I do not understand the goal of these leona changes.

Profirix··37 votes·21,911 views

Currently on PBE:

Sunlight (Passive) damage lowered to [20 + 5 per level] from [20 + 15 per 2 levels]
Shield of Daybreak (Q):
    Cooldown lowered to 9/8/7/6/5 from 11/10/9/8/7
    Damage lowered to 30/55/80/105 from 40/70/100/130/160
Eclipse (W):
    Damage now 60/100/140/180/220 from 60/110/160/210/260
Zenith Blade (E) root duration increased to .5 from .25
Solar Flare (R) 
    Damage lowered to 100/175/250 from 150/250/350
    New Effect: Leona's sword remains charged with Incandescence, causing her next 3/4/5 basic attacks to gain 100 range and deal 30/50/70 (+ 15% AP) bonus magic damage on hit. 
        Incandescence also now applies Leona's passive, it did not in earlier iterations.

Why exactly are you significantly hitting her damage and backloading some of it onto her new ultimate effect? Leona's job is one of a peel tank without any disengage. Once she goes in, shes stuck in the fight. Meaning she is more likely to die than many other champions. You aren't providing her with anything more than a shorter cooldown on a single target stun and a minimal increase in zenith blade root duration. What is the goal here? From what I see, she does significantly less damage on every basic ability, including her passive, to the benefit of slightly more frequent use of a stun. Is that a fair tradeoff, or are you intentionally nerfing Leona?

I ask these questions because I used to play Leona religiously until I discovered that every other tank support does her job better than she does. ** EDIT: Wow, I was not expecting this much feedback, thanks! In response to some of the comments, I want to make it clear that Leona losing damage is not my real concern, it is what she is getting in return. Is the reduced stun cooldown worth the amount of damage she is losing? Zenith blade cooldown is unchanged as well.**

116 Comments

RiotMeddler38 votes

We're looking to give Leona more stuff to do in a teamfight. At present she blows her combo quickly and then can't contribute much meaningfully until her CDs are back up. Given she's putting herself in the middle of the fight by necessity we'd like her to have things she can do there that matter, hence the auto attack reward on the ult and the CD decrease on the Q.

It's also worth calling out that the Q change is a pretty substantial buff. At max rank with 40% CDR it's a difference of a 4.2s CD versus a 3s CD. The stun's got a duration of 1s, so that means the time a target's unstunned drops from 3.2s to 2s.

Finally Leona's also looking very strong in the current patch (6.13). There'll be a mixture of things contributing to that, one of them though's the changes to XP that affects supports in particular. Leona's pretty level dependent to contribute, much more so than most other supports, so it looks like she may have benefited more than most. Fairly confident as a result that even if we're wrong about the power (as opposed to play pattern) impact of these changes that she won't end up too weak in the next patch.

Profirix2 votes

Thank you for the clarification.

RiotMeddler9 votes

Welcome. Tag me in a thread after the changes have been out for a bit if you'd like to discuss them further.

Cherysse3 votes

If you are going to nerf her damage then please give her increased ratios, or AD ratios, I play Leona in the Top lane and in the Jungle, I need the damage, if you are building tank you survive and do damage from base and she is loosing a lot of it, give her some ratios to compense, I think you should give her the opportunity to become a laner, another solution would be to allow her to proc her passive on her own, she needs it to lane at least.

Lady Hammerlock1 votes

[{quoted}](name=I Blame Adam,realm=NA,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=asE2lsao,comment-id=000c0000,timestamp=2016-07-01T18:29:09.761+0000)

Thank you for the clarification.

Doesn't her passive now also give move speed or was that removed?

RiotMeddler6 votes

That got removed, didn't generate sufficiently engaging gameplay for the amount of power it offered.

Slamurai Jack3 votes

I very highly question how removing so much early power on a snowball reliant melee champion isn't going to completely screw her over. The powerspike at lvl 6 will be nice but that's little solace for a champ so reliant on lvl 2 and lvl 3 all ins.

Profirix2 votes

This does concern me a bit too. Leona was incredibly reliant on the early game success. Level 3 engages were as common as Lucian's level 2 power spike. Without as much early game damage, or without sufficient tradeoffs granted at later stages of the game, I wonder how well she will fare.

Shahamut1 votes

My question is about the new passive on ult: Its cool that it lasts for 5 seconds and all, but its kind of a joke I think that it applies her passive. I mean, you only get 5 seconds, and in big fights, you will probably be focused on a single target. Most Leona plays I see there is very little weaving her spells to get that passive damage proc because of how quickly her passive gets applied by her.

