Pros + Great Peel + Good movement speed + Avoiding ganks + Keeping your team alive

Cons - Low base stats - Hard to engage - No dashes/jumps - Minimal damage

Janna is a total control support, with her abilities she can control her lane and decide teamfights. Janna is strong throughout the entire game and does rely on item or level powerspikes. Your role as Janna is to make sure the enemy team does not touch your carry, you do this by predicting, outplaying and reacting to your opponents.

*THIS GUIDE IS STILL UNDER CONSTRUCTION, SOME PARTS ARE STILL MISSING*

Hello and welcome to my Janna guide. My name is Think Talented, a support/Janna main, currently ranked diamond 5. In this guide I focus on in-depth information, trying to help you better understand Janna. I hope the cater this guide both to new and experienced Janna players, giving in depth information and my personal opinion on Janna, items and gameplay.

Before we start I want say that this is based on my experience playing Janna, while others players might have a different play style, this guide describes how I play Janna, my decisions and how I got to diamond playing Janna. This might not be the best way to play or build Janna but it worked for me and I hope it can help you too.

This guide was made at the end of patch 6.9.

Exhaust
Exhaust is the most common summoner or spell on supports, after flash. It has many uses both defensively and offensively. I always use exhaust on Janna (even versus Soraka), due to my defensive play style it benefits me more than ignite would.

Flash
The most used summoner spell in the game, a must have on champion as Janna with no dash/jump/blink. Also this can be used in many ways and not just to escape an imminent death.
This is the summoner spell combination I use in every game as Janna. The reason for not picking Ignite over exhaust is that in the early game if you all in, exhaust allows you to win extended trades and bait people into fighting you, every single effect exhaust has is good in a 2v2 trade (MS slow, AS slow, damage reduction, armor reduction). Combining all the slows and reduction allows you to put more damage on the target than ignite could ever do.

Exhaust usage

Exhaust has multiple uses, firstly I will describe the easiest, escaping, and secondly the other usage of turning a fight into your favor.
Before you use you exhaust defensively you need to have used your tornado and shield already, exhaust is your last resort to save your adc. Using exhaust to escape does not mean to run away, you can also escape death by lowering the enemies attack speed. Defensive uses of exhaust: to be able to out run, to reduce their damage output, to reduce their attack speed.
Secondly we have the offensive use of exhaust which is turning a fight into your advantage by using exhaust, at the right time, this mostly used in lane. Offensive uses of exhaust can be: slowing the enemy and catching up, lowering their damage out put to gain a damage advantage, lowering their armor and magic resist. The optimal time to use your exhaust offensively would be when all the effects of exhaust help you win the fight. This would be when; your adc does the most damage, when the enemy adc does the most damage, when the enemy adc is retreating.

Flash usage

Just like exhaust, flash too has multiple uses on Janna and can be used defensively,offensively or to reposition yourself. A defensive flash can be used to escape when being chased, flash away from CC or avoid a bunch damage, this is the most straightforward usage of flash.
Using your flash on Janna can be tricky and you need to make sure you get something in return for it, you do not want to waste your flash for no reason. Janna does not have many ways to engage or catch someone out of position, but flash can help you. A couple of ways to use your flash on Janna are, flash + Q or flash + ult. By doing one of these combos you need to secure a kill or get summoner spells from the enemy otherwise you wasted your own flash and become and easy target for the enemy team.
Lastly you can use your flash to reposition yourself in a fight, this is somewhat between an offensive and defensive use. You can reposition yourself towards an ally to shield them or flash to a more advantageous position for your ult.

Janna her masteries all revolve around Windspeaker's Blessing , making your shield and ult stronger. Therefore a 0-12-18 is a the most common mastery setup, according to Champion.gg is has a 93% occurrence rate.




For me this is the ideal set of masteries to run on Janna as almost every single one benefits Janna in some way or an other. However,I have seen some people change these up masteries up a bit, and I will discuss some of the alternate masteries below.

Explorer gives you bonus movement speed when roaming to mid, and returning back to lane. This means you leave your adc vulnerable for a shorter amount of time, therefore I prefer explorer over tough skin.
Tough Skin only reduces incoming damage from champions and neutral monsters by 2, this does not include lane minions. I could see someone taking this in a lane where they would get poked a lot in the early stages of the lane, but still it is only 2hp, which really is not that much.

