Hello everyone & welcome to my guide for Leona. I'm Jovy, an admin here and a veteran league player. I've been playing league since 2011 and have essentially never taken any substantial breaks. This means that I've racked up quite a bit of experience with playing the game; but also with writing guides, due to the fact that I've been writing guides here since 2011 too. I don't play ranked too much; but I'm currently Platinum, playing nearly only the support role. Leona is a champion that I picked up way back in Season 2, and she remains one of my favourite champions even today.

"The sun has gone. But I am here."

Leona often fluctuates in popularity in accordance to the bot lane meta. Although a very strong and oppressive champion, she struggles to lane against enchanters. When enchanters are in the meta, and they counter her due to the fact that they can peel her off with ease, Leona's popularity, and win rate, falters. However, in the right team comp and in the right match-ups, there are few who can snowball their ADCs as well as Leona can. With her plethora of CC, raw damage and natural tankiness, she can ensure an insane advantage for her Marksman. .

Extremely Tanky

No Escape

Leona is a very tanky champion as she has both really good base tank stats (health, MR, armour) and she has an ability (Eclipse) which increases her armour and magic resistance for a period of time. This along with the items and runes I recommend make Leona an exceptional tank and a good addition to any team needing one!

She does have a gap closer and it's good when engaging fights, but as a form of escape it's very unreliable. Therefore, once you're in - you're in. One option to deal with this is to get Hexflash. . . . .

Lots of CC

Vulnerable to Poke

Nearly all of Leona's ability have some form of crown control. Her Q is a stun, her E is a short duration root and her ultimate is an long ranged AoE stun and slow. Her CC is invaluable, it both protects her allies, by providing peel or by disengaging, and secures them kills. . .

Melee champions are always prone to being poked down, and Leona is, sadly, no exception. Although you are tanky and although your W can decrease the amount of damage you take from poke, you still need to be extremely cautious in lane so as not to drop too low on HP. If you're below half HP, it's extremely risky to engage fights.

Good Engage/Disengage

No Lane Sustain

As mentioned her CC gives her the ability to disengage from fights and it also allows for powerful engagements. You have a number of ways to make something happen, and usually the most reliable way is to simply ult someone - promting your team to go in. .

Many supports have some form of sustain - some type of heal - but you are not one of these. This only makes avoiding getting poked more important, because if you allow yourself to drop low on HP, you'll simply have to recall in most cases, as you have nothing but Health Potions and Relic Shield to heal yourself up.

Strong Presence

Risky Playstyle

Unless you're extremely behind, your very presence is very influential during lane phase, because your enemies know just as well as you do that if they get within Zenith Blade or Solar Flare's range they'll probably die or have to waste spells. You'll easily be able to zone your opponents out of farm range or kill them if they don't respect your zone. .

Leona's play-style is very risky because you always have to dive deep into the enemy team during fights. Your Zenith Blade is a great gap-closer when you want to get up and personal with your enemy, but once you're there, you have no way to getting out without Flashing. If your all-in fails, your chances of getting out alive are significantly lower than with most other champions.

After immobilizing an enemy (with your Q, E or ult) you gain extra magic resist an armour. Since you normally start fights with your passive (by CC anyway), this means you'll have these boosts pretty much everytime you fight, during laning phase, and as soon as you start it.

Font of Life tags enemies whose movement you've impaired and allies who then attack this target get slighly healed. A good choice for someone with as much CC as Leo.

After taking damage, the next 3 attacks or spells from the same enemy will deal less damage to you. A very powerful rune, especially during laning phase when you're much squishier. It's great for melee supports so you can negate some idle poke as well, like from Brand or Lux.

Gain permanent health when minions die near you. You effectively get tankier for free.

Gain tenacity and slow resistance when casting a summoner spell. You often cast spells when you're escaping or chasing and this rune helps you repel their attempts of catching you or getting away from you after you use a spell.

Biscuits are delivered to your inventory 4 times throughout the first 12 minutes. These just give you some extra sustain which can be useful in negating poke during laning phase.