Only giving her 5 seconds to apply up to 5 attacks at max rank doesn't encourage her to hit (let ally proc) hit (let ally proc). in fact, at level 6 when you first get it, its more likely you are going to ult, E to target, AA-Q-AA to get all 3 procs of your extra damage off. Her passive is TECHNICALLY applied 6 times (would be 7 but one of your buffed autos was also your shield bash) if your adc follows up really well, you MIGHT get 3 procs of the passive. MAYBE. Once after the ult, once after she dives in and AA-Q-AA, and once after her W explodes.

RiotMeddler3 votes

Timer to apply stacks resets each time you land an auto attack. That means it's not 5 seconds to land 5 attacks, but 5 seconds since your last attack to land the next one. Should make it very feasible to land all the empowered auto attacks if you're in going combat.

The Arctic Otter1 votes

Is this accurate to what we're discussing: "New Effect: Leona's sword remains charged with Incandescence, causing her next 3/4/5 basic attacks to gain 100 range and deal 30/50/70 (+ 15% AP) bonus magic damage on hit. Incandescence also now applies Leona's passive, it did not in earlier iterations."

In Shahamut's example of a typical lvl 6 engage, Leona will often get all 3 basic attacks in before her ally can even proc 1 sunlight passive. Won't this setup mean that she is often wasting several of those passive marks? Or will subsequent AA's not consume the incandescence unless the sunlight has been proc'd?

Shahamut1 votes

Or will subsequent AA's not consume the incandescence unless the sunlight has been proc'd?

This would not be a good idea, because she would lose her extra damage if she didnt have an ally who could/did follow up.

The Arctic Otter1 votes

Good point, I hadn't thought of the bonus Incandescence damage. I was only thinking about having to weave her spells as you described. Perhaps it just accentuates her strengths/weaknesses (necessity of having a teammate go all-in with you). Weaving her passive between allies' damage would certainly raise her skillcap. Unfortunately, this is often very reliant on a sometimes random teammate.

Shahamut1 votes

Cool! That is helpful, but I am still concerned about how many passive procs actually happen in a typical 2v2 since Leona is all in. She doesn't exactly weave her spells, and expecting a champ like that to weave her passive with an ally seems a bit unrealistic.

Lord Desert1 votes

The ideas mentioned before were the basic versions, heres a more advanced one focused on the passiv: passiv stacks: 1 stack= 100% dmg, 2stacks = 150% dmg, 3 stacks = 200% dmg and an effect.


Explaination: giving a bonus to 2 stacks rounds the feeling so 2 stacks are not complettly useless. Futhermore it gives leona something better when she uses her E-Q engage combo at early levels. The 50% dmg increase is there to give her some meaningful dmg if she lands it, but not to crazy dmg. We are talking about a dmg increase of 15 - 55 dmg from level 2 to 18. and with 3 stacks 30 - 110. If those numbers seem to high i would suggest 25%-50% dmg increase on 2 and 3 stacks, or no dmg increase on the 3 stack only the effect.


Effects The possible Effects if a 3 times stacked passiv is proced. First the common situations are: R-E-Q rAA-Q-rAA rAA-W-rAA

The max amount of 3 stacked passiv proc in a full teamfight is 2 times, in a 2v2 it can be 3 times if coordinated. Thematicly fitting Effects:

  • blinded
  • nearsighted
  • stunned
  • burn(like brand passiv)
  • slowed

Those effects only cc/dmg an enemy, but giving leona more dmg/cc is tricky and i would go against that.
So a change to a debuff/buff is highly advised.

  • flat movement speed reduced/ stealed/ given to a)only leona b)the one that proced it(never leona)
  • amplified magic dmg taken by all sources (maybe only leona but this seems not so good)
  • reducing Mr and/or Ar (sunlight meltation)
  • give leona bonuses to W or flat Mr/Ar (W is likely not exploded)
  • amplify cc duration by 10-25%(her main cc comb is done so cc from team is amplified in 90% of all cases and engage is likely on the tank)
  • truesight(shiny enemy :D)

Those are all only minor debuffs, no complete changes its not a full rework. But the bigger ones might overload her kit, flat mr/ar/ms should be good enough. Thanks again for reading this :D

