I am Wolferer, a high elo dominion player. When lolmatches stopped working, my hidden dominion elo was 2239, putting me in the top 100 of all dominion players on NA. I currently maintain around a +100 win margin on dominion. Currently I am on a team in the weekly Dominate Dominion tournament that places regularly in the top 4.

This guide assumes you have enough general knowledge about dominion and focuses on information that is unique when playing Janna. If you want to learn the basics of dominion, or generic advanced strategies, there are plenty of good sources for that. You can find links to many dominion resources here.

Summoner Spells

Core

Revive is a standard summoner that should be taken on all Dominion champions. People like to call it the Flash of Dominion, but it should be taken even more universally than Flash is on Summoner's Rift (where Ghost is sometimes a viable alternative).

Standard

While Janna herself doesn't get into duels, Exhaust is still an excellent choice to support your teammates when going top lane. When going bottom lane, Exhaust can be used to mitigate damage and hold off a tower dive gank.


Garrison is a good choice on support champions and tanks due to its ability to interrupt captures and regenerate turrets to survive against stacked up minion waves. Garrison can also be used offensively to reduce enemy turret damage, but this use is not as important when playing Janna because that is something that she is already very good at.

Other choices

Clairvoyance is a very high skill cap summoner spell in Dominion. One of those most important aspects of Dominion is map control and global awareness. Clairvoyance can help you with both of these. Here are some tips when using Clairvoyance:

• Check common bush camping spots. This will usually be either the center double bush, or the two bushes flanking a speed shrine. If the enemy team is missing from the map, do this before advancing to take control of those bushes as a team.
• Check which direction your opponents go after they respawn. Keep an eye on the respawn timers and then Clairvoyance their base a few seconds after they respawn. They can change their direction to mind game you, but doing so wastes time. There's a good chance they don't even notice being spotted. Also note that enemies will respawn in waves, so you can see where multiple people are going at once.
• Check for ganks for over-extended teammates. If you often think to yourself "that person is going to get caught" only to watch them die a few seconds later, Clairvoyance may be for you. You can prove to that person that they are in danger, and they may be able to escape in time.
• Spot ganks for bottom lane. This is very useful for bottom laners given that wards to not exist in Dominion. This can also be very hard to accomplish, as there are a few separate gank paths that can be taken and it is hard to hit the right window to spot people. Try to spot the speed shrine with your Clairvoyance, as most people will step on that while going to gank.

Ignite is still useful in Dominion for finishing off kills on enemies that otherwise would have escaped. It can also be useful to against some champions that rely on sustain. Just don't pretend it's going to stop 36_64.png from healing like crazy.

Gotta Go Fast

Flash, Ghost, Cleanse, and Barrier should only be run these if you really know what you're doing and want to do a dedicated back-cap strategy. Janna is a pretty good choice for this strategy, but not the best. If you are doing this type of strategy, don't follow this guide. The information here won't help you.

Runes

Dual penetration reds are taken due to the AD from Janna's shield. You can also bring straight magic penetration, the difference is not large. The same goes for scaling versus flat resist runes.

AP quints give Janna a good damage and shield boost. Cooldown reduction and movement speed are the next best options, but I do recommend AP quints strongly.

Masteries

This build recommends building a large amount of AP on Janna. For this reason, going deep into the offense tree is useful. You can also go 9-0-21 to get the extra 6% CDR from the utility tree. You have to spend a lot of useless points to do so, however, as the tier 3 and 4 masteries have limited use on Dominion.

• Greed - This will pale in comparison to your passive gold income on Dominion. Add to that the fact that the game has a shorter length and it looks pretty poor.
• Awareness - This will only give you a level advantage for a few seconds. Janna can definitely not take advantage of this since her ultimate is a fairly niche defensive tool.
• Vampirism - Spell Vamp is very weak in dominion due to the passive healing reduction and the presence of health relics.

You can also go into the defensive tree. Some of those masteries are very strong on Janna, such as Relentless and Tenacious. You do have to give up a lot to do this, and it is not a realistic option for bottom lane, where you need early damage of CDR to stop pushes.