CDR is always nice and this rune will give you CDR in every category; spells, abiliries, item actives etc.

After Flash goes on cooldown, you get Hexflash as a replacement. It's also a blink, but you have to channel it for 2 seconds first. The only way to pull this off is to channel it in a bush you know isn't warded. If you do that, you may catch the enemy by surprise and be in Q range for a quick stealthy stun!

I make sure to pick up Flash every game. It's a mandatory spell for just about every champion, as having Flash can make the difference between getting a kill or not, and escaping or dying. In addition to this, Flash is a great choice for Leona due to the fact that it can help with closing the gap between you and your target, and thus making it easier to hit your stuns or your E.

Ignite is a great summoner spell for aggressive supports. The idea is that Ignite will increase your kill potential in lane and you and your marksman will get super powerful and be able to do amazing things during mid game. However, if that doesn't work out, you'll be left with a useless spell in the place of Exhaust, which is far more important late game. Take Ignite when you're against squishy enemies, when you're laning with an aggressive Marksman and/or when you're against healers.

Exhaust is an essential spell in games where you find yourself going up against some sort of bursty assassin (the likes of Talon and Zed), an AS reliant champion (Vayne or Tryndamere) or simply when you're against an unfavourable match-up in bot lane. You use this spell both offensively and defensively, the latter when you peel for your allies, and offensively for the damage and AS reduction which is useful during dives and 2v2 fights.

Leona's damaging spells affect the target with Sunlight for 1.5 seconds. When allied champions deal damage to those targets they consume the Sunlight debuff to deal 25-144 (at levels 1-18) additional magic damage. The amount is increased every 2 levels. Leona is unable to activate the additional damage herself.

This passive is one of the things that make Leona such a potent burster. Whenever she uses an ability on an enemy champion, a stack is applied and allies may pop the stack to deal extra damage. It's like Lux's passive, but instead of you popping it, your allies do. In lane, to utilise it most efficiently, give your AD a chance to pop a sunlight stack before you reset it with another ability. This way, at level 4, the target will take an extra 70 damage, rather than just 35.

Leona's next basic attack will have 50 bonus range, deal 10 / 35 / 60 / 85 / 110 (+30% of ability power) additional magic damage, and stun the target for 1 second.

Your strongest ability, which when activated stuns the next target you auto-attack. This includes not only enemy champions, but also neutral monsters, enemy towers, minions and wards. The fact that you can use your Q on wards, especially, is something to note. You see, using your Q will reset your auto-attack, and, if you react quickly enough, you can instantly remove a ward that has been placed with a combo - AA (auto-attack) > Q > AA. The AA > Q > AA combo is good for other things as well. Taking down turrets, for example. The auto-attack reset makes it much faster, but do remember that this only works on turrets, and not on inhibitors. Additionally this combo is very effective to poke with during the first few levels. Although it might seem like a surprise to you, AA > Q > AA will actually chunk most supports.

Leona raises her shield to grant herself 8 / 12 / 16 / 20 / 24 flat damage reduction for 3 seconds. She also gains 20 / 25 / 30 / 35 / 40 (+20% of bonus Armor) bonus Armor and 20 / 25 / 30 / 35 / 40 (+20% of bonus Magic Resistance) Magic Resistance for the same duration. When the effect ends, Leona deals 60 / 100 / 140 / 180 / 220 (+40% of ability power) magic damage to nearby enemies while prolonging the effect for a bonus 3 seconds if any enemies are struck.

Eclipse is a shield that grants you bonus resistances for 3 seconds before it pops and deals magic damage to any enemies in the area. If it does indeed do damage to any enemies once it pops, the bonus armour and MR remain for an additional 3 seconds. This shield makes you extremely tanky, even at lower levels, and enables you to make risky plays even when behind or low on HP. When to use it? Naturally, whenever you're fighting. Whenever you are taking damage. Whenever you engage. Eclipse has an extremely low mana cost, just 60 mana at all ranks, and thus you can afford to use it all the time. How to use it? When you're trying to avoid taking a lot of damage, press the W button. But when you're engaging, you have to remember to use it either when they don't see you or while you're using your E. If you activate it and then try to engage, it looks too obvious and the enemy will back away or be able to dodge your Zenith Blade/ Solar Flare. A lot of people make the mistake of using it too early and potentially lose kill(s) because of it.

