Are there better picks ? If so who and why ?

I define the Yasuo Effect as: a champion who seems to receive some type of unconscious cognitive bias by their team to not be treated as the 'win-con' in games where they are only one keeping their team afloat. A few years ago I remember vaguely a high elo streamer discussing this about yasuo, where they will find themselves in games where they are massively ahead with a clear angle to carry, but often will see their teams ignore them and/or play to weaker lanes/lower value plays with no clear explanation. On the otherhand, you will often see teams rally around traditional hypercarries like jinx or zeri, or laners like kayle, when they are clearly the win-con in games that would be lost otherwise. The streamer acknowledged that this isn't 100% specific to Yasuo, but that it feels like it happens significantly more to him due to his design and overall perception by the playerbase as a "dash around meme champ".

I feel this same issue falls upon Samira, due to design similarities, and simply based on my own anecdotal experience. I've played over a thousand ranked games of her from gold to diamond, and to this day I will find myself 6/0 in lane before 10 minutes, and for some reason my team will be failing their second gank/roam on an already losing top/mid lane, or getting grubs on weakside when we have permanent prio for drag. This can easily be attributed to a player(s) just being "bad", I guess, but due to sheer frequency of it I can't help but think, is being fed as samira just discounted because she isn't a common pick, and their power isnt as blatantly expressed as a jinx pumping dps from range for example? Or perhaps, it's my misunderstanding on how teams she be prioritizing lanes/win-cons? I don't know, but I wish I did.

Any thoughts on this or am I just delusional?

Intro

As a Samira enjoyer but hater of the ADC role, I've been OTPing Samira mid (with top secondary) for a couple of years now. Up until this split, Samira mid was playable (a lot more so than typical sheep players would think), but had no particular benefit compared to botlane. You could make it work, but it was a labor of love, and you were basically nerfing yourself compared to playing bot.

This split, however, there is genuinely an advantage to playing Samira mid that you cannot physically get in botlane. That advantage is the Gluttonous Greaves upgrade, Immortal Path. I assume the upgraded boots have been discussed here before, but probably been widely considered cope (by neuronally deficient peers), so I want to share my experience and how I've been taking advantage of them. Btw, yes, I know you're still making your team have no mage in mid, maybe double adc, etc, etc by playing Samira mid; I'm not here to discuss that or get lectured about how "Samira's passive needs a stun to be used" (you actually need to take an exam if you unironically write that). Just here to share the build for those interested in learning about a different approach to the champ we all love.

Build

Runes for Samira mid are pretty stock standard:

Conqueror, Triumph, Legend: Bloodline, and Last Stand. You can play around with secondaries, but I usually just default to Sudden Impact + Treasure Hunter.

The item build is where I diverge the most from the general consensus. My build is:

• Start: Doran's Blade (always; the 2.5% omnivamp scales very nicely)
• 1st: Immortal Shieldbow
• Boots: Gluttonous Greaves
• 2nd: Infinity Edge
• 3rd: Lord Dominik's Regards (or rarely Mortal Reminder)
• 4th+: Situational. Kaenic Rookern against heavy AP (or high AP threat), QSS against high CC, Randuin's Omen against heavy AD (2+ crit users), Jak'Sho, Blood Thirster. Pretty much up to you.

Reasoning

"Why not Collector?"
First of all, I generally don't like Collector, especially in mid. Even before this split I honestly prefered Stormrazor or Blood Thirster in mid. My philosophy is thus: Yes you can get ahead and snowball, etc, but there's more variety of matchups in mid and your role in midgame is different (you have to solo sidelane a lot more). You don't *have* to snowball lane to win. You scale really well. No point coinflipping with meh items (plus the reasons below).

"But why Shieldbow?"
There's approximately three reasons to go Shieldbow first. Firstly, it has a pretty good build path, so you can remain strong while building it and always keep your solo kill and skirmish threat (which, even without Collector, you have a lot of). Secondly, it synergizes extremely well with Last Stand and the new boots; I'll explain more in the next section. Thirdly, you are trying to scale as quickly as possible (which you do by finishing crit items) and Shieldbow is tied cheapest. Also, because I typically only build 3 crit items for 75%, I'm trying to make sure I have the best possible set of three, and Shieldbow makes the cut over Collector or Stormrazor every time.

