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Sett Guide: How to Play Sett in League of Legends

Published: September 9, 2021
League of Legends Sett Guide

Sett is a fighter and off-tank champion in League of Legends that fits well into Juggernaut Class. He has an incredible ability to sustain in fights and win trades against most champions. Sett’s kit is made for taking trades, so he is an exceptional early game champion. But Sett also benefits his team as the game progresses, with his raw strength in stats and his utility during team fights.

In this Sett guide, we will cover both the basics and some more advanced aspects of Sett’s gameplay. This guide has you covered whether it comes to his trading patterns, unique combos, or his drafting flexibility where he can fill almost every role on his team.

Sett Abilities Guide

Sett's Passive Ability Pit Grit

Sett’s Passive Skill: Pit Grit

Sett’s passive (Pit Grit) causes his basic attacks to alternate between Left Punch and Right Punch. Starting with Left Punch, Sett’s next basic attack will be a Right Punch if executed within a couple of seconds. His Right Punch gains a bonus attack range, attacks much faster than his Left Punch, and deals significantly more damage. Additionally, Sett regenerates health at higher rates each second, the lower his health is.

Basics to Using Pit Grit to Your Advantage

Sett’s Pit Grit makes him pack a real punch. There are plenty of benefits of this passive. The most obvious example is in his ability to deal surprising damage with alternating attacks against enemies. Many players forget that this passive exists, do not play accordingly, and are left surprised when they lose trades.

How to Play Sett with His Passive to Deal Extra Damage and Make Punches Glow

Moreover, Sett trades well because of both parts to his passive. Not only can he deal surprising damage, but he has bonus health regeneration after trades which makes him sustain enough that even slightly bad trades end up neutral. Don’t be afraid to engage with your opponent early as Sett.

Advanced Pit Grit Strategy and Tips

Advanced Sett players will use the timing on their Pit Grit for three auto-attacks with two Right Punches. This combo can be done by last hitting a minion near the enemy and quickly targeting them for the follow-up Right Punch. After a short duration, Sett will continue with his Left Punch into a right Right punch. The added benefit of this sequence is that the Right Punch has bonus attack range, so this trading pattern will outrange some other melee champions matchups.

Furthermore, trading in this way can result in him getting off three basic attacks while it takes other champions just to get two. An additional benefit is that Sett’s bonus attack range on his Right Punch can allow him to get in one last basic attack before the enemy runs outside of his attack range, leading to many other won trades.

This is just one of the many hidden gems we plan to share in this Sett guide. Keep reading to find out many more ways to maximize your potential with Sett.

Sett's Fist Glowing with Energy

Q: Knuckle Down

Sett’s Q ability (Knuckle Down) empowers his subsequent two basic attacks to gain bonus attack range and bonus physical damage within the next several seconds. Upon casting this ability, Sett gains bonus movement speed when he is moving towards visible nearby enemies. This bonus movement speed after casting is fixed and is not only available until he attacks the enemy. If Sett uses his Q while attacking and chasing enemies, he will gain the bonus movement speed to help keep up with them.

Importantly, Sett’s Knuckle Down resets his basic attack timer. This means that he can cancel his basic attack animation to deal damage in a shorter period. Additionally, activating Knuckle Down will reset Sett’s Pit Grit passive, meaning his next basic attack will always be a Left Punch followed by a Right Punch.

The Basics of Winning Trades with Knuckle Down

The idea use for this ability is to catch up to opponents and initiate a favorable trade quickly. Sett should use this ability to catch enemies off guard and close the distance between them rapidly. This ability is excellent for setting a gank. If you are in a good position to get a kill from a gank, let you jungle ally know, so they can adjust their jungle path accordingly.

Advanced Sett Guide to Knuckle Down

Skilled Sett players will know when to use Knuckle Down for its bonus movement speed and when to use it for the basic attack animation cancel. Sett uses Knuckle Down to get in another Left Punch and Right Punch combo immediately after the Right Punch damage is dealt with when approaching traditional two basic attack trades.

Sett punching pantheon with his knuckle down ability

Sett will do this in most matchups and get four basic attacks when most enemies can only get two. Another option is that Sett can approach to last hit an enemy minion near his matchup and last hit the minion, quickly target the enemy champion, and follow up with Knuckle Down. This combination will usually result in three basic attacks in the time the enemy will get one.

The last, tricky use of Knuckle Down, is in the same scenario where the Right Punch back into the Left Punch and Right Punch combo is used where the enemy starts retreating (realizing it is a bad trade), Sett can follow up with the bonus movement speed from activating Knuckle Down to get in another Left Punch and Right Punch. If Sett can manage to get this trading pattern off on an enemy, he will likely get the five basic attacks off while the enemy will only get one or two. That will leave you at a considerable advantage in lane.

