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As a Leona main, here's my thoughts on her upcoming changes.

Embertine··17 votes·3,487 views

(EDIT: there have been some changes to the changes so go to bottom of post to see them.)

First let me say that Leona is by far the champion I will always play. She's been a big part in my time in League, and I love her dearly.

I've gotten mastery level 6 with her and am working on getting her to level 7, with my total master at this moment being 147,470 points, which is the highest I have of all the champions I own.

Her kit is a simple one that has low skill requirements, however has a medium high mastery level, meaning that she's easy to pick up and learn, while also doing exceedingly well in the hands of a skilled player.

I understand that she falls off rather hard once you get to mid and upper ranks, and is mostly only strong in bronze and silver. So I'm rather happy she's getting some attention. But I am also a little worried about these changes.

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/Ck-Yu9rXAAAA6Vx.jpg

>Passive nerfed from 20-140 to 15-100 and Leona and allies now gain 50-84 bonus movement speed for 1.5 seconds after proc.

I don't understand why this change is being done. Leona really doesn't need this bonus movement speed as she's already right in the enemy's face when she gets it, and the enemy would be locked down for the entire duration of the buff. It's literally of no use that I can see. I already felt that her passive didn't do a lot of damage, especially since she couldn't use it when she was by herself, so this really hurts her in my opinion.

>Q Cooldown buffed from 11-7 to 9-5. Mana cost buffed from 45-65 to 35-55. Damage nerfed from 40-160 to 30-130. Stun duration nerfed from 1.25 to 1.00.

To me these changes are aimed to make her Q into a cheaper stun that you can get off more often. I don't understand the reasoning behind this if there is any. I've always felt her Q was just fine and I never once thought it needed any changes, damage-wise or stun-wise. I think if anything this will help her pressure lane early game, but with her already very low damage output from having to build almost pure tank, this may end up hurting her later in the game.

>W mana costs change to 50-75 from 60. Damage nerfed from 60-260 to 50-210. Now grants Leona the Incandescence buff, which grants her bonus 50 auto attack range, and bonus magic damage on hit, consuming stacks of Incandescence each strike for 20-60 magic damage on hit. Each champion Leona hits with Eclipse will give her one stack of Incandescence.

(Edit: Incandescence has been moved to her Ult.)

Okay this change I can see helping her out a bit. It's like she gets to use her own passive for a change, but not at the same time. She can basically get into the middle of the enemy team, blow her W, and get five stacks of Incandescence for which she can then use on the enemy carry and deal extra damage to them for the next five auto attacks. This change kinda helps a bit, especially since her already low damage is being lowered more.

>E Root duration now increased to 0.5 seconds from 0.25 seconds.

This I suppose is to compensate for her Q's stun duration being nerfed. But if that is the case then there really is no point in the change at all as they could have left her Q stun alone and left her E unchanged.

Personally the only thing I would really have done to Leona's kit, was make it so that if she is standing in the middle of her ult when it hits, then it would heal her, and if she was standing in the outer edge it would heal her for only half as much as it would if she were in the middle. To me that would have gone along very well with the sun theme, as she's supposed to gain strength from the sun, and her ult is a condensed shaft of sunlight. But then again that's just my person opinion.

What does everyone else think about the changes to Leona's kit?

(EDIT: Riot moved a few things so here's the new changes for you.)

https://i.gyazo.com/92ebf5256e8abe228ab7c835fbb3bc05.png

44 Comments

KyroRayne10 votes

The damage nerfs are big to Leona, but not as big as the numbers seem to show. However, there are issues with how the damage is moved around being as it will be difficult to hit 5 times in 5 seconds as Leona in a fight to deal the max damage. I also thought that we were getting away from the number 5 (item 2043)

Q Damage reduction. This is perfectly fine because you now have a 2 second shorter CD. This change is perfectly acceptable. Q stun duration reduction. This is also perfectly fine as you shifted the .25 reduction to her E snare. Edit: Q stun "reduction" was a tooltip fix. .25 duration to E is a complete buff now.

W Damage reduction to 60-220 from 60-260 highly affects her because supports don't reach high levels consistently in game. So any changes to damage on basic abilities have decent repercussions on how the champ performs. Yes, the damage is shifted to her Ult and yes it is more overall damage, but it isn't consistent as you have to be able to AA the enemy champ 3/4/5 times within 5 seconds, even with the amount of cc that you have.

