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Recommended Items
Runes: Fighter Tank
+10% Attack Speed
+10-180 Bonus Health
+10% Tenacity/Slow Resist
Spells:
Flash
Ignite
Items
Threats & Synergies
Brand
Brand pokes you hard and makes it hard to help your team. Moving around as much as possible is the only thing you can do in this fight, or wait and try to catch him on cooldown.
Draven
The ideal support for Draven because of his need to snowball the lane quickly. It's effective because you can root and stun them to make it easier for him to cash in on his adoration stacks and promptly get to his power spikes.
Draven
The ideal support for Draven because of his need to snowball the lane quickly. It's effective because you can root and stun them to make it easier for him to cash in on his adoration stacks and promptly get to his power spikes.
When I'm playing as a support, I tend to choose Leona because I'm familiar with her setups and combos. In this guide, I'll take a closer look at Leona's team and itemization and share some tips and tricks to help you get the most out of playing her.
I hope you find this helpful guide and follow my suggestions to improve your gameplay with Leona. So, without further ado, let's dive into my guide on playing as Leona - The Radiant Dawn!
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Why choose Leona?: - A simple champion to pick up and can be fun to play. - Provides effective crowd control engagement for teammates while setting up picks for her carries, and she can be that big damage soaker when you need to get objectives such as dragons or baron nashor. - She has great potential to make plays, the odd time she can carry for her team while being a potent frontline team fight asset. I always enjoy taking her on the rift when playing league matches, and I hope you will, too. |
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Sunlight is a fantastic way to increase your allies' damage in fights with the enemy or when taking neutral objectives ( Baron Nashor or Dragons). Sunlight works well when mixed with otheron-hit item effects. |
| Cooldown: 5 | Cost: 35 / 40 / 45 / 50 / 55 Mana | A great engage/interrupt stun tool that is effective to peel for your team or when getting ready to engage the enemy in a team fight, all-in, or skirmish. That helps lockdown your target and makes them easier to kill. Additionally, when attacking with Shield of Daybreak, you will trigger anyon-hit effects ( Grasp of the Undying). |
| Effect Radius: 450 | Cooldown: 14 / 13 / 12 / 11 / 10 | Cost: 60 Mana | When playing as Leona, one of her most impactful abilities is Eclipse. Increasing her durability during combat and reducing the damage she takes makes it great to use when you are looking to start a fight or after you have stunned a target in anticipation of follow-up damage. It is important to note that Eclipse has a self-slow attached, even though the ability description does not mention it upfront. |
| Range: 900 | Width: 140 | Speed: 2,000 | Cast Time: 0.25 | Cost: 60 Mana | Cooldown: 12 / 10.5 / 9 / 7.5 / 6 | Zenith Blade is a strong engage tool for Leona. It is an effective way to engage and lockdown isolated targets or eliminate specific targets. Remember that this ability targets the enemy at the back of the group, making it an excellent choice for hitting backline targets. However, it is essential to be cautious when using it around a cluster of enemies because it may result in death if you cannot disengage from the fight you initiated." |
| Range: 1,200 | Inner Radius: 100 | Cast Time: 0.25 | Cooldown: 90 / 75 / 60 | Cost: 100 Mana | This ability defines you in combat, allowing you to stun/slow an entire team while also dealing magic damage to all within its epicentre. It is effective when used on high-priority targets or targets who try to run away from you and your team. Note that the animation time is slow, meaning enemy champions flashing out of your ultimate can be a scenario, thus wasting your engagement and making you lose a powerful ability. Timing this ability is necessary and can make or break a team fight, and with its long cooldown, I would not recommend spamming just because you see a target in sight. |
In this section, I will share some of the effective combos for Leona that are simple to understand and that you can apply while playing summoners rift (draft and ranked) games.
Playing As Leona:
- Lead the charge and mark your foes with Sunlight before your allies’ deal damage.
- Shield of Daybreak and Zenith Blade form a powerful offensive combo.
- The damage reduction effect from Eclipse cannot reduce the damage below 50%.
- Save your Zenith Blade for targets recently using their dash/blink or Flash.
- Due to its high cooldown, Solar Flare should only pick off isolated enemies or foes you want to eliminate.
Playing Against Leona:
- When Leona activates Eclipse, you have three seconds to get away from her before she deals damage.
- Only foes in the center of Solar Flare get stunned, so you can often avoid this if you are quick.
- Avoid standing directly in front of Leona, so you are not being rooted by Zenith Blade and stunned by Shield of Daybreak.
- Have your Flash handy to dodge Leona's Solar Flare.