Sett Haymaker Ability

W: Haymaker

Sett’s W ability (Haymaker) is incredibly powerful. The passive on this ability stores post-mitigation damage (damage calculated after resistances and modifiers) taken as Grit for up to a percentage of his maximum health. Grit decays by a percentage after a few seconds if unused.

The active part of Haymaker grants Sett a shield equal to his Grit for several seconds, decaying after a short duration. During the cast time of the shield, Sett charges up an attack that deals damage in a cone in the targeted direction. The resulting attack deals physical damage to enemies within the area-of-effect and true damage to enemies in the center of the cone. The damage Haymaker deals is based on a percentage of his bonus attack damage and a portion of his Grit, added to a fixed amount.

Sett charging up haymaker ability to deal AoE damage within outline of effect area

How to Use Haymaker Well

Sett’s Haymaker makes Sett the ultimate trader in the early game. Not only does his Pit Grit and Knuckle Down lead to high damage output in a short period, but any damage returned in the trade can be negated with the active shield. He will ultimately return much of that onto the enemy via its charge-up damage. As such, Sett should look to hold onto his Haymaker until his Grit level has risen after taking damage in a trade, then use it to return some of that damage onto his enemy.

How to Use Haymaker to Win

Sett’s Haymaker is his ‘bread-and-butter’ damage-dealing ability because of the true damage he can deal with it. Pro Sett players will purposely soak up damage before lining up a Haymaker on their enemy to deal tons of damage.

Another helpful tip we’d like to disclose in this Sett guide is that once Haymaker is used, it cannot be canceled by crowd-controlling abilities. Sett should assume that he will be taking a lot of damage after being crowd-controlled, so he should try to use his Haymaker right before the crowd-control to shield some incoming damage and deal some damage back.

The final advanced Sett guide tip to his Haymaker ability is to reposition his area-of-effect damage by flashing during the channel. Flashing forward in this way is incredibly useful to finish off retreating enemies or to move to guarantee the true damage hits.

Sett Ability Facebreaker Smashing Heads Together

E: Facebreaker

Sett’s E ability (Facebreaker) is his utility and area-of-effect crowd-controlling ability. Sett pulls in enemies on either side of him. He also deals physical damage and significantly slows them for a brief duration. When Facebreaker strikes enemies on both sides of him, they are all stunned for a short duration.

As you learn how to play Sett more from this Sett guide and through additional practice in League of Legends, it’s essential to know that Sett cannot move or attack for a brief duration after using Facebreaker. The last important detail about Sett’s Facebreaker is that Sett will automatically basic attack the closest target after using it. The target will rebound off Sett to his base attack range.

How to Play with Sett’s Facebreaker

Sett’s E ability is a great tool to keeping his enemy within his grasp. Sett should look to use this to surprise enemies within range and initiate trades or use it when attempting to flee to slow or stun enemies.

Pulling Enemies into Sett to Stun them with Facebreaker ability

More Advanced Sett Guide to Facebreaker

Sett’s Facebreaker has several advanced uses that will take time to master. The most obvious is using his Facebreaker to stun enemies. Although this is very effective in team fights between two enemy champions, Sett can also use this in lane with an enemy minion on one side and the enemy champion on the other. Although the range of Facebreaker is relatively short, Sett can easily close the distance with the bonus movement speed from Knuckle Down to pull the enemy back and finish them off with a final Left Punch into Right Punch.

A standard trading pattern for Sett in lane is to attack the enemy with a quick Left Punch and Right Punch. If the enemy attempts to flee, he can use Knuckle Down to close the gap and Facebreaker to pull them back in for the following empowered Left Punch-Right Punch. Alternatively, he can use Knuckle Down for the follow-up empowered Left Punch Right Punch and then use Facebreaker to line up an easy Haymaker to finish the trade.

Sett’s Facebreaker is rather tricky to master, but an advanced feature to note about this ability is that the hitbox is shaped as a rectangle, centered around Sett. This shape means that Sett will have a slightly increased range to pull the enemy in from corner to corner by precisely aiming just to the enemy’s side. Although it is challenging to pull off because it makes the chances of hitting smaller, the extra few units of distance can make the difference between pulling in the enemy or them getting away.

The last advanced trick we’d like to share in our Sett guide to using Sett’s Facebreaker is that it cannot be interrupted with crowd-controlling effects. Immunity to CC means that Sett can use his Facebreaker to ‘buffer’ oncoming effects and potentially apply his stun while being stunned himself.