R damage reduction + Incandescence. While the extra damage on hit is pretty good, it feels too much and too little at the same time. The total on hit damage scales 120/280/500 + .6/.8/1 AP. If you build AP Leona, you now can kill a lot of champs instantly (if you hit all 5 times). This almost makes the rest of her kit feel lackluster to me. I'd rather have to only hit 3 times and deal 40/100/160 + .2/.25/.3 AP per hit while keeping the base damage on the ult.

Passive change - What happened to this? Was it reverted back to normal or is it still reduced damage + MS speed up that you never notice? Can we get scaling on this because almost every champion that had flat damage on their Passive now has a ratio as well. Lux being the closest champ to Leona in this regard.

I've played Leona consistently over the years, but I haven't really cared for the scaling in her kit. She's a tank support who has decent base damage, but mostly high CD and poor scaling ratios. While other tank champs are getting HP, Armor, and MR ratios for the damage, Leona is out in the shade with only AR/MR ratios on her AR/MR W buff. I buy HP on Leona because I like being a tanky bastard, but because I also still buy item 3401, and it's shield scales with max HP. Other than that, building tanky doesn't FEEL useful even being a CC champ.

Playing Maokai, for example, feels great playing a tank because your passive heals you off of your Max HP. You can build RoA, Liandry's, IBG, SV, Mercs, and Warmogs. You get tons of damage because your W is % enemy Max HP + AP ratio, it's low CD; your Q is a slow/knock back, has a low CD, good damage; your E is ranged harass that can also slow (proc'ing Liandry's double damage) that has GREAT damage if you hit them with the sapling and it explodes on them; and finally your R is your damage soak for you and teammates within the circle.

Ok fine, Maokai is a JG/Top laner. Taric then. Taric scales on HP and AP on his heals, he scales on Armor for his Passive, You and your selected teammate's Max HP for his Bastion. Taric performs ALMOST the same role as Leona as a tanky disable champ, except that he's a sustain/ peel support while Leona is a Dive/damage support.

I suppose that I'll just have to change how I build her, not that I ever built her normal item 2045 (later changed with item 3748 ) item 3401 item 3068 item 3111 /item 3009 item 3078 /item 3025 item 3190 /item 3001 . I guess my new build will be item 3401 item 3111 item 3027 item 3157 item 3001 item 3083.

The new build will give me 230 AP, +1800 HP, 50 Armor, 85 MR, and 40% CDR. 2200, 2700, 2900, 2750, 1100, 2850 = 14500 gold

The old base build (item 3111 item 3401 item 3078 item 3068 item 3190 item 2045 is 2100 HP, 50 Ar, 65 MR, 40% CDR, 43 magic damage per second. 1100, 2200, 2900, 3733, 2500, 1800 = 14233 gold (And this is with the more expensive item that I usually build... TRINITY FORCE! I can make my build 1k cheaper by using IBG instead of Trinity).

Ok, so since this has turned into a wall of text, TL;DR - I love that they're giving her ult a new interaction, but this still feels forced and hurting her base abilities rather than tuning them correctly.

Azteryz1 votes

wow your point on the relic shield reminded me on the upcoming item 3069 changes which they most likely took into account since it has armor on it now

Solari Fortune2 votes

Riot actually mentioned about Leona's Q stun time Its not a nerf, the tool tip has just been bugged for this long, it has always been one second

KyroRayne3 votes

I always thought that it felt too short, but always thought it was me not focusing enough. So she now has more CC time. That's good for her.

I would love to see her passive get changed a little though because being reliant on another champ just feels bad. It's like anchoring someone to a lane and saying that they can't play anywhere else without a severe handicap. They tried that with Morde for a while, but it didn't pan out too well. You also never see Morde anymore now. Zilean's passive is very powerful. You don't need a lane buddy. Your jungler can gank for you, and then you finish their level for them so they can hit 6 faster for better ganks. Soraka.... everyone just hates her..

EddardStark841 votes

{quoted}

I always thought that it felt too short, but always thought it was me not focusing enough. So she now has more CC time. That's good for her.

I would love to see her passive get changed a little though because being reliant on another champ just feels bad. It's like anchoring someone to a lane and saying that they can't play anywhere else without a severe handicap. They tried that with Morde for a while, but it didn't pan out too well. You also never see Morde anymore now. Zilean's passive is very powerful. You don't need a lane buddy. Your jungler can gank for you, and then you finish their level for them so they can hit 6 faster for better ganks. Soraka.... everyone just hates her.

