Orianna is a champion that I enjoy very much and I think she has been one of the most solid mid laners in the game for quite some time. I do feel that she is often misunderstood and people generally find her too difficult to play for some reason. The fact that her "Recommended" build page that Riot recommends is complete garbage, also does not help new players learn to play her. That's where I come in. I am a person who has played a lot of Orianna, (268k Mastery at the time this guide was made, if that means anything to you), and I would really like to see more people try her out, while simultaneously not build inefficient items or take inefficient masteries, etc.

Pros

+ Has amazing teamfight potential/impact. + Incredible waveclear. + Huge burst damage and even one-shot potential if you get ahead. + High utility.

Orianna's kit is very well rounded and flexible. She can shield allies with Command: Protect in order to either save them or to use them to instantly re-position your damage source. Her Command: Dissonance can be used to help your team rotate to objectives and towers faster, to chase kills, and to flee enemies. Her Command: Shockwave is a devastating ability that usually makes or breaks a teamfight, depending on how many priority targets you can catch in it.

CONS

- The Ball is somewhat difficult to get used to for new players. - She is very squishy. - Low mobility / Succeptable to ganks. - Missing a Shockwave is very punishing and can potentially lose you the game.

If Orianna is subjected to Chain CC, she will likely die before she can defend herself with a Shockwave. Orianna is weak to champions with a gap-closer, as she has none to respond with, and will likely die to a gank if she overextends. If you miss your Shockwave, your burst damage potential plummets, you lose all of your hard CC, which makes your teamfighting capabilities go way down.

Greater Mark of Magic Penetration is your go-to rune set-up for any AP solo-laner. If you're going to be laning against a melee champion, then taking 9x Greater Mark of Hybrid Penetration is also viable, as you will be able to auto attack them frequently in the early laning phase, and you'll be giving up roughly 2.3 Magic Pen in exchange for 8.1 Armor Pen. I recommend just sticking to Greater Mark of Magic Penetration in all of my set-ups, but the choice is up to preference.

Greater Seal of Scaling Health is a very good seal for mid/late-game survival and is the top tier seal for mid-laners, who tend to be a higher level than other laners, thus reap more benefit from scaling runes. Greater Seal of Armor is also a very good rune when laning against an Attack Damage mid-laner.

Greater Glyph of Scaling Cooldown Reduction are vital towards reaching you CDR cap, which Orianna desperately needs in order to clear waves, and stay relevant in teamfights. You can potentially take Greater Glyph of Magic Resist if you're facing an AP Lane Bully, or if you simply can't afford Greater Glyph of Scaling Cooldown Reduction runes. Just know that you're missing out on a TON of CDR that you would otherwise not have access to.

Greater Quintessence of Ability Power are the single best Quint for any AP champion. These will help out your early game damage output, your ability to farm (with all of your abilities and your Clockwork Windup passive) and your shield strength.

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Ferocity Tree Tier 1 - Fury vs Sorcery For obvious reasons, you want to pick Sorcery over Fury because Sorcery will increase Orianna's late game full combo by a respectable amount with 0 cost. There's no reason not to take 2% spell damage over 4% attack speed. Tier 2 - Double Edged Sword vs Feast vs Expose Weakness This choice is up to preference but I like to take Double Edged Sword simply because the 3% damage inflicted gain is very much worth the 1% damage recieved increase. Feast is *okay*, but it's effects fall off around mid game, and 20 flat health means so much less when you have 1600 Health as opposed to your 600 in laning phase. In theory, Expose Weakness does the most in a late-game teamfight because you'll be increasing the damage output of 4 of your teammate's damage as opposed to just your own, but as a solo laner, this mastery will provide almost nothing for the first 20 minutes of the game. You're also relying on teammates to do damage for you, and relying on teammates isn't always the best course of action when playing League of Legends, just saying. Tier 3 - Vampirism vs Natural Talent Natural Talent is going to be the mastery of choice here, simply because as Orianna you gain nothing from Lifesteal and Spellvamp. All of your abilities are burst AoE. Spellvamp is only really effective with single target damage, and sustained damage. Natural Talent , however, makes your auto attacks really hurt in your laning phase (your autos scale with BOTH AD and AP thanks to Clockwork Windup), and will increase your damage output and shield strength throughout the whole game.

