Welcome Everyone!
My name is Randy, and this is my guide to
Janna, a truly awesome support. I have been playing
Janna since Season 3. I ranked high Diamond in Season's 3 through 5. I had dropped off of league during Season 6, but I am back!
The support role is the most
underestimated role in League; especially in lower ELO. Support is by far the coolest position in League of Legends; you're basically a
Super Hero. With the right mechanics and decision making, you can make your team
immortal;
unstoppable. Isn't that awesome!?
Janna has a lot of skill involved for such a simple kit. Almost all of her complexity comes in your decision making; when and where you use your kit. She is super fun to pick up and evolve your play! Thank you all for taking your time to read my guide! I spent quite a lot of time into making this, I hope you enjoy it! I present to you, my Guide, Theories and Builds to
Janna, the
best support out there.
Pros and Cons
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Cons
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- Squishy
- Easy to misuse Ult
- Safe play style
- Hard to master
- Lower Damage
- Needs team to perform |
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Being a squishy champion, Janna can find it hard to trade in lane against certain opponents. It's very easy to fall into a play-style that is TOO safe, missing out on great opportunities. Her Kit used incorrectly can throw a fight single handedly. Learning how to trade, engage, and macro will decide how well you play Janna.
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Runes
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- ARCANE COMET
Arcane Comet is disgusting free damage in lane. This is a must take on any match-up that you can abuse such as Alistar or Leona. The damage on Arcane Comet is around 300% more than Summon Aery and gets reduced by 20% when you hit a single target spell ( Zephyr).
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- MANAFLOW BAND
Manaflow Band is not only the best option of the 3 runes here, but is a great rune in general. It gives us an easy-to-stack free 250 mana as well as a percentage Mana Regen when the Rune Quest is completed.
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- CELERITY
- Now we're talking.
Janna is all about her movement speed, and this takes your base movement speed bonuses to the next level. Since Celerity increases your movement speed bonuses, those items are great to build.
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- SCORCH
Scorch is plain and simple. You do more damage when you poke and trade in lane. Reading it by itself isn't all that impressive, but the damage stacks fast in lane and throughout the game. Both other options are good here, which lowers the value of this option a bit.
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- TASTE OF BLOOD
- I used to be a big believer of taking
Cheap Shot. Taste of Blood is flat out better for trading in lane. Even though you lose damage, you can stay in lane longer and trade more efficiently.
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- SUMMON AERY
Summon Aery is the Keystone of choice when you do not feel as confident in trading your lane opponents (such as Nautilus or Blitzcrank). Summon Aery keeps its value throughout the game and keeps your team much safer compared to Arcane Comet. You can often combine this rune with Ancient Coin to guarantee a safe lanning phase (even if it is boring).
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- MAGICAL FOOTWEAR
- The inspiration tree is a great tree to go when you want guarenteed value instead of potential value. When you think you're going to lose or go even in lane,
Magical Footwear gives you 300g free, making it worth the wait.
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- COSMIC INSIGHT
- While
Magical Footwear value might be why you go the Inspiration tree, Cosmic Insight is the almighty gravy. Turns out that the buffet of CDR is pretty decent.
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Summoner Spells
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FLASH: Whether you need to gap-close or a quick get away, flash will be your bread and butter spell for almost every champion. Being that it amazing to use offensively or defensively; it is a must have. |
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IGNITE: Ignite will be your second most go-to spell aside from Flash. Ignite gives us great scaling damage throughout the game as well as an easy way to apply grievous wounds. Always look to use this as a way to reduce healing in the late game. |
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EXHAUST: Exhaust is still a great summoner spell. It reduces the targets damage output by 40% and movement speed by 30% for 3 seconds. This spell does not see as much play because its kill pressure is lower than Ignite. Good pickup on heavy melee/assassin enemy comps. |
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TELEPORT: A bit of an odd ball. If you're going to take this spell, take it in the place of Flash. It may take some time getting used to, but Teleport can make some outrageous plays and pressure. | |
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Abilities
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Tailwind (Passive): The extra movement speed from your passive is amazing for bringing your team to objectives such as dragon or baron or even just rotating for towers. This buff also comes in handy for disengaging.