"What's the synergy? Why are the boots good?"
First off, the 4% scalling to 10% omnivamp is extremely nice, and combined with Legend: Bloodline, Doran's Blade, and the boots' passive gives you very strong healing without even having to buy BT. But you already know that; after all, botlane Samira likes them too. The upgraded boots' passive is what we're *really* here for, though. Above 50% HP, you deal 5% increased damage. That's comparable to Cut Down, Coup de Grace, and Last Stand. With the first two, you have the potential to stack the bonuses, which could be worth exploring, but with Last Stand you ensure that 100% of the time, for the whole game, your damage is multiplied by at least 5%. For 1000g. In practice, I find the bonus damage over the course of a game tends to be in the same realm as Last Stand's (which actually offers higher damage than you're used to with this build, as you'll see soon). But wait, there's more! When you're below 50% HP, you gain 15% increased Healing and Shielding. I wonder what consistently provides us with a Shield when we're at low HP... Wait... does that let us stay alive longer at low HP keeping Last Stand's damage multiplier active without us dying, letting us do more damage, lifesteal more, and amplify our healing by 15% to stay alive even better? Couldn't be.... And all that's online after 1 item plus boots?? Surely Collector's still better, right? (lmfao)
Again, the bonus to healing over the course of a game depends on how fights play out, but I've found it to almost always be higher than the total shielding of Shieldbow over a game, sometimes multiplicatively higher (so the boots alone give you more survivability than Shieldbow!).

"Why 75% crit?"
I'm not married to the idea of 75% crit to be honest, but I find that in the vast majority of situations you are much better off buying a situational defensive item afterwards, or even BT for insane healing, than you are trying to force one of the remaining low-value crit items (I haven't tested Hexoptics though, that one might be the exception here). I already top the damage charts almost every game, and I don't feel a lack of damage (except maybe against extremely tanky teams). Survivability is so much more important when you don't have a support following you around and you actively want to take 1v1s and 1v2s in the side lane.

Final Thoughts

By starting your build off with Shieldbow + Gluttonous Greaves and then building the highest damage crit items, you get damage that's likely higher than the standard botlane build *and* you heal much better at low HP, letting you keep pumping out damage (and potentially turn fights around).

I didn't play Samira back when the Shieldbow mythic was a thing, but based on what I've seen from that era, this build is the closest you will ever get to that experience again in modern league. And on top of that, it's not just a novelty "for-fun" thing, but something I genuinely think is one of (if not *the*) most optimal ways to play Samira in midlane.

It's also a very different experience to Samira botlane, so any mains feeling burnt out on that might have something to gain from trying it out. Be warned, however, Samira in mid is quite different to Samira in bot. Matchup knowledge is really important, and so is macro (knowing when you can sidelane, what 1v1s you can win, when you should group, etc), so I don't recommend trying it in ranked before you've had some practice.

I have been playing Samira a lot recently, and I really love the character because of how fun her kit is. I want to start using her in ranked with my friend, who is going to play support for me, so I was wondering which supports synergize best with her.

Recently, I’ve gotten really tired of building the same first item on Samira. It always ends up being either Collector for early damage and kill security, or Infinity Edge for better scaling. In a recent game, after rushing Infinity Edge, I decided to try Stormrazor instead of Collector. Honestly, it felt so much better on her. The attack speed means you don’t have to rely on using E to maintain DPS, and the energized effect makes bursting down enemies much easier. I’ll keep testing other options, but for now I don’t think I want to build Collector anymore.

TLDR: Separate the wind wall part and the damaging slash from her W allowing her to have more control over the spell

THE PROBLEM:

Among projectile-blocking abilities (Yasuo Braum Mel), Blade Whirl is unique in the fact that it has another use which is stacking Samira's style meter. This forces Samira to make a difficult choice regarding her most important ability, both decisions having a positive and a negative effect:

-use W to block an enemy projectile, leaving Samira without an ability to use for stacking her style meter -use W to stack style meter, neglecting the projectile-blocking part

There is a third scenario which is actually how Samira's gameplay often goes:

-use W to both block projectiles and stack style

However this also comes with a downside: to stack her style meter with W, the enemy must be in the 325 radius of the ability which is a bit short of melee range. Basically when you use W for both purposes, you are already fully comitted to the fight.

