Orianna is an amazing utility champion. I've been playing her in ranked recently and I've noticed players saying "nooooo not orianna" and etc. Most people who have played orianna and failed are those who just can't get used to her required style of play. In such cases above i usually ended up carrying and supporting the team to victory at the same time and this guide will help those interested in doing the same, the know-how to achieve it!

This guide will prepare you to play Orianna in ranked game play effectively and efficiently. Including tips and tricks i have effectively reproduced several times to ensure they weren't just flukes!

Enjoy!!

If you're the type of player that feels like right click to win is just too boring and too limited than Orianna could be the champion for you.

Orianna requires quite a bit of micro and macro management skills. To become effective with Orianna, learning how to control the pace of a 5v5 team fight is just as important as being able to 1v1 or kite enemy champions!

She is a really high skill cap champion. If you're new to this game than she probably isn't a champion you want to start with. However, if you're looking for a champion that can effectively control the flow of battle with all of her abilities and not just output damage, than learning Orianna could help your elo climb or Tourny team's flexibility in a fight immensely!

More of why she has such high potential in a game will be revealed the more you read this guide!

These are the two i feel complement Orianna's play-style the most. The Flash is a necessity because we all make mistakes and we can't see every gank coming even with the best positioning. Especially during a team fight when unexpected things happen flash is a sure fire way to escape a situation and turn around a team fight!

I feel that ghost just makes Orianna's map presence that much greater. Especially once you start traveling in groups Orianna's dissonance and ghost stacks so that if need be she can get to a surprise fight super quick or run away from even the fastest champs such as and !

Other Usefull spells and Useless spells:

Now if you happen to be a more Carry orientated person, or if your team happens to lack Ignite, than you can certainly use ignite. Like i said above ghost is not a necessity but a luxury for Orianna.

Certainly its useful in anyteam, and if you find yourself in need of a CV to help your team it's not a bad choice.

Now i feel like this is an unnecessary spell for Orianna, first of all if you're trying to say, hey! i need to get back to my lane faster so i can farm! Well there is an error in that logic. If you're playing orianna the correct way you should be able to stay in a lane much longer than most champions or just as long. So unless you find yourself the victim of a roaming team composition that leaves you at 30% and no hp pots at level 4 you really shouldn't have to go back faster than your opponent. And even then if you have to back than you can just use Dissonance to get back to your lane pretty quickly as well. (not to mention using dissonance to speed up your Minion wave while traveling is amazing too)

Now if you're new to playing Orianna and don't have a feel for her MP management than using clarity is fine. However once you become accustomed to Orianna you should really get rid of Clarity, it just becomes a needless crutch that you depend on early game and becomes obsolete late game if you're using my guide to build her.

Be free to use cleanse if you find yourself going up against a CC heavy team, that you believe can lock you down even with flash and banshees!


SPELLS TO NEVER USE~~~~!

These are spells that shouldn't be used with Orianna mainly because she isn't in a role where these spells can benefit her or the team if she carries them. If you are the type of player that feels that you need heal, than you aren't at the stage yet to effectively play orianna especially since this guide is designed to get you prepared to use Orianna in ranked game play effectively!

Now Orianna is a unique champion in the fact that she can create 2 zones of control all by herself starting from level 1. In the following chapter I'll show some pictures that will explain to you how you can create amazing lane pressure all by yourself.
As you can see Orianna's zone by itself is immense, this first picture shows how far she can throw her ball initially.
Now here you can see that her ball creates an additional zone separate from her own zone. This following picture will show you how you can use this additional zone to create some amazing situations.
As i stated above here is such a situation, if your team is fighting baron you can place your ball in the bush as a mobile ward and effectively deal damage to your opponents and force them to back off while your team is busy pew pewing baron.
Her ultimate is a bit tricky to get used to, the basics is like this.

1. The set distance that a player will travel within your shockwave's field is around 350, meaning if you're trying to fling someone away from you it would be better to do it when he/she is closer to the ball rather than, if they were just at the edge of the ball. The closer they are the center of the field the further they get thrown the opposite way of their initial position! This takes some skill to getting used to but learning how to manage the flipping will greatly increase your game play with Orianna!

2. This can be used as an escape mechanic or as a presence amplifier. Once you hit 6 the enemy will have to pay even more attention to the zone your ball creates to make sure he/she doesn't get pulled back at low hp and get W'd and basic'd to death.

Now orianna's role changes from early-mid-late game. Early game she is a great harasser, she is the only champion so far that can effectively create 2 zones of control starting at level 1.

