Hey there! I'm Mozume, a support and ADC main. I started playing May 2017 and ended Season VII at Gold 1. Janna is my favorite champion by far, though Tristana is a close second. Janna is an incredibly versatile champion who works well in most team compositions. She is an easy to learn champion whose potential is maximized with practice. She’s also just so much fun.

Janna is the ultimate “oh no you don’t” champion. Want to jump my teammate and burst them? Nope, Janna will blow you away and shield the damage. Want to force an engage because our top laner is splitpushing? Not so fast, Monsoon. Think that last tic of Ignite/burn/poison will give you a 1 for 1 trade? Nope, super fast Janna is here and shield ready. Oh look, a lonely Janna caught deep-warding in enemy jungle, let's kill her. Nope, (insert some combination of her abilities here) and oh look she escaped. Granted, Janna is not without faults, but a good Janna has the potential to induce as much rage in the enemy team as a Teemo.

Guide Legend

I use a lot of abbreviations throughout the guide so here are the abbreviation meanings.

AA = Auto Attack AD = Attack Damage ADC = Attack Damage Carry AOE = Area Of Effect

AP = Ability Power AS = Attack Speed CC = Crowd Control CDR = Cooldown Reduction

CS = Creep Score H. Regen = Health Regeneration MR = Magic Resist M. Regen = Mana Regeneration

✦ ChampionAbout Janna Pros & Cons Abilities

✦ Pre-GameSummoner Spells Runes When to pick Janna?

✦ In-GameStrategy Itemization

✦ ExtrasConclusion Git Log

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Janna belongs to the Enchanter subclass. Enchanters amplify their allies’ potential and protect them from the enemy team, and Janna excels at both. She can also serve as a form of soft or hard engage for skirmishes.

Predicting damage and anticipating CC is the most important aspect of playing Janna, as her kit allows you to partially degate both. Thus, she requires a lot of game knowledge.

Janna synergizes with most ADCs and can do well against any matchup. That said, Janna is a team reliant champion. She does negligible damage on her own, and once she’s down, the overall survivability of her team drops sharply.

3 CC abilities Amazing disengage that can also work as engage Shield also gives AD buff High movement speed AOE heal Janna is a very slippery champion with her high mobility, and her kit can be used both defensively and offensively. With Janna on the backline of a teamfight, an average ADC can become a monster, and she can easily reset a fight with Monsoon.

Squishy No Escapes Shield is now decaying Low Damage Output No Hard Engage However, outside of her mobility, Janna has no real escapes. Once caught, she bursts like a bubble. She also has very little damage output. Without her allies, Janna becomes a fish out of water.

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Tailwind Passive RANGE: 1250 Bonus MS Damage: 15/25/35% At levels: 1/7/13

Janna passively gets 8% bonus movement speed and allies within a certain range also get 8% MS towards you. Janna's AAs and single target spells (W) deal bonus magic damage based on bonus MS. This allows you to deal more damage and have higher mobility to dodge skill shots. It also means your team can make a speedy getaway or rotation with you at the head of the pack. Furthermore, your team can kite more easily with this. The passive damage is very strong early game, making AA pokes much more effective.

Howling Gale Q RANGE: 1000-1750 COST: 60/80/100/120/140 COOLDOWN: 12

Janna charges up a tornado for up to 3 seconds or until the ability is reactivated. It deals damage in a line and knocks up all enemy units for a minimum of 0.5 sec, adding 0.25 sec for each second charged (1.25 sec max). The range and damage increases the longer the tornado has to charge. Janna’s Q is both one of the longest range (1750 at full charge), and one of the most easily avoided ‘skillshots’ in the game. It is Janna’s most frequently used form of peel. It can also be a great zoning tool in lane, and it's great as hard engage for skirmishes. The mana cost and cooldown is much lower since patch 7.19, making it a bit more usable in lane. Remember that knock-ups are hard CC and yours is AOE. This skill also cancels a lot of dashes and stop abilities (like channels, but then any CC stops channel). Some abilities that are canceled with Q Battle Dance Body Slam Dragon Strike Elastic Slingshot Grand Entrance Headbutt Justice Punch Leap Strike Lunar Rush Lunge Resonating Strike Rocket Jump Safeguard Vault Breaker Zenith Blade

Zephyr W RANGE: 550 COST: 50/60/70/80/90 COOLDOWN: 8

Passively increases Janna’s movement speed, scaling with AP. While Janna has her elemental with her, she can move through units. Actively Janna can send her elemental to an enemy champion slowing and damaging them, both scaling with AP. This ability makes Janna a very high mobility champion. Its passive allows her to avoid unit collision which can be very useful in both escapes and engages. (A.k.a. No more minion blocks) The damage from this ability also should not be underestimated at early levels especially with her passive. With the Summon Aery keystone, getting early points in W signifigantly increases your poke. The trade-off for doing this is that your shield cooldown is ridiculously high.