In this section, I will outline the things to focus on/consider at each game stage as Leona. - Early game: Your primary focus as support involves establishing as much vision as possible to protect both you and your bottom lane partner from incoming enemy dives. Doing this will ensure that both of you are safe and can react quickly. With the aid of your support item ( World Atlas), you will earn gold passively, and with the charges it offers, you will also be sharing gold with your team. Be sure to gain as much gold & experience as possible to acquire your core items while also getting ahead in your matchup. Also, be sure to roam when you can (hitting other lanes or setting up deep wards), letting your bot lane know when you do so they can play safe while helping your teammates. Setting up a freeze (holding the minions just outside your turret) or trading with the enemy can ultimately deny them gold & experience. - Mid-game: By now, you should be gathering with your team and focusing on team fighting and objective securing ( baron nashor, rift herald or dragon). Continue to place vision throughout the mid-game, and always try to block as much damage as possible for your team. - Late game: If your games reach this stage, you'll want to be with your team on the frontlines and continue to put up wards around primary objectives while also grabbing dragon soul, elder dragon & baron nashor, which are essential to close out the game if ahead. Make sure to deny your opponent these objectives. |
- Rotate towards early dragons or other objectives to assist your jungle. Also, be sure to gather enough experience so you'll be relevant to your team and be able to soak up the damage needed for your backline carries to take over the game.
- If a team fight erupts during your games, always consider the risk of the upcoming battle, meaning will you impact the outcome of that fight or objective, or does your team come out on top without you being there?
- When deciding to enter combat with Leona, you should be mindful of where you are during the fight (positioning) and also be aware of where the enemy is when attempting to engage with your abilities.
Always be mindful of this when playing Leona.
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An essential spell for Leona that you should pick for your games 100% of the time. If caught out or stuck in a rough situation, having Flash at the ready can help when dodging a crucial skill shot or escaping your enemy's auto attack range. It is also effective when looking to make aggressive plays.
Secondary Options
It helps reduce healing, so you can finish off kills that your adc may not be able to secure immediately. With the damage it provides, you can secure advantages in team fights; therefore, I recommend Ignite as your other go-to spell in most games, as Leona. If your adc plans on running Ignite, let them take Ignite and opt for another option. |
Stealth Ward
Stealth Ward is the default trinket as Leona, revealing units within a target location. With a maximum of three wards to place, you'll create sightlines for you and your team when roaming the rift. Great when side laning/placing deep wards in enemy territory or getting vision on objectives ( baron nashor & dragons).
Farsight Alteration
Farsight Alteration is a ward trinket that we tend to avoid with Leona when playing support since your job is to deny vision. Therefore, it's better to acquire any other of the other listed options instead.
Oracle Lens
Oracle Lens is your best choice for Leona and should be acquired on your first back so you can start denying enemy vision and protect critical areas of the rift while making dives more accessible for you and your team. Formidable when dealing with stealth champions who plant traps, such as Teemo, Shaco, & Nidalee. It's also beneficial against champions who use stealth as a means to engage/disengage, like Twitch, Pyke, Wukong or Shaco.
Control Wards
Control Wards can be placed anywhere on the map, revealing and disabling enemy wards. Control Wards function similarly to the Oracle Lens trinket displaying stealth & camouflaged based champions ( Twitch, Rengar, Evelynn and Senna) that approach them. As support, you will buy this most of the time since you want to clear your vision as much as possible. Upon acquiring the final upgrade to your support item ( Celestial Opposition, Bloodsong or Solstice Sleigh), you're granted four Stealth Wards, giving you the option to mix and match between the different trinkets above, making vision placement and denial much more accessible to control around the map. |
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Your premier mobility option when roaming lanes or dealing with slowing effects like Ashe's Frost Shot/ Volley/ Serylda's Grudge/ Rylai's Crystal Scepter, or other movement impairing abilities that would leave you vulnerable when trying to escape.
A strong option for Leona, helping to reduce the effects of crowd control from enemy champions while offering a small amount of magic resistance. Standard choice into teams with heavy magic damage threats.
Mercury's Treads are also great when combined with the runes ( tenacity & slow resist), or chemtech dragon's that improve tenacity for even more resistance to crowd control effects.
Plated Steelcaps is an excellent choice when playing Leona as a tank. The armor provided and the auto attack damage reduction passive make it easier to soak up from basic attacks for your backline. Great when facing heavy physical damage teams or auto-attack-centric champions.
When charges are available, always use them when possible, as it increases your gold gain and your teammates.
When executing cannon minion, melee minion or a caster minion, you'll gain a fixed amount of gold with each charge. At the same time, your nearby teammate will earn the total value of the executed minion.
Damaging champions will yield higher gold values (compared to executing minions), allowing you to quickly complete your support item.
Either strategy is effective when looking to complete your support item.
If at any point you no longer require your support item ( Celestial Opposition or Solstice Sleigh) in your match, sell it and buy a situational item from the list above to complete your build path.