Sett Guide to His Ult Ability Showstopper

R (Ultimate): The Show Stopper

Sett’s ultimate ability is The Show Stopper. Upon activation, Sett dashes a fixed distance over a short duration toward and past the targeted enemy champion suppressing them for the period. Sett slams the target into the ground upon landing, generating a damaging area-of-effect in his radius. Enemies within the radius take significant physical damage that scales based on the target’s bonus health. They are also slowed significantly for a short duration. Enemies near the edge of the radius take minor damage.

Basic Use of Sett’s Ultimate Ability

The Show Stopper is used to suppress a single target and deal area-of-effect damage upon landing. Generally, this is used on a front-line tank champion to land on a backline carry to deal significant amounts of damage and allow Sett to reach the backline quickly.

His Ult can also be effectively used when flanking to suppress a backline carry champion and displace them into the front line where Sett’s teammates can more easily engage them.

Need to learn how to play sett to throw tanks like cho into carries like Ezrael

Furthermore, Sett can use his ultimate ability in order to protect and peel for one of his carries. His Ult will suppress and take them far away, potentially saving an ally.

How to Play Sett and Dominate with His Ult

The Show Stopper has several advanced uses that the best Sett players will use to their advantage. The Show Stopper applies a suppression that will stop channeling the targeted champion’s abilities. It also can’t be reduced by an enemy’s tenacity.

The initial dash from Sett’s Ult is not easily canceled because it requires the target to use a spell shield or cleansing ability (not Cleanse itself). Otherwise, Sett will not be affected by crowd-control skills and therefore can also use The Show Stopper as a method of 'buffering' incoming crowd-controlling abilities.

If lined up correctly, the best Sett players will even use The Show Stopper on targets to escape or engage over walls. Using it this way is a fantastic option for Sett to commit or flee without using his Flash.

Sett’s Unique Playstyle

Armed with a deeper understanding of using his abilities to dominate your opponents, we’ll discuss how to play Sett in the different phases of a League of Legends match in this next part of our Sett guide.

How to Play Sett in the Early Game

Sett has a great early game against most champions. His only weakness is against ranged enemies. Sett is best suited to a lane with a melee opponent where he can easily win trades. His high damage stats and manaless abilities mean that he can out-sustain almost anyone else in the game and take trades whenever his abilities are available. Adding some omnivamp to your Sett build can really take his sustain to another level.

He, unfortunately, lacks a significant gap close without his Ult. Sett should be careful not to get kited out or take too much minion aggression when seeking out trades. Instead, Sett must look for opportunities as they arise and immediately capitalize to catch his enemy off guard.

Champion Sett Sitting on his Throne

Otherwise, Sett players will be too predictable and won’t be given enough distance to safely play out the early game. Sett needs to do what he can to act non-threatening against ranged and highly mobile champions in lane. He needs to hold back and engage for trades when enemies push up too close or set up for a coming gank from his jungler.

Sett Guide to His Mid Game

In the mid-game, Sett should have his Mythic Item and choice of boots completed. Sett’s sustain and damage are nearly unmatched at this stage, and Sett should look to call for his jungler’s attention to set up a dive onto the enemy laner. Sett has an excellent setup for his jungler if he can get on top of the enemy laner.

As such, Sett should look to make this play when he has access to Flash to ensure the success of the gank. Otherwise, Sett should start influencing other map areas, either through roaming and flanking enemies or using Teleport to join a fight or skirmish somewhere else on the map.

Luckily, even if Sett shows up late to a fight, he still has the power to turn the tide with a few effective uses of his abilities. Flanking on Sett is always ideal, but sometimes it’s even enough to just run straight at your enemies with Knuckle Down active for the bonus movement speed. At this stage of the game when Sett is looking for flanking angles and roaming opportunities, it’s beneficial to take Oracle’s Lens to ensure the enemies' ward placements do not see your flank coming or even potentially bait you into the team.

Once in the fight, Sett wants to fully stack his Conqueror and find the right angle to get a massive Haymaker onto multiple targets if possible. From there, he can run around wherever he needs to chase down his enemies or provide some peel and frontline for his carries.

Playing Sett in the Late Game and Team Fighting

In the late game, Sett is extremely tanky and deals tons of damage. At this point, Sett can have many strategies to win the game. He is an effective split pusher, so if Sett takes Teleport, that is a good option that will be effective since his Knuckle Down works on turrets and structures.

The added benefit of this strategy is that he can Teleport join a fight or even Teleport to a ward behind the enemies to set up a good flank to start off the fight. Regardless of the strategy before a battle starts, Sett wants to flank during team fights. The best option will usually be the easiest: to use his Ult on a late-game enemy carry to bring them into his team for an easy kill.

