Orianna Build Guide by flixiflott

Introduction

Hey Mobafire Community and welcome to my guide on Orianna. This is my first Guide, so I would be very happy about some Feedback!

Orianna is one of the rare played Champions in the League. Personally, I really can't understand why. When I tried Orianna in the Rota I immediately fell in love with this metal girl and her small Death Star flying around her. She doesn't just offer a significant burst, but also a huge amount of utility. Due to the fact, that all her abilities are AoE, she is able to deal huge amount of damage to several enemies and helps her team winning the teamfights, which decide about win or defeat in most of the games.

When you follow this guide, you won't end up with 800AP and oneshooting enemies, you will more likely have a nice amount of survivability, which you normally need as an AP-Carry. In my opinion Orianna becomes a mix of Carry and Support in Lategame, still doing nice damage but also surviving the teamfight to offer her bonusses to her team. Due to this fact, this build doesn't fit in every teamcomposition, it is important, that the rest of your team has enough damage. If you have an Irelia Top and Shyvana Jungle it shouldn't become a problem, but if you run a much more tanky Team like Shen+ Dr. Mundo Orianna is not the best choice.

Orianna is not easy to play, and even harder to master, you really need to practise a bit. She is very unique in the way you have to play her, but after some games you will get used to her and hopefully wreck faces.

The Difficulty of Playing Orianna

Orianna is a very unique Champion due to the fact, that all her spells use the ball as focus. That means, that you don't just have to take care of your positioning, but also keep an eye on the position of the ball to your enemy. If you don't hit with your ball you cannot do anything but sit back and wait for the CD which makes you very vulnerable in these 5-6 seconds. Missing with the ball makes your other abilities useless. Another Problem is, that Orianna is one of the most manahungry Champions. In the first Levels you have to be very careful with your spells and manage your Mana extremely good, otherwise you are out of Mana between Level 3 and 4, which stops you damageoutput or forces you to go back to base. Therefore you need some practise and I wouldn't recommend Orianna to any Newbies to LOL.

Runes

My Runebuild is nothing very special on a caster: For Marks I take the one and only choice for an AP-Carry:

Gives you a nice amount of MPen right from the start. Extremely useful Earlygame, but falls off a bit lateron. Due to the fact, that Runes are most helpful in the beginning and we build some more MPen later, this is no big Problem.

In the current Meta you will most likely face another Caster in Mid, which makes Magic Resist the first choice in Glyphs. Also very important, because Banshee's Veil is going to be our only Item, which provides MRes.

greater seal of replenishment
These Seals grant a decent amount of Mana Regeneration, which will be a big issue in the first seven or eight minutes. The Summoners, who prefer to start with Meki Pendant, can replace these by Life/Level or Armor Seals, but because we start with Boots and will have Blue from the seven Minute mark we don't really need the additional ManaReg.

Also pretty standart on most Casters. Helps your Harassment in Lane, your Farming and is even a small Damageboost in Lategame. Overall great Runes.

Masteries

My Materies are also not too special. I go 21/0/9 with my offensive Points in Ability Power, Magic Penetration and Damage. I also take the Point in Summoner's Wrath , because I have Ignite as Summoner Spell. In Utility Tree I run Mana, ManaReg, Summoner's Insight for the lower Cooldown on Flash, the little bit of Movementspeed and most important, the increased Buffduration which will help us a lot with spamming Abilities.

You maybe may ask yourself now, why I don't go into the Defense Tree when I said, that this build would concentrate on survivability. Yes, it is right, that survivability is focussed in this build, but we are no tank! When focussed even the defensive Tree won't help us. Additionally, the offensive Tree strenghtens our Shield, which helps us way more than the Lifeboost from the Defense Tree.

Summoner Spells

My Summonerspells in nealry 95% of my Oriannagames are


+


Flash is and overall useful Spell, you will find yourself using it to close the gap to an enemy, hop over walls, get away from ganks, etc. Even after the nerf the best Summoner Spell in my Opinion.
Ignite is also a nice spell, dealing true damage(!) to your enemies. One of the safest ways to finish of a running low-health-enemy, because there are not many ways to survive it (in Top- and Mid-Lane there won't be many ways to heal and Cleanse is rarely seen).




