As far as her kit is concerned, her passive is literally the ONLY thing support like about her. Why is Leona forced to be a support champ, when she could be so much more...
If the scaling on her abilities was better, she might actually be a viable top laner if she wanted to. Also, she should be able to proc her own passive. Leona should not be forced to support. Let her go where she pleases (like Mundo).
OurLestrade5 votesShe was originally meant to be a top laner. And besides, she's got great natural scaling for a support with the utility to match. You have to be careful giving people with utility good damage scaling, otherwise they'd be too useful.
Ralanr1 votesLike release 
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Cloud2731 votesShe was originally meant to be a top laner. And besides, she's got great natural scaling for a support with the utility to match. You have to be careful giving people with utility good damage scaling, otherwise they'd be too useful.
Please elaborate on this "utility" you speak of. Because looking at her kit I see none. No shields, no heals, etc. She's literally just a cc bot, providing a little extra damage with her passive.
Ralanr10 votes...CC is utility.
OurLestrade4 votesCC has a million and one uses, and is potent regardless of stats. That's utility.
Magnum Mack2 votesHer w is a shield. It works for utility because when she jumps into 2 enemies in bot lane and isn't dieing while her adc is getting 2 kills it makes people cry.
ZephyrDrake2 votesPlease elaborate on this "utility" you speak of. Because looking at her kit I see none. No shields, no heals, etc. She's literally just a cc bot, providing a little extra damage with her passive.
apparently CC doesn't count as utility now...
Unstoppable Monk2 votesShe has a shield, it's that other thing she's carrying that isn't the huge sword.
Quepha4 votesShe should be able to proc her own passive. Leona should not be forced to support.
This is such a dumb idea. That makes it functionally a non-passive that only represents an increase in her ability bases in addition to destroying a unique identity in the game: the tag-team champion that feeds her ally kills and god-tier tower dives.
Cloud2733 votesThis is such a dumb idea. That makes it functionally a non-passive that only represents an increase in her ability bases in addition to destroying a unique identity in the game: the tag-team champion that feeds her ally kills and god-tier tower dives.
No, it wouldn't "destroy her identity". It would just make her slightly more viable in a solo lane. Why is this a bad thing?
Quepha2 votesNo, it wouldn't "destroy her identity". It would just make her slightly more viable in a solo lane. Why is this a bad thing?
It would make her OP in a solo lane, if you include her passive as a given then she deals drastically more damage than she has any right to deal given her levels of tankiness and cc. That means her passive ends up getting nerfed to deal less damage, that means she now doesn't contribute enough damage in the 2v2 lanes to allow her to have her frightening dives.
It also would require zero effort to proc Leona's passive if she can do it herself so there's no reason not just delete it completely and instead add that passive damage to her ability bases. It removes gameplay from the game, you have zero bonus for diving with an ally, her kit wouldn't support it in any way.
Magnum Mack1 votesBecause making her a good solo laner makes her an incredibly overpowered support character. When someone is built for one thing and that makes them overpowered in another aspect, people will just use them in the OP position. Why play her in a solo lane where she could go even when you could put her on a duo team and stomp lane?
It's very dangerous to do that in a game like this.
She COULD be stronger, but so could ANY of the other champs with a few tweaks. Procing her own passive is ridiculous because it defeats the purpose of her passive.
Her identity isn't as a tanky solo laner. Her identity is a team player who works with someone else to get the job done. She's the stalwart defender who peels for her adc as much as she can engage for them. Making her a top laner would make her an OP broken support laner. She's better left as she is.
Variks the Loyal2 votesI don't see why she'd be any worse top than Nautilus or Maokai.
Narasimha1 votesNaut just got nerfed, and Mao got hit hard last season for the exact same reason. No one like having full tanks with damage, because with their cc, it makes fighting them outright impossible.
Variks the Loyal1 votesNaut just got nerfed, and Mao got hit hard last season for the exact same reason. No one like having full tanks with damage, because with their cc, it makes fighting them outright impossible.
I was saying, I think she'd be just as good of a tank when played top as Naut and Mao. Nothing to do with damage.
The Sword Saint2 votesHer kit is terrible for solo laning. Melee, no escape ability, no sustain, no ranged safe farming since an enemy can just stand on dying creeps so you'd get pulled in if you tried to e, her only defensive ability pushes the wave so she can't use it if shes getting bulllied or she'd be helping the enemy freeze the lane or pull it to their own turret, her only way to 'trade' is basically an all in so she has to take harass for free without responding unless she knows 100% the jungler isn't nearbye, 3/4 of her abilities can be miss or be dodged and her cd's are pretty long on top of not doing enough damage to kill anyone 100-0 at any point while building tanky, giving the enemy laner plenty of room to play around her even if she's ahead, she's bad at pushing the wave and even blowing her only defensive skill doesn't clear a wave - even if maxed..
You get the idea. She's strong in botlane and in teamfights, but was specifically designed to not work very well in other lanes.
Mysticman891 votesI've seen some terrifying burst from AP leonas in mid lane before, giving her the ability to proc her own passive would make that particular approach to her even scarier.
I've also seen jg leona, and I'm sure bruiser top lane leona is workable too. Her w gives her a defensive steroid, and q/e/ult are lockdown tools as she wails away with e.g. titantic hydra.
A lot of off-meta things actually do work in top/jg these days, it's just a matter of adapting the builds to the alternative roles properly.
what you deserve1 votesI've seen jg Leona too.
..It was shit
Mysticman891 votesTo be fair, the jg leo I saw was not terribly amazing. I have seen rather effective braum jg's however, and they're similar champions in that they both are tanky cc machines, so it's conceivable to me that in the right hands jg leo could be not awful.
Stiv12341 votesActually, she does a really good job in top lane. Her level 1 trades are just unfair. Also full AP Leona mid is absolute rekkage early.
Quepha1 votesLeona's kit can do one thing: dive to snowball the lane. She can't harass because her only ranged ability (sans ult) makes her dive. She can't protect her adc because she has no heals or auras. She can't weather poke because she has no sustain.
When a kit can only do one thing, it needs to do that one thing really, really well or the champion can't ever succeed. And when a champion has amazing early game damage and kill potential, you can't really let them also scale really well if they play passively and aren't taking the lead.
EmEx1 votesShe is a viable top laner imo but only against some champs she is a counter pick and situational, she is good against Tryndamere for example but bad against Nasus from my experience. I once played against a Nauti top, at first he gave me some trouble but later on I just stomped him, Leonas combination of high tankiness with her high damage was too much for Nauti.
Sneakyy XD1 votesFirst, she scales amazingly with health, armor, MR, and CDR. Second, a champion shouldn't have high defense, high CC, and high damage.
Envy Sin1 votesBecause riot named her a support, And if she can do anything but support (as is the way of life in the support world) she will be nerfed into nothingness
ADepressedLeona1 votesI will always and forever be against this, you can't feasibly change Leona enough to make her a good top or jungle champion without completely eradicating support Leona from existence. (And probably nerfing her in the process)
Leona does her job very well (Tanking/Locking enemies down) and there is no reason to change it. And Leona has garbage scaling because she was designed to be a true tank, and true tanks don't do much on their own, but with a team, they are a huge threat. (Plus I think they were afraid that another AP Ali would rear it's ugly head.)
Slamurai Jack1 votesBecause Riot decided that Leona is only allowed to be a support for some reason. Meanwhile 
DingleNutsMcGee1 votesCuz shes a support. Shes not meant to do "tons of damage". Otherwise shed be way too strong with all her cc too