I hope this guide helps you to understand Orianna a little more clearly, and I would absolutely love you if you helped me make it better, as this is my first published guide.

Imagine your AP is 300. On the third proc of Clockwork Windup you will be dealing an extra 150 bonus magic damage to your target. This is effectively half of a Lich Bane proc on every hit after the third one.

Let's compare the two items.

Nashor's has 20 less AP, 2 less Mp5, 5% more CDR, a negligible difference in stats, in favor of the Nashor's Tooth, because for Orianna I favor CDR, and the 50% attack speed is very nice.

Morello's should only be used if your champion does not benefit from Attack Speed at all.

Greater Marks of Insight: These are great for early magic pen and are nice later as magic pen can be hard to come by, standard mage marks. I tried Attack Speed ones once but the damage I was doing trying to add stacks of clockwork windup was more than compensated for the magic pen being nice on the lower stacks, also it's not much of an early game ability, after you get your Rabadans It will be adding close to 121 to your 80-90ish Natural AD score.

Greater Quints of Swiftness: I find the extra speed helps me a lot, especially against high skillshot champions like Blitzcrank and Karthus, also lets you chase with autoattack at level 1-6 before everybody gets boots.

Greater Seals of Clarity: Mana regen plain and simple, will help you in your weird awkward stages like when you buy the AP items.

Greater Glyphs of Focus: You will start the game with 15 CDR, after your Fiendish Codex you will have 25 CDR, after your Nashor's you will be at exactly 40%.

9/0/21

Offense: Duh.
Defensive: Blue is a nice color.
Utility: Utility Mastery is so good with Orianna, mana regen is required, improved summoner skills and Quickness for 323 speed early game. If you take clairvoyance go for that mastery.

Map Control with Teleport, as Orianna will eat minions alive, and she makes a great backdoor champion thanks to Nashor's Tooth and her ability to speed up minions with Dissonance.

Flash is for those tight spots you don't want to be in, better than ghost because you have ghost on W. Don't use offensively ever.

Clairvoyance is another good choice, because you can scout out your lane with the ball you can freely use clairvoyance to assist the other lanes. Many uses, 40 second cooldown, someone on the team should have this. Whether or not it should be you should be discussed with your team.

Ignite works too!

Attack: One point in this to start because it is your main ball positioning skill and because it's cheap, don't max first because the benefits of W and E are much better. Also you need this for ball checking the bushes.

Protect: Great for early game resistances, as Orianna is quite squishy and it's another cheap spell for positioning. Max this second, making sure to get a second level of it before level 6.

Dissonance: By level 3 you should have most of your health and mana if you are smart, and should be last hitting up against your turret, you should keep the ball in the tip of the bush on top and bottom lanes to give you sight.

Because you've done so well by level three you can reward yourself with a highly damaging slow, to be used sparingly of course, as it eats a lot of mana.

Shockwave: I'm afraid to explain this, as it has many many more uses than I can possibly come up with, and can be used to run away and to chase, to initiate or interupt in teamfights, it can put the tanks in the back and the carries in the front.

Passive: Clockwork Wind-Up.

Her passive seems like it would make her great with a bunch of Wind-Up Items like Malady and Rage-Blade, but in reality the only item you should use to focus on AS is Nashor's Tooth, as the high AP items benefit her passive more. Once you get your Rabadan's your Passive should be granting you about 120-ish extra damage on the third Proc of her passive. Her passive does not affect the way she damages turrets, but the way turrets are damaged scaling with AP makes the AS from Nashor's hugely beneficial in that regard.

Pros: Great support/AP carry, her ability to participate in team fights from as far as 1125 units away is really good.

High CDR and great shield means that shielding somebody twice as they flee can save them from many DOT's.

Protect has an amazing passive to boot, letting you worry about AP items instead of survivability items.

Dissonance is Zilean good.

Cons: Squishy if your timing on Protect is bad.

Mana problems early game if you spam wildly.

Can be very team dependent, if your allies are unfamiliar with Orianna they will have a hard time utilizing your skills properly.

If you aren't careful with your ball placement you could find yourself using your ult on yourself when no one is around, keep a careful eye on the Green/Yellow/Red Arrow. Ball placement can also fail if your initiator uses a teleport skill like shunpo, flash, or any number of other things, always be prepared to position your ball manually with Q if you think the champ your ball is on might go outside of it's leash radius.

Jungling is certainly a way to play Orianna, but requires some weird rune and mastery choices for it to be super beneficial. This also doesn't make the most out of her amazing support capabilities early on, which is why I think she should always be on bottom with the duo lane.