Teleport is the only alternative I see for Orianna, and this only in the case that you have to go Top. With her Command: Dissonance she can change lanes quickly enough for a gank and doesn't need to teleport in. Command: Dissonance is also the reason, why Ghost is not that helpful on Orianna, it just works as a built-in Ghost.


All the other Summoner Spells are either useless on an AP-Caster or just fall off the longer the Game goes ( Clarity).

Skills

(Innate): Orianna uses her ball as a focus for her spells. Orianna's ball automatically returns to her if she is too far away from it.

Orianna's basic attacks deal 5 / 10 / 15 / 20 / 25 / 30 (+0.2 per ability power) bonus magic damage. Subsequent attacks against the same target within 4 seconds deal an additional 15% magic damage. This bonus stacks up to 3 times.

This Passive is one of the less useful Passives in the game. Your Autoattacks do extra magical damage, which makes Lasthittig a breeze, but as a Caster you should never be in the situation to trade Autoattacks with your Opponent. If you think you can harrass with one or two basic attacks without taking any damage you can walk in, but don't risk to take a Disintegrate to the face just for that little bit of harrassment.


Orianna commands her ball to shoot toward a target location, dealing magic damage to targets along the way and at the target location. However, it deals 10% less damage for each unit it hits, down to a minimum of 40%.

Cooldown: 6 / 5.5 / 5 / 4.5 / 4 seconds
Magic Damage: 60 / 100 / 140 / 180 / 220 (+0.6 per ability power)

Definitely your most important ability. Not because of damage (which is obviously not high) but because this positions your ball at a set place for the next seconds. The cooldown seems low, but it can feel like years until you can move your ball again. The difficult thing about the ball is, that depending on the distance between his current and his new position it needs different amouts of time. I would highly recommend not to let it travel to big distances, because it moves very slowly and can easily be dodged. This is also a great ability to scout brushes, as the ball provides sight. Learn to place your Command: Attack correctly and your opponents will hate you for constantly giving them a ball in their balls.


Orianna commands her ball to release an electric pulse, dealing magic damage to nearby enemies.

The pulse leaves behind an energy field for 3 seconds, lowering enemy movement speed and increasing ally movement speed for 2 seconds. This effect diminishes over time.

Cooldown: 9 seconds
Magic Damage: 70 / 115 / 160 / 205 / 250 (+0.5 per ability power)
Initial Movement Speed Modifier: 20 / 25 / 30 / 35 / 40%

For me, Command: Dissonance is not just a damaging Harrassmentspell, but one of the best Utilityspells in the game. At the same time you can give a Speedboost to your and your allies and on top of that slow the enemies. No matter if you want to chase somebody down or get away from sticky situations: You will always achieve what you want.
Command: Dissonance doens't have the best damage and also a low AP-Ratio. But you have to see it the way, that you definitely hit your Q before, which makes this a nicely damaging combo. If you hit your Command: Attack you automatically hit with your W, which ends up in 470 (+1.1 per ability power) per QW-Combo at Level 18.


(Passive): The ball adds bonus armor and magic resist to the allied champion it is attached to.

Bonus Armor & Magic Resist: 10 / 15 / 20 / 25 / 30

(Active): Orianna commands he ball to travel to and attach onto an allied champion, shielding them for 4 seconds. Enemies the ball passes through along the way are damaged for 75% of the shield value.

Cooldown: 9 seconds
Shield Strength: 80 / 120 / 160 / 200 / 240 (+0.4 per ability power)
Magic Damage: 60 / 90 / 120 / 150 / 180 (+0.3 per ability power)

This is one of the best Shielding Abilities in the game. The Shield itself is already pretty strong but the best about it is the bonus armor and magic resist that it applies to the champ which carries the ball. That means, even after the shield is popped or timed out you have up to 30 armor and magic resist for free! Whenever the opponent comes in for harrassment you put your shield on yourself and either punish him for coming too close or back away without taking any damage.
The damageoutput of this ability is prety low, but normally it isn't any source of damage for you. If you aim perfectly you can Command: Attack slightly behind the enemy, then pop Command: Dissonance and immediately Command: Protect the ball through your opponent back to yourself to avoid any damage.


Orianna commands her ball to unleash a shockwave after a brief delay, dealing magic damage to nearby enemies and flinging them into the air a set distance in the direction of the ball.

