Hello! My name is Lathyrus, although some people may still remember me as BardlyMissed. I started playing League of Legends in the summer of 2017, back in Season 7 where I started off as a Jungler. During the next preseason, I started experimenting with a lot of different champions, which eventually led me to Bard, where I fell in love with him and the support role. After picking him up, I started climbing and ended Season 8 as a Challenger. Currently, I have roughly three million mastery points on Bard between various accounts, which I used to climb to Challenger on the EUW, KR, and NA servers. During Season 11, I also managed to hit Rank 1 on my main server, EUW, at 1205 LP.

While I main Bard, I also enjoy testing out other supports. I have been climbing like crazy to high elo, currently in Master's, on a non-bard account using mostly Renata. Renata has been super fun to play, so hopefully I can help you learn too! My moderator Meltrax and I are consistently modifying this guide to reflect the most up-to-date changes. However, we do value accuracy over speed, so post-patch it may take us a day or three to test potential builds and re-write the guide accordingly. In other words - once I know, you’ll know!

A lot of people are building Renata like an enchanter - this is a mistake. Renata offers a ton of peel and can facilitate her carries in ways that no other support can. The best thing you can do is stay alive, so building tankier helps you achieve that goal. Arcane Comet and Summon Aery are not the best options for her. Guardian, with the tankiness you get in the minor runes, is by far the best setup you can have. Fleet Footwork and Glacial Augment are close seconds. It's all about peeling and staying alive.

Leverage You can think of Leverage like a mini Imperial Mandate. We take attack speed minor ruins to synergize with this so that you can constantly be applying your passive and helping your ADC do more damage.

Handshake Handshake is your main trading CC. The cooldown doesn't decrease with level, so we put one point in it early and then we leave it as our last maxed skill. Remember when trading that your Q can be used on minions that you can then push into enemy champions for the mini stun.

Bailout Bailout is just broken, it's like having a Zilean's Chronoshift on your W except it also gives move speed. Use Bailout right before your carry dies, or to enable them to chase a kill since it gives movement speed specifically towards enemy champions, and it resets on kills or assists. As a bonus, Bailout can be used on yourself, which while a little niche can save you from tower dives, for example.

Loyalty Program Loyalty Program is your laning bread and butter. It shields you for 50 at level 1, and has good early damage scaling. You'll use it to dip in and out of bushes for your early trading pattern. Move up, auto attack, use Loyalty Program and back up again. This should make it easy to gain gold with Spellthief's Edge and once you take Handshake at level 2, you win almost all early trades.

Hostile Takeover Hostile Takeover is very powerful, but don't bait yourself with it. It travels very slowly, so it can't be used on its own as an engage tool. Use it if you have already landed hard CC like Handshake onto two opposing champions, or as a counter-engage tool if the enemy team jumps you. It's super valuable at objective fights where the enemy has to be clumped into a small space, like Dragon and Baron pits.

Ignite

Flash is our obvious first choice for our summoner spell. Renata doesn't have any movement abilities she needs Flash for the mobility it gives.

Ignite

Ignite is your typical pick. It gives you a lot more early kill pressure, for both in lane and when roaming. Late game you can also use it to get some grievous wounds on priority targets.

Exhaust

Exhaust is your pick if you are against a dive champ that you are worried about. Assassins have been increasing in popularity, and Exhaust can completely shut down someone trying to engage into your carries.

You can get the item set for this build by clicking here.
You can either download or copy-paste the text and insert it right into your league client. (you can find your items section under your collection tab, then press on import item builds)

Spellthief's Edge

Easily the fastest stacking support item you can have on Renata if you're abusing your early poke like you should be doing. Once fully stacked it offers lots of (practically-free) Ability Power and some much-needed mana regen. It even comes with some HP, which is super nice for adding a little thickness.

		Plated Steelcaps
		Plated Steelcaps are a great choice when facing a team that has their main carries rely on auto-attacks. Look at the game and decide which boot choice is best.

		Mercury's Treads
		Mercury's Treads will be your primary boot choice if the enemy is AP heavy or especially if they have a lot of CC, since you don't have double tenacity in your runes with this setup.

		Locket of the Iron Solari
		We are taking Locket of the Iron Solari since it fits the best with the Guardian playstyle. A lot of people are building Renata like an enchanter - this is a mistake. Renata offers a ton of peel and can facilitate her carries in ways that no other support can. The best thing you can do is stay alive, so building tankier helps you achieve that goal. Apart from that, the item has some really good tank stats which will scale well with Conditioning. The aura effect isn't super powerful early, but in late game team fights, it boosts your entire team to be just a little tankier. When building this item try and build the health components first. If you already have a Ruby Crystal and have enough gold then you can consider Aegis of the Legion, otherwise stick to either the Ruby Crystal or Kindlegem.

		Anathema's Chains
		Building Anathema's Chains second gives you some great mid game stats, and the ability to reduce tenacity on the other team's big scary carry, which is super helpful. Your next item choice will depend on who you put Anathema's Chains on. If they only have one mid AP assassin and the rest of the damage is AD, go Frozen Heart. If they have one ADC and an AP mid and jungle, pair Anathema's Chains to the ADC and get Abyssal Mask. There are no strict rules to always follow here, you'll have to look at your game state to make the best decision.

Frozen Heart

Frozen Heart gives you an insane amount of armour and two amazing passive effects. The rock-solid passive will reduce the damage of incoming basic attacks, and the aura will slow the attack speed of everyone nearby. This makes you insanely tanky against any form of AD damage dealers, and even some of the AP attack speed reliant champions. When building the item, you always want to try and pickup the Warden's Mail first.

		Abyssal Mask
		Abyssal Mask is your final item option if the enemy team has more than one AP threat. Force of Nature was nerfed and this item is now cheaper, so it's the best MR item for supports. The passive is also very helpful: debuffing enemy bruisers will help your team cut them down.

		Knight's Vow
		Knight's Vow is now a very safe item for your linked partner, mitigating up to 20% of the damage they take. Build this item if you have a late game carry on your team that you want to peel for and keep alive. You probably won't get to your sixth item in most games, but this is the usually the best option if you do.

		Zhonya's Hourglass
		Zhonya's Hourglass is the final alternative. If there's someone on your team that the enemy is focusing, you should build Knight's Vow as mentioned above. If however the enemy team is focusing you, then build Zhonya's Hourglass to keep yourself alive.

			Elixirs
			In most situations, your standard elixir of choice will be the Elixir of Iron. Remember, Renata wants to stay alive as long as possible and keep peeling nonstop. However, sometimes you might need some extra damage at the end of the game to win a fight, or help out your team the most you can, if you find yourself in that situation I recommend getting an Elixir of Sorcery.

Renata is great as a peel enchanter, so Guardian works very well. It adds a little extra shielding to your kit which helps you keep those carries safe and alive. Renata impairs movement a lot! Handshake is part of your early trading pattern and Loyalty Program slows on hit, and you should be trading as much as possible early. This is exactly why enabling allies to heal from you impairing them is so amazing. It adds a good amount of extra utility to your kit, and you don’t have to do anything special for it. With our current build of Locket of the Iron Solari, Frozen Heart, and possibly Force of Nature we already get a ton of resistances. Conditioning works really well with this due to its increase of 5% to both resistances. Since Renata's trying to stay alive and peel for her team as much as possible, this rune just fits super well with the current build. Revitalize boosts the shielding from Locket of the Iron Solari, as well as the obvious synergies with Guardian itself.

Eyeball Collection is a sneaky way to get more damage. If you're following this build, Eyeball Collection will push you over 50 AP, which will make Leverage deal 4% max health to marked targets instead of 3%. Relentless Hunter is great because move speed is the best stat in LoL, and this gives you more of it. For your minor runeshards you will be taking an attack speed runeshard, an armour runeshard, and a health runeshard. The attack speed is going to help with the uptime of your passive Leverage which is like a mini Imperial Mandate. The health rune is going to give you some more sustain in lane, and the armor rune will help you in lane against the enemy ADC.

You still want to be as defensive as possible, but Guardian got nerfed. Summon Aery will proc on your allies if you E through them on the way to hitting an enemy, and of course the auto-attack buff is also nice. Renata is very mana hungry if you're trying to poke (and you should), so Manaflow Band will help you keep up your E poke trade patterns. Transcendence gives you 5 abillity haste at level 5, and 10 at level 8. This keeps our ability haste up a little bit which of course just lets you use your spells more often. Now that damage sticks better with lower sustain and less healing, getting more poke in is super valuable and can lead to better advantages in lane. Scorch is easy to proc with proc with Renata's E, so it's just bonus damage for you.

With our current build of Locket of the Iron Solari, Frozen Heart, and possibly Force of Nature we already get a ton of resistances. Conditioning works really well with this due to its increase of 5% to both resistances. Since Renata's trying to stay alive and peel for her team as much as possible, this rune just fits super well with the current build. Revitalize boosts the shielding from Locket of the Iron Solari, as well as the obvious synergies with Guardian itself. For your minor runeshards you will be taking an attack speed runeshard, an armour runeshard, and a health runeshard. The attack speed is going to help with the uptime of your passive Leverage which is like a mini Imperial Mandate. The health rune is going to give you some more sustain in lane, and the armor rune will help you in lane against the enemy ADC.

Fleet Footwork gives you a high sustain heal combined with movement speed that makes your trading pattern during laning phase insanely safe. It also makes it easier to stick on targets during mid and late game. Triumph gives you more gold and health from successful takdowns, which includes assists with Bailout. The percent HP you gain from Triumph is huge with this build, and between Bailout saving your carry and Triumph healing you, fights that look lost can turn around very fast in your favor. Our secondary rune, Legend: Tenacity is insanely good in the current meta. There is a lot of CC in the game, and combining this with the tank items and her peel ability we will be building makes Renata very hard to lock down and kill. The last rune is the least important one from this tree. You can also consider Coup de Grace. As a support you tend to be hanging around peeling your teammates while on lower health, so in testing Last Stand has been most consistent in providing a small damage boost.

With our current build of Locket of the Iron Solari, Frozen Heart, and possibly Force of Nature we already get a ton of resistances. Conditioning works really well with this due to its increase of 5% to both resistances. Since Renata's trying to stay alive and peel for her team as much as possible, this rune just fits super well with the current build. Unflinching helps you out a ton when facing any form of CC. Paired with Legend: Tenacity, this rune helps us reach the point of diminshing returns on tenacity, so we never need to build Mercury's Treads and can focus on better boots while still being very hard to slow down. For your minor runeshards you will be taking an attack speed runeshard, an armour runeshard, and a health runeshard. The attack speed is going to help with the uptime of your passive Leverage which is like a mini Imperial Mandate. The health rune is going to give you some more sustain in lane, and the armor rune will help you in lane against the enemy ADC.

Glacial Augment provides a ton of lane control and is very easy to prok with Handshake. It can also be proc'd with Hostile Takeover, giving you even more CC abilities in mid and late game. Perfect Timing is simply the best option in this row. Grabbing a free Stopwatch is always fun, and can turn the tide of an early or mid game fight if the enemy isn't paying attention to your inventory (and many low-elo players don't). Future's Market helps us get to our item spikes a little faster. Our boots, Locket of the Iron Solari, and Anathema's Chains are each a huge spike in our gameplay, so this helps us hit each one faster. Cosmic Insight synergizes great with Locket of the Iron Solari and Redemption, giving Renata more tools for her midgame peeling.

With our current build of Locket of the Iron Solari, Frozen Heart, and possibly Force of Nature we already get a ton of resistances. Conditioning works really well with this due to its increase of 5% to both resistances. Since Renata's trying to stay alive and peel for her team as much as possible, this rune just fits super well with the current build. Unflinching helps you out a ton when facing any form of CC. Overgrowth is also a good option, but since we get a decent amount of HP from the items in the build that rune a little less needed. So instead, Unflinching is now going to keep you safe and out of the CC chain. For your minor runeshards you will be taking an attack speed runeshard, an armour runeshard, and a health runeshard. The attack speed is going to help with the uptime of your passive Leverage which is like a mini Imperial Mandate. The health rune is going to give you some more sustain in lane, and the armor rune will help you in lane against the enemy ADC.

Renata's E, Loyalty Program, gives you a strong shield and good level 1 damage. You start with E and use bushes to move up, auto, and E to stack Spellthief's Edge quickly. The shield will often help you avoid taking any damage yourself as long as you dip back out of vision after the combo.

All in at level 2 as long as you didn't mess up your level 1. Take Q, Handshake, and use it to push one of the enemy bot laners into the other for maximum damage and a short stun, or you can use Handshake on a minion and push it into an opposing champion to still deal a little extra damage.

In general, look to trade as often as possible while keeping on eye on your mana pool, and all-in if you can hit the double stun. Stack your Spellthief's Edge and prioritizing backing for tier 2 boots followed by Locket of the Iron Solari.

After laning phase, your job is no longer to engage like the 2v2 laning phase - you're now focused fully on peeling. Think of yourself like a Lulu but tankier. You position around your carry but stand in front instead of behind. Ward objectives like a good support player and help your team have vision control around objective fights or on the flanks if you're sieging. Use Hostile Takeover if your team gets engaged on, or if you or another member of your team hard CC's a couple of opponents. Remember that it's very slow, so it's not an engage tool by itself.

Late game is all about the objective fights. Vision is key, and you can use your CC from Handshake to help your team gets picks. Generally, you want to ward up around objectives and try to help your team get those picks, since that's an objective fight won before it even happens. If it comes to 5v5's, again use Hostile Takeover if your team gets engaged on, use Bailout on your carry if they are getting close to dying, and use Handshake to peel.

I’ve linked my Twitch below. I stream on a pretty consistent basis, and can usually be found playing Bard (when Jankos doesn’t target ban me), testing new builds, coaching, or answering questions from readers like yourself who can’t find their answer here. I’ve also included the obligatory OP.GGs as well as my Discord, where you can meet-up with fellow Bard and support enthusiasts or receive notifications whenever I begin streaming for the day.

I hope that you were able to either learn something new from the guide or were able to find the runes and builds that you were looking for. From the entire team, thank you so much for taking the time to read the guide. If you still have any questions you can always hop into my stream, my discord, or just in the discussion tab here, I am always willing to help you out!

• 3-10-2022 Item Changes
  - Best boot options are now the two tank boots
  - 2nd item is now Anathema's Chains
  - 3rd item is Frozen Heart or Force of Nature
  - Last item is now Zhonya's or Knight's Vow
  - Updated item pastebin configuration accordingly.
  
• 2-27-2022 Guardian Setup Primary Secondary Runes Changes
  - Swapped out Unflinching for Revitalize
  - Swapped out Manaflow Band and Transcendence for Eyeball Collection and Relentless Hunter
  
• 2-21-2022 Guardian Setup Secondary Runes Changes
  - Swapped out Cheap Shot and Ingenious Hunter for Manaflow Band and Transcendence
  
• 02-18-2022 - initial Publish
  - First iteration of the Renata guide.