This guide is compiled experiences of many many games as, and against Leonas by myself and others who have contributed information to this guide. I originally purchased Leona on the day of her release and she has been my primary character ever since (except in those games where someone gets to her before me >:[ ).

I encourage everyone to comment and suggest and I will continue to keep this guide updated and revised as the game progresses and patches are released. If you find this guide useful please remember to vote so that more people may find it as well.

Without any further a due may I present to you Leona, The Radiant Dawn:

A couple key concepts I must stress... For Leona to be effective it is YOUR responsibility to make your threat known. You do this by stunning often and at the most annoying possible times. interrupt those channels, stop escapes, route carries and setup ganks. When the enemy teams sees a Leona they should never consider ignoring you to be a possibility.

Keep constant awareness of your team members and enemy carries/squishies. Your first job is to keep your damage dealers alive, dash to them, stun attacks, Ultimate them, do whatever it takes to keep your squishies alive even at the cost of your own life.

Between your exhaust, flashes, zenith blade, stuns and high health/defenses the enemy will not be able to keep ignoring you.. and if they do make that mistake you will punish them for doing so, severely.

Release Notes v1.0.0.123

Shield of Daybreak:
Cool down reduced to 11/10/9/8/7 seconds from 12/11/10/9/8 seconds

Zenith Blade:
Mana cost reduce to 60 at all ranks from 60/65/70/75/80
Particle adjusted to more accurately reflect the area of effect (actual area of effect unchanged)
Leona will now attempt to attack the target if she uses Zenith Blade to jump to a target

Solar Flare:
Cool down reduced to 90/75/60 seconds from 105/90/75 seconds

Eclipse:
Fixed a bug where Eclipse would break enemy spell shields on activation

Leona can now stun an opponent every 4.2 seconds with Shield of Daybreak now (also marking them with Sunlight) Overall, these changes allow Leona to add 12~20 additional DPS to team fights depending on mark activations. Leona can now HARD CC a single target for 43% of the time on a CONSTANT basis as well as being able to completely lock down a target for 3.5 seconds at a time.

Solar Flare now usable every 36 seconds with CDR)
This makes Solar Flare one of the shortest cool down ultimates in the game. Additionally, it stuns or slows depending on where in the radius they are caught, it does decent damage and is great for initiating/stopping an escape. Despite its radius size this ultimate now brings a lot more utility to Leona.

Based on these changes the build information remains mostly the same it's only gotten better.

{*} Leona's Eclipse makes her very tanky, allowing you to skimp (a little) on armor/mr items, this is what allows her the versatility to pick up one or two offensive items or more HP focused items since her resists will be "unnaturally" high compared to flat defensive gear tanks.

{*} Leona has alot of Hard CC. She can interrupt channels, Foil ganks, prevent escapes... extremely useful when played well.

{*} Great team player! Her sunlight passive allows your whole team to crank out lots of extra damage over the course of a team fight. Keep marking targets as often as you can, especially those being focused by your team (They are focusing your target right?)

{*} She has a wonderful initiation skill, Her Zenith Blade (E) allows her to zip in to that carry that thought they were safe in the back, stun them 2~3 times while your team focuses and then walk away as eclipse bursts to mark everyone that came to that Carry/AP's Aid. Back off a few seconds as eclipse resets and then rinse/repeat.

{*} Later game Leona becomes an extremely tough tank that if ignored will continually shutdown key members of the opposition. She is able to sustain a lot of abuse and focus fire while still walking away after your team has cleaned up the enemy forces.

{*} Excellent Ganker. Her skills allow her to rush in from nowhere, disable an enemy long enough for your team to finish them and then return to her previous position with minimal damage to herself.


{*} As others have pointed out she has a weak laning phase. Careful play and coordination with team members can mitigate this greatly.

{*} She is slow, no slower than most other tanks, but her movement does definitely feel a little sluggish until you get your T2 boots.

{*} Her base health is a little lower than some other tanks, but it scales a little better (compared to say, amumu) with level.

{*} Her base damage and attack speed have the same issue, at the start they are considerably low but again scale well with level.

