In this guide i will be informing you of my way of playing leona. The knowledge in this barely handles the silver elo rating, but it should be enough.

Leona is a support who brings CC and burst in the early laning and turns into a CC/Ward bot the longer the game goes on as your damage is greatly negated as time goes on.

She is fun to play and can make a game singlehandedly, and though i consider myself one of the WORST leonas at platinum 1 I could still carry a few divisions lower than my true division and this guide will be helpful regardless. (knowledge is important and applying it even moreso)

On with the guide.

Warding
imgur.com/f4eegap.jpg
I know in the guide it specifies the red dots are blue side only, but they apply to red side too.

Zoning
imgur.com/qJJwzu5.jpg
Just a basic example of positioning i have witnessed in low elo (sup trashcranks!), yet no play was ever made <3

Who is your ad carry?

If your adc is varus, tristana, draven you will find the lane a bit easier because of the way they work together. Leona works greats with adcs that have huge early damage, damage over times and burst at 6.
She does not work well with people that need to be babysat or peeled for (cc'ed so the adc can run, and regularly- she can't make space like alistar can, and she can't do what janna does), see ashe, vayne, kog for BAD lane matchups.

While you can win a bad lane matchup, you could have won it harder with a support that more fit the champion.

Leona gets good at level 2, with a gap closer and a stun she can catch people out of position, be it the carry or support, some sona's, jannas and blitzcranks like to make themselves a tasty free kill for you or the adc, either way the money goes on wards or to further the adc's lategame and both get a share so it's K.

It also gives the power of lane dominance which is an experience and possibly farm advantage.

(you get about 400g worth of stats per level, so if you are level 18 you have 7200g worth of FREE stats which is nice!)

Make lots and lots of wards, get a dorans shield if taking too much autoattack harass in laning (it's actually really nice for its 475g pricetag!!)

Get a sightstone as quickly as possible and upgrade it, just because it gives you 3 free wards doesn't mean you can't stop buying them. Your entire ingame bank will go on wards so A) your team can farm in peace, B) your team won't get caught, C) your team can catch the enemys. AND ITS A TACTIC THAT WORKS, SO DAMN EASY.

Oracle isn't an END to your warding strategy, just be creative about where you place them.

Regardless of if you disagree with me or not, you should always have baron, dragon and some fixpoints warded on the map. (areas that can see where the enemy is or areas where they are most likely to run by)

Buy an aegis if really ahead but it's something that you dont wanna finish till much much later.

Boots aren't really a nessecity till much later in the game, and boots 2 are too expensive for what they provide.

Keep to standard boots of speed (350g) and that's all you'll need.

If you play a support champion, stay the f**k away from your ad carries CS if you want to win, i can't state this clearly enough. But nothing makes an adc ragequit 5 minutes in more than you fumbling with their cs, i don't care if they miss them all- or do terribly. The enemy ADC is nearly just as bad most of the time. But you NEED that player if you want to win, you need ALL YOUR TEAM. You need to make sure your team is there, and convinced they need to be there, and that they can win.

If anyone is the backbone of the team, it is the friendly DST support that tells everyone they are better than they are so they don't quit on you when you need them most. Because that one game that you convince someone who was going to ragequit, and they end up carrying you is one game won that you could easily have lost. And oh wow do these games add up.

* Never flame
* Always tell your team they are great when they get kills or take a dragon or something. Or just that they are unlucky if they die.
* Do what you can to make people feel like they can win, open opportunities and carry.

One more thing, remember you are the teams b*tch in lower elos, accept fault even if it wasn't your fault and move on as it brings the person blaming you some satisfaction, if they carry on- ignore them.

(thanks youtube.com/watch?v=cz7TWpRXyRY )

Ok, this was supposed to be a guide for a friend, it contains mild details and very minor things, i have not put much time into it.