Hello there! My name is Demonsedge, and I'm a fan of League of Legends. I love this game and can't recommend it enough.

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!

Leona - The Radiant Dawn Vanguard, Tank Specialties: Durability, Engage, Lockdown 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.

Pros + Strong crowd control effects (ex: Solar Flare & Shield of Daybreak) + Excellent team fight initiator + Very durable (with Eclipse) + Fits into most team comps + Great peel & engage tools + Great roaming support Cons - No sustain in lane - Susceptible to constant harass - Mana intensive - Ability animations are easy to spot - Team reliant - No easy way to disengage from fights

Sunlight

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.

Shield of Daybreak

| 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).

Eclipse

| 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.

Zenith Blade

| 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."

Solar Flare

| 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.

Default 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 Good against very mobile/ Assassin or strong mage champions that will burst you down quickly. Great when applied on targets, you need to slow down or reduce their incoming damage from all sources (includes bonus damage from Sheen-related items and abilities). 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.

- Armor/Magic Resistance: The best stats to have on Leona. Both provide excellent synergy with Eclipse and offers additional durability in combat. Always get as much armor & magic resistance as possible to become very hard to kill in fights and skirmishes. - Health: This stat is essential for fights, adding another layer of survivability when playing Leona. Always look to obtain this when itemizing for combat. Though we don't scale with it, having more on Leona makes you durable alongside your other necessary stats. - Ability Haste: A useful stat for Leona when looking to use abilities more often. It is not something we aim for above all others, but it is still good to consider. - Movement Speed: As Leona, it can help with roaming, keeping up with enemies, and dodging skill shots. - Attack Speed: Not heavily prioritized on Leona outside the rune shard option we get (explained below), so we typically ignore this stat in every other way. - Attack Damage: As the tank of your team, your main goal is to take damage and not deal it. As Leona, it's best to skip this stat and aim for a more defensive style with more defensive stats.

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.

The following keystone and rune choices are great for Leona and will complement her in combat. Always pay attention to the enemy team comp, plus your item builds when selecting your runes to get the most value in each game.

- 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. - Grasp of the Undying is excellent for a more aggressive play style, healing you while also permanently increasing your max health by a small amount during combat. With all the max health gained, it pairs nicely with runes such as Overgrowth (durability), Second Wind (added sustain), and Demolish that contributes to a strong offensive when sieging turrets. - 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. Offensive Shards • Do I need attack speed on my champion? (Auto attacks on Leona can feel very slow, making it a good option when looking to chain autos after your combos. • Do I need additional attack damage? For this Leona build, you can opt for it, but most might skip it when playing tank for your team. • Do I require any ability haste? We can choose this option, but it could be more popular. Defensive Shards • Do I require movement speed? A solid choice for roaming supports such as Leona. • Do I require tenacity & slow resist? Very strong into comps that possess multipleimmobilizing effects. • Do I require more health? A viable option for Leona. With scaling health for late game fights/skirmishes, or the flat health for an early to mid game health boost. Both are helpful in games where only one type of resistance is needed. An excellent option when against mixed damage team comps.

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.

Upon reading this guide, I hope it has helped you understand how to build Leona. By explaining which abilities, items, and runes work well together, you should now be able to make the most of her kit. If you found this helpful guide, please share it with your friends and fellow gamers.

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.