9 points in utility is core

This is true for most champions on Dominion for the following reasons:

• Summoner's Insight gives you a very strong health boost when you use Revive.
• Wanderer is very good for traversing the map.
• Mastermind takes a large chunk out of your Revive cooldown. Revive cooldowns can easily make the difference between winning or losing a game.
• Artificer is very strong in the fast paced Dominion environment. In Summoner's Rift, a mage will always have Zhonya's Hourglass up for a fight. In Dominion, the 90 second cooldown on Wooglet's Witchcap can make the active feel like a luxury at times. Add to that the fact that hextech sweeper and Deathfire Grasp are both great items on Janna and it becomes pretty apparent how good Artificer is.

AP Janna has the following priorities when itemizing

1. AP
2. CDR
3. Mana regen
4. Magic penetration (and other damage boosts)
5. Resists
6. Health

The reason Janna can get away with aggressively building offensively is because she is naturally elusive, and her shield has a .9 AP ratio. Building AP substitutes for building health through the shield, and building CDR multiplies this further. AP Janna gets defense by building offense.

Starting

I start with Boots, Fiendish Codex, and a Faerie Charm. This is a bit of a greedy start to get me started on my core build faster, but Janna can get away with it. The CDR from Fiendish Codex is great because it improves your utility early game and lets you defend against pushes better when bottom lane due to the reduced Howling Gale cooldown.

Starting with Boots, Prospector's Ring, Health Potion and Mana Potion gives you better overall stats and is safer, but delays your build.

Core

Athene's Unholy Grail is quickly bought to remove Janna's mana problems. It also gives you a good amount of AP and CDR for the cost, as well as a negatron cloak worth of MR.

After Athene's, start working on Wooglet's Witchcap. The hat is the ultimate AP item, which is our first priority when itemizing Janna. Build the blasting wands first unless you really need the armor. You should be able to kite well enough against most champions to not need the armor right away.

Rounding it Out

Void Staff is another great damage item and is a must-buy for all AP champions. You can prioritize CDR (get another codex) before picking it up though.

The last two slots of the build should be filled with some combination of the following:

• Morellonomicon - This is a very cheap source of AP and CDR. You may want to get this to cap out your CDR even if you don't really need the passive. This is a very strong item overall.
• Deathfire Grasp - This is an expensive item, but it gives you a ton of AP and a strong active. If the game is going to go long, or there are some raid boss level tanks on the other team, you should get this.
• Lich Bane - This is a good item against non-burst champions since it increases your sustain damage a lot. The movement speed is also pretty nice.
• Abyssal Mask - This is the next best MR item to get.
• Randuin's Omen - If you are still having trouble against auto-attack champions, this is the item to buy. The combination of AS slow and MS slow will let you kite better, while the health will let you survive long enough to get away from fed AD carries.
• Hextech Sweeper - The movement speed, CDR, and reveal active are very nice on this. The active is great against stealth champions, but it's also good for checking bushes.
• Twin Shadows - If you think the most important thing at a poing in the game is getting around the map quickly and scouting, this is a good item to get. The active is good for spotting if the enemy team is going after the top point or bottom point. This item is also pretty cheap.

In general, do not get the following items:

• Blackfire Torch - This item is pretty good, but it's super expensive. You probably won't finish it, and it's components aren't remotely slot efficient. Janna is also very bad at using the passive. If you want CDR, I would go with Morellonomicon instead.
• Rylai's Crystal Scepter - You have enough cc already, and will waste a lot of money itemizing health to get this. Build AP and use your shield instead.

Tailwind (Passive)

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• Tailwind is an excellent passive in Dominion, where mobility is very important. I run movement speed quints on many champions, so I find that giving each teammate two additional movement speed quints to be quite strong.
• When you go bottom with Janna, your team still benefits from you.