Eye of the Storm E RANGE: 800 COST: 70/80/90/100/110 COOLDOWN: 18/16/14/12/10

Janna shields her target and grants them an AD buff while the shield is still active. The shield gradually decays. This is Janna’s bread and butter. It shields an ally and the strength of the shield scales with your AP. While the shield is active, it also gives the shielded ally an AD buff that also scales with your AP. At 5 points with 40-45% cdr, you can have a 5.5-6 sec cooldown. It’s an insanely powerful ability, especially on an AD champion (and would you look at that, you lane with one!). The careful with the cooldown during laning phase though! Unfortunately this ability has been nerfed and instead of lasting 5 seconds if unbroken, it decays, making it less powerful. No doubt, it is still incredibly potent, just less so than before.

Monsoon R RANGE: 725 COST: 100 COOLDOWN: 150/135/120

Janna knocks back surrounding enemies by 875 units and stuns them for 0.5 seconds. Janna can channel the ability for for to 3 seconds to restore health per second. The heal scales with AP. Monsoon is the ultimate engage, disengage and reset. It is an AOE knock back and an AOE channeled heal. Its cooldown is relatively low especially with cdr and runes. Flash- Monsoon can work like an AOE Lee Sin ult and force a fight. It can also secure you a solo kill if you push an enemy into an allied tower. Pairing the knock back with a Q and W also keeps them in tower range longer. The heal, when fully channeled, rivals that of a Soraka Wish. This skill requires some smart positioning. Using the knockback to throw someone into a wall can work as a pseudo-stun. Also, while it can save your team, it can also save the opposing team.

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Flash is essential as it is your only true escape. Generally, you should save flash for defensive uses, either for yourself or your carry(s). Example: If your 2% health carry is being targeted by Ace in the Hole, shield yourself and flash save them. Early on, your shield alone likely won’t be enough. Offensively, a flash - Monsoon combo can be very effective as an engage or turnaround.
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Ignite is still quite nice, and gives you early game pressure to secure kills in lane and help you snowball your carry. The meta is weird, but playing to win lane remains very true.

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Heal is great for botlane since it will affect both you and an ally. It works well on Enchanter supports since it will give more healing. It also frees up the carry to take a more protective spell like Barrier, or have them take an offensive spell like Ignite
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Exhaust is a good spell to have at any stage in the game, though you do lose some early game pressure. Using it smartly can be game-changing. Pop it on the main damage dealer to reduce the most damage.

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Runes reforged gives us a lot of interesting ways to play Janna. The runes presented with the classic build is very versatile with primary Sorcery and secondary Resolve. She can also utilitze the Domination tree as secondary, as well as the Inspiration tree as primary or secondary.




These are my personal favorite runes based on my playstyle. I really love using active items, and they're a huge part of my power, so I favor the domination subtree. League is weird with the meta, but I still like this page. (Stats outdated)



Notice: I need to update the domination runes.

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Averages from latest 10 (25-35 min) games space Aerie Damage: Aerie Shield: Manaflow Refund: Celerity AP: Scorch: Wards Corrupted: Hunter Stacks: 743.4 1895.2 1723 19.5 613 16 5/5

Sample Rune Pages


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Trait: Bonus 20 AP or 12 AD (adaptive)
(halved with Resolve secondary)

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space Summon Aery is the best keystone rune for Janna from this tree, if not not in general. Aery adds both extra damage (flat + 10% AP) to early poke and strength (flat + 25% AP) to your shield, making it useful at all stages of the game.

Because Janna can make good use of 7/9 of the Sorcery runes, I will go through them in trios.
Artefact

Manaflow Band is great for keeping your mana topped off during laning phase so you can spam abilities. Every 75 seconds, one of your abilities cost no mana and it restores 8% of missing mana. It pairs wonderfully with Spellthief's Edge and Scorch. It is so useful for spamming your abilities, and I rarely ever run out of mana in lane. I choose this rune 90% of the time since it gives you much more pressure during lane.

