Hey, I know your looking at this guide and wondering why I don't build Leona the same way everyone else does. As Triforce Tank is nice, I found that compared to this build, it really lacks substantial damage to force the other team into focusing you.

In this guide, I will show you how this build works and lay out how you should act in game with a few tips for Leona. Most of the knowledge will be common knowledge but as for the items in my build, I will fully explain myself, just hang in there and read before downvoting and calling me a noob for building AP Leona.

Remember, before it caught on, Alistar was simple tank, Mord was just a Tanky champ, and Rumble hit the game as a Tanky DPS where he is now a Carry. Please just check this out and try it out in your next game.

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Pro's Nicely Bulky Early Game Abilities Hit HARD Best Initiator Double Stun Late Game Dominance Solid Tank

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Con's If your team has no damage you lose Very Dependent on Team Not very Mobile till Late Unloads for Initiating (Building Lichbane is for longer fights)

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As you can see I build 1/21/8. This is to boost everything that needs to as you are a tank.

Cripple is taken cause of its reduction of MR and Armor plus the .5 seconds of added time with it. This will be used to slow that carry down, both their output and movement to let your carries get to them.

Good Hands is kinda self explanatory. 10% Less time dead is simply great. As a tank you may have to throw yourself in the way of your Carry dying, and thus taking one for the team, with this your back to the action so much faster.

Awareness is key to playing a full on tank in my opinion. I found through many games that if your letting your Carry, that your protecting in your lane, get all the last hits and trying to zone out the other team, you fall behind in Xp. This helps out, however try to farm after mid game as much as you can solo to catch up.

Haste is cause your slow, really slow. Until you get Lich Bane your gonna want to use this to get where you need to be. Whether its getting back to lane or rushing to a team fight about to spark, you need this movement.

Strength of Spirit , your building tons of Mana, this means your not going to need that Force of Nature so badly. You can still grab it up if you want, but with the above build you really won't need it unless its a full AP team.

Tenacity, when combined with your Eclipse and all the defense we are building, you won't take much if any damage in those long team fights.

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By laning with a ranged champion, they can proc Sunlight without putting themselves at risk.

Sunlight can be activated by any skill including DoT like Despair, Malefic Visions, and AoE's like Spirit Fire and Defile.

The bonus damage of Shield of Daybreak still activates when attacking towers.

Zenith Blade can be used across impassable terrain, so you can use this very well to initiate ganks or chase down opponents (especially ones who use Flash to escape).

All of Leona's skills will pop Banshee's Veil. If your desired target for Shield of Daybreak has the spell block active, use either Eclipse or Zenith Blade to remove it. ( Zenith Blade is preferred for doing this, as it will still pull you to your target AND break the spell block). However, the skill that breaks the spell block will not apply Sunlight.

Remember that Zenith Blade does have a travel time associated with the projectile, so it is generally unwise to use the spell at the tip of its range since the enemy champion has time to dodge.

Remember that Zenith Blade always pulls you to the enemy at the end of the skill-shot targeting. If you're targeting a specific enemy champion you may have to pull yourself back so that it ends on the right target, or approach from the side.

It will however still damage and apply Sunlight to all other enemy champions in-between.

Since Zenith Blade can put Sunlight on multiple minions from a distance, your lanemate can farm easier and without risking yourself to move in for Eclipse.

Take care when casting Zenith Blade near enemy towers, as you can be pulled under tower and will immediately take aggro.

If Zenith Blade kills the champion it is used on, you will not be pulled toward them.

Place Solar Flare where it will stun the most enemies as possible. If not, its 80% slow is also significant.

A standard combo would be to activate Eclipse, dash to an enemy with Zenith Blade, stunning with Shield of Daybreak, which allows Eclipse to damage as well, then drop Solar Flare where it will effect the most enemies.

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Leona is described as a "pure tank", favoring builds that only emphasize her defensive stats. Despite the fact that all of Leona's abilities scale with Ability Power, it is not suggested to build AP as she has low AP ratios and long cooldowns. However, due to the fact that all of her abilities including her passive deal magical damage AND she has a habit of being in the center of the battle, Abyssal Mask is an acceptable choice.

That being said, Leona's Solar Flare has a good Ratio with Ability Power, and thus why I have made this build. By building 100-150 Armor and Resistance and stacking Health and Ability Power you become a force to be messed with. I say 100-150 cause at rank 5 Eclipse adds 70 in both stats, so the build along with this guide gives you over 200 Armor and Magic Resist. All other Items focus on Damage and Health.

She has rather lengthy Cooldowns, this is why I build as much CDR as I can without ignoring her defenses. Frozen Heart provides not only 99 Armor, and an incredible passive, but adds 20% CDR. Shurelya's Battlesong adds 15% CDR totaling 35% which is perfect on Leona.

