This guide is still under construction as long as this message is here.

Welcome, summoners, to my followup guide to my "Own with Leona in 5 Minutes" video guide. While the video gives a quick overview knowledge needed to play the champion, this guide is made for those who want a closer look at the reasoning for the decisions made in my video. Also, as the champion, items, or meta change, this guide will be updated whereas the video will most likely remain the same due to the simplicity of changing this guide compared to releasing a new video.

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Leona is a Support Leona has a lot of hard crowd control allowing her to secure kills for her carry Leona can be an effective hero without many items due to her skill set Zenith Blade is a huge threat that can zone the enemy carry out of farming range

Leona is a Tank Eclipse gives a massive defensive buff which makes Leona a great damage soak Leona can peal with Shield of Daybreak and stick to targets with Zenith Blade Solar Flare is a great initiation tool

Leona does not Provide a source of damage lategame Fit into any other role then support Bring any sustain for her or the carry during the laning phase

Runes

The runes are fairly straight forward. They give you good early tankiness which comes in handy if you decide to dive at an early level. It will also keep you more protected against poke lanes because they can be your biggest weakness. The only thing could be changed would be the Quints if you don't like gold runes, in that case movement speed or health qunits would probably be the most recommended.

Masteries

In reality, you can take any combination of Defense and Utility masteries that you want. I have seen a lot of combinations work on her but these are just the ones that I like best. Experiment and see what works best with your play style.

Summoner Spells

Flash is amazing with leona as it can get you in range for devastating stunlocking. Besides that, Exhaust is the most common pick up and a very strong one at that, but Heal can also be a good choice.

This is your teammate's damage steroid - Your passive will apply a debuff to anything that is damaged by your abilities. It can be consumed by allies (not yourself) to deal magic damage to the enemy.

• Your passive makes your allies do more damage, make sure you factor this in when you are deciding whether or not to engage.
• Applying the passive to a group of creeps can help your carry last hit (make sure you ask them first because -->) and can also help push lanes.

This is your low cool down stun - As you put skill points into the ability the damage increases, but more importantly the cool down decreases. Maxing this ability second is a good option because you will be able to peel harder for your carry and stun people more often in team fights.

• Shield of Daybreak is an auto attack reset. While this isn't very important as it would be for a champion like Jax, utilizing it correctly can give you more damage in the laning phase.
• A 1.25 second stun is amazing for a level one skill. Make sure you pick it up first and you will be very dangerous in level 1 team fights.
• In most cases you are going to want to activate your stun before using Zenith Blade so you get the garenteed stun.
• Pair this spell with good CDR and you can peal extremely hard for your carry in team fights because the cool down will be around 4 seconds with 40% CDR.

This is your defensive steriod - Putting skill points into Eclipse increased the damage and resistances that you gain from having the shield up. You will want to max this first because it is a huge survivability buff that scales well with levels which offers you safer diving opportunities in lane and the ability to preform effectively as a tank in team fights even without many items.

• Make sure you hit something with the AoE because it refreshes the shield, which in most situations is very important.
• With this up, Leona is extremely tanky even without allot of items. It is what makes her a viable tank even when playing as a 0 cs support.
• Even with the refresh, the defensive bonuses only last for 6 seconds. Don't activate it too early or you might find yourself without it at a critical point during a team fight.

This is your gap closer - Cooldown reduction and damage increase are what you get when puting skill points into this. You can opt to max this skill second due to the cooldown reduction allowing you to move around fights faster, and apply Sunlight to more opponents.

• When a champion is hit with Zenith Blade they will be immobilized while you dash to them. This acts kind of like a mini stun.
• You will dash to the last opponent hit, so be careful with how you aim this spell because you can end up dashing to an opponent farther away then you originally intended.
• Zenith Blade has 700 range, this means Shield of Daybreak has 700 effective range as long as you can land the skillshot.
• Almost no ranged carries can boast a range greater than 700 units, this means if you get ahead in your lane you can flaunt this to zone out the carry from farming.

This is your team fight initiation - You are going to want to put skill points into this because, well, it is your ultimate, but also because the decrease in cool down is huge.

• The ult has a small stun radius and a medium slow radius, getting a good feel for exactly how big they are and aiming the spell becomes a lot easier.
• Speaking of aiming, there is a decently long cast time and the enemy can see the AoE before it hits, so make sure that you lead your target.
• You can use this to initiate from a good distance while still sticking close to your carry should they require peeling.

Starting Items

sight ward
The collection of starting items above give you nice sustain for your mana and health in case you take some poke. The wards are also obviously good in case you take some poke in lane because Leona needs to stay at high health in order to play aggressively.

Early Buys

philosopher's stonekage's lucky pick sight ward
Both philosopher's stone and kage's lucky pick give gold generation and have very cost efficient build options into great utility item. All of this put together makes them great options for support champions. Also try to get a sightstone built as soon as possible to save money on sight wards and because it gives you a nice amount of hp. Until you get sightstone, buy sight wards as needed and don't forget to grab vision wards to counter ward the river, allowing your jungler to deliver sick ganks. I mean, with a Leona in the lane, how could ganks fail?