Nami wanders too closely to my side of the lane (and with no vision on me) so I secure a quick level 3 kill with my Eclipse. .

Zenith Blade is a multiple target pass-through linear skill-shot that projects a sword of light in the targeted direction, dealing 60 / 100 / 140 / 180 / 220 (+0.4 per ability power) magic damage to all enemies hit. If Zenith Blade strikes an enemy champion the target will be immobilized for 0.5 seconds, and Leona will dash behind them.

As Leona is a scary melee support, rarely will someone walk up into your auto-attack range and give you a chance to stun them with your Q. Luckily for you, Zenith Blade will close the gap between you and said someone and you'll be able to stun him whether he wants you to or not. In short, E is used to get up close and personal with your target, so that you're able to stun and kill them. As mentioned, Zenith Blade doesn't just hit one unit, but instead it hits everything in its way, damaging and applying sunlight to all of the units (minions for example) but only triggering the gapcloser when it hits a champion. If it hits more than one champion, Leona will dash to the champion who's the furthest away. The enemy champion hit will be rooted for 0.5 seconds, giving you enough time to stun them. There are a couple of other things to note: Using E as a pushing tool: Zenith blade hits mulitple units and applies sunlight to all of them. This means that if you have an ADC like Graves or Corki you can near instantly clear a wave with your E and their Qs. People can intercept your E: Some champions and some abilities can intercept your E. Examples of these are: Thresh's Flay, which cancels your dash and knocks you back, Janna's Howling Gale, which knocks you up mid-air. A special case is Braum's Unbreakable. Hitting his shield will make you dash onto Braum even if you were aiming for someone else. Dashes can be dangerous: If the targeted champion uses a dash during the dash animation, Leona will dash to the target's new location. If your E connects onto Tristana just as she uses Rocket Jump and jumps over next to her tower, you'll dash next to her tower as well.

Although my Kai'Sa gave up, I knew that Nami had nowhere to go but through the river so I kept pursuing her. A quick E closed to gap between us later on and I secured a third kill in that fight. .

After a brief delay, Leona calls down a beam of solar energy dealing 100 / 175 / 250 (+80% of ability power) magic damage and slowing enemies by 80% for 1.5 seconds. Enemies in the center of the beam are stunned instead of slowed.

Leona's ultimate ability, a long ranged AoE slow and stun. With a low cooldown. An absolutely amazing ultimate, that can save teammates, kill enemies and win teamfights. This ultimate is incredibly long ranged, and you can thus, unexpectedly, engage from far away. This can come in handy when you're getting a gank or when you yourself gank another lane. When you are ganking other lanes, ulting them from far away while being undetected will easily net a kill or at least blow a summoner spell or two. When you are recieving a gank, ulting from far away or from brush may come as a surprise to the enemy, and they'll in turn not react to it well. The stun will give you time to E Q them and it'll give your jungler time to catch up.

Getting level 6 before your enemy can be a massive advantage! In this video, Nami doesn't have her R yet so she can't really counter my engage onto Jinx as soon as I've hit 6. .

Leona's got one of the strongst levels 1 to 3 of all bottom laners. You will want to start with Q at level 1 (or E, if you're invading; since E is a root). The reason for this is because sometimes enemies can walk into your Q range during level 1. If they do do so, you will be able to stun them and do a lot of damage with autos and Sunlight.

At level 2, you should always pick up Zenith Blade - now with E and Q, you can start engaging fights. Be vary that you will not be very tanky before level 3. At level 3, you can get W and not worry so much about the enemy's retaliation during early game skirmishes.