{*} Her inability to trigger her own passive makes her extremely reliant on being with a team member at all times, it's a waste of quite a bit of damage output if she is not.

{*} Many would argue she lacks a solid position in the current meta game... and while this may be true, she is capable of taking that bottom lane with an AD carry or support leaving either an AD carry or support top... not the best setup but if you're playing careful and planning for mid/late game it can be successful. She's going to really shine once the team fights start and the game moves away from the laning phase.

Sunlight - Sunlight is Leona's passive. Any time she strikes an opponent with an ability they are marked with sunlight for 3.5 seconds. During that time if any ally hits the marked target sunlight will activate for additional damage. This added damage scales with level (+15 per 2 levels) base 20 and caps out at 140 per activation. Working with team members to maximize the number of activation can significantly increase the damage Leona adds to team fights.

Sunlight's damage is affected by the magic penetration of the team member who activated it, not Leona's. This Makes items like Abyssal Mask even more attractive for her build under certain circumstances. Spell Vamp is also applied to the person who activates the mark, not Leona, so provided they have spell vamp you will also be healing those team members.

IMPORTANT: Sunlight is the largest damage contribution Leona has for a team fight over time. Her burst damage is only about half of what she does damage wise when sunlight is properly used. Be weary of using Shield of daybreak and ZB at the same time. This will only apply a single mark and although you will instantly stun (which sometimes is what you need) you give up 140 damage as opposed to waiting .5 seconds for a team member to activate that mark. If you give just a split second between each skill, such as:
Initiate with Solar Flare -> Activate Sunlight AOE activation while you move into
Zenith Blade (.5s) -> Activate Sunlight
Shield of Daybreak (.5s) -> Activate Sunlight
Eclipse (1) -> Activate Sunlight Aoe Activation

Repeat this process in a couple seconds as you move into position. This gives your team 560 additional AOE damage to the enemy team over the course of a few seconds, a big spike DPS contribution that can easily turn the tide of battle to your favor. And she does this while completely shutting down someone on the enemy team.


Shield of Daybreak - This is Leona's (Q) Ability, it resets her autoattack timer, empowers her next attack with additional damage and stuns the enemy for 1.25s when she hits. This will also mark the enemy with sunlight. Leveling this skill up reduces the cooldown timer. With max CDR Leona can use this ability to stun an opponent every 4.2 seconds, when timed with her Zenith blade and Solar Flare she can keep an opponent disabled for 43.3% of their time during a fight indefinitely while applying Sunlight marks and her own DPS to that target!

Eclipse - Leona's primary defensive ability and a great offensive AOE. While active it will boost her defensive traits by 70, both MR and Armor, for 3 seconds, after that it will burst and deals 260 (+0.4 per ability power) AOE damage and mark all enemies in the area with sunlight. In a team fight where another team member follows up with an AE attack this can easily translate into 500+ burst damage to all enemies around you. When eclipse hits an enemy the buff duration is extended another 3 seconds allowing you to keep this ability up almost constantly (2.8 seconds downtime between use).

Zenith Blade - This is Leona's closer. It is a skillshot that must be lined up, any enemy or minion is passes through will take damage and be marked by sunlight. She will be pulled towards the LAST champion hit by zenith blade, allowing her to zip through enemy lines to disable the carries. Later this can help speed up the process of killing minion waves but using it early game with soon put you out of mana.

Solar Flare - Leona's ultimate. This ultimate doesnt do an impressive amount of damage, around 350 (+.8 AP). It has the best AP ratio of all her skills and it will of course mark all enemies hit with sunlight. Those caught directly in the center of the blast are stunned for 1.5S and those outside are slowed by 80% for the same duration. One of the greatest things about this ability, despite its somewhat small radius, is it has a VERY large range. This can easily be used to stop runners, stun enemies pursuing your team etc. It also has a very respectable cool down timer, at 45s per use it adds great utility to her build.
This original release video champion spotlight does a great job at describing her basic skills and shows them in use. It is important to note that in the most recent patch the length of the skillshot for zenith blade has been significantly shortened to reflect the actual connect range of the skill. Pay particular attention how he waits for team members to activate sunlight after each skill use, Master this technique as it really maximizes the damage output Leona brings to your formation.