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The Ultimate Hat decreases your ultimate’s CD. At full stacks and max CDR, Monsoon (with 3 points) will be up every 54 sec. The rune is best suited for longer games.

Nullifying Orb can be useful against heavy poke mage comps. It is a much more situational pick, and is less useful considering you have a shield.

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Excellence

Celerity has amazing synergy with Janna’s kit. The rune itself gives you 3% bonus movement speed which stacks on top of the movement speed from W’s passive. This gives every AA and W more damage because of Tailwind. Also, 8% of bonus movement speed is converted to adaptive damage. More AP means more poke, more powerful shield and more AD given by the shield. It’s like this rune was designed for us.

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Transcendence is a great situational pick. It gives you 10% CDR automatically at 10 minutes. Also, any extra CDR is converted to damage (1% CDR = 2AP). Janna works well with a lot of CDR heavy items, and this allows you to build items past the 40% CDR limit without guilt. (Example: If you’re already at CDR limit and you build a Frozen Heart, you get 40AP instead of the 20% CDR.) If you foresee yourself building a lot of CDR items, this rune is a good idea.

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Power

It's a hard choice between these three runes for me. Currently, I prefer having the extra poke and pressure from Scorch so we can win lane. However, I think all three runes are viable.

Scorch deals bonus magic damage after you hit a champion with an ability. This can occur every 20 sec. This is wonderful extra poke damage. On top of Summon Aery and Spellthief's Edge’s passive, throwing W-AA on someone lvl 1 can be a nasty zap. (Nastier if you also took Celerity.) It gives you much more pressure during laning phase. I play Janna very aggressively, so this is a great choice.

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Waterwalking gives 25 extra movement speed in river along with extra adaptive damage. It works well for faster rotations, ganks and a bit more oomph in dragon or baron fights. I generally pick against harder matchups where poking is a bit more dangerous.

Gathering Storm gives you more AP as the game goes on. Every 10 min, you get stacks of Gathering Storm, stacking infinitely. Every stack gives 8 AP. This rune gets more and more impactful as the game goes on, so if your team is a late game comp, this may be a good pick. (Alternatively, use Scorch to give your ADC breathing room to scale.)

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My personal ranking for if I have to choose between everything. Celerity just synergizes way too well with Janna’s kit, and I like to spam skills often in lane so Manaflow Band is amazing.

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Janna benefits a lot from this tree as a secondary! It's also my favorite despite how amazing Resolve is. This tree is especially useful if you plan on using active items. Luckily, many of the items Janna usually builds have actives. Also, this tree amazing for vision.
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Zombie Ward means you get to light up your map brighter than NYC. This rune can give your wards so much longevity. Once one of your own wards die, they become a zombie ward that lasts 180 seconds. Zombie wards also have 1 health and are visible to the enemy. Any enemy wards you takedown also spawns a zombie ward (10 sec assist timer), so even more incentive to sweep for vision control.

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Ingenious Hunter lowers active item cooldowns by 10% passively. Unique champion takedowns give Bounty Hunter stacks, each giving +6% cooldown. This means you can get up to 40% cooldown on active items from this rune! A.k.a. You can have 54 sec CD on Locket, 72 sec CD on Redemption and Crucible with just this rune. Soon, they'll be adding new items to replace the (my beloved) Frost Queen's and Talisman actives.

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This secondary tree makes you even more of a shielding and healing powerhouse. Recent average extra healing/shielding from Revitalize in ten 30-35 minute long games: 2709

Trait: +65 health
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Font of Life marks an enemy champion for 4 sec if you impair their movement (i.e. W’s slow). Allied champions heal if they attack a marked enemy. This runes gives Janna some in-lane sustain which she lacked.

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Revitalize makes your shields/heals more powerful by 5% passively. If the shield’s target is below 40% health, the strength is increased by 10%. It synergizes wonderfully with Janna’s E and R. This is easily the most powerful rune in the Resolve tree for Janna, especially since you have both shields and heals.

Other options: Iron Skin and Mirror Shell can also be picked up if you’re worried about survival in the early game. They synergize well with Eye Of The Storm as they give 5% armor/MR respectively when you’re shielded. However, the extra 5% only applies to you.