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You should max W first because the defensive stats are invaluable for you. You have no way of "going out" after you go in; so you need to be able to put up with a lot of damage. Max E second to lower its CD; and allow yourself to engage more often. Maxing Q will not lower its CD, but only increase its damage. That's why it's not very important to max your Q at all.

Steel Shoulderguards are the obvious starter item for melee AD-based supports. Shoulderguards and their upgrades give you health, a very valuable stat for tanks, a little bit of AD and passive gold generation.

Health potions are necessary because as a melee support, you'll be in danger of getting poked down. If you're too low on health to engage, then you are basically useless.

Boots of mobility grant a load of out of combat movement speed which makes roaming, warding and engaging a lot easier for you. The movement speed also makes you extremely intimidating and dangerous during laning phase; it's easier for you to engage on people when you're as fast as you are with these boots.

Core items are items that you buy every game no matter what you're up against. Aside from Mobis, you will also always get the Pauldron; which will automatically update from Runesteel Spaulders. It will give you some extra health and another ward slot.

Gives your ADC numerous boosts. When you're near your partner, the damage he deals to enemies will heal you and a percentage of the damage they take will be redirected towards you and deal true damage. Though you will take some damage with this item, it'll certainly be less than what your AD could handle as you will have a lot more health. Aside from this, the item itself is great as all the stats complement Leona greatly.

An item which is kind of similar to Shurelya's, as both items have a similar active. In terms of stats, it complements Leona greatly, as it gives you a bucket of health and hpregen and armour. Pop it when you think you can catch any enemy out; it will make you faster when you're running towards enemies.

Solari is your go-to item when you need Magic Resistance or some sort of damage-sponge for your allies. You gain an incredibly strong active. It will shield every one of your team members for 2 seconds, which is very useful in team fights especially versus high AoE enemy team comps.

Randuin's Omen is also built from Giant's Belt, and from another armour item. You get plenty of other things, things other than stats, from this item though. If attacked by an auto-attack, the attacker loses 15% AS for a second and you also take less damage from crits. Lastly, you gain an active which slows nearby enemies' movement speed. This is very useful in teamfights when you're trying to peel enemies off your ADC.

The stats are great and the passive has excellent synergy with Leona. Ulting near an ally summons a "storm" around you which slows and burns the enemies. Since Leona's ult is relatively short and she's always fighting with her ADC, you can see why this item works so well with her.

Frozen Heart and Randuin's have one component in common - Warden's Mail. In addition to this, Frozen Heart is built from another armour item, thus FH gives you a lot of armour. In addition to the 100 armour you get, you will also get 20% CDR (useful because your ultimate will come up sooner), mana and a passive which reduces the AS of nearby enemies. The only fault of this item is the mana, which really doesn't benefit Leona. It's best bought when you're against teams with enemies that rely on their attack speed - Jax, Vayne and Tryndamere for example.

Thornmail gives a good mix of armour and health with a unique passive. When enemies AA you, ~10% of their damage reflects back onto them as magic damage. The damage scales with level and with bonus armour, so the more armour you have the more potent the ability is. I'd suggest building this against AA-based enemies (very fed ADCs namely) and enemy teams that consist only of physical damage dealers.

Good, albeit expensive, MR item, which gives you CDR as well. Passive works best against stuff with DoT spells (any bleeding or burning effects, or poison) but the stats themselves justify the buy probably. This item is probably best reserved for when you're playing against (nearly) full-AP teams.

Mikael's Crucible is a core item on many supports. The active is simply really useful in most games - it's like a QSS + heal for your ADC. What's off-putting to Leona, though, is the stats you gain from this item as well as the components. Aside from the MR and the CDR, the stats are focused on mana and mana regen, something Leona doesn't need at all and those stats will go completely to waste.

Very similar to the above in the sense that it is a great item and many supports prio it over other items. But the stats don't complement Leona at all; so you might not want it.