Personally I find the best summoner spells for Leona to be:
Flash

Flash is great for many many reasons, and although controversial in its use (Some people absolutely hate this spell) it is part of the game for now. If you are completely opposed or playing a game where it is banned, Ghost is a good substitute.

Use your flash for repositioning in team battles, chasing a fleeing enemy, escaping a no win scenario etc. Learn when and how to use it and Leona can save the day! (Har Har)

Exhaust has many uses for this build as well. It can be used to allow a team member to escape, as a split second damage reducer when a fiddle or annie is about to combo/ult. It can of course be used to stop fleeing opponents or to weaken them significantly during a team battle. It has many uses and with this mastery setup it will be additionally effective and on a shorter cooldown. This really helps Leona become a master of Crowd control.

Teleport This is useful for battlefield mobility, moving to help allies or reposition for a gank quickly, it can also get you right back to your teams aid in the event of your death or save precious time early game returning to your lane after having to Recall. With the ability to teleport to sight ward Vision Ward Noxious Trap and H-28G Evolution Turret it can give great global control over the map to your team.

Ghost is used like flash although instead of teleporting it allows you to achieve similar results. Re positioning, chasing fleeing prey or escaping/ensuring the escape of an ally.

Cleanse This can be useful, especially when imitating teamfights, charge in, Get a Ton of CC thrown on you, cleanse and continue the battle knowing lots of hard CC wont be heading towards your carries. This can be used additionally to help escape when you are greatly slowed/etc. The thing I dont particularly care for is the fact that it only helps you.

Heal Generally not needed, especially if there is support on your team, but it can be taken. It's a nice little health boost for you and your nearby allies. Early game especially it can give you more staying power. Its usefulness quickly wanes as the game goes on however. If you are new to playing Leona this is a great choice until you get the feel for her play style.
I really wouldn't recommend any of the other summoner spells, while situationaly useful the recommended spells with bring the most usefulness to Leona.

For glyph runes, CDR is one of the most important Max with Greater glyph of Celerity or Mix with Greater Glyph of Focus to find a perfect balance, then of course follow with your general tanking runes for your yellows.

I find I prefer Greater Mark of Magic Penetration for reds since your quick 3 skill burst (Magic Damage) helps assure those early game kills. Greater Mark of Armor is viable but are somewhat lackluster especially compared to the Greater Seal of Armor bonuses. Greater Mark of Magic Resist is also a possibility since you wont be using Greater Glyph of Magic Resist. It's up to your personal preference but I'll stick with the Greater Mark of Scaling Magic Resist or Greater Mark of Magic Penetration in most cases.

Leona has some great CC utility and when timed and executed properly she can make or break team fights easily. These runes ( Greater Glyph of Scaling Cooldown Reduction & Greater Glyph of Cooldown Reduction) help to minimize her cool downs and allow her to fulfill her function as a hard CCer/Disabler.

Again for early game purposes I prefer flat HP quint runes Greater Quintessence of Fortitude, although HP Regen runes Greater Quintessence of VigorGreater Quintessence of Vigor would certainly be viable to increase the regen from Doran's Shield+her Natural. This can add a bit more early game sustainability at the cost of burst/focus survivability.

Many insist that Leona should run the standard 0/21/9 defensive tank masteries, and while this is certainly viable, I find the CDR she can gain by going 9/0/21 helps immensely.

This works to her advantage in several ways, first your flash and exhaust are going to be up more often, and your exhaust will last longer and additionally reduce resistances when applied. You will get a combined 9% CDR from these masteries in addition to your runes bringing you to a respectable 17.1% CDR. Throw on Frozen Heart and suddenly you're nearly at CDR cap spamming those stuns every few seconds and keeping your eclipse on nearly constantly.

Leona is also slow, the 3% movement speed buff in addition to buffs and eventually Trinity Force/FoN or Lichbane help her to have the speed she needs to bring to team battles. the 15% magic penetration dosnt hurt at all either considering her burst abilities are all magic damage.

The extra gold mastery, although not much over the course of a game, definitely helps as early she will have a slow farm. Lastly in the utility tree thegood hands helps to get her back into the fight and supporting her team faster in the event she is killed.