~SOLO LANE~

Early game role:
If you happen to be solo laning you're probably going to dominate the lane if you play correctly and aggressively. Orianna's basic attack is amazing for harassment, you want to focus on hitting the opponent 3 times while using your Attack ball command to deal extra damage, then back off.

Once you hit level two, your harass game just hit a whole new level. Not only does your ball now do an AoE slow/speed up move to enemies/yourself+teammates respectively. But it also does a hefty amount of damage AND if you're playing like you should will allow you to keep doing basic damage without moving too far up the lane.

Orianna is amazing at escaping ganks, because as soon as she hits level 3, she can now recall the ball from any position as soon as someone tries to gank and speed herself up and slow the enemy down at the same time if you choose not to use Flash or Ghost.

~Duo Lane~
Much like any other support such as Janna/Sona/Soraka, your job is to make your lane partner's time in the lane as easy as can be. And this is what orianna seems to be made to do.

Now the prime lane partner for orianna would be an aggressive melee champion such as garen/renekton/xin or a heavy damage tank such as Cho/Morde/Alistar. The reason for this is that she can create 2 zones of control and maintain bush control while harassing all at the same time. That isn't is either, she can easily create perfect kill opportunities by giving a sudden speed boost to her lane partner or slowing someone down in a bad spot.

Mid Game Role:
By mid game you should have Catalyst + Ionian boots + Tear. With these items you can do pretty much whatever you want and keep doing it. At this point you can spam your skills at will and incite massive irritation on your enemy. Now by this point your team should be actively ganking/roaming and this is where orianna shines.

Orianna can set up the perfect gank or help the roamer immensely. With controlled harassment you can set up your opponent to sit in a lane at 50% fairly easily, now as soon as your teammate wants to engage you can speed him up by simply putting your ball in defense mode on him speeding him up, then sending your ball at the enemy and as soon as they try to move, assuming they don't use flash you can pull them right back in with your ult and slow them down while speeding up your teammate yet again.

Late Game Role:
Now i'm sure people think orianna is just a support champ. This is completely false, she does as much damage as any other AP champ with the right items, however the big difference is that she can do this while supporting her team at the same time. Orianna's pull if used in the correct way can make or break a game, her W skill pretty much ensures a kill late game if used to initiate a fight on an enemy or speed up your team's initiator.

How well you do late game depends on how good you are at micro managing your ball and its position. Her shield with the full item build i have posted absorbs 500+ damage and has an extremely short cool down.

Command: Attack
Her first skill and her first of many ways to harass and and deal damage to players/minions. Very basic skill you shoot it in any direction you wish within it's attack range.

Command: Dissonance
Will place an AoE field around your ball that initially deals damage to any foes and for a few seconds after-wards will place a field that slows your enemy or speeds up your allies.

THIS SKILL IS AMAZING~~~!!!
Not only can you speed yourself up, but you can speed up your MINIONS! Now ever since Denyplank was made obsolete this is the first champion that could effectively control your own minions.

Now you might be thinking how does speeding up your own minions do anything productive? Well for one you can create counter push opportunities early game by speeding up your entire lane from the get go to ensure your opponent gets less Creep kills by forcing your minion wave into their turrets faster than normal.

This skill can also be used to speed up your entire team so that they can travel in a group from 1 place to another extremely fast.

Command: Protect
Creates a shield on yourself or other allies and enables you to use your Dissonance skill on whomever the ball is on. This is an amazing support skill and an amazing offense skill as well.

With your Attack and Protect spell you can create a yo yo situation against an enemy or a group of enemies, this creates an amazing poke combination.

Command: Shockwave
This skill was explained in the chapter above.

Orianna is a master kiter, sure she doesn't have a snare/stun however she has an immense slow that can be also used to increase her movement speed.

Let's say you were being chased by a tryndamere, assume he uses his W to slow you down. Well you can easily send your ball to attack him and use dissonance to slow him down, if he uses his E skill to jump to you, well you can use your protect skill to shield yourself and then dissonance yourself to speed yourself up and create a field where if he passes he gets slowed. By chaining your attack and protect skills you're effectively dealing damage to him without him being able to hit you once. When he's low enough and you think you can force him to endless rage and run simply Attack him Ult him then use dissonance and basic him to death!

Her poking game is simply getting your ball into the right position using dissonance and forcing your enemy to eventually end up in a bad position and either waiting for your team to initiate or to initiate by yourself using your ult to pull one closer to your team.