This item is a good buy for its price namely because of its active. The active makes engaging much easier for you as you yourself are effectively gap-closer-less. It also allows your team to catch up when you stun someone with a long range ulti. The stats are generally nice, but the shield/healing passive goes to waste on Leona unfortunately./columns]

Some supports, like Leona, especially rely on having a level advantage over their opponents at level 2. If you get level 2 first, as Leona, that's almost always a guaranteed kill; or, at least, some burned summoners from the enemy. If you don't get level 2 first, it'll be much harder to get an early kill because they need to be surprised by you. Leona is anything but inconspicuous; if they're not surprised by you (you don't get level 2 suddenly or you aren't hiding in brush), it'll be very hard for you to successfully engage before level 6.

In order to ensure you get level 2 first you need to assist your ADC with the first minion wave. You should auto-attack minions a little bit in the first wave. This is a delicate art! You have to selectively auto-attack minions with high HP, so that you don't risk your ADC missing a last hit. Moreover, you need to make sure that, while getting level 2 first by killing 3 casters and 6 melee minions, you don't push the wave to their tower too much. If you do, you will not be able to engage due to the tower's proximity.

Leona's combos are overall pretty straight-forward. There are a few ways of initiating that you should keep in mind, however, the most common engagement combo is E + Q. Should the enemy walk into your melee range, you can do it vise-versa - Q first, then wait a little for your AD to pop a passive stack if they can, then E them before they get out of your E range.. After level 6, once you've gotten your ult, you can either continue engaging in that fashion and simply add the ult after the Q (do note that they might flash, so you should wait a little for a potential flash before you can cast your R) or you can opt to ult them from a distance and then E them while they're stunned. In your early levels your passive has huge impact on the 2v2 fights. Try to give your AD a chance to pop each stack before applying a new one. A lot of people feel the need to rush, but you can almost always wait a second before activating a new ability, especially if you've just stunned your target.

Leona is inheretly intimidating - the enemy knows that you're just itching to engage on them at all times. Because you're a melee support, you should use this intimidation to bully the enemy support out of their bush and keep your own bush unwarded. If the enemy can't see you, they will be forced to play extra cautiously; which may mean that they have to forgo some CS or stay under the turret all game.

Applying this sort of pressure is both good and bad. The bad news is that it is much harder to get kills if you have your enemies pissing themselves under their own turret all through lane. Another bad thing is, this sort of aggro behavior invites ganks from the enemy mid and jungle - ergo, keep the bot lane warded and pay attention to pings and mid lane.

The good news is that the enemy ADC will likely lose out on a lot of CS and money, and they will be set behind for the rest of the game; whereas your ADC is free to farm and accumulate bank. Moreover, your ADC can whittle their turret down slowly and there will be nothing that the enemy can do.

In this video, Kai'Sa and I slowly take the bottom turret and there's nothing Nami and Jinx can do to stop us; since we'd win any fight. As you can see, the bottom lane is fully warded so we know that we are safe. .

It's very hard for Leona to deal with poke - she doesn't have a way to retaliate (no ranged, damaging abilities) and she won't be able to engage after being poked down too hard. This means that you have to employ some tactics in order to avoid poke and keep your health up.

To negate poke, stock up on potions whenever you go back - particularly if you're against high poke or high range. For example, against a Zyra & Ashe bot lane, you will need to keep yourself well supplied. Against Alistar & Vayne, maybe not quite as much.

Another thing you can do is retreat to the brush. If you're in the position to do so, it's great to have a Control Ward in the brush where you "live" so the enemy can't see - or poke - you.

Finally, if you're getting poked by someone it means that they're somewhat close to you - perhaps in E range? If you're ahead or you just think you can win the trade; straight up engage onto them when they go for the poke. After finishing a combo or attempting an engage, retreat to the brush so as to not get poked down on your way "out".

Nami assumes it's safe to poke Leona (for some reason) but I am in a good position to retaliate by engaging on her; winning a nice early game trade and burning her Exhaust. .

