LeBlanc is a hero that requires quick reflexes and excellent map awareness to use to her full potential. In this guide, I will share with you my build, as well as some helpful tips to help you become a ganking machine who can easily maintain a fully stacked Mejai's. This guide will give you a good basis to start from, but the real magic with LeBlanc comes from the little nuances of early game harassment. Read this guide, and give her a whirl!

It should be noted, that as this guide is for LeBlanc as an AP carry, she starts in mid, so keep that in mind when reading.

First off, some basic Pros and Cons

PROS

Very high burst damage.
Incredible mobility.
The ultimate ganker.
Lots of crowd control to dish out.
Fierce early and mid game, as well as great late game utility and damage.

CONS

Can get behind the curve pretty easily.
Terrible farmer and pusher.
Tends to hit a glass ceiling once enemies wise up with HP and MR.

I take marks of insight, seals of vitality, glyphs of force and quints of swiftness.

The marks and glyphs are pretty self explanatory. The seals provide that little extra bit of survivability before you have the funds to grab a Rylai's. The real winner here though are the swiftness quints. LeBlanc has incredible mobility as it is, especially when you're packing Flash. The movespeed makes LeBlanc even more efficient at chasing down the enemy, while also giving you the edge in retreats.

Masteries are pretty standard for any AP carry. I do not bother maxing my mana pool, and instead opt for the movespeed masteries.

Here's the fun part. To start, I take a Doran's ring, and immediately lament for the old days where I could also buy a health potion. Oh well, times they are a changing. The great thing about LeBlanc, is it's not a question of if you will get some champ kills in the mid, it's when. Depending on when I get the first kill depends on what I go back to base and buy. If I have around 600g, I go back, buy some shoes and about 5 health pots. If I have more than 600 but less than 1200, I'll buy shoes, an amplifying tome and as many health pots as I can get. If I score 1200g or more, I'm going for Sorc shoes as well as, once again, as many health pots you can buy. Health pots are extremely important to LeBlanc as you will need to play her aggressively to really thrive in your lane. If you end up going the route of shoes and a tome, turn the shoes into Sorcs as soon as possible. Having a major boost in movespeed makes early game harassing a breeze, and will assure a won lane.

After Sorcs, either start building your Mejai's or finish it completely. Early game, LeBlanc can literally roam the map killing anything even slightly below full health, making the acquisition of stacks an easy process.

After roaming the map and dishing out pain, you're now saving for a Rylai's. Even if you have enough for the belt, I wouldn't bother unless you're really having a hard staying alive. I can you you though, if you ARE having a hard staying alive, you're doing it wrong. Focus on the Wand and Tome first, as the extra AP will only make your early-mid game gank fest all that much easier.

Rylai's is a game changer for LeBlanc. The ability to Distortion into battle and tag a hero with a Sigil that now slows, makes pulling off the rest of the combo that much easier.

After Rylai's you're pretty much an unstoppable killing machine. I go Rabadon's Deathcap immediately to turn LB into a nuclear bomb, with a Void Staff to combat the MR the opposing team should be stacking at this point if they have any sense at all. Your last item (after selling the Doran's) is up to you. If I'm up against a lot of CC, I'll get Banshee's Veil, but if I want to continue the carnage, I'll throw another Deathcap into the mix, or grab an Hourglass instead.

For all intents and purposes, since I will be talking about combos here and I don't want to type out every skill in the combo, Sigil of Silence will be referred to as S, Distortion is D, Ethereal Chains is E, and Mimic is M.

I start with D first, as I prefer to have the ability to get out of a random early game struggle if one ensues. Until level three, all you need to worry about is last hitting minions and not being hit, so don't bother wasting mana. DO NOT think that D is some sort of minion farming skill. Even when maxed it doesn't do enough damage to farm minions properly. With that said, get used to the fact that LB is not a farmer, nor a pusher. Because of this D will stay level 1 until everything else is maxed.

