Upon Ornn's release, he struggled top-lane in a meta dominated by snowballing bruisers. Yet I found, at that time, that his kit seemed to synergize well having a lane partner allowing him to focus on helping to sustain a lane, and simply building tanky, while helping to protect the team's marksman, and still retain relevant benefits for the rest of the team.

Since then Ornn has been adjusted and the new runes system has put a premium on resistances, while enabling strong stylistic and synergistic play. While Ornn may sometimes be better played top, it is quite feasible to play him as a talky support, offering your team a flexible pick that can contribute to the team in either role, usable on either income.

In capable hands, Ornn is a legitimate support pick akin to Alister, Poppy, or Sion, and is much more capable of snowballing the game from the support position than anywhere else... even if it means he is snowballing someone other than himself.

So have a read, try it out, and enjoy forging your bot-lane into a formidable game-winning weapon.

Ornn Support offer three major advantages to your team.

• Strong Lane sustain, and gank followups
• Wave Clearing
• Best-in-Class Area Control Ultimate

While the shield potion of his W Bellows Breath scales based on his max Health, the damage potion of his ability hits for %health and has no scaling other than the number of times it has been upgraded. Furthermore, because it hits for %health, you can use it intelligently to help your marksman waveclear without taking farm. This is particularly useful with champs that have high poke, but low clear.

Playing Ornn in a support role opens up the viability of picking up an Item like Zeke's Convergence. I cannot understate how absolutely amazing this Item is on Ornn with a coordinated team. Ornn has one of the best ults in the game, and it is particularly useful for baron/dragon control. Being able to use it not just as a skillshot, but also as a steroid (for TWO people) makes it that much more invaluable in skirmishes and teamfights.

Lastly, Ornn's upgraded shop items offer your team a late game gold advantage that the enemy team cannot duplicate. This can make a huge difference in breaking open stalemated games.

.	PRO		CON	.
.	Extremely Tanky on minimal income Excellent Trading on minimal income Loads of CC Unusual Rotation pattern leading to Item/XP advantages in lane Amazing initiation and follow up	.	Vulnerable to heavy poke comps Trading requires committed engagement (especially from teammate) Every ability is a skillshot Most of your trading is weak CC It can be very easy to overcommit or get CC'd at critical points of engage	.

Since we are prioritizing tankiness over damage early Inspiration + Resolve Gives us the best early tankiness available, especially when combined with Celestial Body. Second Wind allows us to leverage our health pool to better sustain, since we will likely be tanking some amount of poke in lane. Biscuit Delivery augments our sustain in lane, and Future's Market gives us some reach when shopping, to hit our needed items early (even when still in lane)!

Glacial Augment gives us a little extra cc from our standard autos if we are engaging/trading, and really shines when proccing brittle on somebody. It also gives us some unique itemization options IF we choose to buy something like Turbo Chemtank

Conditioning doubles down on our tankiness at 10 minutes. Alternatively This can be swapped for Iron Skin or Mirror Shell if you are expecting a rough early lane phase.

Recommended:

Exhaust
Exhaust is your go-to skill for turning fights and counter-ganking, as well as securing slippery targets attempting to escape.


Flash
This is the standard go to for play making (or bacon-saving) mobility. Especially that rare occasion you really do want to flash-auto a fleeing target for the brittle proc, so your team can secure the kill.

Living Forge [PASSIVE]
Innate: Ornn can craft/purchase non consumable items anywhere on the map.

Masterwork: Ornn's teammates have access to Masterwork versions of specific Items, Limit 1 per customer.

Brittle: Bellows Breath and Call of the Forge God cause enemy units to become Brittle. Any immobilizing crowd control effects versus Brittle Enemies will have their duration increased by 30%, and proc a %health damage bonus. By default, Ornn's Auto-attacks will Knock-up and Brittle enemies.


Volcanic Rupture [ Q ]
Ornn throws out a line skillshot that damages and slows enemies, terminating early if it connect with an enemy champion. After 1.5s, a small pillar of temporary terrain/wall will erupt from the endpoint of the skillshot and remain for 4 seconds unless destroyed.


Bellow's Breath [ W ]
Ornn shields himself and belches out a cone of fire that deals %health damage.
*This skill applies brittle to enemy units. Subsequent cc, or auto-attacks from Ornn will proc bonus damage/duration


Searing Charge [ E ]
Ornn dashes forward dealing damage through enemies, stopping only if he collides with terrain. If he collides with terrain the shockwave knocks-up any nearby units and procs a burst of additional damage. Any temporary terrain he collides with is destroyed


Call of the Forge God [ R ]
1st Cast: Ornn calls upon en elemental that charges toward him from a distance away. Enemies trampled by the enemy during this phase take damage and are slowed.

