Greetings fellow Solari, I am ThatDudeInTheCotton and this is AP Leona: The Radiant Dawn

Leona's known as one of the preeminent crowd control tank supports in the game. Her large amount of lock down allows her to spear head charges into the enemy team and by building for survivability she can stun enemies over and over again for her allies to clean up. However all of her abilities scale with ap. So what happens if one builds her to emphasize this fact? Well she becomes a burst mage-assassin with one of the most consistent combos in the game.

To be blunt, if you want a very consistent and strong Leona top build, I recommend running her ad-tank like this guy. AP Leona does have significant strengths over her ad counterpart, but those come at the cost of some equally significant weaknesses. She's very strong against champions that rely on mobility to survive making her a good counter pick against assassin/slayer style champions like Riven, Katarina, Yasuo or Talon thanks to her damage source also being a lot of very hard CC. In fact her damage is so effective against squishy targets that she's actually better in mid lane against mages despite the harass, since she equalizes so hard when she all ins and can gank/assist ganks incredibly well. That being said if you want to take this to ranked I advise you do so with a backup pick, as certain characters such as Morgana, Fiora or Kennen can make life very difficult for her.

If you see any errors please leave them a comment, I strive to keep my guide updated and optimal and will take any critiques gracefully.

So without further ado, here is my guide to AP Leona: The Radiant Dawn.

Pros

+ CC guarantee's a full burst rotation + Easily kills assassin's reliant on mobility + Utility makes her relevant even when behind + Is devastating when ganking/receiving ganks + Deals her damage and CC in an aoe + Is solar powered :D

Leona's main strength as an ap assassin is that after her first skill lands the rest of her burst can be guaranteed when properly executed thanks to her buckets of CC. This inherently makes her a counter to champs that need mobility to survive, and allows a friendly camping jungler to rack up free kills on locked down lane opponents. This CC also makes her relevant in teamfights when behind, and when going even/ahead the burst aoe damage can be immense, allowing her to smash into clumped up teams savagely.

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Cons

- Burst is lower than dedicated assassin's - Needs CDR to fight after burst - Rather weak pre level 6 - Can be easily ganked when Zenith Blade is down - Clouds hard counter her >:/

pffffffffff Leona can absolutely blast through enemies, when she has her ult. But before that she can't really be that aggressive. Her cooldowns are also on the higher side, so CDR is a must buy for her. Before she has it she's very "all or nothing", so if her burst doesn't kill she can be in trouble. Without Zenith Blade she's completely immobile, meaning that high mobility junglers can gank and kill her easily if she isn't prepared.

The best time to pick AP Leona is when A: Your team already has a tank/frontline, B: Your team needs AP damage, and C: your enemy laner is a squishy damage dealer. Generally speaking you can get by if 2 of these 3 conditions are met, but less than that and it's kind of a silly pick. Thankfully going mid pretty much guarantees that these conditions are met consistently. Leona's main issue is that she's rather weak pre level 6, so going against lane bullies isn't advised. However even if a lane goes badly, Leona's ganks and ability to receive ganks allows her to swing back into relevance easily. Remember, if you can't win your lane, win someone else's.

If you just want to run Leona without worrying about what the enemy is laning with, then be willing to flex her into an ad bruiser build instead. Being able to work with either build will let you use her effectively much more often than if you stubbornly stick to one or the other.

Flash: Take it. Every game. Also, put it on F, it's F for Flash not D for Dlash.

Ignite: Set people on fire and watch them burn. The main reason you're probably gonna want this is because your pre level 6 is weak and you may fall behind. If you take Ignite you can use it to help close that power gap and steamroll the lane at level 6. If you feel as though you don't need it, or it won't close the gap, take Teleport instead to farm or gank other lanes.

Teleport: Take it if you either A: Feel like you can win lane easily, or B: Feel like you are so horribly countered that even Ignite wouldn't help cover the gap and you'd rather just gank other lanes instead.

Starting with the big one, we go for domination because of the keystone rune:

Electrocute: This is taken because it is the best rune for characters that rely on combinations of attacks when they trade. Since every trade we'll be doing involves 3 attacks at minimum, this mastery will be proccing all the time and is very efficient. Also unlike the keystone Press the Attack the domination rune scales with our ap making it more efficient as the game goes on.