Boots

These boots are the two, most common choices on Leona due to her role as a tank. They are situational, so if you need the tenacity pick up Mercury's Treads and if you need the survivability against the enemy adc, pick up Ninja Tabi.


Let's get a little hypothetical for a moment. Say, you are 6/0 in your lane right now. Say, the other carry has half the cs your carry has. Say, the enemy carry is to afraid to get close enough to farm because doing so would get them killed. What I am trying to describe here is the ideal roflstomp. At that point, standing in lane doesn't offer a whole lot except to leech exp from your carry, so instead you could pick up boots of mobility and go roam. Leona is an extremely powerful roamer thanks to her cc heavy kit and boots of mobility give the speed to roam the map snowballing other lanes with pro ganks. However, communicate with your carry first. Make sure they feel confident that they can solo the lane and still maintain their lead. The worst thing that could happen is you leave the lane, then opposing lane is able to take advantage of this and recover with free farm.


If you don't think you are going to hit the 40% CDR cap with other itemization, then CDR boots good to get your low cool downs even lower. Just make sure you are not wasting any stats if you decide to purchase these boots.

Support Items

This item gives a good amount of cheap stats and there should always be one on a team. A lot of junglers like to pick this item up as well so communicate with your jungler to see if they want to grab it. The aura is very good for the squishies on your team because they won't have a lot of resistances.


Is there such a thing as too much initiation? No, no there is not. The speed boost this item gives you and your team is great for chasing, retreating, and starting fights. Make damn sure your team has one.


Leona has no slow built into her kit. When her stuns are on cool down, she can feel a little useless. However, this baby here can rectify that and give even more pealing options to keep those mean bruisers and assassins away from your carry. Also you can throw it onto someone else if they would make better use of it.


Great stats and nice team wide shield, what's not to love? This item works great on Leona no doubt, however a lot of junglers are picking it up now so check with your jungler before you buy it.

zeke's herald
If you have a couple AD champions on you team, then this gives them a lot more strength, especially in the early game. I recommend picking this up early if you pick it up at all because the flat damage bonus will be much better in the early game then in the late game.

sight ward
Leona is a support who can be quite item independent thanks to her great kit, especially Eclipse so if your other teammates are filling up their item slots to the point where they can't help with warding, then you will need to save an item slot for more wards because late game, Ruby Sightstone simply won't be enough. Also, Leona is insanely tanky, so you are a prime candidate for picking up an oracle's to help with the dewarding.

Tank Items

Tank Items are what you get late game on Leona as they will be expensive and you will probably have no farm to speak of. However, the right items can make you damn near unkillable in fights, so it might be wise to just get a couple cheap support items then save up for a big tank item.


Eclipse gives Leona a massive resistance steroid, so the most efficient way to increase your effective HP is by picking up health items. The items above, especially Warmog's Armor are the best investments you can make when it comes to pure survivability. They won't give you any utility, but the enemy team sure won't kill you in team fights without dedicating way too many resources to the task.


Are you against a lot of AD? If so the situation might call for more armor then eclipse gives you, especially with all the armor pen these days. Randuin's Omen gets the edge here for not only the fact that it gives you health, but also the great active that helps you peal for your carry. But if you need the CDR badly or want more mana, Frozen Heart is a good pickup.


This item is great versus magic heavy teams because of the MR you get. The passive is also very good because you will always be in the middle of a teamfight and applying the passive to the target that matter most.

This section will cover champions that I believe are deserving of special mention, not all possibilities will be mentioned


These AD carries all have great early game power. With your cc and their damage, good play will result in kills or at the very least zoning out your opponents. Going aggressive early is key with these champions as they have the skill set to get far ahead of other carries quickly.


You have cc. Olaf doesn't care. Your carry dies. That is what Olaf does and there is nothing you can do about it. Once Olaf ults, there is not hing you can do for your carry so you might as well focus you cc on something else.

Experimenting with new builds and play styles is the best way to spice up the game and who knows, you might find out something amazing. Let me preface this by saying, this should only be done with a premade!. It can be very difficult to communicate with random players to make non-meta comps work effectively and is usually not worth the effort. Currently, I have tried roaming as Leona, starting Boots and some potions. You will want to have a bot laner who can effectively solo a duolane without too much trouble. Also, a jungler who can aggressively gank is highly recorded to help you pressure lanes.

From here, gank with your jungler, help your jungler farm both your jungle and the enemies if you feel confident about it, and if you get kills, then you have the option to push down towers and give your team a huge gold lead. The items listed under the same title as above are great options to make sure that towers won't inhibit your ganking prowess.

Now don't think I am suggesting people go roaming in ranked or solo que, in fact I strongly advocate against it. I am just giving you a fun, new way to play the hero. After all, who knows, you just might learn something.