With such low cooldowns early on she can and will have mana problems if you are bursting your skills frequently. Meditation will help some what until you level up and get more regen.

In the offensive tree we get further CDR and the final point going into Archaic Mastery for the 15% MPEN bonus, this helps since most of her abilities are magic damage and for the one point it's a no brainer.

Eclipse (W):
This your tank synergy as well as your farming tool, as well as your dps contribution to team fights; that being said, Level it soon, level it often!

The next order of importance is your: Shield of Daybreak (Q). Leveling it up right along with your W as the most ranks you put in it, the faster its off cooldown. This is vital to keeping that stun pressure on.

One rank in your (E) Zenith Blade is plenty to enable its functionality. It's damage isn't impressive so ranking it up late game is the best idea.

Of course rank up that Solar flare every time you can (Levels 6, 11 and 16).

Alternatively you may rank up your Shield of Daybreak first just to get in with the fast stun cool downs, the problem I find with this early game is you are sacrificing some of your survivability, especially earlier on by not ranking up that Eclipse and you will also run into more mana issues this way with the shorter cooldown allowing you to spam it more.

Ultimately the suggested progression is what I've found to work best for me and these builds but feel free to experiment with your own play style to find your perfect fit.

These are the items for Full tank Leona, as many insist she be played. That sentiment is not without merit as she does extremely well with a pure tnak build. The alternate build ideas are if you just feel like breaking out of the mold and doing things a little different. Let me be clear though, full tank is where she really excels.

As an important note, the current Itemization for tank Leona puts her at 37.1% CDR. This isn't quite the cap of 40 but it's close enough without sacrificing additional survivability or going Shurelya's Battlesong. This results in a 0.232s increase time between your stuns which is nearly negligible and the increased "tankiness" gained by not taking the Reverie is well worth those microseconds.

This itemization is a very generalized build and should not be used in every scenario.. build against your enemies! It will leave you with around 175 MR and 300 armor with your Eclipse active. In addition to 4500~4800hp she can sustain quite a bit of damage and keep pushing through for your team.


Starting Item: Doran's Shield
This adds Armor, Health and HP per 5, a great starting item for any tank and your health is low enough for the first few levels the regen on the shield can give you enough sustain until you need to return at which time you may grab some HP Potions if you're getting harassed badly. Only one or two though as if you're careful you shouldn't be getting harassed for more than you can regen with Doran's Shield for the most part and the money spent on these consumables is taking away from gearing you up to be a heavy tank mid/late game.

If I find I'm doing well enough early, such as a quick first blood giving me a gold boost, I tend to grab a second Doran item. I will often snag a Doran's Ring The extra health coupled with the shield's armor and AP boost are nice early game and the mana regen gives you enough sustain along with the shield to pretty much stay in lane until you need to purchase.

This is entirely situational but I've had tremendous luck with the Doran's Shield + Doran's Ring Early game. Why not just grab a Philosopher's stone you ask? The Doran's combination gives you enough sustain/regen but additionally you'll have 220 more hp which is great early game, 10 more armor, 15 more AP and still have adequate HP5/MP5 The cost is about 15% more over the Philo stone but as it turns out this has been negligible next to the early game benefits.

Next build towards the core items:
Boots of Speed => Movement speed is important and will build into Mercury's Treads which will give you some early game MR as well as Tenacity (35% reduction on crowd control effects) or Ninja Tabi for a primarily AD team which gives dodge and more armor, As a tank both are very useful.

Sunfire Cape => Additional Armor and health on a tank, and lets be honest, we're talking about Leona here.. Radiant Dawn... The sunfire just seems natural!

Frozen Heart => This comes with a tremendous amount of Armor, some mana to increase her staying/spamming power in team fights and of course a 20% CDR. Additionally it slows enemy attack speed 20%, all of these combined make it a great defensive item, syngerizes well with her CDRS and brings more debuff/utility to team figths.

