About the Author: Hello, I'm Gleebglarbu, a high elo player on the NA server and have peaked at rank 4 on the ladder, but am currently sitting at rank 29 in challenger as of 12/20/13. Janna is one of my favorite heroes and I currently have a 64.7% win rate with her over 51 games.



While not incredibly popular in tournament play because of her weak early game and less then average laning phase, Janna is an incredibly fun to play and powerful soloqueue hero. Her kit brings amazing peel, disengage, and kiting to a team, allowing you to pick and choose your fights, disengaging those that are unfavorable. She also has a great passive for a support, granting those near her 5% movement speed which is another invaluable tool for engaging and escaping fights.

Pros

1. Wave clear with higher levels of Howling Gale or AP
2. Disengage
3. Can be built either AP or CDR/Aura
4. AD steroid on her shield
5. Very strong passive

Cons

1. Squishy
2. No sustain
3. Weak laning phase compared to supports such as Sona, Nami, and Thresh
4. Low auto attack range

9x 9x 6x 3x 3x

...

Greater Mark of Armor Greater Seal of Armor Greater Glyph of Magic Resist Greater Glyph of Mana Regeneration Greater Quintessence of Ability Power

9 x Greater Mark of Armor

Armor is nice to take in marks on Janna because she is very squishy. Taking armor marks will help you survive the lane phase and make it to the later stages of the game where your kit becomes immensely useful for kiting and disnegaging fights that are not favorable.

9 x Greater Seal of Armor

These runes are very effective at mitigating physical damage. They are mandatory as a support because you will be taking physical damage from the enemy AD, the enemy support, and creeps in lane.

6 x Greater Glyph of Magic Resist

Getting magic resist in blues is helpful because many supports do a fair amount of magic damage, such as Sona and Thresh, and a few AD carries also do substantial magic damage, such as Corki. If you are laning vs a bot lane that has little to 0 magic damage such as Graves Nami or the enemy team as a whole is primarily AD you can switch your glyphs to either Greater Glyph of Armor or Greater Glyph of Mana Regeneration.

3 x Greater Glyph of Mana Regeneration

Janna has relatively high mana costs so grabbing some mp5 in runes will allow you to continue to cast spells in lane and make it so you do not have to back as often. This will also reduce your reliance on mana pots in the lane phase and allow you to itemize for more CDR, AP, and utility items without having to worry about needing to itemize for mana regeneration, although some of the items you will build do also have mp5.

3 x Greater Quintessence of Ability Power

Janna has new support scalings that increase the MS steroid / Slow of her Zephyr and the AD bonus of her Eye of the Storm. These new scalings make AP quints an attractive option for Janna, but health is still a fine choice if you prefer the durability and safety in her fragile early game.

0/9/21 is a great mastery setup for utility oriented supports who benefit from CDR. This page gives you 5% of it at level one which makes it much easier to hit the CDR cap. You also get even more movement speed to help kite around the map, a bit of durability from the defense tree, and increased gold flow to help you get your items quicker. The improved biscuits you receive from Culinary Master are also great for surviving Ignite ticks or just getting a quick surge of health when you are fighting the enemy bot lane.

This start is emerging as one of the most common builds for supports in the new season. The Sweeping Lens has a very long cool-down before level 9, but can still be very useful for setting up ganks and forcing the enemy to play scared by denying vision. Ancient Coin is the strongest of the 3 new support starts on almost all champions, especially ranged ones, after the nerf to Relic Shield. Getting a ward helps make sure you stay safe in lane and grabbing potions will keep your health and mana high.




These are the items you should aim to buy when you first head back to base. Sightstone will give you vision to protect yourself from ganks and the Nomad's Medallion will give you increased regen as well as gold flow. Picking up a Vision Ward at this stage of the game is nice as well because they no longer have a duration. You can usually put it down in the small bush in the middle of the river early game and often have it last for 10+ minutes because most players just walk through the river without actually checking that location.





