Newbie, and Janna main, I played better when I played like a Noob.

david1877·1/19/2019, 2:22:08 AM·2 votes·4,953 views

I started playing league of legends a couple months ago, after sticking to miss fortune MissFortune for a while I decided to give Janna Janna a try, unaware of the different roles each champion needs to play, in the second game I played as janna EVER, I went 14-1-9 TOP as Janna (well at that level most people sucked), and I fell in love with her as a champion. I enjoy her playstyle and abilities. As I learned more about the different roles in the game, I learned that Janna is primarily a support champion, and I got into the role, only because it was Jannas primary role. I started played Janna without paying attention to the conventional methods of a support or playing Janna.

My playstyle AT THE TIME.

  • I level each ability evenly throughout the game, utilizing all of them in the laning phase (downside is running out of mana quickly).
  • I spam howling gale (Q), one of the reasons why I never stopped doing this for a while because it was incredibly successful, at the level I was playing.
  • Use the preset rune, sorcery: the calamity rune, even well after I knew it was designed for AP champs midlane.

As a result

  • I go many games deathless, or 1 to 2 deaths.
  • I routinely get S-, S, or S+
  • Dominated Enemy botlaners

Over time I learned about how she works, and how people at high elos play. I changed my playstyle

  • Before maxing out abilities indiviually, I started ignoring leveling my Q, and focused on W and E and over time like most people recommend, started leveling my W, E and Q the way it's expected.
  • I no longer spammed howling gale during the laning phase, relying on my W for poking.
  • If I feel poking the enemy would be too hard based on their champs, I buy ancient coin instead of spellthief.
  • I used Sorcery, Inspiration as the runes (don't think this made a huge difference).
  • I ward (since I get it's the supports job), although I still have to get better at doing so.

And while I technically started playing Janna "the right way," Here is what happened.

  • I lose 60-70% of all my games.
  • Die repeatedly
  • Contribute to our teams defeat (unintentionally off course), unless were carried, or I do occasionally get games where I play well)
  • Placed in Iron III in ranked, and while I'm not upset since I just started, im not sure if ill be able to climb in my current plight.
  • Routinely get B's, C's, and in my best Games, A's, rarely S's.
  • Get dominated in the laning phase.
  • Get flamed by my teamates.

The only pro I can think of is, I don't accidentally take CS anymore, but that's meaningless since I lose most of the games.

Here are 2 things which happened after I started playing Janna the "Pro Way"

One Game: in Blind, I am facing another Janna, who spams the Q the way I used to do it, and the enemy Janna overall outperforms me.

Another Game: A ranked game, its me janna and caitlyn, vs. tristana and thresh. In anticipation, I buy ancient coin and warn the caitlyn to play passively like me. As a result, even though were right in front of our turret, they come in on us, taking us out multiple times and dominate us and Tristana gets fed and our team can't do anything and we lose, and I take the blame (not complaining).

In order to continue enjoying the game, get better at Janna, start climbing the ranks, and honestly stop having such terrible games. I have considered a few things.

I am NOT quitting Janna.

My ideas

  • Revert back to my original playstyle, using my Q as a ranged poke, and following up with W's, and having all abilities at a decent level to use.
  • Try putting Janna in a different role, the only problem here is I don't know how to build her for another role. -Just deal with my situation and hope I just get better, after losing a million more games.

Is there anyone who can suggest what I should do? Generally before I tried to "adapt" to the way most supports play janna. I truly enjoy playing janna.....

  • I play Janna aggressively (before and after this change in playstyle)
  • I utilize all my abilities, or I used too.
  • I suck at facing champs with high mobility, or hook champs like thresh, blitz, and hate facing champs like lux, I get dominated in these games.

Perhaps is there a way I can build Janna to be able to utilize all her abilities?

How would I go about this playing Janna in a way I do best, while not losing so many times and wasting other people's time?

Any suggetions? For the long run.

Its worth mentioning, that I have a little over 70K mastery points with Janna, and achieved Mastery 7, shortly before I changed my playstyle to uncessfully fit the conventions.

41 Comments

Death by Glamour1/19/2019, 3:11:31 AM3 votes

Ive already posted my thoughts as a reply but i wouldnt recommend you start with janna, shes simply far to gated as an denial/anti all in support.

