13.6 Leona Tank/Support

Table of Contents

Introduction

Pros & Cons

Abilities

Game Plan as Leona

Summoner Spells

Wards & Trinkets

Stats To Consider

Which Boots & Why?

Items

Runes

Rune Shards

Summary

Introduction

Hi, my name is Demonsedge, and I've been enjoying my time on league of legends. I can't say enough about this game.

I consider if I play support since I know her setups and combos. Therefore, as you read this guide, I will look in-depth into 's team and itemization, along with some tips and tricks.

I hope you enjoy this guide and follow my suggestions to understand how works optimally.

So let's kick things off in style with my - The Radiant Dawn guide.

Leona - The Radiant Dawn
Vanguard, Support

Specialties: Durability, Engage, Lockdown
Why choose Leona?:
- A simple champion to pick up in the support role and can be fun to play.
- Provides effective crowd control engagement for teammates while setting up picks for her carries, and she can be that big damage soaker when you need to get objectives such as or .
- She has great potential to make plays, the odd time, she can support carry for her team while being a potent frontline team fight asset.

I always enjoy taking her on the rift when playing league matches, and I hope you will too.

Pros & Cons

Pros

+ Good team fight ultimate

+ Good backline access

+ Good all-in setup

+ Fits into most team setups

+ Great peel & engage tools for teammates

+ Great roaming support

Cons

- No sustain in lane

- Susceptible to constant harass

- Mana intensive

- Ability animations are easy to spot

- Team reliant

- No easy way to disengage from fights

Ability Rundown

Sunlight

Damaging opponents with your spells marks them for 1.5 seconds. After the mark is consumed from damage by a nearby ally, they take bonus magic damage when struck.

works well when mixed with other on-hit item effects.

Shield of Daybreak

| Cooldown: 5 | Cost: 35 / 40 / 45 / 50 / 55 Mana |

Once you activate this ability, you gain bonus attack range and have 6 seconds to stun a target dealing magic damage. Once applied, it will last for 1 second, triggering on enemies and any on-hit effects ( with each hit).

A great engage/interrupt tool with looking to peel for your team or when getting ready to engage the enemy in a team fight or skirmish.

Eclipse

| Effect Radius: 450 | Cooldown: 14 / 13 / 12 / 11 / 10 | Cost: 60 Mana |

One of your most impactful abilities when playing . Increases your armor, and magic resistance while also gaining flat damage reduction in combat against your enemies. However, once the ability finishes, you will lose the additional resists unless you hit a target within 3 seconds of the ability's detonation. Something to consider is that after the shield detonates, you will deal magic damage to any nearby targets hit.

Best used when you are looking to start a fight or after you have stunned a target in anticipation of follow-up damage.

"Note that has a self-slow attached to it even though the ability description doesn't share that with us up front."

Zenith Blade

is 's primary source of engagement and deals magic damage to all targets hit. Helpful with looking down isolated targets or hitting targets you wish to eliminate.

Note that this ability will target the enemy at the back of the group, making it great for hitting the backline targets you want to kill.

Be mindful when using it around a cluster of enemies because it might get you killed if you can't disengage from the fight you started.

Solar Flare

This ability defines you in combat, allowing you to stun/slow an entire team while also dealing magic damage to all within its epicentre. Best used on high-priority targets or targets who try to run away from you and your team.

Note that the animation time is slow, meaning enemy champions flashing out of your ultimate can be a likely scenario, thus wasting your engagement and making you lose a powerful ability.

Timing this ability is necessary and can make or break a team fight, and with its long cooldown, I wouldn't recommend spamming just because you see a target in sight.

Combos:

In this section, I will share some of the effective combos for that are simple to understand and that you can apply while playing summoners rift (draft and ranked) games.


Auto	-	-	Auto

-

Auto

-

Auto

-

Auto


-	-	-	Auto	-	-	Auto

Tips & Tricks:

Playing As :
- Lead the charge and mark your foes with before your allies deal damage.
- and form a powerful offensive combo.
- The damage reduction effect from cannot reduce the damage below 50%.
- Save your for targets recently using their dash/blink or .
- Due to its high cooldown, should only pick off isolated enemies or foes you want to eliminate.