Lord Desert1 votes

Hi im not sure where i could suggest this so im doing it here :D I would change leonas passiv! Its impossible without a full team/5.0 As Kogmaw to trigger more then half of the potential procs. So let it stack to 3 and if an Ally then procs the passiv, it deals double dmg(not triple!) and gives a small movement buff for that ally (10- 30max .40 ms)(so stacks dont get wasted!) This makes the passiv way better to be used and i dont cry as leona when i need to use my full combo and only 1 passiv proc is triggered :'c

her early (lev3) combo dmg is not that greatly reduced but definitly at lev 5 + if ult is on cd And longer fights where she Qs more then 2 times. 55 dmg is huge, its 1/3 less dmg, thats a bit tooo much! give her 5 more dmg on all levels, so she doesnt do 0 dmg at level 5 or with ult on cd xD

w is ok. less dmg because of ult dmg, e should have been a 0.5 root from the start xD

Im not super happy with the ult, yes 100 range is super effective to do the dmg but 5 AAs as leona in a teamfight is a huge amount of time! give her 1.0 As and its still 5 sec (-1.5 if Q is back up) total time :/ It definitly gives her something to do after her combo! So its ok. A possible change would be to give her the stacking passiv and if someone tiggers the 3rd stack, leona gets +10/ 20/ 30% As (scaling with ult rank, or if to overloaded give it to passiv) it should make the AAs smoother. But this is just an idea, passiv to stack to 3 and 5 more dmg to q is way more important for me.

Thanks for your attention :D

MunchCrunchLunch5 votes

{quoted}

We're looking to give Leona more stuff to do in a teamfight. At present she blows her combo quickly and then can't contribute much meaningfully until her CDs are back up. Given she's putting herself in the middle of the fight by necessity we'd like her to have things she can do there that matter, hence the auto attack reward on the ult and the CD decrease on the Q.

It's also worth calling out that the Q change is a pretty substantial buff. At max rank with 40% CDR it's a difference of a 4.2s CD versus a 3s CD. The stun's got a duration of 1s, so that means the time a target's unstunned drops from 3.2s to 2s.

Finally Leona's also looking very strong in the current patch (6.13). There'll be a mixture of things contributing to that, one of them though's the changes to XP that affects supports in particular. Leona's pretty level dependent to contribute, much more so than most other supports, so it looks like she may have benefited more than most. Fairly confident as a result that even if we're wrong about the power (as opposed to play pattern) impact of these changes that she won't end up too weak in the next patch.

i mean full top lane tanks can't last a full rotation in team fights let alone a support that is gold starved most likely

something needs to be done about damage in the game. many ways to amplify your damage passively has been added meanwhile nothing about defensive stats has been changed if not nerfed as most tank items cost a lot more and give a lot less because non tanks abused them

DeathBurst5 votes

i mean full top lane tanks can't last a full rotation in team fights

My Sion does, by far. My Garen too (even if Garen is technically not a Tank). I agree that it's slightly harder for Support with less itemization, but even my Braum last longer than one rotation. What "Tanks" explode in less than one rotation?

Sahn Uzal3 votes

If a Sion gets tunneled down, he'll get exploded if the enemie ADC has this thing item 3036 I honestly think Lord Domniks is disgustingly broken.

Dominick Destine7 votes

{quoted}

NERF YASUO REMOVE DYNAMIC QUEUE GRAVES CIGAR etc.

DeathBurst22 votes

Graves vapes, now.

darkdill3 votes

And what if she ends up too strong because of the 6.13 changes and her upcoming ones?

Ashe Caitlyn Jinx MissFortune Quinn Sivir Tristana Vayne "Don't nerf our Leona!" http://oldlim.deviantart.com/art/Our-Sup-441588953 Leona *sweatdrop*

RiotMeddler5 votes

If she ends up too strong we'll nerf her. If she ends up too weak we'll buff her.

Pretty sure at least in 6.13 she's noticeably too strong. Will have to assess again after the 6.14 adjustments though.

redfeenix5 votes

Hello sir. Leona is one of my favorite champs. I don't think relegating her to a stun bot is very nice. I would've preferred if you made changes so she could solo and duo lane. Please recall she is a badass warrior like brienne of tarth who fights toe to toe with Pantheon. She is a warrior, not a flimsy support. I would love playing Leo top or jungle , she would be a badass. Please consider making her viable in other roles. Its not my fault you guys have such few lady badasses (love the ones you have though eg VI, jinx). Please let her fight on even footing with other bruisers. Thanks have a good day.