2nd Cast Orn dashes in an attempt to headbutt his elemental in a target direction. If he succeeds, enemies hit by the elemental in this phase will take damage (again if hit twice), and be knocked-up. *This skill applies brittle to enemy units. Subsequent cc, or auto-attacks from Ornn will proc bonus damage/duration

Living Forge [PASSIVE]
It is not unusual for you to build an early Sapphire Crystal in order to sustain your mana in lane. This is ok since it will eventually be used for Zeke's Convergence. For the same reason, Ruby Crystals built in lane are good for both Face of the Mountain and Sightstone.

However, you still need to pay close attention to rotations. It is sometimes better to back with your ADC and give up the "free XP" you would get staying in lane, just to make sure you are both fresh and topped off for the next round of trades. Staying out and not being able to participate when your adc arrives, defeats the point of staying in lane In the first place.


Volcanic Rupture [ Q ]
Volcanic Rupture is your safest way to proc Relic Shield charges when you are unsure about venturing into the minion wave. It is also a wave denial tool. You can throw it to the back of a minion wave, and if the enemy laners don't respect it (it sticks around for a decently long time), you can dash in on it late for a devastating trade.


Bellow's Breath [ W ]
This is going to be your bread and butter skill. It is both a shield and a damage cone -- but remember, it doesn't have to be both. If you are on the defensive, you can use it just to get the shield up and mitigate damage. It also offers you some immunity to cc for a short duration. Timely activation can dodge certain abilities and mitigate others. If you are fleeing for your life and desperately trying to close those last few pixels to safely, your W can get you there.

I also feel its important to point out... your W is pretty good at helping your adc push waves. This makes Ornn a useful teammate to pair with ADC's that have trouble with wave management.


Searing Charge [ E ]
Keep an eye on nearby walls when you are getting ganked. You don't need your pillar to proc a knock-up -- sometimes you can just E the wall right next to you and give your adc some breathing room while you go into full tank mode. Also... you can also use your dash to JUST GET away. Unlike other, similar abilities there is literally no drawback to just using your E to get out of a bad place.


Call of the Forge God [ R ]
Since using your ultimate is highly requisite on hitting your 2nd activation... it can be dangerous if you are already in the middle of a fight. Enemy CC can prevent you from hitting your second R. If you have to, Ult from a distance and back up a little in order to line up the best engage for your team. Most players will expect that your ult will go out the same way it came in -- you can use this to your advantage.

Also worth mentioning (though also detailed in enemy assessment), your ult is so large, it is incredibly difficult for a Yasuo to MISS a Wind Wall against it. Since the elemental counts as a blockable projectile, it will block it (whether it is on its way in, or out). Try to bait out the wall before you Ult... or even try to hit a Yasuo from an unexpected direction...


You can catch someone unawares by ulting a random direction rather than from head on, and then using your 2nd headbutt to redirect. Again, most players expect the elemental to go out the way it comes in. If the don't see it moving toward them when they hear the Horn call of your ult, they may never expect it coming from another direction. While uncommon, it is a potent trick if you have the positioning to pull off.


Also, your ult is at its best in narrow corridors, especially like those found approaching Dragon and Baron. If you can bait an enemy team fight over an objective, Ornn can give the enemy team, literally nowhere to run.

Core Items
		800 g		Warding is Essential to playing a support. It also offers some nice Health pading to keep you extra tanky
Face of the Mountain		2200 g		Health, Sustain, and CDR round this out giving you a some tankiness, and a strong active component to aid a teammate or even use selfishly
		2400 g		Armor, CDR, and Magic Resist, with a component that turns Ornn and a selected teammate into a wave of devastation any time Ornn uses his ult.
		900 g		Boots of mobility shore up Ornn's slow movespeed, especially when the game shifts towards map objectives. These get you where you need to be fast so that you can pick where you want to fight instead of having the fight pick you
Space!
Space!
Space!
Space!
Optional Items
		2200 g		Locket is likely going to be your go-to item after completing your Core build. It offers your team a strong active shield for engagements, and can be upgraded to Circlet of the Iron Solari for some nice late game stat buffs
		2650 g		This is a very situational item that allows you some in fight mobility or engage, and that really shines when you can hit multiple enemies with your Glacial Augment
		2700 g		This is one of the best items for combination Armor and MR. The active can be used to push unattended lanes, or to draw attention to one area of the map while you push something else. It even bolsters your gold income as Voidlings well credit you while last-hitting. It is also useful for Setting or defending sieges.
		2500 g		Another Combination Armor/MR Item. This it for when you just need BOTH stats with no Frills attached.
		2700 g		If Face of the mountain isn't cutting it, and your ADC needs a little more help surviving, you can pick this up and double down on your shared stats with a teammate.
		2900 g		This is your best option for frontlining versus Heavy AD comps. Anything else is a half-measure
		2800 g		You don't typically have trouble versus MR, but if you do, its usually someone spammy like Casseopeia, Kassadin, or Singed. Build this -- No more problem.
		2800 g		Strong magic resist and health, plus a bit of CDR. It also gets special recognition for being able to stack massive health regen effects to self, while mitigating damage with your shield.
		2600 g		If you are looking for something really really wild, and really really late game, this is your item. It turns Ornn into a waddling nightmare, and OMG the Ults...

