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[Guide]Praise the Sun!!! A Leona build and play Style guide.

Pryotra·10/7/2013, 11:30:11 PM·6 votes·1,635 views

Hi, I'm Pryotra. I usually don't play ranked, but recently I have been trying to get into it. I have dug myself out of bronze maining Leona support, and while I can play other roles, currently I find I have the most success in bot lane as the Solari herself. I'm going to try to teach you what I know.

Leona
#Leona#

So this champion is a tank. By tank, I mean a true tank. The point of the tank in war was to keep fire off of and to protect the squishy infantry. Likewise, Leona does the same by protecting and keeping fire off of her squishy teamates. In team fights, you can either initate or counter initiate incredibly well. Unless you somehow have all tanks on your team, Leona can always be a safe pick. Her counters in lane are sustain, but considering how weak most sustain supports are currently, Leona has no problem decimating them and handing the kill gold over to her carry.

Pros:

  • Naturally tanky
  • Loads of CC
  • Easy to start fights and initiate for your team
  • Scales well into late game with few items.
  • Easy to peel for your carry

Cons:

  • You aren't the damage dealer
  • You need your team to back up your initiates
  • You likely won't be gettng a pentakill, and if you do you probably stole the whole thing.

#Skills#

Leona has amazing skills... assuming she stays near a teammate to capitalize on the sheer amount of lockdown you can create. This is why I choose to use her bot as a support to help feed the carry so they can hit their late game earlier.

Passive: Sunlight - Whenever she hits an enemy unit with an ability, she charges them with Sunlight for 3.5 seconds. If an ally strikes an enemy charged with sunlight, they do extra damage based on Leona's level.
This is an excellent passive. In lane, it not only allows your carry to chip in an auto attack for extra damage in trades, it allows you to stand in enemy creep waves with you shield to apply sunlight to the creeps to help your carry last hit.

Q: Shield of Daybreak - Leona's next attack will do extra magic damage and stun for 1.25 seconds.
This is a pretty strong skill at lvl 1, so I usually put a point into it first and max it later with her E.

W: Eclipse - Leona gains a Resistance boost for 3 seconds, then the resist shield will explode. If she hits an enemy unit with the explosion, the shield lasts for an additional 3 seconds.
Max this skill first. I usually pick it up at lvl 2 or 3, and have 3 levels in it by level 6. This is a great skill to use while initiating, as if you turn this on before zenith blading in, you are practically garunteed to land the explosion on them, while absorbing the brunt of the damage with the free resists. Like I mentioned earlier, this is also a great way to help your carry cs if they need it, as sunlight on half health creeps makes for an easy one shot by you carry. Just make sure you don't take the cs you are trying to help them with.

E: Zenith Blade - Leona does magic damage to all enemies within a line. She will then dash to the last enemy champion in that line, briefly snaring them.
This is Leona's initiate and counter initiate button. I usually pick it up at either lvl 2 or 3, depending on my lane opponents, and then max it later with her Q. This allows you to peel people off of your carries by doing an E>Q combo on them. In lane this can almost guarantee a kill for your lane, should you use it right.

R: Solar Flare: Leona calls the Sun to orbital strike a certain location. After a delay, the flare will hit, doing damage slowing by 80% for 1.5 seconds. If within 100 range of the center, the enemy will be stunned instead for 1.5 seconds instead.
This ult is AWESOME, but a bit hard to land. If you want to train your accuracy for this skill, use Cho'Gath, and keep trying to land his q. Once mastered, this is the ultimate engage or disengage. I like to use this in team fights when the enemy clumps up, but will use it on a channeler like Kat or Nunu if my Q is down or I am too far away. This has saved many a teamfight for me, and is essential in YOLO queue. AoE CC OP. In lane, this can be a death sentence to the enemy. I have turned quite a few lanes around once hitting 6 due to this ult.

#Runes & Masteries#

http://i.imgur.com/oNdhn1L.jpg

So yeah, threw that together with my mad MSPaint skills and my copy-pasta-fu.

This is the setup I use. I favor the armor so heavily due to the fact that the majority of bot lane damage will likely be Auto attacks and AD based skills. I chose pickpocket due to me being pretty aggressive, with a fair amount of auto attacks, but this can be exchanged with Summoner's wrath for enhanced exhaust.

As for rune substitutes, I would say that health quints could be used, as well as health/scaling health yellows and Flat MR blues. I like scaling MR as you don't need it as early, and later you need it more. Reds are pretty standard for support, being flat armor. If you need to substitute it, I would go with MPen, as carries early don't usually get MR early, so any closer to 0 means you could be doing near true damage with your abilities.

#Items#

#THIS SECTION IS OUTDATED! PLEASE IGNORE FOR NOW# Starting Items
item 1006 item 2043 item 2044x2 item 2003x2

Logic: I find that with my runes & masteries, and smart skill usage, I don't need mana regen right out of the gate. However, due to the lack of built in sustain, Leona needs as much staying power as possible. The wards, with the explorer ward, allow you to see level 2 ganks coming, and really allows you to be aggressive early to zone out the enemy carry from cs'ing. I usually place my explorer ward in the river where I can see early jungle ganks around 1:30. This allows for an early leash, and reletively safe transport to lane, where I will drop one or two green wards to fish for the enemy pink, or if they don't have one still allow me to see ganks through lane brush and river. I like to save my pink until the enemy places theirs to kill a ward, then I take out theirs so they are SoL until they b for wards.

