Leona Build Guide by TheVoiceless

Introduction

Hey there! I'm TheVoiceless and this is my guide on how to dominate as Leona! Leona is a riduclously versatile tank who can be played with a variety of plays in mind. This guide will explain to you how to play 'The Radiant Dawn' as a tanky support who will be the admiration of your lane mate.

Runes

Runes
Greater Mark of Magic Penetration 9	Greater Seal of Armor 9	Greater Glyph of Scaling Magic Resist 9	Greater Quintessence of Gold 2	Greater Quintessence of Movement Speed 1

• Greater Mark of Magic Penetration: Marks are typicaly offensive, and as such not very useful for tanks, but I find that Marks of Insight allow you that little extra damage to help your team out.
• Greater Seal of Armor: A must for a tanky champ. Flat Armour gives you great early sustainability against AD champs
• Greater Glyph of Scaling Magic Resist: Help you stay on top of your magic resist throughout the game to fend of AP champs
• Greater Quintessence of Gold: Gives a nice chunk of gold generation that will net you several wards over the duration of the game.
• Greater Quintessence of Movement Speed: Allows you to move that tny bit faster around the map.

Masteries

Masteries

3/3

3/4

4/3

3/3

2/1

1/2

1/1

3/3

1/3

1/1

3/3

3/3

1/3

1/1

• Summoner's Wrath : Here I take a single point to increase the usefulness of exhaust.

• Resistance : A healthy 6 magic resist is always good for starting out.
• Hardiness : As is an extra 6 armour. Not much, but never hurts.
• Durability : This will help you to tank late into the game. I take all four points in this to maximise the health per level bonus
• Vigor : This in combination with Regrowth Pendant gives you a wonderful amount of health regen as you start out, allowing you to stay in lane far longer than normal
• Indomitable : Doesn't help out too much against champs, but allows you to shrug off a chunk of minion damage.
• Veteran's Scars : Bonus 30 health. What's not to love?
• Initiator : GIves a small amount of movement speed. Not a large amount, but I mainly take this to allow progression down the tree while boosting my mobility a tad.
• Honor Guard : Reduces damage by 1.5% which may not seem like much, but it can be the difference between life and death.
• Juggernaut : The quintessential tank mastery. It boosts your HP by a noticable amount and gets you out of stuns faster

• Summoner's Insight : Makes your flash cooldown quicker, letting you escape or chase better.
• Expanded Mind : Gives you an extra 12 mana per level. Let's you stun for often. Love it
• Meditation : I get this so my mana regen can keep up with my health regen early game. There's nothing I find more annoying than having a ton of health, but no mana to use.
• Scout : This one's up to you. You could put a point into Improved Recall or Good Hands , but given how often I use wards as a support, this gives me that precious extra time to alert my carry
• Runic Affinity : I often take blue if I have the time and my jungler doesn't mind. It allows more frequent use of my stun.

Ability Explanation

• Sunlight: Not much more going on here than what it says. Handy bit of extra damage for your lane mate. At high levels using Eclipse on a large group of minions and then having someone like Darius use Decimate on the entire group, will wipe them all out rapidly.

• Shield of Daybreak: This is the bread and butter of support Leona. You'll use this to stun opponents as they run from your carry, or to immobilize heavy hitting targets just long enough for your team to demolish them. I take a point in this at level one so you can stun greedy or fleeing enemies. This ability is not used for damage output and thus I leave it till last to level up.

• Eclipse: This is my favourite of all of Leona's abilities. It gives a large boost to Armour and Magic Resist, before dealing damage in an area. I use this to clear minions waves and to tag enemies with Sunlight. It's an extremely useful tool for tower diving and will allow you to tank turret shots for your carry very early on.

• Zenith Blade: A very useful tool for jumping on enemies as they're running away. Can be used to moves through treelines and up and down cliffs if well timed. Be carful using this on minions as a way of dealing damage. Doing so may catch a champion and put you in a problematic spot. Use this together with Shield of Daybreak to stun running opponents, or when Eclipse is about to explode.

• Solar Flare: This is an amazing ult and a great ability for supporting your team. I recommend not using this unless there are 2 or more enemies in the blast radius, or if there is a high value target excaping. The center ring is stunne, while the outer ring is slowed by 80%. This often gives you enough time to Zenith Blade into Shield of Daybreak and stun them again.