Try nami shes a jack of all trades, can engage/disengage poke and sustain a pretty good all rounder and arguably tje strongest support right now. A good one to learn the support craft on although she is a good bit more difficult to play than janna

Peel for my ADC1/19/2019, 8:53:47 PM2 votes

Hey Dude , I’ve been maiming a Janna since season 2 . I’ve only played in seasons 2,4,8 though I’ll give you a summary of everything I do with her against particular matchups and others tips and advice . First off leveling skills evenly just isn’t that efficient , but you have 3 options 1:W-Q-E-W-W-R-W-W maximizing poke and mobility I rarely every do the W max unless the enemy bot lane is a tank support/and Adc are garbage at trading and Agro 2:W-Q-E-W-W-R then max E after 6 I usually do this vs Matchups like Alistar,Leona,Tahm Kench,Braum, Pretty much any tank if I can get away with it 3:W-Q-E max straight away against scaling lanes like other enchanter class supports or hard matchups that I take item 3301 On that I know I wont be able to take even trades with I just look to survive in lane

Now for some of the matchups that I love Janna into Pyke Leona Rakan , All 3 of these champs you can negate their CC with your Q and are open to a lot of poke from your W and Autos . Thresh Morgana Blitzcrank Braum Some hook and heavy engage matchups that pretty much just require you and your ADC to dodge and for you to peel hard CC if your adc gets hooked or take a Morgana Q

Fiddlesticks Xerath Zyra Brand These are all the matchups that are difficult for me and that require for you to survive the laning phase . Your early game shield isn’t enough to sustain the damage that these champions inflict and I will usually rush item 3174 first item to get some extra magic resist so your goals for this lane is to survive into mid game and wait for Ganks from your jungler/Mid Laner to get ahead in lane

Didn’t cover every support champion but those are just some detailed tips and information from my own personal experience from them .

Now in my opinion , Janna does 2 things better than pretty much any other support champion in the game and this includes peeling and warding . Her Q should only be used for poke if you are pressuring a tower and the enemies are already low in my opinion. Other than that your Q should only be used to peel you and your ADC from ganks and from any other enemy engages , its your best tool to keep you and your teammates alive other than your ultimate . Use your W and auto attacks to poke but save your Q. And this leads be to my 2nd point of warding . I have a higher Vision score on Janna per game than I do on any other support because of her increadible mobility and peel . You can use this to Ward more aggressively as in enemy territory because of your ability to escape by self peeling .

Vision is so undervalued and is so important to you and your teams success if they decide to take advantage of the wards that you give them . Pink wards by every support in every elo should be buying a MINIMUM of 1 Control ward per/5 minutes in my opinion . On average I buy 10 a game and I leave my last item slowly open for pinks at the end of the game just to hold 2 pink wards

My usually build path is item 3301 or item 3303

Core build item 3504 item 3174 item 3107 item 3222 item 3109 Against heavy AP comps item 3190 item 3102 item 3111

All Ad comps:item 3047 item 3143 Note these defense I’ve should be your 3rd item after boots and your support items on top of ardent and another core item

Other viable options:item 2065 item 3905 item 3041

And that’s about all I got for you man , any questions holler back at me sorry if their are some typos I typed all of this on my phone , goodluck

Nhifu1/19/2019, 2:50:04 AM1 votes

Always max Q first ADC is good - wave clear gives you faster 6 ADC is a noob - wave clear helps you hold tower more than shielding the tower does. Afraid of shoving the lane too hard? By the time you do you're already 6. Whole team died? Don't worry 1-2 tornados will blow up the wave. Land a sick 5 man knock up? They all die.

Q E W is the skill priority. Since Aery will give you a good enough shield anyways.

Self shield + auto attack + slow, followed up by a tornado (this is why it's maxed first) to save yourself if you're over aggressive or your adc fell asleep.

Aery is better than Comet Missed every skill shot? Auto attack op.