DarkRitual1 votes

I think the changes actually help her solo lane. Higher stun time for sure helps. The only thing actually missing (IMHO) is some AD ratios.

GayFluffyUnicorn1 votes

Don't play leona often but how will reduced dmg on every ability help her to solo lane? Higher stun time with zero follow up dmg...dunno. But i don't know leonas state atm. imo she's already been pretty op, considering in season 4 and 5 i could easily 1v1 any carry with ignite.

DarkRitual1 votes

If you're building her bruiser or for more AD, her base damages weren't what you were building for anyhow, since they are not AD scaling. Her stun is also an attack reset, and with a lower CD will grant more Sheen proc's over the course of a fight. The bonus damage on attacks granted from ult will make those attack resets significantly better. Zenith in, Ult, AA, Q stun, AA, Tiamat/Hydra, AA.

Again, unsure exactly how viable it will be, but it has the potential. As I had said, I feel it may just be lacking an AD ratio somewhere to actually be worth playing.

God of War Leona1 votes

waiting for that leona buff, because she is fucking weak right now

Lugg2 votes

IMHO, the only change she needs is that her shield should be like J4's new shield, scaling with the number of enemies around her. That way she can be more disruptive for longer, and if the other team focuses her, they lose the teamfight because it takes too many resources to kill her.

WiegrafOfValor5 votes

{quoted}

We're looking to give Leona more stuff to do in a teamfight. At present she blows her combo quickly and then can't contribute much meaningfully until her CDs are back up. Given she's putting herself in the middle of the fight by necessity we'd like her to have things she can do there that matter, hence the auto attack reward on the ult and the CD decrease on the Q.

It's also worth calling out that the Q change is a pretty substantial buff. At max rank with 40% CDR it's a difference of a 4.2s CD versus a 3s CD. The stun's got a duration of 1s, so that means the time a target's unstunned drops from 3.2s to 2s.

Finally Leona's also looking very strong in the current patch (6.13). There'll be a mixture of things contributing to that, one of them though's the changes to XP that affects supports in particular. Leona's pretty level dependent to contribute, much more so than most other supports, so it looks like she may have benefited more than most. Fairly confident as a result that even if we're wrong about the power (as opposed to play pattern) impact of these changes that she won't end up too weak in the next patch.

Please meddler, Make her [E] ground targets, it's horrible to hit a skillshot just for the enemy to dash away and leave you out of positioning.

Most of the ADC have a way to do that, and I don't think it was intended.

Caitlyn Graves Ezreal Vayne Tristana All can do that, and they are very common picks on her lane.

Since her [E] is her only gap closer, nothing more fair than make it useful.

Reddit: https://www.reddit.com/r/leagueoflegends/comments/4qujw5/since_riot_is_looking_at_leona_i_think_this/

Boards: http://boards.na.leagueoflegends.com/en/c/gameplay-balance/PK0dc7fb-since-riot-is-looking-for-to-buff-leona-please-just-please

Just please, hear me out.

Sire Hippington7 votes

The idea of giving her more to do in a fight and more sustained presence is nice. However, the current changes take alot power ffrom her base kit into her ult, and thats bad. It will hit her quite hard if she looses her all in threat pre 6, as thats **all **she has. It also makes her a feel a bit lackluster without ult, and beeing rather potent even with ult on cd was one of the things i liked alot on leona, and also something she needed. Her only option is going ham, all the way. She can't just easily stall out till her ult cd is up like other supports, she needs to be ready to fight all the time. Another big issue with that are her off-roles. Sololane leona will loose alot tradeing and waveclear potential and relys entirely on a strong lvl 6 all in, makeing her a raw snowball pick. Junge leona will loose quite some clearspeed with the W nerfs, probably to a point where she isn't really viable anymore. Also, 5 sec duration for 5 AAs on a champ that hardly ever reaches 1.0 as? The window of her rank 2 and 3 ult is a bit narrow and promises players more than it can deliver, as it's highly unrelistic to get of all the empowered AAs in that time.

ADepressedLeona1 votes

Was there any particular reason you moved the Incandescence from her Eclipse to her Solar Flare?

RiotMeddler1 votes

In large part it was simply that the amount of power we'd have to cut elsewhere was much higher if it was an effect that could occur all the time on the W.