Later game as you roam the jungle between lanes, kill any creeps you happen to come across, and get blue buff always, unless there is a Swain on your team or something.

Like Brand, Orianna benefits her team more the more fighting that takes place in the jungle, being able to put walls and shrubs in your way, and to shush the team together in a tight space really makes this the idea place to team fight.

Always wait for Protect to cool down before using your Q-W-E combo. This ensures you are always taking less damage from Minions, and that you will always have +30 magic resist for any of those pesky mages who want blue. This brings me to my next chapter.

Orianna is probably the safest in the jungle, with flash and dissonance, and this is probably also why I love the CDR and AS from nashor's tooth, it's so that more often than not your key abilities will be available to you, as the effects they produce are amazing.

Orianna's escape mechanisms are on the trololol level of Vladmir, and here's how you do it.

1. Assess the Situation: You're jungling and Ryze find's you stealing his precious Blue buff, he opens up on you with his combo, you endure this thanks to Protect's Passive. This is where you assess the situation. Look at the minimap, now and always and make the right decisions.

2. The Combo: Throw your Q at him, giving you sight to any bush he might be in and the things behind him and to the sides. Run away. When he gives chase use Dissonance to slow and damage him and then protect immediately after to damage him and apply your shield. Depending on your situation. If you have knowledge of where the enemy team is at and you are comfortable with harassing, here's how you do.

2a. Stay and harass: Because he has given chase you know he wants to use his abilities on you, and that they are off cooldown. Auto attack him in his slowed state, he will return fire, but Protect's active shield and passive buffs will render these harmless (because you would have left if they damaged you too much in the first place). Auto attack until you have your 3 cooldowns. If he is running, use Q-R-W-E, this will get that nice bursty damage in quickly, and another tiny bit of damage from Protect, and then you finish him in his slowed state with auto attacks, and spam Dissonance on cooldown running out of the jungle, ball-checking bushes on the way.

2b. Oh my goodness they are going to kill me, because my Q has revealed their entire team: Run towards the river, If they are in front of you use Q-R-E-W making sure to run the opposite way than the side you pulled them to, and speeding away before the ult lets them move again.

3. Spam Dissonance and Protect: Because Karthus might press R.

4. Assist a team mate If you happen to be running towards a team mate in need, pop your shield and dissonance on him, run away or kill, depending on aggro and amount of enemies because you either killed one in the forest, or you slowed a bunch of them down behind you.

Orianna is so good at farming you want teleport because of this. You can pretend it's because you want to defend the turret (of course you do) but the real reason is so you can farm that big juicy minion blob, the turret protection is a bonus. Q-W-E is your standard farm combo.

Doran's Ring: Because you aren't using Quints of Fortitude or Potency, and rely on mana regen early, a Doran's ring is the perfect choice for harassing and survivability.

Fiendish Codex: More mana regeneration, AP, and 10% CDR, this item is very helpfull for making sure your Abilities are at the ready, so you're never caught with your balls out.

Sorcerer's Shoes: Enhanced movement 2 and 20 Magic Penetration, you'll start to seriously injure your opponents, take advantage of this time to kill some bad guys, maybe set up some ganks with your jungler, mid, or lane partner.

Here's where the build starts to veer off depending on the situation. If you have 1600 gold and are doing well, buy the Needlessly Large Rod for a surprise 80 AP. If you find yourself running out of mana, take the Tear of the Goddess and go grab blue to spam some abilities. If you want a little more control over your ball, and some decent attack speed to go with it, get the Nashor's tooth. Actually, always get blue.

Orianna has no inherent heal ability, and no heal for her team mates, so getting a Will of the Ancients is a good idea so you don't have to make so many trips back to base to heal, and you can save your teleport for something more clutch, like saving a tower or team mate. Also with the 30% increase from Rabadan's this item gives you 104 AP.

*Quick Note: You spell vamp from your passive.

I always thought WotA and Abyssal Scepter go hand in hand with each other, now your team has more AP and their team has less magic resist, so your team heals more with the spell vamp you are handing out. It also give you some nice magic resist and AP, and with sorcerer's shoes and runes your Magic Pen should be around 48.55. Your leash radius on the ball extends pasts this aura by 125, so the omnipresence of the void staff isn't as necessary.

Archangels Staff because you don't want Manamune.

Under Construction.

I'll add colors and stuff to the text and pictures, and would also love to hear your thoughts on how I can improve this build, and will add those and credit you for them in the section User Submitted Suggestions.