This will be the new commonly seen core item set for most of the supports who decide to not itemize as tanks or to be heavy damage threats. Talisman of Ascension is an incredibly strong item currently, giving you a whopping 20% CDR, regen stats, and the old active that used to be attached to Reverie. Mikael's Blessing also saw a massive reduction in price in the new season which makes it almost always a worthwhile purchase for a mana hungry champion like Janna. These items will allow you to better set up engages with Howling Gale, keep your mana pool afloat in longer fights, and cleanse/heal your allies with Mikael's Blessing's active.

Situational Items

...

This item provides a great magic resist aura and active that can be useful against heavy AoE based AP teams. If the enemy team has multiple sources of magic damage or AoE damage it can be a great pick up for teamfights.

...

Good item to get if you need CDR and AP. The active is nice as well and helps you pressure side lanes with a promoted minion. You also generate gold for all minions the super minion kills as if you has killed those creeps which is nice for gold flow, but not the main reason you'd go for this item.

...

This item provides you with an easy way to start fights and get a slow onto targets from a long range. Another reason to pick up this item is that you'll be even harder to catch with the added movement speed from the item along with your Zephyr.

Rabdon's Deathcap

...

If you are very ahead and your team does not need you to complete aura or utility items, deathcap can be a fun addition to your build. You'll be able to run around the map even faster, do more damage, give your ADC more AD w/ Eye of the Storm, and have a bigger slow on Zephyr.

You want to rank up Monsoon whenever possible as Janna because the CD goes down by 15 seconds per rank and the healing also greatly increases, even though that is not the main reason the spell is most frequently used for.

Eye of the Storm will give you the best ability to trade in lane, mitigating the damage your AD carry takes and increasing the damage of both his auto attacks and his AD scaling abilities until the shield breaks.

Zephyr is maxed next because Howling Gale is mainly used on Janna only for the utility, which it has already at rank 1. Leveling up Zephyr will allow you to move around the map faster and the improved slow will allow you to peel better for your AD.

Howling Gale is maxed last because it is primarily used for utility. The mana cost also increases more per rank than any of Janna's non ultimate abilities.



Flash is a must, there's no debating that. Being able to set up and escape from ganks would be exponentially more difficult without the aid of Flash. You can also do cool Insec style plays by flashing behind enemies and using Monsoon to knock them into your team!

Exhaust is second summoner that I take most frequently because it allows you to disengage fights and greatly hamper the ability of diving champions such as Zed and Kha'Zix to ruin your AD's day.

Heal is a viable alternative to exhaust but is countered in lane by ignite and is in general weaker in lane than exhaust. The cool down for Heal is also very long, but the spell can still be very effective in teamfights, especially vs AoE based compositions.

Janna does not have a strong laning phase, but proper use of Eye of the Storm and Howling Gale will allow you to survive the laning phase and then become immensely powerful as the game drags on.

Janna is one of the weakest 2v2 supports for many reasons. She brings little damage to the lane, she has abysmal AA range, she has no sustain (unless you ult to heal your AD. This is a joke, don't actually use your ult for sustain), and she lacks hard cc with a long duration unless she gets a fully charged Howling Gale off.

While she does lack in 2v2 laning, she excels in other areas of the lane phase. Her kit is immensely useful for escaping ganks, trying to gank a Janna lane is almost pointless, especially if she has Flash up. She also can set up ganks well with the CC from Howling Gale and Zephyr.

To make it through the laning phase, you need to use your Eye of the Storm correctly. If you waste this ability you will give up all of your pressure in lane and the enemy duo will walk all over you. To use it properly, either shield when damage is about to hit your AD, such as an enemy Buckshot already in air, or use it to amplify damage your AD is already doing, such as if his auto attack or Volley is traveling to the enemy as you shield. If you use it randomly while he is csing, he will often not be able to take advantage of it and you will either get zoned afterwards or be forced into unfavorable trades.

I hope you enjoyed my guide for Janna! This is one of my favorite heroes and her kit offers great peeling, disengage, and kiting potential, allowing you to choose your fights and stop any assassin in his or her tracks. Following the advice presented here should make you a much better Janna player and help you to perform well in lane and in teamfights.


If you want to follow me and see what I'm up to, you can follow me on Twitter at www.twitter.com/gleebglarbu