Hey everyone, thanks for reading. This guide is my take on Orianna, after playing many games with her, and playing many games with Orianna's that don't do very well... She's a very complex champion that takes some getting used to, but she can be one of the best in the game if played well and built right. A lot of people focus her on either just flat ap nuke (which is okay) or flat support (which is decent) but never both... As a flat nuking champion, ur cd's are far too long on shield/ slow/ulti to be spammable (well, the ulti is spammable compared to most other ulti's in the game anyways... >.O). Granted, they hit very hard, but if you fail the first burst, you have to wait to be able to do much more then move the ball again, which is huge. Spell spamming is important. Conversely, support Orianna's can constantly shield/slow/harass, but they don't bring a whole lot of damage, and they don't take advantage of her passive at all.

So, that's where this hybrid build comes in; it's my attempt to show you that she can still bring a lot of hurt, but also keep people slowed or out of position ( or sped up and in position, depending on what team we are talking about).

Pro's:

Brings a lot to a team across the board
Hits fairly hard in terms of base damage, and she has decent scaling
Highly, Highly, HIGHLY versatile
Even for a support, you can pull a LOT of miracles from nowhere if you have the mana

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Cons:
She's terribly squishy. One of the lowest base hp's in game.
Very mana hungry early game
Cooldowns make early game somewhat difficult
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The runes are a set that I've been using on all of my ap characters for about the last 250 of my 1k games that i've played. Most people split their runes to focus on a variety of things, and im not saying that's bad, or wrong. Frankly, runes are a way for more... "elite" i suppose players to buff champions to their playing style. On many of my ap characters, I choose to have a little less damage for a lot more health. To counter that, I run a runepage that. in combination with masteries, gives me 5 AP a level. That's not a lot at say, level 5.... it's about the same as an amp tomb. But at level 18, it's a free 90. In terms of damage output, it's like having an unseen Needlessly Large Rod. Which helps a lot. As for masteries... they're masteries. If you're on this sight and reading this guide, I hope to god you don't need mastery selection explained to you.

As for summoners, I take ghost and flash. Orianna has an issue with mobility. In a pinch, these spells help out the most, helping to offset another one of her main weaknesses.

There's something people need to understand about Orianna. For all intents and purposes, YOU HAVE NO REALISTIC SKILL ROTATION!!! You need to constantly balance what you can do with what you have playable in your situation. Do you need to do the most damage possible? Or do you need to hurt 3 people, slow them, and still escape with your life? The more you play her, the more it will become apparent that you need to have an open mind. Her play style is very original, and takes getting used to. And, above ALL else, do NOT forget your passive! You will deal a lot of damage off of your auto attacks as well!

What I put up is a build that helps her do what I feel is her role, which is deal damage and still have short enough cooldowns to keep everybody that needs the defensive buff alive, slow the enemy and speed your's up, and have an ultimate that has a one minute cooldown (roughly) so it's up every team fight, no questions asked. The items here help across the board, either by buffing your survivability, damage, cool downs, etc etc... They can be switched around, if deemed necesarry. for example, if fighting a team that has no tank/nobody on the team is stacking magic resist, then the voidstaff isn't necesarry. If you are fighting on a team that has a nidalee, warwick, and sivir (god, i hope that the last person is a tank), then you probably could grab an alternate cooldown item, since you won't need the atk speed from all the buffs going around.

For Orianna, more so then many other champions, practice will make perfect. She takes some time to truely master. Just be patient. She brings a lot to any team if you know how to play her... And as an outro, I can't stress that enough. You are not the carry; you are not "the team", you are not the person that everyone else is trying to shield/buff so you can kill everything. You are trying to help that person, but at the same time deal decent damage. As a general rule, you should have at least as many assists as kills. Often, you will have more. She's a great champion, and very underplayed IMO. Have fun, and thanks again for reading!