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Trait: Potions and Elixirs last 20% longer

Janna can use every keystone in this tree. These runes present interesting and unique playstyle possibilities. The trait also synergizes with Refillable Potion.
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Glacial Augment is a situational pick that synergizes wonderfully with Font of Life and Frost Queen's Claim. Every AA will proc Font of Life's healing, and Frost Queen's active can proc Freeze Ray, making a slow zone and potentially slowing down the entire enemy team. It's my current favorite Inspiration keystone.

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Kleptomancy is a very fun rune. It gives incentive to poke as often as possible. After using an ability, your next AA within 10 sec gives you 5 gold or a consumable. You can get extra gold, wards, potions and elixirs. Your W-AA combo is great for procing this.

Unsealed Spellbook allows you to tailor your summoner spells to the stages of the game. For example, you can opt for Ignite over Exhaust for a more aggressive lane, and swap it out if needed later. space space

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Contraption
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Magical Footwear gives you free boots automatically at 10 minutes. They give 10 more MS than regular boots, and upgrades cost 50 less gold. However, it means you can’t get boots before 10 minutes. You can decrease this by 30 seconds each time you score a kill or an assist. However, 10 minutes is sometimes a long time to go without boots.

Perfect Timing gives you a Replica Stopwatch, a.k.a. one use Zhonya's Hourglass. It pretty much got nerfed to the ground so I can't really recommend this right now.

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Tomorrow
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Future's Market means you can stop waiting for that extra 75 gold for a Control Ward. You'll hit power spikes more quickly too. This runes should not be underestimated.

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Biscuit Delivery gives you some free sustain (both health and mana). You get them automatically every three minutes for a total of 4 biscuits. Each biscuit restores 15% missing health and mana over 15 seconds. Once used or sold, they also increase your maximum mana by 40. It is important to remember that it's 15% missing health/mana which is not a lot even when you're super low.

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Beyond
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Cosmic Insight lets us have lovely 5% instant cd on everything (including active items and summoner spells). It also raises the CDR cap to 45%. More CDR is always nice, right?

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Approach Velocity lets you do those clutch saves even more easily. It's also nice for chasing since you'll be able to follow up for W slow with a tornado knock-up more easily. Just be careful since you're a glass bubble. Never over chase and get tunnel vision.

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My personal ranking for if I have to choose between everything.


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Team Composition

Janna works well on any team. She can back up any composition archetype, and you can realistically play Janna all the time, provided she is not banned. You bring an immense amount of utility to your team, both protective and offensive.

If your team has some CC, Janna is a great choice for CC chains. Janna also is amazing with Yasuo since the enemy team now has to dodge even more tornados. If you knock someone up, Yasuo can also follow with Last Breath.

Janna can work well on any team, but that doesn’t mean Janna is always the best choice. Before you pick a champion, you should always analyze what your team is missing.

If your team has no front line If your team has no front line, it might be better for you to pick someone like Braum, Blitzcrank, or Alistar. No front line means your carries might be more easily wiped out, and even with your kit, you can only do so much peel, and you won’t be able to save everyone. What you can do as Janna: Sometimes an all squishy team can work, but usually only if your carries snowball. In that case, you will want to roam and set up plays when possible. As Janna, you have less pick potential than someone like Bard or Thresh, but your roams usually mean failed all-ins from the enemy midlane, and potentially burned summoners or a kill. Following your jungler when they counter jungle can also mean added security and get them further ahead in farm and even a kill.

If your team has no engage If your team has no engage, you might want to choose someone like Rakan or Leona. Janna has great in-lane engage with her Q knockup and W slow which can setup ganks for your jungler. However, later in the game, it will be too dangerous for you to be starting larger team fights. What you can do as Janna: A composition without hard engage will rely heavily on picking off champions, allowing for weighted team fights. This requires good vision management and lots of Control Wards and sweepers. Ideally your team helps you achieve this. Using your Monsoon offensively to push a carry towards your team is also a great pick tool. It’s only really usable in smaller fights though, as in a larger team fight the enemy team can make easily turn around and pop you.

ADC Synergy

Janna works well with any ADC because her shield also provides an AD buff. Shielding a Jhin on his fourth AA makes it even more terrifying. The same applies for Miss Fortune’s second bounce of Double Up. ADCs with reliance on attack speed like Ashe also benefit a lot from the shield. Different ADC style will require you to itemize differently.

I find Tristana and Vayne to both have great synergy with Janna in-lane. Both have weaker early lanes and benefit a lot from Janna’s added protection. Shielding Tristana during her Rapid Fire gives her even more burst potential with Explosive Charge.