Another option worth discussing in this Sett guide is to line up a frontline target with the enemy team’s best carry to land on them and deal bonus damage equal to a portion of that frontline target’s bonus health. This may not only result in a ‘one-shot’ of the carry, but it puts Sett right into the middle of the enemy team, where he can soak up tons of damage and respond with a lot of his own.

Sett Destroying Enemies During Teamfight with Mecha Suit

Sett Guide: Combos

There are both trading combos and team fight combos. We will cover both in this Sett guide to help you learn how to play Sett well. For the trading combos, the easiest is two basic attacks into two basic attacks with Knuckle Down. Another option that incorporates Facebreaker is to basic attack twice, Knuckle Down (for movement speed), Facebreaker, basic attack twice and finish with Haymaker. The final trading combo to guarantee the Haymaker hits with true damage, is to basic attack twice, Knuckle Down (for movement speed), Facebreaker, Haymaker, then do the two basic attacks empowered by Knuckle Down.

Sett always wants to hit two enemies or more with his Facebreaker to guarantee a stun when team fighting. Ideally, this is also onto the enemy carries. Therefore, the best combo in fights would be to use The Show Stopper on a frontline champion (landing on the backline), Facebreaker, basic attack twice, Knuckle Down basic attack twice, and then finishes off the backline carry with Haymaker (and Flash while channeling to guarantee the true damage).

How to Play Sett in Different Roles

Sett is a very versatile champion. In the last part of this Sett guide, we will cover how to play Sett in two other viable roles: mid-lane and support.

Sett Mid Guide

Sett Mid is an excellent option for mid laners that want to counter popular mid-lane melee picks. Although Sett tends to perform better into attack damage champions, even against melee AP champions, Sett will work well.

The overall strategy to Sett mid is like Sett top, however being in the middle lane, there is a greater importance on roaming and supporting other lanes much sooner in the game. This means Sett doesn’t necessarily have to rely on taking Teleport to join a fight elsewhere.

The most beneficial part of playing Sett mid is to counter those pesky mid-lane melee assassins that want to roam and snowball by picking up kills. Against Sett mid, these melee assassins know they have no chance to kill him on their own. His pick forces them to roam if they want to get ahead.

Fortunately for Sett, he can easily match the roam of enemy assassins or even just have enough priority over the mid-lane wave that he can just prevent them from getting a chance to wander. This will result in the enemy jungler looking to alleviate some of the pressure off their assassin to allow them to roam.

Still, Sett does well in 1-v-2 scenarios and can potentially outplay the gank, or just stall long enough for his jungler to counter gank and win the 2-v-2. Either way, Sett mid is fantastic for countering melee mid picks, and in solo queue, melee assassins are pretty popular.

Sett Relaxing by the Pool after Winning a League of Legends Match

Sett Guide to Doing Well in a Support Role

Sett support is a tricky pick but can create enough chaos to snowball the game if piloted correctly. Sett has great offensive and defensive base stats and offers a fair amount of utility to the team. Sett doesn’t require that much gold to be valuable at various game stages and can easily be played in the support position.

The only issue with Sett is that he is not great when facing ranged champions and has poor gap-close without his Flash available. Luckily for Sett support players, the utility priority means that Sett should take Runes to open his options and deal with these weaknesses. Sett support often takes either Unsealed Spellbook or Aftershock.

Either way, he will likely be running the Inspiration tree, which grants him access to take Hextech Flashtraption. Hextech Flashtraption essentially gives Sett a Flash that requires a two-second channel while his Flash is on cooldown. This means that when Sett’s Flash is on cooldown, Sett can still hide outside of vision and channel the Hextech Flashtraption to close the gap on his enemies and engage quickly.

Furthermore, in the Resolve and Inspiration trees, Sett should also take Runes to help him deal with the range disadvantage in the support position to sustain or tank up more hits and not be easily ‘poked’ out of lane. In the end, the principles are still the same, and Sett Support should be played to find flanks and provide some utility to his team while soaking up tons of damage!

Concluding Remarks on How to Play Sett

Sett is a relatively simple champion with incredible flexibility and prowess when wielded by an intelligent player. Some mechanical interactions will take time to master, but Sett has incredible carry potential even without them. Regardless of the role he’s played in, Sett is the perfect champion for any player that enjoys soaking up damage for teammates while also dealing surprising amounts of damage. Great Sett players leave their enemies wondering why the champion even exists!

Please let us know what you think of this Sett guide and our tips and advice on how to play Sett using the chat feature below. For now, kick back and enjoy 😉! See you on the Rift!

Images Courtesy of Riot Games.