Once Samira uses W, she needs to engage to get the benefit of stacking her passive, especially when chaining with E (W can give 2 style points). This means you are limited in choosing what ability to block, as you are most of the times forced to negate the first ability thrown at you. From a defensive power that can have huge impact, the ability becomes something that you press before going in to take a little less damage.

The problem becomes worse when you fight multiple enemies and hardly playable when you play against good players that won't randomly throw stuff at you knowing you have W.

THE SOLUTION:

My suggestion is to separate the functionalities W has into 2 different casts. This is how her W currently works (from the wiki):

Samira spins her blade over 0.75 seconds, destroying all hostile non-turret projectiles within the area for the duration. Samira slashes twice during Blade Whirl, each one dealing physical damage to all nearby enemies. The first slash occurs immediately and the second one occurs after the duration.

My initial idea was to make W a two-part ability with a recast, similar to Lee Sin W. The first cast would be the slash doing damage, and the second would be the blocking part. Ultimately this wouldn't fix her problem since she would still be forced to use her block during the recast timer, and the goal is to make the block independent from the style meter stacking.

But then I remembered: Samira's R is a useless ability if she doesn't have style. This is the ability slot where the damaging part of her W can go to. It would look like this:

W: Samira spins her blade over 0.75 seconds, destroying all hostile non-turret projectiles within the area for the duration.

R: Samira slashes, dealing physical damage to all nearby enemies. This ability becomes Inferno Trigger (her ultimate) when style rank is S

The slash's cd, damage can be kept the same, scaling with W or R rank, while her W will not deal any damage or proc style.

PROS:

-lets Samira have full control over when she wants to block something

-basically retains Samira's current kit

-can be used as another balance lever

-makes skill expression higher (although debatable)

-is almost power-neutral (more of a QoL change)

CONS:

-can be confusing as to when she used W or just the slash (simple visual change can fix this; alternatively, the slash can instead become a 1 bullet ult)

-could maybe push her into high ban rate

-could make her clunkier depending on how the slash works with her other abilites

-other things I can't think about.

Overall, this change could be possibly done in different, better and healthier ways. But it would improve the Samira's gameplay, and fix one of the many problems she already has as a Mythic-era champion that didn't quite adapt to current League philosophy.

I am happy to hear your thoughts!

I ask in champ select for naut, leona etc.. And I get Lux bard and shaco...

The games where I get a leona or naut I go 17/2. But then I get troll supps 4 games in a row and they are just auto losses, and they kill my mental energy to keep playing.

Other ADC's can just farm under tower and then join team fights with their range. Do you just have to be a masochist and climb with low winrate?

The core idea is simple: reduce the duration of Samira’s ultimate from 2.5 seconds to around 1–1.5 seconds, while increasing its DPS but lowering its total damage. Alternatively, some of that power could be shifted into the rest of her kit.

Right now, Samira is an extremely polarized champion when it comes to teamfights. In solo queue, whether she gets to play the game or not is often decided in champion select — especially in lower elo, where players are less coordinated and less likely to draft proper counterpicks. This is probably the biggest source of frustration when playing against Samira: if your team lacks reliable CC and she starts ulting in the middle of a fight, there’s often nothing you can realistically do.

On the other hand, in high elo, Samira frequently faces experienced players drafting specifically to shut her down. They save their CC for your engage and completely deny your ability to function no matter how well you play (hello Alistar). In many games, it feels like the champion’s success is determined less by the Samira player’s skill and more by whether the enemy team allows her to exist.

I think both of these problems could be addressed by changing her ultimate — making it less overwhelmingly destructive in a vacuum, while still keeping it rewarding and satisfying.