EddardStark841 votes

{quoted}

No. Leona being a dedicated support is perfectly fine. There aren't enough of them to begin with.

KyroRayne2 votes

Why should she need to be a dedicated support?

I love playing Leona for her kit and play style, but the ONLY thing about her that says "support" is her passive. That's it. Nothing else communicates that with her kit. She doesn't heal, share ar/mr buffs, she can't peel very well (she has a higher chance of dying trying to peel than many other champs). So without her passive, you lose out on a decent bit of damage, but you can still play top lane and jungle. With her new changes being implemented, I'm more likely to play her jungle now since I can build Runic Echoes for AP and make her tanky AP. I'd rather not have to deal with my adc unless I know that they won't do anything stupid.

She is a dive based champ anyway. Most of the time, I lose out on one or two passive stacks against an enemy because my adc is too slow to catch on that I'm attacking the enemy champs and just sit there farming cs... So there isn't much of a difference in power.

Embertine1 votes

New this is the kind of thing I wanted to see. Actual thought about the changes and how they would effect your gameplay with Leona.

Thank you very much for the care and thought you put into your comment!

Photos of Ghosts3 votes

The Q is actually a tooltip fix, the duration is already 1 flat sec

Embertine3 votes

Well dang I hadn't even noticed. I'd simply assumed I was stunning for as long as the tooltip told me.

Anyway what do you think of the rest of the changes?

Photos of Ghosts2 votes

I played maybe 3 games of Leona ^^ what I know about her is that she's inherently feast or famine, I'd guess she'd be stronger if all supports had better ways to get XP - aka to be tankier, and as such more useful when behind.

Embertine1 votes

True if she gets fed she can easily get her team to push pretty hard. But on the flip side if she get's hammered by her counters like Alistar, she's still able to provide decent cc for her team.

She has a safety range in terms of gameplay, where even when she's behind she can still fulfill her role as a lockdown champion, while if she's ahead she can be rather beastly.

However she falls off really hard once you get to upper silver and into low gold, so much so that you really can't play her anymore.

Photos of Ghosts3 votes

Whoever downvoted without saying what they mean, you're a douchebag.

Sightless663 votes

These changes are out of date. The current changelog goes like this.

Shield of Daybreak (Q)
    Damage lowered to 30-130 from 40-160
    Cooldown Lowered to 9-5 from 11-7
    [Bug Fix] Fixed a big where her Q tooltip listed a 1.25 second stun when it only stuns 1 second

Eclipse (W)
    Damage changed to 60-220 from 60-260

Zenith Blade (E)
    Root Duration increased to 0.5 from 0.25

Solar Flare (R)
    Damage lowered to 125-325 from 150-350
    Grants Incandescence for 5 seconds if Solar Flare hits a champion. 
        Incandescence: Your next 3/4/5 attacks have 100 bonus range and deal 40/70/100 (+0.2 AP) bonus magic damage on hit.
Embertine1 votes

Okay, thank you for this!

underscores2221 votes

Is there still the passive change?

Sightless661 votes

No. If it isn't listed it isn't there.

Shahamut3 votes

There are really only 2 things I have ever wanted for Leona:

  1. Proc her own passive (after a 1 second delay) for 1/2 effectiveness.

  2. Allow her to Zenith Blade large and Epic monsters.

Is that too much to ask?

ADepressedLeona3 votes

I don't quite understand moving the incandescence to her ult from her W. In my post about the changes, Meddler said they wanted to give her something to do while her combo is down, but now it being tied to her ult, that's gonna be far less consistent...

I'm on the fence about the changes.

A 2 second CD Q late game sounds quite nice, but losing a lot of damage for a change I didn't really think was necessary? Eh... I'll still reserve final judgement until I actually play the changes though.

Also, on her passive, remember, her ally also gets the MS bonus if they proc her passive. It's not just for Leona

Embertine1 votes

Very good points.

I'm also on the fence about these changes to be honest. I really can't say how they will ultimately effect her until I've played with them myself and experienced the changes first hand.

While I am glad she is getting some attention, I'm still worried about the final outcome.

ForeverLaxx2 votes

{quoted}

What does everyone else think about the changes to Leona's kit?