Rod of Ages Provides a ton of Hp and increases with time as you build into your defenses. The Ability Power added into it plays a huge roll with your Solar Flare, Maxed out Solar Flare deals 350 Magic Damage and with just Rod of Ages your getting a bonus 80 Ability Power bump to it dealing a devastating amount of damage at the start of a fight.

Lich Bane is cause we are building Ability Power. We are not building a Trinity Force and Attack Damage, simply cause your centered around Magic Damage. After your Initiation your cooldowns come off staggered so anyone who is still up is taking a beating by the 80 from Lich Bane and 100 from Rod of Ages.

Shield of Daybreak resets attack timer and applies on-hit effects, so it will work with Sheen and Trinity Force and Lich Bane. However this is not entirely well recommended as Shield of Daybreak has a base cooldown of (12/11/10/9/8) seconds which is not very spammable. Alternatively, you can get plenty cooldown reduction items (the cap being 40%) to bring down Shield of Daybreak's cooldown to 4.8 seconds at skill level 5.

Due to being melee range, having subpar farming and normally being paired with someone who needs last hits more than her, Philosopher's Stone and Heart of Gold are fantastic on Leona. Kage's Lucky Pick can also be used but doesn't build into anything for a tank later on, thus its up to you, the 15 Ability Power isn't much.

It is recommended to build as much cooldown reduction as possible without hindering her survival items. The more CDR she has, the more she can spam her CC and tank for her team to clean up. Remember that the cap is 40% CDR.
Frozen Heart, Randuin's Omen, Soul Shroud, Spirit Visage, and Shurelya's Battlesong fit this description perfectly.

If you build a Randuin's Omen make use of its Active Ability during your Eclipse, it will extend the Time on its ability by atleast .5 seconds at lv 3.

This is the section that I will quickly go over the items that you can mix and match with Leona and get solid results. I will touch on the whole Attack Damage route with her for those who think that is the only way to build her.

Ok so we have 6 slots available for items with every champion. "Pure Tanks" like Amumu and Shen will build nothing but Health and Resistances, however Leona has an edge for being a "Pure Tank" however you really don't have to focus fully on stacking 400 Armor and Magic Resist with a ton of Health to back it up. Leona doesn't benefit from her passive like Shen, nor does she have a constant percentage life damage like Amumu. So we have to look at building some sort of way to defend herself and be a positive addition to any team.

So this is where adding in Ability Power comes from. Sure I played her like everyone else and built HoG and Philo and then built defenses and a TriForce and Frozen Mallet, but found myself extremely weak when it came to 1v1 and just worthless in a 1v2 situation.

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Slot 1: Boots. No Matter what game I'm playing, I always grab Mercury's Treads for Leona. The Tenacity and the Magic Resist is perfect for you.

Slot 2: Health. Other builds will grab Heart of Gold and call that health, I grab a Catalyst the Protector. The passive on it is so much better, you stay in lane all day and get solid Health and Mana boost which allows you to drop abilities more if needed. This is built into a Rod of Ages for the 630 Health, which isn't a Warmog's Armor but if you really want it, build it later.

Slot 3: Armor. You have a few good choices here. You can build the Frozen Heart as in the build if they are more ranged AD, or you can build both the Randuin's Omen and Sunfire Aegis for those Melee teams.

Slot 4: Magic Resist. Here I actually split this between 2 items on my build. Lich Bane and the Abyssal Mask give you a grand total of 87 Magic Resist while handing you 150 Ability Power. So yeah...RoA+LB+AS=230 AP... Solar Flare is now a "Tactical Nuke" not to mention the auto attack afterwards.

Slot 5: Typical Tanks Build more Bulk here, Warmog's Armor or something of that nature. But slots 4 and 5 are Magic Resist and Ability Power in this build.

Slot 6: The final Slot for most tanks will be either an offensive item, or an item to "Max" out your defense in either Armor or Magic Resist. Here I focus on adding more Health and CDR in the form of Shurelya's Battlesong. Its Active is perfect for after wining a team fight to rush to mid and down tower after tower, or rush to Dragon, or to Baron Nasher.

This is how you should look at building. If your into building the Trinity Force then use the same Idea for slots but your looking to replace MR/AP items for Armor/AD items like Atma's Impaler and a Warmog's Armor. Though I don't like building that way anymore. So its up to you.

So the 2 builds I have differ very little. First build has More CDR, Hp5, Mp5 and Mana where as the second build has more Armor and Health. I personally like the first build more, as it works better for me, but I've built this guide for you to try out your way of building your Leona.

If anyone has any questions, please post. If your just going to flame my page please just leave and stay close minded, and never progress. Don't mean to sound harsh but I'v had people downvote old guides just cause they had a guide that had a lower ranking and wanted to get theirs higher.

I hope this guide helps those who were in search of it, and expanded those who were looking for a new way to play Leona and I'll see you on the Field of Justice.