If you are expected to get hit a lot in lane, you could choose Tough Skin . Meaning that if you pick tough skin you are most likely to be out pushed, your time could be used to ward mid or jungle, making Explorer more valuable again.
Runic Armor if you expect to shield yourself a lot during the laning phase and have no late game threat that can focus you. Otherwise the bonus healing from your ult is very beneficial and the shield bonus is good to prolong the duration of the shield in lane.
Veteran's Scars could be picked if you find yourself shielding your adc all the time and never shield yourself, at that point the bonus health will benefit you more if you are being caught out of position.

For me it is definitely Runic Armor over Veteran's Scars at any time, not only because I shield myself in lane a lot, but also for the bonus healing on my ult later in the game.

Starting Items
First Back
Early game buy order
Boots
Big Items
Example Builds

Starting Items

Spellthief's Edge
Your standard buy, you will usually start with spellthief's edge. It is great for poking in lane, mana regen and gold income. It is used to safely ward, to catch or escape and can prevent champions from going invisible. You should start with this unless one of the conditions listed under Ancient Coin apply.

Ancient Coin
So why would you ever buy Ancient Coin if Spellthief's Edge has so many uses? The most common reason is that you are getting out traded in lane. Certain supportw do simply more damage than Janna(with a shield) that you will take too much damage for every AA you go for. Think Sona, Karma, Nami, Zyra, these will either out damage you up close or severely out range you. You won't be getting the gold for AA, and can use the HP regen against all these champions, therefore it will increase your gold efficiency. Another reason to buy Ancient Coin can be that the enemy team, even with the slow from Spellthief's Edge, is uncatchable. This is more a personal preference and I would still buy Spelltheif's Edge in almost all cases.

First back

This depends a lot on the amount of gold you have when you back. For this example we will assume that we started with the Spellthief's Edge.

< 300
You clearly lost the first engagement, try to play safe and sustain.

~ 300 - 500 or
Not much else you can buy with this little gold, ideally you should try postpone your back.

~ 500 - 700
Upgrade your Spellthief's Edge, buy at least 2 health potions and a vision ward if you have enough.

> 800
Seems like you are winning the lane, prepare for some ganks.

If you have an even lane and think you can win trades, you can also upgrade Frostfang, instead of buying Sightstone, add a bunch of potions and vision wards with that and you should be able to win the lane, but you are more vulnerable to ganks.
Sightstone = Safety in wards and HP
Frostfang + Health Potion + Boots = More damage and sustain than opponents.

Early game buy order

Do not rush any items, build health potions and vision wards.
So what item we complete first? From first buy to last:
Frostfang > Boots > Sightstone > Frost Queen's Claim > Boots of Swiftness > Ruby Sightstone

Boots

vs vs
Boots of lucidity, mobi boots and boots of swiftness are currently the three most bought tier 3 boots on Janna in plat+ games according to leagueofgraphs. Combined they appear in 95% of all games that contain tier 3 boots. Each one has its own strengths, weaknesses and play styles.
Ionian boots of lucidity, or cdr boots for short, have seen an increase of usages on Janna. Since patch 6.4, with the reduced bonus movement speed on Boots of Swiftness boots of lucidity have become more popular. Not only does it give you 10% cdr for a cheap price, it also reduces your summoner spells by an additional 10%, giving you a possible 25% cdr on your summoners with the Insight mastery. It is great to buy early in game the and get early cdr, while later in the game the shorter cool down on your summoners than your enemies can decided fights. Level 18 Janna has a movement speed with Ionian Boots of Lucidity of 439 units per second.

Boots of swiftness, the most commonly build tier 3 boots on Janna with a 33% pick rate (leagueofgraphs), are the second most fastest boots in the game. These boots give Janna the highest base flat movement speed across all three boots. With boots of swiftness Janna, at level 18, will outrun any other champion that has no non-boot type movement speed increase and Janna has no movement speed impairment. Additionally it gives you a 25% slow resist and reduces the effectiveness of all incoming slows by 25%. Level 18 Janna has a movement speed with Boots of Swiftness of 453 units per second.

Boots of mobility put Janna her movement speed through the roof. Giving her ridiculously high movement speed out of combat, while still maintaining a relatively high movement speed out of combat. These boots give you no additional stats other than the bonus movement speed out of combat. This effect is disabled for 5 seconds when dealing damage, receiving damage or debuffing enemies. This also includes destroying wards. With Mobility Boots Janna, at level 18, has a movement speed of 493 units per second out of combat and 420 unity per second when in combat.

