is a fantastic champion, but if you play any other position outside of support you are going to be at a disadvantage of getting nothing from our passive
Compared to another support such as Braum he makes use of his passive even when not laning with another champion.
Could we give her passive a change or adjust it for when the Radiant Dawn is on her own?
Tsiddique3 votesMaybe because she was built as a support?
Linna Excel2 votesMaybe because she was built as a support?
Incorrect.
She was supposed to be a tank. Not just a generic support.
RiotLtRandolph7 votesShe was supposed to be a tank. Not just a generic support.
Her passive fits the role of a tank very well, though. I'm no authority, but if I were to try to sum up the role of tank (which is orthogonal to the position of support), I would say that they have a few key traits. First is obviously that they need to survive a beating. The second is that they usually need to be able to initiate (which Leona obviously excels at). The third is that they typically want some way to redirect damage away from their team.
There's a number of ways to do this redirection. CC is obvious, as is direct absorption like Braum's shield. As anyone who's faced a good Singed or Amumu can attest, though, another type of redirection is just being a sustained, low level threat that applies continuous damage as long as they exist. Leona's passive fits this last category, as it applies a noticeable damage increase to her team for as long as she remains in the fight. Thus it makes her at least somewhat less ignorable in a teamfight.
Certainly the passive works best from the support position in early game, but it's applicable in mid to late game regardless of what position she plays.
Hidden Sanity3 votesBut would it hurt to allow her to activate her own passive? Even if it took her damaging the target with her passive on it three times to consume it to her allies one damage source, that'd at least make her work in extended fights and allow a viable jungle clear. Would also make her consider things like sunfire more, which I feel is a great flavour fit on Leona.
Fishing Boat2 votesI really love this idea. I do love leona in the support role, but if this were to happen, she just might be able to lane or jungle somewhere else as well. I can't think of why that would be negative, if she's not overly strong.
Hidden Sanity1 votesTo expand on it some, I mean her passive would have a 'stack counter' on it and it goes off when it hits three as is does now. Allied(non-Leona) damage sources add three stacks. Leona damage sources add one stack, and refresh duration if it was one of her abilities that would normally refresh it now(An E>AA>Q>AA combo would reward Leona with one passive charge consumed and a target with no passive on it until she hits it with another ability). Her passive functions identically to now in any situation where there are allies present and dealing damage, and buffs her solo game slightly but noticeably. As such this passive change is a minuscule buff to support Leona(Like... she ignited something with her passive on it as it got away?) and almost won't need any Nerfs at all to keep her support power in check, maybe a tiny shaving off her base HP.
However, it's a substantial buff to solo-lane Leona and a a genuine buff to her jungle.
I feel like this would reinforce an interesting play pattern for Leona as she'll want to pick windows to engage on her lane opponent where she can stay in and activate her passive one or even two times, looking for extended trades where a lot of laners look for short trades. Jungling it just really throws her a bone on her clear times to bring her more in line with the other slow-clearing hard-ganking tanky utility junglers, which aren't in meta right now but I still like, and feel like Leona can and should be one of them. But then, that's just my opinion as a player.
CaptainWednesday1 votesIf she could activate her own passive, it'd be a little broken. Not in exactly in the sense it would be OP, just that it would be mechanically unhealthy. If she can activate her own passive, she could snatch kills from her laning partner without meaning to. It would also put a lot more damage on her kit than she needs. A Leona player is a team player. They set up the kills with her heavy disruption, engage, CC, and overall tankiness. It should not be Leona with all of that, plus more damage.
That beings said if her passive read, "Leona's spells charge any enemy unit damaged with Sunlight for 3.5 seconds. When allied champions deal any damage to those targets they consume the Sunlight debuff to deal 20 / 35 / 50 / 65 / 80 / 95 / 110 / 125 / 140 additional magic damage. This additional damage is counted as the ally's damage and it will benefit from their magic penetration. If Leona consumes the debuff, the ability deals 50% less damage." Maybe that could work? I don't know. Rito help.
Hyrum Graff4 votesThat was my thought as well. It could also read:
Leona's spells charge any enemy unit damaged with Sunlight for 3.5 seconds. When allied champions deal any damage to those targets they consume the Sunlight debuff to deal 20 / 35 / 50 / 65 / 80 / 95 / 110 / 125 / 140 additional magic damage. This additional damage is counted as the ally's damage and it will benefit from their magic penetration. Leona cannot consume this debuff if it is applied to an enemy champion.
This would increase her jungle clearspeeds and farming ability, without making her dueling ability any better.
RiotLtRandolph5 votesInteresting thought. I can neither confirm nor deny the existence of anyone working on Leona, but if I ever encounter any, I'll bring this up.
(Radiolab's episode on Glomar got me obsessed with the phrase "I can neither confirm nor deny")
Hyrum Graff1 votesIt's important to note that I'm not sure how much this would help her solo laning, as she wouldn't deal any more damage to champs. But then again, I've never seen a solo lane Leona, so I've no clue how much damage she can do with a triforce instead of a sightstone.
