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Why Leona is bad, and needs buffs to her E.

PhearBunny··3 votes·1,265 views

First off why Leona is bad- Her E is slow, and hard countered by almost every champion in the game. its predictable, cancelable and its entirely too high risk The high risk aspect used to be justified by her burst damage. Damage she no longer possesses. Current things in the bottom lane that make Leona completely useless.

Janna: Tornado+Eye of the Storm. Pyke: Menchanics in general. Thresh: Flay/Lantern Zyra: Root. Morgana: Dark Binding/Black Shield/Ult. Lux: Root. Taric: Just because he does. Dravens knock aside. Vaynes Condemn/ult tumble Caitlyns traps Zilneans ult Ezreals existence. Lucians damage. Alistar same champ, better in all ways. Lulu Poly/ult. Tahm Kench. Rakhan similar role filling champ, but vastly superior and has heals/more utliltiy. Nami- just bubble yourself when you see the zenith animation. Xerath stun+range Pretty much everything you will encounter in the bottom lane hard counters Leona

The only lanes Leona isn't a bad pick against, and when I say that I mean she just isn't a bad pick...but NEVER is she a good or the best pick. Jihn+Sona/Soraka/Brand Kog'Maw+Sona/Soraka/Brand Ashe+Sona/Soraka/Brand

The only reason Leona has a high play rate is because she is the easiest and most binary support to play, and is the most commonly picked autofill Support as a result. Due to her easy kit(Probably the easiest kit in the game) she has a respectively high win rate at low elos since the microplay is mastered with absolutely no effort, you don't even have to be good at her to maximize her potential. But she is terrible vs even slightly competent players. Just straight up abysmal.

My proposed buffs are simple. Make her immune to CC the moment Zenith Blade tags an enemy champion, if she is CC'd while Zenith Blade is en-route to a target, Zenith Blades connection to a target will break that CC and pull her to her target regardless. a temporary buff "Radiance" Immune all forms of CC for 1.5seconds.

On top of this, her other issue is lack of mechanics and being "all-in" in a overtuned damage meta, where hyper mobility and hyper damage increases every day. 2nd proposed buff, also to her E again- When Zenith Blade connects to a target Leona is granted a barrier that absorbs 20/40/60/80/100 rank1-5 damage, per enemychampion within X radius.

So, rank5 Leona zeniths 1target, she gets a 100barrier. Say she Zeniths into 5 enemies, she gets a 500 barrier. Maybe tune it down at higher ranks, the numbers are off, but the idea I think is a good one for her well being.

5 Comments

sneakydoug1 votes

I wouldn’t object to a faster E cast time/projectile.

But Leona’s not bad. You’re bad.

Arkinseth2 votes

leona is bad compared how she used to be. a while ago they took dmg off her q (75% less dmg than it used to) and they took dmg of her e. Unless you got a good carry who can poke and peel for themselves like an MF, Jhin, (pretty good EZ), maybe kai'sa or lucian, you will not be able to kill an opponent level 2 unless it's a sona or soraka.

I used to play a lot of leona and she's still a decent pick with mf as a carry cuz the ult combo is so disgusting... but she has too many losing match ups in lane. She loses against all of my mains. Janna cancels her e -> she's useless unless she flashes in your face and then you just ult her away. Zyra you poke her out of existence and even if she manages to kill you lvl 6,...your plants take her with you. Taric Taric is like the best leona counter since he scales so well with armor, provides extra armor for his carry can simply stun the engaging leona and you are overall a ad-all in denier. In ranked an all ad team and leona as a support is my favorite team composition to play against.

but thing is her bad match ups don't end there: Alistar: can throw her away, has lots of cc, sustian and is tanky af (I hate to lane against the cow) Morg: spellshield tho it's not as bad since your e has less cd than hers and her q can be blocked by minions. But she's usually played with sivir Sivir: spellshield, yh it has like 20 sec cd but you tend to get a morg aswell pyke: you are bound to get low if you engage, oh he's mobile, oh he ults you, oh he gets an ult reset, oh he ults your carry and his adc gets the kill gold rakan: moblility, shields and cc (he's easy to kill, taken you can catch him) lulu: polymorophs your adc and your dmg alone wont suffice against her on your own vayne: tumbles lucian: dashes

somehow the only nice matchups are sona, but lux is a better way to piss off those sona mains, brand: unless he poks you down soraka a pre 6 zilean

my suggestion would be: to give leona's passive an armor or mr scaling, she wont do more dmg by herself but if a teammate reacts there will be more dmg. plus all her dmg scalings are ap and no one ever buys ap on leona.

I mean Taric gets more dmg from armor on his e and passive and braum gets more dmg from his q

as things are now nautilus is way more satisfiying to play than leona, since you kind of fill the same role, but are tankier, can take shield bash and deal more dmg

PhearBunny1 votes

{quoted}

I wouldn’t object to a faster E cast time/projectile.

But Leona’s not bad. You’re bad.

No...Leonas pretty bad.

sneakydoug1 votes

She’s sitting on 6% popularity, 3rd among committed supports. She has a 6 second cooldown at level 1 for an auto-refresh stun, and a similarly short cooldown on e.

She was never meant to do heavy damage. She was meant to lock down enemies, which she still does fine but has her limits, as every champ should.

If you are concerned about too much damage in the game the last thing to do is give supports which weren’t intended to be high damage to have more damage just so they can “keep up.”

You’re bad.

PhearBunny1 votes

{quoted}

She’s sitting on 6% popularity, 3rd among committed supports. She has a 6 second cooldown at level 1 for an auto-refresh stun, and a similarly short cooldown on e.

She was never meant to do heavy damage. She was meant to lock down enemies, which she still does fine but has her limits, as every champ should.

If you are concerned about too much damage in the game the last thing to do is give supports which weren’t intended to be high damage to have more damage just so they can “keep up.”

You’re bad.

perhaps you failed reading comprehension in class. So I will iterate.

No where did I say she should receive damage buffs. I simply stated that her past damage was justified by the all-in extremely high risk nature of her kit/playstyle. Damage that she no longer possesses even though the extreme high-risk nature remains.

My proposed buffs were a tiny window of CC immunity attached to her Zenith Blade connecting to a target. (Alistars headbutt cant get CC'd why can Zenith?) And a tiny barrier scaled by the amount of enemies in a currently undecided radius, applied when she lands on her E target. As it stands Alistar is Leona, except better in every way. That isn't very fair to Leona.

Alistar has better, more reliable control. More reliable being the key thing making it better. Better survivability. And the added utility of heals. Even has better damage.

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