Before level 6, your main source of damage will be S + D. S by itself is a decent harassing ability as the cooldown is very short and mana cost isn't too high. If your opponent in mid is a squishy caster, usually S + D will get them to about half health, even at level 3! That's some damage. The trick is not to overdo it and scare your prey away. If you knock them down to half health, they will probably pop a potion or something. Don't go crazy and use another S D combo, as you won't have enough firepower to finish them off, even with ignite. Pepper them with a single shot S or two and get them back to around just under half health. Once all your cooldowns are ready, they should be cautiously staying behind their minion wave. Use Flash on top of them followed by a quick S D combo and an ignite and you have FB at level 3. If your opponent isn't nice and squishy, I would recommend saving your mana until you reach level 5, the damage output from level 2 S to level 3 increases substantially so taking down a slightly beefier opponent is more doable.

When you hit 6, you now have everything you need to pull off one of the deadliest combos in LoL. The Big Daddy Rumshaker Money Maker Coup de Gras combo for LeBlanc is D (close to, or on top of your prey) + S + M + E. This is the highest damage output combo for LeBlanc, and it also provides a lot of disable in the way of silence, slow and stun. This combo will be used frequently for ganking as it even allows for some hardcore tower diving. Using D again after you land the entire combo within 3 seconds, you will blink right back out of harms way. I can do this so quickly that sometimes I won't even be targeted the the turret if there are minions around. Most of the time I'll take a hit and be on my way.

Mimic can also be used with D and E, but only for escape and utility purposes. D + M is an excellent escape as it's basically a double flash, if you use Flash as well, that's three instantaneous blinks out of harms way, or into it if you're chasing down a straggling retreating opponent. E + M is really the most rarely used combo if you're LB. The scenario in which Mimicking your Ethereal Chains is most effective, is a team retreat. Sure, you could Mimic your Distortion and get the hell out of dodge, but what about your poor teammate who is left behind? Mimicking your Ethereal Chains takes a bit of practice and skill, as you don't want to double chain one of the chasing opponents. Hit two separate targets and you now have two slowed and eventually stunned pursuers, making you the cat's pajamas in the eyes of your straggling teammate. Cool points for you! Other than this scenario, there really isn't much of a point for Mimicked Chains.

Flash is a no brainer on LeBlanc, as it gives you insane range for initiating attacks and escaping. Ignite is that extra oomph for early game ganks.

I mentioned this off hand earlier, but let me reiterate, LeBlanc can't farm to save her life. Even in the most impressive games I pull off, with 30+ hero kills, I'll end the game with 40-60 minion kills, most of which come from late game when you have enough AP to get an entire creep wave with a distortion.

The absolute best way to screw yourself as LeBlanc is to try and stay in your lane and farm. When I play LeBlanc, I usually will beat up mid a bit to get them nice and stunted (either through killing them 3 or 4 times, or keeping them too far from the minion waves to gain any experience) then start roaming the map looking for fights. Every once in a while I'll return to mid if they are attacking the turret and lay down a quick burst for the kill, and I'll even stick around to clean up the creep wave, but I won't stick around to try and counter push, it is simply too time consuming as LeBlanc. Your efforts are best spent roaming and ganking constantly.

Alright so I can tell you all of this, but to really get LeBlanc down to a science it all comes down to using that Distortion to gank anywhere and everywhere. Even early game tower diving is perfectly within your realm of possibility. Carry pots constantly, teleport back to base frequently to buy more and gain your health and mana back. Sure, you won't level super fast by not sticking around in one lane for long, but frankly, LeBlanc doesn't NEED to level any faster, since her rapid ability scaling more than makes up for it. Always having full health and the best items you can buy at any given time will give you the needed edge to make your prey's lifebar disappear. Voila!

A lot of this information aside from the item build may be self explanatory to some, but I have seen enough LeBlancs doing some pretty silly things with their combos, and the aggravation has led me to spell it out simply in this guide. Much of LeBlanc's success will come from the abilities of the user, so don't expect this guide to be a guaranteed curb stop. You need to work to dominate, but when you dominate with LB, you DOMINATE. Most of my wins as LB come from 25 minute surrenders out of sheer demoralization. This doesn't hold true in Ranked Games, but oh well.

I hope you enjoyed the guide and that it helps you improve your game. Any feedback is greatly appreciated.

Happy hunting!

-Zoator