Every support item sucks right now I recommend grabbing Luden's before level 3 support item or level 2 boots (or any boots at all) This is mainly because 20% cooldown and AP will be better than any amount of weak % shield boost, and because it's easy to hit 45% cooldown with runes. (20% from luden's, 10% from sorc, 10% instead of adaptive damage, 5% from utility)

This also makes roaming Janna pretty scary. If you're extremely behind I recommend mobility boots, just because you'll end up using more spells and recalling, and roaming for plays > babysitting a noob ADC. (It's not ADC meta anyways).

xDelightifyx1/19/2019, 9:55:03 AM1 votes

A w max janna cant lose to a q max janna. Q is a skillshot aka dodgeable. Just dont get hit and she wont do anything. Your w on the other hand does a good ammount of dmg (if u max it) while also slowing the enemy enabling you to autoattack him. I would highly recommend to buy spellthief instead of coin, because you will get higher ap values more money and mana is never a problem for janna, because all of your core items (redemtion, ardent or athenes, mikalels) give you mana regen. In Your elo (same as in mine tbh) ppl wont be able to handle hard poke, so try to use your w + aa as often as you can, without putting yourselfe in danger. It will tilt the enemy, which is the best way to win atm. if you get the feeling that your adc is just not able to carry (whatever reason) its no shame to roam mid, or helping your other teammates. If u reached level 6 you can roam, for example if the enemy does recall, or your adc is able to stall 1 v 2.

I picked up janna again a few games ago, so far im having a 75% winrate [slayer-jinx-catface]

MuminsAreGreat1/23/2019, 11:27:46 PM1 votes

Hi there,

Ardent Censer and the support enchanters was extremly powerful last season or maybe 2 seasons ago I should say, now they are very weak in comparison. This is important to know becouse alot of discussions and about the subject is still affected by this fact so be careful becouse many players still talks about this old game state in anger and might not always be fair and true to facts.

Again no right choices but all the items you are able to buy is put into the game for its own little reason so. This is a question about identifying the right situation rather than buying the most "op" item.

So I will give you a personal preference and reasoning when it comes to items:

I do not often hang out in the backline as Janna, I prefer to move around alot and ward and be in the fight, many times I love tanky stats to allow me the freedom to move around in a teamfight and atleast take a few hits without dying this also makes it alot easier to get into somones face fast to interuppt something for example a channeled high dmg ult like Miss fortune or velkoz. This being said I value tanky stats high but I do not build full tank either.

I buy Ardent Censer if I have an adc that scales really well with attack speed... for example Vayne, cait, Jinx or Ashe or if I have a very snowballed Yasuo in a lane or something like that. You will help them to carry you so find who on the map you think is best equipped to do so and play around that. However the only time I personally would find it to be a bad thing to buy this item is if your team is very ap heavy in which case I dont think I would have picked Janna anyway. She loves this item becouse her E gives ad to combine that steroid with AS can be very very strong. So certain items can have different impact on different supports.

I buy Redemption when enemy team has strong aoe or ardent censer is not a good option sometimes I build it anyway becouse why not? you can potentially get a heal off for your whole team so it is not a bad item + it gives you slightly higher hp which is something I would value very high unless I can dodge like everything which isnt human so. Redemption is not very effective against very high burst however since that would mean you have to pre cast redemtion before the nuke which yeah isnt always that easy to pull off.

In the case of assasins and high burst.. im still struggling here myself but item 3383 can be helpful and it is also a good item against heavy aoe champions and strong aoe ults.

You do not have to buy any of those items in any of your games if you do not want to. Many AP items or tanky items can benefit you and your team in the long run so play around.

Personally I like almost all of the support items atleast when it comes to how they work or their purpose.(meaning the balancing of them are not always something that makes me smile if I put it like that)

"AND.... One of the biggest questions, which enemy sups can I win against in lane,?"

This is an impossible question to answer with exactly what champions you can beat. Becouse if you calculate the math between 2 champions it will not give you a result of who would win just who would from a math point but that doesnt calculate people going back to refill hp or dodging skill shots and the other 8 players in the game who could tilt that balance in any direction.

Every single one of them my friend. It is just a matter of choices, experience and what mistakes the enemy does and you do that game. In bot lane you are also a part of a duo so your ad and enemy ad plays in alot. I mean lets say you have a really good ad player with you... many times the only thing I have to do is to apply some cc or to show my ad that Im ready to back him or her up for that person to engage and get kills.

One thing to remember also is that you do not always or have to or even want to pick supports with kill pressure in lane. Janna is a very passive support with (in a good old "balanced" lol game" very low kill pressure atleast on her own. I know the Janna and Cait combo can be very hard even though it doesnt seem or even should be so but Its a poke lane and while sure the lane itself can often be rather easy for the Janna player... Cait will fall of during a long period in the game. Outside of lane this lane needs cait to have 4-6 items to be competitive and strong which is a hard point to get to especially if you are a beginner since the farm or cs is generally really low.