Conclusion

While with the boots of mobility, in combat, Janna can still outrun every champion in the game, without any non boots type bonus movement speed, I still prefer boots of swiftness over mobi boots. You are never trying to outrun a champion in a fair chase, almost all champions in the current meta have some type of dash,jump,slow or movement speed increase that you will still be caught eventually. Therefore the boots of swiftness are better than the mobi boots. Boots of swiftness give you a constant movement speed, even during combat, that makes sure you can outrun every other champion in the game. Also hitting wards and having your MS reduced is a good reason not to buy mobi boots, when you are roaming you are clearing wards at the same time and you do not want to be unnecessarily slowed.
Comparing the boots of swiftness to the cdr boots is something that is hard to do, they both have unique advantages that can not really be compared. It comes down to personal preference, if you are roaming a lot and clearing/placing wards, boots of swiftness are better. If you however, are fighting a lot, cdr boots would benefit you more. For me boots of swiftness are still the winner 9 out of 10 times, simply because they give me more freedom to roam to mid/get deepwards/recall and get back to base faster.

In the current state of boots, Mobility Boots are simply not worth your money, you are better of buying Boots of Swiftness for roaming, or Ionian Boots of Lucidity for early CDR and reduced summoner spell cool down.

Big Items

After you build your sightstone and upgraded your starting item it is time to make your first big choice in item build. The items below are frequently used items listed from highest to lowest priority.

Locket, my most bought first big item. You would want to buy this item if the enemy team has an AP support with high damage, a fed/roaming AP mid laner, 2 or 3 AP comps or the enemy team has a lot of AoE damage. This is a defensive item, giving you more sustain and boosting your effectiveness in teamfights, with another shield that applies Windspeaker's Blessing .

Zeke's, used to boost your adc, let him steal the show while you stay back. This item does not provide much for yourself and forces you to play more defensive as a result. Zeke's works especially good in conjunction with ADCs such a Lucian, or even Corki, as they can quickly stack the Zeke's and extend their powerspikes. Buy this when you(= your adc) won the lane and want to transfer that lead to the teamfights.

Frozen Heart has become more of a situational pick recently. With the rise of more and stronger APs, frozen heart has become pretty useless against a team with only 1 or 2 ADs. The only reason I would still buy it is when they have multiple ADs (ADC, AD mid, Jungler) that rely on attack speed, or annoying ADs that are hitting the backline (and you) too hard. Yi, Jayce, Xin and Irelia can all be extremely annoying to deal with, so frozen heart would still be a good option to buy. Again, frozen heart is used to keep your carries and yourself alive longer in fights, and is a defensive item.

Ardent Censer is pretty much the opposite of the frozen heart. Ardent Censer is build when you have multiple ADs in your team that you can buff with your ult and shield. If you are looking to build more offensive Ardent Censer is most commonly the right way to go as you are able to buff up your entire team with your ult. Overall a great last/second item when having a high AD team comp.

Mikael's is, in my opinion, almost never worth your gold and item slot. Although it gives decent magic resist, as Janna you should not be in a position where you can get focused by APCs, therefore Locket would be better as it gives MR to your whole team and has the addition AoE shield (crucible only has a single target heal). Plus the cost of Mikael's, 2300, takes you too long to build. I think your ADC should build QSS instead, as it only costs 1300 and has a better build path. So I would only build it if the enemy team has multiple forms of CC that you cannot peel, and your ADC cannot deal with himself.

I rarely buy Mejai's on Janna, not because I think it is a bad item, it is just too risk/reward heavy for me and it impacts my play style too much. Wanting to keep your stacks alive instead of your team should never be your priority. Other than that it is one of the best, if not the best item, for snowballing. If your team is ahead buying a Mejai's makes sure you snowball nicely with your team. One option is to pick up an early Dark Seal and try to get it stacked, if you keep losing your stacks you can sell it again or if you have 10 stacks you can upgrade it a Mejai's, but you will lose a slot in your inventory for this.

Banner of Command is only build over Locket if the enemy team has a split pushing AP laner, such as Lissandra, that cannot be answered by your team. And if you do need the additional shield in teamfights. Overall BoC is a very optional item that can, occasionally, be switched out for the Locket.