First Buy
item 3096 item 1001 item 2043x? item 2044x?

Logic: So typically, when you go back, you will be buying wards. Consider it a tax, and if you don't pay it the IRS (enemy jungler) will hunt you down. That part is simple. I like to get at least 1 pink, maybe 2, then at least 1-2 green ones, for a minimum of 3 wards on the first buy. Later I will be buying more at a time, but for the first buy this is a good recommendation. Philo is just to start getting spending money and some staying power, and boots are to allow you to secure kills and zone better. If you can afford potions, Hp potions are what you need to spend your money on.

Mid Game
item 3096 item 3111 item 2049 item 2043x? item 2044x?

If you can afford it
item 2045 item 3098 item 3067 item 3097

Logic: Merc treds are mandatory because you want to turn your pilo into a shurelia's at some point, and you need tenacity cheap. MR works for you too. The sight stone has no downsides, and once you get it it should ease the amount of greens you need. A good rule of thumb is Sight stone = 2 less green wards needed, and ruby bumps it up to 3 less green wards needed. You need health anyways at this point, so if you get this before merc treds that is fine. You should be getting at least 2 pinks on every back. Oracles is a good investment if you need the extra help in the ward game.

If you can afford it Logic: At this point, an early finish to your sightstone is always nice. Kage's is a nice way to boost your spending money, gives your abilities a little more threat (something you might need to make some enemies notice you), and it builds into a decent item for leona that boosts her Magic reist. I generally get it when I am being ignored in team fights. However, the other item in this list is for if you ARE being focused, as it will allow you to do your job for longer, while still building into something useful. The teamwide aura is nice, but I only get it if their AD somehow gets fed, and try for an early legion for my team. Otherwise, I get the kindle gem to finish my Shurelia's a bit quicker

Late Game
item 3069 item 3111 item 2045 item 2043x? item 2044x?

If you can afford it
item 3190 item 3023

Logic: Shurelias is obviously to help your team engage, or to help fleeing allies retreat. Good item, with good stats, and a great active. At this point, I am pretty much always buying a stack of pinks, and either a few greens or an oracles.

If you can afford it Logic: Locket of Iron Solari really works well on a Solari. Who knew? As for twin shadows, it can really help in those extended games in locating the enemy team, and can let you know when baron is safe before starting, and where to ward to ensure that you could see them coming.

#Play Style#

So Before I put my two cents in, let me recommend this video of Aphromoo playing Leona. He really puts the laning phase mindset that Leona should have into that video. It's also pretty entertaining.
NOTE: This video contains cursing. You have been warned.

So now that you have watched that, he basically has it down. Be really aggressive, make it hard for your ADC to fail, set lots of kills up for him. The only thing I would criticize, and this is probably due to his starting items, is the lack of wards. Sure, he uses them, but not as much as I would recommend. Also, any time you see an enemy lit only by a ward, you ping them. Keep an eye on the mini map, so that you can help your team with map awareness, something lower elo clearly lacks.

Well, that is the end of this guide for now. I might add more onto it later, but this was really a good start. I hope you learned something from this guide, and I hope that it was easy to read. Leave any comments about anything relating to this guide below.

11 Comments

RiotKrylhos10/9/2013, 12:19:50 AM4 votes

I too would like to dig myself out of bronze...I think I shall try this tactic.

Thanks!

Calderweiss10/18/2013, 6:31:23 AM2 votes

And all the dark souls players entered this thread

HlV Positive10/8/2013, 3:40:04 AM1 votes

Philo shouldn't come before sightstone unless you're getting hugely harassed in lane imo and even then it's not the best idea.

ShadowNinetails10/8/2013, 4:47:29 AM1 votes

Decent guide. My only gripes are 1) No discussion on Summoner Spells 2) No mentioning of other, more situational items you might need to support your team (Zeke's, Frozen Heart) or items you yourself may want if the game goes long enough and you get enough money to afford it (Sunfire Cape, Spirit Visage). 3) No mentioning that you need to coordinate your item build with others (your jungler in particular since most of them like to run Locket themselves).

Other than that, this is a solid base for anyone new to the Radiant Dawn.

P.S. Please for Tryndamere's sake, resize that Runes/Masteries image :P

ArisenHero10/9/2013, 8:32:59 PM1 votes

There are other options for runes and masteries that work really well if you want to go super aggressive and dominate your lane. Gold per 10 quints and masteries add up to 30 gold per minute, in a game that is 45 minutes long this equals 900 gold. This gold can easily be traded for lane dominance early so that you can get your adc fed. I do health quints and run 1/22/8 masteries when I want to go aggressive. I start with a rejuv bead as well but build it into emblem of valor not philo stone. You need 3 items as Leona in most games: R-Sightstone, Locket, and Merc's Treads. All the rest of your money should be put into vison wards, oracles, and sometimes even more sight wards.

Ask your adc during team select if he/she wants aggressive Leona or passive Leona so that you can take gold per 10 stuff and sit back during laning if need be. If you do go agressive you'll be pleasantly surprised at how much early damage you can take while the enemy adc is still fairly weak.