As a side note, I did sort of hope she would do this. I went to get a stack for my Targon's Brace. I was hoping she would assume I wasn't really looking at her, and was just trying to get that cannon kill. Sometimes you can fool the enemy like this; if you're not directly facing them or you're doing something else (CS-ing or clearing wards) they might assume you're not paying attention to them.



Leona is a notorious roame because of all of the CC that she has. If you can spare some time, ganking mid lane or top lane will often end up in a kill for your ally laner. Also try to gank in conjunction with your jungler; to increase the probability of getting a kill. There's good times and bad times to roam.

Good times are the following:


As for the bad:

Leona can either have a fantastic laning phase - one in which her ADC will be able to garner a load of kills - or a very poor one; against a poor match-up, Leona might be forced to sit idle under the turret and wait for help.

If you had a great laning phase, mid-game will be even better. Leona can transfer her influence from bot lane to the rest of the map and secure kills mid lane, top lane, as well as objectives. If you had a poor laning phase, Leona will need some time to catch up on items before she can be her tanky, aggressive self in mid-game.

Leona is an expert teamfighter. She has a lot of CC, both single-target and AoE, and she's quite tanky. There are many shoes you can fill in a team fight. You can be the initiator, the tank or the peeler. You could also be the one who got caught and instantly died; but probably not! If you're the initiator, keep in mind this: you shouldn't be one. Ideally, you want someone else to engage so that you are free to stick to your ADC and keep them safe. If you catch someone out; and that's why you're the initiator, then that's a different story. If you can get a good catch and onto a priority target, always go for it; especially late game. Likewise you should not opt to be the primary tank for your team. You are very tanky with your W, but without it you will be less tanky than a solo laner tank could be. You simply don't have the right income. You won't be able to bulk up as hard as a tank top or tank jungler can. Now being a peeler is exactly what you signed up for. Peeling is essentially keeping enemies off of your ADC. If you have a fed ADC, this is especially important. Stick close to your ADC and be ready to stun, root and stun again. Also stand in front of your ADC to intercept ultimates and projectiles. .

← Click here to check out my general guide on Warding to learn all about it! .

Leona has good synergy with the majority of marksmen, as well as with many other champions in the league. Champions she works especially well with are the ones that either have good burst, to take advantage of her stuns, some kind of gap closer, to be able to follow up on her long range engagements, or crowd control, as that will synergise with her own crowd control and you'll be able to lock down targets for a really long time. Examples of good marksmen for Leona are MF, Draven and Twitch. Champions like Caitlyn and Ashe are lesser choices for bot lane.

Outside of bot lane, champions who work well with Leona are, once again, the ones with some sort of follow up ability, or gap closer and some sort of hard CC. Jarvan IV, Amumu and Orianna are some examples of champions that synergise well with Leona.

Bot lane champions who can undo Leona's initiations and poke well give her a hard time. Janna, Alistar and Lulu are extremely annoying when playing Leona and are considered to be her biggest counters.

Enemies who have good escape abilities and are thus hard to lock down are also considered to be counters. They do not make Leona's job impossible but they do give her a really hard time. Examples of such champions are Ahri, Lissandra and Zed. Additionally, spell shields are extremely annoying, and, thus, so are Morgana and Sivir.

And that concludes my guide. I hope you found it helpful, thanks for reading and good luck on the Rift! Special thanks to my friend Gangplank 1 for helping me take the screenshots and continuously helping me update not only this guide but all my other ones as well! Check out his Gangplank guide if you're interested in testing out GP mid! And another thank you to my other friend PsiGuard for helping me out with the build and proof-reading my guide from time to time and making me fix horrendously outdated info. :) ♥

If you have any comments, suggestions or questions, please feel free to post in the comments or send me a private message. I will read everything and reply to all questions and criticism. I've written a few other guides, checking them out would be appreciated!

If you'd like to learn more about bot lane/supporting, here are some good reads:

• HowDoIShot's guide to Bot lane positioning
• Joxuu's blog on common support mistakes