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Howling gale (Q): Howling Gale will be your #1 peel, engage, and disengage tool. While its start up distance is only 1000, it increases to almost double that in 3 seconds (1,750)! You should set up your Howling Gale's defensively; predicting where the enemy will be relative to your carry. Howling Gale is also extremely useful when zoning the enemy team off of objectives.
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Zephyr (W): Zephyr is a great peeling ability. This ability slows the target by up to 40%-60% for Two Seconds!? That's practically worse than Wither! You know, besides Wither's attack speed reduction...but we wont talk about that. You'll also be hauling across the map with a 12%-14% movement speed buff. Use this ability to single out your target and combo with Howling Gale.
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Eye of the Storm (E): Eye of the Storm is Janna's iconic ability that provides an impressive shield as well as a fat AD buff to her target. This ability should be used cautiously, to not waste it's benefit. Although it has a 5 second duration, the shield decays rapidly during that time. You will max this second most of the time.
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Monsoon (R): Monsoon is a great game changer. Unfortunately its like a prophecy from Star Wars about Anakin. You can absolutely save the day, or you could be looking like a Gold star member of the Red Cross to the enemy team. You can use this ability offensively and try to divide their team. Or you can use it defensively to group heal your team or counter gap closes on your carries.
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Items
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Upgrading to Eye of the Watchers from Frostfang costs 950g for 1 extra ward use, 15 AP and 200 HP. Now I know this SOUNDS like a horrible deal, but that extra ward is worth it 100% of the time. Having that last ward at a critical moment can be the difference of winning and losing the game.
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Ardent Censer is an item that needs no introductions. It's well known for a reason. What is not well known, is the on-hit damage and attack speed increase this item supplies is based on level. This means that this does NOT need to be the first item you buy. I recommend buying this second or third depending on your lane partner.
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Athene's Unholy Grail grants a great amount of AP (50 AP by itself). Athene's Unholy Grail is great on Janna because she has 2 ways to proc its healing passive and can stack it to the max either of her 2 damaging skills. Alternate between doing damage and using this item's healing for the greatest benefit.
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What's better than cross-map supporting? Redemption boosts our Healing and Shielding by 10%. Redemption has once again become a power house in Patch 7.12; boasting 300% benefit from Healing and Shielding power. The kicker is that this item can even be used after death, making Redemption extremely valuable. Place in the middle of fights for a boost in your teams trade potential, or use it to zone the enemies and limit their mobility.
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Twin Shadows is a good option to build when your team lacks engage specifically. The ghosts it sends out have quite the range and can make the difference in the late game in catching out a champion late game.
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Mejai's Soulstealer is a great item to grab while you're ahead. It is not hard to get and keep stacks on this item, and AP stacks very well on Janna. If you can get this item going, prioritize it.
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Mikael's Blessing has been a powerhouse for Janna ever since patch [6.13], when they added 20% Healing and Shielding on. This item's active is an absolute game-changer. If you're not very good with item actives, I suggest you play some normal's to get the hang of it!
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Deeper Analysis
Team Fights
Team fights are where we excel the most. After all, what's more fun than making the difference in a critical team fight? During team fights, you have a lot to identify about the situation before you can make good decisions. Now let's start off by thinking defensive:
Defensive Team Fighting
- Who are your carries?
When I say, "carry", I am referring to the person who is most critical to the success of the fight. This is NOT always your ADC. You need to identify your win condition. Who's doing the best? Who is dealing the most DPS? Is anyone's kit detrimental to winning the team fight? This could even be the front-line tank, if they are being focused.
- Who are their biggest threats?
Their biggest threat is not always the champion with the highest KDA. Who's the biggest threat to your win condition? What can you do to counter-play them? For an example: Their
Vayne may be 12/1/2, but you may want to lock down their
Soraka first, since she will be an easier target and keeps
Vayne very healthy.
- Do you see all of them?
