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¤ Introduction ¤ | ||| | ¤ Runes, Masteries & Spells ¤ | ||| | ¤ Abilities ¤ |
¤ Items ¤ | ||| | ¤ Gameplay ¤ | ||| | ¤ Synergies & Counters ¤ | ||| | ¤ Summary ¤ |
and pros & cons
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|| | Hi friends I'm MissMaw and this is my (pre)season 4 Leona guide. I've been playing League for a little over two years now and I'm currently in the Gold league on my account on EUW, Mergoat. I've mained Leona since late season 2 and early season 3 on and off. I decided to try out Leona again in season 4 and am now back to maining her, pretty much. I consider her to be my favorite champion. jk that's thresh |
¤ About Leona
Leona is an aggressive support. She possesses a huge amount of crowd control which helps her secure kills and/or protects her allies. She's extremely tanky and she can soak up a lot of damage virtually without needing any items. Alone she is not much of a threat but together with an allied champion she can be a pain. She can make her allies deal extra magic damage to targets which makes her synergise well with bursty champions.
¤ Pros & Cons
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C O N S |
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¤ Low mobility ¤ If you go in you have to commit ¤ No lane sustain ¤ Risky playstyle |
¤ Masteries......................................¤ 9-21-0 ¤
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Mastery setup I go with is 9-21-0. The other setups you might want to try out are 0-21-9 or 4-21-5, but these are subpar in my opinion. Offense Tree: You get 9 points in offense at most and the stats you're going for are mostly to boost your auto-attack damage. Besides the AD and CDR masteries you also get ![]() Defense Tree: In the defense tree you get numerous boosts to your armor, magic resist and health. These stats are all important on Leona and 'cause of that no matter which setup you opt for you're going to want to have 21 points here. Utility Tree: Should you be going with utility it's recommended you get ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() |
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¤ Summoner Spells
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I make sure to always take ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() |
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In most of my games I go with ![]() ![]() |
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You get ![]() ![]()
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and ability sequence
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¤ Leona's abilities have to do damage in order to apply Sunlight. If the ability is blocked by a spell shield, sunlight won't be applied. ¤ Sunlight can be applied to champions, enemy minions and neutral monsters. It cannot be applied to any structures though. ¤ Allied minions and neutral monsters, along with Leona, cannot proc Sunlight. ¤ Sunlight does not stack. Using another ability will reset its duration, though. ¤ When using it in lane try to give your AD a chance to pop a sunlight stack before you reset it with another ability in order to maximize the damage dealt. |
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||| | Active: Once activated your next auto-attack will deal an additional 40 / 70 / 100 / 130 / 160 (+30% of ability power) magic damage and stun your target for 1.25 seconds. |
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¤ ![]() ¤ The cooldown of ![]() ¤ ![]() |
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¤ ![]() ¤ If ![]() ¤ Use ![]() ![]() ![]() |
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¤ If ![]() ¤ If Leona hits a stealthed champion she will still root them, and dash to them, however she won't break the champion's stealth. ¤ Leona can dash through walls and terrain if ![]() ¤ If the targeted champion uses a dash during the dash animation, Leona will dash to the target's new location |
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¤ ![]() ¤ Using ![]() ![]() ¤ Vision is granted around the targeted area upon cast which lasts 3 seconds after the ulti lands. |
¤ Ability Sequence
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Lvl 1-3
Q |
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Leona's levels 1-3 are one of the best in the game. Most oftenly you start the game with a point in ![]() ![]() |
Lvl 1-3
E |
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Depending on which AD you have (for example you'd have to wait longer with ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() |
Lvl 3+
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||| | You max W first for relatively obvious reasons. You're going to be engaging (and you have no escapes for when/if you change your mind) so you'll need high defensive stats. Q next for the shorter CD stun and E for the lower CD (so you can engage more often). You can max either of those second - whatever you prefer. You rank up your ult whenever you can. |
¤ Starting Items
¤ Early-Mid Game Items
1st
Back |
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Most ideally you'll have 1500 gold on your first back - enough for all these and extra potions and wards. This isn't the case usually so just get stuff as you go along. Don't go into lane without potions (you're melee - you'll get poked) and don't go without wards (warding totem isn't enough). You have the option of getting Relic now or you can wait for your second backing to purchase targon's brace straight away - I recommend the latter. You can get ![]() |
2nd
Back |
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targon's brace | ||| |
Get your ![]() ![]() |
After
Lvl 9 |
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First of all around level 9 you should shift your ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() |
¤ Rest of the Items
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||| | Locket's your core item. Other than the useful stats you get (MR and armor that mesh with your W, health) you get a powerful active which can be used to shield your whole team during fights. |
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||| | Great stats which compliment Leona's abilities and play style. Active is extremely useful in teamfights and can be used to effectively peel. Every team should have at least one. |
Zeke's Herald | ||| | A somewhat meager option however it's quite good to pick up when you have a full AD team composition. Consider getting a Kindle Gem sometime in the early game if you're going for this. |
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Banshee's is your go-to item for MR. You can build ![]() |
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||| | Go-to for armor. You also get a very good passive which lowers enemy champions' attack speed. Every team should have at least one. |
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||| | This is a great item but sadly the stats on it are near useless for Leona. Getting chalice just feels wrong, too. However if the enemy team has a lot of CC it's probably worth getting for your AD carry. |
Talisman of Ascension | ||| | Extremely useful for you as you have no way of escaping or chasing on your own (you know disregarding flash or boots). Pop it when you're trying to engage or disengage as well. |
Face of the Mountain | ||| | Alternative to Talisman of Ascension. I wouldn't say it was as useful late game as Talisman is but it has its perks. The stats on it, for example, are very good for Leona and the shield used properly can be quite strong. |
¤ Level advantage
Having a level advange is a very big deal for Leona. Leona has one of the best level 2 3 and 6s in botlane. If you have a good synergy AD with burst damage you can go in right at level 2 assuming you get it first. Level 3 is the most ideal time to engage as you'll have your armor and MR buff to aid you. Level 6 is a good time to start getting ganks as you yourself will be able to lock the enemy down for a good few seconds.