Tier 4 - Bounty Hunter vs Oppressor

While Orianna does have a both slow and a stun/disrupt/knockback in her kit, she doesn't use her CC in a way that would support the use of Oppressor . Orianna's playstyle should focus on zoning and dealing short instances of burst damage. Your slow field is pretty negligible until mid/late-game, and you can't really make use of it in your laning phase anyways. If you should go Bounty Hunter , it will scale much better than Oppressor, and just becomes flat-out better than it after you get 3 unique kills, which shouldn't be too hard to do throughout the course of the game. If you're not confident enough in your ability to get 3 kills, then by all means, pick Oppressor .

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Cunning Tree Tier 1 Wanderer vs Savagery This mastery choice is solely for personal preference. If you believe you are slower to react to roams, and wish to move towards bot lane faster or if you want to rotate for objectives and towers more, then take Wanderer . If you think you're bad at CSing or if you value CS consistency over more ganking potential, then pick Savagery . Tier 2 - Runic Affinity vs Secret Stash vs Assassin Runic Affinity is pretty bad to say the least, especially if you're in SoloQ and aren't guaranteed your jungle's blue buff every time it comes up. Secret Stash is pretty good for early game sustain, but it pretty much does nothing after the laning phase. Assassin is decent in the laning phase, and lets you pack a little more damage in your harass, but is still very much relevant at all stages of the game. I'm pretty sure, Assassin is the strongest mastery of the 3. Tier 3 - Merciless vs Meditation You don't need Meditation to effectively use your mana pool. As a burst mage, execute damage from Merciless however, is game changing. Take Merciless every game. Tier 4 - Bandit vs Dangerous Game You're not a support, so pick Dangerous Game . It will save your life a lot of times, and will give you huge teamfight sustain. It's worth way more than the flimsy amount of gold you would get from Bandit.

Tier 5 - Precision vs Intelligence

While CDR is a very, VERY good stat on Orianna, precision is just far more valuable in terms of damage output from auto attacks and through your full combo. A lot of people will disagree with me on this one, but I believe that the ability to do more burst damage, while at 40% CDR is more important than not doing enough damage at 45% CDR.

Tier 6 - Keystone Thunderlord's Decree

You'll be taking Thunderlord's Decree over any other keystone, simply because Orianna doesn't synergize with any other Keystone. Deathfire Touch is purely for DPS mages that can refresh its application. Orianna can only safely do mid/late-game damage in bursts. You can easily proc Thunderlord's Decree in lane with your Command: Attack and by weaving in auto attacks. Late game, your full combo will automatically proc Thunderlord's Decree .

Starting Items This purchase gives you the most optimal and cost efficient start for Orianna. On your first back, it is perfectly viable and efficient to purchase a second Doran's Ring or a Dark Seal if you don't have enough gold to buy anything else.

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Core Items Morellonomicon is the most solid 1st item for Orianna. It gives you 20% CDR (a necessity for Orianna), 100 AP, and a huge bank of Flat Mana to work with, along with a 20% mana refund on kill/assist. Great Item, and great outclasses any other mana sustain item in terms of efficiency and mid-game power spike.

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Although the summoner spell CDR is very nice, you don't need Boots of Lucidity, because you'll hit 40% CDR anyways, so Sorcerer's Shoes is the best Boot upgrade as it adds much needed burst to your combo.

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space Void/Cap is a necessary core that allows Orianna to really do the burst damage that she is capable of dealing. Generally you want to build Void Staff first because Deathcap is only really good after you've already built a lot of AP, however it's still viable to build Deathcap before Void Staff, especially if the enemy team isn't building much or any MR.

You generally shouldn't stray from this core, even if you're behind. This is because if you choose to build defensively on Orianna before you build damage, you will struggle to do much damage at all, won't be able to clear waves with as much ease, and will fall even further behind.

If you're laning vs. something like a Zed or LeBlanc, I can see you getting Zhonya's or Abyssal a bit earlier than 5 item, but in 98% of games, you should follow this core.

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Situational Items For your 5th item, you generally want either Zhonya's or Abyssal Scepter depending on your opponent's team comp and your own personal preferences. Both of these items provide you will decent amounts of both protection and damage, and also happen to provide you with enough CDR to reach your 40% cap.