Reducing the channel duration while increasing the DPS would lower the amount of guaranteed counterplay against Samira without removing counterplay entirely. If you successfully lock Samira down, she’s still diving into the middle of your team and can still be focused and killed. But Samira herself would gain far more flexibility and decision-making in teamfights.

Instead of just pressing the standard combo, diving in, and hoping for the best, Samira players would need to continue executing well after pressing R. Landing Qs would matter more. Managing W properly would matter more. Right now, saving W after ulting is almost pointless — either you die during the channel, or everyone else dies first, and the fight is already over for you either way.

With a shorter ultimate, Samira could actually continue fighting afterward instead of treating R as the only button that matters. It could even create real incentives to cast multiple ultimates during extended fights.

Actual STYLE expression.

I really love Samira — I have almost 1.7 million mastery points on her — but in high elo, playing her often feels less “impossible” and more simply unpleasant. It constantly feels like a burden either on yourself or your team. I think changes like these would preserve her identity while increasing both her depth and her skill expression.

At the same time, it would remove a lot of frustration for both teams and make Samira feel fairer and less draft-dependent.

Thanks to anyone who read all of this.

Hi,

I was really hype about this Blue Essence shop because i now have "battle professor samira" and i think all her chromas are so good.

But i can't find her chromas in the shop and i don't understand why. She doesn't have prestige chromas, they're all regulars.

Anyone has the answer to this ? Thanks in advance

We all hate supports who stand behind us and thus, make it hard for us to do our jobs, but I've been noticing a contingent of support players who do the opposite. There are Leona players, and other tanky engagers who essentially spend the entire early game dancing in front of the enemy turret, running into obvious traps, and blaming you when that inevitably leads to their death. They will dive full health enemies who have both summs, and it's actually your fault for not following up.

It seems like because they're superficially similar, non-Samira players have this perspective that she can sort of blink in and out of fights and delete people without a thought, like Katarina. But the fact of the matter is that Samira can only dash TOWARDS danger, not away from it. She has no escapes. She has an abysmally short range. And finally, she can't use her ult at will. This means that overcommitting when the jungler is waiting nearby is almost always a death sentence unless you're already snowballing. As a result, you have to be careful and AVOID FIGHTING ON THE ENEMY SIDE WHEN POSSIBLE.

Everything I described also means that if you do happen to get ganked or give the enemy an accidental double kill, coming back online is like climbing mount Everest. You can't slowly KS from safety like other ADCs.

But these supports don't seem to understand this. They have no regard for you, your position, or your cooldowns. I've seen Kat players get rewarded for playing poorly because she has so much mobility. It seems like these support players view Samira in the same way.

What do I do when I get this kind of support? Eventually, they get angry and leave the lane, essentially forfeiting your early presence and ensuring that you remain irrelevant for the first half of the game.

Title. I've checked a lot of the major champ stat sites, and it seems like people are opting for Domination secondary, picking Taste of Blood and Treasure Hunter. This doesn't make sense to me, as ToB seems negligible on her at best. Her short range makes it difficult to apply regularly. Treasure hunter can't really be utilized optimally, either, as she's stuck bot lane, so she's limited in how many stacks she can get for the majority of the game.

I've edited the search parameters to only show the high ranks, like Emerald, Diamond, or Master+, and it seems like they're still using ToB and TH secondary. I don't get it. All the big Samira content creators use Inspiration secondary, and from my perspective, the theoretical value is just way better for Inspiration.

Why do these sites show that even high-ranked players are taking ostensibly bad Domination runes secondary?

Well, title. Leona is actually terrible support for Samira (in current meta). First of all, generally, enchanters are currently better than engage supports. Second, Leona, unlike other engage sups, is much more harder to follow up for Samira. Thresh pulls champions to him, Pyke pulls champs, Naut pulls champs, but not Leona. Which means, that there are many cases, where even your passive cant make it up for distance, that you need to go, making disconnect between engage and follow up. Third, Leona deals basically 0 damage in comparison to other sups. She is tanky, yes. But you need to make up for her lack of damage. Finally, more ranty and anecdotal, but majority of Leonas are terrible. They cant find engage window ever, they cant threat your enemy at all, they waste all spells

New adc player....samira is fun as hell.....thank you for your attention