Serath Build Guide

Table of Contents

1. TL;DR
2. Overview
   1. Strengths
   2. Weaknesses
3. Abilities Analysis
4. Deck Considerations
5. Deck Build #1
6. Gameplay
   1. Early Game
   2. Mid Game
   3. Late Game
   4. Tips and Tricks
7. Heroes Synergy

TL;DR on Serath

Serath is a melee carry that trades out the safety of being able to attack from range for increased damage and mobility. Serath hides an inner darkness, but has trained to balance her two natures, hoping to one day claim justice for her fallen comrades.

Focus on buying cards that increase your Power & Critical Strike Chance

“Ascend” will launch Serath into the sky, allowing her to come crashing down at target location dealing damage. This can be used to catch up to a fleeing enemy, to disengage fights, or to traverse terrain.

“Chastise” is a close range attack that slows enemies hit. This will allow you to stick to your target. But can also be used to slow an incoming threat.

“Heaven's Fury” will allow Serath to strike all enemies within the area of effect. It also makes you untargetable. Heaven’s fury will allow you to strike all your enemies, but consider saving it to dodge a key enemy ability.

And finally, your Ultimate is “Heresy”. Serath calls upon the darkness within and transforms, augmenting her abilities. Upon casting your ultimate, you will set nearby victims ablaze. Enemies on fire, will take damage over time and have their damage reduced. Using a basic attack on enemies burning, will ignite the fire, dealing additional damage.

While transformed, your abilities will ignite your foes, so stagger abilities and basic attacks to deal quick bursts of damage. Serath can dish out large amounts of damage on her enemies, but she must be within melee range to do so. To maximize your damage, skirt the edges of teamfights and deal damage safely. Your job is to deal damage, not chase down and kill the first enemy you see. Utilize your abilities to remain elusive in fights, mobility is the key to your success. Channel your inner darkness and find balance to overcome your enemies.

Lore of Serath

Coming soon.

Serath Overview

Serath's Strengths

1. Good burst damage
2. Versatile chase / disengage
3. Can become invulnerable with a low-cooldown ability.

Serath's Weaknesses

1. Squishy as all carries
2. High skill cap

Serath's Abilities Analysis

Angelic Smite

Melee basic attack dealing Basic Damage

The same damage is dealt when Heaven's Fury is activated.

Chastise

Alternate Ability. Serath sweeps her wings in front of her, dealing AOE Ability Damage and applying Slow for a short period of time.

Chastise is a cast with a short wind-up. It deals damage in a cone at a short distance. Good for keeping your enemies in melee range, preventing them from escape. In some situations can be used for peeling.

You can also do a frames skip tricks with it:

Heaven’s Fury

Primary Ability. Serath hovers in place and hits enemies in a targeted area with a ghostly slash. Each slash deals Ability Damage and is applied one target at a time, with a delay between each attack. While attacking, she is immune to damage and crowd control.

NOTE: target is anything you can deal damage to. Including Towers, Inhibitors. Even enemy Amber Link.

Very versatile and interesting ability.

1. First of all it gives you immunity. However it does not drop aggro from towers or minions, you just ignore any incoming damage or CC.
2. Secondly immunity duration depends on the amount of enemies in the area you target. I.e. if you target an area with 5 enemy minions and 3 enemy heroes you will be immune for 1.6 seconds.
3. It can crit. It can LifeSteal. Basically it is a "ranged melee" attack.
4. When maxed out you can spam it every 6 seconds.

Ultimate survivability. With this ability you can not only deal damage (melee damage from the distance!!) but also heal yourself with Lifesteal. What is more can save you from incoming damage. E.g. you can completely deny a Sticky Mine from Gadget ticking right on top of your head, ignore G.T.F.O from GRIM.exe or Curse from Morigesh. More over Heaven’s Fury will drop the tick count for your enemy's Phase Energy Lance.

Heaven’s Fury can deny damage even if no enemy is nearby

Even though the ability duration depend on the amount of "enemies in targeted location" it will still work with no enemy around. Keep that in mind since it can save your life like in the video below:

Ascend

Secondary Ability. Serath rises into the air and targets an area away. Upon confirmation, Serath dives down and deals Ability Damage to the targeted area.