Starting Items:

These starting items are a must IMO for orianna, with the way i have my rune page set up i get base Magic Pen, AP, and Mp5 so there is absolutely NO NEED for a doran's ring. The extra mana from the crystal and health from pots are better choices over the 10 ap and 5 mp5 from Dorans.

Early Game Goals:

Catalyst the Protector-> Now orianna's spells have pretty strong base damage, building a catalyst early game is amazing for orianna's mid game considering it'll allow you to stay in your lane and continue harassment for an extended period of time due to the mana+hp every level.

-> Now i really like the CD boots for Orianna over Sorc boots primarily because i feel like her being able to cast her shield or slow/speed up more often could win a fight for her. Since most of Orianna's abilities are skill shots, and they already have a short CDR, having that extra bit greatly increases her potential in a team fight. (also immensely helps with her kiting ability which is dependent on her being able to keep people at a set range.)

-> Tears is an amazing item for Orianna. She spams her moves so often you'll be building up that mana pool in no time, by the time you get your archangels after your Rod of ages you should be well over 2k mana, which in turn becomes AP.

Now you can build the tear or catalyst in any order you want, but i think acquiring the catalyst first gives more of a benefit especially considering you won't miss too many spell casts in-between your boots and tears.

You may ask, why wouldn't you rush a Needlessly large rod first? Well the answer is simple, while orianna does do good damage she also has the responsibility of supporting her team, and having extra health + mana will increase her effectiveness in a early game ~ mid game situation much more than doing some more damage. Remember Orianna can make someone on her team extremely powerful especially an initiator with her shield and the speed up for her whole team. The pull is amazing and you can manage some creative pulls in all situations.

So Tl;DR version, being able to spam her skills more often is in the end more damage and more utility in a team fight situation.


Mid Game Goals: And core items

-> Is an extremely powerful item on Orianna, it amplifies everything catalyst does early game but with extra AP/MP/HP over a 20 min period. Acquiring RoA around 18:00~20:00 is the ideal time period to purchase the RoA.

-> The reason for this item to be a core item on orianna is pretty self explanatory. It provides more mp + AP and all that mana you have been building up from Tears now becomes AP at a set ratio!

-> Now getting a NLR asap after your RoA and Arch is a must, sure Orianna is a support type of champion, but her support relies HEAVILY on her AP. Her shield scales pretty well with AP considering its already short base CD which will be even lower due to runes and CDR boots. Not to mention getting the BIG ap boost from the NLR will also increase her Basic attack which adds 20% of her ap onto her basic hits. (almost like madreds!)

All 3 of those Items are a MUST for orianna, it doesn't matter how far along the game you are and how badly you're doing, Orianna is like ryze itemization is 40% of her game. The other 60% comes from your skill as a player (which includes positioning/timing/etc.). I can assure you if you don't have these items you won't be even half as effective as you should be in a team fight.

Late game goals: and other possibilities.

-> Self explanatory item gives her MR and more hp+mp. This also gives you a lee-way of making human mistakes while controlling a robot girl! If you happen to be a bad position banshees will save your life, especially since surviving and doing damage is the same thing with orianna. Let me repeat this again Being able to survive in a team fight is what gives orianna that big edge, she isn't like karthus or Annie that contribute to a teamfight in the first 4 seconds of it or even after he/she is dead. Orianna NEEDS to be able to stay alive so that she can control the pace of a chase or retreat with her Dissonance and Protect abilities!

-> Everything i said about thetransfers over to this item, the AP boost will give your Protect shield an immense boost and will also increase the Burst damage you do when you initiate or help someone initiate.

->Now i usually get rylais at the end because at this point, if you haven't already won it means the teams are even. At that point, rylais can win the game for your team. Now not only can you continually slow your opponents but it will also allow you to reset a fight after say baiting a zilean/ tryndamere/poppy ult. Sure poppy might be able to keep pushing your team but you can hold the 4 opponents off by yourself between your Attack and Protect yo-yo combination, and your Dissonance spell. This will also allow you to turn around and initiate on an out of position enemy team and create a win opportunity!

Other Possible Items!

-> If the opponent team is right click AD heavy than this is the perfect item, it might not create that slow that rylai's can give however it will give that passive Attack speed reduction that can be just as good. I would recommend this item if you're playing against a of combination of opponents such as
Now REMEMBER! When i say a combination of these champions, if there happens to be only 1 of the said champions above than you should really learn to master Kiting with orianna without relying on armor items. Especially since kiting is a major strong point of this particular champion!