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Skill leveling

As always, you level up Janna's ultimate whenever possible at levels 6, 11, and 16.

There are two ways you can level your abilites. You can max W or E first. You want to max W first when you're able to poke. Zephyr (W) is my current favorite ability to max because of a) how much damage it does and b) how much pressure you generate.

You can max E first against a long range mage support who you can't get close enough to touch. Whichever skill you did not max first, max the other (E/W) second. You can also mix and match. I find myself often putting 3-4 points into W and then maxing E before finishing W.

In all cases, Q is maxed last as the AP scaling is not great and the cooldown and CC time remains the same at all ranks. You are using Q mainly for the CC anyway, and not the damage so you only need one point here.

Choosing which skill to get at early levels varies a lot. Any of Janna's three normal abilities might be the most useful to have at level 1 depending on circumstance.

Early Ability Leveling

What abilities you level up from levels 1-4 depend entirely on the circumstances of your game.

At level 1, I never level an ability until I need it. This is because a lot of things can happen from the start of the game to level 2 (i.e. invades, super aggressive lane opponents, a Rocket Grab that landed) and each of those need different abilities.







After level 1, if the enemy jungler is known to cheese gank at level 2, I grab Q to peel. If my lane opponents are super aggressive and we're clearly behind/pushed in, I would most likely take E > Q > E > W, getting 2 points in E early for the extra shielding and saving W for level 4. If I know we're pretty safe against ganks, I don't take Q until level 4 and get two points in W and one in E. The sequence for that is usually W > E > W > Q.

My personal go-to for general games is W > Q > E > W. W to start poking, Q to start zoning/potential disengage, and E to negate any enemy poke.

Once you have one point in each ability, putting points in abilities is more straight forward.

Macro

So what do you actually do as Janna? What are your key jobs throughout the game?

• You peel and you protect. Everything in your kit is good at saving your team.
  
• You buff and you secure. Your shield buffs allies and it is your job to help your carries secure kills (i.e. by knocking them up/back or slowing them) without taking the kills yourself.
  
• You get vision. The first two become much easier if you have proper vision. Vision gives your team more information about the game state. If you have enough vision, you can also deduce where an enemy is by where they are not. (Last sentence especially applies to junglers.) With that vision, since you're a support and not CSing, you can devote more energy to map awareness. Ping on the minimap at the danger location, and (if needed) ping the related laners as well when you see potential ganks.
  
• You deny vision. Just giving your own team vision is not enough, you need to also deny the other team vision. Keep them in the dark and stack the deck in your team's favor.
  
• You destroy the Nexus. Every single thing you do in the game is to set up for destroying that Nexus and winning the game. Every kill, every item bought, every trade is so that you can get the next objective more easily, whether that be a dragon, a tower, Baron, an inhibitor, or the Nexus. So, avoid chasing for kills and getting tunnel visioned when the enemy hands you a free objective.

Have fun doing the above! League of Legends is first and foremost a game. If you're not enjoying yourself, why play?

In Champion Select

The game doesn't start when you load into Summoner's Rift. It starts the moment you get into Champion Select. This is especially applicable now with Runes Reforged. A lot of runes that work on Janna are situational, and should be tailored to match both your team and the enemy team. You want to think ahead to what might happen in game.



If you were playing against your team, what would you do? Where is your team the most weak? What can the opponents capitalize on? Try to remedy that. Sometimes this means adapting your runes. Sometimes, this could even mean choosing another champion.

These are the kind of questions you want to consider. Plan 5 steps ahead of your opponents and get in their head.

Laning Phase

Macro during laning phase: always, always ping when someone is missing. Ping missing on your own lane and if your teammates are not the most aware, send a warning ping to mid as well.

Your goal during this early part of the game is to win lane. That doesn't have to be killing your opposing laners over and over. You could also win by denying farm because that also sets their ADC back.

There are three types of lanes you could be facing: Burst, Poke and Sustain. Janna herself is a poke champion that also provides preemptive sustain (aka shields).

You want to draw as much pressure to yourself as possible (without dying or taking too much damage) so that the ADC can farm. You also want to exert pressure by poking the enemy so that eventually, they are too low health to even farm. At that point, you and your ADC will be able to freeze lane and deny their ADC farm.

Remember that you are very squishy, so poke when their abilities are on cooldown, or when they are going in for a last hit.







