Well, I am not the best Janna Player, but I play her pretty good and spend long to try to figure out an optimised build for her.

The essential thing with Janna is the immense amount of CC for me, so I do not play her focused on damage, but just on utility for them team - if you prefer a more damage-oriented build, you might be dissappointed.

For any further information just look through the sections and please don't complain about my grammar, I am not a native speaker and did not want to read all over it again. :D

At first max the shield, you E skill.

Why? It gives your ADC a good laning phase, higher damage output potential, the chance to get good trades and investing at first only a few points in your CC is enough to disengage.

Secondly max your W, the slow. On the one hand it gives you movement speed and therefore you don't have to buy boots, that this the main reason: You Q does not increase its cc, just his damage. Whereas the W increases the slow, making escapes harder for the enemy.

At last max your Q.

Take the ult at the usual levels.


How to use your abilities most efficiently:

Use the tornado to zone the enemy and don't let him last hit. During the laning phase channel it from the bushed and let it channel fully. If you are getting ganked or you are engaging use the tornado immidietly.

The shield is great for your AD to farm unter tower, because he can also get the ranged creeps due to the damage increase. Don't use the shield too often so you have it up during trades and don't waste your mana.
There are two ways of using your shield: The, I dont care about myself, only the ADC matters tactic is the first: Even if the enemys engage on you you cast the shield on your adc, granting him more damage. The shield also lasts longer, because he is not attacked.
You can also give the shield yourself, surviving longer.
If your ADC is focused give him the shield anyway.

Your W is a great disengage/engage and should only be used for that. If you cast that spell you will lose you extra movement speed and the damage and mana costs are not worth it.

Your ult is pretty strong. You can use him very easy to just heal you ad up in teamfight and get him away from the enemys.
You can flash behind the enemies to push them away and to your AD / Jungler / Team, if you have an advantage.
You can wait for a good change to press enemies into the wall and even sacrifice yourself, because that higher the chancen of your carry.
What is pretty cool about Janna, is that you can cancel not only fiddle ult but also pushe e.g. Vi back, if she engages with her ult . The ult is cancelled then (or at least that has been the case earlier). If you dont need to cast the ult right away wait for exactly that chance to cast an ult and give your team the final advantage!

Runes are pretty much up to everybody.

I like to take GP10 Quints, Armor yellows, MR blues and Armor Penetration reds. The reds are pretty discussable, but if you want to poke the enemy while being in the bushes you will notive the Penetration.
You can also go do for more armor, if you like it safe.

Masteries are
0 - 9 - 21 for me. I do not take the exhaust point in the offense tree because exhaust has still a high cooldown so i do not really see the use of it.

In the defense tree take usual extra life and extra armor, just to not be so squishy at first.
And in the utility tree go for the usual items, more experience and gold, explorer ward and cookie, cooldown reduction, mana regeneration und movement speed.

I do not like to put points in the damage tree and let my ADC deal the damage, while I engage, shield and CC the **** out of the enemy ADC.

Items are the most important topic so I would like to go a little into detail.

You start with an explorer ward, a cookie, a fairy charm, a revunjanction thing and two green wards. Why not full ward Janna? Because early philo is gooood and some substance in the lane isn't bad either. With these wards you will still be able to cover the first few minutes and then you can go b and get new wards and your beloved philo.

Place one ward at dragon or the tribush (depending where you are expecting ganks from) at 2 up to 3.30 minutes (depending on thr jungler - against lee sin you should ward at 2 minutes!).
Against aggresive supports also place a ward (at first the explorer) in a bush. After the ward died you will see, if you the enemy support is able to grab the ad a lot and zone or not and which bush is more important to ward.
Decide on the jungler and adc presence, where to put your last ward. After that expired go b soon. After these starting items always try to have a least 2 extra wards and a pink from time to time in you inventory. Make sure you have a hell lot of vision.

What are Jannas core items?