Junglers and roams can also really tilt the balance in bot especially since it usually means multikills and not a solo kill like in the solo lanes.

To answer your question about Fiddle... first he is not actually a support atleast that is not how he was released. So I personally hope that this is not a question you should even have to learn about but in case that isnt the case.

Here is how I would try to beat Fiddle in lane even though I personally have a whole list of more threatning champions to face in lane... 1 you do not pick Janna into him and if you did you want an ad with high burst almost solo kill pressure. I can´t imagine fiddle to be a common issue in botlane but if I was a new player I would pull my hair out in anger over laning against that poke spam. Max shield and try to position yourself so he cant bounce his e so much. Be respectuful against his lvl6 and keep wards up in bushes as much as possible to counter suprise ults. Ask your jungler nicely to gank, be aweare that a gank could potentially backfire really hard if he can bounce his e on 2 targets. Some lanes are just a nightmare and a matter of killing time and trying to survive until bot starts to move and group with the team. It is just how it is.

Lets say I knew I was up against a Fiddle... I would pick Nautilus I think just q his face he will burn his cd:s on your shield and your ad can follow up with damage. This is probably the hardest choice that I will recommend becouse this makes you a frontliner which is as far from our role I could think of. It also forces you to go in and trade among minions which is one the biggest "beginner killers" in lane I could imagine. Nautilus is just an easier to play Thresh basically, Nautilus´s hook is also alot harder to dodge. But this is something I would have tried atleast. Nami is a nice and easy pick... if you prefer to sustain through the poke, sona and soraka could potentially also find success here but raka would eat her own health to keep the ad high or topped so can´t say how it would play out potentially even worse than Janna. The final recomendation is to fight fire with fire. If the enemy support goes damage bursts and poke... you pick something with even more burst or poke! :) Zyras plants can eat alot of the annoying e bounces and tank for you so that is a decent pick I recon can also interuppt his channeling. Or just some mage with high poke or burst xerath or brand could work... maybe annie can potentially flash tibbers delete him.

In synergy with Janna I love to play together with Draven becouse I have a friend that plays him alot and that is one of few lanes that often lands kills when I play Janna so that is always fun... if that is not an option Im equally fine with just safe farming the lane out. Janna has very helpful tools to both damage and durability but sometimes all you can do is to give that shield and hope your ad also identified the kill window and went for it, when that backfires it very important to back out immediately... try to get a dialog or teamwork going with someone who wants to go in and trade with shield and then back out... or to stay on target becouse you would kill them. Keep repeating this to make most use of Janna. Go in trade with shield, fall back and then repeat. (Can mention here that Draven/Nami is one of the most disgusting lanes I have ever tried... land a Q with a good draven player in your team and watch him go to town xD)

You mentioned Cait... Janna can do great things for her but I honestly prefer to rather pick something that could engage or peel more physically for Cait than Janna.. becouse Cait has a long and slow scale curve mid game where she is rather weak and I prefer to pick something that allows her to get there rather than something that makes her even stronger once she actually gets there and with Janna Im very bound to make plays on other plays especially if our comp is rather poke:ish which both Janna and Cait are, so its easier to play something else here for me. Cait has very long range and also has own escape tools so shielding her just to buff her in a a teamfight is not always optimal and "lost" us a cencer procc for Cait which instantly made her less potent and therefore also Jannas impact on the game. This is what I have reflected over in my Janna / Cait games atleast.

Janna / Yasuo bot is so much fun + it often makes Yasuo players happy when they get to do that so if you havent yet tried it.. I recommend it :)

Ad steroid from E is what she does or ad + as with ardent cencer so the more a champion benefit from those stats the better Janna will perform aswell but at the same time you can also use the shield only as a survival tool which still makes Janna good and viable. You can also play Janna only as a simple distruption tool if the enemy have many champions that wishes to dive into your team... you can knock them up or knock them away with ult.

Janna is not really bad with anyone I mean she is more optimal with some but you can play her in combo with almost anything and into almost anything so as a champion she fits the role she has very well much more than some other supports Imo but everything is viable especially when you play with beginners the higher your skill becomes the more and more important small details in the game will matter but for now just enjoy learning, experimenting and have fun.

Turned into another wall but I said I could talk about Janna and supporting forever so xD

YourBub9/28/2019, 3:29:30 PM1 votes

Looks like you've hardly played Janna since :P