I just recently started playing Kennen and loving it so far despite all the horrible things I hear on the forums about him I'm just trying to figure out which items work best for him. So far I've been doing:

Dorans shield + hp pot
sorc boots
guinsoo's
rylai
zhonyas
abyssal or lich
(mainly but it changes depending on the team)

Is this okay? Does anyone who plays him pretty often have any advice to what I can change to maybe get the most out of him?

I've looked at most of the guides but alot of them are outdated or just not good whatsoever. Thanks!

dood! dont play him as a mage.
play him as a dps. what is a better then a stun every 2.5 seconds with your spells?
i get magic pen runes. enemies start taking damage from your abilies and they start to build MR and mid game you crank out damage items.

Don't listen to the other idiots telling you to build for physical DPS. Only ONE of your skills will benefit from such a build. Meanwhile, the other three will be worth jack ****, except for building your passive. The passive isn't that amazing: it stuns for one second and refunds energy.
Since your passive is meant to refund energy, this means your abilities are meant to be the focus of your play, which means you need to help ALL of them be worth the energy.

Build for AS/AP. Rylai's, Rageblade, Nashor's Tooth, Hextech Gunblade are all good for him.
Okay, mabe the Gunblade and the Rageblade mean I technically built him as a hybrid, but I focused mostly on the AP.
You could even build a Trinity Force or a Lichbane, depending on whether you want to go hybrid or total AP.

The AS is mostly for his W skill, so that you can get that extra damage quickly, and apply a mark to the target with it.


Note: building Kennen as physical DPS is as stupid as building Akali only as physical DPS, without any AP.
Hybrid works. Pure AP works. Pure AD fails.

i would love to play my dps kennen, against your mage kennen.

Just yesterday i played my tank/AP kennen against a DPS kennen and absolutely destroyed him
i went 10-1-16 while he was something like 3-9-6

The thing with DPS kennen is that the attack speed cap is 2.5 attacks per second, and You only get a proc from W every 2 seconds, which means through only auto attacking you can maybe get a stun off if the enemy sits there for a good 6 seconds letting you attack them. Ok, you can maybe cut it down to 4 seconds by using the active, but his other skills will be pretty much useless damage wise, and his stun doesn't last that long anyways. Especially because everyone with half a brain will have merc treads

Also, while lightning rushing->ult combo, you don't have the time to auto attack and DPS kennen will then do little or no damage for the duration

The trick to AP kennen is getting more magic penetration than AP because his ratios are pretty crappy and the benefit to this is that most Magic pen items grant you AP as well

I generally start with Doran's shield in the laning phase and grab W first for harassment (i.e. last hitting for procs, then auto attack + chained with electrical surge)
And i'll grab t1 boots and rush Rylai's, or depending on the game, ill grab haunting guise. Then based on how well you're doing, get a void staff or zhonya's. By then the game should be pretty much over. But if not, get some survivability

I play AP Kennen and have no trouble owning the ass of DPS Kennen.

I start with an Amplifying tome (I'm Kennen, I never get in the enemy's range, I don't need Doran's) and health pot (ya know, in case they clear the distance to come in my range). At my second coming I either take Mejai's Soulstealer, a blasting wand or a giant's belt, depending on the case (if I see myself owning in the new future => mejai's; if I see myself owning in the future if I have more AP => blasting; if I just don't see myself owning = > giant's) then I go for merc threads or sorcerer's shoes and (later on) Rylai's. I then improvise depending on the enemy team (read as: usually buy a Zhonya's or void staff because I own and don't really need survivability).

Thanks for the advice everyone. Yeah I like to focus mainly on AP, but there are a few items like lichbane that I don't know if it's worth it or not. I usually get z's ring but I ALWAYS forget to use the "use" effect lol so It's pretty much a waste in a way. If anyone else has any advice on how they build them please share!