If you start with

¤ Combos
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Leona's combos are pretty straight-forward. There is a big number of ways to engage with her. Most common engage is straight-up Zenith Blade to their face into your Q, but if they walk into your melee range you can do Q > E (once they move away or flash) as well. After level 6, once you've gotten your ult, you can either continue doing it like that but just add the ult (wait for a potential flash if the stun wears off before you can cast your R) or you can ult from afar and Zenith Blade them when they're stunned. In your early levels Sunlight has huge impact on the 2v2 fights. Try to give your AD a chance to pop each stack before applying a new one. |
¤ Brush Control
Brush control is important for every melee support. You want to have complete brush control throughout lane-phase so that the enemy AD won't be able to see your engage coming.
If they place a ward in the brush you're sitting in - and you react fast enough- you can instantly remove it with auto>Q>auto combo. Q resets your auto-attack and you can cast it again after activating it; enabling you to remove the ward right away.
¤ Dealing with poke
A lot of people tend to become useless as Leona because they drop to too low health to be able to engage as a result of high harassment. In order to deal with this you can reduce a lot by using Eclipse in time, get Health Potions and get a Doran's Shield when you've got the gold for it. You can also just get into their face when they try anything; unless they're too far ahead for you to be able to do anything
¤ Ganking other lanes
Leona is a great roamer support. After you get your first tower you can feel free to roam around to top or mid lane and try to secure a few kills or the tower. Your high amount of CC makes ganking very easy; especially if you have your ult up. AD can come along or stay in lane to continue farming. Don't do this if you're behind or if your AD is behind. He could die by overstaying or overextending and you could lose valuable amounts of experience if you get nothing from the ganks.
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Leona has a good synergy with most of the bot lane carries as well with many other champions in the league. Champions she especially works well with are those with good follow-up abilities, some kind of crowd control as well as bursty champs. Varus, Quinn and Graves are therefore ideal whereas Caitlyn and Ashe are lesser choices for bot lane. Other champions who work well with her are Amumu, Jarvan IV and Jax as they have great gap-closers and their own CC to follow-up with. Amongst the AP carries; Xerath has amazing synergy with her due to his long range, Lux has so as well. |
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Leona isn't countered by many champions in the league, which is what makes her such a good pick. Champions, however, which can undo her initiate and hard-poke can give you a hard time though. Janna, Alistar and Lulu are extremely annoying when playing Leona and pretty much counter her. Enemies who have very good escape abilities and so such as Jarvan IV, Ezreal, Sivir and Vladimir are extremely hard to lock down so they are some sort of counter. They do not make Leona's job impossible but they do give her a really hard time. |
¤ Support Counters; How to deal with
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Lulu has a big advantage over Leona in the early levels and if she plays it right it'll be very tough to deal with her later in lane/game. She's ranged and apart from that she has her E and Q which all do huge amounts of poke damage. She can easily poke you down and you won't be able to engage on her/ the AD. She has good disengage which includes ![]() Dealing with her is very simple in theory but it can be hard to do. Avoid her poke at early levels (stay away from the brush tip if it's warded), wait for a good opportunity and pop her like the balloon she is. Lulu is VERY squishy and you won't have a tough time if you're able to lock her down early. |
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Janna's got a lot of ways to deny your engage. She can stop Zenith Blade with Howling gale, she has a lot of movemnt speed and gives a percentege to nearby allies and her ultimate Monsoon will completely undo your engage and misposition you because of the knockback. Her shield will also deny some of your burst damage. What you have to do is bait her Howling Gale so she can't use it to stop your Zenith Blade. One, relatively popular way, of doing this is by activating your Q and just walking towards her, dodging the gale, and engage when it's off. Another thing you can do is wait for the shield to be on CD before going in. Janna, like Lulu, is squishy and if given the chance you can completely destroy her with your burst. |
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Alistar's similar to you in a lot of ways. He's tanky, melee and has CC. His ultimate gives him damage reduction and he becomes immune to CC. This is obviously a problem for you as it'll negate burst damage and you won't be able to lock him down - as if the fact that he's tanky wasn't enough to put you off from engaging. Additionally whenever you do try to engage he can just Headbutt you away. So due to the above you are not to engage on him or focus him in fights unless you must. Avoiding using your ult on him if he's level 6 and if possible try to keep him low. Just like you; he can't engage if he's too low to fight. You obviously don't have a reliable way to do this; which is why laning against him is such a pain. Ask for ganks and instruct your AD to poke him, and you should be fine. |
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