We then go for Sudden Impact for the added damage output. Now some of you may say, "but wait, isn't Cheap Shot objectively better since you're stunning people all that time?". Well that might be true late game, but the thing about sudden impact is that it gives you it's full damage amp from the very start of the game, with no need to wait for scaling. Since you'll be making exchanges from level 3 onwards, that is a huge deal.

Eyeball Collection is pretty straight forward. it's a simple boost to your assassination power. Since Leona's main weakness as an assassin is that she -just about- kills people, having the extra damage here really benefits her and closes that weakness.

Ultimate Hunter is taken because of the synergy with Solar Flare. It's a pretty good rune and the best of the four here given how much kill potential leona has when her ult is up.

Finally we have precision, were we take Presence of Mind and Coup de Grace. Presence of Mind is great for leona since a huge part of her dueling power comes from her ultimate cooldown and mana reserves, so getting a big chunk of her downtime removed is a huge deal for her and helps her to snowball in both lane and teamfights. Coup de Grace on the other hand is simply very good damage throughout the game when you need it, with the early game in particular being important to get Leona snowballing.

In terms of stat spread, we take double adaptive damage and health. While cooldown reduction is imperative to keeping Leona going in the mid to late game, she has a huge window of opportunity at level 6 and its best to emphasize that as much as possible. Ergo it behooves us to take damage as that will improve the early game much more comparatively. Health is health, though it can be swapped with either armor or mr depending on who you're laning against or the enemies team comp.

Passive: Sunlight
> Not gonna sugar coat it, this is pretty much useless for the purposes of this build. I mean it is handy for when you gank/ get a gank from an ally, but for 95% of your time in lane this isn't gonna do anything. Thankfully once mid game rolls around it isn't so bad as you'll usually have on or two allies to proc it. On a whole, really unnoticeable, but I guess it's better than Shyvana's passive (actually scratch that, Shyvana's passive is useful now, so no it's not even better than that).

Shield Of Daybreak
> Leona's basic stun ability, Shield of Daybreak is a super simple stun autoattack. You'll mostly be using it as part of your standard damage rotation to ensure that Eclipse's damage pops off on the enemy. This ability can be worth holding onto however if the enemy is particularly reliant on channeled abilities (for example Katarina's Death Lotus). It can also serve as an escape tool when being pursued by single enemies, or be used as a means of killing an enemy who's dived you under tower by forcing them to take more turret shots. Finally if you mess up a cs the auto reset can be used to snag it anyway.

However this spell does have weaknesses. Enemies such as Jax or Teemo can counter it with their blind based abilities since it's an auto attack, and being a stun it can be removed by items like Quicksilver Sash, champion abilities like Remove Scurvy or the summoner spell Cleanse. Obviously those weaknesses are inherent in every stun based ability, but since Leona is particularly reliant on her CC going off one needs to be keenly aware of any means an enemy has of sneaking out of her damage. It can be beneficial to hold off on using Shield of Daybreak after using Zenith Blade in order to bait out an enemy Cleanse before you hit them with the stun.

It can be taken first against melee lanes that are aggressive from the start, though you'll always max it last. Given that levels only provide damage this isn't worth investing in compared to the CDR, damage, chasing/execute power and wave clear of Zenith Blade.

Eclipse
> Leona's main damage source aside from her ult, Eclipse is leveled first simply because the damage scales up more on it than either Zenith Blade or Shield of Daybreak, and the fact that it's an aoe means that it can be used to push/cs minions. It also has the added benefit of giving extra armor and magic resist which helps sustain Leona through pokes and trades. Landing the damage of this ability is key to winning trades and that means that one has to work around the fact that it's a delayed proc. This is done by charging it slightly before an engage, and chaining Leona's abilities together to keep the enemy in place long enough for it to go off, which is something I'll get into when discussing Leona's spell rotations below.


Zenith Blade
> Leona's main initiation/mobility tool, Zenith Blade's usage is fairly straightforward: Use it on the enemy champion and if it lands combo it into everything else. It has a slightly higher ap ratio than Shield of Daybreak,scales more on damage per level and despite having a longer cooldown is more reliable due to the range it has available to it, which is why it's maxed second. It also helps to have it up in situations where one gets flanked from behind, as it can be used on the enemy flanker to hop-scotch one's way back to the safety of a nearby turret/ally. It's Leona's best escape tool aside from her CC, so when shoving the lane it's important to not just whiff it for no reason. Zenith Blade can also be used to either snipe cannon minions from a distance, or be used as an aoe wave clear on low health minions, though its main use is really for engaging/chasing enemies down.