Skill Sequence

Ability Sequence
1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10	11	12	13	14	15	16	17	18

As a tank, the extra armour and Magic Resist you recieve from Eclipse is invaluable, but the Shield of Daybreak/ Zenith Blade combo is a necessity to help out your lane mate. I tend to initiate with Eclipse and then use my stun combo when they run away. In the event that my lane mate is being chased, I activate Shield of Daybreak and then use Zenith Blade or Flash to catch up to the biggest threat. If needed, I use my ult to save them. Annoying, but at the end of the day, if I saved my carry, then I fulfilled my role as the support

Items

• + + : Gives you that extra bit of armour to help you survive longer against physical damage, and leaves you enough gold left over for two sight wards. After careful consideration and many PvP games, I have concluded that this is my favourite starting set. You can either ward two locations for more awareness, or save the second ward until after the first runs out.
• + : While you may not, for some reason, ever build anything out of Cloth Armor, everyone gets boots at some point and these will give you that extra bit of mobility early on. It does however only leave you the gold for a single sight ward, which may make life difficult for you and your carry.
• + : Excellent for early sustain. Adds an extra 15 health per 10 seconds, and if you get really low you can use your health potion to boost yourself. Sadly if you do buy a Regrowth Pendant at the start, you'll be ward-less for the first couple of minutes which could lead to disaster if any enemy jungler comes to gank.

• Philosopher's Stone:This will help you to keep your mana and health levels high while giving you additional gold income to offset the lack off gold from kills. This item is upgraded last so that you continue to gain additional gold until the end of the game
• Heart of Gold: Along with a nice little chunk of health, this item brings your additional gold income to one a second. As with the Philosopher's Stone, this item is upgraded late so the gold income lasts.

• Mercury's Treads: Very useful boots for when your Magic Resist leaves something to be desired.
• Ninja Tabi: I take these if I'm laning against two AD champs

• Glacial Shroud: Armor, Mana, and Cooldown Reduction. What's not to like?
• Negatron Cloak: This helps to level out your magic resist so you can hold off any pesky AP champs

• Banshee's Veil: The passive on this item is spectacular and can help out immensly. Blocking a slow or a stun with this can save your life. This has saved me from high damage ults many times
• Shurelya's Reverie: This item gives health, health regen, mana regen and can be activated to help your team haul away or after someone in a pinch. This should be one of your last items to upgrade so you can keep earning extra gold with your Philosopher's Stone
• Aegis of the Legion: I'd get this item mainly for the aura it gives. The armour and magic resist that you recieve is meager in comparison to the gold price, but the armor, magic resist and damage aura will help your team out a lot.
• Frozen Heart: We build this off of the Glacial Shroud we purchased earlier. It gives a nice chunk of cooldown reduction, contributing to the total of 40% these items will give you. On top of that it gives a large amount of armour and slows surrounding opponents attack speed.
• Abyssal Scepter: The ability power on this item should make your eclipse better at taking out waves of minions, but it's not large enough to do much else. This is mainly useful for the aura that will help out your AP champs in teamfights.

You should be getting Sight Wards throughout the game to give you adequate vision of the map. I only purchase Vision Wards if the enemy has stealth champions that are giving me a hard time. If you plan to go about removing enemy wards, I prefer Oracle's Elixir as it allows you to scout multiple wards. Just be aware that the enemy team probably won't leave you alone while you demolish their vision.

• Warmog's Armor: Gives a huge amount of health and health regen. This item relies heavily on you getting kills or assists though, which is not always easy when playing as a tank.
• Guardian Angel: A lovely passive that has saved me on numerous occasions. I prefer to not die in the first place though and thus I opt for a tankier item.
• Locket of the Iron Solari: Gives a nice aura to all nearby allies and it's active can be very useful in certan circumstances.

Summoner Spells

Great for slowing down an opponent so you or your carry can catch them.

Space

A great moblility spell, and very useful for jumping onto targets to stun them.

Space

Useful if you're needed in a lane, or if you just want to get out on the field faster.

Nice for dealing that extra bit of damage as the enemy flees. I generally don't take it though because I don't wanna steal the kill.

Space

Space

Space

Great for when you need to ult that group of enemies and you forgot to keep an eye on your mana. Can be avoided with good awareness.

Summary

So that's the end of my currently meager Leona guide. I hope that it helps someone enjoy playing support Leona. I personally find assisting and saving teammates more satisfactory that going in for a kill. If anyone has any questions, suggestions, or critisms, I love to hear them. I'll do my best to make this guide as useful and easy to use as possible.

Changelog

7/27/2012 - Guide released
7/29/2012 - Modified build and added section on starting items

Thanks to:

jhoijhoi: Extremely helpful guide on how to make a guide and lovely yellow line seperators
NeshkeBGD: Pointed out my uneven levels of armor and magic resist
sAlatji: Suggested helpful tweaks to the item build and masteries.


To do:

• Pro/Con section
• Alternative Runes
• Quick-read Guide
• Section on Ward placement