Playing Against :
- When activates , you have three seconds to get away from her before she deals damage.
- Only foes in the center of get stunned, so you can often avoid this if you're quick.
- Avoid standing directly in front of , so you're not being rooted by and then stunned by .
- Have your handy to dodge 's .

Game Plan as Leona

Game Plan Information for Leona:

In this section, I will outline the things to focus on/consider at each game stage as .

- Early game: Your primary focus as support involves establishing as much vision as possible to protect both of you from incoming dives from the enemy. Doing this will ensure both of you are safe and can react quickly.

With the aid of your support item, you will earn gold passively, and with the support charges it offers, you will also be sharing gold with your bot lane.

Be sure to gain as much gold & experience as possible to acquire your core or mythic items while also getting ahead in your matchup. Also, be sure to roam when you can (hitting other lanes or setting up deep wards), letting your bot lane know when you do, so they can play safe while you are helping your teammates.

Setting up a freeze (holding the just outside your ) or trading with the enemy can ultimately deny them gold & experience.

- Mid-game: By now, you should be gathering with your team and focusing on team fighting & objective securing (, or ). Continue to place vision throughout the mid-game, and always try to block as much damage as possible for your team.

- Late game: If your games reach this stage, you'll want to be with your team being in the frontlines and continuing to put up wards around primary objectives while also grabbing soul, & , which are essential to close out the game if ahead. Make sure to deny your opponent these objectives.

Things to consider:

- Rotate towards early or other objectives to assist your jungle. Also, be sure to gather enough experience, so you'll be relevant to your team and be able to soak up the damage needed for your backline carries to take over the game.

- If a team fight erupts during your games, always consider the risk of the upcoming battle, meaning will you impact the outcome of that fight or objective, or does your team come out on top without you being there?

- When deciding to enter combat with , you should be mindful of where you are during the fight (positioning) and also be aware of where the enemy is when attempting to engage with your abilities.

Always be mindful of this when playing .

Summoner Spells

Summoner Spells

Flash: An essential spell for that you should pick for your games 100% of the time. Another reason it's necessary for her is that if you get caught or stuck in a rough situation, she can to safety or dodge a crucial ability easily.

Ignite: This support spell reduces healing and wears down the opponent dealing true damage (based on champion level). It helps your teammates secure a kill or grabs you a kill in a duel with another champion. As , this will be your other go-to spell in most games.

Exhaust: This spell is good against very mobile/assassin or strong mage champions that will burst you down quickly. Great when applied on targets, you need to slow down or reduce their incoming damage from all sources (includes bonus damage from -related items & abilities).

Heal: Not your typical choice on support tanks since they mostly favour or . However, taking this option as , you'll gain access to a small heal/movement bonus for you and your bot lane.

Wards & Trinkets

Wards & Trinkets:

- s are stored in your inventory (max 2) and can be placed anywhere on the map (limit 1), revealing and disabling enemy wards within a 900-unit radius. s function similarly to the trinket showing stealth & camouflaged-based champions (, , and ) that approach them. You'll get this most of the time as support to clear as much vision as possible. Always try to get one or two when backing if you can afford it.

- is the default trinket as , revealing units within a target location. You get two charges that refresh every 240-120 seconds (based on champion level). The max allowable s to place is three. Great when side laning/placing deep wards in enemy territory or getting vision on objectives ( & ).

- is your best choice for and should be acquired on your first back so you can start denying enemy vision and protect critical areas of the rift while making dives more accessible for you and your team. Formidable when dealing with stealth champions who plant traps, such as , , & . It's also beneficial against champions who use stealth to engage/disengage, like , , or .

- The last trinket (available at level 9), is one we avoid with when playing support since your job is to deny vision.

With support items granting (4) s upon completion, vision is much easier to set up when on the rift.

Stats To Consider

- Armor/Magic Resistance: The best stat to have on . It provides excellent synergy with & offers additional durability in combat. Always get as much armor & magic resistance as possible to become very hard to kill in fights and skirmishes.

- Health: This stat is essential for fights, adding another layer of survivability when playing . Always look to obtain this when itemizing for combat. Though we don't scale with it, having more on makes you durable alongside your other necessary stats.