Solar Flare
> IT'S MURDERING TIME.
Solar Flare is Leona's stun/damage tool. It is cripplingly strong at level 6, allowing for much more aggression from then onwards. It has nice base damage, the highest ap scaling of Leona's abilities, is a very hard CC with a massive range and gives an auto attack steroid meaning if the burst itself doesn't kill the enemy there's still ample opportunity to polish them off with some good ol' stabbing. It's main usage will be after landing at least one of Leona's other cc abilities beforehand, or it can be used in a more risky fashion to set up Zenith Blade (though I wouldn't encourage this too much against alert/competent players). It's worth noting that the only purpose of landing this ability in the center is that it stuns, so if the damage is all one needs to execute an enemy then it's worth taking the splash zone into consideration.

A section for some of Leona's combos and ability interactions you may or may not know about.

The triple tap: Autoattack + Shield of Daybreak + Autoattack
Shield of Daybreak acts as an autoattack reset, in this case meaning it's an auto that's unaffected by your autoattacks cooldown (a weird concept, but that's how it works), incidentally this means that the animation of Shield of Daybreak will eat into the cooldown of your next autoattack, reducing it's downtime making her attack faster than usual. Super simple interaction that lets you do a little more damage in slugfests, that being said one needs to right click after the spell to perform the second auto attack otherwise she'll stall. That being said, since you're ap and reliant on your spells for damage, you'll have pretty little use for this.

Level 3-5 combo: Eclipse + Zenith Blade + Shield of Daybreak
The basic pre 6 combo, it revolves around landing eclipse on an enemy by charging it up slightly in advance before chaining Zenith Blade into Shield of Daybreak in order to lock the enemy down when the damage goes off. Leona will automatically go to attack any enemy caught by Zenith Blade, so one merely needs to activate Shield of Daybreak for Leona to go and stun the enemy. The obvious weakness to this combo is the fact that it's telegraphed by Eclipses shield effect, though this weakness can be negated by attacking from outside enemy vision (say behind a wall or in a bush). Either way be sure you can land it before you start committing to it.

Level 6 combo (easy): Eclipse + Zenith Blade + Shield of Daybreak + Solar Flare + Autoattacks
It's the same combo but with Solar Flare thrown on top. In this particular case the autoattacks at the end are pretty important since they get the Incandescence amp from Solar Flare and will actually deal damage. You'll mostly be using this combo to assassinate squishie's or mid health bruisers/tanks. While this is certainly the easiest combo to pull off it's important to note that it does have a split second gap in it where the opponent isn't CC'd, just after Zenith Blade finishes and before Shield of Daybreak procs, meaning if they have Flash or something similar they may be able to snake their way out. If you're bringing ignite this would also be the time to use it if this doesn't finish them off.

Level 6 Combo (hard): Eclipse + Zenith Blade + Solar Flare + Autoattack + Shield of Daybreak + Autoattack
This is harder to perform but is objectively superior to the easy combo once mastered, though it requires a little explanation as to why that is. You see, during Zenith Blade's cast/dash, it is possible to cast Leona's other abilities as well. It seems the interaction was made so that there would be no awkwardness when someone cast Eclipse or Shield of Daybreak mid flight only to find those casts didn't count. Regardless of the reason however, this means that Solar Flare is also castable during Zenith Blade, and by using Zenith Blade's root/travel time to negate the delay on Solar Flare it is possible to close up the CC gap of our previous combo. An added benefit is the fact that Solar Flare is a 1.5 second stun and provides amped auto attacks. This means that Leona can squeeze in an amped auto, followed by an amped Shield of Daybreak before cancelling into another amped autoattack, giving a couple hundred points of extra damage at minimum. The main issue with this sequence is that it requires good timing on the Solar Flare in order to close the cc gap, and missing it can whiff future trades as you won't have an ult. SO PRACTICE.