Where could they be? Where could we ward to give our team the BEST overall advantage to win the team fight? Fighting with limited information is like playing a game of Chess in the dark. Give you and your team the most information possible before engaging in any fights. We are
Janna, we have a more than normal control over when our team engages.
- Who has the focus in the team fight?
Often, it can be beneficial to
Eye of the Storm your front line. Your shield will get more value on a target with more Armor and Magic Resist, giving your carries more time to launch their DPS. Always look to see the flow of the fight. Do not waste your
Eye of the Storm where it wont be used, or blow precious CC where it is not needed.
Who you shield and who you peel off will mean a great deal to the outcome of the team fight. keep in mind certain character's ultimates, especially AOE CC Wombo Champions like
Orianna,
Malphite,
Amumu or
Sona. Know what a composition can do, and position around it so you can help your team counter their synergy. With that in mind, lets think a bit more
Offensive:
Offensive Team Fighting
- What are you fighting over?
What are you gaining from this fight beyond kills? What's next on the agenda? Inhibitors/Towers/Baron/Dragon? Have you communicated this with your team? Fighting without a secondary goal is still beneficial when you come out on top, but is wasted potential; a high risk low reward scenario. We are looking to steamroll.
- Are target objectives well warded?
As a support it is your duty to have any contested objectives warded as best as you can. This however, does not mean to suicide ward into their team. If you are the only one by the objective being contested, a simple ward over the wall will do. Warding is a TEAM ACTIVITY, so always have wards ready to go when you are roaming with the squad. Back often in the mid to late game.
- When to engage?
What?
Janna Engage? Yes. If your map is well warded, you should always look to start fights that are disadvantageous to the enemy team. You should know when the enemy team is out numbered.
Zephyr and
Howling Gale are great tools to catch an enemy out and secure an objective.
- We just aced their team, what objective should we push?
If you aced their team, the most notable objectives you should be striving for are
Inhibitor>
Turret>
baron>
dragon. In certain situations this order will change. Basically Tower's and Inhibitors are the hardest objectives to secure. Most likely you will be able to secure a
dragon or
baron afterwards anyway.
Laning Phase
Laning phase is the most important section of the game for
Janna. The early game gives you the chance to not only build your ADC into a monster, but shut down
TWO of the enemy team for mid game. There are a lot of things that you have to think about during lane phase:
Poking
Level 1,
Janna's Attack Damage is 52 (which will hit about 35-ish with reductions), which may not seem like a lot, but most ADC's will have around 500 health. With
Spellthief's Edge, you deal an ADDITIONAL 13 damage on top of this. Its unrealistic to think of dueling the ADC, but as chip damage this is a
TON. Always auto attack when its safe for chip damage and to proc
Spellthief's Edge.
It's important to note how much your abilities do damage wise. You always want to be looking for chances to poke and get stacks for your
Spellthief's Edge. You also want to pick opportune times to poke, such as when the ADC goes to
farm, or if the support goes to
ward. If the enemy goes in to poke at the same time, it turns into a
trade.
Trading
Trading will determine who gains lane dominance, or:
Lane Priority. Your job is to trade
with your ADC to make sure you don't get bullied out of lane.
Janna packs massive damage with her auto attacks and
Zephyr. Make sure to animation cancel these two early on (
Zephyr immediately after your auto attack launches).
If you do not know your ADC, you should look to defensively trade while you get a feel for them in lane. This means you trade damage when the enemy lane goes to
poke your carry. Choosing to trade offensively (
when you get poked) may lead to you being left in the dust by a solo queue ADC. So in that instance just disengage by either walking away or laying down a
Howling Gale.
Zoning
When you successfully
Poke and
Trade the enemy bot lane, but do not finish them off, you have the opportunity to
Zone them. Zoning is done by being close enough to them that they cannot reach their Creeps without evoking your wrath. They are basically stuck in a
worse situation than dying.
They have to give up Creeps and are in danger of dying either to a catch by you or a backdoor gank from your Jungler. Zoning can
EASILY lead to a greater
Gold Deficit than simply killing the enemy laners. Push this advantage as much as you can while it lasts, the further you get ahead the better.