-> If you find yourself becoming a focus target and the opposing team happens to have anti-carries that can get through your team and sit on you than this item can make or break a fight for your team. Remember if you're relying on GA than that means you should only engage on major fights whenever the effect is up! Tell your team this if it's not a premade group! Communication wins games!

-> If you have another AP carry that seems to be doing good but could use that extra push of AP and some spell vamp for survivability than this is the item for you!

-> If you find yourself in a position of power that controls most of the initial and sustained damage on your team than this is a must. Timing at correct moments while your Dissonance and Protect is down can save your life and win you the fight! (EX: Annie stun)

I'm sure other items work on her as well however i haven't really had situations where i used them, an example would be obtaining the evil tome. IF you decide to purchase your Sorc boots rather than the CDR boots this can give you the CDR and AP you might want to get your skills to the lowest possible CD!

If you have any suggestions for items that you have personally had experience using comment below! I'll try them out myself and give you some feedback on how it went!

Pros:

-Amazing early/mid game harass
-Great damage with simple items such as catalyst and tears.
-Amazing survivability
-Amazing nuke potential and can sustain damage output as well if played correctly.
-Creates additional zones in lanes that opponents need to keep aware of.
-Mobile ward to create bush control in top and bottom lanes.

Cons:

-Not beginner friendly. All of her skills are pretty much skill shots, even her protect requires positioning and quick thinking to use.
-Requires good of positioning to maintain status-quo in a lane against anti-carries.
-Again requires good positioning in team fights to make sure she isn't focused from the get go.

1. If you time your ultimate correctly you can pull back champions using escape skills at that exact moment! Examples below and timings below.

- You need to start your ult the INSTANT you see that corki start pooping out fire, or base it on instinct and use it just as you send your ball over to him, because most likely he'll react to the surprise attack by either flashing or using his Valkyrie to escape.

- Okay now the times i manage to do this is only when i actually have vision of him and expect him to use the move, You actually have a little rope on timing this move, you can catch him mid way through his ult with the correct timing, now sometimes this causes your team to still get knocked up and sometimes it doesn't however i can ensure you it'll create some anger problems on the malphite!

- If you see him crowstorming you can use your ult to interrupt it and pull him closer or further away from your team.

- Shockwave interrupts this particular move and will irritate a malzahar immensely! Also works on warwick and Urgot's and

- Tricky but manageable I've even pulled back a kassadin that had already gone over the edge of a thin wall, Its fun to do and guarantee's a kill on an escaping kassadin without flash!

- Ever had a over aggressive jax try to escape a fight by jumping to a team mate?! well not anymore! pull his *** right back to where he started! Also works with Katarina's Shunpo size-32 and akali's

Tips!

Using your ult in situations to mess up an opponents ultimate is eventually what you'll be doing with shockwave!

Example you see an annie on the opposing team getting ready to stun with tibbers, if you pull her away from the fight her placement of tibbers will be ruined and it'll be a wasted ultimate.

Another such example would be an amummu attempting to into a fight. Simple place the ball somewhere away but close to the toss target and ult as soon as he's making his way over. Your ultimate will force him to run away or make a bad initiation with his ult!. This also applies to Blitzcrank's and his ultimate as well!.

HUGE HUGE HUGE TIP!!!1

Use your Dissonance on your minion wave when going back to a lane as much as possible!!! Being able to control the flow of your minion waves besides hard pushing went out the door when deny-plank was made obsolete! NOW ITS BACK!!!!!

If anyone else has done something cool, and wants to share it here comment below! i'll try to reproduce the effect and see if it wasn't just a fluke and can be an actually skillset!

If you have an issue with the build leave a comment don't just downvote because i didn't use the color pink. thanks!

In order to vote up or down you now have to leave a comment, comments that down vote for no reasons will be reported tys!

IF you would like more information just leave a comment below!

6/8/2011 8:39 PM EST : Published items + why chapter.

6/8/2011 8:56 PM EST : Published tips+tricks! chapter.

6/8/2011 9:01 PM EST : Changed the Ultimate section of Early game Zoning chapter. Credits to Si11yputty and secrono for giving me more feedback from personal experience and an estimate of flip distance.

6/8/2011 9:25 PM EST: Published Summoner Spells chapter.

6/8/2011 9:38 PM EST: Published Why you might be interested in becoming good with this champion! chapter.