- Ability Haste: A useful stat for when looking to use abilities more often. Not something we aim for above all others, but it is still good to consider.

- Movement Speed: As , it can help with roaming, keeping up with enemies & dodging skill shots.

- Attack Speed: Not heavily prioritized on outside the rune shard option we get (explained below), so we typically ignore this stat in every other way.

- Attack Damage: As support, your main goal is to take damage and not deal it. As , it's best to skip this stat and aim for a more defensive style with more defensive stats.

- Life Steal: Another stat that's skipped on as . Since our attacks don't deal enough, which would make the healing weak and not noticeable.

- Omni Vamp: Avoid this option since we must do more damage to warrant using it effectively.

Which Boots & Why?

Boots of Swiftness > Slow Reduction
Your premier mobility option when roaming lanes or dealing with slowing effects like 's ///, or other movement impairing abilities that would leave you vulnerable when trying to escape.

Ionian Boots of Lucidity > Ability Haste
Grab this pair in games where ability usage will serve you more as . Access to the summoner spell haste gives you more access to or any other spell you currently have sooner, providing extra pressure in team fights.

Mercury's Treads > Magic Resistance & Tenacity
A strong option for , helping to reduce the effects of crowd control from enemy champions while offering a small amount of magic resistance. Standard choice into teams that are magic damage heavy.

Plated Steelcaps > Basic Attack Damage Reduction
is an excellent choice when playing as support. The armor provided and the auto attack damage reduction passive make it easier to soak up from basic attacks for your backline. Great when facing heavy physical damage teams or auto-attack-centric champions.

You might be asking why there are no ; here's my take: those aren't worth the gold for this simple reason: they may have the highest speed value among all pairs of (115 movement speed) while out of combat, though once engaged with the enemy, the value drops to (25 movement speed). But, of course, you're more likely to die if caught out. So when you are looking to roam the map get ; trust me, you'll thank me.

*Do note that you get diminishing returns on tenacity the more you stack, so avoid & if you take the runes and .*

Items

Starter Items

Picking on is the best choice as her starter item. You gain additional auto attack damage, helping you in combat and making you more formidable in fights. 's auto attacks could be more effective overall, but even a minor increase could make a difference. In addition, it helps to increase the damage from 's auto//auto combo.

Then you might be asking: well, Demonsedge, how do I complete the support item quest?

That's a great question, and here's how:

Use your first two charges on the melee minions in the first wave you encounter. After that, make sure to have a 1 per wave in this order:
melee
melee
cannon
Keep following this pattern unless you can have a charge for both the cannon and a melee minion.

Repeat this process until you complete your support item and avoid targeting
caster minions
since they offer little gold value and slow down your support quest progression.

Apart from getting our support quest done, we should focus on what build will make us have the best success in lane:

- Damage Reduction Build: Take this when you want to be a walking tank that stacks heavy armor and magic resist (coupled with your ), being that durable frontline your team needs.

- Aura Build: Grab this in games where being near the enemy causes them to feel weaker and more susceptible to all your teams' item effects and abilities.

Damage Reduction Build:

Mythic Items

Grabbing is excellent for increasing your resistance to both physical and magical damage and is helpful in matchups where you'll be immobilizing the enemy or could potentially be immobilized yourself. When the immobilizing effect occurs, all nearby enemies take increased damage for a short time.

With , you'll gain increased max health with each attack against your target, scaling throughout the game, making you very durable in team fights. A portion of your max health becomes a damaging tool against the enemy when using this mythic.

on is significant for its unique spellblade effect granting more physical on our next auto attack and a slow field that increases based on health. Excellent in matchups where you need to stick to your target or where you need to have an increased tenacity & slow resistance from crowd control effects dealt to you by champions such as , , or .

is a potent supportive option as grants resistance to your allies, ensuring more team durability. Additionally, the shield provided can help in near-death instances should they arise. Take this when facing burn or other forms of dot damage.

The mythic item you select as your first item should depend on whom you are facing rather than how best plays in most matchups since it makes a big difference in her survivability.

Core Items

With , you gain health & ability haste and a nemesis passive that allows you to gain damage reduction from a specific target and remove their resistance to crowd control while you're nearby. It is beneficial when playing against champions you know can annihilate you very quickly or when looking to reduce their effectiveness in combat.

