When to Pick Selena
Essentially, you may pick Selena in almost every game. You can never go wrong with her. But if you’re playing her as Roam, you’ll need a tanky hero be it your Jungle or XP Laner. Without a tank, your game would be hard as there is no use to soak up damage for the team or engage the enemy.
Role: Roaming
The main role you should be playing as Selena is Roam in the current meta as of May 2022. Although some preferred to play her as Mage, playing her as Roam brings much more impact to the game. As someone who has been playing Selena as Jungles and Mage since 2018, I believed that playing Selena as a Roaming role is much better. Especially with Dire Hit, which we will come back later to explain why.
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Selena’s short cooldown, together with her ability to refresh her skills with her S3, Primal Darkness, makes her a very scary opponent to face. Her long-range skills could take enemy sidelanes by surprise. If your stun manages to hit them, it is almost a guaranteed kill, giving your team’s sidelanes room to breathe and have the upper hand in both gold and xp. Her S3 also provides a movement boost from 30% to 45%, although it only last for 0.8s, it’s still very useful because of the short cooldown making it spammable. Do note this movement speed boost also helps her roam and rotate faster.
Role: Dire Hit – Roam Blessing
This item is what makes Selena a monster as a Roamer. Selena’s burst can drop almost any enemy’s hp below 35% almost instantly. Together with the Dire Hit, it’ll be an instant delete. Although you are playing her as Roam, she can be a very terrifying assassin. Her burst will be strong enough to remove enemy’s jungle. Although it’ll be a trade with you dying afterward, but killing the enemy jungle also removes his/her Retribution + main damage output, giving your team a tremendous upper hand. With no Retribution on the enemy team, your team can safely secure turtle/lord easily. In some cases, you only manage to land a stun on the enemy jungle but are not able to jump in to finish the job. But fret not, you can always try again, and every time u hit your stun, it does not only deal damage to them but also mental damage.
Role: Scouting
As you all know, Selena’s trap can provide vision. A lot of people look down on this fact but vision is info. It not only gives you info but also your teammates. Never look down on info. It can help you and your team escape death and catch kills. Unlike tanks, who need to enter bushes to clear and scout the area. Selena’s S1 or trap is a long-range skill, giving you just enough space to scout/clear bushes and areas. So, make sure to use her trap to open bushes and clear areas when invading. You could also put traps to scout areas where enemies would go through when taking lord/turtle
Here are my favorite places to place traps when taking either turtle or lord. It gives me the exact info I need as you can see enemies traveling when they plan to invade or steal. Because you can only place 3 traps, yellow signifies priorities.
Not everyone knows this but not only does her trap provide vision but also her stun/arrow. Because of its longer range, you can also use this to scout areas and bushes from afar with the comfort of not being engaged. If your stun does hit an enemy, it provides 3 seconds of vision on the enemy. BUT do note that it only provides vision on the enemy that ate your stun/arrow, and not anyone else in the bush.
Battle Spells
Execute
Personally my go-to spell. Sometimes your burst is not enough or Dire Hit is on cooldown, leaving the enemy a sliver of health left. But with execute, you can quickly finish the job. It deals True Damage, meaning it deals the exact amount of damage that is could not be reduced or increased by any means such as def items or negative armor, so you can kill tanks easily too.
Flicker
Works for all heroes. It does best to engage and disengage/escape enemies. Recommended for users who just started playing Selena. Once you are more experienced, you would use yr flicker less as you can play around with her Abyss S2 or Dash skill passive. Also, Selena is hero that does best with a very aggressive playstyle, because of the long cooldown on the flicker, it doesnt really suit her.
Flameshot
Can be both an offensive and defensive spell. Knows enemies back when used point black and deals tons of damage when long range. For offensive, this spell essentially allows you to delete any squishies without even being near them, Arrow + Trap then finishing them off with Flameshot. It also lets you finish off any enemies that might be running away. For defensive, you can push back any close range heroes away, giving you some space to breathe and escape death. Alucard jumps on you? Flameshot. Ruby hooks you? Flameshot. Aldus flying towards you? Flameshot.
