effectively. Counterward an area, clear any wards and go stealth at a crossroads. You can pretty much pick any gankable spot: somewhere around the middle is usually good, around the harpies or near an enemy buff that you know the enemy jungler is going to be doing soon. The jump portion travels further than the average leap, which makes it a good mechanic for escaping or closing the gap on your target.

PLAYSTYLE

Early Game

In the early game you don't neccessarily look for kills, instead you should be looking for poke. That way you can secure objectives, either your own or invade theirs. Getting early poke as Serqet is easy: using her 3 as a gap closer, you can jump in on somebody, use your 2 as a quick taunt, 1 them and auto attack to proc your passive. This will already chunk a big portion of their HP. If you can get a kill, great, but the majority of the time you're just looking for poke. 

You always start on the solo lane side, whether it's red or speed side. You start mid harpies with your mid and solo laners. This is unless your solo has a HOG: then you can start at your red buff. When you do it, you wait for your solo to get nearby, so he can leech XP with you and hit level 2. That way you can both quick and effectively clear blue buff. Then you go to lane with them. Some junglers stay for more than one wave. However, especially if you start on the red buff side, as a jungler you want to tag the first wave and clear it as soon as possible and then you rotate towards middle and start farming and get lane control as fast as possible. That way you can secure your speed buff since the enemy jungler will usually try invade it. This is due to their ability to push waves and rotate faster as they have their speed buff. From then on, all the way to level 5, you'll be doing red with your mid laner if you haven't yet, both back harpies and make sure he goes back and forth between the waves. You'll also be doing your speed buff with them. You'll both be hitting level 5 at around the same time, so you can either look for a fight or back to fountain before mid harpies spawn. Back in base you can get Tier 2 Boots, two more potions if needed or a ward, and then look for a fight at the mid harpies if you have a good team comp.

Mid/Late Game

Since Serqet's mobility is pretty insane. Even though she doesn't have a global ultimate like Thor for example, you can use her 3 and 1 to get around the map very quickly. What you should be doing, besides keeping your jungle camps down of course, is keep looking at other lanes to see if the enemies there use any sort of escapes or dashes offensively. If you see that, you can rotate almost immediately. By this time you'll also have Jotunn's Wrath, so your cooldowns come up quicker. You can close the gap on an enemy target and get a gank off. Whether you can get the kill or not, you can almost secure an objective off of that afterwards. For the duration of the mid and late game you'll be focussed on objectives and waiting for people to make mistakes and get caught.

Team Fights

In team fights you usually want to focus the squishy targets, meaning the mages, assassins or ranged carries. If you just land a good 2 into 1 combo, poke and ult them, they are almost immediately going to die. Serqet's ultimate deals true damage, meaning it can't be negated in any way which is a massive help on top of its healing reduction by 100%. After you try to take down the squishies, which you can drop quite quickly due to her insane damage, you can dive the backline and probably even get out most of the time, too, due to her being very mobile with her 1 and 3 abilities. Contrary to popular belief, it's not the main objective to spread the poison, it's just a nice little extra. Your main goal as Serqet or any assassin is to take out their damage dealers and carries and focus on their backline. Spreading the poison is actually more difficult than people think, as your enemies will not always be clumped up.

CLOSING THOUGHTS

Going forward, if anything Serqet is probably going to receive a nerf, only because her 1 can pump out so much damage in a short amount of time. She is also very hard to kill as she is so slippery. They might tone down the damage on her 1 or make it not crit, we'll see. Serqet is probably my favorite god due to how mobile she is and what a tricky style of play you can have with her.