Leona, Theoretically...can she....?

AndurilWielder··2 votes·2,619 views

...Be, at all, with any consideration, an AD TOP bruiser? She's always support, and obviously that's because she lacks damage - almost to the point of even requiring her team to do it for her. Though curiously enough with some items + sunfire cape I've gotten a number of kills on her.

We're not questioning her ability to be a tanky support, clearly, but maybe with item 3748 item 3068 item 3078 she could do something? Maybe even with a item 3022 item 3071 item 3053 or item 3065 ?? What would her runes be? Resolve/precision? I highly doubt you could go AP, I know her Ult scales off AP, as well as a lot of her kit, but that probably wouldn't work, would it?

Or could it? item 3151 is a good tanky/burn item when stacked with a lot of health, which is one thing Leona is very good at having, lol. Could do some extra burn with item 3068 .

Anyway, this is all speculation, I'm not a good person to theorize good interesting, off-meta builds that actually work which is the key thing here. I'm looking for a build that would surprise people. Her cc would definitely be good at countering a turret-diving yi. Just W when he Qs, and then Q when he lands. Get the W to go off on him and land some autos + turret fire and he'd go down fast. (though a smart Yi obviously wouldn't dive unless you were very very very very low)

21 Comments

PhearBunny3 votes

Leona can top lane and jungle, but the problem is she cant gracefully lose. If she loses lane, she loses lane hard and becomes utterly irrelevant.

JavelinJoe1 votes

Basically this, but if done right she can hard carry the team by spoon feeding them kills

CauseSCIENCE2 votes

I've seen Bruiser Leona, it can work.

ez mental boom1 votes

Anything "can work." It's a matter of reliability.

Titanium702 votes

Top Leona was fine back in S5 and earlier. But when they introduced Juggeranuts aka Champs specialized in every possible way for Top and than balanced all other Champs they considered Top Laners accordingly such fun-picks became more work than it's worth.

I used to play alot of Top back in the days stuff like Galio(old), Leona, Nunu, Elise or good ol Bankplank... But these guys died alongside my will to ever play top again.

Linna Excel2 votes

item 3748 item 3078 might work, but I feel like you'd need your jungler hard camping top. If you want your jungler to camp top, you'd have to win lane hard as a weird pick.

TBH I really think riot should just rework Leona into a hybrid bruiser, with AP being her support build and AD being her top/jungle build.

AndurilWielder2 votes

She needs to be able to do more than just be a support, even if she is a god tier cc tank, she's unable to do anything else.

Linna Excel1 votes

I agree. I feel like her kit is close to being a decent jungler/top but riot would have to give her a proper passive and tweak some numbers.

PhearBunny1 votes

Also the build to make her an effective bruiser is INSANELY expensive, which is hard to pull off, unless youre getting kills.

Trinity Force+Titanic Hydra+Steraks Gauge. Goodluck, Leona doesn't farm well. Even with a Tiamats.

The more cost effiecient route is to just suck it up, accept that you cant realistically afford a bruiser build, and go Sunfire+Gauntlet+thornmail as your core build. But in this almost exclusively all mages meta, that might be off the table.

AndurilWielder1 votes

Yeah that's def true. So she has to farm well, and get kills. Is there a way to combine a bruiser build with her tank qualities? could you combine sunfire's with some other bruiser items, go part damage, part tank? Meeting mid way might not work too well I suppose...or...I dunno, Leona's kind of an odd duck :P

PhearBunny1 votes

{quoted}

Yeah that's def true. So she has to farm well, and get kills. Is there a way to combine a bruiser build with her tank qualities? could you combine sunfire's with some other bruiser items, go part damage, part tank? Meeting mid way might not work too well I suppose...or...I dunno, Leona's kind of an odd duck :P

Sunfire+Sorc boots+Abyssal mask can deal damage.

AndurilWielder1 votes

one possibility is to use item 3814 , because channeling it gives you an extra spell shield, lethality, and +250 health. You can use that in addition to item 3102 , for tankiness and some lethality.

Dynikus1 votes

I used to play a decent amount of leona top before they changed her passive around back in I think s6. Jungle ganks were basically a guaranteed kill, and it was a ton of fun. But she's not a very good top laner overall. You don't really have any matchups that are in your favor, and you're fairly reliant on jungle ganks to get ahead, or to just go even.

AndurilWielder1 votes

Ignoring the dubstep, someone did a build early this season apparently with a crit leona?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zt5XiFBdMRk

Looks like a lot of the players weren't really as good though, as I could even see some of the mistakes they were making, but aside from the mistakes aspect....

this one is interesting, squishy AP support Leona?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MVMDE5ALqGw

Alzon1 votes

Build item 3068 > item 3508 > tank

Thank me later.

AndurilWielder1 votes

why item 3508 ? that's AD +CD, a little AD...I suppose that will improve her autos a small amount.

Alzon1 votes

Because the Essence Flare passive on it works so well with her kit. W up constantly, E and Q chained together for perma-CC. Plus Q is an AA reset and thus gets you even more value.

You’re not overcommiting to damage, either. Just a single non-tank item with AD, AS, CDR, mana, and incredibly potent lockdown after ulting. Everything else is tank.

ModKnightsKemplar1 votes

Yeah, as others have said, I think it can work, probably.

Her toolkit isn't such that it's probably going to look super viable in a lot of matchups, but that doesn't mean it can't work.

ez mental boom1 votes

She needs AD ratios and a real passive to be able to play top. She can sometimes cheese unsuspecting players, but there are other champions who fill the role better. Renekton, Camille, and Jax, to name a few.

Jackom11 votes

I suppose, but wouldn't that make her very item-dependent? That is, you either win hard and get all those items, or lose hard and have no chance to comeback.

I mean, Leona top means that by the end game you either have one tanky bruiser and a support in your team (and you're already winning pretty hard), or 2 supports. In either case it's up to the rest of the team to fill in the gaps.

With this I mean, you probably need a specific team combo to make it work, and even then you need to win the lane, or have a jungler with high damage who will babysit you.

These are just my 2 cents though, you should try and see for yourself.

AndurilWielder1 votes

Very likely. There's bound to be a more affordable way to get the items you need to make a build work, either for damage and squishy, or more tanky-less damage items. Provided you can farm very well, and cs regardless, (and you don't get yourself killed) then it could work out fine, at least with all in supports like Thresh roaming, or a Blitzcrank or Pyke jungler.

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