Mister Placebo1 votesWell here's a point I have that's been nagging me ever since I got info on Braum. He can both trigger his passive (albeit it's more about applying the stun, but it still does a fair amount of damage), and when it can't be reapplied, he does bonus damage on hit. Braum and Leona are both tanks who thrive on being close to an ally, and in similar ways. But Braum's seems to have more of an ability to secure a kill when his team isn't around, while still building tank. Every tank has some form of damage output that either scales with something, or is naturally available, stand and fight if need be. Leona can hold like a boss, but if no help is coming, she can't secure a kill (at least not well). It'd be nice to see some hp scaling on one of her abilities (even if it's a 2.5% like Braum), or maybe she does a small amount of magic damage on hit to enemies afflicted by sunlight (since she can't trigger it). Nothing that gives here a huge advantage, just something she can capitalize on if no one else is available. I mean, really, you can only stun-lock someone for what? 1 or 2 minutes before the enemy team finally comes over to help their teammate.
ProfDrDeath1 votesI'd rather have Leona's Zenith Blade have some kind of interaction with her passive, than her being able to proc it herself at will. Something like this:
Zenith Blade passive: Leona's Auto-attacks do X (scaling with level/ability rank) bonus magic damage against targets marked by Sunlight.
However, I also agree on her being to strong out of the jungle, but mostly post-6.
Pre-6, her ganks would be on par with guys like Maokai - single, skillshot-based (in her case) gapcloser and low-duration hard CC.
Her post-6 ganks, though, are an entirely different matter. Mostly due to the fact that Solar Flare has such a short early CD, compare to other ults with similar power.
Hidden Sanity1 votesI feel that if Leona can damage a target three times before her laning partner damages it once, then she should be considered to be in a solo situation.
Sagee Prime1 votesWhy not just have her passive amplify damage by a percent? amplifies the next single target attack on the afflicted target by 20%?
perhaps not a good idea bleh
Linna Excel1 votesRandolph, I think that's a good overview of what a tank is.
The first issue is she's got such a power spike at 2-3 you are almost hurting the team taking her solo where that passive can't be reliably procced. If she goes mid/top she can't expect to get a gank at those levels.
If she goes jungle the lanes she wants to gank may not be ready. And her jungle is terribly slow. She can't justify FF at all, and that means she's just going to fall behind further in this jungle meta.
So she'd need to get something for that tradeoff to justify this as a regular (or niche) thing and I don't see it.
Yes her passive works fine mid to late game, but right now things are focused on early game. Also the passive is a bit wonky in that it doesn't benefit her. The real benefit is for teammates.
For awhile I've been saying that one she applies it, she should at least get bonus AD against that target or maybe sustain on hit so there's at least a little self benefit. IMO it's design is parasitic. Name one other champ who's passive ability is not self-beneficial.
The biggest issue with her passive is that it is invisible power. Some champs like Sona I think are fine with invisible power. Sona is squishy, mute, and music based, you aren't supposed to see music and she shouldn't be drawing extra attention to herself. She doesn't have that flashy personality.
However with Leona you can't really feel or tell what that passive is doing. You can never notice it directly.
I think for a champ who is suppose to be in the middle of a fight, having a passive that's invisible (and requires coordination/communication to proc it) doesn't really fit with her theme. She's supposed to be super visible so the passive is against her nature.
Yes bruiser Leona either top or in the jungle is a thing, but it's just pretty rare. This is partly because she's kind of weaker when she doesn't build full tank.
duniceline1 votesYou are focusing on the current meta though, the point of the changes people are suggesting are to bring her in line with champs like Naut and Amumu who gank super hard but clear slow. These junglers may not be in favor now with feral flare so strong but they certainly have their own strengths even if those strengths are not currently wanted by the meta. Also, I fail to see how an explosion of sunlight (albeit small compared to her shield/ulti) is invisible or out of theme.
CaptainWednesday1 votesWords of Wisdom.
FatedTitan1 votesSo why can Braum trigger his passive but Leona can't?
Hyrum Graff1 votesBecause Braum and Leo are different characters who are balanced around different gameplay patterns.
Hyrum Graff1 votesUsed 'orthogonal' +1
Girandoni1 votesI've heard that Sunfire Cape procs her passive.
Red Strike01 votesit does not
CaptainWednesday1 votesOnly allied champions. Not Leona or her items. Would be an interesting situation though.
MackleDoge1 votesLeona used to be able to proc her own passive actually. I wasn't part of this community when the change away from that was made so I can't say why it was.
Tsiddique1 votesSounds like this Demacian girl 
Kawdie1 votesI've seen a Leona mid recently, worked very well. Completely stomped the lane.
Linna Excel1 votesIMO her passive should be reworked, but I don't know how.
SLAV331 votesI remember a rioter said no to something similar that was brought up. The idea was to allow her to trigger her passive at half damage on jungle camps. It was brought up at a time where she was kind of out of the support meta, but I can't remember why they said no to the idea.
Pyrrasu1 votesI don't have a link but a Rioter said that the reason they won't let her proc her passive on jungle minions is because it would make her harder to balance.
Why exactly does everyone hate Leona as a support anyway? She plays differently than other supports and transitions into a strong initiating tank. Is duo laning really that unbearable? I've always liked Leona for her uniqueness.
Hidden Sanity1 votesI love Leona as a support. I'm just greedy and want her as a solo-laner and jungler too.
Yeti King1 votesIt's a great team fighting passive. That's what it's built for. She can do great in lane as a tank and do fairly well if played right in like top lane.