Tips and Tricks for Abilities

Warding

Once you complete the support quest, and sometimes before, you want to start getting some deep wards into enemy jungle. The best times to do this is when your lane is pushed and you spot the enemy jungler somewhere else. This gives you a window of opportunity to ward his buff or by his raptors/wolves (depending on which side you're on).

Ideally, you can quickly go ward when you've seen everyone on the enemy team within the last 3 seconds. Otherwise, only deep ward when you have at least one summoner spell up. Also make sure that you have enough mana for a W-Q-E escape combo and you health is not under ~60% (ideally not under ~80%).

Always try to ward at intersections to get maximum benefit from your wards.

Of course, sometimes you don't get to go that deep into enemy jungle. In those cases, a ward by the Scryer Bloom or Blast Plant (if you're blue side), or warding over the dragon pit wall to that Blast Plant (if you're red) is nice.

Grabbing a Control Ward after your first back is a great way of maintaining good vision. Using the control ward to keep botlane safe from ganks allows you to use stealth wards for deep vision. Remember to only do this when it's safe!

Don't fight over your control wards unless you have backup and can see the enemy champion is outnumbered. The wards are there to protect you. Don't die from contesting them!

Roaming

Rule #1 of Roaming: if your ADC dies while you're roaming, it is 100% your fault. Do not roam if it means your ADC might die.










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Item selection and purchase order can make or break a game. Although Janna sticks to a smaller item pool than that of other champions, there is still lots of decision making involved. It is especially important to anticipate what your team will need later on. Since you're a support, you'll need to do more with less. It will be too late to start building an item once you actually need it.

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Starting Items

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Support items Janna can work well with both Spellthief's Edge and Ancient Coin. Spellthief’s is great for more damage during pokes while Coin helps you maintain a healthy level of mana. Spellthief works well with some alternative way of mana sustain such as Manaflow Band or Biscuit Delivery. Taking Coin frees up those runes and allows you to choose more aggressive alternatives like The Ultimate Hat. For more dangerous lanes where poking is risky, Coin might be a better idea as it provides a steady gold income.

Sustain Refillable Potion is my go-to sustain item for support now that you no longer buy biscuits. They provide a little less sustain while being much more gold efficient. It also synergizes well with the Inspiration tree passive if you take that. Alternatively, you can go for 3 pots if you need that much sustain early on. This is good for poke heavy matchups like Caitlyn and Sona.

Warding Stealth Ward is the classic start. It gives you stealth wards which are essential. Control Ward can be hugely useful against some team comps. It means you will be forced to only take 1 pot, so there is a significant decrease in sustain. This is especially useful for junglers that favor level 2 or 3 ganks. Placing it in the pixie bush in bot river or in the top tip of the river bush could save your lane or your midlaner. I also started with a control ward without prejudice for ranked games during my climb from Silver I to Gold V. The added vision was invaluable and sometimes survived through the laning phasing, giving my team information on roams and ganks.

First Back Choices

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The first back buy depends very heavily on the state of the game, how well you’re doing, and the matchup you’re against. The early itemization cheat sheet above gives some rough guidelines.

With the vision changes, you want to get the support upgrade ASAP and finish the quest to get vision. It only gives one ward when the quest completes, so you'll have to back to refill it to 3 wards. Swap to a Sweeping Lens at that point.

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Upgrading the support item to Nomad's Medallion or Frostfang is essential, since it now your main vision tool. Get this ASAP, complete the quest and light up that map. Buy when you: Have enough gold

I always get at least 1 Control Ward on my first back, if not 2 or 3. Yes, it comes at the cost of not getting another item. Having more control wards ready also means you can worry less about contesting control wards the enemy team kills since you have another one ready. Buy when you: Are playing League of Legends

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This is technically second back, since you don't want to upgrade this until the support quest is complete. Sweeping Lens is essential for a support. Denying vision with sweeper lets you set up ganks. Swap when you: Have the support quest complete

Ruby Crystal makes Janna a little less squishy and get you started on your Remnant. Buy when you: Need some extra survivabilty

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Boots gives Janna more mobility which is boosts her kit's power as well. It also lets you dodge skillshots more easily and get back to lane/roam faster. Buy when you: See opportunity to roam or Have 300 gold left after getting more pressing items

Forbidden Idol can be rushed if you want to rush one of it’s upgrades. The extra 8% shield and 10% CDR are both great against poke heavy lanes as well. Buy when you: Want to rush one of its upgrades or Need to shield your ADC or yourself often