Very efficient when dealing with many

immobilizing effects or against teams with magic damage based abilities. This item will allow you to sustain burst damage champions like / or with heavy-dot damage play styles.

Buying helps to reduce enemy attack speed, effective against auto-attack-based champions ( or other auto-attack-heavy champions). It also reduces damage on incoming attacks based on the small percentage that additionally scales with every 1,000 hit points you have up to a maximum of 40% damage reduction.

Situational Items

It gives mobility to chase down targets or when escaping dangerous situations. While moving, charge up bonus on-hit damage as physical damage. They are slowed upon impact when colliding with a target at maximum momentum stacks. This item helps when roaming or when travelling to objectives/team fights.

Provides damage reduction via redirected post-mitigation damage for a specific nearby ally and then healing yourself for a percentage of the damage they deal to champions. Very nice pickup if you have the means to soak up tons of damage in prolonged fights.

While not picked up by or other support champions, but still great to consider against dot/burn damage/when forced into a low health state often or when needing extra duelling power. Offers a portion of your base attack damage as bonus attack damage and a portion of your total bonus health as a shield if you fall below 30% max health for 4.5 seconds (60-second cooldown).

Provides your accomplice on-hit and max health damage after you

immobilize an enemy champion within an 8-second window—a great item to pick up if you wish to make all-in trades during team fights and skirmishes.

Aura Build:

Mythic Items

Grabbing is excellent for increasing your resistance to both physical and magical damage and is helpful in matchups where you'll be immobilizing the enemy or could potentially be immobilized yourself. When the immobilizing effect occurs, all nearby enemies take increased damage for a short time.

With gains increased armor and magic resistance while in combat with the enemy. In addition, after reaching the maximum stat cap, you'll drain health from all nearby enemies and heal for the same amount. While the drain effect may not be as potent, it can be very effective in team fights on .

is a potent supportive option as grants resistance to your allies, ensuring more team durability. Additionally, the shield provided can help in near-death instances should they arise. Take this when facing burn or other forms of dot damage.

is your healing support tank item for . While not your first choice as mythic for compared to the other options at our disposal, it's helpful when you don't have a healer on your team and don't feel pressured by the enemy team composition.

The mythic item you select as your first item should depend on whom you are facing rather than how best plays in most matchups since it makes a big difference in her survivability.

Core Items

grants a debuffing aura that reduces their magic resistance and increases yours by the same amount for each cursed enemy. It's potent when you want to amplify the damage of your team's magic sources on the enemy.

Provides damage reduction via redirected post-mitigation damage for a specific nearby ally and then healing yourself for a percentage of the damage they deal to champions. Very nice pickup if you have the means to soak up tons of damage in prolonged fights.

Provides your accomplice on-hit and max health damage after you

immobilize an enemy champion within an 8-second window—a great item to pick up if you wish to make all-in trades during team fights and skirmishes.

Situational Items

It synergies well with because of how easily you can gain the effect of the shield the item offers. I suggest picking this up if, against teams, you need more survivability in team fights.

Very efficient when dealing with many

immobilizing effects or against teams with magic damage based abilities. This item will allow you to sustain burst damage champions like / or with heavy-dot damage play styles.

Similar passive to with its damage reduction of auto attacks. Instead of a passive that reduces attack speed, you reduce the damage of critical strikes dealt to you. On top of this, you'll have access to an active ability that slows enemy movement for 4 seconds (60-second cooldown). Very useful when dealing with champions who build critical strike items (, , or ).

A great asset in vision control, when paired with your support item, allowing you to place one extra (4)/ (2) on the map for your team. Very good when looking to secure vision on important objectives and map locations.

Situational Items For The Damage Reduction and Aura Builds

Grab if you need more magic resistance and a spell shield. Good versus high crowd control teams or in situations where you might need to avoid a pesky ability or attack that would otherwise disrupt you.

Increases your armor and magic resist as you take damage and gain a shield based on bonus health. Very good when paired with runes/keystones and items that focus heavily on health.

is an excellent situational item on . It helps when dealing with problematic crowd control effects (except airborne) from champion abilities (except airborne) from champion abilities ('s , 's , 's or 's ) that would impair your movement or be hard to dodge. The active effect grants extra tenacity and slow resistance. I'd only get this after you've purchased your core items or if the need to avoid a particular ability is essential for combat survivability.

