Samira, the Desert Rose, is League of Legends’ newest champion.
As a love letter to Dante from Devil May Cry or Bayonetta from her titular game, Samira aims to satisfy players who enjoy stringing stylish combos together. Her playstyle rewards players who can space themselves between enemies properly, while knowing when to pivot between ranged and melee attacks effectively. Players who are trying to find a high mobility fighter with range will enjoy picking up Samira.
Conqueror is the standard keystone that you should always aim to take with Samira. Since Samira has multiple abilities, stacking up Conqueror is an easy task for her. Additionally, whenever you use the close-range components of Samira’s kit, like the melee versions of her basic attack and Q, she gains two stacks of Conqueror as opposed to the one that natural ranged users would receive.
Passive: Daredevil Impulse
There are two separate components to Samira’s passive. The first half enables her combo system. Whenever Samira deals damage from a different source in quick succession against enemy champions, she ramps up her grade from E to S. Every grade she has out of six increases her movement speed.
Q: Flair
Samira’s Flair has three functional uses. First, when it’s used at range, it becomes a simple skillshot with a medium range.
W: Blade Whirl
Blade Whirl is functionally similar to both Yasuo’s Wind Wall and Braum’s Unbreakable while having a dual offensive usage.
E: Wild Rush
After targeting an ally or enemy unit, Samira dashes in that direction, slashing every enemy within her path.
R: Inferno Trigger
While at an S grade, Samira gains access to cast Inferno Trigger, a circular AoE that blasts everyone within range. While she’s using her ultimate, Samira can’t cast Flair naturally or Blade Whirl. During this time, though, she can use Wild Rush and the explosive component of Flair in the middle of it.
Despite Samira’s mention of being considered a marksman, she doesn’t scale as well with attack speed as other marksmen. Due to the nature of Samira’s kit, she scales exceptionally well with cooldown reduction, critical strike rating, and lifesteal.
This means Essence Reaver, Bloodthirster, Infinity Edge, and Death’s Dance are all strong items to use on her. Even though Samira doesn’t prefer attack speed, picking up at least one attack speed based item in the late game will help boost your damage output after using Wild Rush.