The Slash n'Flash: Zenith Blade + Flash
As mentioned in the above combo, Zenith Blade allows for the use of spells during it's cast time, and this is kinda true for summoner spells aswell, at the very least it is for Flash. If Flash is cast during the throw animation, Leona will flash forward while finishing the cast of the ability, effectively removing the cast time entirely and doubling the abilities range. For the enemy this is a very hard ability to react to as it comes out exceptionally fast and has a range long enough that it can be started outside of their field of view. If one has a high enough APM it can even be used to make some weird zenith blade throwing angles that aren't in line with the direction of the flash (though that is both difficult, and nearly useless). Of course it can be used over walls and from bushes just like a regular Zenith Blade as well. The only real weakness of this combo is the fact that it burns Flash, so one should be relatively certain that you're in range and capable of landing the hit, otherwise it'll be a big waste of resources. Also the timing is rather delicate, so there's a very real possibility of casting it after Leona's animation has just finished resulting in just a regular distance Zenith Blade without casting Flash at all, so practice is advised. Still, it's devastating when used correctly and is something proficient Leona's should be well aware of.

The standard start, Corrupting Potion provides good damage and sustain. Also unlike Doran's Ring which only provides ap sustain, the added health from the healing makes it better for dealing with poke/trades, and since it doesn't provide ap the adaptive bonus from the stat shards will default to AD which makes last hitting easier. You'll probably end up selling this at some stage, but even if you end up holding onto it for a while it fills it's slot nicely.


When dealing with a lot of single target damage, either in the form of burst or harass, then Doran's Shield is a great damage mitigation tool that can make a dangerous lane significantly safer. This start doesn't provide as much mana as other starts however, as such ability management is pivotal to making this work.


For when you just really need to dodge skillshots. Boots will make you go fast and extra potions will give sustain. It even builds into a core item you'll be getting down the line. Obvious downside is the lack of trading stats it provides.


These are stat efficient early game items that deal with Leona's mana and ap issues, while not hurting her csing ability thanks to their passives (so long as you get 2 or more). You can stack 2 or 3 of these before going into Hextech Revolver and they will help you snowball very well, especially since they come around Leona level 6 power spike. That being said getting only 1 by itself isn't really worth it unless you get a kill, since the ability power on it switches her adaptive bonuses to ap which'll make csing harder for her. You need at least 2 passives from Doran's Ring for that to balance out (FYI they aren't unique passives despite what mobafire currently displays). Also it's a foregone conclusion that you will be selling these for bigger items later. Still, anything which makes that level 6 combo stronger is pretty good.

Hextech Revolver is easily the sexiest early game item at Leona's disposal. I provides a nice big chunk of ap and a really sweet guaranteed bump to her all in thanks to the passive which she'll proc on Shield of Daybreak. Boots of speed are obviously mandatory in order to keep up with the enemy, and Kindlegem is built as it provides health and cdr, which will help Leona's survivability and increase the frequency with which she can engage. It also builds into Hextech Rocketbelt, which is a great item, but with a caveat.

Protobelt's additional damage isn't as guaranteed as Hextech Revolvers is. It needs to be activated. Now this isn't a big deal until you take into account that the dash HAS to move your character, meaning that if you use it at point blank range you will dash through the enemy and land none of the bolts. What this means is that you have to either use the bolts before or after your rotation, as trying to do it in the middle will result in you either missing the bolts or missing opportunities to get damage out of your spells. Because of this you may want to hold off on getting it until you have to by starting another item first, but even with this caveat it's still a great item. It gives Leona the ability to dodge skillshots at the last second, it has the best stats for her out of all the hextech items, it can clear minion waves really quickly (seriously it decimates super minions) and when it does land its bolts it hurts a lot more than Hextech Revolver can. The only negative is that it takes from your guarentee'd rotation.

As far as general pickups go, Mercury's Treads are probably the best. They give some mr, but more importantly have tenacity to counter CC, which makes them strong in most situations. The second most common pickup, Ninja Tabi, is useful when going against teams just loaded with ad, for the obvious reason that armor counters ad and Ninja Tabi's passive is great versus auto-attack reliant champions. The last pickup is Sorcerer's Shoes. Generally you wanna pick these up if you're ahead and just wanna murder everything. Ultimately they're kinda impractical due to their lack of utility and defense compared to the really cost efficient alternatives, but they're a fine option if you don't really care about practicality.