Best taken on against melee champions such as , , or opponents who love to get up close and personal. Also very useful against full attack damage team compositions.

An excellent grievous wounds option for when struck by auto-attacks or when immobilizing foes. Very helpful against auto-attack heavy teams and healing from champions (, , Red ) or items (, ) that pose a threat.

A great alternative item for when you need sustain/durability in team fights and skirmishes. The passive effect regenerates max health out of combat once you have acquired enough health (through keystones, runes, items or levels) to trigger it. The regeneration effect will only apply after taking no damage from minions (3 seconds) or champions (6 seconds).

Runes

The following keystone & rune choices are great for and will complement her in combat. Always pay attention to the enemy team comp, plus your item builds when selecting your runes to get the most value in each game.

Keystone Runes:

- is an excellent keystone for during team fights and short trades because of the slow it provides. This keystone is best when paired with other champions with slows or crowd-control impairing effects.

- When dealing damage with autos and , it adds a stack of on the target hit. Once three stacks are applied, the vulnerable passive effect triggers, amplifying the damage the target takes for the next 6 seconds. A strong choice when paired with // or other auto-attack-based champions.

- Choose ] for a more aggressive bruiser tank option. After 4 seconds in combat, attacking a champion as gives you increased max health, deals magic damage equal to a % of your max health and heals for a % of your max health. Pairing this keystone with runes such as and provides durability in fights and strong turret sieging in lanes.

- After hitting any of your

immobilizing abilities on targets triggers , gaining bonus armor and magic resist and then dealing magic damage + a portion % of your bonus health to all nearby enemies in the shockwave—the standard option for in most games when support.

Domination Runes:

- is excellent for , dealing bonus true damage upon damaging a target afflicted with crowd control effects. Great for because of her many crowd control effects, meaning the extra damage application will be easy and allow for more efficient team fighting.

- provides a smoother ability setup when engaging/chasing down the enemy with its out-of-combat movement speed bonus. Helps get to lane faster when getting to team fights/reaching objectives on the map.

is great for because her ultimate has a stun/root component depending on where you land it on your target. As a result, it's a good team fight initiator, effectively locking down targets running away or near dead targets you want to finish.

Inspiration Runes:

- allows to channel a hexflash, travelling a short distance. Great for catching your opponents off guard if they aren't paying attention to your movement and positioning, surprising them with a cheeky combo. You gain access to hexflash while your is on cooldown.

- is reliable for ramping into your mythic/core items, thus offering better duelling potential. Very helpful in matchups where you want item advantages against your opponent to snowball much easier.

- is helpful when you need additional sustain after trades and skirmishes while giving you more maximum mana per biscuit (max 3). An optional choice for , though helpful when dealing with poke matchups.

- provides access to more summoner spells (, ) and item/ward trinket haste. This rune is excellent when paired with items like or other active items effects. Also very helpful for increasing your vision score.

- is an excellent rune for . It synergizes well with all her crowd control spells or those of her allies, granting you movement speed toward any nearby targets affected by crowd control. Great when paired with champions such as , or .

Precision Runes:

- restores a % of your missing max health and grants additional gold upon getting a kill or assisting in fights with your team. In addition, a form of sustain for and helps with faster item purchases in the lane.

- A must-have rune for while playing as support. gives you increased tenacity when dealing with champion effects (, , ) and monster (, ) based crowd control effects, reducing their effectiveness.

- offers increased damage when under 60% health. Further damage increases gained as you approach 30% health. Since we build minor damage with , it won't be that noticeable in team fights with this rune. Compared to other tier three rune options, it's the best for 's play style.

Resolve Runes:

- is a way to press lane faster because it will allow you to damage turrets based on a % of your max health. It allows for quicker sieging of turrets and getting the gold plates, thus giving you more freedom to roam sooner.

- With on , each time you apply an immobilizing effect, each teammate who damages them will heal them for a portion of your max health. Great in team fights and very helpful for a small healing effect in trades and duels with the enemy.