Cooldown: 120 / 105 / 90 seconds
Magic Damage: 150 / 225 / 300 (+0.7 per ability power)

This Ultimate ist just Trololo. Again it might not seem like too much damage, but the utility it provides is just incredible. In a Teamfight you just fling the enemy team together on one point to totally disrupt their positioning and prepare them for AoE-abilities. Also very useful to stop these nasty chanelled high-damaging abilities like Absolute Zero, Death Lotus or Requiem.


Lets do some Maths now: At Level 18 you should have about 500 AP with this build. In a teamfight you want to catch at least 4 members of the enemy team in your Ultimate. Letsassume, that you Command: Attack doesn't hit all of the enemies, then you throw your Command: Shockwave, lastly you can hit the whole team easily with your Command: Dissonance, because they are all sitting on your ball.

This is 300 (+ 0.7 per ability power) + 250 (+0.5 per ability power) (+ eventually 220 (+0.6 per ability power) from your Command: Attack) which hits the whole team! This adds up in whopping 1150-1670 damage (before magic resistance) and to the whole enemy team plus 40% initial slow over 2 seconds! Due to the fact, that the enemy team is packed together in one point now you greatly initiated for other AoE-abilities (most of the champs have at least one AoE). If your team isn't just ******s there is no way but killing them immediately without even giving them a chance to run.

Skill Sequence

All in all my Skill Sequence is >>>

There are a few exceptions: I usuall start with Command: Protect, to give my jungler a nice shield at blue and so giving the possibility to gank with more health than he normally would have. Orianna also has the problem in earlygame, that the manacosts are just to high to canstantly harrass from Level 1. Therefore you wouldn't be in the position to start to harrass with you Command: Attack, even if you picked it as first Skill.
The reason for which I take Command: Attack over Command: Dissonance ist fairly simple. You need the increased CD from the high-level Command: Attack to have the possibility to hit your W. It really doesn't help you if you have to wait on and on until Command: Attack is off CD to hit with Command: Dissonance. Another Point is, that Command: Dissonance has very high manacosts, which would force you to go back too soon.

Of course, this sequence is not set in stone. If your jungler wants to gank mid you can also take another point in Command: Dissonance to get a stronger slow. If you get shut down hard level up your shield earlier. Skill Sequence is always situational so think what would be best for the moment.

Items

Starting Items

Your normal choice should look like this: It helps you do dodge any kind of skillshots, you have a nice amout of survivability and in combination with Command: Dissonance you should be fast enough to run away from ganks safely.


Doran's Ring is an alternative start and does a great job on any Caster. Nevertheless I feel much better having boots right from the start, because the mobility just is way more important for my playstyle with juking forward, backing off immediately etc. Doran's Ring is my number 1 choice if I have to go back without having the money for Catalyst the Protector


A very unconventional start and only recommended if you don't expect to take much damage. Viable against matchups like Vladimir Mid and a strong Jungler with early Ganks like Lee Sin. In this case it's important to level up your Command: Protect to outsustain the harrass. Go back at about 600-700 Health and get a chunk of Health Potions and maybe a Sapphire Crystal.

Core

->->->
Your main objective is to get Catalyst the Protector as fast as possible, because it gives you a decent amount of health and Mana. The Regeneration at Level-Up will let you stay in Lane as long as you want without having the necessarity to go home. Strictly run to build it in a Rod of Ages out of it to benefit from the increasing stats as soon as possible.


After finishing the Rod of Ages you want to grab Ionian Boots of Lucidity as your Level 2 Boots.

Why Ionian Boots of Lucidity over Sorcerer's Shoes?
Orianna is one of the most CDR-dependent CHampions in the game, beause she needs to keep her ball moving constantly. 15%CDR will greatly increase the amount of skills you can use per minute and therefore increase your damageoutput.
Sorcerer's Shoes bring 20 flat Magic penetration with them, which would bring the enemies MRes to 0 in combination with your Runes and Masteries. But the longer the Game goes, the more these shoes will fall off, reduced cooldowns are good at any stage of the game. For MPen we are building Void Staff later.

Mid-/Lategame-Items

The Infinity Edge for casters, pretty self-explaining, I have rarely seen any caster without Rabadons.