Change for the sake of change, which is the new thing Riot's doing now. They took away some of her already weak damage and moved it into the annoying "Incandescence" second passive (and let's face it, it's just a second passive). As you pointed out, they added movespeed to her kit during windows where it's completely pointless to have that movespeed, but since it's there it's going to be part of the "power budget" and used to justify making other aspects of her kit weaker.

Leona was my preferred support for the longest time back when she was first released. She does not need forced "incentives" to punch people with her sword between cooldowns, and I hate that Riot thinks she needs a "reason to auto-attack" so that she can be weaker for it across the board.

EDIT: Made this post before reading the updated changes, so the movespeed is actually more useful now for getting into range of someone you hit with a max-range Ult without having to waste a Zenith Blade on them first. That's something, I guess. I stand by the rest of my post, however.

Linna Excel1 votes

What does everyone else think about the changes to Leona's kit?

Riot seems to think that leona needs to auto attack more, but not that much more. First there was a boost on her W, then it was moved to her ult meaning you'll rarely get that extra damage.

I've got no clue riot is doing this or why they think she needs to AA more, but only sporadically.

TyroneWatermelon1 votes

Both easy skill floor and cap

Iota Theta1 votes

As someone else mentioned, they did shift the Incandesence from her W to her ult, meaning you wouldn't need to be in the middle of the enemy team to get those stacks.

I'm curious to see how these changes play out though (been trying her as a top lane tank recently)

Embertine1 votes

That's really interesting. I would like that a lot better actually.

Linna Excel1 votes

Playing her toplane sounds weird, even though that's where she originally started. I'd hate doing it unless I was duoing with a mid or a jungler because she really does need to make use of that passive and that's hard to do outside of bot.

Iota Theta1 votes

[{quoted}](name=Linna Excel,realm=NA,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=VyiNEhFe,comment-id=00050001,timestamp=2016-06-20T18:02:57.735+0000)

Playing her toplane sounds weird, even though that's where she originally started. I'd hate doing it unless I was duoing with a mid or a jungler because she really does need to make use of that passive and that's hard to do outside of bot.

It is pretty weird. I've only done three matches of it as I'm only starting to experiment with it. I had the most trouble against Vlad. CSing is also a challenge too. I have found defensive items easier to acquire though. I feel more like a tank when the grouping comes around.

As far as the passive goes, I've kinda accepted that it won't get used much unless I get a gank.

It's weird for sure, but I actually enjoy it and have had some success (need more tests), and that's all I really need, personally.

RottedApples1 votes

some of the matchups can get really shitty and you feel like you can't actually do anything in lane, but she can also heavily bully other matchups. I don't worry about the passive and try to get a mix of damage and tank, stuff like sheen item, titanic hydra steraks whatnot.

Aptest1 votes

This I suppose is to compensate for her Q's stun duration being nerfed. But if that is the case then there really is no point in the change at all as they could have left her Q stun alone and left her E unchanged.

Having played leona, you must know her AA->Q->AA combo (Q is a reset).

Landing E on opponent with strong mobility results in this combo not being usable because they leap out during the first AA.

The shift in stun duration from Q to E is to allow for a free AA and terminate the gap in her CC resulting from it.

Embertine1 votes

This could be the reason for the shift in cc. I'll have to try it once it reaches live, and see how well it works.

The Yetii Rider1 votes

This bonus for her passive is great. If she hits a max range Solar Flare and her jungler hits an enemy, she gets a speed buff to close a gap while her jungler gets sticking power. I don't understand why you think the speed buff is irrelevant.

Her Q change is a late game buff. With 40% CDR, having her stun up every 3 seconds instead of every 4.2 seconds is a big deal. Stuns stuns stuns for days.

The E change is a buff. Even if the Q change wasn't just a tooltip, the E change gives you a larger window to apply your Q before your opponent has the ability to Flash out of your E. Long term, you'd get more stuns off than you wouldn't.

Embertine1 votes

Perhaps I wasn't viewing it the right way.

DeathToEcchi1 votes

I think the changes are aimed at making her more attractive in higher elo, rather than a real power shift.

Partholonian1 votes

[{quoted}](name=The Yetii Rider,realm=NA,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=VyiNEhFe,comment-id=0007,timestamp=2016-06-20T17:04:35.779+0000)

This bonus for her passive is great. If she hits a max range Solar Flare and her jungler hits an enemy, she gets a speed buff to close a gap while her jungler gets sticking power. I don't understand why you think the speed buff is irrelevant.