SlashStriker1 votes

{quoted}

In large part it was simply that the amount of power we'd have to cut elsewhere was much higher if it was an effect that could occur all the time on the W.

/offtopic Are you guys gonna talk about assassins soon? Item changes or so?

RiotMeddler2 votes

Assassin stuff's still a ways off (pre-season in November or December). It'll be a little bit before we're ready to talk details as a result, particularly about stuff like possible item or other systemic changes.

ADepressedLeona1 votes

I see, thanks for the clarification!

darkdill1 votes

Speaking of cut power, why is Leona's W still weaker at higher ranks even after the Incandescence effect was moved? It was never really a strong damage source before, and with her Sunlight damage lower (in exchange for her having more opportunities to apply it), it doesn't make sense to me why Eclipse still has to lose 40 damage at rank 5.

JRobin311 votes

"We're looking to give Leona more stuff to do in a teamfight." hmm... "New Effect: Leona's sword remains charged with Incandescence, causing her next 3/4/5 basic attacks to gain 100 range and deal 30/50/70 (+ 15% AP) bonus magic damage on hit. Incandescence also now applies Leona's passive, it did not in earlier iterations."

So before this change Leona could... deliver auto attacks in a teamfight. And after this change Leona can... deliver auto attacks in a teamfight. Leona doesn't actually gain anything "more" to do, she just gets some of her power shifted from her combo to her auto attacks.

I'm not really opposed to the change any more than I am for the change, but it seems that it would be more accurately described as delaying Leona's damage to the target. Similar to the idea of how RIOT wants to delay the damage that assassins do so that they don't immediately kill their targets but instead offer their targets a window of potential action (still curious to see how that goes).

Kubox15 votes

Lowered damage on a tank support at the exchange of more stuns and longer roots is basically the best change one could hope for.

She lost damage that she didn't care about as much as CCing people and now gets better at it. And in the case where she does a good job bot and feeds her carry (and herself), her overall dps got slightly higher in the case where she constantly attacks a target as she does her job.

I dunno why peeps are crying, this mini-rework is clearly a buff in my opinion. She'll be a better pick than Alistar vs single, potentially duo threat comps, while Alistar will still be the go-to pick when you need someone with stronger CC but longer CDs.

Profirix4 votes

It is not so much her damage that bothers me as much as her ability to stay on a target. If you are going to initiate a fight, you are going to take the brunt of up-front damage. They should at least make Eclipse scale better or something. What good is it to be a cc-bot if you can't survive the first 4 seconds of a team fight?

I don't want her to have high damage values, but I want her to be good for something more than getting in to a fight, getting blasted, and dying.

oh that zed3 votes

most balanced champs in the game. 4 abilities, 3 stuns.

Rustling Bush2 votes

[{quoted}](name=oh that zed,realm=NA,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=asE2lsao,comment-id=0001,timestamp=2016-07-01T15:43:09.729+0000)

most balanced champs in the game. 4 abilities, 3 stuns.

she has 2 stuns, her q and her ult. considering her zenith blade isn't even that long i'd say its a fair trade off

oh that zed1 votes

[{quoted}](name=Summoner Grey,realm=NA,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=asE2lsao,comment-id=00010000,timestamp=2016-07-01T15:58:10.946+0000)

she has 2 stuns, her q and her ult. considering her zenith blade isn't even that long i'd say its a fair trade off

has it been that long since i played her or is her e not also a cc spell?

Profirix4 votes

Keep in mind that her Q is a very short duration, and zenith blade is a root, not a stun. Her ultimate is a stun but it is hard to land and has a long cool down. That is pretty much her kit. Her damage nerfs will not go over well.

Feed Daddy6 votes

[{quoted}](name=I Blame Adam,realm=NA,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=asE2lsao,comment-id=00010001,timestamp=2016-07-01T16:10:21.324+0000)

Keep in mind that her Q is a very short duration, and zenith blade is a root, not a stun. Her ultimate is a stun but it is hard to land and has a long cool down. That is pretty much her kit. Her damage nerfs will not go over well.

Her ult is easy to land and the cool down is pretty short compared to other wombo ults

SpecterVonBaren2 votes

I'd eagerly trade the damage reduction for a longer ult cd. That thing has always had a stupid short cd.

EROTIC RAID BOSS3 votes

I wouldn't say her ult is hard to land but it's not like Leona has been really OP lol

TotalJerk7 votes

Keep calling roots stuns. I kill so many Lux and Morgana players that can't tell the difference.

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