Sett is one of the most reliable top laners in League of Legends and can provide plenty of utility to his team with his tankiness, true damage, and crowd control.
His health bar is deceptive due to his passive, which gives him more health regeneration the lower his health is. As a result, plenty of teams commit into trying to take down Sett and ignore the rest of the team. By picking up champions who can control his laning phase or provide more utility in teamfights, you can shut him down.
While Sett is a strong pick, he does have weaknesses you can use. Here are the best counter picks to beat Sett in the top lane.
General strategy
Sett has a melee-oriented kit, which requires him to get into close range before unleashing a powerful combo. He’s usually predictable during the laning phase and will try to engage near a minion wave to boost his area-of-effect Haymaker (W) damage. As a result, you can keep some distance from minions to reduce its damage. Additionally, he’ll usually try to use Knuckle Down (Q) for the movement speed before engaging you, which should be a signal for you to back off. If he reaches you, he’ll use Facebreaker (E) to stun you and do a lot of damage, so it’s important to back off if you see him charging so you avoid getting engaged on.
Once Sett reaches level six, he will have access to a flexible ultimate, The Show Stopper. He can use it to engage, disengage, or deliver a huge health-pool tank into his team for enormous amounts of damage. If you have a champion with a lot of health, it’s important to avoid the trajectory with which he could throw you into your team and destroy their health bar in the matter of seconds.
Champions
Kled
Kled is one of the best counters against Sett because he has a built-in healing reduction effect and can keep up a good distance to deal damage.
Your kit as Kled allows you to use Jousting (E) to dash through minions to escape the melee range if Sett catches up to you, then Bear Trap on a Rope (Q) to follow up with some damage against Sett. On top of that, your attack speed steroid in Violent Tendencies (W) makes your trades much more powerful compared to Sett. While he might excel in a long-drawn fight, if you keep making short trades, you’ll come out ahead every time.
By setting Sett behind early on, you can get an early item lead and use your Chaaaaaaaarge!!! (R) to roam around the map while Sett is stuck in the top lane farming up creeps to get back into the game. This roaming playstyle can quickly snowball your teammates and set you on a clear path to victory. While you might lose a couple of tower plates or creep kills in the top lane, the advantage built by helping your teammates will pay off in the long-run. A good and fed ADC can easily kite Sett in the later stages of the game. so setting them up to be ahead during the laning phase is a good plan to success.
If you did the short trades correctly in the laning phase and snowballed to help other lanes, you should have an advantage in neutral objectives and towers against the opposing Sett. With this in mind, look to split push and pick up towers in the mid to late stages of the game. Try to keep Sett busy to come and attempt to defend since then you can easily join your team with your ultimate. This plan will work especially well if the opposing Sett has his Teleport on cooldown. By the time he arrives to his team, you will have already decided its outcome.
Gnar
Gnar is one of the most popular top lane picks currently due to his recent buffs. He counters Sett nicely due to his ranged form, with which you can kite with, and if you get into close range with your melee form, you can destroy him in no time.
When laning against Sett, use Gnar’s ranged form advantage and poke Sett down with Boomerang Throw (Q) to force him to play defensive. If he overextends or tries to go for a creep kill, then try to activate your Hyper (W) by landing a couple of auto attacks on the opposing Sett. This will do quite a lot of damage early on, so it’s important to keep repeating it until the Sett is low health. If he is low health, you can try to look for an offensive Hop (E) to slow him and finish him off.
One of the most important things to keep in mind is that while you can poke him down in ranged form, you’re squishy. You should stay aware of your positioning so you don’t expose yourself to a possible flash engage by him.
If you did everything correctly, you should have scored a couple of early kills on him and have an item advantage. With this in mind, your teamfight utility should be superior, as long as you engage when you have the melee form ready. While Sett will have a predictable playstyle of running in, trying to stun as many people as possible, and throwing them into his team, you can look for flanks behind the walls with a full rage bar to stun his entire team before they realize what happened.
If no teamfight opportunities are present, look to split push instead. You should be easily able to do it with a couple of items since Sett as a melee won’t be able to do much to stop you. While he might try to engage you, by the later stages of the game, his damage will have fallen off so you can easily turn on him and kill to push towers or join your team.
Ornn
Ornn is a more defensive counter to Sett compared to Kled or Gnar. While the other two are more focused on kiting Sett and keeping distance, with Ornn you can get into his face and outscale him with your utility.
During the laning phase, aim to get Plated Steelcaps and Bami’s Cinder. Once you have these two, you’ll be unkillable due to how tanky you’ll be. If you see Sett attempting to engage on you, try to turn back on him and fight outside the minion wave to ensure he doesn’t kill the wave while also poking you down. Your damage early on is quite high, so you can kill him in a couple of trades if he burns his health potion early.
As the game progresses and you get your items, Sett shouldn’t be a huge problem for you. Just make sure to keep an eye on his roams and follow up to aid your teammates so he doesn’t set them behind. Most Sett players will try to help other lanes if they’ll see you facing them, since the kill potential is quite low on a powerful tank such as Ornn.
If you followed up and kept Sett in check, you should be equal or even ahead in farm while also providing a good frontline to your team. Your passive will also come in handy once you have the required level to upgrade your teammates’ items. In teamfights, avoid giving Sett the opportunity to use his ultimate on you to knock you into your team. Due to your high health pool, an ultimate could be devastating to your teammates.
Items to build into Sett
Plated Steelcaps
This is the boots option when facing Sett. It gives you a lot of armor and reduces auto-attack damage received. It should be rushed early on against Sett to reduce his pressure on you.
Bramble Vest
This is a great anti-sustain item against Sett and will damage him and deliver a healing debuff. The more attacks he will land on you, the more damage he will receive back. It’s another great item to rush if you’re playing a tank champion such as Ornn.
Sunfire Aegis
The Mythic tank item can shut down Sett from trying to get close to you. The amount of damage you can do with Sunfire Aegis is huge, especially due to its stacking effect. If Sett engages on you, you can turn on him if you’re playing a tank and watch as this item will chip away his health, especially since he likely won’t have a lot of magic resist early.
Goredrinker
Goredrinker is arguably the strongest Mythic bruiser item, allowing you to regain huge amounts of health. It gives you great stats if you’re playing Kled or Gnar for example, while also allowing you to survive Sett’s initial burst before turning on him and forcing him to back or fight until he gets taken down.
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