Engage and disengage tool. Looks a kind of similar to Howitzer's Ultimate Make It Rain when you first raise up in the air and then able to aim and activate the ability to land and deal damage. If you don't do that Serath will just get down not dealing any damage.

Ascend can be used from the air. During your jump, when falling from a ledge or after a knockup caused let's say by Howitzer's Land Mine.

The raise itself can already save your life especially against melee enemies and in addition to that it gives you some time to decide where to move to. Either back into the fight or to a ledge unreachable for opponents at this moment. If any enemy is still chasing you do not forget to follow up Ascend with your Chastise upon landing to slow them down and get away.

REMEMBER: Ascend is not going to protect you from abilities dealing damage in cylinder area, like again Howitzer's Make It Rain.

In some cases Ascend can be used similarly to Rampage's Rumble when you instantly land at the same place where you started. This may be required to deal some additional burst of damage but be prepared that you will have to move your vision whole 90 degrees down in advance.

As always for similar movement abilities like Ascend it ignores any slow or pull in effects like from Gideon's Black Hole.

Heresy

Ultimate Ability. Serath lets her dark side take over for the ultimate dutation. At that time, one stack of Burn and one stack of Weakness is applied to enemies around her. A Burn stack does Ability Damage over 3 seconds. Weakness will cause Enemy Damage to be lower than normal for 3 seconds.

Any enemies she hits with another ability during the entire ability Duration will also apply a stack of Burn and Weakness to them. Burning enemies take additional Basic Damage if Serath hits them with a Basic Attack while this ability is active.

Serath's Deck Considerations

Core Cards for Serath

Serath Deck Build #1

Explore Deck

Gameplay with Serath

Early Game

As any carry your main goal early on is to maximize your Card Power as quickly as possible. Your default position is the Safe Lane with a support Hero where you should land killing blows on enemy minions and safely push towards the tier 1 enemy Tower. Prioritize your Ascend and Chastise as the first options to upgrade to get and escape and chase prevention abilities as soon as possible.

Be extremely careful standing against heroes with Crowd Control (Stun or Root) like Kwang or Sevarog. Their Judgement of the Heavens or Subjugate respectively will render you helpless and unprotected to a focused damage burst.

Mid Game

You may consider rotations to the Mid Lane or even to the Jungle if it won't hurt your jungler however still your main goal is to maximize your CP. Do not chase and enemy alone and do not initiate a fight unless you have strong map control and absolutely sure your opponents has their Stuns on cooldown. Of course Heaven's Fury can help you deny Crowd Control but it is not that reliable especially against skilled enemy.

When possible try to save your Ascend for a quick disengage. Remember Serath is squishy and can be focused down very quickly.

Late Game

Late game is the game of patience. You should always be around your initiator and be ready to do your job - dish out a ton of damage. Remember you don't have to go all-in every single time an opponent is stunned. 

Tips and Tricks with Serath

• Playing against Dekker it is a must to have your Ascend ready to go. As soon as you find yourself in a Containment Fence run to the wall and ascend away.
• Traveling through areas without enough map control (lack of wards or whatever) always keep an eye on terrain. Have a ledge or another obstacle nearby so that in case of an unexpected contact with enemy you could Ascend away in a blink of a eye.

Heroes Synergy (Coming soon)

Serath and Dekker

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Serath and Steel

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Serath Updates

v38.5 (Mar-28 2017)

Heresy

• Reduced duration (18s → 15s).

Health per level reduced (76.8 → 71.1).

Attack speed per level reduced (2.2→ 1.4).

v38.3 (Mar-13 2017)

Angelic Smite

• Base damage increased (55 → 58).
• Base damage gain per level increased (1.6 → 1.8).

Attack speed gain per level increased (0 → 2.2).

Base health increased (475 → 522.5).

Health gain per level increased to (64 → 76.8).

Basic armor gain per level increased (2 → 2.5).