@Riot Nurse Flan Janna's two most expensive skins, Star Guardian and Forecast, are both pay to lose.

Forecast Janna has been pay to lose for three years, and though I have pointed out the skin's issue since its release, it hasn't been addressed. Fnatic was just a model change, but there's a worrying trend of expensive Janna skins being pay to lose with the release of Star Guardian

Star Guardian Janna

This skin has a few flaws that make choosing it actually reduce your effectiveness as a support for your team with respect to any other (non-forecast) Janna skin.

1. SG Janna's howling gale is visually noisy when charging up, making the charged howling gale much more difficult to land as it's telegraphed way more than any other skin. The differences can be seen below.

Howling Gale Comparisons (Thanks Waffle for helping me take these screenshots!)

Note how the contrast of the yellow star and the purple winds of the charging gale make it way more noticeable and in-your-face that a charged tornado is coming. Because charged tornadoes are already difficult to land, this extra visual cue will make you miss more often.

To fix this, the yellow stars need to be removed. It's not worth it when they start to affect gameplay.

Edit: Some people have mentioned that the audio for charging a Q is also really loud, so I'm including that as feedback here. Consider softening the SFX of the spell.

2. SG Janna's Monsoon heal is difficult for her team mates to notice, it is visually quiet for a heal with respect to her other skins.

Friendly Classic Monsoon Friendly Star Guardian Monsoon Lone Friendly Star Guardian Monsoon

The only indicator that Janna is offering her team mates a heal is the teal circle around her, there are no additional heal effects. In a very noisy teamfight, it's simply too difficult for allies to quickly register that Janna is currently offering an AoE heal to her team. With classic skin, there are green sparkles that appear which make the heal very clear.

Star Guardian simply doesn't offer that, the only indication that there is a heal here is a teal circle, which is the only case in the game where teal = heal.

To fix this, there needs to be a lot more actual green for the sake of clarity. I'm sure the skins team is clever enough to come up with a better way to telegraph the heal for her allies. How its done now is very poor.

These two issues combined make the skin not viable in a competitive situation. I have no reason to pick this skin in ranked, as I'm just hurting my chances of winning. As a result, no competitive player would ever pick SG Janna in a pro game, meaning this skin will never be played in any pro game.

Overall, for Janna's first 1350 skin, I'm very disappointed in SG Janna. I hope these issues can be addressed.

Forecast Janna

This skin has had an audio issue since its release. I have unfortunately never been able to use this skin in a ranked game as I'm competitively disadvantaged.

What upsets me the most is how Riot actually considered this skin a competitive advantage, and banned it until they made her Q more visible. This was the meme of the year for Janna players, as Forecast Janna by far has the most clear Q telegraph of every Janna skin.

When Forecast Janna begins charging a howling gale, an audio track plays. She wails like a banshee, letting her opponents know that a charged Q is on its way. She may as well scream "GET OUT OF THE GOD DAMN WAY I'M LAUNCHING A TORNADO IN THREE SECONDS!".

The extra audio cue can be heard here.

There are two potential fixes to this. Riot can either:

• Mute the wail for enemies, so the player experience will not change for the user but enemies will not receive the extra audio cue. OR
• Play the audio cue when the tornado LAUNCHES, not when the tornado gets charged. This might be easier to do considering this skin is old and there's likely some fettuccine code that Riot might be too scared to touch.

The first option is much preferred however.

Please address these issues, I want to see Janna have some high quality skins with cool particles. It's been two years since we have seen a new Janna skin, and I can't even play the newest one in a ranked game or competitive tournament game because it's a disadvantage.

With respect to non-gameplay affecting feedback, SG Janna has a really boring backside model. I'm not sure what it is, looking at the model from the back is just....plain and dull. Considering on blue side bot lane you are staring at her backside a lot more often, it would be nice to have some sort of design/anything on her back to prevent it from looking so plain.

The colours of the skin itself are fairly boring too. I don't think enough of a gradient is present, the skin could use much more shades of purple to give it a bit more life. The skin model is a bit too plain for me, considering it's a 1350 skin. Star Guardian Janna is unfortunately very underwhelming IMO.

I'm again overall disappointed that the first Janna skin in two years is star guardian, but it's pointless to complain about that. For the love of god though, can the next Janna skin be something badass? We have plenty of girly Janna skins, where's my Reaper Soraka/Deep Sea Nami/Ravenborn Leblanc-esque dark-themed Janna skin!? Dark Star Janna was a missed opportunity :(

Thanks for taking the time to read this, I appreciate all feedback,

-Janna Mechanics