Howling Gale

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• Howling gale is a good source of CC. Usually it will be quickly double cast for guaranteed hits, but when charged it will do a considerable amount of damage, and the extra .2 seconds of knockup are pretty significant.
• Howling gale's AP ratio does not scale with charge time. Later in the game when Janna has a lot of AP, a double cast howling gale will still do a lot of damage. This will usually be how you use this skill as it guarantees accuracy.
• Bottom lane Janna relies on this skill heavily for rapidly clearing minion waves by letting it fully charge. Early game make sure you are casting this constantly when it is off cooldown. You should aim it down the lane before the minions arrive such that it hits them after it finishes charging.
• When going top lane, howling gale is still a good pushing tool. You can cast it at the minion waves and then return to your team, allowing you to get minion waves to stack up and push without having to waste time pushing them. You often do not even have to show yourself on the map to do this, which is a huge advantage.
• Howling gale can reward clever play. Consider casting it from out of vision and surprising your opponent with it. You can also cast it and then bait your opponent into a position where it will hit them.

Zephyr

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• Zephyr has two very useful modes. It passively gives you a significant movespeed boost allowing you to get around the map quickly. The active does a respectable amount of damage and has a large slow at high levels.
• With max CDR, Zephyr applies a 3 second slow with a 4.8 second cooldown. That's a 63% up-time CC ability.
• You lose Zephyr's movespeed passive when it is on cooldown. It will apply a larger slow than what you lose, however, so it should be used when escaping 1v1 situations. The one caveat to this is against champions with gap closers. Wait until the enemy uses their gap closer then apply zephyr.

Eye Of The Storm

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• The most important thing to note about eye of the storm is the 90% AP ratio. This skill scales ridiculously well with AP, and is the number one reason to use AP Janna. Late game you will have a shield that nears 117_64.png ultimate levels of strength, but on a 6 second cooldown.
• Because eye of the storm's cooldown is fairly low, it should be used quickly at the start of the fight on whatever champion is going aggressive. The bonus AD will often help this champion do additional damage, which is pure gravy.
• Encourage your dying teammates to run to you for a shield. Late game the shield is so large that it can get people out of impossible situations.
• Do not prioritize using eye of the storm to buff AD carries. If someone else is taking damage, shield them. Since we are maxing the shield last, we are using it mainly as a shield and abusing the AP ratio.

Monsoon

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• Monsoon is one of the better utility skills in the game. The knockback portion of it has many uses, including resetting team fights, splitting up the enemy team, interrupting captures and dives, escaping fights, and occasionally offensively as an engage (this is generally not recommended with this build).
• The healing aspect of monsoon scales very well with AP. Use it to interrupt fights and heal your teammates, and make sure you don't break the channel. Using Monsoon as an engage is not recommended because it wastes the healing potential of the skill.
• Monsoon doesn't benefit much from levels. This is why we leave it at level one, and don't necessarily get it right away at level 6. The cooldown doesn't improve much, and the extra healing isn't too important since the heal will already be significant due to AP.
• When bottom lane, Monsoon is primarily used to defend against ganks and tower dives. Try not to waste it, as it has a long cooldown and is really important for holding a point long enough for your teammates to rescue it.

Bottom Lane Dominion

The bottom lane in Dominion is the most difficult lane in all of League of Legends.

• You cannot buy wards.
• There are four champions who could potentially gank you. On yeah, they get a speed boost right before they come after you, too.
• Your tower is not safe. When a gank comes, your tower will wimp out on you and get disabled by the enemies.
• Your mistakes are broadcast for everyone to see. Your top laning buddies finally manage to get the windmill point for themselves, only to watch you get brutally murdered and lose your point. Now starts the ugly dance of trying to retake the bottom point while keeping enough resources at the windmill to hold that. Meanwhile the enemy team picks one of the points and storms it while letting the other go. Now your team is back to square one. Better hope you didn't cause this by dieing in a 1v1.

If you want to be a good bottom laner in Dominion, you need two things. A razor sharp game sense and a plan to make an impact on the game.