Luden's echo: This is your go to. It has CDR, mana, damage and a helpful passive. Now the main thing about this, and the other followup items, is that it has both ap and CDR. The ap is obviously helpful for killing enemies, but the CDR is important because Leona's cooldowns are relatively long and having CDR means less downtime in the middle of fights, as well as in between them. Luden's Tempest is the go-to because it gives 20% CDR, allowing leona to cap out really easily. The mana (and the passive mana regen when building Lost Chapter) give her much more sustain in that regard, and the damage proc helps her to execute targets. The main negative is that it provides no defenses compared to some alternatives, but it's strong enough that it can be picked up in most games that are going decently.

Banshee's Veil
A nice stat stick that'll make your life versus ap threats easier. You can build it right after Hextech Rocketbelt, or after Luden's Tempest if MR isn't an immediate issue. Also it'll let you get around without worrying too much about CC getting in your way.

Zhonya's hourglass: The ad equivalent of Abyssal Mask, sacrificing mana and CDR for defense, though in this case you don't receive an aura, but instead an active which gives some extra survivability when faced with large amounts of burst damage. You can use it to go all Kennen on the enemy team, kamikaze Zenith Blade/ Solar Flare-ing them before popping the active and hoping your team follows up (Which they totally will. TOTALLY).

Nashor's tooth: Pure damage, no sustain, no defense. This is an item for when you are snowballing your lane and don't view any enemy as a threat. Honestly of the 4 items you could get at this stage, you'll be picking this up the least because of how unstable it is. But the onhit effect will bump up your burst, and combined with it's attack speed you'll also have some damage left over for when your rotation is finished. It combos well with Zeke's Harbinger (If you have a reliable wingman).

At this point of the game you'll have to start making decisions regarding what will help you going forward, be that more CDR to fight for more prolonged periods, raw damage in order to kill targets that are currently out of reach/overcome defensive items enemies are building, or survivability in order to ensure that you just don't get snuffed out like a fire under a wet blanket.

Mid game items mentioned beforehand are also CDR items and can be built at this stage if they suit the need. You want to finish the game with around 30 to 40% CDR as that'll keep Leona's abilities ready for every teamfight, giving more consistency to her performance. The damage options simply give more kick to one's abilities, to be gotten if individual spell casts aren't cutting it. The raw defense options, with the possible exception of Zz'Rot Portal, are mostly built as finishers to ensure that you're not immediately gunned down in the middle of the fight.

Lich Bane: Overrated, that's this item. One would expect this to be pretty good on ap Leona but the reality is it isn't good for much other than pushing or finishing your CDR against a weak team. You see, the passive Sheen effect this item has doesn't get much use in Leona's rotation. When Leona casts Eclipse she gets a proc, then when she casts Zenith Blade she holds onto that one proc, then she uses Shield of Daybreak which consumes the proc without creating a new one, finally she has to ult right away else the enemy might escape, as such she doesn't have time to wait the 1.5 seconds that Lich Banes effect takes to come back up. With that she only gets a single proc in an entire spell rotation, same can be said for the harder rotation that uses Solar Flare before Shield of Daybreak as well. But it does help her push towers, and gives some ms. But yeah, it isn't the best option around when there are items with passives that are actually useful around.

Zeke's Harbinger: This is for when you want armor and to be greedy at the same time. Compared to Zhonya's Hourglass Zeke's Harbinger brings a little less armor, a little less ap, a little additional mana and an incredibly aggressive passive effect. When this passive triggers both you adn an ally get 20% bonus ap and 50% bonus crit. Being an ap assassin style character that has to autoattack, ap Leona benefits massively with this effect. Buying this with Nashor's Tooth makes for a really high damaging combo that puts out obscene damage, though it is quite greedy to go for due to the reliance on having a good teammate to pair with, plus the lack of overall sustain and defense it provides.

Rabadon's deathcap:
Ap = Damage.
Lots of AP = Lots of Damage.
Rabadon's Deathcap = Tons of Damage.

Liandry's torment: This is one of the best raw damage items for Leona. It has a pretty big chunk of ap, some health and the passive is amazing for Leona's kit as it will constantly be burning for full damage thanks to her CC. I end up getting this most games, especially against tanks who are weak to it's health scaling damage.