After Rabadon's we want to build up some defense to survive the Teamfights which should start right now. Banshee's Veil is maybe the most popular Magic Resistance Item alongside with Force of Nature. The Spellshield can save you from these dangerous Dark Bindings or Rocket Grabs and make it very difficult for the enemies to initiate on you. On top of that it also gives some more Health and Mana, which synergizes well with Rod of Ages, which should be fully stacked now.


A wild LeBlanc appears and your abilities are on CD? No problem, we just use this awesome active and noone can touch us for the next two seconds. Zhonya's Hourglass is one of the best items which exist for Casters. 100AP, 50 armor and the buttsaving stasis are insane for the price you have to pay for it. Although it gives great offensive Power I mainly see it as an defensive Item. The armor is becoming necessary now, the Carrys have Phantom Dancer and Infinity Edge and without any armor you just die after casting a single spellcombo. With this Item you just turn golden and let our team take the carry down while he wonders what happened.


If the game went so far even the biggest ****** has built some magic resistance to couter the metal lady. U mad bro? We just build a Void Staff and just kill them like before. Connected with your masteries your have 50% Magic Penetration now, not to forget the MPen you get with your Runes. The 70 AP (91 with Rabadon's Deathcap) are another boost to your damage output.

Why don't you take...?

Lich Bane can really be an awesome item on Champs like Twisted Fate or Cassiopeia, on any casters who can constantly throw one spell after another, so that the Passive can proc as often as possible. As Orianna you will normally throw your Combo without autoattacking between, because the enemy will just walk out of the balls range while you try to get your basic attack off. I see Lich Bane much stronger on other casters than on Orianna


WotA is one of the most cost-efficient items for casters and it can really work nice on Orianna with all her AoE-Abilities. My Problem with that combination is, that due to your shield your life will never go down enough that is was worth buying a Will of the Ancients


Morello's Evil Tome connects a decent amount of AP, Manareg and 20%CDR for a very low price. Looks like the perfect Item for Orianna. But let's face the facts: As Orianna you always want to have Bluebuff. Always! From the second Blue you are going to take every Blue you can take. And alongside with the improoved ManaReg it also gives 20%CDR. These 20% plus the 15% from Ionian Boots of Lucidity give you already 35%, which is just 5% under the Cap (finally found a setup where the 5% of Randuin's Omen would fit :D). So the CDR, the main reason why to buy Morello's Evil Tome would be completely wasted. Additionally you had to sacrifice one of Banshee's Veil, Zhonya's Hourglass or Void Staff which are all essential for the build. For me, Morello's is an Item that you get when you go double AP, the one, who is less blue-dependent can grab Morello's and is fine. We take blue so we don't take Morello's Evil Tome.


Great Item on the majority of Casters. Gives a huge Healthboost, great AP and that cool passive that slows everything you hit. Orianna already has a strong slow, so she really doesn't need 15% extra slow, you wouldn't even recognize it.


Nashor's Tooth is the best CDR-Item in game. But same as Morello's Evil Tome we don't need more CDR. The AP would be nice but Attackspeed? Again, when you start to go into the fight for autoattacks then you are doing something wrong. Although we have built some survivability we won't survive 5 Seconds when in close combat.


Abyssal Scepter is a very viable alternative to Banshee's Veil in my opinion, but I would just recommend it, when it is really going well. Remember that you give away your spellshield and some nice Health and Mana, but therefore you get another AP and and an Aura, which reduces the MRes of nearby enemies by 20. Can be compared to advanced Magic Penetration which is useful for all your Allies.

Early Game

Start with Command: Protect and pull Blue for your Jungler and shield him, then go to lane. The first 3 Levels you should try not to use any spells if possible, it just drains your Mana way too fast. A few safe autoattacks can have the same effect, but make sure to stay safe when attacking your opponent. When your Jungler comes for wolves or Wraiths do him the favor and just go back a few steps to shield him. This has two effects: A smart opponent will see, that your jungler is somewhere nearby and play very very careful, which can help you at farming for a short time. The other effect is, that your jungler will have enough health to set up an early gank. At Level 4 you can start with your harrass. Throw your Ball behind the enemy Minions right on your opponent. If possible, constantly poke him with your ball now. It's important, that you always try to keep the ball behind the enemy minions, because it does less damage, the more enemies it hits. Don't use Command: Dissonance to harrass before you have Bluebuff! You won't have Mana after 4 or 5 Combos, which is deadly for you. If you think you can go in for the kill, throw your ball out, Command: Shockwave him into your direction, cast Command: Dissonance and Ignite on him and finish with a few basic attacks.
At about 7 Minutes you are going to take Bluebuff (call your jungler to help you). From that point you are going to be a pain in the *** for every enemy. You can constantly poke and immediately shield yourself to negate any incoming damage.