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space For your 6th item slot, you will either build a safe defensive item to protect yourself from being blown up, or a greedy offensive item to further snowball a massive lead. The best defensive items you can purchase are either Banshee's Veil or Guardian Angel, because they are extremely safe and reliable means of protection in a teamfight and give very good resistances.

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space Orianna's best greedy 6th slot item is Luden's Echo. It provides a ton of extra AP and the burst damage it provides from its passive is just massive. The 10% movement speed can be used both offensively and defensively, and gives you a lot of unseen utility. Rylai's Crystal Scepter is another item you can fit into your 6th slot. It gives you a lot of AP and health, which is really good when you already have resistances stacked. It will also let you land your full combo slightly easier, with its slow that it provides.

Skilling Order #1. Command: Shockwave 6 / 11 / 16 #2. Command: Attack 2 / 3 / 5 / 7 / 9 #3. Command: Dissonance 4 / 8 / 10 / 12 / 13 #4. Command: Protect 1 / 14 / 15 / 17 / 18

> > > We want to max Command: Attack first on Orianna for a lot of different reasons. First off, we need to acknowledge that Orianna is a very unique champion, in that the entirety of her spells will be based upon The Ball's location. If you cannot reposition The Ball at any given moment, you will fail to do any DPS and will become useless until you can reposition. Putting 5 ranks into Command: Attack will do 3 things: Slightly increase its mana cost from 30 to 50 mana, triple its damage output from 60 to 180 damage, and halve its initial cooldown from 6 to 3 seconds. It's almost always best to get Command: Attack to max rank as soon as possible, as Command: Attack is Orianna's most reliable and simplest form of ball repositioning, as well as the staple in almost all of Orianna's ability combos. Command: Dissonance is where Orianna's burst primarily comes from. We max this ability second, because it gives Orianna a crazy amount of damage. Putting 5 ranks into Command: Dissonance will do 3 things: greatly increase its mana cost from 70 to 110, more than triple its damage output from 70 to 250, and increase its movement speed modifier from its slow/speed field. This ability should almost never be maxed first, because the mana cost will become too large for Orianna to handle without proper items, and because of the need to reliably reposition The Ball with Command: Attack. In fact, we should usually take our first point of Command: Dissonance at level 4 (unless you need to secure a kill or escape a gank ASAP), simply because at level 3, Orianna will run out of mana if she uses it too frequently.

We take a rank in Command: Protect at level 1 because the stats that it gives you in addition to the shield active, let you easily win trades with just your auto attacks at level 1 and throughout your early levels; however, Command: Protect is the ability that we max last. Putting 5 ranks into this ability does 3 things: it increases the Armor and Magic Resist it grants to its target from 10 to 30, triples the magic damage it deals from 60 to 180, and triples the shield strength from 80 to 240. This ability is mainly used for its utility. You can use this to deal a small amount of damage to add to burst or proc Thunderlord's Decree , to shield yourself or an ally and grant resistances, or to reposition The Ball either preemptively on an initiator, or reactively to a target being initiated on. We max this last because putting ranks in Command: Protect does not affect its mana cost nor its cooldown.

Every time a point in Command: Shockwave is available, it should be placed. Putting ranks into Command: Shockwave does 3 things: it increases its mana cost to 100/125/150 mana at each point, lowers its cooldown to 120/105/90 seconds at each point, and increases damage output to 150/225/300 at each rank. The utility and sheer power in Command: Shockwave is what defines Orianna. It can be used to engage, counter-engage, disengage, disrupt channels, reposition enemies, and just to simply burst enemies to 0 health. The pull/stun disable aspect of Command: Shockwave lasts 1.25 seconds, meaning that landing this ability on multiple priority targets will often single-handedly secure a teamfight, given that your teammates engage in any form of follow-up. Likewise, missing this ability entirely can also single-handedly lose a teamfight. Its long cooldown is punishing if missed, so timing is key to using this ability. In many cases, unnecessarily holding onto Command: Shockwave is just as bad as missing it entirely, so learning when and where to pull the trigger is arguably the most important skill an Orianna player can acquire.

Summoner Slot #1: Flash - Bring it or you lose.
Summoner Slot #2: Ignite, Exhaust, Cleanse, Teleport, Barrier, Heal. Pick which ever one you want/need. This comes to personal preference and matchups.

Orianna is always a strong, solid pick. Learning to play her is very difficult, but rewarding.