- helps by increasing her armor and magic resistance. It pairs nicely with 's and can be helpful when you need extra survivability & late-game durability.

- for as an engage support helps to regenerate missing max health over 10 seconds after a skirmish or team fight. Stacking health through items or runes in conjunction with this rune helps improve the regeneration effect.

- helps to reduce incoming damage from a combination of three instances of damage for 1.5 seconds (55-second cooldown). The damage reduction is excellent on when dealing with burst champions (, , ) or in tough fights and skirmishes.

- for offers max health per / death, then gaining a % max health bonus once 120 minions are absorbed. Though doesn't scale with health compared to other engage supports (, , ), I'd recommended with other health items or when taking or .

- is very potent for against heavy crowd control teams and great when paired with for more crowd control resistance. This rune gives you increased tenacity & slow resistance when you fall below 30% max health.

Sorcery Runes:

- In most scenarios, we don't think of on because our priority is to soak damage for our team and peel for them. However, with the inclusion of the , we can make better use of our kit, and it allows for more constant spell use in fights due to its mana regeneration (gained after acquiring the 250 bonus mana).

- , while not often taken on , can be helpful. This rune helps by offering permanent ability haste & a passive effect reducing your non-ultimate cooldowns by 20% when you score a takedown on the enemy. As a result, you'll have more opportunities to continue stunning and disrupting the enemy in the lane and team fights.

- is another option that doesn't get taken on , but if you feel like taking the scaling rune route, I'd suggest slotting this rune in to get some extra damage on her abilities. Now her abilities don't scale that heavily with ability power, but this doesn't mean you can't have a little more damage, packing a bigger punch.

Rune Shards

When we are deciding on what rune shards (offensive and defensive) to pick for , you need to factor in a few things in champion selection:

Offensive Shards
- Do I need attack speed on my champion? (Auto attacks on can feel very slow, making it a good option when looking to chain autos after your combos)
- Do I need additional attack damage? (For this build, you can opt for it, but most might skip it when playing support).
- Do I require any ability haste? (We can choose this option, but it could be more popular).

Defensive Shards
- Do I require more armor? The default choice in most games when playing support.
- Do I require magic resistance? Take this shard when the lane is double mage bot or heavy in magic damage.
- Do I require more health? A viable option for in games where only one type of resistance is needed, therefore adding health is helpful. Great into mixed damage team comps.

Always pay attention to the team compositions you are fighting when mixing and matching the rune shards listed above with your & items. It's a sure way to improve your overall survivability in games.

Summary

There are many ways to build , but hopefully, this guide made it easier for you to understand what abilities/items and runes work well together and how to make the most of her kit.

I hope you enjoyed this guide and will refer this to your friends and fellow gamers looking for tips & tricks.

Contact me in the discussion section for any questions or thoughts you wish to share. I'll be happy to discuss things with you and see how I can make sense of anything you need answers for to the best of my ability.

13.6 Leona Tank/Support

13.6 Leona Tank/Support

Choose Champion Build:

Recommended Items

Runes: Engage Tank

Spells:

Flash

Ignite

Exhaust

Flash

Flash

Heal

Items

Ability Order Standard Build

Sunlight (PASSIVE)

Shield of Daybreak (Q)

Eclipse (W)

Zenith Blade (E)

Solar Flare (R)

Sunlight (PASSIVE)

Shield of Daybreak (Q)

Eclipse (W)

Zenith Blade (E)

Solar Flare (R)

Threats & Synergies

Alistar

Ashe

Bard

Blitzcrank

Brand

Braum

Galio

Janna

Karma

Lulu

Lux

Maokai

Milio

Morgana

Nami

Nautilus

Pantheon

Pyke

Rakan

Rell

Renata Glasc

Senna

Seraphine

Sona

Soraka

Swain

Taric

Thresh

Vel'Koz

Xerath

Yuumi

Zilean

Zyra

Aphelios

Ashe

Caitlyn

Draven

Ezreal

Jhin

Jinx

Kai'Sa

Kalista

Kog'Maw

Lucian

Miss Fortune

Nilah

Samira

Sivir

Tristana

Twitch

Varus

Vayne

Xayah

Zeri

Aphelios