Void Staff: Pretty similar to Rabadon's Deathcap in the fact that this is just a unbridled damage item, though Void Staff is more efficient when being faced with magic resist stacking enemies. Same goes for Liandry's Torment to an extent as well. So if that's what you're facing against those would be the items to build.

Luden's echo: Kinda niche but if you find yourself hurting for movespeed then this is where you're gonna get it. Since everything that Leona does is pretty much aoe anyway there's not much benefit gained from the passive, so it's kind of lackluster but there may be some situation where the ms comes in handy.

Guardian Angel: For when you just really, really don't want to die. This provides kinda sub par stats for the cost but that's made up for with it's passive revive effect. If you haven't bought Zhonya's Hourglass this is a good pickup, but if you have got it then this might be overkill.

Abyssal Scepter:
Good for rounding out your CDR, while also getting a big chunk of MR. If your team has a bit of an ap focus, then this'll benefit them as well thanks to its aura. Not much more to say on it than that.

Zz'Rot Portal: Raw defense and an obnoxious active, this is for when pushing and raw stats are the order of the day. Zz'Rot Portal is the best split defense item in the game if we're looking at resistances alone and the active is great for defending ally towers or attacking enemies ones instead. That being said you'll probably just build something more damagey instead.

Praising The Sun

The goals of laning are pretty simple:

Get more cs than your opponent
Get more kills than your opponent
Get more towers than your opponent

Yup, pretty simple, going about it though is not. Generally speaking, laning goes one of four ways depending on who you're facing, and each requires slightly different approaches to attain success. Here they are, in roughly speaking order of difficulty.

Level 1

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If the enemy is based around harass, Eclipse is the first skill on takes, if they want to all in then Shield of Daybreak will keep things safe, though it's also great to have if you know you have a gank coming in around level 2. Either way at level 1 there's not much to say other than CS and try to hit level 2 without getting zoned/killed.

Level 2-5

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Now trading can begin, though it's best to keep it brief, the real goal is to keep even til level 6. Using the standard 3 skill rotation, you'll begin dealing some damage, but nothing extraordinary. Since you'll be throwing out all your skills in short bursts, it's best to wait for when Electrocute is up to make the most of the damage you'll be getting. If your enemy is considerably stronger than you already just shove the wave as best you can and go gank an adjacent lane, or hug tower and ask for a friendly jungle gank on your own lane.

Level 6+

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Thanks to the massive damage output from Solar Flare you can now afford to really start fighting your enemy to the death. Remember that Leona's full burst is a little lower than most assassin's due to the CC component. This isn't an issue versus squishy enemies as the fact that they're gonna get hit by all of the rotation somewhat cancels out the negative of a lower potential burst, however heftier targets are more problematic and may require one or two trades before a Solar Flare combo can kill them. Remember to gauge the enemies health and survivability options when engaging an all in

Teamfighting

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You want to focus on the squishy backline, while also being aware of opportunities to use your cc to pick out lone enemies for your team to collapse upon. When making picks it's important to be well aware of where the enemies team is, as while ap Leona is much more likely to kill when making a pick, she's also likely to get killed back if the enemy has friends waiting in the wings. It's also important to keep ones eyes peeled for good Solar Flare opportunities when the enemies bunch up. When used as an engage tool, Solar Flare is less guaranteed than Zenith Blade, but it comes without the risk of going all in, and with CDR it only has a 40 second cooldown. That being said, if the enemy team lacks cc and you can engage on a squishy target, it's best to go in with Zenith Blade, as they won't be able to interrupt the Solar Flare cast and such a strong guaranteed cc combo can really hurt a teams fighting chances. Just remember to focus on hitting the enemies backline and avoiding the frontlines crowd control, and you'll be on the right track.

Credits to JhoiJhoi, Who I yet again leaned on for formatting purposes. I would feel bad about it but since everyone does it I like to feel my laziness is justified.

Also thank you the reader for getting this far (unless you skipped to this part like a dirty cheater), I really appreciate that you took the time to read this and hope it brings you good fortune :)

Oh and if you like this guide why not give it a +1 or whatever, would appreciate that, yup.