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Faerie Charm gives you more mana regen which is every much appreciated given how mana hungry Janna is in lane if you spam her abilities. This item is a great stocking stuffer which builds into many items that Janna can use. Buy when you: Are having mana problems or Already have some control wards and have enough gold left over

Dark Seal is also a viable option for more healing from your Refillable Potion or Health Potions. It's very gold efficient for the AP, mana and extra sustain it provides. As Janna, you shouldn’t be dying very much at all if you position smartly. Buy when you: Are confident about your positioning or Want a bit more sustain and power in lane

Core Items

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Janna can use a lot of items. Her build is extremely flexible depending on the situation. In reality, the upgraded support item (with its wards) and Redemption are Janna’s only true cores item outside of upgrading to Oracle Lens. Always upgrade it as soon as you hit level 9. Redemption, a.k.a far-away-heal and occasional snipe, is a huge power spike. It's great for resetting a fight and is usable even when you're dead (range calculated from your death position). It deals 10% max health true damage so it can also snipe kill someone if timed right. The heal from the active is amplified by 3 times as much the shield/heal amplifiers. With usual Janna builds, that’s going to be a lot of heal. Luckily, you don't itemize too differently when you're behind, since you're always building utility on Janna. Getting some defensive items will help, but you're naturally squishy and should prioritize utility over armor/MR.

