Leona Main asking you NOT to go through 8.16 Leona changes

capwill·Aug 5, 2018·3 votes·1,445 views

http://na.op.gg/summoner/userName=Lancelonkaworu http://na.op.gg/summoner/userName=sensualcappa http://na.op.gg/summoner/userName=capwill and other smurfs

-I don't play Leona anymore because she's been BAD for a long time. She's just notoriously a noob crusher, although good junglers know how to abuse and pressure her. Another person has been able to climb to challenger with Leona maining earlier this season, but that's another story with all the patches. -I mostly play Leona for laning phase; to get ahead early then make the game go smoothly afterward. champion.gg statistics approve of my strategy BECAUSE throughout history win rate by game length has never favored her mid-late to late game. In recent times this is evermore true if you read the graphs--statistically she's even more early game than ever. -You are getting rid of the only reason Leona should be played, and nerfing her ENTIRE gaming phase with a "buff" that does not even kick in until she has items LATE game when she will not even make it. The only sensible reasoning to the changes is if you want to make her a solo laner to actually abuse the 40% change. Or if you want her to build iceborn gauntlet and full tank, no support items, like some Koreans do. BUT how do you afford that with laughable laning pressure now unless you are not in the bot lane? You need 1.5 full tank items to get the same ARMOR as before, and you need to choose either armor OR mr if you want health too. Therefore, you need multiple FULL TANK items to get a BUFF from the patch changes. BUT where does the gold come from now?

EDIT: I forgot to mention you are kicking Leona while she's already down. And the 40% changes favors specifically aftershock only.

7 Comments

woodvsmurphAug 5, 20182 votes

That's pretty much what I said too. But the balance team doesn't seem to like most early game champs. When early game champs do their job and bully around scaling champs who don't respect their opponent's early game advantage and play too agro in lane, they nerf the lane bully. We saw this with "leona is too bursty" earlier this season in patch notes so she got nerfed... only a much better scaling champ in taric who offers far more to his team mid/late was the second most obnoxious melee laner at the time and far out-scaled leona, yet he got no nerf. So after the nerf taric was equal to leona in lane, with better sustain AND outscaled her by far.

And then they later gave leona a buff... not to her durability to make her the tankiest support - which she SHOULD be considering the risks she takes when engaging compared to other melee supports (pyke, tahm, taric, braum, thresh, blitz) who can get off cc from range - but a buff to her damage. So if her damage was an issue and you nerfed it... why are you now slightly buffing her damage instead of improving her durability?

What leona deserves to make her reasonably viable at high elo and/or competitive with other melee supports:

Once E connects and she begins dashing forwards, it should be unstoppable. No janna tornado, no thresh flay, no ali headbutt interrupting her engage. They either do it before she starts her dash or after her dash ends before she can apply her q. She lacks sustain, must do a full combo to make use of her spells, and lacks other utility for her adc compared with other supports. Alistar has harder to interrupt/peel cc which is both aoe AND point-n-click. Thresh and blitz don't have to commit as hard and risk as much in case the enemy ganks when they engage. Braum can just poke from ranged as can tahm via their q's and braum also has disengage via his dash to friendly targets. Nautilus is in a similar situation to leona, but has better scaling, more cc, and is tankier due to getting an hp shield - resistances need hp to back them up or they are meaningless.
If burst is the issue, drop the damage on her w and replace it with a mini gargoyle active or something like naut's shield (giving hp) in addition to her resistances. Gargolye explained - she'd get some percentage current hp increase for a short duration - much like gargoyle's but w/o the dmg reduction - such that combined with her increased resistances she would be very tanky for the duration of her w. This rewards her for playing agro, but doesn't make her have stupid burst damage in laning phase.

Unstoppable MonkAug 5, 20181 votes

What if Leona is fine and people are playing season 8 leona wrong?

capwillAug 6, 20181 votes

The good Leonas were playing her right and climbing when locket and banner were meta. Leona was also one of the biggest aftershock abusers early in the season too, when she became pick ban. Riot's always making changes though. Look at my win rates, don't think I'm an idiot. I can peak to 69% win rate on Leona D5 to D4 until running into uncarryable teammates, alongside weekly item changes.

Unstoppable MonkAug 6, 20181 votes

Yes, but optimal rune changes in the meta happened. You can't seriously believe that when every other champion was changing runes/lanes from builds in earlier season 8 to conquerer meta that Leona was somehow immune to this reality, can you?

While it is true that tanky tanky tanky tanky support Leona has existed there's sometimes a place where that doesn't work, but everything else can. There was always AD or APier options that relied on W for survival which is why I am agreeing that changes might be better off left in PBE for now.

PopcornBunniAug 6, 20181 votes

The 10 missing armor is made up for with literally item 3076 + item 1029 btw

The 5 missing MR is made up for with just a item 1033

capwillAug 6, 20181 votes

Let's look at the stats: Current Base Armor at lvl 9--71; W 65; Bramble + Cloth 50; Total 186 x 1.2 = 223.2 Armor Base MR at lvl 9--41; W 60; Mantle 25; Total 126 x 1.2 = 151.2 MR

Proposed Base Armor at lvl 9--71; W 35; Bramble + Cloth 50; Total 156 x 1.4 = 218.4 Armor Base MR at lvl 9--41; W 35; Mantle 25; Total 101 x 1.4 = 141.4 MR

Based on your suggested build path, the changes will cause -4.8 armor and -9.8 MR while W is active. Therefore, I am correct that you actually need more items for a buff. The only other thing that would make a temporary buff too is if aftershock procs. Either that or plan on using W a second time in a long team fight with a reduced cooldown, which means you have to group as 5 mid to late game. Or you plan on having a clown fiesta really early in the game.

Also, you realize that items cost gold? Literally anything on any champion can be offset with items.

One of the main issues is that damage is being nerfed too, along with tankiness that makes her a threat during early laning phase. Going aftershock with the changes makes her deal less damage, while PTA does not make sense anymore with the damage nerfs.

What you would have to do is transfer damage into maybe 3 points E early, then transition to maxing W as normal

Pika FoxAug 6, 20181 votes

Yeah, personally imo what leona needs most of all are proper selfish support tank items that give her stats instead of spending gold to give her team mate extra stats.

Leona is a frontline, but her itemization makes her bad at being the first person in. Let her have more selfish items and i think she will be fine.