Or, if she hits Q or EQ on some assassin that just gapclosed onto her carry, she gets a speed buff to get around to the side that interferes most with the assassin's attempt to chase after the stun wears off, and her carry gets a speed buff to open up more distance.

The E change is a buff. Even if the Q change wasn't just a tooltip, the E change gives you a larger window to apply your Q before your opponent has the ability to Flash out of your E. Long term, you'd get more stuns off than you wouldn't.

Not only that, but when you space out your EQ more, you give your ally more time to proc your E passive before you overwrite it with Q, thus, more chance of getting both passive procs.

Anotherherolost1 votes

Much like OP I main Leona and I am also currently grinding for that final mastery 7 token. At first glance these changes seemed pretty vanilla but the more I look at them the better I feel.

I never duo and I constantly have trouble with ADC's not reacting fast enough to a play, these passive changes will make that a little more forgiving for non mobility carries.

I suspect they just don't know what to do with her short of a full remake so there just gunna slap this new coat of paint on her.

P.S. I really like that ult idea, a heal would be nice but I would settle for any kind of buff when it hits you.

zlumpy1 votes

Can I just have my tankier W buff back please :(

LordBahamutXVI1 votes

The range increase and damage lets you Q people from farther away and do more damage with it

Solari Fortune1 votes

Actually she has had some other work done This is her Current PBE status https://gyazo.com/92ebf5256e8abe228ab7c835fbb3bc05 Movespeed removed from passive, and Incandescence moved to ult

Embertine1 votes

Thank you for posting the link!

devdev4631 votes

Giving both her and her allies speed on trigger of her passive gives a lot of needed utility to her kit, the main use I can think of being giving kiting power to her adc, allowing her to do more than just dive all the time. I think it's a good change, Leona needs more utility to stop her from being just another tank with cc in the crowd.

Dengeden1 votes

From what I know, a lot of Leona's power stems from being plain invincible during certain points in the game. She will win every trade with her W up, she will stunlock an immobile target. They're trying to move some of that power for a more diverse playstyle. Movespeed and range are useful for target selection and running away after all.

SOLOQSUPERHERO1 votes

So, I play a lot of support. I'm not a Leona main but I do enjoy her.

Since people seem frustrated by the passive on Leona's ult, it's worth while to point out it gives her some more options.

Leona is a really fun champion to play, but she tends to be pretty linear. Ult into E-Q or E-Q into Ult. An extra 100 range on her next auto attack means her Shield of Daybreak has an extra hundred range. This is a big deal.

Her Q also gets reduced down to 5 seconds, which is also a big deal considering the ubiquity of CDR on support items now, it's kind of a big deal. This I think in general, is going to buff her late game, which frankly I think is where her attention was needed.

As for her damage shifting around, I'm okay with it. I think 3 autoattacks in 5 seconds is a bit hard to ask but the increased range is a big big deal. She'll still be able to run away with a game. Her power comes in the CC and extra damage she adds, and she still adds more damage than a lot of tanky supports and cc. Late game she'll have even more.

Psi211 votes

The static damage on Leona's abilities are too high. But her ratio's are terrible on her abilities too.

I just boils down too tanks really should be doing more damage and should really be needed for their CC.

The Tanky DPS meta has been noticed by a lot of commentaries. And to be honest tanky dps is pretty bad.

The next fix is to nerf the defending items. A lot of non-tank champs are abusing them.

Sire Hippington1 votes

I like the idea of puting a bit more power to extendet combat patterns and take it from the raw burst, as it makes staying in a fight more rewarding while also offereing the victims a bit more time to ract. However, what i don't like are the recent changes to her. It shifts to much power from her base kit to her ult, which rather hurts her sustained fighting patterns and focuses on an short all-in with ult. Haveing nothing but an all-in, i think it is important for her to have a strong all-in early on already so ranged champs will think twice befor pokeing her, else she'll get bullied easily. Aditionally, the ult all-in might become to powerfull, especially at 6, as it's alot more total damage on a level 6 all-in(asumeing W maxed first) comapred to life. This will make her more binary, as all her power is pushed into the ult all-in, of she gets that it's most likely a kill, if she misses the ult, she becomes rather weak till it's of cd. It will also heavily impact her sololane and jungle. The lower Q cd is nice, but the overall damage nerfs will hit her tradeing potential and wave/jungleclear quite alot in the early,

I certainly prefer the version with Incandescence on E rather than on ult.

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