Request: Can we get a "Dark Horses" segment for Jungle Leona?

darkdill·Mar 4, 2015·3 votes·984 views

I've been doing jungle Leona since the start of Season 5, and time and again I find it to be very powerful. The ganks our Solari can pull off are terrifying, and she does a pretty decent job too at counterganks. Plus with the upcoming Bami's Cinder and Cinderhulk Enchantment, Leona's jungle routes are just going to get easier since she'll have faster access to immolation for clearing.

The true power of Leona's jungle is her ganks. Not only can she initiate really effectively and stop most opponents from fleeing with her stuns, but your enemies will often misjudge how much damage they'll be taking due to Sunlight. Leona can also tower dive pretty nicely, though don't go totally Rambo unless you rushed an Ohmwrecker (something I don't advise until patch 5.5 comes out).

As an added bonus, Leona jungle can also play mindgames on the enemy team during Champion Select. If you pick Leona early, your opponents will probably think you're going to go bottom lane as the support tank, and counterpick you with either Morgana, Janna, etc. But then your actual support takes Sona, and then they're left going "WTF?!". Works like a charm.

But as expected, it's far from perfect (if it were perfect, Riot would nerf her). Leona's biggest weakness in jungling is her awful clear speed (without an immolation effect) and bad objective control. This means she's weak against invaders like Lee Sin, Udyr, Shyvana, and Nunu, who can easily beat her in one-on-one fights if she doesn't take Challenging Smite (which she likely won't; she needs Blasting Smite for clears early on). In particular, level 1 cheese invades can screw her over if she can't get her Gromp camp off the bat, leaving her without the ability to actually take a camp out. Make sure your teammates guard that Gromp zone and don't let the enemies in without a fight.

Those are my two cents on the gameplay.

#My Build

0/24/6 Masteries Flat armor reds, HP/lvl yellows, MR/lvl blues, Flat HPR/5 purples

Start-up Items

Core Items

Situational Items

That's right, no offensive items. This is pure tank Leona, as she's meant to be played. Even without damage items beyond Sunfire Cape, you can still cause a lot of trouble for your enemies if you get 40% CDR, spamming stuns and Sunlight to no end. Challenging Smite will also let you put the hurt on enemies you dive on, giving Leona surprising dueling power.

Can we give our Radiant Dawn a section alongside Support Brand and Jungle Irelia? That'd be great.

In the meantime, I'm off to catch more Ashe's who are out of position. XD http://beanbean1988.deviantart.com/art/E-From-Leona-315426477

6 Comments

GundayMondayMar 4, 20151 votes

What time do you finish your first clear? Curious.

darkdillMar 4, 20151 votes

Normally I go Gromp, Wolves, Red, and then look for a gank at level 3. As such, I don't really clear everything on the first go. Even if I went for more camps instead of a gank, you wouldn't be able to kill everything without dying. The Raptors, in particular, sting.

TehNACHOMar 4, 20151 votes

Do you kill the small raptors first?

During my testing with Xin Zhao, I found that I can save a rather notable amount of early damage by killing the small raptors first. Since Leona is similar to Xin Zhao in that her damage is mostly Single Target (Her W will most likely explode before anything can die, and won't be back in time anyway), it may apply to her as well. Done right, you can save over 100 hp killing the small ones first, which for early game is gigantic.

darkdillMar 4, 20151 votes

Yeah, I kill the small ones first, but by the time you take out the Red camp, your Gromp buff will expire. That makes the Raptors more painful.

Either way, it's better if Leona looks for ganks as soon as she hits level 3. She'll have all her skills available by that time.

HairyblakFartboxMar 10, 20151 votes

I don't like her as Jung for one blaring reason. Wasted passive. Her passive is based on team damage so she doesn't utilize it in the Jung or in a 1v1 as if she was invaded. IMO she's just a worse version of nautilus or sej. I mean It would work but others do it better because of unwasted stats.

darkdillMar 10, 20151 votes

The passive comes into play during ganks, though, and gives more damage than a Nautilus would provide. And if you are invaded, you should be calling for reinforcements anyways.