Orianna can be one of the best zoners when played correctly. When you have put some pressure on your opponent, that he always walks back when you head his direction you can just position yourself between the at the side of the creeps and put your ball between him and the wave. He has the choice now to take damage from your ball when heading towards the creeps or miss a lot of CS.

Tip: It's always a good idea to put a ward in one of the river brushes. This is your "safe side", you don't need to be afraid of Lee Sins jumping out of the brush. Because you don't have vision on the other river brush try to avoid this side. If you can afford it ward both sides, but especially in Early Game this can be very expensive.

Mid Game

Mid Game is where Orianna begins to shine. Your Damageoutput will be great, farming is somewhat easy with your QW-Combo and you have great mobility to run around the map like a derwish. The main objectives in this Phase are Dragon and maybe even Baron Nashor. Know what? Orianna is an awesome buffstealer. You can just position yourself on the other side of the wall and throw your ball inside. Due to the fact it provides sight and can't be removed, you will just see everything going on and maybe throw a well timed Command: Shockwave followed by Command: Dissonance to steal that drake away. If you have to use your Ult to secure the steal, that's woth it. The Cooldown is not that high with all the CDR we have. Most likely you will hit a majority of the enemy team and give them a shock to the face, either they decide to fight you at half health or they back away which gives you the possibility to push or even splitpush and destroy some towers.

Late Game

One great deal about Orianna is that even if you sucked pretty hard until now, you are going to be very important for the Team. You still can shield them, can haste/slow, your Ult still does it's job, where is the problem? You are even free to change to a full support by switching to more supportive Items. Everything is possible. Otherwise it's just about Teamplay now. Whoever relies on his personal skill now will just fail. Coordinate with your team, ward, ward, ward, just ward the whole map and victory will be yours. Orianna falls back at damage at this point in comparison to the AD-Carries and Bruisers but unlike other AP-Casters, which can just get useless Orianna still offers a bunch of utility to the whole team. I think I don't have to mention it, but stay with your team, push your lanes, NEVER FACECHECK BRUSHES and run for that damn Nexus.

Oriannas role in Teamfights

Teamfights are the biggest strength of Orianna. She can just blow up the enemy team with her AoE-Burst. Before engaging, make sure that your team is in position and everybody knows what he has to do. Then just wait for your or the enemy Tank/Offtank/... to engage, eventually put the shield on him and the fun begins. It's a bit tricky to figure out, when to Ult best. On the one hand, you want to do it as fast as possible, to give your team the early upperhand in the fight. On the other hand you want to catch at least 4 enemies in your Ulti. If you wait for the right moment too long, your team is already dropped to half health and starts to back off.
Keep your ball moving all the time. The more it moves, the more damage it does. But nevertheless the most important rule is to play safely. You are the one, who is able to rescue your running mates with your shield and haste/slow! So keep an eye on your positioning, chase when the enemies run, back off when you loose the fight and try not to die (pretty self-explaining, heh?;))

Countering

I also want to say something about Countering. In my Opinion, there is no specific strong counter for Orianna. Silence is not the best way to counter her, because her basic attacks are very strong and can easily trade back some damage and shield the burst of the typical Anti-Mages like Kassadin or LeBlanc. While she isn't countered by any specific champ she also doesn't hardcounter any other. Of course she can interrupt chanelled Spells like Karthus Requiem but on the other hand he can put out constant harrass with Lay Waste, which is the most effective method, to shut down a Orianna. I have most problems with very low CD-Mages like Ryze, Xerath (his Range is deadly to Orianna) and especially Cassiopeia. Generally everyone, who still can throw spells when the shield is timed out.

Summary

Well, if you made it till here you got it! I really hope, you enjoyed this guide, learned some new ways of using Orianna and log in right now to try it. I would be really happy about comments, especially if you write me, what I could improove at this guide.

Tanks for reading, Flixiflott