If I am fighting a balanced team and dont need to stack additional MR or Armor, I'll generally pickup Zeal around this time to later build into Trinity Force and to provide extra movement and speed. The attack speed and critical chance don't hurt but since Zeal is so cheap it's the movement speed I find most appealing. You can of course skip this if you aren't planning on getting trinity Or if you are facing a high AP team, instead look towards investing into a Negatron Cloak that will build into your Force of Nature. FON Provides a nice 8% movement speed, good MR and health regen and is a core item in most games.

Wards! (Buy them): As a tank, your gear and farm isnt nearly as important as your carries, help your team by purchasing Sight ward, Vision Ward, and Oracle's Elixir as needed. When there are stealth champions on the opposing team such as Twitch, Shaco, Wukong, Evelynn, Teemo, Akali or Vayne an Oracle's Elixir helps to make you a more valuable target as well as ensuring your team can effectively neutralize these targets. This has the added bonus of increasing your overall threat to the enemy team and reinforcing your role as tank.

For boots if the team is Balanced or Heavy AP always grab your Mercury's Theads if they are primarily AD I generally go with Ninja Tabi for the added armor, dodge and price reduction. Grab your T2 boots after the Catalyst of the Protector and then build towards your preferences but I would at least get the T1 boots before building a Catalyst of the Protector or Heart of Gold as she needs that mobility early on.

If you are planning on grabbing an Omen, I suggest getting
Heart of Gold earlier in your build since it will provide you additional income that will pay for itself by the time you're ready to build an omen and gives some early laning health.

In Most cases the Warmog's Armor is going to be a great compliment to her already high defenses, there are few situations where this wont be true.

Beyond the core build you need to look at what the enemy is building. high AP = Go for Force of Nature, Banshee's Veil and a personal favorite Quicksilver Sash.

The reason I prefer Quicksilver Sash over the Banshee's Veil is due to the same reason I tend to not pickup Guardian Angel. Those targets are generally left for last when they can be corpse camped. Banshee's Veil works the same. They aren't going to waste a CC on you knowing it won't stick, instead they will CC a carry or something like that which you don't want.

Quicksilver Sash allows you to get them to CC you, and then gives you that cleanes to remove it and return the favor! it's also a very cheap item and gives a good boost in MR.

For balanced enemy teams I like to fit an Aegis of the Legion into my build for added Armor and Magic resist for myself and my entire team, the earlier you can work this into your build the better as the bonuses arent extremely high so you will see more of a boon early/mid game.

Heavy AD teams I would most definitely suggest Randuin's Omen, with your high Armor the debuff active will last nearly 4 seconds making it a huge game changer in team battles. The additional CDR helps your entire team and yourself as well.

Some other choices may be:
Thornmail (if they aren't building too much MR and have almost all AD Champs), not recommended under most circumstances!
Guardian Angel (not bad, but enemies tend to ignore GAs till last, as a tank you dont want that)
Frozen Mallet 700hp, 20AD and Slow on hit (More CC on Leona just makes sense)
Spirit Visage, or Zeke's Harbinger Although these are all lower on my priority list they are situationally viable.

If you are NOT going to build a Trinity Force and you dont need additional tankiness items I would suggest grabbing a Frozen Mallet for the extra health along with that slow on hit effect. Many games I go the route of Frozen Mallet over the Trinity Force it works wonders for her. All the more CC Leona can bring to her team and enough health to make it a tank viable item.

So why not Shurelya's Battlesong? You see this in alot of leona builds and this is the basic reasoning as to why I do not include this as a recommended item. It only gives 330 health, that isnt much... It gives some regen... but that regen isnt really needed/wont sustain you long term without recalling. the CDR is 15% but we're already getting 20% from the frozen heart, the 15% and small movement buff make it seem attractive but in actual game scenarios there are simply better choices in almost every scenario. It is of course a viable item if you insist upon building it.

The important thing to keep in mind is that as your resistances increase more HP becomes more important as each point of additional health is worth all that much more due to the armor. Beyond a certain point, around 150MR/ARmor with your Eclipse active, the value of more HP wins out nearly always.

There are plenty alternative builds out there, many will utilize Shurelya's Battlesong with a combination of Omen, Frozen heart or some other item to achieve maximum CDR. These are viable builds, but again it will depend on your enemy team and for reasons discussed previously, Shurelya's Battlesong, although it seems to synergize with her, is just not the best pick for Leona.