Bottom Janna Playstyle

Bottom lane Janna specializes in stalling bottom lane and being resilient to ganks. She can hold the lane against many strong/overpowered champions by pushing with Q and avoiding fights with her high mobility. She can also win attrition battles due to her strong shield. Janna is at her weakest in the early game before she gets levels in her Q and at her strongest in the mid to late game when her shield is absurdly huge and she can whittle down opponents with an endless siege of CC and damage.

Janna's plan to make an impact on the game is to never lose her bottom point while giving her team an advantage with her passive. Late in the game Janna can switch to top lane and provide her team with an unbeatable amount of utility and a surprising amount of damage.

Early Game

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• Prevent pushes as hard as you can. Against some strong push champions, You may need to request your teammates stop by to relieve you.
• Keep your mana high. Do this by grabbing health relics often. Ideally you want to control the center health relic by either pushing the wave to your opponent's side or beating them to it by using your CC. If you cannot control the center relic, go back to get the relic under your bottom point when possible. The easiest way to lose early on as bottom lane Janna is to run out of mana.
• Get CS when you can. Last hits give you a lot of gold in Dominion. Make sure you aren't putting yourself in too much risk to do this, as Janna will function fine even if she is a little bit behind in gold.
• Buy CDR incrementally when you can. A good way to get an advantage bottom lane is to sneak a buy for some items. Do your best not to miss out on experience and CS

Mid Game

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• Avoid dieing to ganks. Pay attention to the minimap and think about when you would gank if you were the enemy team. As a general rule of thumb, if your team just captured top, there's probably going to be an enemy ganker stopping by. If your team is dominating top, definitely be ready for the ganker bottom.
• Abuse your pushing power. Against some champions, you can neutralize their turret merely by pushing, although this usually won't be the case. Your main goal is to force your opponent to focus on clearing minions instead of fighting you. If you can manage to hit your opponent with some Qs and Ws here, take the shots. Also, if you have more minions than them, try to get in little engages and watch as the minions tear them apart.
• Trade with your opponent unless they are a very dangerous champion. Do so by shielding yourself, then W+Qing them, then backing off while they can't retaliate. Do this each time your skills are up unless you think a gank is coming. I call this trading, but when done right, it's a pretty one-sided affair.

Late Game

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• If your team is losing top, try to swap. Otherwise stay bottom and let them close it out for you.
• Be careful about trading with late game scaling champions (ad carries, bruisers with strong gap closers). If you put yourself at too much risk by making trades, simply defend the point. If you can still trade safely, do so aggressively.
• Survival is key at this point in the game. Ganks will be very deadly, and you will be really hurting your team if your lane opponent manages to kill you 1v1.

Matchups

Janna has bad matchups against champions who can lock her down and deal damage. Many champions deal damage, but not many can also lock her down. In these cases, you have to hope you can outplay your opponent. Here are some examples (to be updated as I play more matchups)

• Udyr - The unholy god of Janna counters. Udyr is faster than you, he can stun you, he can tower dive you with no fear, he can sustain, and he does stupid damage. If the Udyr is building tank, you can stall the lane. If he's building offense, you should ask for a swap or a steady stream of ganks.
• Karma - Karma can match Janna's speed in bursts with her E, and can lock Janna down with her W. This lets her get easy R+Qs off on you when you are rooted. You can often stalemate the lane against Karma, but when her friends show up to tower dive you, you will have a hard time defending.
• Fizz - A well played fizz can avoid all of your CC and burst you down. He is loaded with gap closers. Thankfully there aren't many of these, and they usually don't go bottom lane. Wait for his E to use your damage skills. You can interrupt his Q with your Q if you are fast.
• Kassadin - He's pretty op in general on dominion, but he's even better against Janna.
• AD Carries - Janna isn't the worst in lane against ad carries, but she is completely unable to stop their farm early game. The enemy can send an AD Carry bottom to get farmed up, then swap them top lane to wreck havoc. Not much you can do here as you're pretty weak early.

Janna has average matchups against either super high damage champions or champions with high sustain. In these cases, Janna can still stall the lane out effectively.

Janna has good matchups against champions who are kitable and champions with skill shots.