Warding
Warding is one of the most important things you can do for you your team. What's better than peeling a jungle flawlessly and getting away from a gank? Not getting ganked in the first place (well maybe the first one's a little cooler). You give your lane opponents no mercy to your ADC's farming onslaught! Here is a few good examples of where to ward during lanning phase:
Red Circles:
Control Ward's
Green Circles:
Stealth Wards
Bottom Side Map
Control Ward's
[*] Tri-Bush is an excellent place to control to keep them from knowing when your Jungle is coming to gank. Successful bottom lane ganks lead to
Dragon's. We like
Dragon's. Buy
Control Ward's
[*] The bush up by middle is a HOT SPOT. This not only gives you limited vision on
dragon but also lets you know far in advance if a Jungler is coming down river, AND will also help out your mid laner tremendously. Ward this if mid has not already.
[*] Warding next to their Blue Buff will be a fairly short-lived
Control Ward, but will give amazing vision and insight to where their Jungler is. It may not only help your lane, but your Jungler as well.
Stealth Ward's
[*] Both bushes in bot lane are great to ward with either your
Stealth Ward or
Sightstone. This lets you and your ADC know whats going on in the lane, keeping you both safer to poke and all-in.
[*] Green warding your Tri-Bush is a lack-luster move, but better than nothing. It's better to use a
Control Ward here.
[*] Keep vision on
Dragon as much as you can. Try to estimate when their Jungler could take on
dragon and keep it heavily warded during that time. This also helps avoid River ganks, which will be the most common gank on Bottom Side.
[*] Warding the Tri-Bush next to their tower will give limited insight on where the jungle is as well as counter some ganks from champions like
Nocturne,
Talon and
Camille. Also great against
Thresh
Top Side Map
Control Ward's
[*] Again, Tri-Bush is an amazing place to ward. Unfortunately your
Control Ward will be much more susceptible to clearing playing on Top Side. This ward helps you see when the Jungler is coming as well as zoning their Support from warding deeper than Tri-Bush.
[*] The bush up by middle is still a HOT SPOT. We are warding here for all of the reasons stated before. Ask your mid laner if they can ward this location.
[*]
Control Warding your own Blue buff is a great move if your Jungle is getting counter Jungled a lot or you're getting tower-dove by early groups from champs like
Talon or
Katarina.
Stealth Ward's
[*] Both bushes in bot lane are still great to ward with either your
Stealth Ward or
Sightstone. The more vision the better your trades will go!
[*] Green warding your Tri-Bush is a way better move on Top Side. You should be looking to clear their
Control Ward's as much as possible here.
[*] Keep vision on
Dragon as much as you can! You are mainly only going to get ganked through river on Top Side, so keep it warded!
[*] You want to keep the Tri-Bush next to your tower warded for the same reasons you want your Blue Buff with a
Control Ward. Keep those dive compositions off of your carry!
Summary
Well, that pretty much sums it up. I bid you well on your
Janna adventures and implore you to
keep practicing! Lets all aim for
Diamond (or higher) together, we need more supports on the Rift!
Thank you so much for taking the time out to read through my
Janna guide! If you have any questions, comments or concerns,
PLEASE let me know and leave a comment in the discussion section! If you enjoyed this guide leave a like and comment anyway!
One more thing. If you guys are interested in making your own guides on your favorite champions, it's a MUST to read Jhoijhoi's
Making a Guide walk through. I was brand new to Mobafire's guide creation and HTML coding alike. Jhoijhoi's guide is what inspired me to make my own, I could not have made this guide without them!
Change Log
Season 9
9.20
- Runes updated for the current season
- Items updated for the current season
- Champion match-ups added
- Ability information updated
- Summoner Spells updated
- Pros/Cons and TOC polished
Season 7
7.12
- Item order and options changed to reflect buffs to
Redemption and
Locket of the Iron Solari
- Description updates for support items changed in Patch 7.12
- Color Legend added
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