Boots of Speed => Berserker's Greaves or Mercury's Treads There aren't alot of times I'd take greaves on Leona but if you are off tanking then it's doable. Taking greaves allows her to last hit more often and bring a little more dps to the table.

On nearly every build there is almost always a place for Sunfire Cape. This brings the health and armor that leona needs to fulfill that tanky role. Beyond these core items the other situational items are for you to decide what will help your team best.

For more Magic Resist:
Force Of Nature - This will provide a hefty amount of MR, as well as an 8% move speed buff and significant health regeneration.

Abyssal Scepter - A good boost to MR and some AP. Although her AP ratios are pretty low the MR is useful and the small boost to her Ultimate damage is noticeable enough.

For even more AD Resistance:
Randuin's Omen - More armor, as well as a PbAOE debuff to speed that scales with armor

Thorn Mail - Cheap, Added armor, and has the benefit of returning some of the pain to those squishy ADs, very situational but it has its moments where it can be really useful.

Frozen Heart - This synergizes really well with Leona in general, +99 Armor is a huge boost, along with her W and the 20% decrease in attack speed this item alone makes her extremely tanky vs AD and the 20% CDR is icing on the cake for Leona.

More DPS: (Not recommended under most circumstances)
Trinity Force - Expensive item but offers alot, increased health, mana, attack speed, crit, damage from the sheen proc, slow on hit proc etc.

Hextech Gunblade - The Active is nice, yet another form of CC for Leona, and the vamps grant her quite a bit of staying power, I've tried this in a few matches and although there may be better choices, its alot of fun.

Lich Bane - When you get to a point where Leona's AP is higher than her AD (Or close) Lich Bane will offer more on its proc than Sheen, additionally it provides some added MR. I've toyed with this a bit to varying success.

Atma's Impaler - With her high health this ads some nice extra damage onto her attacks and provides a little more armor and crit, decent all around.


Any AP Specific Items=> Hour Glass, Abyssal Scepter (Unless AP heavy enemy team), Death cap Etc.

It certainly feels like Leona could be played as AP, and after many attempts I've
finally had to throw in the towel and realize it just isnt viable. There are two problems with this concept:

Her AP raitos are far too low for it to be worthwhile to invest in AP, you sacrifice too much to make it happen with Leona and even still the damage is mediocre at best.

More CDR Items=> You are already at or very near CDR cap with this build, anymore is a waste

Early game Leona is not particularly strong, although dont let that discourage you entirely. She is a very poor jungler with little sustainability, low damage and mediocre survivability, frankly there are just much better options for the role of jungler, I would not suggest it at all.

Leona can lane without too much issue, bottom lane works great as she can activate her Eclipse, walk in and burst on minions then run out.

This allows your laning partner to trigger all the Sunlight marks you just placed killing the minions quickly and allowing them to get fed. If the enemy gets caught in it, all the better, some added damage and your team member can activate the marks for even more harass.

Dont worry too much about last hitting (Although do it if the opportunity is there with no risk to you or your partner). I find it often essential to explain Leona's passive to my team as many have no clue how it works with her being a new champion, Im sure this will be less and less an issue as time goes on. Explain they need to make sure they hit your targets within 3.5 seconds to trigger that extra damage from Sunlight. Once you explain this most are more than happy to get the additional coin.

Money will come to you and as you progress it will flow faster and faster, slow and steady is the name of the game early for Leona. You are very much an assassin style character at these levels. Get at least one rank in your Shield of Daybreak, Eclipse and Zenith Blade. Play very defensively but keep an eye open for those Gank possibilities.

Allow your oppoenents to press you and become overconfident. When the moment is right coordinate with your team member, activate your Eclipse (W) and (E) Zenith blade in.

Your partner should get a hit now activating your Sunlight, then you activate Shield of Daybreak (Q) for another sunlight activation and the stun.

Now your Eclipse goes off for yet another sunlight activation. Finally you can Exhaust and look to defend your team member while they finish off the target.