Purify
If enemy has alot of cc, you’ll definitely need this. It clears you of any cc whether it be stun or slow, giving you enough room to escape.
Mechanics / Gameplay
Arrow Trapping – by placing the trap right after throwing your arrow/stun, it gives the opponent less time to react. This is a very necessary skill to have when playing Selena, as it’s the fastest and best way to aim, giving you less time for error. It’s easier than it looks, trust me. When you get the hang of it, it’ll be a habit.
Positioning
Never ever always throw your arrows/stun in the same spot over and over again. The enemy will learn to predict and react faster. Always change your positioning when you miss yr stun to give them more room for error.
Bush
Bushes are your best friend, use them and abuse it. You can catch enemies by surprise and land yourself tons of kills.
Minimap
It’s free and on your screen at all times. Use it to see where enemies are at or going. You can also use it to aim your Arrow/Stun
Predicting
After playing many games as Selena, you notice that you would use the minimap a lot, this gives you info on where enemies are at and where they are going. With this, you can use this knowledge to predict where they are going when they are outside your vision. This is where you start to learn to throw arrows/stuns blindly. With this, you will be accused to be Map Hacking. To know your enemies are going, you have to be the enemy. Where would you go, recall, farm, invade, etc if you were him/her. That’s likely where he is going as well.
Passive
Selena’s Passive, Abyssal Mark, is what makes her burst incredibly painful. It only has a maximum of 2 marks, you can achieve this with an Arrow/Stun + Trap, it counts as 2 marks. And when the traps activated that is another marks. So essentially you deal 3 marks worth of damage towards an enemy. Her passive, Abyssal Mark, deals 240–450 (+40% Total Magic Power) extra Magic Damage, so do your math.
Combos
Her combo is simple really, all you gotta do is abuse her passive or Abyssal Mark. For example, when you an Arrow+Trap and you think its gonna land, activated her Abyss S1 and rush towards the enemy but DO NOT basic attack first. This is because your Abyss S1 is a buff skill, so although you have not use it, the cooldown already started when activated, this is to shorten the cooldown so youre able to use the skill again if needed. So when youre about to reach the enemy, use your Abyss S2 or Dash to shorten the range between you and the enemy, her dash is quite long so you dont have have to be F2F or close range with them. Your dash refreshed if you hit an enemy with a mark. So dash twice to eat the first 2 marks and then basic attack. Once the trap exploded use the dash again and run away. In short, Elven S1+S2 > S3 > S1 > S2 > S2 > BASIC ATTACK > S2 > S2
This is by no means neccesary, you wont have time to do a full combo all the time. You have to react and decide what’s best to do in your current situation.
Item Build
The old’ lollipop build. This build is very consistent as its good for both experienced and new players. Personally I prefer to get Genius Wand first before Lightning Truncheon as I can stack the passive of it using my dash easily so my mage can deal more damage, but if its not your cup of tea, you may switch it with the Lightning Truncheon first for higher burst early game. You may switch the Holy Crystal with Winter Truncheon if needed. Due to the tank meta right now, you’ll definitely need the Divine Glaive.
Other builds are fine too, but its not as consistent and limits your playstyle to a degree.
Why is this build consistent? You could play any style you want with this build and you can’t get wrong with it.
Sniping someone? The lollipop and LT can deal tons of damage.
Going all-in? You have enough burst to delete someone.
Wanna poke? It’ll definitely deal more than a poke.
I usually use this build to have fun if I’m certain we can win in Rank if enemy messed up their drafting or something. Or I just wanna have some fun in Classic. This build is all surround in your ability to land your Abyss S1, Soul Eater, to nuke enemies. You won’t deal as much damage if its just you landing your Stun+Trap. So its not very consistent as you have to land your Abyss S1 as its your main damage output.
Emblem
This is essentially the only emblem you’ll ever need. The Movement Speed buff and the Magic Penetration along with the Magic Worship talent is just what Selena needs. The burn damage on this talent is extremely good, adding more damage to her nuke.