Core Iteams are the Philo Stone, which is besically everything you need. Afterwards you can either
go for:

• Kage's Lucky Pick You will have more money a little bit more damage. And you can scare the enemy support on how much money you will have and how many pink wards you can buy now.
• Sightstone I would recommend this, because it would next in the list anyway. Still carry at least 2 extra wards, so you can place 4 at a time.
• Kindlegem You man build many support items out of it, cooldown reduction is nice and the extra life will give you the abilty to tank skillshots for your AD carry.
• Emblem of Valor If the ADC deals a lot of damage the extra armor will be good for you lane
• NO Boots You don't need them you're Janna. Use the money wiser!

My personal favorites are Sightstone and Kage's Lucky Pick.

In the Mid game, upgrade your Sightstone to a Ruby Sightstone for maximum ward coverage. Remember to always have a pink and at least 2 greens with you though.

Also build an Aegis of the Legion and Locket of the Iron Solari. Afterwards upgrade to the Runic Bulwark.
Now you have everything you need a support - philo, kage's, sightstone, locket and bulwark. Look, if the jungler is building one of these items. Double solari is ok, double bulwark a little over the top.

Now we come to the late game items (if the game lasts this long):
Build you Kage's in either the Shard of True Ice (if you have lee sin, malphite or another champ that can jump in randomly) or into hte Twin Shadows (if you want to have vision after you couldn't ward and want to slow somebody who is trying to escape). This is very siutational.

If the game is still not over you should finish Shurelya's Battlesong. If you feel you need this item earlier you can switch it with the Kage's - Items.

You still should have no boots right now and you should notice, that you really do not need them. You will not be the slowest and you should have a giant advantage to the other support who had to build boots.

If you are afraid of you loss of movement speed on casting your W you can buy boots now. You can also build Ohmwrecker or Zeke's Herald, if your team has a lot of AD. If you insist you can build a Morellonomicon or Rylai's Crystal Scepter or Rabadon's Deathcap if you want to deal some damage, have greater shield and heals. But you will give uo the pink ward slot now.

If the game goes still on you can resell the Ruby Sightstone and always carry around a stack of 3 - 5 pink wards. But only do that, if you have enough money and no place in your inventory free anymore.

And this is what this build will give you:

• Great utility by giving shield and movement speed to your team
• The potential to engage
• longer survivablity
• the chance to take a lot damage for your team (because you are pretty tanky)
• a lot of CDR and so a lot of CC

Pro's:

• Janna has a lot of engages and disengages. She can save someone pretty heavy if she wants and is one of the best kiters.
• Janna does not need to buy boots, because she has a lot of movement speed herself and can save the money.
• Janna can hold a tower alone pretty good, cause she can shield them.
• Janna can turn fights around with her ult and split enemys.

Con's:

• Especially with the build I recommend you will not deal much damage. Pretty no damage, actually. You are there for the utility.
• You need some items to be useful and you can be squishy at the beginning.
• Without good communication you can screw things up with your ult.

Easy enemies (as far as I can say that):
Alistar He cannot do pretty much anything against you. He jumps in? Oh, too bad, my carry is shielded and you are knocked up.
Leona You can cancel her Zenith Blade and make her engages hard.
Blitzcrank If he grabs your carry, you can disengage easy.

Hard enemies:
Sona Against a sustain lane Janna cannot do a lot. The only thing I can see, how to play against sona is engage at lvl 2 and kill her soon. Afterwards you cannot poke her with the damage of your shield. You shield also has a higher cooldown than her poke, and you cannot take all the damage away.
Soraka If Soraka silenced you, the enemy AD can win trades better, because you cannot shield your ADC. This maked it kind of hard too.

Champs that fo well with Janna:
Ashe, because you can kite everybidy, have hard engage / disengage and are just one of the best combo's in game.
Draven The Spinning Axes and the shield have a lot of damage, that can put squishy down to half health with the right runes.
In general poke combinations are pretty good - disengage and you can give more damage with your shield. Therefore also Ezreal and Caitlyn are good with Janna!