(Minions will generally be attacking you now so a quick step into the brush is a good idea). By the time that exhaust runs out your cds should be getting almost done, begin cutting off the enemy escape and be ready with your zenith blade, or if you're level 6 by now your Solar Flare to assure the kill.

After all of this fall back again, let your hp regen or recall (B) if need be and repeat this process, while taking care not to allow yourself to be to badly harassed during this laning phase. You'll soon have money for your tank gear for when the team fight phases begin.

Ganks are paramount to success as Leona. She has all the skills needed for early game lockdown to ensure those ganks are a success. Use them wisely and your team will profit from having Leona as a member. If you fail to lockdown and an enemy escapes it costs your team valuable time the ganker could otherwise have been jungling/xping/pushing etc. Make sure to coordinate with your team, chose targets wisely and make it happen!

This is where Leona starts to come into her strengths, by now you will generally have or be well on your way to your sunfire Sunfire Cape, you may even have your Glacial Shroud if the game is going well. Your cooldowns will be low enough at this early point in the game to really keep a surprising amount of CC pressure on the enemy.

You must take care not to get focused to hard for too long by those tanky DPS types, keep moving and shutting down those AD/APs while your team cleans up then get back to regenerate.

A well placed Solar Flare on an escaping enemy can buy you enough time to close the distance and Zenith Blade in and Hard CC the opponent while your team catches up for the kill, assuming you dont manage to finish them off outright.

A quick Exhaust during that annie combo can save a team member and you dive in to make sure she is punished by your partner for the attempt.

It's important you dont get too cocky at this point, although Leona will be getting very tanky she is not unkillable yet and focus fire will still bring you down fairly quickly. Keep this in mind, keep moving, disabling and marking your targets and your team will excel.

Late game is where leona can really "Shine" (Pun intended :p). By now you have ALOT of survivability and can really be a front liner for your team. Timing and positioning however remains important.

When your team is properly positioned, go in with your W ready, walk right past people to Zenith their carries/AP. If they waste CCs on you all the better, especially exhaust, your damage is low to begin with but your ultimate, your zenith blade and your marks will all still be just as effective.

If you're cced I suggest applying your sunlights and taking a step back while moving to protect one of your own carries and by then your W will be back up and you're ready to go in again. The tenacity from your boots, high health and regen along with your abilities (except for Q, not being reliant on actually landing any attacks) make those CCs spent on you instead of your carries well worth the second or two inconvenience. Continue to press the carries and APs with your dash. At this point Leona is very survivable, hardly ignorable and very fun to play.

A few points of note:
Save your Ultimate until you see the enemy team grouped up/not moving much or to cut off an escape. By now your autoattacks are no longer ignorable, at this stage in the game you will be able to finish off squishy targets on your own after your inital bursts if they try to continue dpsing.

Keep up the pressure and watch your mana usage, you should have enough regen and pool to keep going for quite a while but you may eventually run out in prolonged fights, so keep your target priorities in mind, finish the fight and regen.

If you notice a runner Zenith Blade, stun and keep auto attacking to apply your stun while your team finishes them off. Do NOT let yourself be drawn away from your squishies! Your primary job above all is to ensure their survival. They should see you disable/lock down that enemy and help you to finish, if they cannot/do not, dont take it upon yourself to secure the kill in place of defending them.

Leona is terrible at this early game and is just not very viable. She CAN jungle, generally starting with wolves, but she is slow and not safe. Once she gets around level 10 with Sunfire cape she can quite easily swing by and knock out a creep camp or grab a buff on the way to a rally point or in between waves of minions. Do this often if you notice creep camps being left unfarmed, extra coin never hurts to build up more of that gear. Even walking by wraiths and unleashing a quick eclipse to instantly kill them all is just a second or two diversion that can net you a quick 150+ GP. Keep these opportunities in mind mid/later game with Leona.

Leona can be a very fun and rewarding champion to play, but she is easy to play badly. Learn her abilities and when to use them and she can be the Highlight of the game. (No more puns I swear).

I will keep this guide updated as I continue to play her, receive feedback and of course post up with any future changes from riot.

And a few Screen shots to show the build results in actual game play: