Orianna: Q, Or W?

NexusJellyBean·6/6/2015, 10:43:48 PM·1 votes·1,690 views

Hi. I'm been playing Orianna for a while now, and I've been wondering for a while.

What do you max first--Q, or W?

I'm pretty interested as what people have seen what works for them the best.

Personally, I max W first. I've found it to have more utility, especially when following up with AA's. Before, though, I have indeed maxed Q first. Although I don't remember much about how my gameplay went (I was still sucky at her) I remember how easy it was to constantly harass with her ball's positioning, and yet, I would always get more damage in return, or I would miss.

I'll start playing Orianna maxing Q first, but I'm interested. What do you max first? And why?

*guys in background "I max E first!"

What? That's almost obscure as Bard.

Plz don't hurt meh

7 Comments

Lao Fu the Tiger6/7/2015, 1:49:35 AM3 votes

W does more damage and has more utility, but the mana cost is huge, especially as you rank it up. Q's mana cost doesn't change, but the damage still scales.

Basically, Orianna is a huge teamfight, late game based champion, and by the time that part of the game rolls around, both abilities will be maxed. With Orianna, the main goal is not winning lane, but farming up huge amounts and zoning. Ori doesn't have a lot of kill pressure until later on when the rest of the team can really capitalize on her utility.

Kãtãrinã6/6/2015, 10:45:36 PM2 votes

I max W first. QW for harass and free autos during the slow. Also can help me escape/zone if i must. I don't play much ori but i also sometiems START E but max W 90% the time.

SlytherinUmbreon6/7/2015, 1:43:41 AM2 votes

maxing W is probably best, but we can't because you'll OOM so freaking fast if you even try to use it. So unless Mana regen gets buffed, q.

Jiberamu6/6/2015, 11:03:01 PM1 votes

your use of the word utility is wrong. Her E is her utility, her w would be for burst damage, you max q if you want to poke players down in lane. You should think about why you actually do something instead of " i do it because it looks like it does better"

Abyssphere6/10/2015, 7:06:58 PM1 votes

For me, Q first. W looks like it scales a lot harder with level than Q does but there are a variety of advantages to Q:

Static mana cost: Orianna has huge mana problems in the early and mid game and unfortunately maxing Dissonance makes these much worse. Q's cost remaining low as you level it means for each rank you put in this ability, you get more in exchange for the same amount of mana. Much more efficient than Dissonance.
COOLDOWN REDUCTION: This is the main reason. Dissonance will never go below 9 seconds without purchasing cooldown reduction but Attack goes down to 3 seconds which is insane and makes Orianna scale extremely well with cooldown reduction. At 40% your Q is up every 1.8 seconds compared to your W being up every 5 seconds and that gives you insane amounts of DPS. For comparison: Every 5.4 seconds, with Q and W maxed and 40% CDR, you get a maximum of 250 (+ 70% AP) damage from Dissonance, for 110 mana. In the same amount of time you will get 540 (+ 150% AP) from Attack for only 40 more mana.
Repositioning: Don't forget that Orianna's reliance on the positioning of the ball means that the more she can move it around the better, and leveling Attack allows her to do it way more often.

Overall I think Dissonance is best leveled second. It scales really well with level thanks to the damage and MS changes increasing a lot but the mana cost is massively prohibitive in your early game. Maxing Attack gives you a lot more breathing room regarding mana in your laning phase, increases your sustained damage exponentially and gradually improves your flexibility in fights due to the gap between times when you can reposition your ball getting a lot smaller.