10AUG2011 - Started Guide, WIP tags added.

*THIS IS STILL A WORK IN PROGRESS*

Leona is a tank. Nothing more, nothing less.

What exactly defines a tank? In most MMOs, a tank is a character archetype designed to pull threat from enemies away from your party. You are a meat shield with utility. This is still true in League of Legends. Your aggro control may consist of a stun or a taunt, but you are still disabling the enemy from attacking the rest of your team.

Leona is good at disabling, but many believe she is merely a stun bot. This is true to an extent, because she doesn't have great base Attack and Attack Speed.

This build will cover multiple paths, but your main focus is getting 40% CDR or close to it.

Greater Mark of Desolation

Greater Mark of Desolation - Forget Magic Pen. Her magic damage and ratios are so poor, it is not worth it to spec into MPen. Also, MR becomes much safer to stack than armor, unless your team is playing all AD. In that case, you should queue dodge because that is bad play, even on Normal queue.

Greater Seal of Armor - Early game armor is the difference between mitigating that OP caster minion's attack or dying to it. At early levels, champs will rely on autoattacks anyway.

Greater Glyph of Magic Resist - Same deal as above, though not as effective if you are laning against champs who solely do Physical Damage. Even then, there is usually one skill that deals Magic Damage on the basis of balance.

Greater Glyph of Cooldown Reduction or Greater Glyph of Scaling Cooldown Reduction - A couple of options for glyphs, this will allow you to forgo some CDR items for more important mitigation and health items, or even auras and on-hit attack items that will aid your team.

Greater Quintessence of Health - Because of Leona's Eclipse, she doesn't need too much mitigation early-mid game. She needs health.

Greater Quintessence of Vigor - An option for quintessences, this synergizes with Strength of Spirit and Regrowth Pendant, giving you more HP regen than Dr. Mundo.

Greater Quintessence of Movement Speed - Leona's big weakness is her movespeed. It's hard for her to be the stunbot that she is if she can't chase and her E is on cooldown.

2 words: STUN BOT.

She basically has 3 CC abilities, and being able to use these often is key to winning team fights.

Need more incentive?
Shield of Daybreak now has a 4.2 cooldown compared to 7 seconds.
Eclipse now has a 8.4 cooldown compared to 14 seconds, effectively reducing the lowest cooldown time to 2.4 seconds if procced compared to 8 seconds.
Zenith Blade now has a 5.4 cooldown compared to 9 seconds.
Solar Flare now has a whopping 36 second cooldown compared to 60 seconds.

Leona's Core
Philosopher's Stone

Philosopher's Stone and Heart of Gold - Leona isn't the best at early game farm, unless you last hit like a bawss. This will offset that, plus the mana/health regen and extra HP comes in handy during lane.

Mercury's Treads - THE boots for Leona. You will always be in the middle of the fight, and eating up all the CC everyone throws at you.

Kindlegem - This is a much cheaper option than rushing Glacial Shroud which costs 1525 gold compared to the Kindlegem at 850 gold.

Trinity Force - People are going to condemn me for this, but Leona does benefit from TriForce. Sheen proc for extra damage, Phage for the on-hit slow and HP, and Zeal for the ever-needed movespeed.


Viable Items VS AD Teams
Warmog's Armor + Atma's Impaler - You can't ever separate these two. It's not too hard to farm creeps with Leona, and getting the full 450 bonus HP on this paired with Atma's and Frozen Heart will give you so much mitigation, it tickles.

Randuin's Omen - You're already building Heart of Gold, so why not finish it? Gives you just a little bit of CDR, but every bit helps. Also, gives you yet another CC with its active. You WILL be the most annoying player in the Fields of Justice.

Thornmail - I really don't recommend it, because if you have to buy a Thornmail, you are already losing and a Defeat is not far away. However, by all means, buy it if you think you need it.


Viable Items VS AP Teams
Banshee's Veil - Usually the choice you want with Leona, especially because it gives her HP, Mana, and Magic Resist. Against an AP-heavy or CC-heavy team, this is a priority.

Force of Nature - More mitigation and health regen, but also, the movespeed is a good reason to grab this.


Other COMMON Viable Items
Shurelya's Battlesong
Aegis of the Legion
Sunfire Aegis


Your itemization will usually look like this
Philosopher's Stone

From then on, you'll have to decide what you need.
vs. AP Heavy = Force of Nature
vs. CC Heavy = Banshee's Veil
vs. AD Heavy = Frozen Heart

Sample Builds (Links are there for comparisons, check out DPS and health values, as well as item prices).
The Usual - http://tinylc.com/Svb


Elementz's Build (with Armor Reduction Options, uses HP Regen Quints) - http://tinylc.com/Uvb


*****ify's Build (Uses CDR Glyphs and 0/9/21 Masteries, CV and Flash) - http://tinylc.com/Nvb


My Personal DPS Troll Build (uses 0/9/21) - http://tinylc.com/pwb

================REASONING================
http://tinylc.com/owb - Jarvan Build by Presidency (the one I use)
Jarvan breaks 150+ Armor and MR, and this usually where it stops. His theoretical DPS is a mere 253 DPS with only 7k Health on Physical/Magic/Effective. However, he can get away with that because his skill ratios are high enough, and his passive is a free Madred's Bloodrazor every 6 seconds. He also doesn't require that much effective health, as he has a means of escape with E->Q.

Even though Leona beats Jarvan at 415 DPS with the same 7k Health across the board, she doesn't have an escape. She either needs to soak more damage while her team is bashing on the enemy (which Eclipse covers), or use a summoner spell as an escape. Also, she NEEDS that Madred's Bloodrazor, and even then, she'll get shut down by MR. It's still a fairly troll build because of the lack of any CDR, especially for her Eclipse. If you have another tanky teammate it's okay to do this, but if you are the only tank, I don't recommend this at all.
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Your first few levels will involve leveling W-Q-E-W-W-R. If you feel that you can gank at LV1, or are going to be in the jungle for a LV1 fight (even then, don't map your skill until you find someone to gank), a simple switch to Q at LV1 is fine (Q-W-E-W-W-R).

Why Eclipse first? It's a free Randuin's/FoN at Rank 5 for 6 seconds if you proc the secondary shield. In early-mid game, that's a very sizeable amount of mitigation. This is also the reason you grab health items first before your mitigation items.

Zenith Blade's cooldown is rather obnoxious, but its importance for chasing cannot be ignored. Even if you can't stun, you can still immobilize for that duration, and that half-second is all your team needs to get in range.