I cannot stress enough how useful it to be able to build items in lane as a support. So many things are affected by this, but most notably early objectives (like dragon) suddenly become quite plausible, when you can build your sightstone RIGHT THERE and literally be in place to ward, and then tank Dragon for your jungler.

Later on in the game, you can move anywhere you are needed with your Mobility Boots and just hold ground with a teammate, while finishing your items. RIGHT THERE. Especially in Solo Queue where your teammates may or may not have a proper understanding of rotations, you can solo defend a lane and buy time for your team, while building what you need in place, while your team resets.

Also, I cannot even begin to put words to how valuable I have found Zeke's Convergence to be on Ornn. More than any other support I've played, it fits his style to perfection... offering the kind of stats he needs, and turning him (and a teammate) into an absolute monster when he chooses to engage. It Supercharges your carry providing a nice powerspike FOR FREE, every time you ult. At the same time, it turns Ornn Himself into a bodily CC Machine that literally melts anyone caught up in his AoE Slow.

Once you have Face of the Mountain and Zeke's Convergence you are really just building reactively depending on what your team needs.

Ornn's strengths and weaknesses in lane are largely driven by his role as a tank support who has to engage in order to trade. This means he is naturally weak to heavy poke and crowd control. However, he has a potent trump card in his pocket.

Ornn's [ W ] Bellows Breath gives him a decent shield while trading, and makes him IMMUNE to displacement effects during its duration. This makes Ornn statistically superior to displacement based crowd-control Champions like Blitzcrank, Nautilus, and Thresh, while still leaving him vulnerable to high-damage oriented poke from champions like Xayah and Karma.

Fortunately, Ornn can lean on his lane partner to help balance out trading, but it is important to be able to gauge how much poke you will have to be able to sustain through in order to have an advantage in lane.

*Special note: While not a typical lane opponent, an enemy Yasuo can be a bit tricky to play versus. His [W] Wind Wall is capable of blocking the elemental from your [R] Call of the Forge God, even if it barely clips the LARGE hitbox of your ult. While this does not completely negate your usefulness in team-fights, it is something to be aware of when engaging in fights with an enemy Yasuo. Also, even if you manage to bait out Wind Wall, Yasuo's knock-up can prevent you from activating the second part of your Ult, the headbutt. If you are fighting a Yasuo head-on the best solution to this is to time your [W] Bellows Breath with your Ult, to minimize the window he has to displace you, before you activate your Head-Butt ( [R] - {position/aim} - [W] - [R] ).

Aside from looking at Ornn Specifically, the following is a generalization of useful topics, just regarding the role of support.

Vision Matters!

Similar to the Jungle Role, Support has a lot of complexity in terms of thinking outside solely what is currently on our screen. Despite your buildpath, one of the most important things that a support NEEDS to do is ward for their team. Sightstone should be one of the first two items you complete, in order to be able to protect your lane early -- and move out on the map and take objectives later. While changes to Season 8 allow you to skimp on this early ... a good rule of thumb is that the latest you can build your sightstone, is when the first turret of the game goes down.

Enemy Assessment

Just in lane, a good support will keep a running threat assessment of the enemy team. Is either side favored in poking or wave clearing, is either side roaming better than the other? These are important things to take note of as you not only watch the map, but hone your "support-sense" for incoming danger. Even sudden changes in your enemy laner's behavior can be indications that something is amiss. Pay attention!

Friendly Assessment

Aside from just a static assessment of champions, you also need to keep a running tab on performance. Is your Ezreal missing every Q? Is your jungler diving towers recklessly chasing kills? Just because you have a theoretical advantage doesnt mean your team can translate that into a realized advantage. If your team isnt performing as well as they should, hang back and encourage them to take fewer risks, in order to ensure their enthusiasm doesnt blow up in their face.

Damage Control

Sometimes despite your best efforts things just don't work out. Whether someone is feeding intentionally, or just doing poorly and refusing to take advice, sometimes the best thing you can do is cut them off. Don't go in trying to save them from suicidal plays and limit the amount of gold pouring into the enemy team. It sucks to have to let go sometimes, but you can do more for your team by staying alive and looking for other players/opportunities to lend your hand in creating positive advantages, rather than pouring more blood into the well.

Do I protect a friendly tower, or do I let it go?

This choice is one of the costliest in terms of trading and strategic thinking. Towers are the most visible things players see in regards to winning or losing the game of map control. However, Towers are MEANT to go down, minions will kill them on their own given enough time. Investing too much into protect ONE tower just for the sake of keeping it up can be a waste of effort ... and in some cases a death trap.

Ask yourself, how important is that tower to me for the foreseeable future?

Mid lane Towers tend to be the most important since they control access to jungle and the rest of the map. Second Tier towers are next after that, because they are usually the strongest defensible position that enables map access.

First of all, you have to decide if you can even defend the tower in the first place. Pouring a bunch of deaths and gold into the enemy team trying to save a lost turret is a recipe for an enemy snowball. IF it IS defensible, you have to judge if it is not simply worth trading for something else.

If your team is doing poorly, Sometimes you just want to let all the outer turrets go and fall back the the more defensible inner ones. While this may seem inconsistent at first, you have to look at it from the perspective of the enemy team. The area that you have to protect shrinks, and the area they have to attack grows. You can still ward your inner perimeter of turrets and have limited access to jungle. More importantly your team can move and react more quickly to each other than they can. This style of defense typically lasts until the first baron spawn.

If your team is doing well, you have to consider if saving that tower is worth it versus counterattacking and taking one of theirs. Assuming you trade 1 for 1, at worst that trade is even -- at best, you can use that opportunity to get a higher priority tower.

On a more advanced note, sometimes letting a singe tower go can be beneficial to someone on your team. Certain champions can really thrive on being able to farm a long lane, assuming you ward appropriately and control your area well. For example, Letting your outer bot-lane turret fall early can give a Vayne a little breathing room to farm, while freeing up your support to roam and do other things. Just remember to communicate with your team!

Roaming versus Staying in Lane

Later in the game, you will naturally roam, as your role requires you to move around the map and provide vision and objective play. However, even during lane phase, you may find opportunities to roam and do things in other parts of the map... but should you?

First and foremost, you need to communicate with your lane partner, and have a good grasp of whether they can handle being left alone, for even a short time. If they are just going to sit and try and facetank 1v2 you should probably just stay with them. Conversely if they are mature enough, you can leave them to glean a passive level advantage, while you go to assist someone else on your team until you get back.

Ask yourself... what is the objective of this roam? Will it facilitate other plays? or am I just wasting time away from XP. More importantly, what is the expectation that the enemy team will try to catch me in a bad position and capitalize on an easy kill?

Roaming with a purpose is good, but have respect for what the enemy team can do to react, and don't take unnecessary risks.

I have found the following ADCs to have significant synergy with Ornn in lane. This is not to say that Ornn cannot be used beneficial with others, but that these champions seem to offer the most bang for your buck when laning with Ornn.

Ezreal-- is a highly mobile, burst oriented ADC with a low threshold for wave-clear. Ornn Offers Ezreal a solid body to get behind to mix things up trading, while being able to help pushing waves. At Level 6 Ornn is able to set the enemy laners up for Ezreal to ult and engage, and push them back hard.


Miss Fortune-- does not lack for wave pushing, but Ornn gives her the ability to stay on point and bully enemy laners into submission. Make it Rain is particularly useful for capitalizing on Ornn landing a Searing Charge, giving him room to disengage or press home the advantage. At level 6, Ornn Knocks 'em up and Miss Fortune mows 'em down with some absolutely crushing Zone control.


Jhin-- Ornn offers him some solid trading by which Jhin can capitalize on with Deadly Flourish. Ornn is also useful for prepping waves for Jhin to fast clear and focus on poking. At Level 6, Ornn is able to set up a killzone that allows Jhin to pick his targets with ease, while providing a frontline versus anyone that decides to rush in on the ADC during his Ult.

Kalista-- Ornn and Kalista are a very difficult pairing to pull off, but also very rewarding if done right. Together they are crushing lane bullies. The difficulty in the pair comes at Level 6. Kalista needs to be careful not to use Fate's Call while Ornn is in the middle of Call of the Forge God. Timed right, the paired ults give the duo a double knock-up that is devastating.

This Guide is currently being written tested and Revised. Feel free to make some comments or suggestions and I will address them directly or even add a section to the guide.

This Section is reserved for odds and ends that may not fit into the regular guide. Stuff in here my have been pulled, or may be put back in later, pending reorganization.