The Zz'rot Portal is not an item you will find yourself building a lot, the only reason for buying one is to help your team split pushing. When your team needs help split pushing or is simply refusing to split push, you can help set up a split push with the Zz'rot. When no team has TP it is most effective to buy, and you can force fights 4v5. Even still, your teamfight is weaker compared to any of the other items, Just as the Mikael's I would not recommend building this item in most cases, but only for those one or two odd games that it can impact the game.

Example builds

Team 1:
vs.
Solari because multiple AP (Elise and Sol), plus the potential AoE Sol can put out makes Solari a good defensive item. The shield can be used to protect your backline from Elise/Poppy or to protect your frontline Sion/Gragas, making them stronger than theirs.
Now that your front line is stronger than theirs and your backline is safe, you can boost up your team more. Frozen Heart would be useless in the scenario, Poppy does no damage she is used to set up the CC chain, once she stuns someone Elise and Sol come in to finish the kill. Our go to offensive items are Ardent or Zeke's, Zeke's on Ezreal is not as efficient as on other champions because Ezreal is not as auto attack reliant. Therefore I choose to go with Ardent Censer to give our whole team a boost, making our frontline stronger as well. Mejais would also have been a good item to build here.

Full Build

Team 2:
vs.
Firstly a frozen heart is build to lower the damage from Yi and Darius, while slowing Tristana's (and Fizz's) AS down. Note that Yi is not affected by the AS slow during his ult. However, it is still good to buy a frozen heart as it will keep you alive longer and not be blown by Darius/Yi/Trist. Plus the CDR and mana allows you to spam shield and tornado to peel Yi.
Secondly a Ardent Censer, again we have a lot of ADs in our team that would all benefit from the Ardent buff. And since fizz can only target and kill one champ before waiting for cooldowns, a Solari would be less effective in this case.

Full Build

Warding is the same for every support champion and not specifically different for Janna. Below I will describe the basic ward locations and explain when or why use them. Warding, just like item builds, is different for every game and you need to adapt your ward locations according to the game.

Warding in Lane

Your main goal for warding in lane is to see the enemy jungler and prevent ganks. You place wards in the choke points that the enemy jungler passes. In the image below you can see some common ward placements for trinket/normal wards (yellow) and vision wards (pink).
Assuming Janna is playing on the blue side.

The pink wards are used to spot the enemy jungler/mid laner, and prevent them from getting behind you. You usually want to pink the tribush (the lowest pink), giving you the most protection, both from mid and jungle. You can move you pink up and replace the tribush pink with a normal ward if you find the enemies destroying your tribush pink too often.

Your other wards (yellow) have to purpose of spotting the enemy jungler and giving you and your team information on their location. My favorite ward is the most north one, against the enemy blue buff, it gives you a lot of information and a possible blue steal.

On red side wards are almost the same except you flip the pink and normal wards. You want to have your pinks in a position where they are likely to give you information but unlikely to be killed, allowing them to be up for as long as possible. Normal wards are used to scout ahead.

Warding around dragon

When warding the dragon you want to ward the entrances to the dragon that the enemy team are most likely to come from. Giving you and your team early information when the enemy team is making a move on your postions
Again, assuming Janna is on the blue side.

The pink wards are in safe locations, locations the enemy is unlikely to come from, while still giving useful information if the enemies do come from that angle. Preferably you want to sweep the dragon pit so you can play your pink ward somewhere you do not already have vision.

The normal wards are placed close to the dragon pit, but in locations that give you vision of the enemies before they get vision of you. This gives you the vision advantage, and your team can decide to take dragon or peel off.

Warding in the late game

In late game you might find your team rotating from objective to objective and having to ward other sides of the map. When taking an objective you want to use the same warding structure used for dragon. Pink wards in safe places where they still give you some cover, and normal wards closer to the enemy base to get a vision advantage.Blue team trying to take top inner turret.

In the image above the red team has no way (coming from base) of flanking around the blue team without being spotted. The only way for an enemy to come behind the blue team is to walk under red buff and go through the tribush, which is highly unlikely and buys enough time to take the turret.

Conclusion

A good baseline for your wards is to place them as far as possible to the enemies nexus without any vision gaps in between. Use your normal wards to scout ahead and get as much information as possible while your pink wards are in safe locations that cover your flanks. Think ahead of where the enemy is going next and place some wards to give your team the advantage.

Some of the things I learned while making this guide.

- Lucian's dash does not remove slows.
- Yi's ult ignores the Frozen Heart attack speed slow.
- Monsters are different than minions in the context of .