Also, be mindful that when you purchase Dead Man's Plate, you will not be allowed to buy Trailblazer; the same goes if you buy Sunfire Aegis you'll be unable to purchase Hollow Radiance. Therefore it's essential to determine beforehand which option will serve you better for your particular situation.
- Glacial Augment is an excellent keystone for Leona during team fights and short trades because of the slow it provides. This keystone is best when paired with other champions with slows or crowd-control impairing effects. - After hitting any of yourimmobilizing abilities on targets triggers Aftershock, gaining bonus armor and magic resist and then dealing magic damage + a portion % of your bonus health to all nearby enemies in the shockwave—the standard option for Leona in most games when support. |
- Cheap Shot is excellent for Leona, dealing bonus true damage upon damaging a target afflicted with crowd control effects. Great for Leona because of her many crowd control effects, meaning the extra damage application will be easy and allow for more efficient team fighting. - After using Zenith Blade or Flash, we'll activate Sudden Impact, dealing extra true damage regularly during combat, allowing for increased damage on specific targets. It's an excellent choice for Leona when looking to be highly aggressive in fights. - Relentless Hunter provides a smoother ability setup when engaging/chasing down the enemy with its out-of-combat movement speed bonus. Helps Leona get to lane faster when getting to team fights/reaching objectives on the map. - Ultimate Hunter helps Leona gain more access to Solar Flare in teamfights and skirmishes. With the increased access to Solar Flare, you'll have more chances to isolate or subdue priority targets in teamfights allowing for the momentum to shift in your teams favor. |
- Hextech Flashtraption allows Leona to channel a hexflash, travelling a short distance. Great for catching your opponents off guard if they aren't paying attention to your movement and positioning, surprising them with a cheeky combo. You gain access to hexflash while your Flash is on cooldown. - Biscuit Delivery is helpful when you need additional sustain after trades and skirmishes while giving you more max health per biscuit (max 3). An optional choice for Leona, though helpful when dealing with poke matchups. - Cosmic Insight provides access to more summoner spells ( Flash, Ignite) and item/ward trinket haste. This rune is excellent when paired with items like Iceborn Gauntlet or other active item effects. It is also beneficial for increasing your vision score. - Approach Velocity is an excellent rune for Leona. It synergizes well with all her crowd control spells or those of her allies, granting you movement speed toward any nearby targets affected by crowd control. Great when paired with champions such as Ashe, Amumu or Lux. |
- Triumph restores a % of your missing max health and grants additional gold upon getting a kill or assisting in fights with your team. In addition, it is a form of sustain for Leona and helps with faster item purchases in the lane. - Legend: Haste is a very helpful rune for Leona to gain more access to your skills in combat. With the increased ability Haste chasing targets becomes a bit easier and also helps to improve your teams overall presence in extended combat. - Last Stand offers increased damage when under 60% health. Further damage increases gained as you approach 30% health. Since we build minor damage with Leona, it won't be that noticeable in team fights with this rune. Compared to other Precision tier three rune options, it's the best for Leona's play style. |
- Demolish is a way to press lane faster because it will allow you to damage turrets based on a % of your max health. In addition, it allows for quicker sieging of turrets and getting the gold plates, thus giving you more freedom to roam sooner. - Conditioning helps Leona by increasing her armor and magic resistance. It pairs nicely with Leona's Eclipse and can be helpful when you need extra survivability and late-game durability. - Second Wind for Leona as an engage tank helps to regenerate missing max health over 10 seconds after a skirmish or team fight. Stacking health through items or runes in conjunction with this rune helps improve the regeneration effect. - Bone Plating helps to reduce incoming damage from a combination of three instances of damage for 1.5 seconds (55-second cooldown). The damage reduction is excellent on Leona when dealing with burst champions ( Akali, Fizz, Sylas) or in tough fights and skirmishes. - Overgrowth for Leona offers max health per monster/ minion death, then gaining a % max health bonus once 120 minions are absorbed. Though Leona doesn't scale with health compared to other engage tanks such as Braum, Nautilus, or Taric), I'd recommended talking Overgrowth with other health items or when taking Second Wind or Demolish. - Unflinching is very potent for Leona against heavy crowd control teams increasing your durability. An excellent choice when fighting champions such as Fiddlesticks, Morgana or Amumu. |
When we are deciding on what rune shards (offensive and defensive) to pick for Leona, you need to factor in a few things in champion selection.
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Always pay attention to the team compositions you are fighting when mixing and matching the rune shards listed above with your Boots and items. It's a sure way to improve your overall survivability in games.
If you have any questions or thoughts you wish to share, feel free to contact me in the discussion section. I'll be happy to discuss anything with you and help you find the answers you need to the best of my ability.
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