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Ardent Censer synergizes very well Janna as it gives even more buffs to her shield and her shield's strength. Buy when you: Are with AS based hyper carries Honestly this item is great in general for Janna, you just might not always have space to build it Boots Options x Almost every pair of boots is usable by Janna. Mobility Boots is a classic. It gives the most out of combat mobility and makes rotations, ganking, getting to your team a lot faster. Unfortunately, the extra MS is removed as soon as you take damage, or deal damage. Since you'll be using Q and W to peel and CC pretty often, you lose the extra MS and the resulting AP bonuses. However, the extra rotation/roaming power makes these my go-to over Boots of Swiftness. Boots of Swiftness gives the most flat movement speed. It also reduces slow effects on you which is nice if you ever get caught out. These boots synergize the best with Celerity and Janna's passive, since it's the most constant bonus MS. Ionian Boots of Lucidity is a good choice if you want that 10% CDR fast. It also reduces summoner spell cooldowns by 10%. Even if you’re at CDR cap, if you have Transcendence the 10% CDR becomes 20 AP. Sometimes I get these early for the movement speed and CDR before swapping them for Boots of Swiftness or Mobility Boots later when I hit CDR cap. Ninja Tabi is good if you’re against a very AD and AA heavy team since it gives 30 armor and reduced AA damage by 10%. (Update patch 8.7: these got nerfed) Mercury's Treads is a good pair of defensive boots. It gives you more survivability with a 30% reduction on a lot of CC and 25 MR. It could mean the difference between you giving another kill to the fed Katarina, and you leading your carry to safety with a sliver of health. I generally don't get these often though. Items to Complete the Build x As noted earlier, Janna can work with a lot of items. I’ll give a short analysis of the most common ones. x x Support Upgrades and Warding Always have Control Wards, but be mindful of your item power spikes. With Patch 8.2, we're limited to just the Remnants in terms of support upgrades. You don't need to upgrade to Remnants very early, since it just gives you a bit more stats. Usually using the gold for other items is more helpful. I like to sit on Frostfang until I finish Ardent/Redemption. Remnant of the Watchers is your Frostfang upgrades. It holds up to 4 charges of stealth ward, replenishing when you return to base. It retains Frostfang’s passives. Buy when you: Aren't rushing another item Want some cheap AP and health Remnant of the Ascended is Nomad's Medallion upgrade. It holds up to 4 charges of stealth ward, replenishing when you return to base. It retains Nomad's Medallion’s passives. Buy when you: Aren't rushing another item Want some cheap health and % health regen space Defensive Utility Mikael's Blessing works as a QSS for your allies. It’s active allows you to select an ally and remove all CC from them, also giving them 2 sec of slow immunity. Successfully removing CC also gives the allied champion a 40% movement boost. This is great for getting someone out of a sticky situation. Buy when you: Are against a CC catch comp Locket of the Iron Solari is a defensive utility item with an active that scales with your bonus health. The active gives a shield to yourself and all nearby allied champions for 2 seconds. It also gives a generous amount of base stats: 30 armor and 60 MR. Buy when you: Are against AOE burst Want more defenses space space Frozen Heart is a situational defensive utility item that’s nice against AS AD champions. It's not super expensive, but there are better items on Janna, so this is usually a late game item. The range on the AS slow might not reach ADCs in the backline, so it works better against AD melees. Buy when you: Are against AD melee champions Are against an AD heavy team Zeke's Convergence allows you to assign an allied champion as your ally. When you use ultimate near your ally, this makes your ultimate slightly offensive by providing AOE slow and gives your ally more damage against everyone affected by the slow. The slow can also work as peel, and the stats are very gold efficient. Buy when you: Use ult often Want a defensive offensive item space space Zz'Rot Portal gives you some extra pressure. The active creates a Void Gate which creates voidspawn. Every 1st and 4th voidspawn deal more damage scaling with your extra health. It is also a nice defensive item, giving 55 armor and 55 MR, but it's nice to buy it, use the active, and sell it. Buy when you: Need more lane pressure Are against a balanced AP/AD team AP/Offensive Utility Elixir of Sorcery: pop out one of these for even more AP. Buy when you: Are full build (5 or 6 items) Mejai's Soulstealer is great if your team is really doing well. The more stacks you have, the more AP you get. Past 15 stacks, you also get 10% bonus MS which is great with your kit. Position smartly and you're unlikely to die. Buy when you: Are ahead Are confident about not dying often space space Athene's Unholy Grail is great if you poke frequently and your ADC doesn't rely as much on AS. 25% of damage you deal heals an ally when you shield them. The Dissonance passive gives you more AP with more mana regen. Buy when you: Don't plan on getting Mikael's Blessing (passives Harmony and Dissonance cancel out) Are poking a lot and ahead Banshee's Veil is another high AP and high expense item. It provides a spell shield that absorbs the first ability from an enemy every 40 seconds. This can be very useful against pick compositions if you’re not as certain about your ability to dodge. Buy when you: Dominating but scared of CC and AP burst Dying = losing space space Luden's Tempest is a high AP, but also very expensive, item. You should only buy this if you are so rich, you have nothing else to get. (Always prioritize utility over power!) It also gives some bonus MS with the AP, so that synergizes with your kit. The AP is going to help your shield and ultimate. Buy when you: Are absolutely dominating Sample Builds x In nearly all games, and all stages of a game, you should have 3 Control Wards on you at all times. Yes, this does mean your ‘full build’ is technically only 5 items, but those wards can be crucial. If you're choosing between having another component of a complete item or having that slot for control wards, choose control wards. That said, you might eventually want a full 6 item build. Here are some examples. Full 6 item builds are usually for those long games. space space space xxx xxx xxx xxx xxx xxx A very classic build on Janna. It gives her the full 40% CDR and provides a lot of utility. With 3 active items, Redemption, Zeke's and Locket adds more team fight utility. Ardent gives Janna a nice power boost. space space xxx xxx xxx xxx xxx xxx A defensive build with the Ancient Coin start into Remnant of the Ascended. Paired with Transcendence, you have a total of 60% CDR, with the extra 20% becoming adaptive AD or AP. Frozen Heart is great for melee AD champions (usually you're too far away to affect the enemy ADC), and Locket gives team fight burst survivability. Plus, Crucible negates enemy pick potential. space space xxx xxx xxx xxx xxx xxx This is a very ‘snowball’ build, especially with Mejai’s. It’s great for games where you are confident you won’t die often and you have someone on your team who is snowballing. Eye allows you to take an extra item, and here we have Zz'rot for some extra pressure. (i.e. When seiging top lane, you can plop it down after pushing bot lane. It will force the enemy to leave and clear the portal/minions, giving you a weighted fight which your team will likely win. This forces the enemy to choose between saving their turret or grouping.)

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And that concludes my guide on Janna! Thanks for sticking around 'til the end. I hope you found this information helpful. If you did, please leave an upvote! Any comments, suggestions or criticism is much appreciated. Good luck on the Rift, and have fun with Janna!

A huge thank you to Luxeøn who gave me lots of tips and suggestions like having secondary Domination runes!

This is Mozume, signing out.



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Git Log

This lists all major edits to the guide.

2/8/2017 Patch 8.3 Updates

• Added W max notes in ability leveling.
• Shifted around Inspiration runes. (Perfect Timing and Boots now in the same trio)
• Changed recommended runes to Inspiration secondary tree instead of Resolve.
• Changed ordering of preferred runes for the Inspiration secondary

TODO:

• Matchup notes for laning opponents (supports for now)